The Fattier Your Heart, the Greater Your Heart Disease Risk | Show ...

By John Leighty
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Aug. 16 (HealthDay News) ? The amount of hidden fat that collects around the heart may be a stronger indicator of cardiac illness risk than a bulging waistline or flabby thighs, a new study reports.

Heart fat hidden behind the rib cage ? identified as pericardial fat ? appears to promote irregular plaque build-up along coronary artery walls that causes atherosclerosis and can trigger heart attacks, the leading trigger of death in the United States, according to the study.

?It turns out there are certain places about the heart where hidden fat seems to be promoting coronary illness, even in people without having symptoms,? said senior study author Dr. David Bluemke, director of radiology and imaging sciences at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Care.

?This is chest fat you?d by no means see by seeking at somebody,? he added.

Pericardial fat is linked to getting overweight or obese, according to the study in the Aug. 16 on-line edition of the journal Radiology.

The findings are from the ongoing Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), a study of 6,800 participants aged 45 to 84 from six communities around the country who had no heart disease at enrollment. In this study, researchers looked at a smaller slice of the volunteers: 89 females and 94 men with an average age of 61 who, though most had been overweight, had been representative of the general population.

To appear for signs of heart disease, the study team utilized noninvasive MRI to screen for plaque on the walls of the coronary artery and compared it with CT scans of heart fat volume. The NIH-sponsored study highlighted 3 major findings:

• In men and women with no symptoms of coronary artery disease, the fat volume of the membrane around the heart is closely associated with the heart artery-clogging plaque identified on the MRIs.
• This pericardial fat appears to be far more strongly related to coronary artery plaque buildup than is body mass index (a measure of obesity) or waist circumference.
• Examining coronary artery walls via MRIs and CT heart fat scans could be beneficial in assessing the risk of heart illness.

High-risk patients with chest pain and identified coronary risk factors such as obesity ought to have a traditional angiogram or advanced diagnostic procedures, said Bluemke. ?However, low or intermediate risk patients could eventually benefit from understanding that fat deposits about the heart increase their risk of coronary disease,? he stated.

And although MRI was utilised as the ?gold regular? for NIH study on fat distribution and the dangers of obesity, the pricey procedure isn?t necessary in typical patient screening for cardiac risk, Bluemke added.

Bluemke said CT scans are one of the fastest growing medical procedures in the country and could increasingly be used to evaluate coronary artery disease. Scanning frequently supplies information on calcium in the heart vessel, and can calculate a ?fat score? index for tissues around the heart as a finest practice process that could save lives, he stated.

?Two-thirds of the population is overweight or obese and at risk of coronary artery illness and plaque buildup,? stated Bluemke, noting that added fat forms ?preferentially? in vulnerable areas of the heart of typical overweight patients. ?This research says we ought to be telling physicians about the quantity of fat in a patient?s chest that shows up on a CT scan, but can?t be seen from outside the body and was previously ignored.?

The U.S. Centers for Illness Control and Prevention has declared obesity a national epidemic and a key contributor to the leading causes of death in the United States, such as heart illness. Slightly more than one adult in three is obese, and one child in six is obese, the CDC reports.

Dr. Gregg Fonarow, professor of cardiology at UCLA, agrees that CT scans may possibly ultimately support physicians determine who is most vulnerable to cardiovascular disease. However, he cautions patients not to rush out for expensive and unnecessary scans or MRI screenings just to find hidden heart fat that might be temporary or not pose a long-term problem.

?The study is genuinely to create new expertise and information, not to be a risk predictor or screening tool for the common population,? said Fonarow.

An interesting locating is the volume of fat around the heart being positively related to the plaque burden in asymptomatic males and women, most of whom want to shed a few pounds, Fonarow mentioned: ?This shows a new reason why overweight men and women have a higher rate of cardiovascular risk and provides the public an additional reason to preserve a healthy and active lifestyle.?

More information

Find out more about heart disease at the American Heart Association.

SOURCES: David A. Bluemke, M.D., Ph.D., director, radiology and imaging sciences, U.S. National Institutes of Wellness, Bethesda, Md. Gregg Fonarow, M.D., professor, cardiology, University of California, Los Angeles Aug. 16, 2011, Radiology, on the web

Final Updated: Aug. 16, 2011

Copyright ? 2011 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

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