Healthy Me - At Home and Away: Overweight

Showing posts with label Overweight. Show all posts

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Extra pounds may be healthy -- as long as it's just a few

Posted: 03 January 2013

WASHINGTON: Turns out a few extra pounds may not be such a bad thing, according to a new analysis of nearly three million adults that showed people who are overweight or slightly obese may live longer.

But experts were quick to caution that the possible benefits dropped off when the "few" extra pounds turned into many.

The researchers used data from nearly 100 studies from around the world, with health information from more than 2.8 million adults.

Among the sampled population, there were around 270,000 deaths within the study period.

Even after controlling for other factors, such as age, sex, smoking, those whose weight and height put them in the "overweight" category were six per cent less at risk of dying than those in the "normal" category.

And those who were "slightly obese," with heights and weights that gave them BMIs of 30 to 35, were five per cent less at risk of dying in a given period.

But for those who were more significantly obese, with BMIs of 35 and higher, the mortality rate soared by 29 per cent compared to "normal" weight subjects, according to the authors of the meta-analysis, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

BMI, which stands for body-mass index, is calculated by dividing weight in kilograms by height in metres, squared.

The authors suggested several possible reasons to explain why some extra weight may be good, but too much is bad, including that those with a few extra pounds may be more likely to receive "optimal medical treatment."

They said it was also possible that increased body fat provided metabolic benefits that protect the heart, or that having extra reserves of fat could be helpful for those whose sicknesses make it hard to eat.

Lead researcher Katherine Flegel, of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, published a controversial study in 2005 that indicated there was a link between excess weight and living longer.

This time, her analysis was based on a much larger number sample pool, across different countries in North America, Europe, Asia and South America.

These studies and others show that small amounts of excess fat "may provide needed energy reserves" during illness, or help in other ways that need to be investigated, wrote biomedical researchers Steven Heymsfield and William Cefalu in an editorial also published Tuesday in the JAMA.

"Not all patients classified as being overweight or having grade 1 obesity, particularly those with chronic diseases, can be assumed to require weight loss treatment," they emphasized.

CDC director Thomas Friedan said in a statement that "we still have to learn about obesity, including how best to measure it."

However, he insisted that "it's clear that being obese is not healthy, it increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and many other health problems."

"Small, sustainable increases in physical activity and improvements in nutrition can lead to significant health improvements."

According to CDC statistics, a third of US adults are considered obese.

- AFP/jc

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Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
Extra pounds may be healthy -- as long as it's just a few

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

'Overweight' Chinese show lowest death risk

So who is saying that obesity equates to health risks and is a death sentence?
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Posted: 08 March 2011

WASHINGTON - Chinese men and women on the verge of what is considered overweight among Causcasians actually showed the lowest risk of death when compared to their own cultural counterparts, said a study on Monday.

The 10-year study followed nearly 59,000 men and nearly 66,000 women in Taiwan and examined the links between mortality and body mass index, a mathematical formula that uses height and weight.

Most people fall somewhere on the spectrum of 18 to 35. The US Centers for Disease Control considers a BMI of 25 to 29 overweight and 30 or higher obese, and says those groups face a higher risk of diseases and health problems.

In the Taiwan study, "the lowest risk of death was observed among men and women who had a BMI of 24.0 to 25.9," said the study published in the Canadian Medical Journal.

"In this population-based prospective study, we found a U-shaped association between BMI and all-cause mortality among adult Chinese people in Taiwan," the study said.

"The risk of death was higher among people people with BMIs in the lower and upper categories than those with BMIs in the middle category."

Similar associations were seen when the researchers analyzed data by age, smoking and pre-existing disease, the study said.

Given those findings, the authors said the research does not support an effort by the World Health Organization to lower the values for defining "overweight" people in Asian populations to 23.0-24.9.

The average man in the study with a BMI of 24-25.9 was 168 centimeters tall (five feet, five inches) and 70 kilograms (154 pounds).

The average woman with a BMI of 24-25.9 was 153 centimeters tall (five feet) and 64 kilograms (141 pounds).

In a commentary on the study published in the journal, Shankuan Zhu of Zhejiang University said the findings "are important because they seem to challenge the current definitions of overweight and obesity and are inconsistent with the pattern found in white populations and for the relation between BMI and chronic diseases, in particular cardiovascular diseases."

BMI is not always an accurate measure of body fat, which is more closely tested by "measurements of skinfold thickness and waist circumference, calculation of waist-to-hip circumference ratios," the CDC said.

- AFP/rl

Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:'Overweight' Chinese show lowest death risk

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Start small

Image via Wikipedia

MANAGING OBESITY

A modest weight loss is enough to reverse certain health problems

Eveline Gan, eveline@mediacorp.com.sg

35, Tina Rudaie is supposed to be at the prime of her life. But since the time she was young, she has been so debilitated by her weight that even a 5-minute walk leaves her in pain and gasping.

Last year, the mother-of-one weighed 173kg, more than twice the healthy weight for someone who is 1.57m tall. This brought on problems such as back pain, osteoarthritis in the knees, Type 2 diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol.

Tina decided to turn her life around when her mother, who was also severely obese - she weighed about 200kg - died from diabetes-related complications. She sought help at the Singapore General Hospital (SGH) Life Centre, a one-stop centre for people with lifestyle-related health conditions.

"I told myself I need to survive for my daughter's sake. She's only 13," said Tina.

Tina went on to lose 39kg after a gastric bypass early this year. But it didn't take such a drastic weight loss before her health improved. Just three days after the surgery, she no longer required medication for diabetes. Three months later, she was able to stop medication for hypertension and high cholesterol. By then, she had lost about 15 per cent, or 27kg, of her initial weight.

Turning the tide

According to Dr Kwek Hwei Min, a sports medicine registrar at Changi Sports Medicine Centre at Changi General Hospital, weight reduction can indeed help reverse or improve obesity-related conditions such as Type 2 diabetes and hypertension.

In fact, said Dr Tham Kwang Wei, a consultant endocrinologist and director of SGH's Obesity and Metabolic Unit, a weight loss of about 5 to 10 per cent of one's body weight is enough to achieve this.

"People can be quite unrealistic when setting weight-loss targets. They think they need to lose a lot of weight in one go to see the effect. In fact, a modest weight loss of 5 per cent of one's body weight can yield significant benefits such as decreasing blood pressure and reducing the risk of diabetes by up to 60 per cent," said Dr Tham.

And although medication and surgical interventions can help, both doctors stressed that making lifestyle changes is key to managing obesity.

A belly full of health risks

Dr Tham said the larger-than-usual waistline of the obese puts them at extra risk. Excess abdominal fat produces chemicals called adipokines, which increase the risk of heart disease and diabetes.

"How you lose weight is important, as it is more favourable to lose fat than muscle during weight loss. For example, when you incorporate exercise in your weight-loss regime, it helps you lose metabolically active fats around your waist.

This decreases the amount of harmful adipokines produced. Exercise also helps lower blood sugar levels, important in preventing and treating Type 2 diabetes," explained Dr Tham.

For the overweight, weighing less also has other health benefits. "Besides reduced pain for those suffering from knee osteoarthritis, you'll see an improvement in mobility and breathing," said Dr Kwek.

But the doctors cautioned against creating a drastic diet or extreme exercise regimen on your own if you're obese.

"Obese patients with medical conditions like diabetes should first undergo a medical examination. This is to ensure their blood sugar levels are well controlled and that there is no underlying heart disease," said Dr Kwek. She added that a safe weight-loss guide is a lost of about 0.5kg to 1kg per week, until the target weight is achieved.

Dr Tham added: "Without medical supervision, you could end up losing more muscle than fat, or end up with malnutrition, or vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Extreme exercise regimes also put one at risk for injuries."

Tina, who hopes to eventually meet her target weight of 100kg, now enjoys activities she has never been able to do before, such as taking long, uninterrupted walks in the park with her daughter. She said: "Now, I can walk very far and I don't feel tired at all. I've never felt healthier and happier."

From TODAY, Health – Tuesday, 18-Aug-2009

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Obese young men have less hope of marriage: study

Well, this is one way that your future is drastically affected by your weight…
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FP - Friday, May 8

AMSTERDAM (AFP) - - Men who were grossly overweight at the age of 18 had nearly 50 percent less chance of being married by their 30s and 40s, an international conference on obesity heard in Amsterdam on Thursday.

The findings, which held true regardless of the men's intellectual performance or socio-economic position, could suggest that women rank a man's appearance higher than other traits when choosing a partner.

"Yes, that may be one explanation," researcher Malin Kark of the Swedish Karolinska Institutet medical university, told AFP on the sidelines of the four-day gathering hosted by the European Association for the Study of Obesity.

Kark's study was conducted among more than 500,000 Swedish men born between 1951 and 1961.

It found that men who had been obese at 18 were 46 percent less likely to be married in 1991, when they were aged between 30 and 40, than men with no weight problem, and 45 percent less likely by 2004.

For men who were overweight but not obese at 18, the chances of marriage were somewhat higher -- 10 percent lower than for men of normal weight in their 30s and nine percent lower in their forties.

"We think this shows that there is stigmatisation of obese young men that continues into adulthood -- in their working life and also in inter-personal relationships," said Kark.

While no information was available on the men's adult weight, other studies have found that obese adolescents were likely to become obese adults, she added.

Obesity for the purposes of the study was qualified as a person with a body mass index (the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters) of more than 30.

The World Health Organisation estimates that in 2005 about 1.6 billion adults were overweight, of which at least 400 million were obese.

From Yahoo! News; source article is here