Posted on 05/22/2013 6:11:58 PM PDT by neverdem
More and more studies show that being overweight does not always shorten life — but some public-health researchers would rather not talk about them.
Late in the morning on 20 February, more than 200 people packed an auditorium at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts. The purpose of the event, according to its organizers, was to explain why a new study about weight and death was absolutely wrong.
The report, a meta-analysis of 97 studies including 2.88 million people, had been released on 2 January in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)1. A team led by Katherine Flegal, an epidemiologist at the National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, Maryland, reported that people deemed 'overweight' by international standards were 6% less likely to die than were those of 'normal' weight over the same time period.
The result seemed to counter decades of advice to avoid even modest weight gain,...
--snip--
Some public-health experts fear, however, that people could take that message as a general endorsement of weight gain. Willett says that he is also concerned that obesity-paradox studies could undermine people's trust in science. “You hear it so often, people say: 'I read something one month and then a couple of months later I hear the opposite. Scientists just can't get it right',” he says. “We see that time and time again being exploited, by the soda industry, in the case of obesity, or by the oil industry, in the case of global warming.”
Preventing weight gain in the first place should be the primary public-health goal, Willett says. “It's very challenging to lose weight once you're obese. That's the most serious consequence of saying there's no problem with being overweight. We want to have people motivated not to get there in the first place.”...
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
I think they prolly don’t mean 400 lbs overweight.
The amount of muscle a person has is a far greater determinate of one’s mortality than the amount of fat.
I didn’t know that. For good or bad?
For good. A person with the greater amount of muscle will be more mobile, and agile, and balance better.
All greate preventers of falls, which is one of the main causes of premature deaths in seniors.
Also, having more muscle will help protect bones in the event of a fall.
Until I hit 40 I was of normal weight for my height (180).Then I began to struggle and have fluctuated wildly...from 50 pounds overweight to 10 pounds overweight (and back and forth and back and forth).I've been told that that excess weight has caused noticeable,but not devastating,damage to my heart and kidneys.And I was told this by three different doctors all of whom are senior staff members at a major Boston hospital (the same one for which I worked for 20+ years).
That's a somewhat skewed observation, because individuals in the last stages of AIDS and the last stages of cancer tend to rapidly lose weight, not become overweight and obese. That said, a few pounds overweight (not obese) probably doesn't amount to much if any risk. Lack of exercise, smoking -- and sitting at a computer all day probably poses a much higher risk.
Plus people with muscles can open jars and difficult packages, giving them access to nutrition.
There’s hope for me yet.
That’s what husbands are for - and getting things off the high shelves.
Interesting.
I notice that the lowest death rates are still in the “normal” BMI range, until people reach their 60s. Even at age 70, the lowest death rate is only at BMI of about 27—just slightly overweight.
This study is not a free ticket to stuff oneself with hamburgers and fries every day.
strong bones are strong because they've had more resistance....weight....
so its not surprising that those that are a little heavier have stronger bones...
there is a huge correlation between severe disability and death with a broken hip in the elderly...
Now that we producers must pay even more for the takers’ healthcare, being overweight is okay. Insulin, knee replacements, artery roto-rootering, etc. for free (for them).
Thanks for the info on that. I’ve been working on getting back into shape following a pretty rough year physically. Not quite as easy as it was 20 years past but its resulted in some decent muscle tone. I just didn’t mean to add muscle.
Yes. Heavier bones won’t break as easily, but muscles act to cushion the bones in the event of a fall.
The good news is that a good fitness program has been shown to help even the elderly, so it’s really never too late as long as your on the sunny side of the grave.
Knee replacements are rare among large people, and very common among the thin.
--snip--
Genetic and metabolic factors may also be at play. Last year, Mercedes Carnethon, a preventive-medicine researcher at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, reported that adults who develop type 2 diabetes while they are of normal weight are twice as likely to die over a given period as those who are overweight or obese11. Carnethon says that the trend is probably driven by a subset of people who are thin yet 'metabolically obese': they have high levels of insulin and triglycerides in their blood, which puts them at a higher risk for developing diabetes and heart disease.
FReepmail me if you want on or off the diabetes ping list.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.