Losing just 6.5% of body weight in midlife may lower later risk of disease and premature death, new research shows.
Researchers found that people who lost about 6.5% of their body weight — without using weight loss drugs or surgery — reaped big health benefits later in life, CNN reported. For someone who weighs 180 pounds, that's just shy of a 12-pound weight loss.
"Although correcting midlife overweight without surgical or pharmacological treatment is challenging, our results suggest that it is feasible and may be associated with decreased long-term risk of cardiovascular diseases, other chronic conditions, and mortality outcomes associated with overweight," the study, led by Dr. Timo Strandberg, a professor of geriatric medicine at the University of Helsinki in Finland, concluded.
Published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open, it looked at data from nearly 23,000 adults across three time periods, going back to the 1960s.
