Being Slightly Overweight May Lead To Longer Life 383
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ScuttleMonkey
from the good-news-for-geeks dept.
from the good-news-for-geeks dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Findings of a new study show that underweight people and those who are extremely obese die earlier than people of normal weight — but those who are only a little overweight actually live longer than people of normal weight. 'It's not surprising that extreme underweight and extreme obesity increase the risk of dying, but it is surprising that carrying a little extra weight may give people a longevity advantage,' said one of the coauthors of the study. 'It may be that a few extra pounds actually protect older people as their health declines, but that doesn't mean that people in the normal weight range should try to put on a few pounds.' The study examined the relationship between body mass index and death among 11,326 adults in Canada over a 12-year period. The study showed that underweight people were 70 percent more likely than people of normal weight to die, and extremely obese people were 36 percent more likely to die. But overweight individuals defined as a body mass index of 25 to 29.9 were 17 percent less likely to die than people of a normal weight defined as a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9. The relative risk for obese people was nearly the same as for people of normal weight. The authors controlled for factors such as age, sex, physical activity, and smoking. 'Overweight may not be the problem we thought it was,' said Dr. David H. Feeny, a senior investigator at Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research. 'Overweight was protective.'"
But it's in CANADA (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course, the study took place in Canada. Skinny, underweight people dying faster in the cold of Canada just seems like a no brainer. I'd like to see the study replicated in the tropics to see if the numbers stand up somewhere that extra insulation doesn't help as much.
Based on the study, I need to lose 24 more pounds [drop100pounds.com] to get my BMI into the 25-29.9 range that had the highest longevity and I'm currently in the same longevity range as normal weight people. Woo hoo.
BMI Is not a Good Measure (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, noob question time (Score:5, Insightful)
Then let me ask this. If slightly overweight seems to be healthy, then how was the "ideal" weight range determined?
Results don't surprise me. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds to me like the definition of "over-weight" is based on appearance instead of health.
Re:BMI Is not a Good Measure (Score:4, Insightful)
However, given the current Body Builder/All American Lardass ratio, and the fact that BMI's failure in high muscle scenarios isn't exactly a secret, I suspect we'll muddle through somehow. It is a pity that more precise measurements aren't cheaper to make.
Re:Okay, noob question time (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to science, things change based on new information.
We get a hypothesis, test it, and if it tests out we have a generally accepted theory. That theory is subject to change, someone reads its comes up with a new hypothesis and runs some more tests.
I can't answer your question specifically, but what probably happened was that the ideal range was determined based on information available at the time. Now there is new info.
There's an even chance that this will either shift the ideal range of BMI or place more emphasis on factors other than BMI. Maybe both.
Yeah, it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are the exact weight you need to be, then you need to have a very well balanced diet, that includes all the nutrients you need in the proper proportions. Otherwise, obviously, you are going to be missing a few nutrients you need.
If you are a little overweight, it's not nearly as hard to have a balanced diet: you can have a higher percentage of carbohydrates and lower percentage of protein in your diet and still be ok, because you are eating more than you need of both. It is more flexible and easier, even if less attractive.
And don't forget to eat broccoli. You're going to have to eat a lot of beef and wheat and other foods to make up for the nutrients you are not getting in green vegetables. That can put you far overweight, especially as you age.
Re:BMI Is not a Good Measure (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish they had analyzed body fat percentage, in addition to BMI. The two numbers together could yield much more specific information.
Re:But it's in CANADA (Score:3, Insightful)
"70 percent more likely than people of normal weight to die" did they also find the fountain of youth? I'm pretty sure that humans have a 99.9999% chance of dying taking into account the humans currently alive who still have a chance of finding that fountain of youth. Its not the destination its the trip that truly matters.
Re:Correlation =/= Causation. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure you're feeling really smart now, having repeated the endless slashdot correlation does not prove causation meme. It's so great that every 14 year old slashdotter seems to know more about statistics than scientists do.
You're even closer to your "best of slashdot" award by not even reading the summary, or not knowing what "corrected for physical activity" means. But beware: the hundreds of "BMI is stupid because I'm not fat/It's all muscle/my bones are heavy" commenters are on your heels. It's surprising that there's not a single really overweight person commenting here, considering that 90% of overweight (by BMI) are simply fat. But maybe, just maybe, all the geeks here are secret superheros.
Poor perspective. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Results don't surprise me. (Score:3, Insightful)
Living longer than it takes to raise your children to the point where they can raise their children would be pointless from an evolutionary standpoint.
Naturally, humans don't live longer than it takes to raise offspring. It is our medicine and technology that enables us to do so.
Re:Okay, noob question time (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure how it was determined, but I do know that my "ideal weight" (according to BMI) isn't my real ideal weight. A few years back, I seriously worked hard to lose weight. I went from 255 down to 173. At my height (5' 11"), BMI says that my ideal weight is 133 - 178.5. However, when I dropped below 180, people started telling me how I looked *too skinny.* (The first time I've been called that ever in my life.) Sure enough, my bones were showing way too much in my shoulders and face. So I intentionally put some weight back on. I determined that my ideal weight is about 185 - 190 so that's what I shoot for every time the pounds sneak back on*. According to BMI, I'm overweight, but I feel that I'm perfect weight-wise when I'm in that range.
*Fighting my weight is going to be a lifelong battle. I'm on the path to healthy eating, but old habits can sneak back into my life all too easily. I just need to recognize when they're beginning to do so and nip the weight gain in the bud.
Re:Okay, noob question time (Score:5, Insightful)
You're making the common mistake of confusing 'media hysterics' with 'actual science'.
Re:Correlation =/= Causation. (Score:5, Insightful)
You're being a bit flame-batish, but I do have to agree. The "fashion industry" (or rather what a bunch of homosexual men and weird women) promotes a form of female beauty that's largely at odds with the ideal as found throughout most of human history.
A few months ago my wife and I were watching Some Like It Hot, and during the scene where Marilyn Munroe sings, my wife commented that according to modern fashions, she would be considered overweight, if not outright fat. It struck me right there that here is one of the most sensual women of the modern era in one of the sexiest scenes ever to be found in the movies (all praise Billy Wilder with putting up with her to make this film), and a pack of queers and freeky fashionistas have programmed into so many that having some seventeen year old girl with the figure of an eight year old boy is superior to the greatest sex goddess of modern times.
So, from all the guys who secretly fantasize about the golden age of Hollywood sexpots, here's a big "fuck you" to the fashion industry, truly the most perverse and vile aspect of modern media around.
Re:Okay, noob question time (Score:3, Insightful)
For me, it was salt. Loved it. The more the better. Then I read about how bad it is for your heart. So I cut it out dramatically. Then a couple years later, I read about how it isn't very bad at all, unless you already have a heart condition, or family history. So basically I got duped into giving up something I enjoyed. Makes me more skeptical about the next scientific finding about my diet.
You have a point about the sort of science-reporting that media outlets engage in. One year, coffee is bad for you and eggs are good. 2 years later, coffee is good for your and eggs are bad. A year after that, coffee and eggs are both good for you.
But a fair amount of that isn't the fault of science, it's the fault of reporters. The truth is, things are rarely "good" or "bad", at least not completely and in all situations. Take your example of salt-- the science behind it really hasn't changed that much, as far as I know. Salt is definitely good for you up to a point. You can get sick or even die of a sodium deficiency. Too much of it is bad for you though. This isn't unique to salt; you also need water to survive, but even with water there's such a thing as "too much". It's possible to consume so much water that it becomes toxic and kills you.
Now the "safe range" for salt isn't the same in everyone, but because of how much salt is in most pre-prepared foods (including restaurants, frozen foods, etc.) most of us are already consuming more than we should. It's not as dangerous as it seemed when the dangers were at their most over-hyped, but eating excessive amounts of salt still isn't good for you. It's just that, as with many things that are fairly bad for you, you can probably get away with indulging until you start experiencing adverse side-effects.
Re:Poor perspective. (Score:3, Insightful)
"They" say being slightly overweight leads to a longer life than "normal" weight. Perhaps the reality is "they've" defined normal a little too low.
There's definitely some truth to that statement. In addition, there's a natural tendency for people to gain weight as they get older. In our youth obsessed culture thin=young=good, which may not actually be true.
I think the real reason having a little extra weight is beneficial is that it helps if you get seriously ill. If you are very sick, you might not be able to eat for weeks. Having that extra storage of energy is essential to fight off the illness and get better.
If you are seriously overweight, the added complications of carrying that weight outweigh (no pun intended) any benefit.
Control (Score:3, Insightful)
The article mentions that they "controlled" for physical activity. Does that mean that they compared like for like? Fat couch potatoes with skinny ones, fat joggers with skinny ones? I'm not a statistician but it seems on the face of it there's a problem: Being overweight generally causes you to become less physically active, so comparing normal joggers to heavy joggers is comparing someone of high-normal fitness to an obese person who's extraordinarily fit (for their weight range). The comparison may not be fair because that extraordinarily fit person could have good genes to begin with.
That aside, people who are skinny are sometimes skinny for health related reasons: cancer, AIDS, drugs. Here it's not the fact that they're skinny which is the issue but their low weight is a symptom of health problems. A more complex take on that would be a person who has lost weight because they were ordered to by their doctor. They're diabetic or have high blood pressure. So yes, they've lost weight and are healthier than before, but still less healthy than the slightly overweight person whose doctor didn't make them lose weight because they didn't have metabolic syndrome. Again, the low weight would not be a cause of illness, but an (indirect) effect.
Also, if it's true that you tend to gain weight every year you remain alive, then people who live a long time are more likely to be overweight. Not because they're heavy but because they're still alive. And people who die prematurely young are more likely to be skinny, not because they're malnourished, but because they simply didn't live long enough for a slow metabolism to pack on the pounds.
BMI is worthless (Score:2, Insightful)
BMI is like judging the value of a diamond on carat weight only. Much more goes into it than that.
Take for example, me. According to the typical categories, at 6'2", my normal range is 144lbs - 195lbs. Now, I'd love for you to look at a 6'2" guy that weight 144 and tell me he's normal (implicitly healthy) in weight. I have cancer patients that weigh more than that. And plenty of in shape guys that are 6'2" weigh well over 195. Science light...go America (and, apparently Canada).
BMI Categories:
Underweight = 18.5
Normal weight = 18.5-24.9
Overweight = 25-29.9
Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater
Re:But it's in CANADA (Score:3, Insightful)
The other thing to be careful about with these statistics is that Canada has a very good public health system. One that far outranks just about every other western country on this blue marble. That will surely shift the results to the right compared to other countries.
And yes, I am dirty about it. My country *used* to have a superior public health care system. That is until a prime minister thought it would be a good idea to follow the US. There's the lingering shell but that'll be gone in a couple of years.
*sigh*
Re:BMI Is not a Good Measure (Score:5, Insightful)
BMI itself is not "stupid". It's simply a way of normalizing weight to height. They could have correlated mortality to weight, but that would have been stupid. A person weighing 200 pounds is overweight if they're 4 foot 6, but underweight if they're 6 foot 4.
What you mean to say, I assume, is that it is "stupid" to use BMI as the single parameter to judge health, or, that there is more to health than simply weight. Of course.
BMI has the advantage of being relatively easily measured. There is, in doing quantitative science, a significant advantage in studying things that can be measured. If it is a "stupid" measurement, then this will show up in the data, in the form of there not being a correlation between BMI and mortality.
And then you have to account for Cartman ("I'm not fat, I'm just big-boned").
More likely to die. (Score:3, Insightful)
That's nonsense.
Everyone dies.
Re:BMI Is not a Good Measure (Score:4, Insightful)
Or drop BMI entirely, it is worth than worthless. It's misleading.
BMI is nothing more than a height to weight ratio, completely ignoring the fact that muscle weighs more than fat.
Most body builders you'll see in competition are classified as obese based on the BMI scale, despite the fact that they often carry less than 4% body fat [healthchecksystems.com].
BMI is only popular because it is a simple number with a simple scale that can be easily calculated and interpreted by simple people.
i disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
what you describe as the ideal curvaceous woman is a man's idea of an attractive woman. a woman's idea of an attractive woman is not the same as a man's idea of an attractive woman. for whatever reason, a lot of women are very self-loathing. and no, its not the usual bogeyman we try to blame for our own behavior, "the media", its some sort of innate psychological thing. a lot of women really think the body of a prepubescent boy is the ideal female appearance for some reason
if you take a woman with a banging bod, subject her to constant attention from all men, she can still go home and look in the mirror and find something to criticize. and she does: she think's she's too fat
the fashion industry has no real power. the fashion industry is given power by the people who buy clothes: women. and there's a lot of self-loathing in the female world. a shame
Re:Okay, noob question time (Score:3, Insightful)
By getting the professional opinion of a doctor or registered dietitian.
Re:Okay, noob question time (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:BMI Is not a Good Measure (Score:1, Insightful)
While I'll not dispute the fact that there are indeed a lot of overweight individuals lying to themselves, you're dead wrong about the requirements for building significant muscle mass.
With rare exception, the person spending 3 hours in the gym "pumping iron" is probably hurting his chances of getting ripped. Building muscle is primarily about progressive overload, rest, and proper nutrition. Maximum muscle volume gains typical require at least 48 hours of recovery time (1 day off).
Hypertrophy requires breakdown and repair. This requires moderate to heavy (not max) weights on multiple sets until failure. This first step results in breakdown. The next step will take care of itself so long as youâ(TM)re eating enough lean protein, getting enough sleep and NOT hitting the gym every single day to lift.
Following a pattern like the one above, itâ(TM)s pretty easy (though months of spending 5+ hours a week at the gym may not quality as easy for most I suppose) for the typical male to get a BMI rating that conflicts significantly with the level of leanness indicated by his body fat percentage. While examples such as Arnold in his body building days are extreme (sub 5% body fat but âoeobeseâ by BMI standards), they do show clear flaws with the metric. A local personal trainer can give individuals truly interested in being healthier better metrics and educate them with the proper means of reaching their personal fitness goals.
In the words of the great philosopher (Score:4, Insightful)
No wait... That was Spinal Tap.
Re:But it's in CANADA (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway, there's more to the "but it's Canada" argument than just heat.
Japan tops the world in longevity and they also have some of the lightest people in the world. While obesity isn't unheard of there, and neither is being slightly overweight, it's a lot more common to be underweight by the accepted western definition. I couldn't find the average weight for adults, but the average weight for a 16 year old male in Japan is around 136 pounds at a height of around 5'6". In the United States, that is the lowest recommended weight even for someone with a "small frame" at that height.
So why do they have such long lifespans if being slightly overweight is better than being underweight?
I'm sure it has mostly to do with the amount and type of nutrients a person is ingesting. Westerners eat a diet that's higher in fat and calories per nutrient. For example, they eat a lot more fish than we do; we eat more red meat. They eat more rice; we eat more potatoes. Without making a real effort or taking supplements, a westerner will need to ingest more calories and fat to get the same nutrients as a Japanese person.
I would strongly suspect that this is a case where correlation != causation in terms of being slightly overweight and living longer. A person would probably live longer still if they were slightly underweight but got the same (or better) nutrients, which is basically the situation in Japan and that is exactly the result.
Re:Correlation =/= Causation. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll forego using mod points on this thread to reply. I'll burn them off on some other topic.
It's surprising that there's not a single really overweight person commenting here, considering that 90% of overweight (by BMI) are simply fat.
I qualify by BMI (29.5, just shy of "obese") and by personal assessment (yes, I do look feel fat in this body right now). I was forced into a more sedentary life style 20 years ago and for many years I was obese by any standard, but I've shed more than 20 lbs from my heaviest weight. I am now reasonably fit, bicycling over 100 miles per week and self-training to do century ride in a month or so. I also do flat water kayaking, which is a good complement to the biking.
link to the NIH BMI Calculator [nhlbisupport.com] used below.
Here's the thing: my personal ideal body weight will give me a BMI of 27.0 at the weight where I felt best before the accident that changed a lot of things in my life. This is still "overweight" by accepted standards. But to get to the top of the "normal" BMI range at 25.0, I would have drop to my weight when I graduated from high school, when I was a skinny guy with all the muscle tone of a boiled noodle. My long term (5 - 10 year) goal is to drop another 20 lbs to a BMI of 27, but I would have to drop 33 lb to get down to a BMI of 25, and that would definitely be unhealthy.
BMI can be sort of helpful to people of European and Asian descent in possibly refining their personal ideal self-image, but it isn't going to work so well with descendants of Native Americans, Polynesians, or Arctic peoples. But it isn't very accurate, and if it does not match up with a healthy person's ideal self-image, it should be ignored.
Re:BMI is worthless (Score:5, Insightful)
Me: 6' 2"
weight: 215
BMI: 28 - overweight
I cycle 10 miles a day to and from work. Hit the gym 3-5 days a week for resistance training. I weight 215 pounds and have a 6-pack.
Oh and i asked my doctor what the lowest possible weight should would recommend for me, if say i wanted to wrestle a low weight class: 190 pounds.
The study proves that the BMI is wrong. An overweight BMI might mean in shape and active.
Re:Correlation =/= Causation. (Score:3, Insightful)
Since you asked: I'm really overweight; BMI is bullshit. These two things are not related.
The idea that body shape is irrelevant in determining "ideal" weight is somewhat bizarre.
By the way, great job coming up with that 90% figure - it's fun to make shit up, isn't it?
Re:Okay, noob question time (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm a big fan of listening to one's body. Pay attention to what you're craving, and what's in it. I agree, your body really does know what is best, and is screaming at you. You should listen.
Re:BMI is worthless (Score:3, Insightful)
Did they control for sick people? (Score:3, Insightful)