massively reduced the danger of dying due to cardiovascular problems

A huge study shows that teenagers who have weight problems are much more likely to die of heart disease when they get older but they can massively reduce that risk if they lose the weight when they become adults.  The study which looked at nearly 19,000 men from the age of eighteen and followed them over 50 years is very important because it shows that while being overweight has clear and present health risks, most of them will disappear provided that you lose weight before the damage is done.

Professor Lee from the Harvard Medical School based in Boston said that it was extremely certain from the data that if you were overweight or obese as an adult the risk of you dying young was greatly increased. What was interesting was that those men who were obese as young men but lost weight as they grew older did not have excessive heart disease dangers and that those men who lost weight even when they were in their fifties and sixties also massively reduced the danger of dying due to cardiovascular problems.

This is important because many older people argue that it is no point them losing weight because the damage has already been done or they say that their body has got used to them being overweight. This research shows that losing weight at any age is always going to increase the amount of years that you live and prevent early death.

The survey which was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine also took into account other factors which could increase the heart disease risk such as smoking, high blood pressure and lack of exercise and nevertheless observed a clear link between extra weight and heart disease.

Surveys like this are important because they highlight the dangers of obesity which are underestimated or deliberately ignored by many overweight people. If you are overweight you are in great danger and you should never forget that!