Obesity and Smoking: A Mortal Duo -

Obesity and Smoking: A Mortal Duo - CME Teaching Brief® - MedPage Today: "Compared with normal weight, never-smokers, obese smokers, both men and women, face an estimated six- to 11-fold increase in risk of death from heart disease before age 65, reported epidemiologist D. Michael Freedman, Ph.D., of the National Cancer Institute, and colleagues, in the November issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
For women, the increased risk was more dramatic than for men, Obese women smokers younger than 65 were 10.64 times more likely to die of circulatory disease than same-age, normal weight women who never smoked. But when obese women stopped smoking the relative risk dropped to 3.81.
For obese men younger than 65 the relative risk was 6.01 compared with age-matched normal weight non-smoking men. As with women, the risk declined for obese men who stopped smoking but the decline was not as precipitous, with a relative risk declining from a sixfold increase to a fourfold rise.
Dr. Freedman and colleagues assessed mortality risk in 64,120 women and 18,760 men who participated in the U.S. Radiologic Technologies Study, an ongoing collaboration of the National Cancer Institute, the University of Minnesota, and the American Registry of Radiologic Technologists. "/.../