Obesity death figures lowered

A widely reported study released earlier this year overstated the increase in obesity-related U.S. deaths by about 35,000, a U.S. government health agency said on Tuesday in admitting the miscalculation.

"Through an error in our computations we overestimated the number of deaths caused by poor diet and physical inactivity," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

"Our principal conclusions, however, remain unchanged: tobacco use and poor diet and physical inactivity contributed to the largest number of deaths, and the number of deaths related to poor diet and physical inactivity is increasing," it added.

The correction was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, where the original report appeared in March 2004.

In the statement the agency said the number of obesity-related deaths in 2000 increased by 65,000 over 1990 levels, not 100,000 as originally calculated.

The original study originally concluded that in 2000 there were nearly as many obesity-related deaths, at 400,000, as there were deaths related to tobacco use, at 435,000.

It said at the time this provided evidence that obesity could overtake tobacco use as the leading cause of preventable U.S. deaths. The correction did not address that projection, except to say the principal conclusions remained unchanged.

The CDC launched an internal review of the study after researchers criticized its methodology in letters published in the journal Science.

SOURCE: Journal of the American Medical Association, January 19, 2005.