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Obesity now biggest health threat: study
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
enlargeObesity has overtaken smoking and is now a bigger threat to people's health, American scientists report today.
Expanding waistlines now cause as much or more disease than tobacco,they say.
Researchers have predicted for years that as instances of obesity increased and smoking fell, there would come a time when the damage caused by the first would outrank the second. Now it has happened. Researchers from Columbia University and The City College of New York calculated the Quality-Adjusted Life Years (Qalys) lost due to both obesity and smoking.
The results are based on interviews with 3.5 million adults, the largest ongoing health study in the US. Experts have warned that the rise in obesity could lead to the first decline in life expectancy in 200 years.
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