Overweight teen boys have increased risk of stroke in later life

Conclusion The findings of this large longitudinal cohort study seem to demonstrate a link between being overweight aged 20 and an increased risk of stroke. This risk was regardless of whether the boy had been overweight aged 8 or not. There seemed to be no increased risk for boys who were overweight aged 8 but were a normal weight by the age of 20. The study was conducted before the obesity epidemic, and might be even more relevant today. But there are a number of considerations to take into account before we draw any conclusions: Participants were followed up until they were 52-68, so all the strokes occurred at a relatively young age. We don't know the outcomes for stroke events for the older age categories – it might be that this trend is only seen in strokes in younger people. The vast majority of men who had a stroke were a normal weight aged 8 and 20. This means the number of men who had a stroke in each overweight category was small – between 5 and 67 men – which reduces the reliability of these comparative results. The cohort was in a group of male participants in one city in Sweden. We don't know if the apparent link between high BMI in young adulthood and stroke risk applies to other populations or women. There are many factors other than BMI that might have influenced the results. These weren't taken into account in this study, and include socioeconomic factors in childhood or adulthood, the men's level of education, and whether they smoked o...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Obesity Pregnancy/child Source Type: news