Obesity, a cause of heart disease and diabetes, may not affect your health until age 40 and beyond, according to study findings published in the International Journal of Obesity and reported by The New York Times.

For the study, researchers used data from participants in several National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys given over a period of 11 years to almost 18,000 men and women combined.

Researchers compared medications taken by normal weight, overweight and obese people ages 25 to 70.

The results showed that although obese participants took slightly more medication than those in the normal weight group at any age, scientists found more medication taking among obese men age 40 and older.

Sixty percent of obese men ages 40 to 60 were on medication compared with 39.3 percent of average weight men in the same age group.

Between normal weight adults and the merely overweight, differences in medication taking was small regardless of their age.

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