Obesity, Good For You?
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Skeptic Ginger
Nasty Woman
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That's from 2011. I recently reviewed some evidence on metabolic/bariatric surgery that noted quite the opposite. They clearly documented weight loss in obese persons added life years.
I closed all the tabs so I'll let others look up the evidence obese persons losing weight gained years of life.
I closed all the tabs so I'll let others look up the evidence obese persons losing weight gained years of life.
Fast Eddie B
Philosopher
When I went to classes for my Personal Trainer certificate, we were certainly instructed of all the ways obesity is bad for overall health and life expectancy. But I recall that once obese, losing weight did not seem to statistically increase life expectancy. Not saying quality of life might not be improved, and there are other good reasons to lose weight, but longevity did not appear to be one of the reasons.
Bear in mind this was 30 years ago, so the science may have changed and my recall may be off a bit.
Bear in mind this was 30 years ago, so the science may have changed and my recall may be off a bit.
Puppycow
Penultimate Amazing
Does this include people who lost weight due to illness?
I see nothing that indicates that obesity is "good for you" though. People who yo-yo between obesity and losing some weight, that may not help, but if you stay at a healthy weight for your whole life, that probably is good. Most people who lose weight eventually gain it back too.
I see nothing that indicates that obesity is "good for you" though. People who yo-yo between obesity and losing some weight, that may not help, but if you stay at a healthy weight for your whole life, that probably is good. Most people who lose weight eventually gain it back too.
The Great Zaganza
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It might be a question of loss of muscle mass, rather than fat - if you are hospitalized for a longer time, the more muscle mass you had to start with, the better your chances to recover.
Pixel42
Schrödinger's cat
That was my first thought. Most serious/terminal illnesses cause loss of weight. I've seen this given as a possible reason why average life expectancy peaks nearer the top of the healthy BMI range than the bottom - the buffer is bigger, as it were, for those unlucky enough to get sick.
Oystein
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Read the article - it reviews several more claims (myths?) about overweightedness than the one quoted in the opening post.
And finds, e.g.: Overweight people live longer than normal weight people. They survive diseases commonly associated with being overweight longer than lean people with the same conditions (although they have these conditions more often). Liposuction, even when controlling for other changes (dietary...), does not improve physiological traits such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar. Weight cycling is associated with worse health and lower life expectancy than staying overweight. Some conditions correlate more with BMI than with the proportion of fat to total weight, suggesting they are associated with lean mass, not with fat mass.
Etc.
They suggest that obesity is not the cause of the several life-shortening conditions associated with it, but rather a symptom. (They specifically say this for diabetes-2).
Caveats apply of course to extremes on both side of the spectrum - extreme obesity and extreme cachexia.
And finds, e.g.: Overweight people live longer than normal weight people. They survive diseases commonly associated with being overweight longer than lean people with the same conditions (although they have these conditions more often). Liposuction, even when controlling for other changes (dietary...), does not improve physiological traits such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar. Weight cycling is associated with worse health and lower life expectancy than staying overweight. Some conditions correlate more with BMI than with the proportion of fat to total weight, suggesting they are associated with lean mass, not with fat mass.
Etc.
They suggest that obesity is not the cause of the several life-shortening conditions associated with it, but rather a symptom. (They specifically say this for diabetes-2).
Caveats apply of course to extremes on both side of the spectrum - extreme obesity and extreme cachexia.
Fast Eddie B
Philosopher
I wonder if studies have been done on the weight histories of truly long-lived people. It’s normal to lose muscle weight with age after early middle age - I think I recall the loss of about 10 lbs of muscle mass per decade is a rule of thumb*. The implication is that someone who successfully maintains the same weight into old age is actually getting “fatter”. Exercise, especially weight-bearing exercise, can certainly help hold onto muscle mass, but it’s a losing battle in the long run regardless.
At first blush it would seem there are very few obese people who make it to 90+. Would be interesting to know what percentage were obese in the past.
*Again, I either mis-remembered or the rule-of-thumb has been revised downward. Plus, I did not know it had a name. From first Google hit: “Age-related muscle loss, called sarcopenia, is a natural part of aging. After age 30, you begin to lose as much as 3% to 5% per decade. Most men will lose about 30% of their muscle mass during their lifetimes.”
At first blush it would seem there are very few obese people who make it to 90+. Would be interesting to know what percentage were obese in the past.
*Again, I either mis-remembered or the rule-of-thumb has been revised downward. Plus, I did not know it had a name. From first Google hit: “Age-related muscle loss, called sarcopenia, is a natural part of aging. After age 30, you begin to lose as much as 3% to 5% per decade. Most men will lose about 30% of their muscle mass during their lifetimes.”
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blutoski
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Just commenting for the sake of clarity, because other posts seem to have misunderstood the thesis being investigated in this review paper.
The paper is not challenging the model that obesity increases risk of morbidity and mortality. They're not comparing people who lost weight down to BMI 25 vs those who were always BMI 25. They're looking at people who lost weight to see if it put them in the same risk class as people who had not been obese in the first place. They are reporting that this seems to be unsupported. Gaining weight and then losing it is not medically the same as never having gained it in the first place.
It doesn't look like there's restoration from weight loss, which is bad, because it means the increase in risk seems largely irreversible.
Obesity risk might be similar to smoking. Never smokers have less risk than smokers who quit, apparently in proportion to magnitude and timespan. eg: in smoking the unit is "pack years". The analogous unit in obesity might be "stone-years."
TL;DR: the paper is saying it looks like it's better to have not become obese in the first place, because it's hard to fix later.
The paper is not challenging the model that obesity increases risk of morbidity and mortality. They're not comparing people who lost weight down to BMI 25 vs those who were always BMI 25. They're looking at people who lost weight to see if it put them in the same risk class as people who had not been obese in the first place. They are reporting that this seems to be unsupported. Gaining weight and then losing it is not medically the same as never having gained it in the first place.
It doesn't look like there's restoration from weight loss, which is bad, because it means the increase in risk seems largely irreversible.
Obesity risk might be similar to smoking. Never smokers have less risk than smokers who quit, apparently in proportion to magnitude and timespan. eg: in smoking the unit is "pack years". The analogous unit in obesity might be "stone-years."
TL;DR: the paper is saying it looks like it's better to have not become obese in the first place, because it's hard to fix later.
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blutoski
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That's not the way to study this question.
Specifically, these people are from low BMI birth cohorts to begin with, and lived during a different medical level of knowledge than we have today.
A different question would have been about whether their weight was above/below/average for their peers who died younger.
Having said that, I don't think the extreme tails are informative about a general population. It's not controversial to believe that they just have genes lined up right. So many of them were smokers and drinkers, for example.