A long-term study conducted in Sweden and recently published in the British Medical Journal suggests that overweight individuals, and not just those who were obese, may also be subjected to increased risk of premature death. The study also suggested that the adverse effects of excess weight on mortality may be as significant as smoking cigarettes.
The study was conducted using data from Sweden's military service conscription register, census, and and cause of death register. 45,920 men were tracked for a period of 38 years. The average age of the men at the start of the study was 18.7 years. Over the course of the 38 year study 2,897 of the men died.
For the study, overweight men were defined as those with a body mass index (BMI) between 25.0 and 29.9. Obese men were defined as those with a BMI of 30.0 or more. The normal BMI for a health male was defined as ranging between 18.5 and 24.9.
After accounting for age, socioeconomic status, muscle strength and smoking, the researchers found that men who were overweight during adolescence when they joined the Swedish military in 1969 and 1970 had a 33% higher rate of mortality during the study period, as compared with their counterparts in the normal weight range. Obese men had an even higher risk, 114% elevated likelihood of death during the period. Similar relative mortality rates were obtained when smokers and non-smokers were analyzed separately. It appears that being overweight carries the same risk as that of smoking.
Smoking and excess weight combined appear to be a catastrophic lifestyle choice. Overweight heavy smokers demonstrated a mortality risk 155% higher than that of normal BMI nonsmokers. Obese heavy smokers suffered the worst, having a mortality risk that was 4.74 times higher than that of normal weight non-smokers.
Source:
Neovius M et al. Combined effects of overweight and smoking in late adolescence on subsequent mortality: nationwide cohort study. British Medical Journal 2009;338:b496.
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