Spiraling obesity could shorten US life expectancy

March 17, 2005 AFPP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The explosion in obesity in the United States, especially in children, will likely cut life expectancy, reversing two centuries of uninterrupted progress, the New England Journal of Medicine (news - web sites) said in a study. The excess weight problems and obesity now affecting almost two-thirds of Americans is increasing heart attack, cancer and diabetis risk, according to researchers. "The long-term consequences of the child obesity epidemic have yet to be seen," said David Ludwig, a researcher with the Boston Children's Hospital and co-author of the study. "The tsunami of childhood obesity has not yet hit the shore -- it takes many years for complications to develop," said Ludwig. "If the clock starts ticking at age 12 or 14, the consequences to public health are potentially disastrous -- imagine heart attack or kidney failure becoming a relatively common condition of young adulthood." Researchers underlined the unprecedented increase in children's diabetis due to obesity which the study's authors estimated has shortening life expectancy so far by up to nine months. Professory Jay Olshansky, epidemiologist (right) with the University of Illinois in Chicago who led researchers in the work, forecasts a two to five-year reduction in average longevity of Americans over the next few decades due to the rapid increase in obesity levels. The effects of obesity on the US mortality rate could even end up hitting harder than either cancer or cardiovascular illness, the two main causes of death today, he said. According to scientists, increase in mortality may even cancel out any longevity advantage gained through progress in biomedical technology. Latest estimates published in late February by the Centers for Disease Control showed life expectancy peaked at 77.6 years in the United States in 2003, compared with 77.3 in 2002.