This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on ISI (1)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related article  • Related letter  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Obesity  • Cardiovascular System  • Cardiovascular Disease/ Myocardial Infarction  • Endocrine Diseases  • Diabetes Mellitus  • Hypertension  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor: The need for concern regarding epidemic US obesity trends was highlighted by the study by Dr Flegal and colleagues¹ that confirmed the association between obesity and mortality from cardiovascular disease and certain cancers. Furthermore, individuals with severe obesity have particularly high mortality from cardiovascular and noncancer noncardiovascular causes. However, the results should not be interpreted to suggest that overweight does not confer health risk. Considerable data link overweight with coronary heart disease,^2-3 as well as incident hypertension^3-5 and diabetes,^3-5 2 cardiovascular risk factors with established morbidity and mortality consequences. They are likely to mediate much of the effects of overweight body mass index on long-term mortality.

The study by Flegal et al did not consider treatment of cardiovascular risk factors. The management of cardiovascular risk factors can alleviate much of their associated health risk, potentially masking the full impact of overweight on health. However, effective treatment does . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Kathleen McTigue, MD, MS, MPH
mctiguekm@upmc.edu
Department of Medicine

Lewis Kuller, MD, DrPH
Department of Epidemiology
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati     What's this?

RELATED ARTICLE

Cause-Specific Excess Deaths Associated With Underweight, Overweight, and Obesity
Katherine M. Flegal, Barry I. Graubard, David F. Williamson, and Mitchell H. Gail
JAMA. 2007;298(17):2028-2037.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

RELATED LETTER

Cardiovascular Risk Factors, Mortality, and Overweight—Reply
Katherine M. Flegal, Barry I. Graubard, David F. Williamson, and Mitchell H. Gail
JAMA. 2008;299(11):1261.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT