Being overweight in midlife could lead to lots of health issues

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2022-03-17 02:00

International

CC:0

Hitting 40+ soon? You might want to watch your weight, say US researchers who found overweight and obese people to have higher morbidity scores - the likelihood of suffering from a disease or medical condition - than people in a normal BMI range. The researchers looked at the BMIs of close to 30,000 people and found the association between being overweight to be significantly higher, and in addition to that, being obese was linked to dying significantly younger compared to the normal BMI group. These high morbidity scores also came with adverse economic consequences, for both the health system and our wallets, so maybe it's time we all start rethinking that extra serve of ice cream.

News release

From: JAMA

Examining Association of BMI in Midlife With Longevity, Adverse Health in Older Adults

What The Study Did: Medicare claims data for 29,000 adults were examined to investigate the association between body mass index in midlife and adverse health, longevity and health care costs in adults age 65 or older.

Authors: Sadiya S. Khan, M.D., M.Sc., of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, is the corresponding author.

Attachments

Note: Not all attachments are visible to the general public. Research URLs will go live after the embargo ends.

Research JAMA, Web page The URL will go live after the embargo ends

Journal/
conference: JAMA Network Open

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, USA

Funder: This study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health to Dr Allen (R01HL118289). Dr Khan is supported by grants 19TPA34890060 from the American Heart Association and R01HL159250, P30AG059988, and P30DK092939 from the National Institutes of Health.

Media Contact/s

Contact details are only visible to registered journalists.