Childhood obesity has lifelong effects

According to 2 studies published in this week's NEJM, children worldwide are gaining excessive weight that causes serious health problems in their adulthood.

The studies found that high body mass index in childhood increases the risk of coronary heart disease in adulthood. The authors said that healthy food and physical activities are the keys to prevent this health problem, but a national strategy involving parents to help these children to maintain an appropraite weight to reduce the future risk of heart disease is urgently needed.

Source:"Childhood Body-Mass Index and the Risk of Coronary Heart Disease in Adulthood" NEJM 357(23):2329-2337 (free full text)


"Adolescent Overweight and Future Adult Coronary Heart Disease" NEJM 357(23):2371-2379
(free full text)

Overweight men with prostate cancer have higher risk of dying

A new study that tracked 788 men with prostate cancer also looked at their BMI at the start of the trial and followed up for 8 years. The researchers found that men who are overweight when diagnosed with prostate cancer are twice as likely to die from it. The finding was published in the journal Cancer.


Source : "Obesity and Mortality In Men With Locally Advanced Prostate Cancer: Analysis of RTOG 85-31," Cancer; Published Online: November 12, 2007 (DOI: 10.1002/cncr. 23093); Print Issue Date: December 15, 2007

This is the 3rd post this month about overweight and cancer risk.

Being overweight does not increase death risk from cancer or heart disease

A new American federal report found that overweight increase the risks of dying from diabetes and kidney disease but not cancer or heart disease. The findings are based on decades of cause-of-death data collected by federal scientists. They also found a protective effect against all other causes of death.

Some dismissed the findings as fundamentally flawed while others saw that the dangers of being fat have been exaggerated. The author said the findings does not mean being overweight is good, but is associated with less mortality than expected.

Source : "Cause-Specific Excess Deaths Associated With Underweight, Overweight, and Obesity" JAMA. 2007;298(17):2028-2037

Cancer fears for overweight women

According to an article published in the BMJ, researchers matched body mass index (BMI) against cancer incidence to identify the risk of being overweight among UK women and found that obesity and overweight raised the risk of developing and dying from a range of cancer.

The study also found that the cancer risk was dependent on a woman's stage in life.


Source: "Cancer incidence and mortality in relation to body mass index in the Million Women Study: cohort study" BMJ, doi:10.1136/bmj.39367.495995.AE (published 6 November 2007)