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 Researchers followed more than 44,000 men conscripted for military
service in 1969 and 1970, and found those who were overweight as
young men were 64 percent more likely to have serious liver problems
and liver-related deaths in the next 40 years compared to normal
weight counterparts.
“Most likely, these teens already had non-alcoholic fatty liver
disease (NAFLD) at the start of the study, or developed it down the
road,” said lead author Dr. Hannes Hagstrom of the Center for
Digestive Diseases at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. “We know
that some persons with NAFLD do develop severe liver disease.”
The researchers used national records on 44,248 Swedish men
conscripted for military service, which requires a full physical
exam, and tracked their health outcomes in medical registries up to
2009.
By that time, 393 men had been diagnosed with severe liver disease,
including reduced liver function, cirrhosis or liver-related death.
Those who were overweight as teens were at the greatest risk, even
after the analysis accounted for alcohol and tobacco use, according
to the report in Journal of Hepatology.
About 7 percent of the men had been overweight in their youth,
meaning they had a body mass index (BMI) between 25 and 29.9. BMI is
a measure of weight relative to height, and the range between 18.5
and 24.9 is considered normal. BMI of 30 or above is considered
obese.
The highest risk for severe liver disease later on in life was
alcohol consumption of more than 3.5 bottles of wine per week,
Hagström noted.
“However, it is already known that alcohol causes liver disease,” he
told Reuters Health by email. “What’s new here is that being
overweight/obese was associated with an increased risk independent
of how much alcohol these young men were drinking.
“Other significant risk factors were smoking, use of narcotics,
self-rated health, cardiovascular fitness and high blood pressure,”
Hagstrom said.
The results would likely have been similar for women but that’s not
necessarily clear in this study, he said.
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A similar study of men conscripted into military service in Sweden,
published in the European Heart Journal, found that young men at the
high end of the normal BMI range may have a higher risk of heart
failure later in life compared to their peers at the low end of
normal BMI.
“Those in high normal range don’t need to be concerned because
(heart failure) is still very rare,” said lead author Dr. Annika
Rosengren, professor of medicine at the Sahlgrenska Academy in
Gothenburg. “The absolute risk is still very low.”
But in Sweden, heart failure is becoming more common among people
younger than 45, and may continue to do so as overweight also
increases, she told Reuters Health. Younger people with heart
failure are frequently misdiagnosed as having asthma, since both can
cause shortness of breath, she said.
“There’s already an incentive to try to decrease the obesity
epidemic, this is just another reason for doing it,” she said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/28QZ0ch Journal of Hepatology and http://bit.ly/28Jy3r6
European Heart Journal, online June 16, 2016.
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