Higher Risk of Cardiovascular

Background A cohort of 2181 men and women, aged 40 to 79 years, without evidence of coronary heart disease or cancer at entry to the Tecumseh Study was evaluated. Methods and Results Subjects were defined as lean if their Metropolitan Life Insurance table relative weight was <110 (n=584) and as obese if their relative weight was 2120 (n= 1024). There were 688 subjects with hypertension at study entry (systolic blood pressure >160, diastolic blood pressure >95, or treated). The 29-year relative risk (RR) of mortality from ischemic heart disease (IHD) or cardiovascular disease (CVD) associated with systolic blood pressure level was significant for both lean and obese subjects. Among hypertensive subjects, the RR of fatal IHD for lean versus obese hypertensive subjects was 1.87 (95% confidence interval, 1.21 to 2.88) and the RR of fatal CVD was 1.56 (95% confidence interval,