The Cost of Extreme Obesity: 6.5 – 13.7 Years
Extremely obese adults reduce their life span by up to 14 years because they have increased risk of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, kidney and liver diseases, and stroke, according to a U.S. Study, published earlier this week in PLOS Medicine. These findings are based on the analysis of data from 20 large studies of people from the United States, Sweden and Australia.
Lead author Cari Kitahara from the U.S. National Cancer Institute said in a statement:
“While once a relatively uncommon condition, the prevalence of class III, or extreme, obesity is on the rise. In the United States, for example, 6 percent of adults are now classified as extremely obese. Prior to our study, little had been known about the risk of premature death associated with extreme obesity. We found that the death rates in severely obese adults were about 2.5 times higher than in adults in the normal weight range.”
Kitahara’s team found that severely obese people were cutting their lives short by 6.5 to 13.7 years when compared with normal-weight people. That’s similar to the toll taken by smoking, she said. According to the researchers these results highlight the need to develop more effective interventions to combat the growing public health problem of extreme obesity.
More effective intervention might not be enough, though, and it may be time to seriously consider regulatory initiatives that reduce the excessive consumption of unhealthy foods - like the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act from 1970, which was designed to limit the practice of smoking.