• Question: Are heart attack linked to obesity

    Asked by hols to Andy, Duane, Giovanna, Katie, Theresia on 11 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Theresia Mina

      Theresia Mina answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      Yeah! Heart attack happens due to the plague within the blood vessel, which most likely consists of fatty deposition over the time…

    • Photo: Duane Mellor

      Duane Mellor answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      This is an area of debate, as people with heart disease tend to live longer if they are heavier, it’s called the obesity paradox.
      The direct link of obesity to heart disease is there but isn’t as strong as the link between obesity and type 2 diabetes and the link between type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
      Poor diet, inactivity and smoking along with family history are also important risk factors

    • Photo: Giovanna Bermano

      Giovanna Bermano answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      a heart attack happens when one of the main coronary arteries (blood vessel that take the oxygen to the heart) get blocked most often by fatty deposits…..when we are born our arteries are nice and clean but when we get older it is inevitable that some deposit occurs but if we eat wrong food or too much and we smoke, the deposits of fat in the arteries gets bigger to the extent that there is blockage of blood supply to the heart and heart attacked happens!!!

    • Photo: Andrew Philp

      Andrew Philp answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      I think they are linked, but there is not a definite cause and effect. Heart attacks can occur for a huge number of different reasons. Obesity certainly increases symptoms associated with people that have heart attacks like high blood pressure (hypertension) and increased amounts of fat within the blood. Keeping fit and healthy will reduce some of these factors and should reduce the risk of heart attack, but not reduce it completely.

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