Fat 40-Year-Olds May Have Shortened Lifespan

PHILADELPHIA -- A new study found that that being fat in middle age takes about as many years off your life as smoking does.

Dutch researchers studied 3,357 people who took part in a long-running U.S. research project, the Framingham Heart Study in Massachusetts. The study is published in Tuesday's issue of the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

They found that people who are overweight at 40 are likely to die at least three years sooner than those who are slim.

Obese people died even sooner than those who were overweight but not obese. Obese female nonsmokers lost an average seven years of life expectancy, and men lost almost six years.

The risk was still higher for obese people who smoked. For instance, obese male smokers died almost 14 years sooner than normal-weight nonsmokers.