Statins and blood pressure drugs changing health risks of obesity, study suggests
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- NCD Risk Factor Collaboration published a 25-year analysis in The Lancet of blood pressure and cholesterol trends across 1 million adults in seven countries — England, the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Finland — finding both risk factors fell more sharply in people with overweight or obesity aged 40-79 than in normal-BMI peers.
- Imperial College London researchers Majid Ezzati and Edward Gregg reported that by 2024, adults aged 60-79 with obesity had blood pressure and unhealthy cholesterol levels similar to or lower than older adults with normal BMI, a reversal from prior decades.
- Generic statins and antihypertensives — costing roughly $100 a year in the U.S. — emerged as the likely driver: 70-72% of adults aged 70-79 with overweight or obesity were on the medications versus just 40-48% of those with normal BMI.
- Adults under 40 showed no such convergence between BMI groups, with the analysis attributing the gap to rare screening and low use of cholesterol or blood pressure medication regardless of weight status.
- Yale's Yuan Lu and former AHA president Dan Jones cautioned the findings don't mean obesity is "benign," noting it still elevates risk for diabetes, cancer, kidney disease, and musculoskeletal conditions beyond blood pressure and non-HDL cholesterol.
- Co-author Paul Franks warned that arterial plaques built up from early hypertension and high cholesterol don't reverse with later treatment, expressing concern that today's younger adults will accumulate damage medications cannot undo.
- The study window (1990-2024) predates GLP-1 obesity drugs like Ozempic, and several experts — including Timothy Anderson of UPMC and Jones — flagged the omission as critical, urging caution against treating GLP-1s as a replacement for blood pressure and cholesterol control.
Why it matters: The convergence between obese and normal-weight cardiovascular profiles was achieved with ~$100/year generics, not breakthrough drugs — meaning the gains hinge on continued access to cheap medication and routine screening. The under-40 blind spot is the real risk: if metabolic damage accumulates before age 40, later treatment can't undo arterial plaques, leaving a generation whose cardiovascular trajectory diverges sharply from their parents'.
