- In a study on longevity in women, researchers from the University of California San Diego (UCSD) examined the benefits of keeping a stable weight for older women.
- The scientists studied data from thousands of women to determine the likelihood of reaching the ages of 90, 95, or 100, which they called “exceptional longevity.”
- Their data analysis showed that older women who maintained a stable weight may be 1.2 to 2 times more likely to reach ages 90 to 100.
- While maintaining a stable weight provided benefits toward reaching exceptional longevity, unintentional weight loss was associated with a decrease in the likelihood of reaching 90.
Older women looking to extend their lifespan to the age of 90 or beyond should focus on maintaining a stable weight.
A recent multi-institutional study found that older women who maintained a stable body weight after 60 were more likely to reach their 90th birthdays.
The study involved 54,437 women from the Women’s Health Initiative. The researchers looked at short-term and long-term weight changes in women and compared that to the age they reached.
The researchers found that women who experienced unintentional weight loss had 51% lower odds of reaching 90.
While weight loss was associated with decreased longevity, a weight gain of 5% or more did not contribute to exceptional longevity, which points toward the importance of maintaining a stable weight.
The study was published in the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences.
This study aimed to analyze any associations between weight changes (intentional or unintentional) and exceptional longevity in older women.
The authors noted that prior studies analyzed the effects of weight loss in early to middle adulthood, such as shifting from being a person with obesity to being overweight, but that these studies had not considered whether the weight loss was intentional.
The UCSD study included nearly 55,000 postmenopausal women who participated in the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI)…
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