Paris, Dec 23: Cardiovascular disease linked to obesity may be worse than thought while health problems associated with being underweight may have been overstated, according to a study published by the British Medical Journal today.
The paper, written by doctors in Britain and Sweden, seeks to finetune a well-known tool — the body mass index (BMI) — which is used to measure obesity and ill-health.
BMI entails taking one’s weight in kilos and dividing it by the square of one’s height, in metres. A BMI of 25-30 is generally considered overweight. While a figure of above 30 indicates obesity.
Previous studies have already found a big link between BMI and higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease, diabetes and some cancers.
In contrast, a low BMI — in other words, people who are very skinny — is associated with increased mortality from respiratory disease and lung cancer.
–PTI