Weight And Health: Obesity

Content provided by the Faculty of the Harvard Medical School

Weight and health

Excess body weight increases your risk for more than 50 different health problems (see Figure 2). These health conditions include the nation's leading causes of death — heart disease, stroke, and certain cancers — as well as less common ailments such as gout and gallstones.

Figure 2: Medical complications of excess weight Excess weight increases a person's risk of more than 50 different medical conditions that affect all the major systems of the body. One of the most common is type 2 diabetes, which can lead to serious complications in the heart, kidneys, nerves, and eyes.

A Harvard study that combined data from more than 50,000 men (participants in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study) and more than 120,000 women (from the Nurses' Health Study) revealed some sobering statistics about weight and health. The volunteers provided their height and weight, as well as details on their diets, health habits, and medical histories. Researchers tracked the volunteers over more than 10 years, noting the occurrence of illnesses and comparing those developments with each subject's BMI.

Obesity increased the risk of diabetes 20 times and substantially boosted the risk of developing high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, and gallstones. Among people who were overweight or obese, there was a direct relationship between BMI and risk: the higher the BMI, the higher the likelihood of disease.

Last updated:	June 20, 2007