According to a new study, the number of Americans dying from heart disease as a result of obesity has tripled since the turn of the century. A worldwide research team led by Indiana University and Hofstra University in New York and UK academics discovered that America’s obesity issue is costing lives.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 40% of Americans are obese, and more than 70% are overweight, rates that have climbed dramatically in recent decades. Experts believe that sedentary lifestyles, along with bad dietary habits and, in certain cases, a lack of access to good food, have exacerbated the situation.
Rising heart disease deaths linked to obesity worldwide
Researchers warn that this trend is spreading throughout the world, with many countries already experiencing an obesity pandemic — making the population more vulnerable to other deadly diseases. “The number of people with obesity is rising in every country across the world. Our study is the first to demonstrate that this increasing burden of obesity is translating into rising heart disease deaths,” Zahra Raisi-Estabragh, M.D., a researcher from the William Harvey Research Institute in London, said in a statement.
Researchers obtained data from over 300,000 heart disease fatalities among obese persons in the United States between 1999 and 2000 for their study, which was published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association. When they adjusted for age, a scale that weights a person’s mortality more heavily if they are younger, they discovered that the number of persons who died from heart disease when obese tripled, from 2.2 per 100,000 members of the population to 6.6.
Obesity-related heart disease deaths soar among black Americans, especially women
Black Americans saw the greatest increase, with deaths increasing 415% during the 21-year span. “This rising trend of obesity is affecting some populations more than others, particularly Black women,” Dr. Raisi-Estabragh continued. She also mentioned that black individuals in metropolitan regions face the greatest inequities when compared to their urban counterparts of other races. Over the study period, black women had the highest rate of obesity-related mortality.
“The trend of higher obesity-related cardiovascular death rates for Black women than men was striking and different from all other racial groups considered in our study,” Mamas Mamas, M.D., senior author and cardiologist from the UK, said in a statement. () Heart disease is the biggest cause of death in the United States, and it has held that status despite the COVID-19 pandemic. The CDC estimates that 700,000 Americans die from the disease each year, accounting for almost 20% of all deaths in the United States.
