Prevalence of obesity and ischaemic heart disease in hypertensive subjects

In the present study the prevalence of obesity and its association with ischemic heart disease, recognized according to clinical criteria (chest pain or previous infarction) and/or instrumental data, were described in 8,847 normotensive subjects and in 867 hypertensive subjects, hospitalized during a ten years period (1983-1992), through a cross-sectional study. In view of this all the subjects were considered as lean or obese according to their body mass index (BMI) and to sex specific cut-off values reported in the Italian Consensus Conference on Obesity. In particular, according to BMI values, the subjects were grouped as lean, overweight, moderate and severe obese subjects. Our results …