Adults losing 5% in midlife show slower heart-marker decline

University College London and University of Glasgow researchers reported in a Sept. 4 preprint that adults who lost more than 5% of body weight in their early 50s had healthier later heart markers.

The preprint has not been peer reviewed, but it addresses a common midlife risk: nearly half of U.S. adults ages 40 to 59 had obesity in 2021-2023, according to the CDC.

Charis Bridger-Staatz, a senior research fellow at UCL who led the work, told Healthline the main message for people over 50 was that “it’s not too late to try and do things that are going to improve your health.”

The researchers used the British 1958 National Child Development Study, which has followed about 17,500 people born during one week in 1958. Of those, 6,309 joined a health check in their early 60s, according to the report.

The team compared each participant’s highest weight between ages 23 and 42 with their weight between ages 50 and 55. People were grouped by whether they gained or lost more than 5% of body weight and maintained that change; for a 200-pound person, 5% equals 10 pounds.

To assess cardiovascular risk markers, the researchers compared blood tests and blood pressure readings at ages 44 and 62 with those of people who maintained a healthy weight. The measures included blood pressure, high-density lipoprotein, often called “good” cholesterol, and inflammation.

Adults who lost weight saw those markers change at about the same pace as adults who stayed at a healthy weight, according to the preprint. Adults who gained weight in their early 50s had faster worsening in blood pressure, blood fats, inflammation and HDL cholesterol, the researchers reported.

The pattern was reported among people who were overweight and among people with obesity. People who were overweight and lost weight had the strongest positive results; by age 62, their body fat-to-lean tissue ratio matched that of the healthy-weight group, according to the report.

The study applies most directly to British adults born in 1958 who were followed into their early 60s. Solveig Cunningham, a professor of global health at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health who was not involved, told Healthline the findings may be relevant to Americans because British and U.S. adults have similar weight patterns.

The study cannot show that weight loss caused the later heart-marker differences.

Long-term blood sugar was an exception in one group. For people with obesity who lost weight, it rose more than in the healthy-weight group, though the authors reported that the result was not statistically significant.

For readers, the practical meaning is limited but useful: the work links sustained weight change in the early 50s with later cardiovascular risk markers, not with actual rates of heart attack or stroke.

Source: preprint by University College London and University of Glasgow researchers, Sept. 4; Healthline News, Nov. 2, 2026.

Atlas360 reports health research and does not provide medical advice.