Study finds midlife obesity linked to heightened frailty risk in older age
Carrying far too much weight, including a midriff bulge, from mid-life onwards, is linked to a heightened risk of physical frailty in older age, finds research published in the open access journal BMJ Open. The researchers drew on participants in the population based Tromsø Study to find out whether general (BMI) and abdominal (waist circumference) obesity separately and jointly, might affect the risk of pre-frailty/frailty. The final analysis included 4509 people aged 45 or older.
By 2015-16, 28% of participants were pre-frail, 1% were frail, and 70.5% were strong. In all, nearly 51% of those who were strong and 55% of those categorised as pre-frail were women.
With the exception of co-existing conditions, such as diabetes, potentially influential factors, including alcohol intake and smoking, educational attainment, marital status, social support, and physical activity levels differed significantly between the strong and pre-frail/frail groups and were accounted for in the analysis.
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