Being Fat May Save Your Life

The media never hesitates to report the newest health problems associated with overweight and obesity. For example, this article (http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/conditions/06/14/men.obese.urinary.reut/index.html) on CNN.com discusses the relation between overweight, prostate problems, and sexual dysfunction. However, medical studies sometimes suggest that being overweight, or even obese, might be good for you-it might even save your life.

According to Reuters, a new study published in the American Journal of Medicine found that obese patients with pre-existing symptoms of heart disease tend to live longer than those who are at normal weights.

The data of the study is unequivocal: after controlling for variables such as physical fitness, and other risk factors such as high blood pressure and diabetes, obese men were found to be 35 percent less likely to die during the study period than normal-weight men.

This new study adds to the "obesity paradox," a term that refers to a number of advantages that obese patients have over lighter-weight counterparts. In addition to the new piece of research, an earlier study by Gregg C. Fonarow at UCLA and backed by Jeptha Kurtis at the Yale University School of Medicine found that obese patients have a better chance at recovering from heart failure than patients who are lighter weight. The study revealed that in-hospital mortality rates were lowest for obese patients, at 2.4 percent, compared to 4.6 percent for normal weight and 6.3 percent for underweight patients.

In an attempt to keep the medical community's portrayal of overweight as uniformly dangerous, researchers are scrambling to explain the obesity paradox. Some hypothesize that the paradox "might be explained by doctors' tendency to treat obese heart disease patients more aggressively." Dr. Fonarow speculates that obese patients recover from heart failure better because they "may have greater metabolic reserves to call upon during an accuse heart failure episode which may lessen in-hospital mortality risks." Still others question the quality of the data used in the studies. Only one thing is certain-the medical community stresses that more research is needed to fully understand the obesity paradox.

Of course, the same degree of skepticism and caution is hardly ever applied when overweight and obesity is shown to correlate with negative health effects. It is rarely noted, for example, that excess adiposity is only correlated with these health risks, and no causational link has been discovered. The so-called "obesity paradox" may just be a term that exposes the biases of the medical and scientific community in general-when, in reality, overweight and obesity cannot be uniformly categorized as a health risk. If anything, more research is needed to reveal why the medical community views overweight and obesity in this way, and feels such a pressing need to convince us of it as well.

Sources:

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSPAR36336520070613?pageNumber=1

http://ezinearticles.com/?Obesity-Paradox--Excess-Body-Fat-Helps-in-Heart-Failure-Recovery&id=559669