A team from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden analyzed data from the Swedish Military Service Conscription Register, the Population and Housing Censuses, and the Cause of Death Register on 1,299,177 men.
The men had been conscripted from 1968 to 1999 and had their Body Mass Index (BMI) measured at 18 to 19 years of age. The higher a person's BMI is, the more likely he is overweight or obese. The subjects were tracked for 31 years.
The findings show that the suicide rate was 16.2 per 100,000 per year, with an average age at death of 30 years. The risk of suicide decreased by 15 percent for every 5-point increase in BMI, reports Reuters.
Even 10 years after the initial BMI measurement, researchers found that suicides remained less frequent in those with higher BMIs.
This suggests that "weight loss as a consequence of mental illness does not explain the BMI-suicide association," says team leader Dr. Finn Rasmussen.
The report is published in the January issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.
