New research on the effects of being overweight

The report was published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and reported on in all the major newspapers.

The study suggests that just being overweight (but not obese!) is not the health hazard that other findings in the past have indicated. The study is sure to be controversial.

Being Overweight Isn’t All Bad, Study Says – washingtonpost.com

Being overweight boosts the risk of dying from diabetes and kidney disease but not cancer or heart disease, and carrying some extra pounds actually appears to protect against a host of other causes of death, federal researchers reported yesterday.

The counterintuitive findings, based on a detailed analysis of decades of government data about more than 39,000 Americans, supports the conclusions of a study the same group did two years ago that suggested the dangers of being overweight may be less dire than experts thought.

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The study, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, was greeted with sharply mixed reactions. Some praised it for providing persuasive evidence that the dangers of fat have been overblown.

"What this tells us is the hazards have been very much exaggerated," said Steven N. Blair, a professor of exercise science, epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of South Carolina. "It’s just not as big a problem as people have said."

But others dismissed the findings as fundamentally flawed, saying an overwhelming body of evidence has documented the risks of being either overweight or obese.

"It’s just rubbish," said Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. "It’s just ludicrous to say there is no increased risk of mortality from being overweight. . . . From a health standpoint, it’s definitely undesirable to be overweight."

The proportion of flabby Americans has been rising steadily, and two-thirds are now classified as overweight, including about one-third who carry so many extra pounds that they qualify as obese. The trend has triggered widespread warnings of an impending epidemic of diabetes, heart, disease, cancer and other ailments

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The researchers used widely accepted federal definitions of "overweight" and "obesity" based on body mass index. A BMI of between 25 to 30 classifies someone as overweight and above 30 as obese. For example, a 5-foot-4-inch adult is considered overweight at 146 pounds and obese at 175.

The researchers calculated that in 2004, obesity was associated with as many as 112,000 excess deaths from heart disease and more than 45,000 deaths from diabetes and kidney disease. Obesity was not, however, associated with an overall excess in cancer deaths, though it was linked to as many as 19,000 excess deaths from malignancies commonly blamed on fat, including breast, uterine, ovarian, kidney, colon, esophageal and pancreatic cancer.

The most surprising finding was that being overweight but not obese was associated only with excess mortality from diabetes and kidney disease — not from cancer or heart disease.

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"I think it would be very unfortunate if these findings made us complacent about becoming overweight," said JoAnn E. Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. "We know being overweight is linked to increased incidence of major chronic disease, including diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease," she said, adding that it "impairs physical function and decreases quality of life."

In fact, another paper published in the same journal found that obesity is increasing disabilities among the elderly, making them less able to do simple things such as walk a quarter-mile, climb 10 steps, bend over or lift 10 pounds.

Flegal stressed that the findings should not encourage people to be overweight or change any public health recommendations.

"This doesn’t mean being overweight is good for you," Flegal said. "But it is associated with less mortality than expected."

Here is the NY Times coverage:

Causes of Death Are Linked to a Person’s Weight – New York Times

“Health extends far beyond mortality rates,” said Dr. JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Dr. Manson added that other studies, including ones at Harvard, found that being obese or overweight increased a person’s risk for any of a number of diseases, including diabetes, heart disease and several forms of cancer. And, she added, excess weight makes it more difficult to move about and impairs the quality of life.

“That’s the big picture in terms of health outcomes,” Dr. Manson said. “That’s what the public needs to look at.”

Researchers generally divide weight into four categories — normal, underweight, overweight and obese — based on the body mass index, which is a measure of body fat based on height and weight. A woman who is 5 foot 4, for instance, would be considered at normal weight at 130, underweight at 107 pounds, overweight at 150 pounds and obese at 180.

Here’s the USA Today coverage:

Study: A few extra pounds won’t kill you – USATODAY.com

Being 25 pounds overweight doesn’t appear to raise your risk of dying from cancer or heart disease, says a new government study that seems to vindicate Grandma’s claim that a few extra pounds won’t kill you.

Released just a few weeks before Thanksgiving, the findings might comfort some who can’t seem to lose those last 15 pounds. And they hearten proponents of a theory that it’s possible to be "fit and fat."

WEIGHT-LOSS CHALLENGE: More stories and resources on getting in shape

The news isn’t all good: Overweight people do have a higher chance of dying from diabetes and kidney disease. And people who are obese — generally those more than 30 pounds overweight for their height — have a higher risk of death from a variety of ills, including some cancers and heart disease.

However, having a little extra weight actually seemed to help people survive some illnesses — results that baffled several leading health researchers.