Weight gain in young and middle adulthood key to later heart health

People who gain excess weight from their 20s onwards have less healthy hearts by the time they are in their 60s, according to a study involving UK patient and published in the European Heart Journal.

“This suggests weight gain, even at a young age, leads to heart damage over and above the effects of being overweight in later life”

Alun Hughes

Researchers found links between weight gain in young and middle-aged adults and enlarged hearts that pumped blood less well, which was over and above the effect of being overweight in later years.

The findings are based on a major study that has monitored the health of all the babies born in England, Scotland and Wales during one week in 1946.

Lead author Alun Hughes, professor of cardiovascular physiology and pharmacology at University College London, said: “We know that being overweight is associated with poorer heart health,

“But we know little about the long-term relationship between being overweight over the adult life course and subsequent heart health,” he noted.

“We wanted to look at whether being overweight at earlier stages of adult life showed lasting associations with poorer heart health irrespective of people’s weight in later life.”

The researchers examined data on 1,690 people taking part in the Medical Research Council’s National Survey of Health and Development birth cohort.

Throughout their adult lives, these people had their body mass index (BMI) and waist-to-hip ratio measured, noted Professor Hughes. They were also given echocardiograms.

Researchers said they were particularly interested in a measurement called the left ventricular mass, because when this was higher than expected, it indicated a larger amount of heart tissue.

This, they highlighted, was a reliable indicator of poor heart health and an increased risk of death from heart disease.

The data showed that people whose BMI was elevated at any time from age 20 onwards had higher left ventricular mass in their 60s, even when their BMI during their 60s was taken into account.

For example, in an average 43-year-old, a five-unit higher BMI corresponded with a 15% or 27-gram increase in left ventricular mass.

Professor Hughes said: “This suggests that weight gain, even at a young age, leads to heart damage over and above the effects of being overweight in later life.”

“Maintaining a healthy weight is likely to be important for people even in early adulthood and if we want to improve heart health in the long term, we need to prevent weight gain in people of all ages.”

The researchers caution that the study included mostly white European people, so it may not apply to the global population.

Professor Hughes added: “This type of study cannot prove incontrovertibly that earlier weight gain causes heart damage, only that the two are closely linked.

“If being overweight has effects on the heart that are irreversible or only partially reversible then we might expect to see heart damage that accumulates and worsens throughout life,” he said.

The researchers will now study the role of diabetes and high blood glucose in explaining the link between weigh gain and heart health.

In addition, they said they planned to study weight gain in childhood and adolescence in relation to heart health.