Alcohol and obesity
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From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I'm Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.
A study indicates that people with a family history of alcoholism also have a higher risk of obesity.
At Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Richard Grucza examined national surveys involving about 80,000 people. Gruzca looked at family history because of its risk of alcohol addiction. He also looked at body mass index, which is a ratio of how much weight people carry for their height. A BMI of 30 or above is considered obese.
``If you look at the people who are at risk for addiction, compared to the people who are not at risk, in that 30-and-above category there's just more of them.'' (9 seconds)
The study in Archives of General Psychiatry was supported by the National Institutes of Health.
Learn more at hhs.gov.
HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.