Overweight seniors may live longer, UW study says
Being overweight later in life does not pose a significant health risk, while unintended weight loss is unhealthy for those 65 and older, a recent UW study found.
Biostatistics Professor Paula Diehr studied a group of 4,317 nonsmoking men and women aged 65 to 100 to examine the relationship between body mass index and mortality rates. lnformation on study participants was gathered over a five-year period.
Subjects who lost 10 percent or more of their weight since age 50 had a relatively high death rate—15.9 percent for women and 30.3 percent for men. Among this group, weight loss averaged 26 pounds for women and 29 pounds for men.
“We found no correlation between increased body mass index and mortality among study participants, says Diehr. “Instead, it appears that significant, unintended weight loss should be of primary concern.
“While research has found a link between high body weight and increased mortality for middle-aged people, this finding doesn’t appear to hold true for seniors. However, there is a need for more studies that follow older adults for longer than five years.”
The findings were published in the April 1998 issue of the American Journal of Public Health.