Recently, a new study from Denmark showed that the risk of premature death caused by obesity has been decreased from 30% to 0% until now. A research paper published on JAMA magazine reveals more than 10 million data results analyzed by the team from the University of Copenhagen. The result indicated that risk of premature death caused by all kinds of factors among obese people is much higher than normal weight people. However, it was different in 2003-2013.
Public Health Policy in many countries suggests people maintain a healthy weight in order to avoid chronic diseases, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. So that it is promising to prevent premature death. Experts delimit normal weight range with BMI (body mass index) to define healthy weight. How to get the BMI? BMI is equal to kg/m2. The BMI range of an adult:
Obesity: over 30
Overweight: 25-29.9
Normal or healthy weight: 18.5-24.9
Thin: less than 18.5
The research indicated that the corresponding BMI range of the lowest mortality rate was different in 1976-1978, 1991-1994 and 2003-2013. Dr. Afzal noted BMI had increased from 23.7 to 24.6 and then reached to 27 in 2013. Whatever BMI is above or below this value, the risk of death will increase. Nordestgaard, an experienced writer and a clinical professor at University of Copenhagen and Copenhagen University Hospital, said that although the reason for this change is not clear to us, we may need to modify the overweight BMI range. And he complemented: "our research result should not be mistaken that people with normal weight should eat more to gain more weight. It just means that the overweight people maybe not as worried as before about their weight."
Naveed Sattar, a professor in Metabolic Medicine University of Glasgow evaluated that: "this research was informative, but it cannot subvert the suggestion for preventing and treating obesity. Further more, the development of modern medicine can lengthen people's lives, so it is inappropriate to define the threshold of obesity because of this research result. Obesity can cause all kinds of diseases, including type 2 diabetes, liver disease, cancer and so on, which can be treated properly now. However, these diseases still seriously affect the quality of life, so it is still necessary to prevent and treat obesity."