Americans Won’t Live Longer Even Though They’ve Quit Smoking
ANN ARBOR, MI – If obesity trends continue, the negative effect on the health of the U.S. population will overtake the benefits gained from declining smoking rates, according to a study by The University of Michigan and Harvard researchers published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“Obesity plays a large role in life expectancy,” says co-author Allison B. Rosen, assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan. “Despite the fact that we are smoking less, body-mass indexes (BMI) are going up. These increases in obesity are overtaking these changes in smoking behaviours.”
Despite declines in smoking, the researched shows that the remaining life expectancy of a typical 18-year-old would be held back by 0.71 years by the year 2020 because of the increased BMI of the general population. The researchers also looked at quality of life. That same 18-year-old could expect to give up 0.91 years of increased quality-adjusted life expectancy.
If all U.S. adults became nonsmokers of normal weight by 2020, their life expectancies would be forecast to increase by 3.76 years or 5.16 quality-adjusted years.
However, the researchers say the study’s results don’t imply that life expectancy will fall – more likely, life expectancy will continue to rise due to other factors, but less rapidly than it otherwise would.
In addition to better managing clinical risk factors such as blood sugar among those who are obese, effective public health efforts are needed to address the roots of obesity, like sedentary lifestyles, the widespread availability of high-calorie food in large portions and reduced time for the preparation of food at home, says David Cutler, Ph.D., another co-author of this study and professor of Economics at Harvard University, as well as a research associate for the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Public health efforts to discourage smoking have worked, and a similar effort could help turn around obesity rates, Rosen says. Many weight control interventions have proven successful and their use should be encouraged.
“Losing weight is harder than quitting smoking. People don’t have to smoke to live. People have to eat to live,” she says.
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