Smoking and obesity are risk factors

Smoking and obesity are two major behavioral risk factors of premature death in the Western world, but it is unknown whether smoking and weight is the combined effect on the risk of death.

The researchers analyzed the causes of the deaths of more than 45,000 men, the compulsory military service in Sweden tests. All participants had measured the body mass index (BMI) and smoking recorded at age 18 and attended by an average 38 years ago. In general, the authors of approximately 1.7 million person-years of follow-up in terms of health and mortality of all participants.

During the monitoring period, 2897 people died, was the lowest mortality rate for people with normal weight and obese subjects in the highest.

Compared with adolescents of normal weight, overweight at age 18 the risk of premature death of the third just over a rise, although obese more than doubles the risk.

Underweight, not at risk regardless of smoking behavior. However, much lower than normal, a (body mass index below 17) that the same risk of premature death from excess weight.

The premature death as smoking is also linked to the number of cigarettes per day for participants. The increased risk participants increasingly heavy smokers smoke more than double risk of premature death compared with nonsmokers.

When the combined effects of weight and smoking, the researchers found no significant changes in results. The combination of obesity and smoking was associated with an excess risk of premature death in the connection (about five times the normal amount of non-smokers). However, no statistically significant interaction between these two factors.
This means that increases the overweight or obese in the age of 18 years, the risk of premature death, regardless of smoking, they explain.

The researchers found that of the primary measures in this study, has tripled the number of overweight young people in Sweden and those who are overweight has increased fivefold. However, the number of men has fallen to half smoke is weight and Sweden. Internationally, there was a significant increase in overweight and obesity and smoking among adolescents in certain countries.