Overweight partner, such as obesity, increased risk of death in healthy people

Being overweight is associated with an increased risk of death in healthy people, especially the fifty risk, even if this deleterious effect occurs to a lesser extent than from obesity, the results of a study published in the "New England Journal of Medicine" (NEJM).
It is already known that obesity is associated with an increased risk of mortality, but the association between overweight and eventual mortality has never been clearly established, remember Kenneth Adams, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Rockville (Maryland), and colleagues.

The researchers decided to look into the matter following for up to ten years, between 1995 and 2005, more than 527,000 Americans aged 50 to 71 years, including 61 317 died during follow-up (42,173 men and 19,144 women).

A first global analysis showed an increased risk of death for people with the body mass index (BMI, weight ratio of the square of height) the lowest and most important, whether in men or women, regardless of age and ethnicity.

A more detailed analysis, focused on healthy people who have never smoked, showed an association between the risk of death, not only obesity but also overweight and that, in both men and women.

But it is in the elderly than fifty years and have never smoked that these associations become stronger with an increased risk of death by 20 to 40% for overweight and multiplying this two to three risk for obesity.

Overweight in middle age appears therefore associated with an increased risk of death, the authors conclude.