Background-Obesity is associated with coronary artery calcification (CAC), a marker of the presence and extent of subclinical coronary atherosclerosis. Obesity adds incremental information in identifying those at higher risk of coronary heart disease to traditional risk factor assessment. The present study examined associations between obesity measures and progression of CAC in those at higher (Ն10%) and lower (Ͻ10%) 10-year coronary heart disease risk according to the Framingham risk equation. Methods and Results-In this study, 443 asymptomatic white individuals Ͼ30 years of age (243 men) had baseline and follow-up CAC measurements an average of 8.9 years apart. Multivariable linear regression models were fit to determine associations of obesity measures at baseline with progression of CAC defined as log e of the difference between follow-up and baseline CAC area plus 1 divided by time (in years) between examinations, adjusting for baseline CAC quantity, age, sex, baseline hypertension status, and baseline cholesterol level. Among 329 participants (74.3%) in the lower-risk group, waist circumference (Pϭ0.024), waist-to-hip ratio (PϽ0.001), body mass index (Pϭ0.036), and being overweight compared with being underweight or of normal weight (Pϭ0.008) were each significantly positively associated with progression of CAC. Among those at higher coronary heart disease risk, no baseline obesity measures were associated with CAC progression. Conclusions-Various measures of obesity were associated with increased progression of CAC in those at lower risk of coronary heart disease. Future studies examining the effectiveness of weight reduction strategies in reducing CAC progression among those with an otherwise favorable risk factor profile may be warranted.

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Making information available and easy to find is the objective of designing a good web site. A company's Intranet typically provides a great deal of information to its employees in an effort to help them better perform. their jobs. If the information is available but is difficult to locate, the usefulness of this information is diminished. Sandia National Laboratories petformed a redesign of its home page and has obtained a successful design which enables its employees to locate information quickly and efficiently. Three phases of usability testing were conducted to develop and optimize the home page. This paper will discuss the redesign of the Intranet home page and describe how usability studies were used to help ensure a usable design.