Overweight men at higher risk of heart attack, stroke, premature death (Sweden)

"Overweight or obese middle-aged men are at a higher risk of heart attack, stroke and premature death - even if they don't have the metabolic syndrome, according to research reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. 'Previous studies have put forward the existence of a 'metabolically healthy' subgroup of obese individuals who are at no increased cardiovascular risk, but if you follow them long enough, you find out there appears to be no such thing as metabolically healthy obesity,' said Johan Ärnlöv, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of cardiovascular epidemiology at Uppsala University in Uppsala, Sweden. When previous studies have examined the occurrence of heart disease risk with obesity and the metabolic syndrome (MetS) - a cluster of risk factors associated with the development of heart disease and diabetes - obese people without MetS have not portrayed an increased risk. However, these studies followed people for 13 years or less and it is possible that the increase in risk in the obese without the MetS becomes more evident after 10-15 years, Ärnlöv said. The current 30-year study involved 1,758 men born between 1920 and 1924 in Uppsala. Each underwent a health evaluation at age 50, and those who had diabetes or had been hospitalized for heart disease were not included"