Researchers say extremely obese people can expect to die about eight years earlier than healthier people.
The study, conducted by McGill University in Montreal, Canada, also found that obesity cut the number of years a person could expect to live without heart disease or diabetes by up to 19 years.
Quoted by CBS News, lead researcher Dr. Steven Grover confirmed the relationship between obesity and reduced health and said “While losing weight or exercising regularly is not easy for many of us, the potential benefits are huge.”
The results are slightly better for those who are overweight and not extremely obese.
According to the article, those classified as being overweight “could lose between 0 and 3 years of life expectancy, depending on their age and sex,” and “Among obese people, the investigators found, life expectancy was cut by 1 to 6 years, and among the very obese by as much as 8 years.”
The International Business Times quotes Grover as saying “The pattern is clear,” and that “The more an individual weighs and the younger their age, the greater the effect on their health, as they have many years ahead of them during which the increased health risks associated with obesity can negatively impact their lives.”
Another study published earlier this year had similar findings. The National Institutes of Health led research into the adverse effects of extreme obesity and found that life expectancy of the very obese dropped by as many as 14 years.
What’s more, “The researchers found that the risk of dying overall and from most major health causes rose continuously with increasing BMI within the class III obesity group,” and that the increase came mostly from “heart disease, cancer and diabetes.”
Troublingly, the article says “researchers found that the number of years of life lost for class III obesity was equal or higher than that of current (versus never) cigarette smokers among normal-weight participants in the same study.”
sources: CBS News, NIH, IBTimes