Body Weight and Mortality Rate

[Virgil]

A very fascinating article from today's New York Times that I think many would be interested in. The title belies the content somewhat in that data does not show that being overweight (but not obese) leads to a higher mortality rate. I'll put my thoughts on its implications at the bottom of the page.


November 7, 2007
Causes of Death Are Linked to a Person’s Weight
By GINA KOLATA
About two years ago, a group of federal researchers reported that overweight people have a lower death rate than people who are normal weight, underweight or obese. Now, investigating further, they found out which diseases are more likely to lead to death in each weight group.

Linking, for the first time, causes of death to specific weights, they report that overweight people have a lower death rate because they are much less likely to die from a grab bag of diseases that includes Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, infections and lung disease. And that lower risk is not counteracted by increased risks of dying from any other disease, including cancer, diabetes or heart disease.

As a consequence, the group from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute reports, there were more than 100,000 fewer deaths among the overweight in 2004, the most recent year for which data were available, than would have expected if those people had been of normal weight.

Their paper is published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The researchers also confirmed that obese people and people whose weights are below normal have higher death rates than people of normal weight. But, when they asked why, they found that the reasons were different for the different weight categories.



.....


[Snip}

Read the rest here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/health/07fat.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1194438040-WQ8KzBIizxq%20luYBavokrw&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

As someone who works with scientific data, I'm not surprised. The human mind creates analogies and linear relationships (i.e., if A is bad, then a lot more of A is worse) that are not necessarily so in the real world. There are complicated set of variables that work differently in different proportions and situations. So when people look at me as some carzy uncle (crazy uncle Virgil, I like that :p ) who goes off on these rantings about vegetarinaism and global warming, I think articles like this go to support what I'm claiming. Data is very complex and these thumb nail assessments are usually off the mark. No data shows that vegetarinaism is healthier for you, and as to gloabal warming at best it's over hyped and at worst and outright crock.

[TheFifthElement]

Interesting article Virgil, which starts with one glaring inaccuracy :


About two years ago, a group of federal researchers reported that overweight people have a lower death rate than people who are normal weight, underweight or obese

the death rate of overweight people is the same as everyone else 100%, unless they have discovered that being overweight bring immortality?!

Perhaps might have been more accurate to say that overweight people appear to live longer, or be less susceptible to certain causes of death.

A point well made crazy Uncle Virge ;)

[Virgil]

Interesting article Virgil, which starts with one glaring inaccuracy :



the death rate of overweight people is the same as everyone else 100%, unless they have discovered that being overweight bring immortality?!

Perhaps might have been more accurate to say that overweight people appear to live longer, or be less susceptible to certain causes of death.

A point well made crazy Uncle Virge ;)

:lol: Well, they certainly aren't up on grammar.

[Granny5]

:lol: Well, they certainly aren't up on grammar.

whether it's true or not, I'm going to believe it!!

[Petrarch's Love]

FifthElement: the death rate of overweight people is the same as everyone else 100%, unless they have discovered that being overweight bring immortality?!
Virgil: Well, they certainly aren't up on grammar.


Maybe I should use this in my writing class as an example of why grammar and word choice are essential in one's writing. FifthElement brings up what confused me too. I am completely unclear as to what this article is actually saying. If a smaller percentage of overweight people die of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's but without "increased risks of dying from any other disease," then are the people in this group not dying of Alzheimer's Parkinson's or other disease immortal? Is the study actually talking about death at a certain age? If that's the case, then does that mean that these overweight people don't have Parkinson's at that age or that they just haven't died of it at that age? (It makes perfect sense that overweight people would be able to live longer with a disease than those with less body fat.) In short, could someone perhaps explain to me what the actual claim of this study is?

[Virgil]

Maybe I should use this in my writing class as an example of why grammar and word choice are essential in one's writing. FifthElement brings up what confused me too. I am completely unclear as to what this article is actually saying. If a smaller percentage of overweight people die of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's but without "increased risks of dying from any other disease," then are the people in this group not dying of Alzheimer's Parkinson's or other disease immortal? Is the study actually talking about death at a certain age? If that's the case, then does that mean that these overweight people don't have Parkinson's at that age or that they just haven't died of it at that age? (It makes perfect sense that overweight people would be able to live longer with a disease than those with less body fat.) In short, could someone perhaps explain to me what the actual claim of this study is?

I think what they are saying is that because overwieght people are less likely to die from those diseases, their overall life expectancy is actually more. Because underweight people are more likely to have less heart problems (a positive) but more cancer problems (a negative), the net affect (the summation of positives and negatives) of the percentages is that an underweight person has less of life expectancy than an overweight person. That's how I read it.

[Admin]

There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Many diseases cause people to lose weight and slowly wither away, their weight at the time of death may not be indicative of their lifestyle.

Or, wealthier people are more likely to be overweight, having less manual labor type jobs, more access to luxury foods, etc. However wealthier people are also more likely to seek better medical care.

Or, skinny people make the assumption that they're healthy and so do not see a doctor regularly, thus any potentially life threatening disease is not caught early enough.

Or, how do they define overweight? The normal way to define it used by pretty much every branch of the government is by BMI. BMI was invented in the 1800s and the guy who came up with it never meant for it to be used to judge overall health. It is such a bad indicator that it ranks obviously fit people like Brad Pitt as overweight.

http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm/headline/2820
http://www.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,,1958685,00.html

It is so very easy to make erroneous conclusions when analyzing research. You really need to break out all the uncontrolled variables and make sure you're not making an inappropriate assumption (such as using BMI).

[Virgil]

Yeah, but Admin, this data was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Look at what the news article sites. That is a serious medical journal and such a mistake (cancer patients as included as skinny) would be laughed at. I doubt such a mistake would occur in the data.

[B-Mental]

Just because a publication has a fancy name, doesn't mean it isn't fallible. Sure, the articles are peer reviewed. Statistics are what statistics are, just a bunch of numbers.

[Pensive]

I find it hard to trust it...and what admin has said here does make sense:


Or, wealthier people are more likely to be overweight, having less manual labor type jobs, more access to luxury foods, etc. However wealthier people are also more likely to seek better medical care.



Statistics are what statistics are, just a bunch of numbers.

Heh, this just reminds me of what Tal's teacher said about Statistics, "It's like a mini-skirt, promises a lot but reveals very little."

[Petrarch's Love]

Statistics are what statistics are, just a bunch of numbers.

And in this case I would really like to see the numbers, since whoever wrote this is either a lousy rhetorician or a very good one. ;)

[Virgil]

:lol: :lol: Hey I couldn't care less what you choose to believe. But when you go to a doctor, he is making judgements by statisitics. I make judgements at work by statistics. I know politicians throw statistics around, and they give statistics a bad name, but no science can be advanced without proper use of statistics. There are college degrees in statistics.

The Journal of Ammerican medical Association is probably the leading medical journal (a specialized journal, not an off the shelf magazine) in the world. From Wiki:

JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association is an international peer-reviewed general medical journal, published 48 times per year by the American Medical Association. JAMA is the most widely circulated medical journal in the world.[1]

Founded in 1883 by the American Medical Association and published continuously since then, JAMA publishes original research, reviews, commentaries, editorials, essays, medical news, correspondence, and ancillary content (such as abstracts of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report). In 2005, JAMAs impact factor was 23.5[1] placing it among the leading general medical journals.[2] JAMAs acceptance rate is approximately 8% of the nearly 6000 solicited and unsolicited manuscripts it receives annually.[1] The first editor was Nathan Smith Davis, the founder of the American Medical Association and present editor of JAMA is Catherine DeAngelis.

One more note: For all I know another study will contradict this in two years. That doesn't mean that this is falsified data.

[applepie]

A very fascinating article from today's New York Times that I think many would be interested in. The title belies the content somewhat in that data does not show that being overweight (but not obese) leads to a higher mortality rate. I'll put my thoughts on its implications at the bottom of the page.



Thanks for sharing this Virgil. It was on my list of things to add to the forum since I thought it was pretty interesting too. I think that the article is likely right for the most part, but perhaps it is for all the wrong reasons. Society has become so obsessed with the size of a person's waist that they've forgotten that physical fitness is as much or more important than your weight. Eating the right foods and exercise will not always make you lose weight, as I'm finding, but it will make you more healthy. There are different healthy weights for people at different times in their lives. If I were to weigh the same now as I did when I got married I would look like some sickly skeleton.

Admin has also made a good point. Statistics are interesting little things that can easily be twisted to say whatever it is that you wish to. One of the things that was covered in all my business classes were statistics, and how to interpret them properly. I'm afraid it also make you very weary of anything quoting statistical values:)

[BulletproofDork]

How does someone tell if they're overweight or obese? :confused:

[Virgil]

How does someone tell if they're overweight or obese? :confused:

bullet, it depends on one's height and how much over weight one is for that height. You'll have to find a table that has that.

[Shalot]

that table is a bunch of hooey. I was always on the overweight side just because of my build even when you couldn't pinch an inch on me (I was no chub whatsover). muscle weighs a bit more so if you're very muscular, you could register on the fat side using that table alone. I guess it's a good guide though. You could shoot for a certain range keeping in mind that you don't have to hit exactly the weight and height as charted on it(within reason). But if you're 5'2 and you weigh 600 pounds and your knees slap your belly when you walk, then you might have a problem. I'd say you're far beyond aerobics when you hit that level.

[Virgil]

that table is a bunch of hooey. I was always on the overweight side just because of my build even when you couldn't pinch an inch on me (I was no chub whatsover). muscle weighs a bit more so if you're very muscular, you could register on the fat side using that table alone. I guess it's a good guide though. You could shoot for a certain range keeping in mind that you don't have to hit exactly the weight and height as charted on it(within reason). But if you're 5'2 and you weigh 600 pounds and your knees slap your belly when you walk, then you might have a problem. I'd say you're far beyond aerobics when you hit that level.

Not arguing with you on this one Shalot. ;) :p I agree, I'm the same. I have more muscle than those tables reflect and muscle is at least twice as dense as fat.

[NikolaiI]

http://theantiagingdoctor.com/lifexdr.htm

Actually, prolonged or chronic hunger has been shown to extend life-span in rodents and monkeys. I'm pretty sure it will do the same for humans. I don't have a reliable source for this, but my dad was telling me about somebody from somewhere in Asia talking about this, who said if you never eat until you're full, you'll live a lot longer (this is for adults, as kids need to eat a lot to grow up).

I think it's just bogus, Virgil, because of the research done on other animals about how hunger extends life for other animals, etc. I think (haven't gotten to this part of the article yet) there's actually a gene which is turned on when we're chronically hungry, which shuts down or slows down the natural deterioration that goes on.

[Virgil]

I've heard of those extremely low calorie lifetime diets increasing life span in mice, and I think with limited data also in humans. I think I've seen an estimate of three or four yars longer. But even if true (I don't think it's conclusive in humans yet) eating is a pleasure. Why would anyone give up the pleasures of eating for a mere three or four years? And that means constant hunger pains, headaches, and irritability. Not worth it to me.

[NikolaiI]

Well, the estimates would be longer, depending on countless factors, but it should be something more like 10%, I would imagine. I would figure that it would lessen problems like headaches and irritability, at least for me. I'm still working out all that stuff, as I'm still young, but I think it's a vast improvement to your health if you fast occasionally, and if you never ate until you were full.

There's a really long article on Wiki about calorie restriction. Only read the intro. Looks interesting.