WASHINGTON: A recent study has concluded that obesity is more dangerous than diabetes, smoking and high blood pressure for shortening of average lifespan.

Researchers from Cleveland Clinic and New York University School of Medicine found that obesity causes 47 percent more life years lost than tobacco.

The research will be presented at the Society of General Internal Medicine 2017 Annual Meeting in the US.

The team found the greatest number of preventable life-years lost was due to obesity, diabetes, tobacco use, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

"Modifiable behavioral risk factors pose a substantial mortality burden in the US," said lead author Glen Taksler.

"These preliminary results continue to highlight the importance of weight loss, diabetes management and healthy eating in the U.S. population," Taksler added.

They compared the results with the change in life-years lost for an "optimal" population that eliminated all modifiable risk factors.

Recognising that some less common factors might place a substantial burden on small population subgroups, they also estimated life expectancy gained in individuals with each modifiable risk factor.

"The reality is, while we may know the proximate cause of a patient's death, for example, breast cancer or heart attack, we don't always know the contributing factor(s), such as tobacco use, obesity, alcohol and family history. For each major cause of death, we identified a root cause to understand whether there was a way a person could have lived longer," Taksler stated. (ANI)