Increased Familial Cardiovascular Mortality in Obese Schoolchildren: The Muscatine Ponderosity Family Study

Abstract

Total and cause-specific mortality was investigated in 387 first- and second-degree deceased adult relatives of three groups of children selected from those who participated in three biennial school surveys in Muscatine, Iowa: the lean group (students in the first quintile of relative weight on all three surveys); the random group (a random sample of all eligible students); and the heavy group (students in the fifth quintile of relative weight on all three surveys). A greater proportion of death certificates for heavy group relatives listed a cardiovascular cause of death (60%) compared with lean (48%) and random (43%) group relatives. The relative risk of dying of cardiovascular disease for heavy group vs random group relatives was 1.41 (95% confidence interval 1.01, 1.98). In a subset of heavy group families identified by children with elevated systolic blood pressure, the proportion of death certificates listing a cardiovascular cause was even higher (76%) and the estimate of relative risk vs random group relatives was 2.20 (95% confidence interval 1.43, 3.37). These results indicate that persistent obesity in children, particularly when accompanied by persistent blood pressure elevation, identifies families whose members are at increased risk of dying of cardiovascular disease.