A Swedish study suggests that men who were overweight as teens may be more likely to develop a rare type of heart muscle damage that can cause heart failure than men who maintained a healthy weight during adolescence.
Researchers examined data on height, weight and fitness levels from more than 1.6 million men who enlisted in compulsory military service in Sweden between 1969 and 2005, when they were 18 or 19 years old. At the start, about 10 percent were overweight and about 2 percent were obese, Reuters reported.
After a median follow-up of 27 years, 4,477 men developed a disease called cardiomyopathy that makes it harder for the heart to pump blood to the body. This can lead to heart failure.
Compared to men whose weight was right in the middle of a healthy range in adolescence, men who had a healthy weight that was slightly higher during their teen years were 38 percent more likely to develop cardiomyopathy, the study found.
Men who were overweight as teens were at least twice as likely to develop this heart muscle damage, and men who were obese had at least five times the risk.
Men who developed cardiomyopathy were about 46 years old on average at the time of their disorder. Cardiomyopathy is still rare and only 0.27 percent of the men were diagnosed with any one of the different forms of this disorder during the study.
There are several types of cardiomyopathy, but the causes are poorly understood. In one form, called dilated cardiomyopathy, the heart muscle becomes weak and can't pump blood efficiently. In another, called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the heart muscle becomes stiff and the heart can't fill with blood properly.
