According to a recent study reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine, being overweight may not be as dangerous as previously thought for elderly people.

Current US clinical guidelines set the body mass index (BMI, weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters) of 25 as the upper limit of ideal weight for all adults regardless of age. But the importance of overweight and obesity in elderly persons is controversial.

The recent study analyzed other studies of the association between BMI and mortality or coronary heart disease from 1966 to 1999. The comparison revealed that the relative risk of mortality due to obesity was less severe in elderly test subjects than in younger subjects. And studies do not support overweight, as opposed to obesity, as conferring an excess mortality risk for elderly patients.