Is It Fat and Happy or Fat and Healthy?
A recent news article reported a study that may indicate the health risks generally connected with being overweight and/or obese may have been inaccurate.
The article states:
Being overweight boosts the risk of dying from diabetes and kidney disease but not cancer or heart disease, and carrying some extra pounds actually appears to protect against a host of other causes of death, federal researchers reported yesterday.
The counterintuitive findings, based on a detailed analysis of decades of government data about more than 39,000 Americans, supports the conclusions of a study the same group did two years ago that suggested the dangers of being overweight may be less dire than experts thought.
"The take-home message is that the relationship between fat and mortality is more complicated than we tend to think," said Katherine M. Flegal, a senior research scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, who led the study. "It's not a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all situation, where excess weight just increases your mortality risk for any and all causes of death."
I don't like the possible implications this might have with people using it as an excuse to remain overweight. "Well, that study said fat folks are just as healthy as skinny folks." First of all, no. That's not what the study said, but that's most likely all some people will "hear" from catching a snippet of the story in the news.
Secondly, as you may expect, there are a number of health professionals disputing the results because it's so opposite of... well, it's opposite of what I'd like to call "common sense."
"It's just rubbish," said Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. "It's just ludicrous to say there is no increased risk of mortality from being overweight. . . . From a health standpoint, it's definitely undesirable to be overweight."
The proportion of flabby Americans has been rising steadily, and two-thirds are now classified as overweight, including about one-third who carry so many extra pounds that they qualify as obese. The trend has triggered widespread warnings of an impending epidemic of diabetes, heart, disease, cancer and other ailments.
The researchers calculated that in 2004, obesity was associated with as many as 112,000 excess deaths from heart disease and more than 45,000 deaths from diabetes and kidney disease. Obesity was not, however, associated with an overall excess in cancer deaths, though it was linked to as many as 19,000 excess deaths from malignancies commonly blamed on fat, including breast, uterine, ovarian, kidney, colon, esophageal and pancreatic cancer.
The most surprising finding was that being overweight but not obese was associated only with excess mortality from diabetes and kidney disease -- not from cancer or heart disease. Moreover, the researchers found an apparent protective effect against all other causes of death, such as tuberculosis, emphysema, pneumonia, Alzheimer's disease and injuries.
An association between excess weight and nearly 16,000 deaths from diabetes and kidney disease was overshadowed by a reduction of as many as 133,000 deaths from all other deaths unrelated to cancer or heart disease. Even moderately obese people appeared less likely to die of those causes.
What's the moral of this whole story? Despite the new research, "they" still seem confused about the how's and why's regarding the results. So just keep eating well, keep training, and sooner or later, we won't even need to concern ourselves with the health/risk concerns of obesity.
The article states:
Being overweight boosts the risk of dying from diabetes and kidney disease but not cancer or heart disease, and carrying some extra pounds actually appears to protect against a host of other causes of death, federal researchers reported yesterday.
The counterintuitive findings, based on a detailed analysis of decades of government data about more than 39,000 Americans, supports the conclusions of a study the same group did two years ago that suggested the dangers of being overweight may be less dire than experts thought.
"The take-home message is that the relationship between fat and mortality is more complicated than we tend to think," said Katherine M. Flegal, a senior research scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, who led the study. "It's not a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all situation, where excess weight just increases your mortality risk for any and all causes of death."
I don't like the possible implications this might have with people using it as an excuse to remain overweight. "Well, that study said fat folks are just as healthy as skinny folks." First of all, no. That's not what the study said, but that's most likely all some people will "hear" from catching a snippet of the story in the news.
Secondly, as you may expect, there are a number of health professionals disputing the results because it's so opposite of... well, it's opposite of what I'd like to call "common sense."
"It's just rubbish," said Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. "It's just ludicrous to say there is no increased risk of mortality from being overweight. . . . From a health standpoint, it's definitely undesirable to be overweight."
The proportion of flabby Americans has been rising steadily, and two-thirds are now classified as overweight, including about one-third who carry so many extra pounds that they qualify as obese. The trend has triggered widespread warnings of an impending epidemic of diabetes, heart, disease, cancer and other ailments.
The researchers calculated that in 2004, obesity was associated with as many as 112,000 excess deaths from heart disease and more than 45,000 deaths from diabetes and kidney disease. Obesity was not, however, associated with an overall excess in cancer deaths, though it was linked to as many as 19,000 excess deaths from malignancies commonly blamed on fat, including breast, uterine, ovarian, kidney, colon, esophageal and pancreatic cancer.
The most surprising finding was that being overweight but not obese was associated only with excess mortality from diabetes and kidney disease -- not from cancer or heart disease. Moreover, the researchers found an apparent protective effect against all other causes of death, such as tuberculosis, emphysema, pneumonia, Alzheimer's disease and injuries.
An association between excess weight and nearly 16,000 deaths from diabetes and kidney disease was overshadowed by a reduction of as many as 133,000 deaths from all other deaths unrelated to cancer or heart disease. Even moderately obese people appeared less likely to die of those causes.
What's the moral of this whole story? Despite the new research, "they" still seem confused about the how's and why's regarding the results. So just keep eating well, keep training, and sooner or later, we won't even need to concern ourselves with the health/risk concerns of obesity.
posted by Chris Colucci at 12:58 PM
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