Scientists now think that being overweight can protect your health - Quartz
Originally shared by Rob Jongschaap
Scientists now think that being overweight can protect your health - Quartz
'... Researchers immediately began trying to explain this “obesity paradox”—or, more often, to explain it away. Carl Lavie, a cardiologist in Jefferson, Louisiana, was one of the first clinicians to describe the paradox. It took him over a year to find a journal that would publish his findings. “People thought, ‘This can’t be true. There’s got to be something wrong with their data’,” he told Quartz.
Since then, dozens of studies have confirmed the existence of the paradox. Being overweight is now believed to help protect patients with an increasingly long list of medical problems, including pneumonia, burns, stroke, cancer, hypertension, and heart disease. Researchers who have tried to show that the paradox is based on faulty data or reasoning have largely come up short. And while scientists do not yet agree on what the paradox means for health, most accept the evidence behind it. “It’s been shown consistently enough in different disease states,” says Gregg Fonarow, a cardiology researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The researcher who did most to kick off the debate, and in the process became the object of much of the pushback it generated, is an epidemiologist at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention named Katherine Flegal. Together with colleagues, she looked at hundreds of mortality studies that included data on body mass index (BMI), which is calculated by dividing a person’s weight in kilograms by the square of their height in meters. People with BMIs of more than 25 are classed as overweight, and those with a BMI over 30 as obese.
Flegal found the lowest mortality rates among people in the overweight to mildly obese categories. It’s true that these groups are slightly more likely to suffer from heart disease and some other life-threatening conditions in the first place. But many factors influence the likelihood of a person getting heart disease. And a strong link between weight and disease only emerges among people with severe obesity. So taken at face value, the results seemed to be showing that a little extra weight is genuinely beneficial.
...'
http://qz.com/550527/obesity-paradox-scientists-now-think-that-being-overweight-is-sometimes-good-for-your-health/
The big fat truth : Nature News & Comment
'More and more studies show that being overweight does not always shorten life — but some public-health researchers would rather not talk about them. Virginia Hughes 22 May 2013'
http://www.nature.com/news/the-big-fat-truth-1.13039
http://qz.com/550527/obesity-paradox-scientists-now-think-that-being-overweight-is-sometimes-good-for-your-health/
Scientists now think that being overweight can protect your health - Quartz
'... Researchers immediately began trying to explain this “obesity paradox”—or, more often, to explain it away. Carl Lavie, a cardiologist in Jefferson, Louisiana, was one of the first clinicians to describe the paradox. It took him over a year to find a journal that would publish his findings. “People thought, ‘This can’t be true. There’s got to be something wrong with their data’,” he told Quartz.
Since then, dozens of studies have confirmed the existence of the paradox. Being overweight is now believed to help protect patients with an increasingly long list of medical problems, including pneumonia, burns, stroke, cancer, hypertension, and heart disease. Researchers who have tried to show that the paradox is based on faulty data or reasoning have largely come up short. And while scientists do not yet agree on what the paradox means for health, most accept the evidence behind it. “It’s been shown consistently enough in different disease states,” says Gregg Fonarow, a cardiology researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The researcher who did most to kick off the debate, and in the process became the object of much of the pushback it generated, is an epidemiologist at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention named Katherine Flegal. Together with colleagues, she looked at hundreds of mortality studies that included data on body mass index (BMI), which is calculated by dividing a person’s weight in kilograms by the square of their height in meters. People with BMIs of more than 25 are classed as overweight, and those with a BMI over 30 as obese.
Flegal found the lowest mortality rates among people in the overweight to mildly obese categories. It’s true that these groups are slightly more likely to suffer from heart disease and some other life-threatening conditions in the first place. But many factors influence the likelihood of a person getting heart disease. And a strong link between weight and disease only emerges among people with severe obesity. So taken at face value, the results seemed to be showing that a little extra weight is genuinely beneficial.
...'
http://qz.com/550527/obesity-paradox-scientists-now-think-that-being-overweight-is-sometimes-good-for-your-health/
The big fat truth : Nature News & Comment
'More and more studies show that being overweight does not always shorten life — but some public-health researchers would rather not talk about them. Virginia Hughes 22 May 2013'
http://www.nature.com/news/the-big-fat-truth-1.13039
http://qz.com/550527/obesity-paradox-scientists-now-think-that-being-overweight-is-sometimes-good-for-your-health/
You can find a scientist that will say anything about anything.
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