Regardless of lifestyle and other health factors, heavier people would be more likely to be hospitalized.
Regardless of lifestyle and other health-related factors, heavier people were more likely than thinner people to be hospitalized for different diseases, according to a study in Australia.
What’s more, this was the case not only for obese people but also for those simply overweight, the researchers wrote in the International Journal of Obesity .
Among middle-aged adults, the researchers found that each extra point of body mass index (BMI) – equivalent to between 2.7 and 3.2 kg – was related to a four percent higher chance of being admitted to a hospital over a period of time. two years.
“There is considerable evidence that severe obesity is bad for health, leading to higher rates of illness and consequently higher use of medical services and higher rates of death,” said study lead author Rosemary Korda. , from the Australian National University in Canberra.
“What this study shows is that there is a gradual increase in the risk of hospitalization as the BMI rate increases, starting in overweight people. In other words, even being overweight (not obese) increases the risk. “
Korda and his colleagues recruited nearly 250,000 people over 45 from New South Wales. After monitoring their height, weight, and other health-related and lifestyle parameters, the researchers tracked the participants using hospital data.
In the following two years, they had more than 61,000 hospital admissions that lasted at least one night.
Korda’s team found that among people considered in the normal BMI range, there were 120 hospitalizations for every 1,000 men and 102 for every 1,000 women a year. For those considered severely obese, there were 203 hospitalizations for every 1,000 men and 183 for every 1,000 women, on average.
Moderately overweight and obese people had intermediate hospitalization rates between the previous two.
A BMI between 25 and 30 is classified as overweight, while obesity is from 30.
This pattern was maintained even after taking into account whether participants smoked, how physically active they were, and their overall health status at the start of the study.
Being overweight seemed to play a special role in hospitalizations for diabetes, heart disease, chest pain, arthritis and asthma, the researchers reported.
“Extending research to overweight people … is a unique contribution,” said Robert Klesges, a preventive medicine researcher at the University of Tennessee Center for Science and Health in Memphis.
“It basically comes to tell tens of millions of Americans that ‘now you are in danger,'” added Klesges, who was not involved in the study.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 36 percent of adult Americans are obese, and another 33 percent are overweight.