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Obesity in the US on the rise

New US research has showed an alarming number of Americans are overweight and obese.

As a result they are at high risk of high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and death.

The obesity study

Researchers from Wake Forest University, North Carolina studied 6,814 middle-age or older adults participating in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, or MESA study.

Researchers found that more than two thirds of white, African American and Hispanic participants were overweight and one third to one half were obese.

They found that obese adults, compared with normal-weight adults, had:

• higher rates of high blood pressure - more than twice as high.
• abnormal lipids - two to three fold higher.
• increased incidence of Type 2 diabetes.
• increased rate of atherosclerosis and thicker heart walls.

Researchers conclusions

Researchers wrote in the Archives of Internal Medicine, "The obesity epidemic has the potential to reduce further gains in U.S. life expectancy, largely through an effect on cardiovascular disease mortality (death)."

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