A US government report released in March on the number of deaths related to obesity in the United States exaggerated the number due to a statistical error, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement.
The study published March 10 in the Journal of the American Medical Association said poor diet and physical inactivity accounted for 400,000 deaths in the United States in 2000, compared with 435,000 blamed on tobacco use.
The results and the finding that obesity would overtake tobacco use as the leading cause of death in 2005, created a stir.
"We regret the unintentional error and any confusion it may have caused, but we stand by the bottom-line message: Tobacco and obesity are the two major risk factors for preventable death in the United States," Dixie Snyder, the official in charge of scientific research for the CDC, said in Tuesday's statement.
The Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) welcomed the CDC's admission, but called for an investigation into what it said was "the tip of the iceberg of gross exaggerations and miscalculations."
"For months we have been in contact with the CDC inquiring about its flawed research on obesity statistics," said CCF senior analyst Dan Mindus.
"Their admission of a twenty-percent error in overestimating deaths from obesity is a good start. A full investigation into the obesity death tally will reveal multiple flaws that seriously overstate the obesity problem and is leading to knee-jerk policymaking and litigation," he added.