NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Men who are obese are twice as likely as their leaner peers to suffer a stroke, researchers report.

The study finding adds more support to the view that excess body weight is hazardous to health. While it is well known that obesity raises the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some types of cancer, the current report shows that it is also a risk factor for stroke, the third leading cause of death in the US.

"Our findings underscore the fact that your risk of stroke is modifiable when it comes to how much you weigh," Dr. Tobias Kurth of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, said in a prepared statement.

The study included more than 21,000 middle-aged and elderly men in the Physicians' Health Study, a long-term, national investigation of a group of male doctors. The men were healthy; that is, they had no history of heart attack, stroke or cancer at the study's outset.

Over the next 13 years, obese men, meaning those with a body mass index (BMI) of at least 30, were found to be twice as likely to suffer any type of stroke, compared with leaner men with a BMI under 23. The risk of hemorrhagic stroke, which is caused by bleeding in the brain, was even higher, according to the report in the Archives of Internal Medicine for December 9/23.

BMI is a measure of weight in relation to height and is considered a more reliable gauge of disease risk than weight alone. An adult with a BMI of 30 or more is categorized as obese and one with a BMI of 25 to 30 is considered overweight.

With each additional point increase in BMI over 25, the risk of stroke rose 6%. High blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol accounted for some of the higher risk but even those without these additional health problems were more likely to have a stroke, the investigators found.

It is not clear from the report how BMI affects stroke risk, but some data suggest that higher blood levels of compounds that are associated with clotting in overweight individuals may be to blame.

Alternatively, overweight and obese people are more prone to high blood pressure and diabetes, which can raise stroke risk, Kurth said in an interview with Reuters Health. He added that the mechanism by which excess body weight can affect a person's risk of stroke is worth investigating in future studies.

"These results suggest that individuals and their physicians should consider increased risk of stroke another hazard of obesity," the study authors conclude.

SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine 2002;162:2557-2562.

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