IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aph/ajpbhl/199989101536-1542_0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Lifetime health and economic benefits of weight loss among obese persons

Author

Listed:
  • Oster, G.
  • Thompson, D.
  • Edelsberg, J.
  • Bird, A.P.
  • Colditz, G.A.

Abstract

Objectives. This study estimated the lifetime health and economic benefits of sustained modest weight loss among obese persons. Methods. We developed a dynamic model of the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and the risks and costs of 5 obesity-related diseases: hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease (CHD), and stroke. We then calculated the lifetime health and economic benefits of sustained 10% reduction in body weight for men and women aged 35 to 64 years with mild, moderate, and severe obesity. Results. Depending on age, gender, and initial BMI, a sustained 10% weight loss would (1) reduce the expected number of years of life with hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and type 2 diabetes by 1.2 to 2.9, 0.3 to 0.8, and 0.5 to 1.7, respectively; (2) reduce the expected lifetime incidence of CHD and stroke by 12 to 38 cases per 1000 and 1 to 13 cases per 1000, respectively; (3) increase life expectancy by 2 to 7 months; and (4) reduce expected lifetime medical care costs of these 5 disease by $2200 to $5300. Conclusions. Sustained modest weight loss among obese persons would yield substantial health and economic benefits.

Suggested Citation

  • Oster, G. & Thompson, D. & Edelsberg, J. & Bird, A.P. & Colditz, G.A., 1999. "Lifetime health and economic benefits of weight loss among obese persons," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 89(10), pages 1536-1542.
    • Handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:1999:89:10:1536-1542_0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cawley, John & Meyerhoefer, Chad, 2012. "The medical care costs of obesity: An instrumental variables approach," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 219-230.
    2. Knai, Cecile & Suhrcke, Marc & Lobstein, Tim, 2007. "Obesity in Eastern Europe: An overview of its health and economic implications," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 392-408, December.
    3. Tatiana Dilla & Amparo Valladares & Claudia Nicolay & Javier Salvador & Jesús Reviriego & María Costi, 2012. "Healthcare Costs Associated with Change in Body Mass Index in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Spain," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 10(6), pages 417-430, November.
    4. Ouayogodé, Mariétou H., 2016. "Effectiveness of weight loss intervention in highly-motivated people," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 263-282.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:1999:89:10:1536-1542_0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher F Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.apha.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.