New statistics on death rates in the United States appear to confirm that obesity is reversing decades of steady expansion in Americans’ life spans, according to a Harvard University researcher.

In the first nine months of 2015, more Americans of all ages died of obesity-related diseases compared with the same period in 2014, writes Dr. David S. Ludwig, an obesity-prevention specialist at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

In one year alone, deaths from stroke ticked up 4 percent, chronic liver disease deaths jumped 3 percent and deaths attributed to heart disease and to diabetes rose by 1 percent each, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Deaths because of Alzheimer’s disease, which has been linked to midlife obesity, rose 19 percent over the year before.

“The new rates potentially signal a looming social and economic catastrophe that demands a comprehensive national strategy,” writes Ludwig, who acknowledges that one-year increases do not, by themselves, establish a clear trend.

The recently released CDC data “suggest that a tipping point has been reached beyond which technological advances no longer compensate,” Ludwig warns in an article published Monday. “It’s probably been underway for years,” he writes, citing county-level statistics that show that two decades of steady nationwide gains in life expectancy began to turn as early as 1983.

Translation: no pills, no widely available procedures and no life-prolonging improvements in medical care or public health measures are likely to compensate for the life-shortening effects of obesity.

In a “Viewpoint” article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Ludwig writes that it’s time to move beyond the bland admonishments the federal government is making to Americans to improve their diets.

The “confluence of uncertain science and special interests” has allowed obesity to grow rampant. Obesity will not be reversed with “the notion that ‘all calories are alike’ and that weight loss will result from simply eating less and being more active,” he writes.

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