Wednesday 23rd August 2006
A new study has found obese people to be at two to three times the risk of dying early as compared to people with normal weight. Even slightly overweight people face the possibility of a reduced life span. In most over weight and obese people this increased risk arises out of the increased incidences of heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
The knowledge that obesity is unhealthy has been around for a long time, but this new study shows it also dramatically increases the risk of premature death. ?People who are overweight have a moderately increased risk of premature death, and people who are obese have a greatly increased risk of premature death,? Dr. Michael Leitzmann, lead researcher of the study and an investigator at the National Cancer Institute said.
The study report is published in the latest issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. The research team collected and studied data for more than 527,000 men and women between the ages of 50 and 71 years for the two years of 1995 and 1996. The researchers then followed the progress of these people over the next ten years to check the relationship of their weight with their risk of dying.
In 2005, 61,317 people from the study subjects died. When details were compared, it was found people who were overweight at 50 years were at 20% to 40% higher risk of premature death. This risk however multiplied two to three times for obese people when considered in comparison to people with normal weight. ?That translates into a 200% to 300% increase in the risk of premature death,? Dr. Leitzmann said.
While the team did not take specific causes of death into account for their results, Dr. Leitzmann said the chief causes of death in the group were heart disease and cancer. Dr. Leitzmann?s obvious advice for avoiding the risk of early death is, ?People need to maintain a normal weight throughout adulthood and avoid developing excess weight. And if you are overweight or obese, lose the excess weight.?
?We should not need another word to recognize obesity as one of the great public health threats of our time,? said Dr. David L. Katz, Director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine. ?While uncertainty may persist about exactly how many years obesity takes out of life, there is overwhelming consensus about the years obesity can take out of life.?
?Most diabetes is due to overweight, as is much cardiovascular disease. And obesity is a major contributor to cancer risk as well,? Dr. Katz said.
