Women who are obese after age 70 are more likely to become frail - and perhaps disabled - than normal-weight women, according to new research.

Researchers from the U.S. and Brazil found that women who carried excess pounds into old age were several times more likely to have frailty syndrome, which means having at least three out of five signs of frailty: weakness, slowness, weight loss, low physical activity, and exhaustion.

Being overweight, but not yet obese, appeared to put women at risk of prefrailty syndrome, in which they have one or two signs of frailty, the investigators report in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. People with prefrailty syndrome are also at increased risk of developing full-blown frailty.

“This research has demonstrated a clear relationship between obesity and frailty,” write Dr. Caroline S. Blaum of the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor and colleagues.

Previous research has shown that older people diagnosed with frailty syndrome tend to have more additional illnesses such as Diabetes and Heart failure, and a higher risk of disability and dying sooner.

Blaum and her team investigated the relationship between obesity and frailty in old age by reviewing information collected from 599 women between the ages of 70 and 79 about their weight and signs of frailty. The researchers tracked factors such as the women’s grip strength, participation in leisure activities like bowling, and recent fatigue.

They found that women who were obese were more than twice as likely to have prefrailty syndrome, and more than three times as likely to have full-blown frailty. Being overweight appeared to also put women at risk of prefrailty syndrome.

As the U.S. population ages, this problem could only get worse, the researchers say. “If the increasing levels of obesity in American adults lead to greater numbers of older obese people, these older obese people may have greater risk for frailty in addition to their greater risks of obesity-related diseases and disabilities.”

SOURCE: Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, June 2005.