Study: Chubby People Live Longer

by Spence Cooper on 30/06/09 at 7:56 am

Will he live longer than you?

A new Japanese study claims that slightly chubby people live longer, according to an AFP news report. The study, says AFP, was conducted by a health ministry team led by Tohoku University professor Ichiro Tsuji and covered 50,000 people between the ages of 40 and 79 over 12 years in the northern Japanese prefecture of Miyagi.

“We found skinny people run the highest risk,” said Shinichi Kuriyama, an associate professor at Tohoku University’s Graduate School of Medicine who worked on the long-term study of middle-aged and elderly people.

“We had expected thin people would show the shortest life expectancy but didn’t expect the difference to be this large,” he told AFP by telephone. Kuriyama cautions that he doesn’t recommend people eat as much as they want and gain weight. The study suggests thin people are more vulnerable to diseases such as pneumonia.