Obesity poses as great a threat as smoking
The Mongolian Death Worm
Published: Jan. 5, 2010 at 4:47 PM
NEW YORK, Jan. 5 (UPI) -- Obesity has become an equal, if not greater,
contributor to illness and a shortened life as smoking, U.S.
researchers found.
Haomiao Jia and Dr. Erica I. Lubetkin of Columbia University and The
City College of New York calculated that the quality adjusted life
years lost due to obesity is now equal to, if not greater than, those
lost due to smoking.
The researchers used data from the 1993-2008 Behavioral Risk Factor
Surveillance System, which conducted interviews of more than 3.5
million individuals with annual interviews starting with 102,263 in
1993 and ending with 406,749 in 2008.
From 1993-2008, the proportion of smokers among U.S. adults declined
18.5 percent and smoking-related, quality adjusted life years lost
were relatively stable at 0.0438 quality adjusted life years lost per
population.
During this same period, the proportion of obese people increased 85
percent and this resulted in 0.0464 quality adjusted life years lost.
Smoking had a bigger impact on deaths while obesity had a bigger
impact on illness, the study found.
The study is to be published in the February issue of the American
Journal of Preventive Medicine.