Health Risks of Excess Fat

I came across a graphic that shows the outline of a body of a child next to a body of an adult.  Each figure is surrounded by text boxes with headers like lungs, throat, legs, etc and in the boxes are the risks associated with being overweight or obese for that particular body part or organ.  

The health problems of the child often carry over to the adult and are worse over time.  The bottom of the chart shows an arrow going from the words children to adults.  There is states that childhood obesity predicts adult health risks.  This information is similar to that found in the study I talked about a few days ago.  In fact, it was probably the references in that article that helped me to find this chart.  However, I cannot find it again.  I have only my one printed copy.

I wanted to make a note of the health risks for the people who continue to minimize the outcomes of being overweight or obese.  Remember, the good of the country is very much tied to the health of its people.  The public health.

I used the information in the handout to make the table below.  The graphic is attributed to Drs. Ann Prentice and Susan Jebb who are with an organization called Human Nutrition Research in the UK.  I found the authors on line, just not the document. If you are curious, here is the website. 

My table doesn't include the citations that the scientists included with the risk factors.  Everything in the table is associated with a research study, but I did not list them.

In the table, if a person has a greater risk, it means greater than someone who is not overweight or obese.  (I could have done a better job on this, but I really need to be packing for my trip to Florida in the morning, so sorry)
 

Children	Adults
Obese females have 3x the risk of asthma	Obese adults have 85% higher risk of asthma
3x risk of hypertension	6x the risk of hypertension
77% of obese children have fatty liver disease	76% of obese adults have fatty liver disease
Overweight and obese children have lower QOL scores	More than 4x higher depression
20% have sleep problems related to breathing	Most obese adults have chronic obs. sleep apnea
30% of overweight and 50% of obese have metabolic syndrome	7x the risk of diabetes for the morbidly obese
	93% higher risk for colon cancer
Increase in type 2 diabetes in all children	Twice the risk of breast cancer
7% higher risk of fractures	More than 4x greater chance of arthritis
Increase in kidney impairment	Losing weight returns ovulation to normal in many
Decreased tolerance for exercise	Higher risk for all cancer except, brain, lung, bladder and stomach
	Lower sperm counts in obese males

 

Life expectancy vs Life with disability

I read a very interesting study this evening that is published in the online version of the journal Obesity.
Life Expectancy and Life Expectancy With Disability of Normal Weight, Overweight, and Obese Smokers and Nonsmokers in Europe

BY: Istvan M. Majer, Wilma J. Nusselder, Johan P. Mackenbach and Anton E. Kunst

The sample population included over 60,000 persons pretty evenly split between males and females.  The average age was between 44 and 50 (there were nine countries included).  The information on health status, disability, weight, education, smoking status and more was gathered through self report in a standardized survey.  The populations were tracked over time and the researchers could assess disability and death, but for the most part, this information is subject to several biases.  For instance, a person might give false information because they couldn't recall or because they did not want to tell the interviewer something that might make the interviewer "judge" them.  This information is certainly helpful and we can look at associations between factors and outcomes. It is also important to note that the information refers to groups of people, many times what is true for a population is not true for an individual.


In this study, the researchers compared normal weight non smokers (they were considered the baseline, or referent group), to normal weight, overweight and obese smokers and non smokers.  Former smokers were excluded from the analysis due to the many variances amongst former smokers (quit date, years smoked, amount smoked, etc).


Still they did gather smoking status, and the sample characteristics showed a wide range of population smoking rates that were disturbingly high.  Greece, Spain and Denmark were all over 35% for men, no country had below 25% (for men).


What this study shows is a relationship between being overweight and living longer and living longer with disability or disease.  Smoking did not provide more disability - nor less, but it shortened the life expectancy in total.


The authors felt that smoking cessation would increase life and losing weight would increase years of life without disability. In other words, stop smoking and live longer, lose weight (or maintain a normal weight) and live better. 

The authors did not note a difference between men and women, but I saw a definite difference in disability years in the chart that they provided.  I am actually going to see if I can post it in here. 

It shows four graphs.  The two on top are for men (non smoker v smoker) and the two on the bottom are for women. [we must remember that these are pooling of data from 9 countries which are not necessarily similar]

They also compare persons by education, but I feel like the more telling factor would have been income.  In this chart, and in the sample, women live several years longer than men, but they also have more years of living with disability.  For instance, low educated obese women had about 20 years LWD (living with disability) and men in the same category have 14.7.  In every block, the women have more years of disability.  The authors also calculated percent of life lived with disability - that was interesting too.  Again, the differences are not between smokers and non smokers(for percent of life spent disabled), but between men and women.  I am actually very curious why the graphics point this out but the scientists do not emphasize it.  You know what that means - I will have to email the lead author (okay I am back - email sent :)). 

 I do not say this to be fickle, but because for instance, in the obese category for non smokers, men have 19% of disability years and women have 28% - it is substantial.  If it is not significant - well there are not statistics to make inferences- thus I wrote to ask.

Take home message - don't smoke and do lose weight because those extra ten years won't mean near as much if you cannot do anything.  :)

Okay I got the chart in  -  for education purposes.  Note that the bottom half is disease free life expectancy and the top is life with disability.  Do you see the differences between the various groups?



From the study published in Obesity 3-17-2011 Majer, et al.