The aim of this prospective study was to investigate the association between different anthropometric characteristics during different life periods and coronary heart disease (CHD) risk using data from the Swedish Women’s Lifestyle and Health (WLH) Study. This study included 48,052 women. During the average 12.0 years of follow-up, 256 events occurred (229 nonfatal myocardial infarction and 27 fatal CHD). The authors found strong evidence for a positive association between overweight or obesity and CHD risk, whether measured by adult weight, waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio, or body mass index (BMI). However, results indicated that markers of central obesity (waist circumference or waist-to-hip ratio) were more strongly related to CHD risk than BMI. Moreover, overweight women characterized by abdominal obesity were at the highest risk of developing CHD. This risk was not increased in overweight women in the absence of abdominal obesity compared to women with normal weight and no abdominal obesity. Finally, women who were overweight over their lifetime, those who were heavy at age 18, and those with low birth weight had a significantly greater risk of CHD.
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