The Duke study looked at more than 9,000 heart patients over 12 years, charting their age and weight when they first came to Duke for symptoms of heart disease. The study finds the median age of normal weight patients was 64, for overweight patients it was 61 and for the obese it was 57 years old.
Dr. Eric Eisenstein, study investigator, says the statistics send a clear message. He says, "Patients who weigh more than is healthy, are coming into the hospital earlier because of heart disease and dying slightly earlier than patients of normal weight."
The study finds the heavier the person, the more statistically likely that he or she had high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol and a family history of heart disease. These patients also had heart disease longer than normal-weight patients.
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