Preobesity in World Health Organization Classification Involves the Metabolic Syndrome in Japanese
- Tsuguhito Ota, MD,
- Toshinari Takamura, MD, PHD,
- Nobuyuki Hirai, MD, PHD and
- Ken-ichi Kobayashi, MD, PHD
- From the Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Kanazawa University Graduate School of Medical Science, Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan
Obesity has increased at an alarming rate throughout the world and has been regarded as a global epidemic disease in light of its close association with a cluster of cardiovascular risk factors, including hypertension, dyslipidemia, and hyperglycemia. This clustering of metabolic disorders is known as the metabolic syndrome, which is associated with insulin resistance (1). BMI is an estimate of total body fat mass and is probably the most useful scale to define obesity. Obesity has been defined as a BMI >30.0 kg/m2 in World Health Organization (WHO) classification (2), but this does not take into account the morbidity and mortality associated with more modest degrees of overweight. A significant increase in risk of death from cardiovascular disease was found for all BMIs of >25.0 kg/m2 in women and >26.5 kg/m2 in men in a prospective study conducted in the U.S. (3). The relation between BMI up …
