How Related Are Weight And Health?
August 14, 2008
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The conventional wisdom is that if you are normal sized you are healthy and if you are overweight you are unhealthy. However, a recent analysis has suggested that it is not that simple and that weight and health may not be related in a straightforward way.
More data from NHANES (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) suggests that some “normal weight” people are unhealthy and that some people considered overweight do not have signs of cardiac disease or other diseases that have been conventionally associated with obesity.
Of course being thin has never necessarily meant healthy. For instance, my mother who suffers form Crohn’s disease is thin due to her disease. However, in this analysis of the NHANES surveys, of those with normal weight there were a significant proportion who had what the authors called “metabolic markers of obesity”.
What were considered to be metabolic markers of obesity? They included high blood pressure, elevated triglycerides, high fasting blood glucose, high levels of C reactive protein (hsCRP) and low levels of HDL (the good) cholesterol.
The proportion of normal weight people with these markers increased with age, from 10.3% for ages 20 to 24 years , 16.9% between 35 and 49 years, 41.7% between 50 and 64 years, 54.7% between 65 and 79 years, and 56.2% 80 years and older.
Conversely, for those considered overweight and would be expected to have the metabolic markers, there were many who were in the optimal range. Healthy levels of the markers decreased with age, but represented a substantial proportion of the survey participants. The ranges were 47.7% between 20 and 34 years, 31.1% between 35 and 49 years, 20.4% between 50 and 64 years, 14.3% between 65 and 79 years, and 22.1% 80 years and older.
This sort of goes against what we are told. It will be interesting to see how the discussion of the data develops. The data does suggest that you need to go and get tested for cholesterol, glucose, triglycerides etc, whatever your size. Find out what your numbers are, then go from there.
Technorati Tags: weight, metabolic, obesity, NHANES
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[…] you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Yesterdays post was about analysis of NHANES data that showed that body weight and health are not always related. […]