The link between obesity and cardiovascular disease is well-known but in what is believed to be the first study of its kind, an international team has found even restricting calorie intake moderately, by people only marginally overweight, can significantly reduce the risk of heart attack.

The study of otherwise healthy, relatively young people has revealed losing just a bit of weight to an optimal level has a disproportionately positive impact.

In addition to significantly improving conventional cardiometabolic risk factors, reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease by about a factor of 13, trial participants enjoyed major improvements on a range of risk factors linked to problems such as type 2 diabetes, stroke, inflammation and some forms of cancer.