Losing weight if you are obese will improve your health. This might seem obvious but a recent study provides the numbers to reinforce the importance of being a healthy weight.
Research published under the title Healthy Living is the Best Revenge concluded four lifestyle factors can have a strong impact on preventing chronic diseases. In order of their impact the four factors are: having a body mass index of less than thirty, never having smoked, exercising 3.5 hours per week and eating healthy food.
People with all four factors had a 93% lower risk of developing diabetes, an 81% lower risk of a heart attack, a 50% lower risk of a stroke and a 36% lower risk of getting cancer compared with people that had no factors.
The full report can be downloaded from www.archinternmed.com. For example in the detailed results a body mass index of less than thirty was strongly related to a lower risk of diabetes.
Healthy Living is the Best Revenge
E S Ford, M M Bergmann, J Kroger, A Schienkiewtz, C Weikert and H Boeing
Archive of Internal Medicene, Vol 169, No 15, August 10/24, 2009
