Obesity is a major cause of mortality in the United States,'' concludes one of the surveys.
That data, which was to be announced today at the AMA's annual Science Reporters Convention, was based on telephone surveys of more than 100,000 participants each year between 1991-98. Being overweight has been strongly associated with greater risk of certain illnesses, including heart disease, high cholesterol and blood pressure, diabetes, stroke and some cancers. A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine of more than 1 million Americans concluded that obese people run a significant risk of dying early, even if they don't smoke and are otherwise healthy. The figures were adjusted for sex, age and whether the subjects smoked but did not factor in chronic disease or family histories that might indicate a predisposition to an illness. An editorial accompanying the obesity issue of JAMA calls for developing a comprehensive national strategy to prevent obesity.