Research

Mixed

Moderate to severe weight change (loss or gain) of ≥5% within a 2-year interval is associated with a significantly increased risk of suicide mortality, exhibiting a reverse J-shaped curve.

If you experience rapid, unintentional weight loss or gain (≥5% in 2 years), it is a significant physiological stress signal. While weight loss is often pursued for health, rapid changes—especially if unexplained by diet/exercise—warrant medical and psychological evaluation to rule out underlying conditions or mental health risks, rather than simply viewing the change as a success or failure.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Moderate to severe weight change within a 2‑year interval is associated with increased risk of suicide mortality... those with severe weight loss or gain showed 1.8‑fold or 1.6‑fold increased risk of suicide mortality, respectively.
Kyuho Kim et al. · Diabetology & Metabolic Syndrome · 2025

Why this rating

Large-scale population-based cohort (n=2.1M) with long follow-up and robust adjustment for confounders, though observational design limits causal inference.

Source

The impact of weight change on suicide mortality: a nationwide population-based cohort study of 2 million Koreans

Kyuho Kim et al. · Diabetology & Metabolic Syndrome · 2025

DOI 10.1186/s13098-024-01559-7

cohort · n=2103525Cited 1×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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