Vision: The risks of being too fat or too tall
By Janet Raloff
When it comes to cataracts, a major new study finds, body size can make a difference–a potentially blinding one. “This is more bad news for fat people” and especially disheartening at the close of holidays marked by gustatory overindulgence, notes Albert Stunkard of the University of Pennsylvania’s Weight and Eating Disorders Program in Philadelphia.
He’s referring to data from an ongoing study, begun in 1982, of more than 20,000 male physicians. Spurred by inconclusive reports, researchers at Harvard University’s Medical School and School of Public Health, both in Boston, have been investigating whether cataract incidence climbs with increasing weight.