Abstract
To study the impact of change of body mass index (BMI) on relevant risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD), we recruited 2, 604 healthy Japanese women aged 40-64 year, living in Yokohama city, utilizing a convenience sampling of screening examinations which included height, weight, systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), serum total cholesterol (TC), serum HDL cholesterol (HDL), serum triglyceride (TG), and casual blood sugar (BS) in 1992 and 1993.
Two years later (end phase) without any intervention, we examined these subjects again based on the same protocol and classified them into 4 groups according to the type of change of BMI, and compared the corrsponding relevant riskfactors for CVD.
G1 (n=579) : sustained normal BMI group (BMI at both entry and end phase were between 21 and 23)
G2 (n=40) : gained obesity group (BMI<26.4 at entry andBMI>26.4 at end phase)
G3 (n=41) : improved normal group (BMI>26.4 at entry and BMI<26.4 at end phase)
G4 (n=90) : sustained obesity group (BMI>26.4 at both entry and end phase)
To compare CVD risk factors among these 4 groups analysis by ANOVA was applied, and significant difference in SBP, DBP, HDL, and TG were noted. We tested for significant differences from theG1 group by the Bonferronimethod : DBP increased significantly and HDL decreased significantly in G2, DBP and TC decreased significantly in G3, and only SBP increased significantly in G4.
It appears that once people acquire (CVD) riskfactors as a result of gaining weight, it isdifficult to become free from them with successful reduction in weight. Therefore, it is important to prevent weight gain since it is likely to be accompanied by an accumulation of risk factors for CVD.
