Research

Mixed

Longer duration of obesity is independently associated with increased all-cause and cause-specific mortality, with risk increasing significantly for every additional 2 years of obesity duration.

If you have been obese for a long time, your risk of dying from any cause, heart disease, or cancer is higher than someone who has never been obese, even if your current weight is normal. This risk accumulates over time. The best strategy is to achieve and maintain a healthy weight as early as possible to minimize the total years lived with obesity.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
The adjusted hazard ratio (HR) for mortality increased as the number of years lived with obesity increased... For every additional 2 years of obesity, the HRs for all-cause, cardiovascular disease, cancer and other-cause mortality were 1.06 (95% CI 1.05–1.07), 1.07 (95% CI 1.05–1.08), 1.03 (95% CI 1.01–1.05) and 1.07 (95% CI 1.05–1.11), respectively.
Asnawi Abdullah et al. · International Journal of Epidemiology · 2011

Why this rating

Large prospective cohort study (Framingham) with long follow-up (up to 48 years) and rigorous statistical adjustment.

Source

The number of years lived with obesity and the risk of all-cause and cause-specific mortality

Asnawi Abdullah et al. · International Journal of Epidemiology · 2011

DOI 10.1093/ije/dyr018

cohort · n=5036Cited 374×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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