Overweight and obesity-linked cardiovascular deaths increasing in young Australians

Higher rates of death among younger Australians from cardiovascular disease has been linked to being overweight or obese, a study by researchers at the University of Melbourne has reported. The study looked at premature overweight and obesity-related cardiovascular disease mortality for people aged between 35–74 years.

Professor Tim Adair, a demographer in the Nossal Institute for Global Health at the University of Melbourne, used Australian Bureau of Statistics death certificate data from 2007 and 2022 to assess the trends, and found low socioeconomic areas were particularly disadvantaged. Diabetes, chronic kidney disease, obesity, lipidemias or hypertension were taken into account as contributing causes of death.

"These death rates are increasing fastest in younger adults, and we know this generation has experienced higher long-term obesity prevalence in childhood and young adulthood than previous generations," said Adair. "This is the clearest evidence we have seen of this impact in Australia, which is showing in mortality rates related to obesity. The research also found that overweight and obesity-related premature cardiovascular disease death rates are particularly high in people living in more socioeconomically disadvantaged areas and the gap with more advantaged areas has widened in recent years.

"This is also consistent with what we know about obesity prevalence being higher in more socioeconomically disadvantaged areas, particularly due to economic and environmental factors such as widely available and relatively cheap unhealthy food options and lack of walkability of local neighbourhoods. While we know that there is a place for weight loss medications such as GLP-1 drugs to reduce obesity rates in Australia, we still need to address the underlying social, economic and environmental factors that are quite clearly contributing to premature deaths from obesity."

Professor Adair said what he was seeing in Australia is being replicated in other countries. "This is a global problem and an urgent public health concern. We haven't been successful in reducing obesity prevalence in the same way that we have successfully reduced smoking rates."

The findings were featured in the paper, ‘Trends and socio-economic inequalities in overweight- and obesity-related premature cardiovascular disease mortality in Australia’, published in BMC Medicine. To access this paper, please click here