Four Obesity Paradoxes Exposed: Obesity Protects From Chronic Disease > Overweight is CVD Protective > Obesity is Not a Problem if You're Fit > Healthy Obesity is Real
Since scientists still judge obesity by BMI values, athletes contribute to the CVD / mortality "obesity paradox" |
In today's SuppVersity Special I want to take a closer look at these and other claims that are based on observational data that suggest that either all or at least one of the following "obesity paradoxes" exist: (1) Classic obesity paradox - obesity is protective in some chronic diseases; (2) pre-obesity - overweight is protective in normal populations; (3) fat-but-fit - obesity is not a risk factor for mortality in fit individuals; (4) healthy obesity - a sizeable population of obese adults has normal cardio-metabolic risk profiles (McAuley. 2011).
Small bacteria may help you to become and stay lean - you just have to feed them!
- The classic obesity paradox: Ok, let's start with the biggest bogus, i.e. obesity paradox #1 - obesity is protective in some chronic diseases: Yes, you cannot deny that there appears to be a reduced mortality risk in obese vs. lean patients with known or suspected coronary heart disease (CVD). Now, the real problem, though, is that obesity is also an independent risk factor for CHD (Hubert. 1983; Wilson. 2002).
In addition, the evidence that normal-weight and even more so underweight CVD patients are at higher risk of not surviving their illness could just as well be a result of reverse causation with the subjects in the normal and low weight range having lost weight due to being sicker than their overweight peers.You don't believe that? Well why do those with the highest weight not have the lowest, but the highest (+88% | Romero-Corral. 2006) CVD mortalities? Convinced? Don't be too sure, there's still one last argument in favor of the existence of an obesity paradox. Who's worse off than someone who is fat and suffers from metabolic syndrome? Well, someone who is not even able to store away the extra energy and suffers from high blood glucose and lipid levels, although he is not obese. If we had sub-group analysis on the normal- and under-weight CVD subjects, I am pretty sure that many will fall into the metabolically deranged skinny fat category. How paradox is it that they don't live longer than their overweight, but in many cases metabolically less deranged peers?
Summary of Mortality from Cancer According to Body-Mass Index for U.S. Men in the Cancer Prevention Study II, 1982 through 1998 (Calle. 2003). |
- The pre-obesity paradox: While you certainly cannot rely to survive all your friends if you're simply the fattest, the pre-obesity paradox which says that people in the overweight, but non-obese pre-obesity zone (BMI 25-29.9 kg/m²) will live the longest is much harder to debunk.
While it is unquestionable that many people who fall into this category suffer from pre-diabetes and pre-hypertension, which in turn are associated with significant increased risk of CVD mortality and all-cause mortality (Tsai. 2008; Ning. 2010). As Karandish and Shirani point out in a recent review "[t]herefore, a gradual increase in mortality risk from pre-obesity to obesity [must be] expected" (Karandish. 2015).
To summarize, I would like to cite the conclusion of a letter to the editor of Obesity Research & Clinical Practice in which the author says that "most of healthy obesity may be a transient state" (Nakajima. 2015) - and that's not a hypothesis. It's based on evidence from studies by Soriguer et al. (2013), Appleton, et al. (2013), Bell et al. (2014 & 2015). - The fat-but-fit paradox: You probably won't doubt that fat-but-fit individuals have considerably lower mortality risk compared to normal-weight but unfit individuals. But let's be honest: How many fat-but-fit individuals do you know? None? One? Well, I guess that's because studies show that obesity is a major obstacle to doing what it takes to get and stay fit: exercise (Dalle Grave. 2010; Sallinen. 2009).
- The healthy obesity exists paradox: In the discussion of paradox #1-3, we have already confirmed that you can be obese and significantly healthier than some sick normal-weight individuals. This can, but does not have to mean that you also fullfill the official definition which includes the absence of six common cardio-metabolic risk factors (impaired fasting glucose/diabetes, insulin resistance, high triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol, high blood pressure, and high C-reactive protein) in an individual with a BMI ≥30 kg/m².
The previously discussed evidence that shows that most people rapidly progress from healthy to unhealthy obesity do yet put a huge "?" behind #2 and #3 of the "Health at Every Size" recommendations according to which obese individuals should "trust internal body systems designed to keep us healthy" and "listen to hunger and satiety body signals" - if those mechanisms were fully functional in a world of 24/7 junkfood exposure, no one would be obese - healthy or unhealthy. Compared to yoyo-dieting, though, this strategy has been shown to reduce weight and improve relevant health variables (Bacon. 2002).
5% Calorie Restriction & Longterm Dieting Make You Fat & Insulin Resistant | more |
Against that background I consider the talk about "healthy obesity" in the media downright dangerous, because it weakens what should be the most important incentive to keep your weight in check: your health | What do you think?
- Appleton, Sarah L., et al. "Diabetes and cardiovascular disease outcomes in the metabolically healthy obese phenotype a cohort study." Diabetes Care 36.8 (2013): 2388-2394.
- Bacon, Linda, et al. "Evaluating a" non-diet'wellness intervention for improvement of metabolic fitness, psychological well-being and eating and activity behaviors." International Journal of Obesity (2002).
- Bell, J. A., M. Kivimaki, and M. Hamer. "Metabolically healthy obesity and risk of incident type 2 diabetes: a meta‐analysis of prospective cohort studies." obesity reviews 15.6 (2014): 504-515.
- Bell, Joshua A., et al. "The natural course of healthy obesity over 20 years." Journal of the American College of Cardiology 65.1 (2015): 101-102.
- Calle, Eugenia E., et al. "Overweight, obesity, and mortality from cancer in a prospectively studied cohort of US adults." New England Journal of Medicine 348.17 (2003): 1625-1638.
- Dalle Grave, Riccardo, et al. "Cognitive-behavioral strategies to increase the adherence to exercise in the management of obesity." Journal of obesity 2011 (2010).
- Gopal, J. "Metabolically Healthy Obesity-Is it Really a Distinct Subtype?." Journal of Obesity and Metabolic Research 2.2 (2015): 105.
- Hubert, Helen B., et al. "Obesity as an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease: a 26-year follow-up of participants in the Framingham Heart Study." Circulation 67.5 (1983): 968-977.
- Karandish, Majid, and Fatemeh Shirani. "Controversies in Obesity Treatment." Nutrition And Food Sciences Research 2.3 (2015): 5-14.
- Lee, Duck-chul, et al. "Review: Mortality trends in the general population: the importance of cardiorespiratory fitness." Journal of Psychopharmacology 24.4 suppl (2010): 27-35.
- McAuley, Paul A., and Steven N. Blair. "Obesity paradoxes." Journal of sports sciences 29.8 (2011): 773-782.
- Nakajima, Kei, and Kaname Suwa. "Excess body weight affects HbA1c progression irrespective of baseline HbA1c levels in Japanese individuals: a longitudinal retrospective study." Endocrine research 0 (2014): 1-7.
- Nakajima, Kei. "Long-term healthy obesity may be exceptional worldwide." Obesity research & clinical practice (2015).
- Ning, Feng, et al. "Cardiovascular disease mortality in Europeans in relation to fasting and 2-h plasma glucose levels within a normoglycemic range." Diabetes Care 33.10 (2010): 2211-2216.
- Romero-Corral, Abel, et al. "Association of bodyweight with total mortality and with cardiovascular events in coronary artery disease: a systematic review of cohort studies." The Lancet 368.9536 (2006): 666-678.
- Sallinen, Janne, et al. "Perceived constraints on physical exercise among obese and non-obese older people." Preventive medicine 49.6 (2009): 506-510.
- Soriguer, Federico, et al. "Metabolically healthy but obese, a matter of time? Findings from the prospective Pizarra study." The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism 98.6 (2013): 2318-2325.
- Tsai, Shan Pou, et al. "The effects of pre-disease risk factors within metabolic syndrome on all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality." Diabetes research and clinical practice 82.1 (2008): 148-156.
- Wilson, Peter WF, et al. "Overweight and obesity as determinants of cardiovascular risk: the Framingham experience." Archives of internal medicine 162.16 (2002): 1867-1872.