Abdominal adipose tissue distribution, obesity, and risk of cardiovascular disease and death: 13 year follow up of participants in the study of men born in 1913.
In a prospective study of risk factors for ischaemic heart disease 792 54 year old men selected by year of birth (1913) and residence in Gothenburg agreed to attend for questioning and a battery of anthropometric and other measurements in 1967. Thirteen years later these baseline findings were reviewed in relation to the numbers of men who had subsequently suffered a stroke, ischaemic heart disease, or death from all causes. Neither quintiles nor deciles of initial indices of obesity (body mass index, sum of three skinfold thickness measurements, waist or hip circumference) showed a significant correlation with any of the three end points studied. Statistically significant associations were, however, found between the waist to hip circumference ratio and the occurrence of stroke (p = 0.002) and ischaemic heart disease (p = 0.04). When the confounding effect of body mass index or the sum of three skinfold thicknesses was accounted for the waist to hip circumference ratio was significantly associated with all three end points. This ratio, however, was not an independent long term predictor of these end points when smoking, systolic blood pressure, and serum cholesterol concentration were taken into account. These results indicate that in middle aged men the distribution of fat deposits may be a better predictor of cardiovascular disease and death than the degree of adiposity.
A simple model for detection of subjects at risk of ischaemic heart disease, based on the addition of scores for different risk factors (Anggaard EE, Land JM, Lenihan J et al. Br Med J 1986; 293: 177-80), is at present widely applied in Denmark. The model could be tested in a prospective study, or a historical follow-up study, but we do not have the possibilities to do so. Instead we have compared the risk score of the model with the estimated five-year coronary mortality risk (ECR) in 742 men aged 40-44 years, calculated on the basis of data from the Seven Countries Study. There is a reasonable consistency in this comparison, in spite of the different principles of calculation, the consideration of different risk factors and/or weighting of risk factors. For example, the model has a sensitivity of 71%, a specificity of 89% and a positive predictive value of 68% in detecting 40-44 year old men in the upper quartile of ECR. The "false positives" are often men, who for other reasons may require preventive medical attention (obese heavy smokers), and the "false negatives" are often men with isolated hypertension.
BACKGROUND: Guidelines for treating overweight and obesity have been suggested by the World Health Organization and other expert groups. We asked whether most men and women targeted in obesity guidelines would already be included in existing clinical recommendations for the prevention of coronary heart disease (CHD) or whether a new group of patients would be added to current workloads. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: In 1997 the Norwegian National Health Screening Service examined CHD risk factors in subjects aged 40-42 y living in three counties. We studied 6911 men and 7992 women who did not report treatment for diabetes, hypertension or the presence of cardiovascular disease. Estimated 10 y risk of CHD was calculated using the Framingham equation. RESULTS: The prevalence of single risk factors (systolic blood pressure > or =160 mmHg, diastolic blood pressure > or =95 mmHg, total cholesterol level > or =7.8 mmol/l and nonfasting glucose > or =11.1 mmol/l) ranged between 0 and 11% among subjects with body mass index > or =25 kg/m2. Adding low HDL cholesterol ( or =10%). Sensitivities and specificities of using body mass index (BMI) or BMI and waist circumference as a screen for elevated CHD risk ranged between 22 and 91%. Screening for 10 y CHD risk of > or =10% or one or more risk factors among men and screening for one or more risk factors among women gave positive predictive values of 19-50%; however, the positive predictive value of screening for 10 y CHD risk of > or =10% was only 1-2% among women. Compared with men with BMI
AIM: To study epidemiology of acute coronary conditions (ACC) including acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and acute coronary failure (ACF) among female population of Tomsk aged over 20 years and trends for 5 years. MATERIAL AND METHODS: 1919 ACC episodes were compared in the women: 1616(84.2%) cases of AMI and 303(15.8%) cases of ACF. The comparison concerned epidemiological indices: morbidity, hospital and prehospital ACC lethality, the disease history, pathomorphological evidence. RESULTS: ACC prevalence among women for 5 years remained at the level 2.0-2.2 cases per 1000 women of the same age. Number of ACC patients with progressive angina decreased while number of cases of cardiogenic shock went up in paralled decrease of the number of episodes of acute left ventricular failure, arrhythmia and abnormal conduction. AMI as macrofocal occurred more frequently, ACC hospital lethality rose (due to more cases in patients over 60). Autopsy showed more cases of stenosing atherosclerosis of coronary arteries. CONCLUSION: No changes for the better occurred for 5 years among female population of Tomsk in relation to ACC incidence and mortality. This necessitates introduction of measures of effective primary and secondary prevention of ischemic heart disease and arterial hypertension.
BACKGROUND: Some cases of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) may be triggered by emotional states such as anger, but it is not known if acute depressed mood can act as a trigger. METHODS: 295 men and women with a verified ACS were studied. Depressed mood in the two hours before ACS symptom onset was compared with the same period 24 hours earlier (pair-matched analysis), and with usual levels of depressed mood, using case-crossover methods. RESULTS: 46 (18.2%) patients experienced depressed mood in the two hours before ACS onset. The odds of ACS following depressed mood were 2.50 (95% confidence intervals 1.05 to 6.56) in the pair-matched analysis, while the relative risk of ACS onset following depressed mood was 4.33 (95% confidence intervals 3.39 to 6.11) compared with usual levels of depressed mood. Depressed mood preceding ACS onset was more common in lower income patients (p = .032), and was associated with recent life stress, but was not related to psychiatric status. CONCLUSIONS: Acute depressed mood may elicit biological responses that contribute to ACS, including vascular endothelial dysfunction, inflammatory cytokine release and platelet activation. Acute depressed mood may trigger potentially life-threatening cardiac events.
The LiVicordia study was set up to investigate possible causes for coronary heart disease mortality in middle-aged Lithuanian men being four times higher than in Swedish men. In a previous part of this study we found lower total and low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol in the Lithuanian men in spite of them having a higher fat intake than in the Swedish men. Their LDL was also more susceptible to oxidation in vitro than was that of the Swedish men. Fat quality can influence LDL oxidation. In order to obtain data on long-term fat quality intake we measured the fatty acid composition of abdominal wall adipose tissue by gas chromatography in men aged 50 years from Vilnius, Lithuania (n=50) and Linköping, Sweden (n=50). Men from Vilnius had a significantly higher percentage of adipose tissue long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) (20:4n6, 20:5n3, 22:5n5, 22:6n3) and lower percentage of saturated fatty acids, especially myristic acid (14:0), 3.4+/-0.7 versus 4.6+/-0.8, p
Coronary heart disease tends to run in families, and the familial resemblance of major risk factors for the disease was examined among various types of adult family members. Family units were assembled from a total of 4,738 men and women who took part in a cross sectional health survey in four Norwegian municipalities where all inhabitants between 20 and 52 years of age were invited. After adjusting for age and other confounders, correlation coefficients were derived as a measure of the degree of resemblance. Viewed across all types of investigated familial relationships, similarity was found to be stronger for total cholesterol than for high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglycerides, and also stronger for systolic than for diastolic blood pressure. Between husbands and wives (3,060 subjects), correlations were small (between 0.02 and 0.06), except for 0.11 for total cholesterol. Lipid and blood pressure correlations ranged from 0.13 to 0.27 for parents and their offspring (471 subjects, p
