In a new study, researchers found people who carry around unhealthy amounts of weight don’t just have heart disease and diabetes to worry about.
Obesity is implicated in two-thirds of the leading causes of death from diseases worldwide and the risk of certain diseases differs for men and women.
The research was conducted by a team at the University of Oxford.
As rates of obesity continue to grow worldwide, scientists have begun to suspect that excess weight might lead to or exacerbate other causes of death besides heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
To identify additional causes of death made worse by obesity, the researchers performed an analysis that explores cause-and-effect relationships using genetic data and three measures of obesity from 228,466 women and 195,041 men in the UK Biobank.
Their analysis showed that obesity contributes to a laundry list of health problems including coronary artery disease, type 1 and 2 diabetes, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, chronic liver disease, and kidney failure.
While obesity causes type 2 diabetes in both women and men, women experienced a higher risk of type 2 diabetes as compared to men, while men faced a greater risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and chronic kidney disease.
These findings show just how harmful carrying excess weight can be to human health, and that women and men may experience different diseases as a result.
They have potential implications for the design of public health strategies and suggest that different preventative measures targeted at men and women may be warranted.
The lead author of the study is Cecilia Lindgren.
The study is published in PLOS Genetics.
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