Fight Aging!

Being overweight appears to behave much as though you are accumulating damage to your biology. The more time you spend being overweight and the more excess visceral fat tissue you carry, the greater your risk of suffering age-related conditions later in life, the greater your lifetime medical expenditures, and the shorter your life expectancy. The mechanisms that cause these effects may be largely linked to levels of chronic inflammation, which are increased by visceral fat tissue, though there are undoubtedly other things going on under the hood.

Being overweight starting in young adulthood may significantly increase individuals' risks of developing kidney disease by the time they become seniors, according to [a new study]. The findings emphasize the importance of excess weight as a risk factor for chronic kidney disease (CKD). The researchers analyzed information from the Medical Research Council National Survey of Health and Development, a sample of children born in one week in March 1946 in England, Scotland, and Wales. A total of 4,584 participants had available data, including body mass index at ages 20, 26, 36, 43, 53, and 60 to 64 years.

Participants who were overweight beginning early in adulthood (ages 26 or 36 years) were twice as likely to have CKD at age 60 to 64 years compared with those who first became overweight at age 60 to 64 years or never became overweight. The link between overweight and CKD was only in part explained by taking diabetes and hypertension into account. Larger waist-to-hip ratios ("apple-shaped" bodies) at ages 43 and 53 years were also linked with CKD at age 60 to 64 years.

"We estimated that 36% of CKD cases at age 60 to 64 in the current US population could be avoided if nobody became overweight until at least that age, assuming the same associations as in the analysis sample."

Link: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/ason-osi032913.php