Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2014 Oct 19:13:144.
doi: 10.1186/s12933-014-0144-5.

Obesity attenuates gender differences in cardiovascular mortality

Xin Song  1   2 , Adam G Tabák  3   4 , Björn Zethelius  5   6 , John S Yudkin  7 , Stefan Söderberg  8   9 , Tiina Laatikainen  10   11   12 , Coen D A Stehouwer  13 , Rachel Dankner  14   15 , Pekka Jousilahti  16 , Altan Onat  17 , Peter M Nilsson  18   19 , Ilhan Satman  20 , Olga Vaccaro  21 , Jaakko Tuomilehto  22   23   24   25 , Qing Qiao  26   27   28 ; DECODE Study Group
Affiliations

Obesity attenuates gender differences in cardiovascular mortality

Xin Song et al. Cardiovasc Diabetol. .

Abstract

Background: To estimate cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality in relation to obesity and gender.

Methods: Data from 11 prospective cohorts from four European countries including 23 629 men and 21 965 women, aged 24 to 99 years, with a median follow-up of 7.9 years were analyzed. Hazards ratios (HR) for CVD mortality in relation to baseline body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) were estimated using Cox proportional hazards models with age as the timescale.

Results: Men had higher CVD mortality than women in all four BMI categories (<25.0, 25.0-29.9, 30.0-34.9 and ≥35.0 kg/m(2)). Compared with the lowest BMI category in women, multivariable adjusted HRs (95% confidence intervals) for higher BMI categories are 1.0 (0.8-1.4), 1.6 (1.1-2.1) and 2.8 (2.0-3.8) in women and 2.8 (2.2-3.6), 3.1 (2.5-3.9), 3.8 (2.9-4.9) and 5.4 (3.8-7.7) in men, respectively. Similar findings were observed for abdominal obesity defined by WC, WHR or WHtR. The gender difference was slightly smaller in obese than in non-obese individuals; but the interaction was statistically significant only between gender and WC (p = 0.02), and WHtR (p = 0.01). None of the interaction terms was significant among non-diabetic individuals.

Conclusions: Men had higher CVD mortality than women across categories of anthropometric measures of obesity. The gender difference was attenuated in obese individuals, which warrants further investigation.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. World Health Organization . The Top 10 Causes of Death. ᅟ.
    1. Ramaekers D, Ector H, Aubert AE, Rubens A, Van de Werf F. Heart rate variability and heart rate in healthy volunteers. Is the female autonomic nervous system cardioprotective? Eur Heart J. 1998;19(9):1334–1341. doi: 10.1053/euhj.1998.1084. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Dart AM, Du XJ, Kingwell BA. Gender, sex hormones and autonomic nervous control of the cardiovascular system. Cardiovasc Res. 2002;53(3):678–687. doi: 10.1016/S0008-6363(01)00508-9. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Vaccarino V, Badimon L, Corti R, de Wit C, Dorobantu M, Hall A, Koller A, Marzilli M, Pries A, Bugiardini R, Working Group on Coronary Pathophysiology and Microcirculation Ischaemic heart disease in women: are there sex differences in pathophysiology and risk factors? Position paper from the working group on coronary pathophysiology and microcirculation of the European Society of Cardiology. Cardiovasc Res. 2011;90(1):9–17. doi: 10.1093/cvr/cvq394. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Moodithaya S, Avadhany ST. Gender differences in age-related changes in cardiac autonomic nervous function. J Aging Res. 2012;2012:679345. doi: 10.1155/2012/679345. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types