Swine Flu Kills Obese People Disproportionately 661
Philip K Dickhead writes "Bloomberg is reporting that the World Health Organization discovered a single, surprising characteristic that's emerged among swine flu victims who become severely ill: They are all fat. Infected people with a body mass index greater than 40 suffer respiratory complications that are harder to treat and can be fatal. The virus appears to be on a collision course with the obesity epidemic. WHO officials are gathering statistics to confirm and understand this development. 'It's very likely that if we went back retrospectively and looked at people who did poorly during seasonal flu, what would shake out is that obesity would be one of the risks.' Fat cells secrete chemicals that cause chronic, low-level inflammation that can hamper the body's immune response and narrow the airways, says Tim Armstrong, a doctor working in the WHO's chronic diseases department in Geneva."
Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases (Score:3, Interesting)
BMI is a bogus and misleading measure. Try percent body fat instead.
What is the correlation between BMI and fraction body fat?
Cost of subsidies (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's called "swine flu" for a reason ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Or they are labeled by the year (1918 flu, 1956 flu, and 1968 flu).
Re:Well... yeh. (Score:2, Interesting)
Being obese is pretty much an invitation for all sorts of problems. I love my steak, fries, chocolate, soda and burgers, I just eat them once every other week in small quantities. It helps when I think of baby carrots and apples as snacks.
Now imagine trying to do that with severe cravings for the food. The kind of cravings addicts have for their poison of choice.
I'm fat. I'm able to avoid a huge variety of foods due to my wife's allergies. (If I've eaten the tiniest amounts of garlic, onion, capcicum, chilli, or a whole raft of spices one kiss from me could kill her. Do you have any idea how many different foods have trace amounts of these? I'm lucky if I can eat the fries at a fast food joint. If they use chicken salt, forget it). I don't have a simple issue with self control. If I did she'd be dead and I'd be up on murder charges. On the other hand I have a huge problem eating small portions. If I do I literally walk around voraciously hungry.
Oh and by the way I have an ankle so arthritic that I don't know how many more years I'll be able to walk for. At the moment if I had to run for my life I still could but I'd be paying for it with a couple of weeks worth of agony. Combine this with a desk job and yeah I _could_ try to make time for the gym (which I hate with a passion) but keeping up an excercise routine is to say the least problematic.
People who think it's a simple self control issue are idiots. Your makeup pre-disposes you to wanting to eat and to piling on weight. It's like looking at a dyslexic person and saying it's just a matter of self control when it comes to reading. It shows a profound lack of understanding of the issue.
Re:Well... yeh. (Score:3, Interesting)
So, in other words, you have a complete lack of self control and are unable to motivate yourself to keep yourself healthy.
Not at all.
Losing weight is stupidly easy: eat less, exercise more.
That completely ignores the fact that people feel hunger differently, people lose weight differently, and that even those that have the ability to lose weight can work their arses off and still lose nothing in a week. If weight loss were as easy for everyone as you make it out to be we wouldn't have a problem.
So you have a bad ankle, talk to your doctor to come up with an exercise routine that doesn't involve massive amounts of walking.
Yeah because I'd never have thought of that you twit. There are only a handful of things that would work for me. Weight training isn't going to work now is it. That's great for bulking up. One thing that might work is swimming. If I could get to a pool 2 hours a day maybe I'd have a chance.
30 minutes a day. That's it. If you can't do that, then yes, it's a self control issue
Dude if 30 minutes a day worked for me, I'd do it in a heartbeat. The only couple of times I have lost weight in my life I lived on salad and lean meat/chicken in tiny portions and did AT LEAST 2 hours of heavy excercise a day. Anything short of that doesn't cut it. What's worse is when I've stopped it's taken a couple of months of eating reasonable portions and not excercising as much to put on all the weight I've lost over 6-8 months AND add some more kilos as the body overcompensates. Now you can choose to believe me or not. I'm guessing not. That's up to you. I happen to know for a fact that I'm not lying. Meanwhile I CAN'T keep that up while working 10 hrs a day 5 days a week plus some weekends, spending 3 hours a day in commute, doing chores till midnight when I get home and helping to raise a family.
See that's the trouble with morons like your good self. You think it's a simple case of self control and even when someone demonstrates that they have self control you're happier to blame the person for not making super human efforts and for having a body that doesn't react in the same way as theirs. You have no regard for their actual situation. You're just eager to place the entire blame on some moral or psychological defect. Ironically it's a "let them eat cake" solution that you offer.
Hold on a sec, Captain Obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
What isn't clear from TFA, and seems to be the crux of whether this is a story or not, is whether this particular flu is affecting obese people disproportionately as compared to similar influenzas. If all strains of flu have the same pattern and are more severe (by whatever measure) in obese people, then there's nothing interesting here. If, on the other hand, the correlation between BMI and severity is much higher for this H1N1, that's a potential clue, one that might tell us something about (a) how this particular virus works, which could be useful in developing treatments for everyone, and/or (b) how obesity affects immune response, which could be helpful in the treatment of other infectious diseases. But, alas, TFA gives only anecdotal evidence so we can't even speculate.
Re:Well... yeh. (Score:5, Interesting)
So, in other words, you have a complete lack of self control and are unable to motivate yourself to keep yourself healthy.
Not at all.
Losing weight is stupidly easy: eat less, exercise more.
That completely ignores the fact that people feel hunger differently, people lose weight differently, and that even those that have the ability to lose weight can work their arses off and still lose nothing in a week. If weight loss were as easy for everyone as you make it out to be we wouldn't have a problem.
You do understand that the different hunger feeling comes from the fact how much people have got used to eat, right? And also from what kind of food you eat. Carbs burn *fast* in your body, so stay off from bread, rice, potatoes and such. Eat high-protein and high-fat foods like meat, fish and chicken. They often also contain way less calories than the high-carb foods. Start by eating when you feel like so, as you're quite possible taking way less calories in that way anyways. Lower your amounts a bit all the time and you'll notice you dont really need that much food.
I feel you in that theres sometimes reasons people cant get their motivation up for that, being it work or anything else. I'm myself around the ~30 in charts. But I know the reasons for it and I know that I could make it better, instead of lying to myself that it's somehow not possible.
The only couple of times I have lost weight in my life I lived on salad and lean meat/chicken in tiny portions and did AT LEAST 2 hours of heavy excercise a day. Anything short of that doesn't cut it.
See this? That is the answer that I've already said and you've even noticed yourself. Hamburgers, bread and other such high-carb food is bad. Meat and chicken and fish is good. It's there by nature. Google for "low carb diet", go by that atleats 2 weeks and you'll notice how great it is. Then make that your lifestyle.
Re:Well... yeh. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's called "swine flu" for a reason ... (Score:1, Interesting)
Isn't it only ultra-religious types in Israel calling it Mexican Flu?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/swine-flu/5240868/Swine-flu-Israel-row-over-non-kosher-virus-name.html
Superstition is a funny thing at times.
Re:The story title is wrong ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Losing fat comes down to a simple equation.
If calories in is less than calories burnt, you WILL lose weight. Its as simple as that.
No amount of "glandular" problem is going to make you put on weight if you are eating less calories than you use in your daily activites.
So you need to either eat less, or do more ecercise, or both. Exercise helps because as you get fitter and have more muscle, as just having more muscle makes you burn more energy - so in that respect it is easier for a fit person to stay slim, but there is no reason in the world that anyone needs to be fat, regardless of any "glandular" problem.
Getting more excercise is trivial too. It takes no more 5 minutes to do 30 pushups and 60 crunches - you can do them last thing at night before going to bed.
Likewise, you can get off the bus/train one stop earlier ( or walk to the next stop along from where you get on) and easily get a 15 to 30 min walk in a day. Losing weight doesnt have to mean hours and hours in the Gym - just a bit of self motivation to be a bit more active in your daily routine.
One other thing - Diet drinks - stay the hell away from them. Ever see slim people in the supermarket buying diet coke? no - its always the huge people. Diet drinks have less calories, but there's an interesting littlel experiment they did, where two groups of rats were allowed to eat as much as they wanted - one group was given diet drinks, and the other normal non diet drinks. The ones on diet drinks porked up. The theory: The sweetners give your body signals to get ready to deal with a lot of sugar. When the sugar doesnt arrive, your body goes "Holy crap - we're starving! better eat more!"
So diet drinks may actually make you fatter by making you have a bigger appetite. Here's a not very authoritive link http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/06/its_been_recognized_for_a.php [scienceblogs.com] to one article about this - Im sure with a more thorough search the actual paper would turn up somewhere.
Hopefully this latest news about swine flu will be that final bit of motivation a lot of people need to actually do something about their weight.
Re:The story title is wrong ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course the best action is to not drink sugary drinks at all - but if you absolutely have to have that Coke, then have one with real sugar in it - and be aware of the additional calories you are eating. At least it wont make you hungrier, as the artificially sweetened drinks do, according to that study I linked.
The zero calorie drinks dont give you calories directly - but they apparently do make you hungrier, which in turn makes you want to eat more. Read the link.
The Swine Flu Pandemic - Fact or Fiction? (Score:3, Interesting)
Pandemic means spread, not severity. Dr. Mercola suggests concerns about the swine flu may be overblown. See: ... As of June 12, 2009, 74 countries have officially reported 29,669 cases of influenza A(H1N1) infection and only 145 deaths in the ENTIRE world from this illness. The United States has had 13217 confirmed cases, and 27 deaths. Mexico has had less cases but still has the majority of the deaths at 108. ... BUT to keep this in perspective the regular flu, not the swine flu, has killed 13,000 in the US since January. But there is strong support that these types of figures are grossly exaggerated to increase vaccine sales. However, the fact remains that the regular flu at this point in time is FAR more dangerous than the swine flu and were you worried about the regular flu before the media started talking this up?"
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/04/29/Swine-Flu.aspx [mercola.com]
"To put things into perspective, malaria kills 3,000 people EVERY DAY, and it's considered "a health problem"... But of course, there are no fancy vaccines for malaria that can rake in billions of dollars in a short amount of time
Re:Well... yeh. (Score:4, Interesting)
There are some conditions that are based on lifestyle. You cannot say that these should not be blamed on the patient!
Re:The story title is wrong ... (Score:3, Interesting)
This isn't my field of research either, but I am a scientist and I do know from first hand observations (such as characteristic tissue staining for microscopy) that fat cells contain mainly one thing: fat. In fact, they contain so much fat that most of them have just one big fat-filled vacuole which makes up most of their mass. I also do know the high energy content of the lipids involved. I know the basic metabolic pathways that derive energy from sugars, fats and proteins (some of which I did experiments on), in addition I know how the body in turn synthesizes these substances for its own use and the mechanism that leads to both glycogen and fat deposits.
I don't mean to come across as a know-it-all asshole, but all of this knowledge doesn't really leave much room for speculation...
It is true that fat cells and their supporting tissue "infrastructure" do require additional energy to sustain themselves. It is also true that they tend to give off all kinds of chemical signals, some of which might very well lead to additional increase in food uptake. However, there is no doubt whatsoever where these fat cells get their content from. It's chemically impossible to make fat without having the energy to assemble those lipid molecules. We get that energy directly from our food. If we had chloroplasts, exposure to sunlight would make us fat as well.
The psychological reasons for overeating vary with each individual, and some people clearly have hormonal imbalances that predispose them to consuming way too much. Sure, it also makes a difference if they eat a thousand kcal worth of sugars as opposed to, say, the same amount of proteins (because their metabolic pathways have different yields). But all in all, obesity is a direct function of energy intake. Otherwise, and I'm repeating my mantra here, it would be scientifically impossible to produce the fat to begin with.