Overweight teen boys show heart damage (USA)

"Despite having normal blood pressure, U.S. researchers say overweight male teens show signs of heart damage. Researchers at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta looked at 126 healthy 15- to 17-year-old students in a local high school and found overweight males showed elevated levels of the hormone aldosterone. This hormone produced by the adrenal gland is known to increase sodium, water retention and blood pressure. The researchers suggest the overweight males' thickened heart walls and an increase in the size of the pumping chamber of the heart may be linked to aldosterone-linked inflammation and formation of fibrous tissue in the heart muscle, the researchers say. Overweight females in the group did not have elevated aldosterone levels or the associated heart damage, perhaps the researchers say, because of estrogen's protective effect on the heart. "These associations give us reason to question whether we should be screening for and treating high aldosterone in obese males with normal pressures, particularly those with a family history of cardiovascular disease," Dr. Dayal D. Raja of the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, the study's leader, said in a statement. The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists in Houston"