New research from The University of Arizona Sarver Heart Center helps explain why excessive body weight increases the risk for heart disease. In the largest study of its kind, cardiologist M. Reza Movahed, MD, PhD, and research specialist Adolfo A. Martinez, MD, discovered that excessive body weight is associated with a thickening of the heart muscle in the left ventricle, the heart’s pumping chamber. Known to physicians as left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH), the condition potentially can lead to heart failure and rhythm problems.
