Extreme obesity in adults can cut down as much as 14 years of life, a new research shows.
Health risks of obesity are well documented. Research shows that being overweight increases one's risk of premature death. This study aims to focus on health problems associated with class III obese people.
The team defines class III obesity as having a BMI higher than 40 kg/m2.
Researchers found that severely obese people had higher mortality rates due to heart ailments, cancer and diabetes.
The study was a meta-analysis of 20 studies from the National Cancer Institute Cohort Consortium. The team examined a total of 9,564 class III obese adults who did not smoke and were without any history of chronic disease. They were compared to 304,011 normal-weight adults.
Researchers then calculated annual mortality rates per 100,000 people. The results showed that over a time span of 30 years, mortality rates for obese men and women were 856 and 663, respectively. The rates for normal weight men and women were 346.7 and 280.5, respectively. Heart diseases, followed by cancer and diabetes were the major causes of death.
"Class III obesity is associated with excess rates of total mortality and mortality due to a wide range of causes, particularly heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, and that the risk of death overall and from these specific causes continues to rise with increasing values of BMI," the authors wrote in a a press release. "We found that the reduction in life expectancy associated with class III obesity was similar to (and, for BMI values above 50 kg/m2, even greater than) that observed for current smoking."
Researchers said that extremely obese people lost an estimated 6.5 to 13.7 years as opposed to normal-weight people. The team said that the findings are an addition to the already available data propagating a healthy weight and diet i to avoid early death risk..
The study, 'Association between Class III Obesity (BMI of 40 kg/m2) and Mortality: A Pooled Analysis of 20 Prospective Studies,' was published in PLOS Medicine.
