Drugs Alone Don't Lower Heart Disease Risks for Overweight...(l we need to do is treat those risk fact...),Health

It isn't, said Burke, noting that this is where his study breaks new ground. There is a relationship between less obvious, subclinical cardiovascular disease markers, such as the thickening of the walls of the carotid artery, and obesity, he explained. Even though the overweight and obese people studied hadn't had heart attacks they did show various markers that are predictors of future cardiovascular events, Burke added. This is was true despite the high number of people who were taking medications for the well-known triad of risk factors of high cholesterol, diabetes and high blood pressure.

Lona Sandon, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, said that the findings show that "many of the people who were obese were being treated with various medications, but they still were not improving to the point where they were decreasing their risk."

The American mentality is that "if I just take those pills, I'll be OK," said Sandon, an assistant professor of clinical nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. The study "kind of says you have to make some changes, some lifestyle changes and some food changes, to lead to a healthier weight."

Sandon added that even greater emphasis needs to be placed on prevention. "It's easier to prevent with an hour of exercise a day than correct with three hours of exercise a day," she noted. "Hopefully [the study] can be some kind of a wake-up call to tell us we need to do something more than hand out a prescription."

More information

For more on fighting obesity, go to the Obesity Action Coalition.

SOURCES: Gregory L. Burke, M.D., professor and director, division of public health sciences,
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