This is a major study that has just been published in The Lancet, a British medical weekly. Produced thanks to the association of 500 researchers and 300 institutions, including Emanuele Di Angelantonio, who officiates at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, it demonstrates the effects of overweight on life expectancy, based on 239 studies conducted around the world between 1970 and 2015. And the result is unequivocal:the analysis of the data, which concerns nearly 4 million adults on four continents, establishes that obesity is an increased factor in premature death, and a vector for the development of many diseases.
Thus, Emanuele Di Angelantonio, one of the many authors of the study, shows that in people who are overweight or suffering from obesity, "the risks of coronary disease, stroke, respiratory disease and cancer are all increased. He also states that on average, "overweight people lose one year of life expectancy, moderately obese people three years" and that "people with severe obesity […] lose about ten years of life expectancy. life”.
The World Health Organization (WHO) publishes alarming figures:it estimates the number of overweight adults in the world at 1.3 billion and the number of obese adults at 600 million (a figure which has doubled since the 1980s), which represents 39% of overweight adults in the world for 13% of obese. But according to the study, the effects of being overweight are three times greater in men than in women. Evidenced by the results obtained by calculating BMI (Body Mass Index, equal to weight – in kg – divided by the square of height in meters):while the risk of dying before age 70 is 19% for men and from 11% for women with a normal BMI, it climbs to 29.5% for men and 14.6% for moderately obese women (with a BMI between 30 and 34.9).
More than ever, this study demonstrates that obesity is a major health issue that deserves the full attention of researchers.
