Obesity Robs Men of Years of Life

A number of previous studies suggest that obesity in adulthood poses a risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and Danish researchers find that obesity in early adulthood strengthens that risk. Morten Schmidt, from Aarhus University Hospital (Denmark), and colleagues tracked the health of 6,500 Danish 22-year-old men for 33 years up to the age of 55. All of them had been born in 1955, and had registered with the Military Board for a fitness test to gauge their suitability for military service.  All potential conscripts in Denmark are subjected to a battery of psychological and physical tests, including weight. Most (83%; 5407) were within the normal range and 5% were underweight (353). One in 10 (639) were overweight and 1.5% (97) were obese (body mass index [BMI] of 30 or more).  Almost half of those classified as obese at the age of 22 were diagnosed with diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, blood clots in the legs or lungs, or had died before reaching the age of 55.  They were eight times as likely to get diabetes as their normal weight peers and four times as likely to get a potentially fatal blood clot (venous thromboembolism). They were also more than twice as likely to develop high blood pressure, have had a heart attack, or to have died.  Every unit increase in BMI corresponded to an increased heart attack rate of 5%, high blood pressure and blood clot rates of 10%, and an increased diabetes rate of 20%. In all, obese young men were three times as likely to get any of these serious conditions as their normal weight peers by middle age, conferring an absolute risk of almost 50% compared with only 20% among their normal weight peers.  Writing that: “obesity was strongly associated with adverse cardiometabolic events before 55 years of age,” the study authors warn that: “young obese men had an absolute risk increase for type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular morbidity or premature death of almost 30%.”