The study comes as the global prevalence of obesity more than doubled over the past four decades, currently affecting more than a billion individuals.

“Notably, 67.5 per cent of deaths related to high body mass index (BMI) are attributable to cardiovascular disease (CVD),” said Professor Emeline Van Craenenbroeck, Antwerp University in Belgium

Obesity raises the risk of CVDs like atherosclerotic disease, heart failure, thromboembolic disease, arrhythmias, and sudden cardiac death.

Despite the link, “obesity has been under-recognised and sub-optimally addressed compared with other modifiable cardiovascular risk factors,” Van Craenenbroeck added.

The team called for raising awareness of obesity as a major risk factor and providing guidance for implementing evidence-based practices for its prevention and optimal management within the context of primary and secondary CVD prevention.

Obesity not only contributes to well-established cardiovascular risk factors like diabetes, dyslipidemia, elevated blood pressure, and arterial hypertension but also has direct adverse effects on cardiac structure and function and leads to the development of CVD - both atherosclerotic and non-atherosclerotic.

Obesity also negatively affects various organs and is a risk factor for several chronic diseases.

The study also showed that diabetes and obesity are closely associated. Eighty to eighty-five per cent of diabetes patients are obese or overweight. On the other hand, the likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes in obese people is about three times higher than in normal-weight people (20 per cent vs. 7.3 per cent respectively).

Weight loss therapies have demonstrated beneficial effects on glycaemic management, including remission to a non-diabetic state, in patients with established type 2 diabetes. High BMI is assumed to be the cause of 78 per cent of the risk of hypertension in males and 65 per cent of the risk in women between the ages of 20 and 49.

Treatments for obesity include pharmaceutical, dietary, behavioural, and physical therapies. Obesity is avoidable. Management of obesity has, however, gotten less attention than other risk factors for CVD.

The findings will be presented at the ongoing European Cardiology Congress, London (August 30-September 2).