The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Clinical Consensus Statement on Obesity and Cardiovascular Disease, presented at this year's ESC Congress (London, UK, 30 August to 2 September) summarizes current evidence on the epidemiology and etiology of obesity; the interplay between obesity, cardiovascular risk factors and cardiac conditions; the clinical management of patients with cardiac disease and obesity; and weight loss strategies including lifestyle changes, interventional procedures, and anti-obesity medications with particular focus on their impact on cardiometabolic risk and cardiac outcomes. The Consensus Statement is co-published in the European Heart Journal and the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology . The global prevalence of obesity has more than doubled over the past four decades, currently affecting more than a billion individuals.
Beyond its recognition as a high-risk condition that is causally linked to many chronic illnesses, obesity has been declared a disease in itself, that results in impaired quality of life and reduced life expectancy. "Notably, 67.5% of deaths related to high body mass index (BMI) are attributable to cardiovascular disease (CVD).
Despite the increasingly appreciated link between obesity and a broad range of CVD manifestations including atherosclerotic disease, heart failure, thromboembolic disease, arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death, obesity has been under-recognized and sub-optimally addressed compared with other modifiable c.