Is thickness a guarantee of health?
Healthy people were found among the obese
The results of two scientific studies devoted to obesity, published on September 4 in the European Heart Journal, suggest that there are quite a lot of quite healthy people among the obese, and low weight is not always good for health.
The first of these studies was conducted at the University of South Carolina under the leadership of Dr. Francisco Ortega and Professor Steven Blair – The intriguing metabolically healthy but obese phenotype: cardiovascular prognosis and role of fitness. The authors analyzed information on 43,265 visitors to aerobics centers who took part in a large-scale survey conducted from 1979 to 2003.
These people regularly answered detailed questions about their health and lifestyle, and also underwent treadmill testing designed to assess their cardio-respiratory function. In addition, the questionnaire included data on the physical parameters of the participants – height, weight, waist circumference and percentage of adipose tissue, and indicators such as blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar.
After processing the data array, it turned out that 46 percent of participants with a very high body mass index have a completely normal metabolism and their health indicators are no different from people with average weight, who also have everything in order with metabolism.
According to a rough estimate, taking into account various prevailing factors, including the fact that we are talking about a contingent that regularly exercises, obese people with a healthy metabolism have a 38 percent reduced risk of premature death compared to those fat people whose metabolism is disrupted. And as for the risk of developing cardiovascular or oncological diseases, here we are talking about a 50 percent reduction.
The results obtained, the authors of the work believe, are extremely important for practitioners who need to take a differentiated approach to predicting the health status of obese patients, taking into account their level of physical fitness and metabolic rates.
The second study, conducted by scientists from the University of Gothenburg (Sweden), was devoted to the phenomenon known as the "obesity paradox" – fat people are less likely to die from heart disease compared to patients whose weight is normal or below normal. The results of the work (Evidence for obesity paradox in patients with acute coronary syndromes: a report from the Swedish Coronary Angiography and Angioplasty Registry) confirmed the presence of such dependence.
The authors of the study analyzed information on 64,436 patients who had suffered heart attacks of various etiologies and underwent coronary angiography from May 2005 to December 2008. It was found that patients with a weight deficit, whose body mass index is below 18.5 kg/m2, have the greatest risk of dying from their disease. In such patients, this risk is twice as high as in people with normal weight (21 – 23.5 kg /m2) and three times more than in people with overweight and obesity (26.5 – 35 kg/m2).
At the same time, it was found that the graph showing the relationship between body weight and mortality has a U-shaped shape – in addition to patients with weight deficiency, people whose index exceeds 40 kg/m2 are also at high risk.
In light of the data obtained, the authors of the study indicate that although normal body weight is useful for preventing the development of cardiovascular diseases, for those who are already ill, weight loss can have a negative effect.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru07.09.2012