Gaining weight in middle age cuts chances of healthy long life
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Researchers from Harvard School of Public.Health in Boston, Massachusetts, and the University of Warwick in Coventry analysed data gathered since 1976 from more than 17,000 female nurses living in 11 US states.
They found that women who were obese in middle age had 79 per cent lower odds of becoming a healthy 70-year-old compared with women who kept their weight at an ideal level.
The study also found that putting on weight from the age of 18 until middle age was a predictor of how long women would live in good health.
For every two pounds (just under 1kg) increase in weight gain since age 18, the odds of healthy survival decreased by five per cent, the researchers said.
The researchers divided the group of women into ‘healthy survivors’ who lived until at least 70 without any major long-term illnesses and were in good mental and physical health. Another group were ‘usual survivors’ who were women who lived until at least 70 but included some who had long-term diseases or had mental health, physical or cognitive problems.
Women who were overweight at age 18 and gained 22 pounds (10kg) of weight to middle age had particularly low chances of a being a healthy survivor – reduced by 82 per cent – compared with women who were lean and maintained a stable weight.
Obesity was defined as having a body mass index (BMI) over 30, while lean women had a BMI of 18.5 to 22.9.
At the start of the study, nurses filled in questionnaires on their lifestyles, weight and height and history of disease.
They were questioned again every two years for more than a 20-year period, providing updates on their health as well as weight and current lifestyle.
Any reported illnesses were checked against medical records and other data.
The authors concluded: “In summary, this study provides new evidence that greater adiposity at midlife is a strong risk factor predicting a lower probability of healthy survival among older women.
“In addition, our data suggests that weight maintenance throughout adulthood might be associated with optimal overall health at older ages.”
OBESITY IN BOYS ON THE RISE
A quarter of Australian children aged between five and 17 are either overweight or obese, figures published on Thursday indicated.
The data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) also showed that the nation’s kids spend an average of two hours a day in front of the television or computer.
The ABS said the increase in obesity was most marked in boys, with the rate doubling from five to 10 percent between 1995 and 2007-2008.
The overall obesity rate for children jumped from five to eight percent over the period.
The number of overweight but not obese children remained steady at about 17 percent.
“Overweight and obesity, in both children and adults, is a major health concern,” the ABS said.
“The rates were much higher for adults, with 61 percent of Australian adults overweight or obese in 2007/08.”
Australian children were spending on average two hours per day playing video games or watching television, the maximum recommended under national guidelines, the bureau said. READ MORE
“Around 45 percent of children who watched television, videos or DVDs, and 10 percent of children who played electronic or computer games, did so for 20 hours or more over the two-week (survey) period,” it said.
Of the children surveyed, 97 percent had watched television, videos or DVDs in the previous fortnight, and 64 percent had played electronic or computer games, the ABS said.
An estimated 37 percent of children aged five to 14 did not partake in any form of sport, even backyard games, it added.
“Obesity not only has significant health and social impacts, but also considerable economic impacts,” the ABS warned.
“In 2008, the total annual cost of obesity for both children and adults in Australia, including health system costs, productivity and carers’ costs, was estimated to be around 58 billion dollars (50.7 billion US).”
CHILDREN AND OBESITY DRUGS
The number of children on anti-obesity drugs has risen 15-fold in the last 10 years”, The Daily Telegraph reported. It said that a study of data from GPs between 1999 and 2006 shows up to 1,300 children and teenagers a year could be prescribed the drugs, even though they are not licensed for use by children. The newspaper said that most prescriptions “were for 14-year-olds, although 25 prescriptions were written for children under the age of 12”.
This research looked at a selection of GP records from practices covering 5% of the population. It is a well-conducted study and the results are likely to be representative of the rest of the UK. It found that the prescribing of unlicensed anti-obesity drugs to children and adolescents has increased significantly in the past eight years.
Because the data were collected from the time just after orlistat was licensed in the UK, and before sibutramaine was available, it is not surprising that the increase has been so large. However, the estimated absolute number of prescriptions for adolescents (1,300 a year) is large and is another reminder of the growing obesity crises in the UK.
OBESITY-ALCOHOL-DEPRESSION
Using data collected when young adults were 24, 27 and 30 years of age, a team of University of Washington researchers found that nearly half the sample of 776 young adults tracked during the study met the criteria for one of these conditions at each of these time points.
.”The proportion of people with all three of these conditions at any one point is small,” said Carolyn McCarty, the lead author of a new study and a UW research associate professor of pediatrics and psychology. “For women there is a great deal of overlap between these common emotional and health problems that span early adulthood. Men may develop one of these conditions but they don’t tend to lead another one later on.”
“These conditions are major public health problems. They take a toll on families and community and are not subject to quick fixes. It requires a lot of time, money and energy to treat them.”
The study found that:
Women with an alcohol disorder at age 24 were more than three times as likely to be obese when they were 27.
Women who are obese at 27 were more than twice as likely to be depressed when they were 30.
Women who are depressed at 27 were at increased risk for alcohol disorders at 30.
Obesity offers men some protection against later developing depression.
McCarty said the research did not uncover any step-by-step progression from one these disorders to another. However, she said clinicians treating women with one of these conditions should be aware that patients might develop another disorder.
McCarty said there are two possibilities as to why women with alcohol disorder at 24 were more likely to be obese at 27.
“The caloric intake associated with drinking alcohol may increase metabolic processes leading to weight gain. Or there may be an underlying connection to levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter, in the reward pathway in the brain because the same pathways reward both food and alcohol intake. It also may be that some people substitute food for alcohol, leading to obesity.”
She said body image may play a key role in why women who are obese at 27 are more likely to report depression three years later.
“Body image is particularly important for women. There seems to be a transfer that when women feel bad they eat more. That can have devastating effects emotionally and physically. But for men experiencing obesity, the reverse is true, and obesity seems to be protective against depression. It’s the so-called ‘jolly fat man’ theory, which suggests that overweight people are actually happier.”
The link between obesity at 27 and subsequent depression at 30 among women may develop as a result of individuals self-medicating themselves.
“People who feel more emotionally down may use alcohol for a quick lift or a short-term boost. The two conditions may be connected by an underlying stress mechanism. Stress is linked to depression, so women under stress potentially eat and drink more,” she said.
The study also showed that income has a significant effect on obesity at age 24 and those with higher incomes had a lower risk for weight problem.
McCarty said that finding is not surprising since many of the least nutritional items are inexpensive, and low income areas do not have the same sources of fresh fruits and vegetables that more affluent ones have.
“It costs more to eat well,” she said.
McCarty believes that intervention programs are needed and can play a key role in reducing the growing public health burden caused by these conditions.
“Early prevention is important because the sooner we start the more impact we can have. Interventions should include stress management so we can provide young people with tools to cope with situations and emotions. We also need to explore underlying factors that predispose people to these conditions, such as a family background that is not supportive or is toxic.”
Data from the study was drawn from the on-going Seattle Social Development Project, which has been tracking the life course of an urban group of now young adults since 1985. The group was almost evenly split between men and women and was 47 percent white, 26 percent African-American, 22 percent Asian American and 5 percent Native American.
WOMEN OBESITY+ CANCER
Being fat could become the leading cause of cancer in women in Western countries in the coming years, European researchers said Thursday.
Being overweight or obese accounts for up to 8 percent of cancers in Europe. Experts said that figure is poised to increase substantially as the obesity epidemic continues, and as major causes of cancer, such as smoking and hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women, drop dramatically.
“Obesity is catching up at a rate that makes it possible it could become the biggest attributable cause of cancer in women within the next decade,” said Andrew Renehan, a cancer expert at the University of Manchester. Renehan presented his findings to a joint meeting of the European Cancer Organisation and the European Society for Medical Oncology in Berlin on Thursday.
Renehan and colleagues designed a model to estimate the number of cancers that could be blamed on being fat in 30 European countries. In 2002, they calculated that 70,000 cases of cancer out of about 2 million cancer cases were attributable to being overweight or obese. By 2008, the number had jumped to at least 124,000.
Colorectal cancer, breast cancer in menopausal women and endometrial cancer accounted for 65 percent of all cancers linked to being fat. Renehan said that in the U.S., some studies found obesity was responsible for up to 20 percent of cancers.
Experts said the results should help shape future cancer policies across Europe.
“Being overweight or obese is likely to be one of the biggest single causes of cancer after smoking,” said Lucy Boyd, an epidemiologist at Cancer Research United Kingdom who was not linked to the research.
Scientists aren’t sure why being fat boosts your cancer risk, but suspect it is connected to hormones. As people become fatter, they produce more hormones like estrogen that help tumors grow. People with big bellies also have more acid in their stomachs, which can lead to stomach, intestinal or esophageal cancer.
Still, not all experts said obesity would produce skyrocketing cancer rates in the near future.
“It is not likely (obesity) will have as severe an effect as smoking,” said Jan Coebergh, a professor of cancer surveillance at Erasmus University, who has done similar research. Coebergh expected it would take a few decades before rounder Europeans would see a parallel rise in cancer, since the disease often takes years to develop.
Still, scientists called for more measures to fight obesity and the cancers it might cause.
Renehan said new strategies were needed to help people stay slim. “We need to find the biological mechanism to help people find other ways of tackling obesity,” he said. “Just telling the population to lose weight obviously hasn’t worked.”
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