A good education and income helps protect people from inflammation that increases their risk of a heart attack, but the more overweight someone becomes, the less protection is gained from a comfortable life, a study suggests today.
It's well-known that educated, affluent people have better health than those with lower income or education.
In the new study of about 5,000 adults, the college-educated with household incomes of more than $75,000 a year had much less of a blood protein linked to heart disease than did the poorer or less educated -- as long as they weren't overweight.
But as weight crept up, so did C-reactive protein in the blood, a sign of inflamed tissue that can lead to blocked coronary arteries, says Cathy Bykowski, a psychologist at the University of South Florida in Tampa.
That's not surprising, because excess body fat is known to increase the protein, she says.
A high income gave the overweight a slight edge over less affluent adults, Bykowski says. But looking at education alone, overweight people with and without a college education had about an equal level of harmful C-reactive protein. And the obese lost all benefit from their better status in income or education, she adds.
Overweight adults have a body-mass index of 25 to 29. (For a woman who is 5-foot-5, that is 150 to 174 pounds; for a man 5-foot-10, it's 174-202 pounds.) The obese weigh even more for their height, with a body-mass index of more than 29.
Bykowski will report her results at the American Psychosomatic Society meeting in Baltimore.
The greater stress faced by poorer, less educated people may promote inflammation, says Elissa Epel, a psychologist at the University of California Medical School-San Francisco, who studies the biology of stress. So it makes sense that those with more money and education would have less of the C-reactive protein.
"But in overweight people, this advantage apparently is just trumped by their extra pounds. We know that obesity has a huge effect, raising the signs of inflammation in our blood," Epel says.
Even when access to better health care and nutrition is taken into account, "it's still a bit of a mystery" why people who are better off have better health, says Richard Schulz, an expert on how psychology and lifestyle influence health. "There's still some of it we just can't explain."
The findings underscore the importance of weight control for everyone -- rich, poor and in-between, Schulz says.
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