Obesity Can Cut Up To 8 Years Off Your Life

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

New research from Canadian scientists has broken down the effect that obesity can have on the human body into the simplest of terms – it can cut your life short by as many as 8 years.

Published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal, the study also found that being obese can rob a person of as many as 19 healthy years of life due to metabolic conditions like Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

“Our computer modeling study shows that obesity is associated with an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease (including heart disease and stroke) and diabetes that will, on average, dramatically reduce an individual’s life expectancy and the healthy life-years free from living with these chronic illnesses compared with people of normal weight,” said study author Dr. Steven Grover, a professor of medicine at McGill University.

Grover and his colleagues used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from the years 2003 to 2010 to generate their computer model. Including data from nearly 4,000 people, the model estimated the annual risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease for adults with various body sizes.

The model showed that people who were quite obese could lose as much as 8 years of life, moderately obese adults could lose as much as 6 years, and those who were just overweight could lose as much as three years. Furthermore, quality life-years lost to poor health were two to four times greater for overweight and obese people as opposed to those who had a good body weight, described as having a body mass index (BMI) of 18.5 to 25. The study also found that age was a crucial factor and the worst results were seen in those who had gained weight at a very young age.

“The pattern is clear – the more an individual weighs and the younger their age, the greater the effect on their health,” Grover said. “In terms of life-expectancy, we feel being overweight is as bad as cigarette smoking.”

He added that future research will likely involve finding results that can be applied on a person-by-person basis.

“What may be interesting for patients are the ’what if?’ questions. What if they lose 10 to 15 pounds? Or, what if they are more active? How will this change the numbers?” Grover told Julie Robert of McGill University Health Center in a statement.

The study team is now running a three year study in neighborhood pharmacies across the United States to determine if engaging patients with this data and then providing them with a web-based e-health program will assist them in achieving healthier lifestyles, including better diets and regular exercise.

“These clinically meaningful models are useful for patients, and their healthcare professionals, to better appreciate the issues and the benefits of a healthier lifestyle, which we know is difficult for many of us to adopt and maintain,” Grover added.

In commentary linked to the Lancet study, Edward Gregg, a chief of epidemiology and statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said meaningful data and measurements were essential for patient care and education.

“Some aspects of the clinical use of such estimates warrant further examination, and the ability of composite measures to differentiate the effect of small differences in thresholds of obesity levels is unclear…This… might place a higher premium on decision-making methods that can simultaneously take a lifecourse perspective, incorporate interventions, and consider individual differences so that clinicians and public health leaders alike can effectively tackle the next phases of the obesity and diabetes epidemics,” Gregg wrote.

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