Obese adults who do not cut to a healthy body weight by middle age are 20% more likely to die early, study suggests
- Gaining weight between 25-47 increases risk of early death by 22%, study found
- Continuing to pile on the pounds past middle age hikes chances of dying young
- Scientists from Huazhong University examined the health of 36,051 US citizens
Obese adults who do not cut to a healthy body weight by middle age are increasing their risk of dying young by more than a fifth, a study has warned.
Scientists from Huazhong University, China, found that gaining weight between the age of 25 and 47 hikes the chances of an early death from any cause by 22 per cent.
And continuing to pile on the pounds past your 40s raises the likelihood of dying prematurely even further.
But Dr Chen Chen and his co-authors also found that those who drop from an obese to a healthy BMI after hitting middle age still have a 30 per cent higher chance of early death.
Obese adults (file photo) who do not cut to a healthy body weight by middle age are increasing their risk of dying young by more than a fifth, a study has warned
Their study, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), analysed data for 36,051 US citizens who were 40 or over.
This sample were weighed and measured at the start, and told researchers how much they weighed at 25 and 35. During a 12-year follow-up of these people, 10,500 deaths were recorded.
After stripping factors that may influence results, experts found that, compared with people of a healthy weight, those who became obese between the age of 25 and middle adulthood had a 22 per cent higher risk of early death from any cause.
A 49 per cent increased risk of death from heart disease was also observed.
Overall, being obese during the entirety of adult life carried the biggest risks – with up to a 72 per cent increased danger of dying young.
Being obese throughout one’s entire adulthood poses the greatest risk, hiking one’s chances of an early death by 72 per cent
People who lost weight and went from being obese to a healthy weight over the same period had no increased risk.
However, the same was not true for people who lost weight when they were older.
Those who moved from being obese to a healthy weight between middle age and later in life had a 30 per cent increased risk of dying early from any cause and a 48 per cent increased risk from heart disease.
Although obesity has previously been linked to 12 separate cancers, in this study no association with weight change was reported.
The authors concluded: ‘Stable obesity across adulthood, weight gain from young to middle adulthood, and weight loss from middle to late adulthood were associated with increased risks of mortality.
‘The findings imply that maintaining normal weight across adulthood, especially preventing weight gain in early adulthood, is important for preventing premature deaths in later life.’