Healthy and Overweight a Myth?

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  • cafeaulait7
    cafeaulait7 Posts: 2,459 Member
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    This was an interesting article, but people miss things about it in the discussion

    1) it was not its own study, but a meta-analysis of 8 already published studies.
    2) it concluded that 'overweight and metabolically healthy' subjects saw adverse effects down the road, but so did 'normal weight and metabolically unhealthy' subjects. You can be unhealthy at any weight, basically.

    I used to think that the conclusion of 'its not healthy to be overweight' fell into the 'hurr and/or durr' category, I've seen enough posts of people yelling at each other over 'fat acceptance' to think otherwise.

    my overall conclusions: Its not healthy to be overweight. Its not healthy to be a normal weight and eat 1800 calories of crap (300 calories of crap and 1500 calories of nutrient dense awesomeness is fine, though). We shouldn't be d*cks to people because of their weight.

    I don't have a subscription, so I can't see the part that indicates this: "2) it concluded that 'overweight and metabolically healthy' subjects saw adverse effects down the road..." Can you hook up a quote, please?

    here's a quote from the results section, though I'm combing through their statistics now

    "In pooled analysis of 8 studies, the metabolically unhealthy normal weight group had increased risk for all-cause mortality or CV events compared with metabolically healthy normal-weight persons (RR, 3.14; CI, 2.36 to 3.93) (Figure 2, A)"

    ETA: conclusion paragraph:
    "In conclusion, our meta-analysis supports the concept of heterogeneity of metabolic status among individuals within the same BMI range. Metabolically healthy obese individuals are at increased risk for death and CV events over the long term compared with metabolically healthy normal-weight persons, suggesting that increased BMI is not a benign condition even in the absence of metabolic abnormalities. In addition, all metabolically unhealthy individuals (normal weight, overweight, obese) had increased risk for events compared with metabolically healthy normal-weight individuals. Thus, in evaluating CV and mortality risk, it is important to consider both BMI and metabolic status to reliably estimate long-term outcome."

    Thank you for highlighting this clarification.

    Yes, thank you for the extra quotes!

    But if you look closely, 'overweight and metabolically healthy' subjects did not have any adverse effects. It was the obese folks and the metabolically unhealthy who did.
  • lovemuffin6
    lovemuffin6 Posts: 49
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    I've been a healthy weight most of my life, I have been overweight but only by a few pounds before losing some to get back into the healthy range. I was shocked when I looked at my body fat percentage and waist to height ratio and fell into obese categories. Even now I have blood pressure higher than someone my age (20) who runs 5 times a week !
  • ldrosophila
    ldrosophila Posts: 7,512 Member
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    Fat is interesting how is it that something as simple as too much adipose tissue can reduce your mortality outside of any other metabolic complications? I'd love to know the mechanism going on here is it some sort of hormonal leptin loop thing? What an interesting disease, so the next question to ask is can this disease be reversed or can it only be managed? If one is to lose weight do they actually reduce the risks or are there still underlying risks because the fat cells themselves have not changed just shrunk? I'm in my 30's, so if I lose 200lbs can I expect an increase in life expectancy or has the damage already been done? Guess you would never know.

    Oh and were talking about morbid obesity correct? Not just overweight as some studies have shown being overweight is more protective in later ages. Want to make sure the terms are correct.
  • BeautyDoll
    BeautyDoll Posts: 86 Member
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    Hee hee hee! Thomas the Tank Engine! LMAO!
  • BarbieAS
    BarbieAS Posts: 1,414 Member
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    Well, yeah. I find the title slightly mis-worded, but after reading the article (and the additional info posted through the thread)...just, yeah.

    I'm obese, but I'm healthy RIGHT NOW. Cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar are all stellar at this point in time.

    However, I'm not so arrogant as to believe that at 50+ pounds overweight I'm going to STAY healthy for very long, especially compared to dropping the weight sooner rather than later.

    (Edited for poor sentence structure...though I don't know if it's much better now :tongue: )
  • acpgee
    acpgee Posts: 7,717 Member
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    Research is what moves us forward. It's not always a "no duh". Sometimes, research reveals the opposite of what we think is true.

    Agree, it's what makes the difference between genuine knowledge and mere opinion.

    Another thing that can happen, is that by careful analysis we can learn the all important 'why' behind certain results. The 'why' behind obesity being linked to diabetes for example. We know obesity is considered a risk factor in developing diabetes, but I've yet to read anything that tells me *exactly how* they are linked. Is it a bad diet that also contributes to the obesity, is it inherited genes that also make the potential sufferer more likely to become obese, or is it physiological changes in the body that occur once a person becomes obese?

    The Newcastle study pretty much attributes Type 2 to excess fat in pancreas and liver. The BMI threshold at which people develop diabetes varies, depending predisposition to storing fat in pancreas and liver, according to my understanding.

    http://www.ncl.ac.uk/magres/research/diabetes/reversal.htm
  • SapiensPisces
    SapiensPisces Posts: 992 Member
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    Tagging to read through this thread later. Lots of really interesting commentary and discussion sofar.
  • j6o4
    j6o4 Posts: 871 Member
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    I think you can be overweight and healthy because carrying excess fat comes from having a high bodyfat percentage and not from a person's weight. I would say health is better determine with bodyfat percentage rather than weight.

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