It’s no news that being obese or overweight is detrimental to your physical health. But professionals are still discovering just how much that extra weight can affect you.  A new study tracking over 17,600 people for 32 years determined that being overweight is an independent risk factor for dying from heart disease and diabetes later in life.

The research, published in the January 11, 2006 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that the obese participants had four times the risk of hospitalization for heart disease and 11 times the risk of dying of diabetes than their counterparts who maintained a healthy weight. The American Heart Association includes obesity as one of its six major risk factors for cardiovascular disease. The other five factors are smoking, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, physical inactivity and diabetes.

According to cardiologist Gerald Fletcher, MD, only about one in four people in the United States are getting enough cardiovascular exercise.  He recommends getting your heart rate up for 30 to 60 minutes a day, six to seven days a week. “You don’t have to do it all at once,” he told webMD.com. “You can spread it throughout the day, but our data tells us that most people still aren’t doing it. And about 17% of the country is not exercising at all.”

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