Being Slightly Overweight Can Add Years to Your Life: Study
Reported July 17, 2009
According to a Canadian study being a little overweight is beneficial as it appears to protect people from an early death.
Researchers said underweight and extremely obese people die earlier than people who had normal body weight, but people who are slightly overweight actually live longer than people of normal body weight.
Researcher David Feeny from the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research said, “It’s not surprising that extreme underweight and extreme obesity increase the risk of dying, but it is surprising that carrying a little extra weight may give people a longevity advantage.”
The study findings were published online in the journal Obesity by researchers at Statistics Canada, Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research, Portland State University, Oregon Health & Science University, and McGill University.
However adding a note of caution was fellow researcher Mark Kaplan, professor of Community Health at Portland State University, who said “Our study only looked at mortality, not at quality of life, and there are many negative health consequences associated with obesity, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes.”
The study used data from the National Population Health Survey and was based on examining the relationship between body mass index and death among 11,326 adults in Canada over a 12-year period.
The researchers found that during the study period, from 1994 through 2007, underweight people were 70% more likely than people of normal weight to die, while extremely obese people were 36% more likely to die.
However overweight individuals were 17 % less likely to die while the relative risk for obese people was nearly the same as for people of normal weight.
Another study highlighted a different aspect of the weight increases seen in the recent years. Women today are heavier and many gain too much weight during pregnancy which increases the chance of complications that affect the health of mother and child.
The report: Substantial weight gain for obese pregnant women poses increased risks for mother and child, by the Institute of Medicine released revised recommendations for expectant mothers.
The institutes recommendations urge overweight women to gain no more than 20 pounds during pregnancy. Nancy Butte, a Baylor College of Medicine pediatrics professor who served on the committee to re-examine pregnancy weight gain guidelines said, One of the biggest predictors of outcome is the mother’s pre-pregnancy weight.
The recommendations are based on body mass index or BMI and in 1980, 18% of women in their childbearing years were overweight, and 13% were obese, today, 60% of U.S. females of childbearing age are too heavy.
That’s what really changed the whole scene, Butte said.
Dr. Fernando Guerra, director of San Antonio’s Metropolitan Health District who also served on the national committee said, For the woman who is already overweight or obese, there’s a much higher risk of prematurity, the need for Caesarean, gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia and many things that potentially could be prevented if we could slow down weight gain or try to get them closer to a normal weight before they got pregnant.
Expectant mothers who gain too much are at risk of having overweight babies which puts the child at risk for obesity later in life. Additionally overweight women are also at risk of babies with low birth weight.
Health experts said talking about weight related issue before patients conceive is the key to reducing the number of obese pregnant women. If it’s done properly, it can motivate the woman to lose weight or pay attention to weight gain in pregnancy and for her future health, Butte said. A lot of women put on their initial gain in the postpartum period and go into their next pregnancy overweight or obese.
Source : topnews.us
