Obesity in 50s ‘gives you the health of a 75-year-old’

OBESITY makes you old decades before your time, with seriously overweight 55-year-olds likely to contend with the same health problems experienced by 75-yearolds who are not fat.

A study by researchers in the UK and Finland examined how likely people are to suffer from more than one health problem at once – so-called multiple morbidity – depending on age and weight.

While it is recognised that the obese are more likely than their thinner peers to suffer from problems such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer, the research is the first to quantify how obesity brings forward the age at which people develop health problems.

‘The proportion of participants of healthy weight with complex multi-morbidity by age 75 was observed by age 55 in participants with obesity,’ according to the study.

Complex multi-morbidity means four or more health conditions.

The team looked at a group of 115,000 Finns and found just under 20% of healthy-weight individuals had two identified health problems – termed simple multi-morbidity – by the age of 75.

Among those who were obese, that same proportion was reached by 55. Similar trends were seen in a study of 500,000 Britons.

The team added: ‘Compared with participants with healthy weight, people [of the same age] with obesity were at a five times increased risk of simple multimorbidity and more than 12 times increased risk of complex multimorbidity.’

But the study also found that the effect of obesity on mortality is not as pronounced, meaning the severely overweight are likely to struggle on in poor health for years rather than die decades early.

Ireland has one of the highest levels of obesity in Europe, with 60% of adults living with overweight and obesity.