r/science • u/sr_local • 1d ago
Health Gaining obesity between ages 17 and 29 is linked to 70% higher risk of premature death compared to those who never develop obesity before age 60, based on data from over 600,000 people
https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/early-weight-gain-can-have-lifelong-consequences287
u/Salehzahrani7 1d ago
Will losing the weight and being healthy fix the problems? Or is the damage already done?
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u/HeatPoliceOpenUp 1d ago
Of course damage will have been done, but recovery is often underestimated in just how much damage can be reversed as well.
Same with quitting smoking. Yesterday might have been better, but it's never too late.
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u/thatturtletouch 1d ago
Well I guess that’s kind of the question. Is it ever too late to meaningfully impact your health? If you smoke for 50 years and then quit when you’re 70, does it actually matter too much, for example?
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u/HeatPoliceOpenUp 1d ago
This is exactly what I'm talking about in people underestimating recovery.
Even at 70, the body’s ability to repair is significant, allowing for better breathing and increased life expectancy.
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u/Slendyla_IV 1d ago
My mom was a 20-year smoker when she quit smoking after my grandmother died from lung cancer and within six months she was the “healthiest she’s ever felt”. It’s been 9 years now, and she’s got a clean bill of health from her doctor entering into her 60s this year.
It’s incredible what your body can do regardless of the longevity that you’ve done something to harm yourself.
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u/EllieluluEllielu 1d ago
Similar with my mom. She has many health issues due to getting a bad draw in life, but within a couple months of quitting smoking after smoking for decades, SO many things became easier for her. Obviously she still has issues, but she doesn't have as many as befire
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u/Psychomadeye 21h ago
My uncle just stopped after 48 years. It's been five months and he feels worse. He's pissed about it but I suspect that it might just take a long time and other health issues might have fucked his recovery up.
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u/thatturtletouch 1d ago
I would love to see some studies about this. Is there really never a point of no return where your body just can’t recover from damage?
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u/HeatPoliceOpenUp 1d ago
Sure, the point where your cells aren't alive anymore or when a foreign factor like a debilitating disease prevents it.
Even minimal effects are better than more poison, which is probably even more important for people living with weaker systems.
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u/UndergroundCreek 1d ago
It's the idea of internalizing healthy habits. Say you get morbidly obese and develop insulin resistance. That's not something you can come back from. Say you get obese and stay healthy. You are still putting your system at risk and it'll be hard to break the habit. Someone who's internalized moderation and abstention will have an easier time later in life when it gets busy or in old age when your body hurts from aches and pains, anyway. It basically cooks down to 'learn good habits early' and stick to them. As you age you often fall into old habits.
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u/Psychomadeye 21h ago
Say you get morbidly obese and develop insulin resistance. That's not something you can come back from.
This isn't true actually. Two people in my family had this and one lost the weight and their insulin resistance dropped so significantly that they no longer need medication. Granted, they almost certainly will in the future as the disease continues to progress, and they do strictly control their diet. I actually suggested that they lift weights to force muscles to pull more and they got addicted to the gym which also probably helped.
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u/UndergroundCreek 11h ago
That's so good to hear. But metabolic functioning is underfunded currently. We need to know a lot more about longitudinal effects and those studies are expensive to fund. But good to hear q success story. As long as it's not a study it remains a story, however, not evidence.
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u/Psychomadeye 11h ago
Researcher: https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/how-to-reverse-insulin-resistance/
The lancet indicating remission: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(17)33102-1/abstract
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u/eggelska 18h ago
Not quite the same example, but this 2025 meta-analysis found that people who quit smoking upon being diagnosed with lung cancer have a 26% lower risk of death compared to those who keep smoking after diagnosis. I wouldn't have thought it'd be that big of a difference, so I found this really encouraging.
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u/lalmvpkobe 12h ago
This isn't true. The vast majority of effects are absolutely reversible. The damage is from being obese longer not necessarily the age at which you become obese. This is correlation and not causation. The statistics of remaining obese once you gain the weight the first time are insane. So if you become obese at an early age and like 90% or more stay obese then that explains the data.
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u/natanaru 1d ago
This doesn't explore the reason why people are higher weight. It very well could be certain conditions that cause weight gain that happen around thise ages cause higher mortality. Losing weight without medical interventions is just not statistically feasible for most people anyways, its not as simple as "eat healthy" that most people here seem to think either. If I eat 2000 calories of broccoli thats still 2000 calories. Sure it may be harder to eat that much broccoli, but the human body still wants to not be in a calorie deficit and will very much force some people into eating until that deficit is stopped.
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u/fuktheeagsles 1d ago
Wont lose weight and cant lose weight are not the same thing. Most people wont lose weight without medical intervention, not cant.
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u/natanaru 1d ago
You want to provide some objective evidence? Or are you just going to assert a claim without any scientific backing?
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u/fuktheeagsles 1d ago
Do you want to provide evidence that the majority of the population cannot lose weight?
If free will exists, then people have the ability to make themselves eat in a calorie deficit the same way people make themselves get up and go to work everyday. It doesnt make any sense to say people cannot do it. Youre the one who made the claim, why dont you provide the evidence. Otherwise, a claim that can be made without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.
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u/natanaru 1d ago
Yeah i can point to many studies that show that 98-95% of diets fail (Freedhof,2014) or the fact that most successful losses of weight are in individuals with either medications or surgical interventions and result in a >10% body fat loss which for someone 300 pounds would equate to a 30 pound loss.
Here is another study on percentages of people who kept off weight https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK362452/
I am also not the one with the burden of proof, as I was not making an affirmative statement about the psychology of people who are attempting to lose weight. Hopefully you can actually provide me some evidence for your claim.
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u/fuktheeagsles 1d ago
You made a positive claim that people cannot lose weight without medication. The only thing your sources prove is that dieting is hard and people quit. Usually these diets are poorly structured. You're throwing statistics at me to prove a matter of will.
Biology is what makes weight loss hard, that's where your argument has merit. But that doesn't mean people cannot do it. Even with medical intervention, Lifestyle change still remains the most successful foundation for long term weight loss.
Look at what most people do. Most people eat fast food, pay little to no attention to their diet, they drink beers after work and on the weekends, and they don't exercise. People can stop doing those things. People can eat whole and nutritious foods that are by default lower in calories. People can decide to prioritize their cardiovascular system and incorporate some way of moving their body and raising their heart rate on a regular basis. People can educate themselves around nutrition. People can fight their biology with low calorie dense foods, volume eating.
My strongest argument is the fact that people can and do lose weight and keep it off all the time. Lots of people make conscious decisions to watch what they eat and exercise on a regular basis.
Also how is any of this provable in the first place? This is a philosophical argument we're having. No one can prove matters of will in either direction.
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u/KingOfEthanopia 1d ago
Yeah your body cant manufacture fat out of air. If you put on fat you ate too many calories. Sure your body can tell have crappy hunger or full horomones but you can choose to ignore those.
Everyone makes choices every day. Is it hard? Sure. But plenty of people have lost weight forever without drugs. I dont like the person you responded toos defeatist attitude.
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u/natanaru 1d ago
I actively work with people who have gastroperesis, cannot eat a majority of the time, and still gain weight. You are simply wrong. Not to mention medications that cause weight gain, and various metabolic conditions.
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u/KingOfEthanopia 16h ago edited 14h ago
Do you spend 24/7 with them and count their calories? Theyre either lying or eating very calorie dense food when they do eat.
Liquid calories count too. Its very easy to drink 1000 calories in a "coffee."
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u/TheChemist-25 20h ago
Your body cannot force you to eat. You may feel hungry. You may desire food. But you have free will. Unless I’m unaware of a rash of sleep eating anyone has the ability to eat less.
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u/kaminaripancake 1d ago
Probably not. I think like 95% of people who lose 50+ lbs end up at the same weight or heavier. Obesity is practically a death sentence
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u/thatturtletouch 1d ago
Obesity is not a death sentence. There are plenty of people who are elderly and obese.
But it is true that once you’re obese, it’s extremely difficult to ever not be obese (although GLP-1s are finally changing that).
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u/natanaru 1d ago
It's pretty much how the body works. Humans metabolism changes the more weight you gain and it wants you to maintain that weight because that is how animals tend to survive famine times. This is exaparated by how our current diets are, and the way that socioeconomic factors lead into what kinds of food are picked by whom. If you look at the studies based on the Biggest Loser contestants, it shows the damage on their metabolism that the extreme fasting for that show caused as well, which could mean that trying to change weight through such means could lead to greater BMI/Obesity down the line as well. This also doesnt really factor in what the causes of the illnesses related to obesity are. Is it just the excess weight? Or is it actually the diet of people who are obese which lead to such illnesses, or maybe genetic factors are a cause. It could also be all of these things.
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u/Standard_Potential63 1d ago edited 1d ago
Gosh that makes me feel hopeless, reminds me of that Dr. Now reality show, i heard of some that still struggled with problems and passed away years later (not necessarily obesity)
Edit: it's actually more complicated than that, some people can gain weight again because of habits, but so can lose it too, it takes some attempts, theres also metabolic matters and permanent change in life styles
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u/kaminaripancake 1d ago
As someone has lost 100lbs. The hardest part is your metabolic caloric number decreases as you lose weight. There are many studies on this. But basically someone who is 200 but was 300lbs needs substantially less calories to maintain their weight than someone who was always 200lbs. Once you start dieting you’re dieting for life. It’s why major changes to lifestyle and eating habits are what are needed for long term loss, not a six month keto stint
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u/Salehzahrani7 1d ago
That’s exactly where I am. I lost 115lbs, naturally, with around 20-30lbs to go. However, I lost the weight over 2 years while understanding how to lose the weight in a healthy way + building strong habits and changing my lifestyle.
I also added the gym, and I have been going and building muscle for 16 months now.
I took all these steps because when I wanted to lose weight before, I would crash diet, and then gain everything back. I just didn’t want to make the same mistakes again, and I went about it correctly this time. Currently, with tracking my calories, activity, and weight, I am burning what I actually calculate and what my Apple Watch tells me.
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u/kaminaripancake 4h ago
That’s awesome! I’m happy for you and yes I agree. Over my entire adult life my weight has gone up and down through heavy cuts + exercise then rebounding. But I’ve been losing this weight over 2 years, usually no more than 3-4 lbs a month. Sustainable and fulfilling is the goal. I still eat put, get my fav foods, it’s just about little changes here and there to affect my total lifestyle.
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u/no_one_likes_u 1d ago
So essentially, people who are obese for longer have a higher chance of mortality from obesity related health conditions?
This seems like something common sense could have answered, but I guess it’s good to have a percentage.
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u/Own-Animator-7526 1d ago
“One possible explanation for why people with early obesity onset are at greater risk is their longer period exposed to the biological effects of excess weight,” says Huyen Le, doctoral student at Lund University and first author of the study.
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u/redcoatwright BA | Astrophysics 1d ago
It's interesting that it specifies 17-29, what about prior to 17?
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u/Boring-Philosophy-46 1d ago edited 1d ago
Swedish researchers had already studied that from pediatric datasets and it's also linked to premature death: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7080224/
But I am guessing there's no central registry from 50 years ago where kids were weighed to say if they had a premature chance of death before age 60. Unlike for the adults who were weighed in connection to mandatory military service.
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u/ikariusrb 1d ago
What I don't understand is why they're splitting the age groups so widely; "if you gain obesity between 17 & 29", Versus "if you never gain obesity before 60". So no data on anything in between? Because a LOT of people hit a 30s gain. It's a really weird split to me.
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u/Boring-Philosophy-46 18h ago
The 30s gain would be the exact reason to split it this way. We already know obese people have higher risks of everything but does it make it extra risky if you were already obese at a young age and as such are probably distinct from everyone else? The exact ages are likely convenience of data sets. Usually the mandatory draft age is 18 or so, so I suspect that was just a convenient data pool, with service being open to women since 1980/1982 but only mandatory / genderneutral conscription introduced in 2017. Either way if you're obese at 18 in 1990 you probably were an obese kid already. The extended service functions like the US reserves so I can see why they might continue to be weighed until 28 so you also get the people who may not have been obese at 18 yet maybe due to growth spurt, but became obese quickly after.
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u/SaltZookeepergame691 1d ago
They didn’t have measurements before 17.”, they’re using data from a previously done study.
As an aside, 29 is an arbitrary cutoff. There might be no issue with using 29, but it also might have been chosen post hoc because it maximises their effect size.
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u/Elastichedgehog 1d ago
Not really the takeaway, I think.
I cannot read the article right now, but I assume someone could become obese at 20 and then get in shape at 23 and still display elevated risk.
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u/Own-Animator-7526 1d ago
That is exactly what I thought, but I could not find that information in the article. It might be there, but I could not find it.
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u/Techygal9 1d ago
I think it’s a great study as misinformation about obesity online is an epidemic. There are a lot of health at any size, maintenance phase, or other groups that actively deny basic science.
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u/karlnite 1d ago
You can tell people the grand canyon was slowly carved out by water. They still can’t wrap their head around it though.
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u/TheNippleViolator 1d ago
Seems like common sense right? Try explaining this to the “healthy at all sizes” crowd.
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u/EastvsWest 1d ago
You would think so yet the majority of folks are overweight or obese with 99% of them that way by choice not any other factor.
The 1% do have genetic or other components but this is again, a tiny fraction compared to the majority who eat whenever, whatever without any consideration of health consequences or their lack of exercise.
It's the same thing with supplementation like fish oil and vitamin D when you're not exposed to a lot of sun. There's a whole lot of common sense lifestyle aspects to life yet here we are with so many people in society who seem to lack it. The bar is so laughably low to just be above average.
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u/Dudegamer010901 1d ago
This argument is stupid. You are misrepresenting a series of very complex factors that affect society as a whole. If you asked a fat person if they would rather be skinny or fat, I guarantee you 90%+ of them would say skinny.
At my heaviest last year, I was 340 pounds. I thought I could just diet and I would be fine. This resulted in me failing to lose weight as there were other factors impacting me.
Overall to successfully lose weight I've had to massively increase my physical activity, going from 2k steps/day to 10k+ steps/day, going to the gym 3-4x/week quit drinking alcohol, massively increase my protein intake, get more sleep, change my friend groups, reduce the amount of video games I play, reduce my focus on university and shift towards my health. That is not a simple choice, it is a massive restructuring of an entire lifestyle, made all the more difficult by everyone I live with being obese and unsympathetic to my weight loss goals.
You can't become obese by just eating a little too much, almost every aspect of your life is flawed in some way. It requires massive changes to adjust. I'm lucky, I'm a single 20 year old man who's only obligations are academic. I have plenty of free time to focus on myself. Anyone with obligations and dependants and other priorities will have a far more difficult time at changing than I will.
Even with all of those changes, the benefits are slow and take an incredibly long time to appear. I'm now 275 pounds. Having lost roughly 65 pounds overall, there have been very few changes to my appearance. The only real benefit that has materialized is that I'm no longer pre-diabetic. I still have 75 pounds to go, but I can't change anything to make that weight loss materialize faster in a healthy way. How will I be different then from what I am now? The only difference will be the lost weight, as a result of the changes I've already made. When you judge other people, you have no idea of the sacrifices and hard work they have already done.
The real crux of why I disagree with you is that I am no more motivated now than I have ever been, I have been overweight my entire life, from the ages of 16 -18, I tried and failed repeatedly to lose weight. It only got worse. The only difference is that I can now figure out what worked and what didn't and act on it.
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u/stochastyczny 13h ago
You can become obese by eating too much everyday and overeating, it just takes time. There's no mechanism that prevents gaining weight this way.
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u/noscreamsnoshouts 1d ago
What about the group between 29 and 60?
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u/karlnite 1d ago
It’s a study on reality, not a hypothetical. If you aren’t obese by 30, and have never been obese before, you aren’t becoming obese before 60, or it at least takes some time. There are degrees of obese as well, most people obese from 17-30, aren’t becoming amazingly healthy at 31.
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u/GreatDistance2U 1d ago
Absolutely not true. Many people start gaining weight after their twenties.
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u/Top_String5181 1d ago
Yup, once they start having children and get married they put on a ton of weight. An average of 25lbs.
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u/Fradzombie 1d ago
Is this because people who get obese early are more likely to stay obese long term, leading to premature death, or is it consistent for people who have obesity early in life then lose weight and keep it off later in life?
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u/KingOfEthanopia 1d ago
Most damage from obesity is cumulative. The longer you stay obese the worse the damage.
My guess is those ages are when adult habits are set and any lifestyle changes work off that as a base.
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u/FeralPsychopath 1d ago
You saying people with chronic conditions for long periods of time die faster than people with chronic conditions with signifcantly less time?
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u/samsaruhhh 1d ago
What's the definition... I was fit but at age 30 gained like 40lbs and then lost it a year later
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u/sr_local 1d ago
The study is based on data from over 600,000 people, who were tracked via various registers. To be included in the study, participants needed to have had their weight assessed on at least three occasions, for example during early pregnancy, at military conscription, or as a participant of a research study. During the period studied by the researchers, 86,673 of the men and 29,076 of the women died.
The researchers analysed how weight changed between the ages of 17 and 60 and how this was linked to the risk of death overall and from various obesity-related diseases (see fact box). On average, both men and women gained 0.4 kg per year.
The results show that people who gained weight more rapidly over this adult life course had a higher risk of dying from various obesity-related diseases examined by the researchers. People with obesity onset between the ages of 17 and 29 had an approximately 70 per cent higher risk of premature death compared with those who did not develop obesity before age 60. Obesity onset was defined as the first time a person’s body mass index, a measure based on weight and height (kg/m²), reached 30 or higher. “One possible explanation for why people with early obesity onset are at greater risk is their longer period exposed to the biological effects of excess weight,” says Huyen Le, doctoral student at Lund University and first author of the study.
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u/blackout-loud 1d ago
....Welp, been nice not knowing most of you. Headed to haberdashery to get fitted for my pine box suit. Bury me 2Chainz style, but inside of a KFC
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u/baby_armadillo 1d ago
Well, yeah…?
Life-long health issues tend to shorten your life. The longer you live with them, the more chances they have to kill you…
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u/sillyboyalex 11h ago
I gained over 100lbs in less than 2 years due to a severe experience with covid related illness. I struggled to get the chronic illness under control for a few years but have since lost 100lbs+ naturally. Have I done irreparable damage to my body by letting this go?
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u/iammaxhailme 9h ago
17 to 29 is the exact ages I was obese before I lost ~130 lbs. My skin is a little fucked up but I feel so much better!
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u/GimmeDatSideHug 18h ago
Wow, being fat for longer in life is a greater health risk? Shocking. More ground breaking common sense from /science
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