Obesity and Cardiovascular Disease

Published: April 22, 2021

Bathroom scale with stethoscope.
  • Obesity contributes directly to incident cardiovascular risk factors, including dyslipidemia, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and sleep disorders.
  • More recent data highlight abdominal obesity, as determined by waist circumference, as a cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk marker independent of body mass index.. There have also been significant advances in imaging modalities for characterizing body composition, including visceral adiposity.
  • This statement summarizes the impact of obesity on the diagnosis, clinical management, and outcomes of atherosclerotic CVD, heart failure, and arrhythmias, especially sudden cardiac death.. Obesity’s influence on non-invasive and invasive diagnostic procedures for coronary artery disease (CAD) is discussed.