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Causes of Death Linked To Weight
An anonymous reader writes to mention that while a couple of years ago researchers found that overweight people have a lower death rate than people with a normal weight, it may be more complicated than that. "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."
The /really/ old people, in addition to being skinny, are usually also short.
At 6'4" I take this personally as a bad sign.
On the other hand, there's some guy who's trying to achieve longevity through calorie restriction. Only problem is that he's cut his diet back so far that he doesn't have the energy to enjoy normal activities. He may live a long time, but he won't have much fun doing so. I'd like to live as long as I can live well, and so far in my 50's I can do all of the things I enjoy.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
"And that lower risk is not counteracted by increased risks of dying from any other disease, including cancer, diabetes or heart disease."
Hmm, what about accidents? It seems like extremely overweight people tend to spend more time at home which probably lowers their risks from car / skydiving / whatever accidents. My guess is the low weight stay at home people probably live longer than fat stay at home people. Wonder if I could get a grant to study this...
Recent studies show that a persons weight or BMI are terrible indicators of their overall health. The best method available (without special equipment) is the ratio of waist size to height.
If your waist circumference is less than 50% of your height, you are at a low risk for fat-related diseases. If it is more than 50%, get to the gym, stat!
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
I understand that no-one RTFA, but they corrected for that: and they did it correctly. That's not why.
Oh, yes, I *actually do* biostatistics and know what I am talking about.
Now, you are *correct* that there is no cause and effect established here!
It's entirely possible that genes-which-make-you-thin are also genes-which-give-you-alzheimers, or that they are proxies for such genes.
For example: being white makes you much more likely to have Cystic Fibrosis. This does not mean that getting a tan prevents CF.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
BMI combined with a shred of common sense is a perfectly fine approximation of obesity. There are two Unix admins here with scary-high BMIs, and you don't need calipers to know which one is obese and which one is just on steroids.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Just a thought: According to the graph in the first link, underweight people have a greater chance than overweight people of dying of lung diseases and coronary heart disease. However, smoking, a major causative factor in both groups of diseases, also suppresses the appetite and causes people who would normally be normal or overweight to become underweight. Thus, underweight people might be more likely to die from lung disease and heart disease, but this may just be becaquse underweight people are more likely to smoke.
So, even if smoking isn't actually a major factor int he result, one has to look at the lifestyles that each weight group is likely to lead in order to determine what the important relationships are. Causations are what's important, not correlations.
What's right for one person is not right for another? Is milk good for you? I bet if you search for that you'll find research going both ways... We're all... Snowflakes... There was a guy in New York who lived to be over 100 living on Thunderbird Wine and Bread fried in fat back. When asked why he doesn't fry his bread in bacon he said because it was too lean. Here was a guy who knew exactly what his body needed and lived to be a ripe old age. If he'd of gone to a doctor they'd of told him to eat some vegetables and he'd of been dead in a week...
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
the japanese are pretty long-lived, and tend to be pretty small. i heard life expectancy for the japanese drops when they adopt western eating habits (mostly consuming milk) which causes them to grow larger in addition to the fact that the western diet is nutritionally deficient relative to the tradition japanese one. also incidences of all prime causes of early mortality increase: heart disease, etc.
also, women across all societies live longer than men. i think that while women tend to be smaller overall (than men), they tend to have higher BMIs, correct - in the sense that women carry more fat than men in general.
i also read somewhere - and never was able to find it again - that death rates decreased in general the closer one's body mass got to 55kg. man, if i can find that link i'll post it.
when i was a kid, i was undersized for a while - and there was an old lady who lived next door who saw me frustrated about not being big enough to ride the bike i'd gotten. i told her my frustration about being small and she said, "look at hte bright side. if you're small, you'll probably live a long time." Apparently there is some anecdote about living longer if you are smaller.
not that anecdotal evidence means anything, but the japanese population is not an insignificant sample size. interestingly enough, on a biological level longevity is inversely associated with fertility (another factoid i read somehweree that i cannot substantiate at all - no flames please) - and the japanese have one of the lowest birth rates in the first world.
again, no flames as i cannot substantiate these assertions and don't have the time to. But the japanese thing and the woman thing are pretty much documented as regards longevity.
un burrito me trampeó.