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Blood clots higher in obese women

Overweight, middle-aged women are at more risk of developing blood clots after surgery than women who are a healthy weight.

Using questionare data from more than a million UK women, researchers examined the risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in relation to body mass index (BMI).

VTE is a condition where blood clots in the legs (deep vein thrombosis or DVT) sometimes break off and move to the lungs.

Almost five in 1,000 women with a healthy BMI were hospitalised or died from VTE, compared with seven in 1,000 for those who were overweight or obese.

The findings suggest that avoiding weight gain and even small weight reductions are likely to reduce the risk of VTE in middle-aged women.

Read more at University of Otago

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