The road connecting obesity and coronary vasomotor function: straight line or U-turn?

t a b e Obesity as reached epidemic proportions globally, with approximately one-half billion people (12% of the world’s population) considered obese (1). In the United States alone, the prevalence of obesity has increased by 50% in the past 30 years to where now 70% of all adults are classified as either overweight or obese (2). More sobering is that 30% of all children between 2 and 19 years of age fall into these 2 categories (3). Obesity is typically defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 kg/m.