Chen C, et al. - Researchers undertook this prospective cohort analysis to determine the link between weight changes across adulthood and mortality, using data from the US NHANES 1988-94 and 1999-2014. They focused on all-cause and cause-specific death from baseline until 31 December 2015 among 36,051 individuals aged 40 years or over. At baseline, body weight and height were measured in these people and weight at young adulthood (25 years old) and middle adulthood (10 years before baseline) was also recorded. Overall 10,500 deaths were documented during a mean follow-up of 12.3 years. A 22% and 49% higher risk of all-cause death and heart disease mortality, respectively, was observed among participants moving from the non-obese to obese category between young and middle adulthood vs those who continued to be at normal weight. In this study, increased risks of mortality were observed in relation to stable obesity across adulthood, weight gain from young to middle adulthood, and weight loss from the middle to late adulthood. In order to avert premature deaths in later life, it is essential to maintain normal weight across adulthood, particularly to prevent weight gain in early adulthood.