The Harvard School of Public Health has just concluded research that shows that women who are overweight at the age of 18 could be increasing their risk of a premature death. The research which still needs more work on other groups of people was conducted on over 100,000 female nurses in America between the ages of 24 to 44.

The long term study has been going on since 1989 looked at the present height and weight of the nurses as well as the their height and weight at the age of 18. Other factors like smoking, alcohol intake and physical exercise were also looked at. It was seen that the likelyhood of premature death was greater  for those  nurses that has overweight or obese when they were 18 years old. It was also noted that this applied even if they were only slightly overweight from their BMI.

While the results are interesting the researchers are urging caution as they feel that other groups that they have been studying over the long term need to have their data examined and they noticed that the majority of the nurses in the study were white so a better cross section was needed. The researchers also said that as all the results were self reported the data could be a little inaccurate.

In fact the researchers during the course of the study did in fact find some instances of incorrect reporting of weight on double checking the medical records of the nurses. The study was printed in the journal called the Annals of Internal Medicine and highlighted the connection that being obese or overweight has on the health of a person and his or her likelihood of suffering from certain diseases like heart disease or diabetes.

It is clear that by lowering your weight and going on a diet can negate the extra health risks asscociated with obesity. Ukmedix will report the results from the other study groups as they come into the newsroom.