How do you define healthy weight loss? More than two dozen studies in the last 20 years have found that weight loss of more than 10 pounds leads to an increased risk of premature death, sometimes by a margin of several hundred percent. Only about four studies in that same period found that weight loss leads to lower mortality rates: one of them found that a permanent weight loss of 50 pounds would help you live about another month longer.
An American Cancer Society Study in the early 1990s showed that weight loss was associated with higher mortality even after screening out smokers and all deaths that took place within a few years of an individual's entry into the study (to screen out people who were losing weight because they were sick with an incurable disease). A follow up to the study found that obese women were better off if they didn't lose weight. Healthy women who intentially lost weight over the span of a year or longer suffered an increased risk of premature death from cancer, heart disease and other causes that was up to 70 percent higher than that of healthy women who didn't intentionally lose weight. A 1999 report on men found similar results.
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Date: 2005-09-09 11:12 am (UTC)More than two dozen studies in the last 20 years have found that weight loss of more than 10 pounds leads to an increased risk of premature death, sometimes by a margin of several hundred percent. Only about four studies in that same period found that weight loss leads to lower mortality rates: one of them found that a permanent weight loss of 50 pounds would help you live about another month longer.
An American Cancer Society Study in the early 1990s showed that weight loss was associated with higher mortality even after screening out smokers and all deaths that took place within a few years of an individual's entry into the study (to screen out people who were losing weight because they were sick with an incurable disease). A follow up to the study found that obese women were better off if they didn't lose weight. Healthy women who intentially lost weight over the span of a year or longer suffered an increased risk of premature death from cancer, heart disease and other causes that was up to 70 percent higher than that of healthy women who didn't intentionally lose weight. A 1999 report on men found similar results.