What is the impact of constant weight change on our heart?

Many people suffer from the different diets the so-called yo-Yo effect, you increase already removed weight in a short period of time. Doctors found out now that if women have suffered in the past under the yo-Yo effect, or a strongly changing weight cycle they had to go through, this led to increased cardiovascular risk factors.

Scientists at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center noted in their recent study, that patterns, in which women show a weight loss with a subsequent weight gain (yo-Yo effect), contribute to an increased risk for cardiovascular risk factors, compared with women, which showed a constant weight. The experts presented preliminary data from their study at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association in Houston.

Many women experience a loss in weight, the yo-Yo effect

Numerous studies have shown that maintaining a healthy weight is a good way to reduce the risk of heart disease and other chronic diseases. More than a third of women after Menopause, who participated in a large national observation study, reported that the efforts to Remove by a rapid return to your weight before the diet were brought to a standstill. As an effect experts call weight cycle.

There have been little studies with women on this topic

So-called weight cycles are quite common, especially for people who want to improve their cardiovascular health, explain the doctors. “However, it is difficult to draw conclusions from previous studies that mainly white middle-aged men with heart disease, a history of concentrated, because some found a connection between weight loss and cardiovascular risk, and others do not,” explains the study author Brooke Aggarwal Columbia University Irving Medical Center in a press release. Such studies have not taken into account specific points in a woman’s life, which are usually associated with weight gain, such as pregnancy and menopause.

Experts studied 485 women for their study

For the current study, physicians examined, a more differentiated group of 485 women between the ages of 20 and 76 years with an average Body Mass Index (BMI) of 26, is already considered overweight. The women reported that they had taken apart during the pregnancy, at least ten pounds within one year, and then again increased. The physician assessed the cardiovascular health of every woman on the basis of behavior and risk factors, which emerged from a combination of heart health, BMI, blood pressure, total cholesterol, glucose, physical activity, nutrition and Smoking.

Women without children were more affected

More than 70 percent of the women had at least experienced a yo-Yo effect. Of the Affected 29% had a poor cardiovascular health. In addition, these women had a probability of 82 percent that they were not optimal BMI. The more frequent the women’s so-called weight cycles by lived, the worse their results in the study, the experts say. The impact for women before and after menopause, similar to, but stronger for women who were never pregnant.

Further research is needed

“It is possible that pregnancy protects the heart in a way that we don’t currently verstehen“, the author of the Study Aggarwal says. “However, there is evidence that in younger women prior to the pregnancy occurring, the weight of cycles of a future cardiovascular risk can prepare,” adds the expert. Additional studies are now necessary to determine exactly why weight cycles, which can affect the heart health of women negatively. Some studies suggest that a reduction in muscle mass during the weight loss is replaced by fat, if the weight is regained. Another guess is that the blood pressure, blood sugar, triglycerides, and other values with each of weight gain increased many times over, adds Aggarwal. (as)