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November 6, 2007Researchers Find Increase in Disability Among Older, Obese Adults |
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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine report that older adults today are much more likely to suffer from disability than those 10 years ago. This research -- the first to track effects of obesity on disability over time -- appears in the November 7th issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. "Obesity is more hazardous to the health of the elderly than we previously suspected," says Dawn Alley, PhD, lead author, and Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. "For an older person, suffering from obesity means they are much less likely to be able to walk to the front door or pick up a bag of groceries." The study reveals that obesity, which has become more common among older Americans, is having an increasingly profound impact on their day-to-day activities and overall health. By comparing health data from 1988-1994 to data from 1999-2004, the researchers found that the odds of suffering from functional impairment have increased 43 percent among obese adults age 60 years and older. The study evaluated health survey data from 9,928 Americans age 60 years and over from the National Heath and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) conducted from 1988 to 1994 and from 1999 to 2004. Penn's School of Medicine is currently ranked #3 in the nation in U.S.News & World Report's survey of top research-oriented medical schools; and, according to most recent data from the National Institutes of Health, received over $379 million in NIH research funds in the 2006 fiscal year.
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