A Swedish study published today in the open access journal BMC Public Health reveals that people over the age of 75 who received home visits from health professionals, twice a year for two years, had a mortality rate nearly half that of pensioners who did not receive any visits. The pensioners' mortality rate increased as soon as the series of visits ended.

Klas-Gvran Sahlen, from Umee University in Sweden and colleagues from Umee University and the National Board of Health and Welfare in Stockholm, Sweden, studied the impact of home visits carried out by health professionals on the mortality rate of a group of 196 pensioners. Each pensioner was visited four times, once every six months, in 2001 and 2002. Each visit lasted for one to three hours. During the visits, the pensioners received general information about physical activity, symptoms of common diseases, influenza vaccination, diet and awareness of risk for fall injuries. A group of 346 pensioners who were not visited formed the control group. The mortality rate was reassessed during the two years following the study period.

The results of Sahlen et al's study show that the mortality rate in the group of pensioners who received the visits was 27 per 1000 years during the study period. In the control group the mortality rate was 48 per 1000 during the study period. The mortality rate increased in both groups during the follow-up period and the difference between the two groups disappeared: the mortality rate was 60 per 1000 years for both groups.

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Tylka says intuitive eating is positively associated with psychological well-being, high self-esteem, positive emotions, adaptive coping, self-acceptance, optimism, and resilience in the face of stress.

All this, just as America is faced with an epidemic of obesity where the adult obesity rates in 31 states have risen to such an extent that an estimated two-thirds of Americans are now at risk of developing life-threatening diseases such as diabetes, stroke and cancer.

According to official figures, the percentage of obese adults exceeds 25 percent in 13 states and experts believe a combination of poor nutrition and lack of physical activity, are to blame.

Mississippi is now considered to be the 'fattest' state, with 29.5 percent of its adult population considered obese, closely followed by Alabama and West Virginia.

To add to the worry, recent research has found that being obese in midlife dramatically increases your risk of dying early and people who are overweight when they are 50 have a 20 percent to 40 percent increased risk of dying prematurely.

For obese people, the risk of premature death is two to three times that of normal-weight people.

The research can be found in the American Journal of Epidemiology; How Obesity Policies Are Failing America report from the Trust for America's Health and the New England Journal of Medicine.