NEW YORK, (Reuters Health) -- Women who gain about 20 pounds are
likely to have problems with routine activities such as climbing stairs or
walking a block, and increased bodily pain. In fact, the decline in physical
function seen with this weight gain was even greater than that associated with
smoking, Harvard researchers report in the December 8th issue of The Journal of
the American Medical Association.
The authors write that "the average decline in physical function...
experienced by younger, lean women who gained (20 pounds) or more over 4
years... was nearly 3 times... the decline in physical function associated with
cigarette smoking... over the same period."
"We know that smoking over a long period of time leads to a decline in
function... and we've shown that weight gain does, too," study co-author Dr.
Ichiro Kawachi said in an interview with Reuters Health.
He added, "If you lose 5 pounds, it's the difference between carrying a
5-pound laptop on your back or not. If you do this day in and day out,
eventually you're going to develop arthritis and joint pain and strain and so
on." Kawachi noted that "overweight people are not able to do things that we
take for granted, like climb a flight of stairs, bend down, or walk around the
block." When people lose weight, they experience an improvement in performing
these activities, he said.
Kawachi and colleagues of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's
Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, used questionnaire data from the 1992-1996
Nurses' Health Study. The questionnaires, administered to about 40,000 women,
aged 46 to 71, asked questions about weight change and the ability to perform
routine activities such as walking around the block, lifting a bag of groceries,
or climbing a flight of stairs.
About 39% of the women maintained their weight, 17% lost weight, and 38%
gained weight. Physical function and vitality decreased and bodily pain
increased with weight gain regardless of how much the women weighed when the
study began, the investigators report. Those same characteristics improved as
overweight women lost weight.
The results held true regardless of whether the women were older than 65
or not.
Kawachi and colleagues suggest that the results "indicate a strong
association between weight change and change in health-related quality of life
among normal weight and overweight middle-aged women." They add that the
"findings support current US guidelines for women... to avoid weight gain during
adulthood."
Kawachi told Reuters Health, "We're aware that losing weight is a
difficult proposition... but if people can just maintain weight or stave off
weight gain, they can reap health benefits." He also suggested that "physicians
should routinely measure patients' (weight) and keep track of this and counsel
them, if necessary, about steps they can take to avoid weight gain."
