by sylvia santosa special to montreal gazette
on world obesity day, march 4, organizers hope people will reflect on how obesity and being overweight affects more than 1.9 billion adults and 380 million children. according to the world health organization, deaths worldwide from obesity and being overweight are more common than deaths from being underweight. though there are still many questions to be answered about obesity and obesity treatment, one thing seems clear: obesity is a disease that parallels aging.
children with obesity can develop hypertension, high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes. these are conditions usually only seen in adults.
people with obesity, on average, die about seven years earlier than those of normal weight. we also know having obesity puts you at risk for many conditions and diseases, including type 2 diabetes, impaired mobility, hypertension, sarcopenia, cardiovascular disease, cancer and alzheimer’s disease, all of which are also linked to aging.
hit the molecular level and the linkage looks even more intimate. in both aging and obesity, there is greater free radical formation, energy-producing mitochondria in our muscles start to fail and inflammation becomes chronic. the immune cells in our body that fight infections also weaken with both obesity and aging. even our dna is affected with obesity. the telomeres that protect our dna have been found to be shorter with obesity to a degree that aging is accelerated by eight years.