‘The New England Journal of Medicine’ has just published a global research about the effects of the overweight and obesity on children and adults. All over the world, more than 2,000 millions of children and adults suffer from health problems related to obesity and overweight. The full university professor of the Universitat de València, Rafael Tabarés-Seisdedos, is the co-author of this study.
The research has been conducted in 195 countries during 25 years (1980-2015). ‘The New England Journal of Medicine’ has an impact of 72,04 in 2016 that places the research in the first position out of 154 in the category of Medicine, and in the second position out of 12062 magazines of ‘Journal Citation Reports’.
According to the study, an increasing percentage of people die due to these weight problems. This is because there is an increase in the risk of suffering from diseases such as cardiovascular, diabetes or several types of cancer. Out of the 4 millions of deaths related to the overweight in 2015, nearly the 40% occurred among people whose BMI was below the “obesity” line.
The discoveries represent “an increasing and alarming global crisis of public health”, have claimed the authors of the article. Professor Rafael Tabarés-Seisdedos, full university professor of Psychiatry of the Universitat de València, is the co-author of the publication and claims that this work, “is encyclopaedic because of its magnitude and completeness. The results are really disquieting at an international level, also for Spain and, in particular for the most vulnerable populations such as children and people with mental disorders. We are underestimating the magnitude of the overweight and obesity and the health consequences”.
The study is based on the data of the most recent study about the global burden of disease (GBD), a systematic and scientific effort to estimate the magnitude of the health loss of all the main diseases, injuries and risk factors taking into account the age, genre and population. With more than 2,300 contributors in 133 countries, the GBD study analyses more than 300 diseases and injuries.
The work includes analysis of other studies about the effects of the overweight and the possible links between the high BMI and several types of cancer such as esophageal, colon and rectal, gallbladder, pancreas, breast, uterine, ovarian, kidney and thyroid. As well as the leukaemia.
According to the research, the overweight in 2015 affected 2,2 billion children and adults all over the world, or the 30% of the total population. This includes almost 108 million children and more than 600 million adults with a BMI higher than 30, which is the obesity line. The obesity has been doubled since 1980 in more thna 70 countries and has increased continuously in the majority of the other countries. Although the obesity is minor in children rather than adults, the growth rate of child obesity in some countries was higher.
Among the twenty most populous countries, the highest level of obesity in children and adults goes to United States (13%), and Egypt is the leader of the adult obesity ranking (35%). The lowest rates go to Bangladesh and Vietnam (1%). China, with 15,3 million inhabitants, and India, with 14,4 million, had the highest rate of child obesity. The United States with 79,4 million and China with 57,3 million had the highest rate of adult obesity in 2015. In Spain, the 20% of women older than 20 years and the 16% of men are fat. This supposes an increase of 5% in comparison to 1980.
Links of interest:
http://www.healthdata.org/news-release/new-study-finds-more-2-billion-people-overweight-or-obese
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1614362
Last update: 19 de june de 2017 07:43.
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