Causes of Death Linked To Weight

An anonymous reader writes to mention that while a couple of years ago researchers found that overweight people have a lower death rate than people with a normal weight, it may be more complicated than that. "Now, investigating further, they found out which diseases are more likely to lead to death in each weight group. Linking, for the first time, causes of death to specific weights, they report that overweight people have a lower death rate because they are much less likely to die from a grab bag of diseases that includes Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, infections and lung disease. And that lower risk is not counteracted by increased risks of dying from any other disease, including cancer, diabetes or heart disease."

I'm not...

[gbulmash (688770)]

I'm not pigging out. I'm defending against Alzheimers and Parkinsons.

Brilliant!

Re:I'm not...

[Retric (704075)]

"And that lower risk is not counteracted by increased risks of dying from any other disease, including cancer, diabetes or heart disease."

Hmm, what about accidents? It seems like extremely overweight people tend to spend more time at home which probably lowers their risks from car / skydiving / whatever accidents. My guess is the low weight stay at home people probably live longer than fat stay at home people. Wonder if I could get a grant to study this...

Re:I'm not...

[Knuckles (8964)]

I'm fairly certain that I have read many times over the years that accidents at home create more costs for insurance companies than any other activity. That is, people are more likely to fall down their stairs than having a car or mountaineering accident. In fact, whenever I read/heard about this it was in the context of insurance companies' campaigns to reduce home risks, like "don't stack a chair onto a table to reach to the ceiling."

Dunno if there is a correlation between home accidents and weight, though.

You may be "informative" but you're also wrong

[arete (170676)]

You may be "informative" but you're also wrong, unless you're using some fancy definition of "more" like including all the people that never see a car.

Cars are EXTREMELY dangerous, and that we let all of us idiots drive such powerful death machines with such little regulation is frightening.

If you want some pseudomath - the insurance company premiums are directly related to their costs, at least if you assume a semicompetitive market. Housing insurance is annually lower than car insurance - even with extr

Re:

[dgatwood (11270)]

It's also a measure of number of people your house interacts with compared with your car. Insurance on places business costs a lot more than home insurance for two reasons: 1. Most people who visit someone's home are friends, and for the most part people don't sue their friends. 2. The number of random strangers who interact with your home on a daily basis is fairly limited.

Put another way, I guarantee you that house insurance would cost every bit as much as automobile insurance if everyone drove their

Re:I'm not...

[Retric (704075)]

To clarify underwater cave diving is insanely risky on a per hour basis. However, people spend several orders of magnitude more time at home than underwater cave diving.

So, where more people die at home going underwater cave diving still increases your risk.

PS: You can see the reduction in accident related deaths on the first link's chart.

Re:I'm not...

[BewireNomali (618969)]

the japanese are pretty long-lived, and tend to be pretty small. i heard life expectancy for the japanese drops when they adopt western eating habits (mostly consuming milk) which causes them to grow larger in addition to the fact that the western diet is nutritionally deficient relative to the tradition japanese one. also incidences of all prime causes of early mortality increase: heart disease, etc.

also, women across all societies live longer than men. i think that while women tend to be smaller overall (than men), they tend to have higher BMIs, correct - in the sense that women carry more fat than men in general.

i also read somewhere - and never was able to find it again - that death rates decreased in general the closer one's body mass got to 55kg. man, if i can find that link i'll post it.

when i was a kid, i was undersized for a while - and there was an old lady who lived next door who saw me frustrated about not being big enough to ride the bike i'd gotten. i told her my frustration about being small and she said, "look at hte bright side. if you're small, you'll probably live a long time." Apparently there is some anecdote about living longer if you are smaller.

not that anecdotal evidence means anything, but the japanese population is not an insignificant sample size. interestingly enough, on a biological level longevity is inversely associated with fertility (another factoid i read somehweree that i cannot substantiate at all - no flames please) - and the japanese have one of the lowest birth rates in the first world.

again, no flames as i cannot substantiate these assertions and don't have the time to. But the japanese thing and the woman thing are pretty much documented as regards longevity.

Re:

[P3NIS_CLEAVER (860022)]

The Japanese are also statistically more resistant to lung cancer if they smoke. I think there is more to their longevity then just diet.

Re:I'm not...

[badasscat (563442)]

Seriously, now we're going to have to deal with a bunch of obese people pointing to this study as evidence of why they don't feel a need to lose weight.

Something's obviously missing in this study, because there is a positive correlation between average lifespan and obesity rates, both when comparing countries around the world and when comparing historical rates within this country. The simple fact is that all else being equal, the fatter a population is, the shorter its average lifespan. The United States, for example, ranks 42nd in world life expectancy - Japan, with much lower rates obesity and average weight, ranks #2. (Behind Andorra.)

Not to even mention other studies (like this one [medicalnewstoday.com], for example) that show that being even moderately overweight can increase your risk of heart disease by more than 30% - and that's our nation's #1 killer. That's to say nothing of diabetes.

I'll take my chances on being thin, thanks. One study that appears to contradict all scientific knowledge we've accumulated to this point isn't going to change my mind.

Re:

[QMO (836285)]

You say (and bold), "all else being equal," and then compare the US to Japan.

Re:I'm not...

[by Anonymous Coward]

I'll take my chances on being thin, thanks.

It's thin people like you, who clearly are too lazy to put in the effort to get obese, that fat asses like me are paying for with my medical insurance. It truly sickens me.

Wow - I can see why thin people shout that kind of thing so often; it really is an ego kick, the superiority thing. It is nice to have a study to kinda wave around and get all preachy about - if only I could still raise my arm.

overweight vs obese vs underweight

[sentientbrendan (316150)]

It's true that obesity kills, but there are 4 categories the article identifies

1. underweight
2. at weight
3. overweight
4. obese

The article seems to indicate that the best categories to be in are 2 or 3, which shouldn't be that surprising. Being obese is horrible for your health, but there is a fairly wide range of weight around normal weight which remains healthy.

One thing that the article makes clear is that being *underweight* is pretty bad for you, and has much more problems associated with it than being overweight (but not obese). Again, this shouldn't be surprising. Being overweight just means that you are carrying around some excess fat, but is not an indication of malnutrition. Being underweight means that your body is nutrition deprived enough that it hasn't been able to build up a fat store. It also means, that since you don't have a significant fat store, your body starts to cannibalize muscle tissue whenever you go for a while without eating.

In general, good nutrition is the key thing. Either overeating *or* dieting when you don't need to will damage your body and lower your life span. Remember, also you need some fat on your body for doing things like cushioning your heart, and for when you go a while without eating anything nutritious, which many people do without realizing it.

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[sm62704 (957197)]

You should have linked the picture [owensworld.com].

Lower death rate?

[seanadams.com (463190)]

So, less than 100%?

Re:

[TitusC3v5 (608284)]

Well, a little part of me dies every time they bring back the McRib. Does that count?

Re:Lower death rate?

[EMeta (860558)]

This research [theonion.com] is now a decade old, but it's the most recent I can find. The 100% death epidemic is just terrible.

Re:

[Roger W Moore (538166)]

So, less than 100%?

Yes - assuming you define the death rate as no. deaths/no. births then it will be less than 100% and will remain so while the population is above zero. To define it otherwise is to assume that everyone alive now will die which, while likely, is not yet proven. Afterall I think I speak for most of the human race when I say that we all want to live forever, or at least die trying!

Re:

[edwardpickman (965122)]

Hey most of my overweight friends are still alive. Maybe they have something there?

Body Mass Index Not a Measure of Obesity

[tjstork (137384)]

The whole study is a joke because it assumes that body mass index is a valid measure of obesity, and it isn't. The only real way to tell how fat you are is to measure your body fat percentage, usually with calipers although some new scales claim to be able to do it electrically.

I lift weights, and I'm at the higher side of the BMI because I've got a bit more muscle mass. Yet, according to that study, I'd be "fat". And I'm not even particularly big. If you got a man who was lifting since their teens into middle age, he could easily have 20 - 40 pounds more muscle than the average joe.

It's wrong to teach BMI in schools. It's wrong to use it as a measure. If you want to know fat, break out the calipers. Anything less, is wrong, and anything based on it, is absurd.

Re:Body Mass Index Not a Measure of Obesity

[Otter (3800)]

It's wrong to teach BMI in schools. It's wrong to use it as a measure. If you want to know fat, break out the calipers. Anything less, is wrong, and anything based on it, is absurd.

BMI combined with a shred of common sense is a perfectly fine approximation of obesity. There are two Unix admins here with scary-high BMIs, and you don't need calipers to know which one is obese and which one is just on steroids.

Re:Body Mass Index Not a Measure of Obesity

[Volante3192 (953645)]

BMI combined with a shred of common sense is a perfectly fine approximation of obesity.

Maybe it's common sense that needs to be taught in schools then.

Re:

[WarwickRyan (780794)]

You're technically correct, but I disagreed.

BMI, as a measurement of fatness, gives a really good combination of coverage, it's accurate for the majority of westerners, it's very easy to check and it's easy to explain to people.

Sure, it breaks down when applied to fit people, but works a charm when applied to fatties or anorexics. I honestly can't believe that anyone who was fit enough to be over BMI 25 with muscle would ever think the scale has any application to them.

So, it's technically wrong but practi

Re:Body Mass Index Not a Measure of Obesity

[Joey Vegetables (686525)]

First of all, I'd rather be physically fit even if doing so shortened my life a bit. The increased quality of life would still be worth it to me.

But you're very correct that BMI is a useless indicator of fitness.

I'm a tad over 40 years old. 4 months ago I was diagnosed as pre-diabetic. I drank 4-5 liters of Pepsi per day. I looked like a big blob of partially hydrogenated whale blubber, marinated in high fructose corn syrup made from genetically modified corn. I couldn't climb 2 flights of stairs, bench-press half my weight, or even take what I now consider to be a deep breath.

Knowing either it was this or insulin, I decided to hit the gym, and to give up the Pepsi. It's worked out very well for me. I've more than doubled my strength, and probably improved my cardiovascular endurance tenfold (I couldn't walk half a mile before; now I can power-walk for over an hour, although I still can't jog or run because the weight is too hard on my legs).

I feel infinitely better, and even look somewhat better.

Yet my weight only dropped slightly during this whole time, by about 10 pounds (from 215 to 205). Thus my BMI also changed only slightly. I've gained significant muscle mass, and thus lost significantly more than 10 pounds of fat. The increased muscle mass should, with any luck, help increase my metabolism, making it easier to burn the remaining excess fat. The BMI reflects none of this. According to the BMI, I was obese before, and only slightly less obese now. But I sure as hell do feel better, and it seems pretty certain that I will have a far better quality and quantity of life, assuming I keep up the present level of exercise (and don't get hit by a bus), than if I did not.

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[coyote-san (38515)]

It's also an issue if you're tall or short. Weight goes up as the cube of your size, but the BMI only goes up by the square. So somebody who's 10% taller than average (say a bit under 6" for a guy) should naturally have a BMI range about 10% larger as well. Shoehorning him into BMI 25 is roughly akin to demanding the average guy get under BMI 22.5.

(This is all approximate, of course, but so's the BMI in general. The bottom line is that a single BMI for all heights is the cleanest public health message,

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[Volante3192 (953645)]

But, you need to be very muscular for it to tag you as obese.

Obese isn't really a problem; but it might be overly affecting the overweight spread, which is the grouping that seems to faring the best in this report.

What if overweight started at 27 BMI instead of 25 BMI?

The Times They Are A-Changin' ...

[foobsr (693224)]

In 2005: "Obesity Threatens to Cut U.S. Life Expectancy, New Analysis Suggests"
http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/mar2005/nia-16.htm

Besides, being underweight, I don't buy into it anyway.

CC.

Re:

[GreyPoopon (411036)]

Besides, being underweight, I don't buy into it anyway.

Look, we all understand about denial. But this is your health we're talking about; there's no room for self-deception. Now go on. Eat that triple-burger and super-size fries. I know you can do it.

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[NerveGas (168686)]

If you look at the graphs, being overweight reduced your chances... but being obese looked like it greatly INCREASED your chances of dying.

Is there a link to Chinese traditional medicine?

[PHAEDRU5 (213667)]

A Chinese colleague of mine once remarked that my buddha belly would mark me as a lucky person in China.

Nice trick, if you can pull it off...

[jamstar7 (694492)]

Strange, I coulda swore I saw something someplace that said the death rate is the same for everybody - One life, one death.

Personally, with my current health state, I don't want to live forever. And yes, I live in what most believe to be the most technologically advanced society on the planet, however, medical technology ain't cheap. What good is top-notch health care if you can't afford it?

Wisdom from an old lady:

[sm62704 (957197)]

My grandmother told me when she was 95 years old "I don't know why people want to live to be a hundred. It ain't no fun bein' old!"

She died in 2003 just short of her hundredth birthday.

-mcgrew

not weight--waist

[Lord Ender (156273)]

Recent studies show that a persons weight or BMI are terrible indicators of their overall health. The best method available (without special equipment) is the ratio of waist size to height.

If your waist circumference is less than 50% of your height, you are at a low risk for fat-related diseases. If it is more than 50%, get to the gym, stat!

Re:

[AJWM (19027)]

The best method available (without special equipment) is the ratio of waist size to height.

There's my problem, I'm too short!

Other factors may be skewing the results...

[monoqlith (610041)]

Just a thought: According to the graph in the first link, underweight people have a greater chance than overweight people of dying of lung diseases and coronary heart disease. However, smoking, a major causative factor in both groups of diseases, also suppresses the appetite and causes people who would normally be normal or overweight to become underweight. Thus, underweight people might be more likely to die from lung disease and heart disease, but this may just be becaquse underweight people are more likely to smoke.

So, even if smoking isn't actually a major factor int he result, one has to look at the lifestyles that each weight group is likely to lead in order to determine what the important relationships are. Causations are what's important, not correlations.

Weight Loss is a Symptom, not a Cause

[Tsu Dho Nimh (663417)]

Low weight is a symptom seen in many people with diseases that will kill them: Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cancers ... and the loss of weight happens after the disease is well under way. It's a common symptom, not the cause or even contributing factor.

Re:

[DCheesi (150068)]

From TFA: "The researchers caution that a study like theirs cannot speak to cause and effect. They do not yet know, precisely, what it is about being underweight, for instance, that increases the death rate from everything except heart disease and cancer. Researchers tried to rule out those who were thin, because they might have been already sick. They also ruled out smokers, and the results did not change."

Less EXCESS Deaths

[trongey (21550)]

The chart compares the number of "Excess" deaths. So I guess this really just means that us fat people are less likely to die more than once.

Why do we read medical studies

[techpawn (969834)]

What's right for one person is not right for another? Is milk good for you? I bet if you search for that you'll find research going both ways... We're all... Snowflakes... There was a guy in New York who lived to be over 100 living on Thunderbird Wine and Bread fried in fat back. When asked why he doesn't fry his bread in bacon he said because it was too lean. Here was a guy who knew exactly what his body needed and lived to be a ripe old age. If he'd of gone to a doctor they'd of told him to eat some vegetables and he'd of been dead in a week...

Weighed Before or After Illness?

[Black-Man (198831)]

If they weighed a person suffering from lukemia - by the time the disease had devastated the body - they wouldn't be fat anymore! Therefore... skinny people die young! Stupid.

Linking ... causes of death to specific weights

[fredrated (639554)]

So, can I look up what I will die from by my weight?

Causes of death linked to EVERYTHING!!!!

[ivanmarsh (634711)]

I wonder how much constantly being reminded that you're going to die contributes to your death?

Re:Interesting!

[dpilot (134227)]

The /really/ old people, in addition to being skinny, are usually also short.

At 6'4" I take this personally as a bad sign.

On the other hand, there's some guy who's trying to achieve longevity through calorie restriction. Only problem is that he's cut his diet back so far that he doesn't have the energy to enjoy normal activities. He may live a long time, but he won't have much fun doing so. I'd like to live as long as I can live well, and so far in my 50's I can do all of the things I enjoy.

Re:Interesting!

[gbulmash (688770)]

Just remember that the average height in the Western world has gone up significantly in the last century due to better nutrition. A lot of the really old people who are really short also didn't get the best quality, variety, or quantity of food when they were growing up, which is a contributing factor to their shortness.

I bet you the average height of men 80 or older has gone up at least 3 inches in the last 30-40 years. By the time you'd be 80, who knows where it will be?

Re:

[P3NIS_CLEAVER (860022)]

Yes, of course. My family line are all a bunch of meat eating farmers who were tall and lived to old age. You really believe all that crap?

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[ScrewMaster (602015)]

You won't find an overweight 90-year-old.

Sure you will. Susceptibility to various diseases is an artifact of diet, genetics and overall lifestyle. Some people's bodies can withstand decades-long biochemical assaults (unhealthy food, smoking, alcohol, illicit drugs, etc.) with little or no ill effect, whereas others suffer horribly and die early. It's a crapshoot, any way you look at it. Take a walk around your average nursing home or assisted-living center. Plenty of the residents are in the 80-90 age gr

you're a freakin genius

[Reality Master 201 (578873)]

Clearly, NOBODY EVER thought to try to control for other health factors in the study.

Obviously, you, and only you, have noticed this awful, systematic flaw in this study that obviously didn't have to pass an kind of rigorous review process to get published in JAMA.

Praise be, we've found a new Einstein!

Well, he's smarter than you.

[hey! (33014)]

It's not a controlled study. It's a correlation study. We need to be careful about mixing up the idea of controlling for a factor in an experimental design, and controlling for a factor in a correlation or meta study. In the latter case, it's important if you want to come up with interesting correlations, but I doubt you can ever be that sure you've really disaggregated the confounding data.

For example, note the huge fraction of reduced deaths among the overweight that is attributed to lung and respirato

I take offense!

[Fr05t (69968)]

I'm a fat smoker. You insensitive clod!

Re:it aint complicated

[sam_handelman (519767)]

I understand that no-one RTFA, but they corrected for that: and they did it correctly. That's not why.

  Oh, yes, I *actually do* biostatistics and know what I am talking about.

  Now, you are *correct* that there is no cause and effect established here!

  It's entirely possible that genes-which-make-you-thin are also genes-which-give-you-alzheimers, or that they are proxies for such genes.

  For example: being white makes you much more likely to have Cystic Fibrosis. This does not mean that getting a tan prevents CF.

Re:

[russotto (537200)]

In the US, at least, we allow diet products made with an incredible array of extremely unhealthy crap in the name of having fewer calories and lower fat... including allowing artificial sweeteners that are illegal in places like Canada

Aspartame: Legal in Canada & US Sucralose: Legal in Canada & US Acesulfame Potassium: Legal in Canada & US Cyclamate: Legal in Canada, banned in the US Saccharin: Legal in the US, banned in Canada, but tastes like crap anywhere.