Puffs and pounds pose similar threat to your health
POSTED February 25, 2009 - 13:28 | POSTED BY Riya Chauhan
Last edited by Shikha Patial on February 25, 2009 - 14:28
London, February 25: What is more likely to kill you early-- 10 cigarettes a day or excessive weight? Well, it’s a tie. Both can kill you equally, claim scientists.
Smoking and obesity are crooks of the same degree; both threaten your life similarly, says a new study.
The number of early deaths was found to be similar in people who smoked more than ten cigarettes a day and those non-smokers who were obese. The combination, obviously, multiplies the risk manifold. Heavy smokers, who carried excessive weight were five times more likely to die early than non-smokers of a healthy weight.
On studying the records of 45,920 men over an average 38 years, Swedish researchers found that the risk of being overweight as a teenager raised the possibility of death in that time by just over a third, while obesity doubled the risk.
Similarly, smoking more than ten cigarettes a day doubled the risk of dying.
The study subjects had mandatory military conscription tests in Sweden at the age of 18.
Their body mass indexdefine (BMI) was measured and all of them were asked whether they smoked. 2,897 of them died during the 38-year follow up; the incidence of death was highest among the obese.
"Obesity and overweight were as hazardous as heavy and light smoking," Martin Neovius of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and his colleagues wrote in the British Medical Journal.
"The obesity pandemic seems to affect children and adolescents more than adults."
The problem with most people is that they do not acknowledge the ill-effects of obesity to be similar to those of smoking. “You would want to intervene right away if you knew your child was smoking,” said Carolyn Landis, a pediatric psychologist who treats overweight and obese kids at Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland. But if your child is overweight or obese, she said, “take it seriously.”
"The global obesity epidemic and smoking among adolescents remain important targets for intensified public health initiatives," wrote the researchers.
