In a recently published study, Vera Bittner, M.D., a professor in the University of Alabama at Birmingham Division of Cardiovascular Disease, and colleagues have demonstrated that weight cycling is associated with a lower rate of adverse cardiovascular outcomes in women with suspected ischemia, such as stroke, heart attack, and heart failure.
Using data from the NIH-funded Women’s Ischemia Syndrome Evaluation study, Bittner and colleagues set out to determine in the WISE population whether weight cycling —defined as an intentional loss of at least 10 pounds at least three times — during a woman’s lifetime was related to the composite outcome of all-cause death, cardiovascular death, nonfatal heart attack, non-fatal stroke and hospitalization for heart failure or the components of this composite outcome.
“Given prior studies that enrolled predominantly men, we thought we would find an adverse relationship; but we found the opposite,” Bittner said.