Fat people live longer

[Hannah Bell]

A new study reveals that being overweight is not as unhealthy as it was though, as being slightly overweight helps you live longer than those of ‘healthy weight’.

American and Canadian researchers for over 12-years, tracked the health and habits of over 11,000-Canadians, dividing the men and women into five categories based on their Body Mass Index i.e. those whose BMI was 22.3 were considered within the normal weight range, below 18.5 was regarded as underweight, above 25 as overweight and above 30 obese, those with above 35 were classed as extremely obese.

The study found the underweight were 70% more likely to die than those of normal weight, followed by those who were extremely obese. However, the obese lived roughly as long as those of normal weight, with the journal Obesity reporting those classed as overweight were 17% less likely to die.

http://visitbulgaria.info/10543-study-shows-fat-lot-good

http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/oby2009191a.html

Researchers found that:

People who were underweight (defined in the study as BMI < 18.5) were 73% more likely to die than people of normal weight (BMI 18.5 - 25).

Those who were overweight (BMI 25 - 30) were 17% less likely to die than those of normal weight.

Those who were obese (BMI 30 - 35) were about as likely to die as those of normal weight.

http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2009/07/07/does_being_overweight_lead_to_a_longer_life.php.

Bad news for the fat-bashers here...look up "moral panic".

[Mojambo]

1. Not in Peru, they don't.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4914224,00.html?maca=en-en_nr-1893-xml-atom

[Hannah Bell]

3. blech.

[Renwiick]

2. Overweight people live longer physically but mentally the falter sooner.

[Hannah Bell]

4. is that why you forgot the "y"?

[Gwendolyn]

20. Go to your first link and scroll down to "more like this."

You'll find all the articles that are enough to scare anyone into losing weight for health. Including the one relating obesity to dementia.

[Hannah Bell]

36. I'm a dietician, MS, RD. I can find you a study to "prove" anything you like.

You have to look past the headline.

[Gwendolyn]

53. Hmmm... you mean like the study you posted? :-)

[Hannah Bell]

55. yep. or like the studies showing the opposite. or like the studies showing no relation.

whatever "truth" is, the current paradigm has holes big enough to drive trucks through.

what's certain, however, is that some people's reaction to weight issues is driven by class & moral panic, not data.

[DesertRat]

Oh snap

:rofl:

[phasma ex machina]

56. +1 LOLLERSKATES

[MannyGoldstein]

11. Do You Have A Link? nt

[EndersDame]

5. I like the feeling I get at being at a healthy weight

I have put on pounds after I stopped working a physically demanding job ad started at a sedentary job. I hated feeling sluggish and tired. I started going to the gym and improving my diet. I have gained muscle and lost fat and feel absolutely fantastic ! I would rather live a shorter life feeling good and being healthy than living longer and feeling sluggish tired and miserable

[donco6]

6. Excuse me, there's a doughnut downstairs with my name on it. n/t

[unkachuck]

62. sorry, I ate it.....n/t

[varelse]

7. Interesting

They tracked thousands of people over more than a decade. Impressive.

[ddeclue]

8. More junk science. nt

[Hannah Bell]

10. hardly.

http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/oby2009191a.html

Obesity (2009) doi:10.1038/oby.2009.191

BMI and Mortality: Results From a National Longitudinal Study of Canadian Adults
Heather M. Orpana1, Jean-Marie Berthelot2,3, Mark S. Kaplan4, David H. Feeny5,6, Bentson McFarland7 and Nancy A. Ross3

1Health Analysis Division, Statistics Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
2Canadian Institute for Health Information, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
3Department of Geography, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada
4School of Community Health, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA
5Institute of Health Economics and Department of Economics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
6Kaiser Permanente Northwest Center for Health Research, Portland, Oregon, USA
7Department of Psychiatry, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, Oregon, USA
Correspondence: Heather Orpana

Received 17 December 2008; Accepted 11 May 2009; Published online 18 June 2009.

[ddeclue]

14. I don't care about the stupid study.. fat people are the ones with diabetes, high blood pressure

cancers, heart disease and strokes. It's obvious to anyone who pays any attention that these are the people who are dying early of chronic lifestyle induced diseases.

[Hannah Bell]

19. i think if you look at the stats, you'll find its not so clear-cut.

for example, even as population weight has increased, age-adjusted incidence & death rates from heart disease have declined.

[Warpy]

43. I've always thought a little extra weight in later life was protective

and, since I blimped up in the three months after I turned 50 without changing either diet or exercise, I sincerely hoped that was the case.

I do know that older women I've seen who spent their lives trying and succeeding to keep their girlish figures have not been in great shape in their later years, much more susceptible to things like osteoporosis than the fluffier ladies were.

This is only one study, of course. It will be fascinating to see it repeated at some point to see if the conclusions were accurate.

Thanks for posting this.

[Hannah Bell]

48. it is, & it's a normal physiological adjustment. for example, as estrogen production

declines, a little extra fat = a little extra estrogen to cushion decline in production elsewhere = slower bone loss/less fracture risk (in men too). other benefits as well.

but what's trumpeted mostly is how "extra" weight is a risk factor for x, y, z--translated, via media, to the public mind as "causes" x,y,z.

there have been multiple studies over the years with similar results re weight & death incidence.

weight recs have been changed over the years in response to the dietary fat = artery clogger = high cholesterol paradigm -- which has plenty of holes.

[Warpy]

67. I remember a grand aunt fondly

She, too, had blimped up at 50 and hadn't curtailed her intake like I did, so she was really fat.

She lived to the age of 99.

My granny, who was drop dead gorgeous and fat phobic, dropped dead of a heart attack at 77. She was still beautiful in her casket, although my strongest memory is of my mother looking at the makeup and hissing, "She looks like a streetwalker!" I was seven.

I've always assumed this cantankerous carcass of mine has known what it is doing and simply accepted it.

Now if I could only get the moralists off my case.

That is why I am deeply grateful that you posted this study. It's about bloody time.

[havocmom]

22. My skinny brother has had bypass and several stint surgeries

My very thin nephew died at 42 of a heart attack.

Two thin as rails aunts had diabetes.

A very active neighbor (jogged several miles a day) dropped dead... heart attack, at 43.

I could go on.

There are also thin people dying.

Life is terminal.

edited for typo

[Missy Vixen]

45. I'll bet that excites you, too

Color me shocked to see you weighing in on this.

Why don't you go back to the gym and exult in your own perfection? It's pretty tedious for the rest of us.

:eyes:

[ddeclue]

47. Who said I WAS perfect? I'm overweight too. But at least I own up to it and I'm working on

reducing my weight instead of making excuses for it.

:eyes:

[Hannah Bell]

49. you consider reportage of research results to = "making excuses"? too bad for you.

[Missy Vixen]

51. Then why don't you keep your comments to yourself?

To quote an oldie but goodie, those who live in glass houses should perhaps focus on their own lives and stop tormenting other people, huh?

[Still Blue in PDX]

73. I'm the fat one in my family and I'm the one without those diseases.

Go figure.

[MannyGoldstein]

12. This Finding Keeps Coming Up. It's Unlikely To Be Wrong.

This is at least the third time it's been found.

[ddeclue]

18. Oh come on... this is junk - being overweight / high body fat

is a risk factor for cancer, stroke, heart disease, and diabetes - all the leading killers in America today.

[Hannah Bell]

21. low body fat /underweight = also a risk factor for various disease states.

you need to read research carefully. for example, most people who have heart attacks don't have high cholesterol.

popularized media reports often distort the significance of research findings.

[MannyGoldstein]

29. Few People Understand What "Statistically Significant" Really Means

It means that there's a relationship, but it could be a weak relationship - as in cholesterol and premature death.

[ddeclue]

42. Well I DO - I'm a degreed engineer and I also know the difference between correlation and causation.

Correlation is the basis of most junk science like these "studies"

[ddeclue]

31. Hardly anyone is "underweight" in the US so I don't think underweight people are a legitimate

concern.

[Hannah Bell]

40. oh, bullshit.

[ddeclue]

41. A non sequitir is not a rebuttal.

[Hannah Bell]

59. 1. it wasn't a "non sequitir". 2. "bullshit" is the correct response to bullshit.

[MannyGoldstein]

25. Not A Risk Factor For Cancer

And not as powerful a risk factor for stroke and heart disease as most believe.

The data are the data - unless you can find fault with all of these studies, or find studies that disagree, they're probably correct (if surprising).

[ddeclue]

28. Actually it IS a risk factor for cancer as excess fat drives up estrogen production

and everything else in the universe contradicts these "studies" you present.

This post is an "it's OK to be fat" post. That's all it is.

[MannyGoldstein]

35. OK - Show Us

It should be easy for you to find a few large peer-reviewed papers for us.

[ddeclue]

39. Enjoy... it has been in the news over and over again...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/23/health/main550801.shtml

[MannyGoldstein]

44. That's A Single Study

How do you explain the repeated - and, to my knowledge, unrefuted - finding the the overweight and moderately obese do not have increased mortality?

[ddeclue]

46. Common sense. Sorry you don't have it.

Your body isn't designed to be twice as heavy as your ancestors 100 years ago. It overtaxes all the systems- your heart, your endocrine system, your kidneys. You can keep believing in these junk studies if you want to but that's not my problem. Every doctor I've ever met disagrees with you as has every health teacher I've ever had. Enjoy your diabetes/high blood pressure/cancer/heart attack/stroke.

[MannyGoldstein]

52. "Common sense" more important than data and science?

You must have been sad when Bush exited the White House.

Good luck!

[Hannah Bell]

65. The claims in that article are way out of proportion to what the study actually did.

The researchers:

1. Took the self-reported hts/wts of 900,000 "adults" in 1982 & calculated BMIs from them.

2. Tracked cancer deaths in this population (not weights, not body fat, not BMI) over 16 years. Since the cohort was so big, it's likely they did this through hospital/MD records, not by personal follow-up.

3. Statistically adjusted the findings to take other risk factors like smoking into account.

The results are purely correlative from a dubious starting point.


"The heaviest members of this cohort (those with a body-mass index of at least 40) had death rates from all cancers combined that were 52 percent higher (for men) and 62 percent higher (for women) than the rates in men and women of normal weight."

Translation: The severely obese (BMI 40+ = you are a woman 5'6" weighing 250# & up) were 50-60% more likely to DIE from cancer than normal wt men/women (Note: not *contract* cancer, but DIE. Not the same thing, & introduces more possible co-factors).

Study participants had a 6.3% chance of dying of cancer during the 16-yr follow-up (that by itself tells me the "adults" weren't randomly selected re age), 6/100. So we're talking <6 extra deaths/100 for this "morbidly obese" sub-population, which = 2-4% of the general population:

"The U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey of 1994 indicates that 59% of American men and 49% of women have BMIs over 25. Morbid obesity — a BMI of 40 or more — was found in 2% of the men and 4% of the women."


"In both men and women, body-mass index was also significantly associated with higher rates of death due to cancer of the esophagus, colon and rectum, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, and kidney; the same was true for death due to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and multiple myeloma."

"Significant trends of increasing risk with higher body-mass-index values were observed for death from cancers of the stomach and prostate in men and for death from cancers of the breast, uterus, cervix, and ovary in women."

Interesting that the study found weaker for extensively-studied estrogen-linked cancers (e.g. breast) v. lymphoma & myeloma, where the possible causal mechanism would be more speculative.

Red flag to me. Unfortunately, I don't have access to the full text, & the abstract contains no significant information about the risk/incidence for the section of overweight people who were *not* "morbidly obese".

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/348/17/1625

If you're familiar with the research, you'd be aware that the link isn't considered "proven" for most cancers, not matter what CBS says, & this study doesn't add much, if anything, to the debate.

[Barack_America]

9. Visit Bulgaria?

Why didn't you just go with the article in Obesity?

[Hannah Bell]

13. i linked both. the "bulgaria" site offered a summary. here's the obesity link in case you missed

it the first time:

http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/oby2009191a.html

Obesity (2009) doi:10.1038/oby.2009.191

BMI and Mortality: Results From a National Longitudinal Study of Canadian Adults
Heather M. Orpana1, Jean-Marie Berthelot2,3, Mark S. Kaplan4, David H. Feeny5,6, Bentson McFarland7 and Nancy A. Ross3

1Health Analysis Division, Statistics Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
2Canadian Institute for Health Information, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
3Department of Geography, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada
4School of Community Health, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA
5Institute of Health Economics and Department of Economics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
6Kaiser Permanente Northwest Center for Health Research, Portland, Oregon, USA
7Department of Psychiatry, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, Oregon, USA
Correspondence: Heather Orpana

Received 17 December 2008; Accepted 11 May 2009; Published online 18 June 2009.

[joecool65]

15. There is a difference between fat and overweight

Perfectly healthy people can be "overweight" without being "fat." I am considered to be "overweight" according to the charts, but no one would ever consider me to be fat.
Weight does not take into account things like size of a frame, muscle mass, etc....

[Gwendolyn]

17. Yep... BMI is a completely useless way to measure fat and healthy weight. n/t

[Hannah Bell]

23. but about as good as ht/wt tables.

[Gwendolyn]

37. The amount ofmuscle mass a person carries can change everything.

For all anyone knows, the "overweight" category may have been filled with strapping athletic types. That's not the same at all as sampling from those who are sedentary and carrying a lot of fat. There are better ways to study longevity which include make-up of lean to fat body mass.

On that note, it's time for a pre-bedtime snack. Toodle-ooo!

[Hannah Bell]

61. which ht/wt tables don't do either. ps: accurate, replicable measures of body fat

are expensive.

what they do at gyms = not very accurate.

[Barack_America]

26. Isn't the Arnold considered "morbidly obese" according to BMI?

I agree that BMI is a poor indicating of obesity, taken on its own. BMI + percentage fat (particularly abdominal fat) are a much better indicators.

[Hannah Bell]

30. neither does the media when it hypes the message that fat/weight kills.

cuts both ways.

[Number23]

75. You absolutely HAVE to make this your avatar

[hlthe2b]

16. I'm assuming they controlled for smoking, which might be more

prevalent among the underweight...... (haven't read the journal article, but this would be among my first questions)...

[Obamanaut]

24. Why do we so rarely see a study that references body fat content

rather than BMI, which is simply a ratio of weight/height?

A healthy person who lifts weights can have an acceptable body fat content, but a high BMI due to muscle mass being heavier.

I'll stick to what I'm doing, and let the folks with dimples in their knuckles continue to find various studies that justifies their twinkies.

[FarCenter]

27. Were the people assigned into these categories at the beginning or end of the 12 years?

How did they handle people who changed from category to category by losing or gaining weight?

What were the effects on morbidity and health costs for each category, not just mortality?

[Hannah Bell]

68. 16 years. per the abstract, there was only *one* weight/BMI, in 1982:

"We examined the relation in men and women between the body-mass index in 1982 and the risk of death from all cancers and from cancers at individual sites"

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/348/17/1625


& they calculated the 1982 BMI from "self-reported" ht/wt, per the CBS article.

[endless october]

32. and people on calorie restricted diets are even healthier.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction

i don't believe that being overweight like most people are overweight is good for your health.

[Hannah Bell]

60. yes, & if you eat such a diet from birth, you'll be long-lived; presuming you survive

the higher mortality rates early on.

you'll also be much shorter, with smaller bones.

[girl gone mad]

63. Which contributes to longevity.

The growth process is extremely taxing on DNA. Women's smaller stature is one reason they outlive men. Also why the Japanese have longer lifespans, though that is changing as they adopt a Westernized diet with heavy dairy intake.

[Hannah Bell]

70. caveats:

it's not correct to say "the growth process is *taxing*"; growth/division is what dna does.

nor is women's shorter stature "one reason they live longer" v. men. were there some necessary link between stature/size & longevity, hamsters would live longer than hippos. women, on average, will be shorter than men no matter how much they eat. it's part of the genotype.

nor is "dairy" particularly relevant; there are long-lived populations with high dairy consumption, & japanese lifespan is still rising, despite their adoption of western habits. as is western lifespan, despite their centuries of same.

japanese longevity is a post-war phenomenon, btw.

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:Gdjp8bNArzAJ:www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/takemi/files/RP245.pdf+japanese+life+expectancy+prewar&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjVCjhPR2Wv8BHCg9vAluxmvLIshpBwHNvRmbYMUCotVqs-1xyHHlWCuWMTO04GOobLYJYkB4P4bXZlpcGlW6mXfzu34JX2H7zOpL-UARclm901naGrbnszFyEAizm74BJxyPao&sig=AHIEtbQXivIl2-VviG6lxm8qvtI0GodBlQ

you live longer on diet restriction: assuming the scanter diet contains sufficient nutrients to support full mental, immunological, etc. development. which, historically, has not been the case for populations as a whole.

my point is, the blanket statements people toss off ignore lots of counter-factors, like higher childhood mortality outside lab/research conditions (or even inside them, if you look at the history of the research on restriction).

it's not so simple as "eat less, live longer".

[endless october]

66. i didn't argue the restricted calorie diet was appropriate for children.

it's for adults.

[Hannah Bell]

71. if so, potential gains are limited. per the research.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[Fire_Medic_Dave]

34. BMI of 26 sounds like I'm in great shape.

Should I quit taking my Cozaar and Tricor?

[951-Riverside]

38. How old is Ariel Sharon?

:sarcasm:

[amborin]

50. prolly just as flawed as the 1st study, which had failed to control for those w/ terminal conditions

[Mari333]

54. it always helps to have a little something to throw overboard

my grandmother always said, just in case you get sick.

[philly_bob]

57. UNREC cuz I doubt whether DU is place to question established medical consensus

I wish OP was true, but it's first I've heard of it. Interesting to look up "Moral Panic" though.

[bridgit]

58. Even if that were true as a blanket statement, quality of life is seldom less than a factor

Obesity and Overweight

AHA Scientific Position

Obesity is defined simply as too much body fat. Your body is made up of water, fat, protein, carbohydrate and various vitamins and minerals. If you have too much fat — especially in your waist area — you're at higher risk for health problems, including high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

Obesity is now recognized as a major risk factor for coronary heart disease, which can lead to heart attack. Some reasons for this higher risk are known, but others are not. For example, obesity

- raises blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels.
- lowers HDL "good" cholesterol. HDL cholesterol is linked with lower heart disease and stroke risk, so reducing it tends to raise the risk.
- raises blood pressure levels.
- can induce diabetes. In some people, diabetes makes these other risk factors much worse. The danger of heart attack is especially - high for these people.

Even when there are no adverse effects on the known risk factors, obesity by itself increases risk of heart disease. It also harms more than just the heart and blood vessel system. It's a major cause of gallstones and can worsen degenerative joint disease. It also harms more than just the heart and blood vessel system. It's a major cause of gallstones and can worsen degenerative joint disease.

http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4639

[girl gone mad]

64. I don't buy it.

I lived in a retirement community for a couple of years. Skinny, small people consistently outnumbered big, heavy people by about 20 to 1. The skinnies also had more energy and were less senile.

Isn't this the same study where they didn't even account for smoking? My dad was on the heavy side most of his life, until the last couple of years when the cancer and treatment left him emaciated. It's hard to take this study seriously. I just saw another study which said undernourished seniors live longer.

[undergroundpanther]

69. Some people will say anything to justify their moral panic

aesthetic hatreds. I have seen a good amount of studies and they keep saying being fat is NOT as deadly as some WISH it was.Again aesthetic based hate is all it is.

[Libertas1776]

72. Whenever the topic of fat vs thin, healthy lifestyle etc etc etc arises...

I am always reminded of a scene from the movie "Grumpier Old Men." Jack Lemmon's character (John) is talking to his father, played by Burgess Meredith (Grandpa), while sitting by the lake fishing:
Grandpa: What the... what the hell is this?
John: That's lite beer.
Grandpa: Gee, I weigh ninety goddamn pounds, and you bring me this sloppin' foam?
John: Ariel's got me on a diet because the doc said my cholesterol's a little too high.
Grandpa: Well let me tell you something now, Johnny. Last Thursday, I turned 95 years old. And I never exercised a day in my life. Every morning, I wake up, and I smoke a cigarette. And then I eat five strips of bacon. And for lunch, I eat a bacon sandwich. And for a midday snack?
John: Bacon.
Grandpa: Bacon! A whole damn plate! And I usually drink my dinner. Now according to all of them flat-belly experts, I should've took a dirt nap like thirty years ago. But each year comes and goes, and I'm still here. Ha! And they keep dyin'.

Here is the whole clip...very funny http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1leLgTr9ytw&feature=related

.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
In the end, life can end up like this: you can be a roly poly or thin as a rail and both die from a heart attack at 50.

or

you can be a roly poly or thin as a rail and live to push 100. That's just the way it is, sometimes.

[Still Blue in PDX]

74. You speak a lot of truth, there. nt

[Number23]

76. Reminds me of that fantastic expression from the marvelous, fabulous Red Foxx

"Health nuts are going to feel real stupid one day. Lying in the hospital, dyin' of nothin'...."

[Libertas1776]

77. +1

[JoeyT]

78. It's interesting, but..

It's been known for a while that being overweight wasn't as much a problem as being inactive.
It's more about fitness than fat.

I'd be interested in seeing chats of the activity levels of the two groups. Other than that, there's really nothing controversial about this. About the only "controversy" that will come of this will be people that instantly become defensive when they're no longer able to look down on people that are different from them while simultaneously hoping those people die horrible deaths.

"The study found the underweight were 70% more likely to die than those of normal weight"
100% of them are going to die. If they don't, I want to know what they're eating. ;)