Vaccination News Home Page

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/17/health/menshealth/17RISK.html?tntemail0

At Risk: A Formula for a Stroke

By ERIC NAGOURNEY

eing overweight by as little as six or seven pounds increases the risk that a man will suffer a stroke, a new study reports.

Writing in the current issue of The Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers say they have established a clear link between a man's body mass index, or B.M.I., and his risk of stroke.

Advertisement

B.M.I. is calculated by dividing a person's weight in pounds by height in inches squared and then multiplying by 703. A person whose index is 25 or greater is considered overweight. Thirty and higher is a sign of obesity.

The lead researcher, Dr. Tobias Kurth of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and his colleagues based their findings on data from the Physicians' Health Study, with more than 22,000 participants. As part of the study, doctors had their body masses recorded over 12 years, and researchers kept track of strokes.

The researchers found that men with indexes of 30 or higher were twice as likely to suffer strokes as men with indexes below 23. Each point on the scale — generally the equivalent of six or seven pounds — brought with it an increased stroke risk of 5 or 6 percent, the researchers said.

The study establishes that being overweight poses a stroke risk independent of factors like diabetes and high blood pressure.

People who are six to seven pounds overweight need not feel alarmed, Dr. Kurth said. "Not everybody who's obese will get a stroke," he said. "They might live until they're 90 and die happy."

Only men were studied, but the researchers said the results would probably apply to women, too.

Vaccination News Home Page

ALL INFORMATION, DATA, AND MATERIAL CONTAINED, PRESENTED, OR PROVIDED HERE IS FOR GENERAL INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS REFLECTING THE KNOWLEDGE OR OPINIONS OF THE PUBLISHER, AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED OR INTENDED AS PROVIDING MEDICAL OR LEGAL ADVICE.  THE DECISION WHETHER OR NOT TO VACCINATE IS AN IMPORTANT AND COMPLEX ISSUE AND SHOULD BE MADE BY YOU, AND YOU ALONE, IN CONSULTATION WITH YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER.