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Obesity is a coronary risk factor on its own, and Italian doctors have now worked out why. Some wobbly information about obesity is firming up according to a recent paper from Italy. No-one's really been sure why obesity is a coronary risk factor in its own right. It's true that if you're fat you're more likely to develop diabetes, high blood pressure and have too much bad cholesterol floating around. But even after those are taken into account, obesity stands proud as a heart risk by itself. Why? In a study of obese women, the Italian researchers looked closely at atherosclerosis - the progressive blockage of arteries by cholesterol damage. This involves actual inflammation in the artery lining, oxygen reactions a bit like rusting, and the switching on of platelets - little fragments in the blood which are an essential part of blood clotting. And the results showed that women with male pattern obesity - with the fat on the abdomen more than the hips - had significantly higher levels of this inflammation and platelet activation than women with a pear shape: the greater the waist circumference, the bigger the problem. The good news was that weight loss helped to switch all this off. 
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