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Future obesity risk

Health gains from smoking decline outweighed by negative effects of obesity

Posted in Diet, Tobacco on 3rd December, 2009 | no responses

A study in the United States has found that, although there have been improvements in health due to a reduction in smoking, the increases in obesity over the past 30 years have had adverse effects on health. The results from the study showed that the negative effects of increasing BMI overwhelmed the positive effects of declines in smoking in multiple scenarios.

The team behind the study concluded that if obesity trends continue, the negative effects of being obese on the US population will increasingly outweigh the positive effects gained from declining smoking rates. They warned that failure to address continued rises in obesity could erode the patterns of steady increases in health observed from the early 20th century.

Source: New England Journal of Medicine, 3 December 2009.

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