Health: Being fat can PROTECT women from heart disease death – regardless of their muscle mass

Women with higher levels of body fat are less likely to die from heart disease than those with less fat — regardless of how much muscle mass they have, a study found.

Experts from California analysed health data on nearly US 11,500 adults to explore the impact of body fat and muscles mass on cardiovascular disease outcomes.

They found women with high body fat and high muscle mass are 42 per cent less likely to die from heart disease than those with low body fat and low muscle mass. 

However, they said, high muscle mass did not seem confer any extra protection among people with low levels of body fat.

In UK, around 163,000 people die each year as a result of heart and circulatory diseases, according to the British Heart Foundation.

And one in eight men and one in 13 women in Britain die from coronary heart disease, the organisation reports.

The study was undertaken by endocrinologist Preethi Srikanthan of the University of California, Los Angeles and her colleagues. 

‘Higher muscle mass is associated with lower cardiovascular disease and mortality in men and women,’ the researchers wrote in their paper.

‘However, in women, high fat, regardless of muscle mass level, appears to be associated with lower cardiovascular disease mortality risk.’

‘This finding highlights the importance of muscle mass in healthy men and women for cardiovascular disease risk prevention, while suggesting sexual dimorphism with respect to the cardiovascular disease risk associated with fat mass.’

In their study, Professor Srikanthan and colleagues analysed data on body composition and cardiovascular disease among 11,463 adults aged over 20.

This information was collected as part of the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999–2004.

The researchers divided the subjects into four groups based on their body composition — specifically low body fat and low muscle mass, low fat and high muscle, high fat and low muscle and high muscle and high fat.

For each group, the team then calculated the rate of mortality from heart disease.

The findings, the researchers concluded, demonstrate ‘the potential importance of advice to maximize muscle mass in women.’ Pictured: a women exercises with dumbbells in the gym

Professor Srikanthan and her team found that the rate of heart disease-related deaths in women with both high body fat and muscle mass was 42 per cent lower than among women with low body fat and low muscle mass.

However, the researchers said, those women who had a high muscle mass and low body fat did not appear to be significantly more protected from heart disease-related death than those with low body fat and low muscle mass.

In contrast, among the men, the findings yielded different results, the team found.

While high muscle mass and high body fat decreased risk the of death from heart disease by 26 per cent compared with those with low muscle mass and low fat, having high muscle mass and low body fat decreased the risk by 60 per cent.

The findings, the researchers concluded, demonstrate ‘the potential importance of advice to maximize muscle mass in women.’

‘This diverges from the current emphasis on weight loss in CVD prevention and thus methods to practically achieve such body composition alteration need to be further evaluated,’ they added.

The full findings of the study were published in the Journal of American Heart Association.