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Specifically, carrying excess weight for a decade was linked to a 60 percent higher chance of heart attack or stroke in both men and women approaching age 50.
Timely treatment of obesity — which the medical community recognizes as a disease — can help prevent these outcomes, says Alexander Turchin, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA.
What the researchers found
Professor Turchin and his team, which included researchers from a pharmaceutical company, analyzed data from two U.S. studies conducted in the late 20th century: the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (HPFS).
In total, 109,259 women and 27,239 men participated, with an average age of 48.6 years and a body mass index (BMI) of 27 at the start of the study.
The team focused on participants whose BMI exceeded 25 — the cutoff for overweight — across a 10-year period from 1990 to 1999. They then tracked how that weight affected the likelihood of a heart attack or stroke over the next 20 years (2000–2020).
During that time, 6,862 participants had plaque buildup in their arteries, and 3,587 were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Additionally, 65,101 participants reported regular smoking, according to The Independent.
Follow-up observations in 2020 showed that the two cohorts together experienced 12,048 cardiovascular events, including heart attacks, strokes, and related deaths.
Key Findings
The researchers reported that women under 50 who had a BMI over 25 for 10 years faced a 60 percent higher risk of heart attack or stroke; men in the same situation had about a 57 percent higher risk.
The study also found that short-term periods of higher BMI were not linked to an increased risk of heart attack or stroke.
Professor Turchin says the results are important because they show that addressing excess weight earlier leads to better long-term health outcomes.
