Death risk rises in women as obesity worsens

Obesity is known to increase a person's risk of death and now, new findings from a study of more than 90,000 women indicate that the risk continues to increase as the severity of obesity worsens.

"It's not good enough to consider obesity alone," principal investigator Dr. Kathleen McTigue of the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, told Reuters Health. "You need to look at degree of obesity."

In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, McTigue and colleagues evaluated the impact of body weight on death risk in 90,185 women enrolled in the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study. On average, the patients were followed for 7 years.

Body mass index (BMI), a measure of body weight for height, was used to classify the women as normal weight, overweight, or obese. Normal weight was defined as a BMI from 18.5 to 24.9 and overweight was a BMI from 25 to 29.9. The investigators defined three categories of obesity: obesity 1 (BMI of 30 to 34.9), obesity 2 (BMI 35 to 39.9) and extreme obesity (BMI 40 and higher).

"The risks of extreme obesity have not been well-defined," McTigue noted. But this study had enough subjects to assess that risk, she added.

As weight increases, so does the risk of death, but the risk is not statistically significant until one becomes obese, McTigue said. Compared with normal-weight women, she continued, "the risk of dying was increased 12 percent in all women in obesity category 1, while risk was increased 86 percent over seven years in women in obesity category 3."

In a University of Pittsburgh release, the researcher pointed out that "earlier studies, which tended to reflect lower degrees of obesity, may underestimate the risks of extremely obese individuals and overestimate the risk for mildly obese individuals in diverse groups."

She concluded, "More accurately assessing weight-related health risk may both improve policy decisions about obesity and assist women in making informed decisions about their health."

SOURCE: Journal of the American Medical Association, July 5, 2006.

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Obesity may affect pregnancy more than asthma

Complications of pregnancy in obese women with asthma may have more to do with obesity than with asthma, researchers report in the medical journal Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Lead investigator Dr. Israel Hendler told Reuters Health that his team hypothesized that "since obesity and asthma go together, the adverse outcomes shown in asthmatic women during pregnancy are due to the obese state and not to the asthma status."

Asthmatic women, he continued, "have more cesarean deliveries and more preeclampsia, because they are more obese and not because of their asthma status. We also showed that obese women have more asthma exacerbations during pregnancy."

Hendler of Hutzel Hospital-Wayne State University, Detroit, and a multicenter team studied data on about 1,700 asthmatic women and more than 800 pregnant women without asthma, the "control" group.

Some 30.7 percent of the asthmatic women were obese, compared with 25.5 percent of controls. Obese women, regardless of asthma status were 60 percent more likely to undergo cesarean delivery. These women were also 70 percent more likely to develop preeclampsia or high blood pressure and more than four times more likely to develop pregnancy-related diabetes.

There were no significant differences in rates of asthma improvement between obese and non-obese women (20.6 percent versus 23.6 percent). There were also no significant differences in rates of asthma deterioration (33.3 percent versus 28.8 percent). However, obese women were 30 percent more likely to have asthma exacerbations.

Given these findings, the researchers conclude that further study is needed on "the effects of excess weight gain and weight reduction on the course of asthma during pregnancy."

SOURCE: Obstetrics and Gynecology,

Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.