Weight and health: new study

[Guest guest]

A new study shows that overweight people with normal blood pressure

face no increased risk of dying from heart-related problems, but those

with high blood pressure were at significantly greater risk.

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Cardiology/Hypertension/tb/1732

So watch that BP!

Keep on walkin'

~Pat

[Guest guest]

> A new study shows that overweight people with normal blood pressure> face no increased risk of dying from heart-related problems, but those> with high blood pressure were at significantly greater risk.>

1. such a study is not conclusive if it does not factor in for exercise which this one DID NOT. Several large CLINICAL long term studies have suggested that fat people who exercise live 40 percent longer than slim people who do NOT exercise and that slim people who exercise live about the same amount of time as fat people who exercise.

2. (from the abstract) Forty-two percent of the men were classified as overweight with a body mass index (BMI) of 25 to 29.9, which included 5.5% who were obese, defined as a BMI of 30 or more. Among women, 21% were overweight and 4.3% were classified as obese.

(Only a small percentage -5 percent- were really fat because it is well known that people in the BMI area of 25-29 mostly ARE NOT really fat - so called ideal BMI's are UNDERWEIGHT for many people)

3. Finally, the kind of high blood pressure associated with clogged veins DOES NOT GO DOWN when you lose weight. That is the type which is suspected by some, to be associated with CVD.

Dr Hu of Harvard commented for the article at the link - I'm not sure what his connection to this study was but his creditability as a researcher has been kind of lacking recently. Here's what some experts opined about Hu's last study where he supposedly "proved" that being fit (exercising) did not reduce health risks if the person was obese:

>>>>Recently we have read about the obesity study out of Harvard which concluded that even if a person is physically fit, that does not cut risks if he or she is fat. This was a "data dredge" study taken from existent data (in the infamous nurse's study). Studies using this same generalized data have been proven misleading in several other areas (example HRT) sometimes "proving" the opposite of what double blind studies found.

The main problems with this study were:

Risks were calculated on what the women weighed in 1976 - most obese women are yo yo dieters or weight cycling which has been proven in MANY STUDIES to considerably raise the risk of disease and death, yet yo yo dieting was not taken in consideration AT ALL in the study The researchers are hoping that the public is not familiar with calculating risk factors - a risk factor of less than 2 is considered insignificant. In the study the risk factor for all those whose BMI was under 40 was 1.69 or less i.e. NOT SIGNIFICANT. For those with BMI over 40, the risk factor was 2 - slightly higher risk. This was only 170 women out of 11,000 so the conclusions of the study were decided on 170 women NOT the 11,000 the researchers reported on.

Other and detailed problems with the study include:

self reported data on exercise habits - can be very inaccurate if someone exercised 3 times a week or more, they were assumed "fit"

fitness can only truly be ascertained by physical exam, treadmill test, O-2 test etc

exercise habits only surveyed 5 times in 20 years

people are not consistent with exercise programs so the persistence of those who reported exercising is probably a low percentage (only 25 percent of the population exercises CONSISTENTLY)

Obesity judged SOLELY by the recorded weight in 1976

obese individuals likely attempted to lose weight several times during the 20 years of the study - thus greatly increasing their risk factors over if they remained at the same weight 2 studies of women over 50 showed that those who remained at the same weight had half the risk of heart attack as those losing even a modest amount of weight (even if done sensibly) and even if those women who remained the same were obese to begin with.

At least two of the researchers on this study were affiliated with the diet industry or pharmaceutical corporations producing diet pills

Willett has been on the payroll of the Atkins Corporation which has paid millions for him to prove their low carb diet is "safe" JoAnn Manson was a consultant for the manufacturer of Redux, a drug about which she admitted, in 1995, did cause pulmonary hypotension but was only a "slight risk" The best article on this study was written by a medical provider, Sandy Szwarc, RN, BSN in her latest article, NONSENSE FOR THE DIET SEASON: http://www.techcentralstation.com/012605E.html

Milloy, Fox News junk science journalist, had some interesting things to write about this study when it first came out, proving that even a lay person applying a bit of logic would see serious problems with the study!

Milloy wrote:

>>>>> I don’t know whether fat-but-fit is a myth, but I do know that Hu’s study is extraordinarily dubious. Data on the women’s level of physical activity were collected at numerous points during the study (in 1980, 1982, 1988, 1992, 1996 and 1998). In contrast, the data on the women’s bodyweight were collected only once — by self-report in 1976.

So Hu’s results are based on analyses of the women’s bodyweights in 1976 and their subsequent physical activity levels as much as 22 years later. Hu's myth-busting effort might have been on firmer ground had he showed, for example, that women who were consistently overweight but active throughout 1976-1998 had greater mortality than women who were consistently lean-and-fit throughout that time frame.

Hu claims that the 1976 bodyweight data alone were used “to reduce the effects of underlying disease on weight” — whatever that means. He, therefore, admits possession of the bodyweight data for the period 1976-1998.

I can only conclude that Hu chose to use the 1976 data alone because they gave him the myth-busting, headline-making answer he wanted.

If you think I’ve been too rough on Hu’s fat-but-fit hooey, please recall his recent dastardly effort to link soft drink consumption with diabetes.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,130263,00.html

Hu and crew are notorious purveyors of junk science.

Milloy is the publisher of JunkScience.com, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and the author of "Junk Science Judo: Self-Defense Against Health Scares and Scams" (Cato Institute, 2001).<<<<

Source for French study:

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Cardiology/Hypertension/tb/1732 Abstract of French study:

http://babyurl.com/2KMf4E