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Health

Study: CDC overstated danger for the overweight

CHICAGO - Being overweight is nowhere near as big a killer as the government thought, ranking No. 7 instead of No. 2 among the nation's leading preventable causes of death, according to a startling new calculation from the CDC.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated Tuesday that packing on too many pounds accounts for 25,814 deaths a year in the United States. As recently as January, the CDC came up with an estimate 14 times higher: 365,000 deaths.

The new analysis found that obesity - being extremely overweight - is indisputably lethal. But like several recent smaller studies, it found that people who are modestly overweight actually have a lower risk of death than those of normal weight.

Biostatistician Mary Grace Kovar, a consultant for the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center in Washington, said "normal" may be set too low for today's population. Also, Americans classified as overweight are eating better, exercising more and managing their blood pressure better than they used to, she said.

The study - an analysis of mortality rates and body-mass index, or BMI - was published in today's Journal of the American Medical Association.

Based on the new calculation, excess weight would drop from the second-leading cause of preventable death, after smoking, to seventh. It would fall behind car crashes and guns on the list of killers.

Calculating the health effects of obesity has been a major source of controversy at the CDC.

Last year, the CDC issued a study that said being overweight causes 400,000 deaths a year and would soon overtake tobacco as the top U.S. killer. After scientists inside and outside the agency questioned the figure, the CDC admitted making a calculation error and lowered its estimate three months ago to 365,000.

CDC director Julie Gerberding said that because of the uncertainty in calculating the health effects of being overweight, the CDC is not going to use the new figure of 25,814 in its public awareness campaigns and is not going to scale back its fight against obesity.

"There's absolutely no question that obesity is a major public health concern of this country," she said.

One major reason for the far lower number in this latest study is that it used more recent data, researchers said.

"This analysis is far more sophisticated," said Kovar, who was not involved in the new study. "They are very careful and are not overstating their case."

A related study, also in Wednesday's JAMA, found that overweight Americans are healthier than ever, thanks to better maintenance of blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

[Last modified April 20, 2005, 02:56:36]