Overweight in Middle Age? You'll Regret It Later ...

A large study has found that women who are overweight in midlife are far more likely than those who maintain a healthy weight to suffer from multiple chronic diseases and impaired mental health as they age. According to Science Daily, "It is the first study to show the role adiposity (fattiness) may play in the overall health of women who survive to older ages."

More broadly, this work is interesting because it doesn't focus on a single factor but on overall health later in life.

The study tracked Body Mass Index of over 17,000 British nurses who were middle-aged in the 1970s and are past 70 years of age now. To understand the terminology used in the study, a BMI of 18.5 - 22.9 is considered normal but "lean," from 23 - 25 is plain old normal, from 25 - 30 is "overweight," and 30+ is "obese" (you can compute your own BMI at the National Institutes of Health website here).

The researchers considered good health to mean that the subject could perform ordinary mental and physical tasks and was free of eleven major chronic diseases. Only 10% of the subjects met this standard.

The study showed that

• for every one point increase in Body Mass Index (BMI) -- that's plus or minus 10 pounds -- there was a 12% lower chance of reaching age 70 in good health when compared to women who maintained their weight.
• For every 1 kilogram (2.2 pound) gain in weight since age 18, the odds of survival past 70 years dropped 5 percent.
• Comparing extremes, obese women had an almost 80% lower chance of healthy survival to age 70 than "lean" women.
• Gaining weight in adulthood is bad ... "for all three BMI categories at age 18, those who gained weight had lower odds of healthy survival compared with women who maintained a stable weight."

The study isolated the effect of weight from other factors that influence health and longevity, such as smoking, socioeconomic status, diet, and lifestyle influences.

Study author Francine Grodstein is quoted in Science Daily saying "Our finding that being overweight at mid-life affects so many aspects of health simultaneously really emphasizes the harms of being overweight," said (Harvard School of Public Health's Francine) Grodstein.

--- Sources: Associated Press Science Daily British Medical Journal