FIBRINOGEN IN OBESITY BEFORE AND AFTER WEIGHT-REDUCTION

Several studies have shown that obesity is associated with atheroscler osis. The reason may be that there is often a gathering together of ri sk factors for cardiovascular disease in obesity. Recently plasma fibr inogen level has been identified as an important cardiovascular risk f actor. The aim of the study was to investigate fibrinogen levels in ob esity before and after weight reduction.Obese but otherwise healthy pa tients with overweight problems were studied. 448 female patients (39. 1 +/- 13.2 years, body mass index 38.7 kg/m(2)) and 136 male patients (39.4 +/- 12.8 years, body mass index 40.7 kg/m(2)) were examined afte r overnight fasting. Sixty patients (44 female, 16 male) were studied after 9.5 +/- 6.2 month of dieting (1200 kcal/day: 20% protein, 30% fa t and 50% carbohydrates). The weight loss was 16.7 +/- 11.0 kg in the female and 16.2 +/- 6.7 kg in the male patients, and blood pressure, t riglycerides, blood glucose and uric acid had declined. The fibrinogen level correlated with the body mass index, the waist circumference, t he hip circumference and the waist to hip ratio. The fibrinogen level also correlated with insulin. A partial correlation of fibrinogen and insulin continued to exist after removing the linear effects of the ot her variables measured. After weight reduction, the level of fibrinoge n was lower. In patients with extreme overweight and high fibrinogen l evels, who reduced their BMI by 7.4 +/- 1.24 kg/m(2), the weight loss correlated with the decrease in fibrinogen. The results suggest that f ibrinogen is associated with the degree of obesity and with the fastin g insulin level. Fibrinogen concentration is lowered by weight reducti on. However decrease of fibrinogen was observed only in patients with considerable weight loss.