79 replies to this topic

[Solarclimax]

Who were these people ? maybe the ones with the high BMI where all bodybuilders with good health and all the skinny people had lifestyles non conducive to good health ? just a thought I'm sure it was researched well.

[Matt]

maybe if you're ill you tend to eat less. If you're healthy your appetite is better, you tend to eat more... i dunno! I wouldn't bet on making yourself overweight to achieve longevity though! ... I know when i got slammed by cipro my appetite was like crap for a whole year xD

[Mind]

No, most likely it simply demonstrates the short comings of epidemiology and nothing else. Being overweight is probably healthy the same way low LDL "causes" cancer and the same way low total cholesterol "causes" premature death...

I agree with you about the weight/usefulness of epidemiological studies - not a gold standard. But it is data. And if you follow this thread, the overweight=lower mortality now cuts across gender and ethnicity. These are large studies from widely different societies. The results deserve analysis. Like you, I mocked the first study, but 3 years later, at least 3 more studies, in 3 different countries, and the same result! It is hard to ignore. There are several theories in this thread as to why we have this apparent contradiction - good for discussion.

[Mind]

Just a couple counter studies indicating a benefit to trimming the pounds:

Weight loss lowers inflammation caused by immune cells (very small sample size).

Weight-loss efforts cut mortality risk in seniors by 50%

[RickSantos]

DR. LINDA BACON Ph.D. Learn the truth about obesity and confront Anthony Colpo and Lyle McDonald.

[Blue]

"Increased mortality in the slim elderly: a 42 years follow-up study in a general population

Abstract The Bergen Clinical Blood Pressure Study in Norway was used to examine the relationship between body mass index (BMI (kg/m2)) and total mortality in different age segments. Of 6,811 invited subjects, 5,653 (84%) participated in the study (1965–1971) and 4,520 (66%) died during 182,798 person-years of follow-up (1965–2007). Mean age at baseline was 47.5 years; range 22–75 years. BMI (kg/m2) was calculated from standardized measurements of body height and weight and divided into four groups (<22.0, 22.0–24.9, 25.0–27.9, ≥28.0). The 20 years cumulative risk of death related to baseline BMI was U-shaped in the elderly (aged 65–75 years), whereas the pattern was more linear in the youngest age group (20–44 years). In contrast to the younger age groups, the highest mortality in the elderly was in the lower BMI range (<22.0 kg/m2) (adjusted Cox proportional Hazard Ratio 1.39, 95% Confidence Interval 1.10, 1.75) compared to the BMI reference group (22.0–24.9 kg/m2). This pattern persisted after 72 months of early follow-up exclusion and it was robust to adjustments for a wide range of possible confounders including gender, history of cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease or hypertension, smoking habits, physical activity, socioeconomic status, physical appearance and other anthropometric measures. The study shows that a low BMI is an appreciable independent risk factor of total mortality in the elderly, and not a result of subclinical disease or confounding factors such as current or previous smoking. Awareness of this issue ought to be emphasized in advice, care and treatment of elderly subjects. "
http://www.springerl...13x55501524510/

Interesting that there was an age difference and the many factors controlled for.

Edited by Blue, 31 May 2010 - 10:43 PM.

[Mind]

Being a bit overweight seems to confer some survival advantage but here is more data that being TOO FAR overweight (obese)= higher mortality rate.

In a study presented today (Tuesday) at the International Congress on Obesity in Stockholm, researchers tracked more than 5,000 military conscripts starting at the age of 20 until up to the age of 80. They found that at any given age, an obese man was twice as likely to die as a man who was not obese and that obesity at age 20 years had a constant effect on death up to 60 years later. They also found that the chance of dying early increased by 10% for each BMI point above the threshold for a healthy weight and that this persisted throughout life, with the obese dying about eight years earlier than the non-obese.

"As the obesity epidemic is still progressing rapidly, especially among children and adolescents, it is important to find out if obesity in early adulthood has lifelong mortality effects," said the study's leader, Esther Zimmermann, a researcher at the Institute of Preventive Medicine, Copenhagen University Hospital and the Institute of Biomedical Sciences at University of Copenhagen in Denmark. "Previous studies have investigated obesity and mortality in middle-aged populations, which only tells us about the detrimental effects of obesity in middle age. Our study sheds light on how obesity at age 20 years affects obesity throughout adult life. It is the first study with such a long follow-up time and thus the first study to investigate the lifelong effect."

In the study, the researchers compared mortality in a sample of 1,930 obese male military conscripts with that in a random sample of 3,601 non-obese male conscripts. Body mass index (BMI) was measured at the average ages of 20, 35 and 46 years, and the researchers investigated that in relation to death in the next follow-up period. A total of 1,191 men had died during the follow-up period of up to 60 years. The results were adjusted to eliminate any influence on the findings from year of birth, education and smoking.

"At age 70 years, 70% of the men in the comparison group and 50% of those in the obese group were still alive and we estimated that from middle age, the obese were likely to die eight years earlier than those in the comparison group," Zimmermann said. The researchers also investigated the effect of the broad BMI range on mortality from the age of 20 and found the lowest death risk in the men who had a BMI of 25. Underweight men had a slightly elevated risk, and the risk of early death crept up steadily by 10% for each BMI unit above 25 for those men who were overweight or obese.

[Mind]

Not all mice on caloric restriction live longer AND it is related to how much fat they carry. Just thought this was related to the subject of this thread, the seemingly contradiction of fat and longevity in some cases.

[yoyo]

I don't think anyone is seeing the most important issue, though some of the posts are probably capturing important confounders. The important question is, 'why isn't 95% of america obese?' - This sort of study isn't looking at the effects of eating 200 calories more on genetically identical organisms.


Most thin people are that way not because they CRON or are athletes, but because their genetics make the feedback systems stronger. If you are born with crappy genetics, you maintain high insulin sensitivity and easily pack on pounds even as you add enough weight to become overweight. You see that adipose tissue, decide you need to 'try to be healthy' by going to the gym or eating fewer deserts, but you maintain your 'overweight' status. Nobody in the 'normal' BMI is going to do those restrictions. Whereas storing a few extra calories in relatively metabolically inactive adipose tissue really doesn't make much difference.

So, see for example this study

Abstract
Background
Many people who are not obese according to standard height and weight criteria may still display features of insulin resistance syndrome and thus be at high risk of ischemic heart disease. We sought to investigate the effect of cumulative features of insulin resistance syndrome on the risk of ischemic heart disease associated with variations in body mass index (BMI) among men who participated in the Québec Cardiovascular Study.
Methods
A cohort of 1824 nondiabetic men free of ischemic heart disease was evaluated at the 1985 baseline evaluation and followed for a period of 13 years, during which 284 first ischemic heart disease events were recorded. Relative hazards (RHs) of ischemic heart disease in 3 BMI groups (normal weight, overweight and obese) were estimated using Cox proportional hazards regression.
Results
Although obese men (BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2) were the most likely to accumulate features of insulin resistance syndrome, the univariate risk of ischemic heart disease in this group was not significantly increased compared with normal-weight men (BMI < 25 kg/m2) (RH 1.26, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.88–1.80). However, obese men who accumulated more than 4 features of insulin resistance syndrome were at increased risk of ischemic heart disease (RH 1.81, 95% CI 1.02–3.19) compared with normal-weight men who had fewer than 3 features of the syndrome. Conversely, having more than 4 features of insulin resistance syndrome was associated with a 3-fold increase in the risk of ischemic heart disease among normal-weight men (RH 3.01, 95% CI 1.70–5.32).
Interpretation
Although obesity is an important risk factor for ischemic heart disease, variations in BMI alone poorly reflect the risk of ischemic heart disease associated with features of insulin resistance syndrome.

free fulltext: http://www.ncbi.nlm....cles/PMC557100/

[Mind]

Here is a possible explanation. All of the studies were systemically flawed. Hard to believe that several studies from different countries would all have similar flaws to invalidate the results, but higher obesity=worse health does jive better with most known data.

[YOLF]

"Thoughts?"

It's deplorable. Why do we enable bad behavior. If we make studies like this and people fall prey to it, it's like murdering old people. It doesn't matter to me that they are "doing it to themselves." It matters to me that they were enabled in the first place, shown to poison themselves.

If the study was done in good faith, it still shouldn't be published.

This article should read something like this, but it should be noted that this isn't a real review of the information:
FUNNY SCIENCE!

Scientists today discovered how leaving out data and not having enough statistical information for a study can lead to misleading results that suggest obesity increases lifespan. "One statistician noted that "Our study was incomplete. There are factors that gave us these misleading results and now we have to figure out why and what we're missing." or "Our study only shows that obesity benefits those ingesting specific toxins as each more body mass allows toxins that can be metabolically purged by all cells of the body to be processed faster, thus saving people living on certain toxic sites. It should be noted in usual circumstances, fat cells and obesity lead to a greater number of cells producing toxic metabolites. Fat cells also act to sequester these toxins where they cause long term harm."

[Mind]

In case anyone was wondering, it still looks very likely that ALL of those old studies showing a survival advantage by being overweight or obese, were systemically flawed. https://www.eurekale...nu-pd022618.php

[Rocket]

First thought, it flies in the face of most every other study regarding wieght and its affect on disease and longevity.

From personal experience, skinny and light weight old people are typically frail and unhealthy which is why their bodyweight is low.... They have no muscle mass. And from personal experience heavier (not obese) old people have more muscle mass and are healthier.

The study isn't talking about healthy people engaged in CRON. Its talking about the general population and it adds up.

[Matt]

Agree that it's really irresponsible to throwing out these studies and getting huge media attention from them with the message that being overweight is good for you.

Everything we know from the data in animals, including the two rhesus monkey studies (even with its own issues) and the new lemur primate study show that lower calories = less disease and longer life.

 

Being overweight is risky for development of all the major diseases and causes of death.

 

The only caveat is that a person who is really thin should just be a bit more careful about accidents like falls, and infections. Otherwise, stay lean and be healthier.

[Mind]

The systemic flaw with looking at very old people to see what weight pattern is beneficial, is that so many of the cohort has already died. Heavy older (90+) people likely have much better genetics than vast majority of people, especially all of the overweight people who died an early death. Most 90+ people I know are thin.

[Rocket]

Agree that it's really irresponsible to throwing out these studies and getting huge media attention from them with the message that being overweight is good for you.

Everything we know from the data in animals, including the two rhesus monkey studies (even with its own issues) and the new lemur primate study show that lower calories = less disease and longer life.

Being overweight is risky for development of all the major diseases and causes of death.

The only caveat is that a person who is really thin should just be a bit more careful about accidents like falls, and infections. Otherwise, stay lean and be healthier.

Skinny CRON monkeys live in climate controlled luxurious settings. I would like to see them in the wild with the rest of the monkeys and see how long and how well they live.

They won't do as well or else nature would have selected that I don't know what to call it.... Behavior

Edited by Rocket, 25 April 2018 - 01:07 AM.

[YOLF]

Using monkeys living in luxury hotels is similar to what people live like. So that's what we want to see, I'm sure they'd die more rapidly of all sorts of things, including starvation given the demands of wild living.

[Rocket]

Using monkeys living in luxury hotels is similar to what people live like. So that's what we want to see, I'm sure they'd die more rapidly of all sorts of things, including starvation given the demands of wild living.

If you're Brad Pitt. Otherwise you have a stressful job, stressful kids, and you don't sit around all day waiting to be fed. You likely get too little sleep, have too much stress, aruge with a spouse, get too little exercise... Worry about money... Have to shovel snow, fight traffic... Etc etc.

Our lives are anything but not even remotely close to monkeys living in the lap of luxury.

Edited by Rocket, 26 April 2018 - 12:57 AM.

[YOLF]

If you're Brad Pitt. Otherwise you have a stressful job, stressful kids, and you don't sit around all day waiting to be fed. You likely get too little sleep, have too much stress, aruge with a spouse, get too little exercise... Worry about money... Have to shovel snow, fight traffic... Etc etc.

Our lives are anything but not even remotely close to monkeys living in the lap of luxury.

Then again, we as life extensionists have the option of engineering a better lifestyle and conferring that to our children. 

 

I know that if I sleep well, I do better at work and educational pursuits. Sure I can stay up and get some great thinking done... but it's an exchange that's probably not worth it. I can give up TV, get a DVR or find other time management strategies that can contribute towards economizing my life for performance and lifespan. Live within the means of time and it will reward you with more time. The longer you do it, the better you get at it.

[Mind]

In case anyone was wondering, it still looks very likely that ALL of those old studies showing a survival advantage by being overweight or obese, were systemically flawed. https://www.eurekale...nu-pd022618.php

 

There is no such thing as healthy obesity.

 

In addition to all of the studies referenced early in this discussion (all seriously flawed), the studies based upon BMI alone are mostly junk science as well. When researchers other metrics to measure fat composition, they found that the mortality risk goes up in a linear fashion with weight/fat composition, with the lightest people having the lowest mortality risk while the obese have the highest mortality risk. Common sense. is confirmed.