And They Will Keep On Studying It Until They Get It Right

A new meta-study concludes that being even slightly overweight is bad for one's lifespan.  This refudiates a bitterly controversial (and misunderstood) 2005 study, but since this new study looked at weight but not activity or fitness level the conclusions remain cloudy:

University of South Carolina obesity researcher Steven Blair said the results were consistent with other studies and the "massive effort" was commendable. But he said there wasn't enough information available about fitness level or physical activity. A proponent of the "fit and fat" theory, Blair said his research has shown that obese people who are tested and deemed fit did not face increased risks of dying.

"If we want to get to the bottom of the health hazards of overweight and obesity, we have to have better data on physical activity," Blair said. "Until we do that, there's uncertainty of how important BMI is as an important predictor of mortality."

To belabor the obvious:  Let's suppose, for argument's sake, that the key predictor of health is fitness (perhaps as measured by level of activity) rather than 'fatness'.  Let's further suppose that normal weight people are predominantly, but not exclusively, active, and that overweight people are predominantly but not exclusively sedentary.

In that case, a study that looks only at 'fatness' will conclude that being overweight is hazardous to one's health.  But it is a spurious correlation; all the study will have established is that 'fatness' is somewhat (negatively) correlated with the key variable, fitness.

And that distinction clearly matters, in our hypothetical world - if a doctor has two men in his office, one active and and one sedentary but both twenty pounds overweight, he should not be giving them the same medical advice since their lifestyles and health prospects are quite different.

And in any case, the advice should not be to lose twenty pounds; the advice should be an increase in activity level.

Well.  If I had to guess I would Boldly Predict that further study will reveal that fitness is an important independent variable.  However, my timid guess is that excess weight would survive as a predictor of poor outcomes. Whether that is because excess weight is a problem in itself or only a proxy for other bad behaviors (such as poor nutrition) I won't guess.

Comments

[Janet "Dare to be Dull..."]

I don't know why anyone bothers with these studies anymore. It seems clear that anyone that is overweight or slightly overweight, or that smokes or has been in the proximity of tobacco should be immediately terminated. Saves us money on health care & is good for planet earth.

Perhaps the next study could let us know what the correct lifespan IS. That way we could get rid of anyone that wouldn't reach it. Why waste resources on someone that won't reach the correct lifespan?

[Janet "Dare to be Dull..."]

From Tom's linked article - "A 5-foot-6 person is considered overweight at 155 pounds, obese at 186 pounds and morbidly obese at 248 pounds."

[LouP]

Medical "science" is the mother of all junk science. I've known that since the early 1970s, and have several personal experiences to back it up.

This study reminds me of my college days. The captain of our football team, who was also captain of the lacrosse team and boxing champion, was declared to be "unfit" because he could not do the prescribed number of pull-ups.

Want to save deficit money? Immediately stop all the federal grants that are used to bring us this kind of study.

[peter]

I think having a small excess of weight, say ten or fifteen pounds of fat over the recommended weight is good to have as protection in case you undergo an illness or trauma. Those triathletes, body builders and underwear models who have only three per cent body fat, may look great, but couldn't survive an emergency surgery as well as a mesomorph. And besides, who wants to live longer, if we are living in a soulless socialist state of bankruptcy?

[mcg]

"Now there's really a very large body of evidence which supports the finding that being overweight is associated with a small increased risk of death," Berrington said.

Risk of death if you are overweight: 100%
Risk of death if you are not overweight: 100%.

I'm not seeing the increase.

[tea anyone]

mcg,
Heh!

[bio mom]

That comment was terrific!!

How in the world did my overweight grandmother live to be 88, my overweight aunt live to be 83? How did my skinny neighbor not live past 60? So many questions. So little time. I think I will go an have a piece of cake.

[Ignatz]

That anamoly does appear statistically insignificant, mcg.

[peter]

Maureen Dowd is off today. (LUN, near the bottom)

Isn't she a little bit "off" everyday?

[Chubby]

It's amazing that since all responsiblity for the problem of obesity has been transferred from the moral to the physiological realm that obesity hasn't diminished, but may very well have increaased. And even though materia medica classifies obesity as a biological matter of genes, etc., there is still a lot of negative moral judgement attached to obesity.

[cathyf]

And in any case, the advice should not be to lose twenty pounds;

I've always wondered why the advice wasn't to grow 3 inches taller...

[Army of Davids]

Leftover from thanksgiving...

Lame Duck Surprise. Aging and moldy.

[Captain Hate]

Medical "science" is the mother of all junk science.

Hear hear. I've encountered some very good doctors through the years and I regard them more as artists than scientists.

[Army of Davids]

Food Safety bill?

We've seen deaths from food poisoning drop by 2/3rds in the last decade.

Increasing regulated oligopoly power at the expense of small business and the consumer?

[Clarice]

Other factors surely are involved but probably have no political payoff. My mom's 91 and somewhat overweight. Her heart is strong and the doctor always shows her off as an example of a fir oldster. She was born with a tendency to low blood pressure and has remained somewhat physically active all her life (less now because of a knee problem).
I suppose many are not so lucky and excess pounds mean high blood pressure which might well be a longevity factor.

Every time you read a popular article on health it is full of misinformation: There is, i.e., no sound study linking dietary fat to fat or cholesterol or health and most people can eat salt with no problems whatsoever.There is not a scintilla of evidence that organic food is better for you and both locavore and organic farming use far more resources--land and energy and labor--than large scale farms. Eat, drink and be merry.

[Rick Ballard]

"And even though materia medica classifies obesity as a biological matter of genes, etc."

Nice try, Chubby.

Has anyone else noticed a dearth of news re results from the genome mapping project? I tried to find something concerning genetic mapping and dosage when the Vitamin D piece went up and the results were very meager. It seems to me that working back from COD through the genome should provide rather fruitful results but I see very little published research on the matter.

[glasater]

Years ago I remembering reading that coconut oil was a health hazard. Clogged arteries and all.
Now it's touted as an all round health product.

[peter]

Clarice, may I respectfully differ with you regarding organic vegetables? I have grown organic in my backyard for the last thirty years. As a gastronome, I think organic vegetables taste much better. A lot of pesticides contain chemicals which are very similar to nerve gas or synthetic hormones. The jury may well be out on whether commercial organic growing is a good thing, but there is at least a scintilla of evidence favoring organic food. that being said, I don't think the federal government should be in the business of dictating what organic food is. I also am against the government mandating recycling. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't recycle to conserve what we have. The case can be made that inorganic fertilizers ultimately leach into the ocean, causing algae blooms and deaths to native fish species, such as the oyster industry here on Long Island being wiped out because everyone wants a golf club green lawn. Call me a crunchy con, or a conservative conservationist. And I do agree that many of these studies regarding cholesterol, dietary fat, etc. are so much hooey.

[Jack is Back!]

My PT is a former Navy SEAL and in Lance Armstrong/Michael Phelps kind of "shape" and was refused the lower premium on his life and health insurances since measured BMI instead of body fat as a percentage of mass. What we see as fat is actually muscle on him.

And try calling this guy "fatso".

[Clarice]

peter, I wash my fruits and vegetables and have found no reliable study that organic pesticides are unsafe. Organic food may taste better to you but I bet that's because you are eating better varieties and fresh picked stuff. In a recent blind test my suspicions seem to have been borne out--tasters preferred many of the big farm, shipped long distance Costco fruits and vegetables over locally grown organic produce.

As for the environmental damage...if we all ate organic we'd have no forestland left unless we starved the poor out of the marketplace.

That's my view. Obviously YMMV.

[cathyf]

Another issue is the location of the body fat. The fat which is inside the abdominal cavity seems to be associated with increased morbidity, whereas fat on the thighs, or butt, or on the belly but between the skin and abdominal wall, may even be beneficial. Sumo wrestlers are a classic example of a body type with lots of fat but NOT inside the abdomen. The body type of having a pot belly but otherwise being skinny is strongly correlated with being a diabetic with a not-fat person's BMI. (India has a disproportionate number of people with this body type, and double the rates of type-2 diabetes.)

If that is the case, then studies would underestimate the bad effects of the "bad" fat, because they would count the pot-bellied folks with normal BMIs as not being overweight, and the pear-shaped folks with big butts and thighs but skinny waists get counted as overweight.

[Rob Crawford]

There is not a scintilla of evidence that organic food is better for you and both locavore and organic farming use far more resources--land and energy and labor--than large scale farms.

I dunno. I've tried finding inorganic food but haven't had much luck. Thankfully, every damned thing at the grocery store is organic; even the boxes and bags!

If you're stuck looking for a half-decent movie sometime, check out "Road to Wellville". It pokes fun at some of the health-food nuts of the late 19th century; see if you can't find the origins of the whole "organic" craze in the antics of Kellogg, etc.

[Rob Crawford]

Years ago I remembering reading that coconut oil was a health hazard.

Probably the result of a "Center for Science in the Public Interest" campaign. The best way to understand them is to think of the worst kill-joy, "Eeyore" person you've ever met, then square them.

If you enjoy eating it, the CSPI is agin' it.

[(Another) Barbara]

and the pear-shaped folks with big butts and thighs but skinny waists get counted as overweight.

Soon to be known as "the Michelle paradox," an inaccurate designation that will be corrected by Executive Order.

[srp]

You know what really cuts your lifespan? Working on technical projects that threaten Israel.

Besides the recent epidemic of explosion disorders among Iranian nuclear experts we have this from Robert Jackson's The Israeli Air Force Story: The Making of a Corps d'Elite (1970) p. 149-152:

"With the arrival of more scientists from Germany in 1960 and 1961, however, the whole situation took a dramatic new turn...What now worried the Israelis was that the man directing these surveys was Wolfgang Pilz, one of the scientists who had helped to perfect Germany's wartime V-2 rocket on von Braun's staff at Peenemunde. Also in Egypt...was a specialist in radar guidance systems named Paul Goercke; a former Luftwaffe colonel, he had worked for a time on France's Veronique rocket programme

....None of the rockets appeared to be operational at this stage, but the potential threat could not be ignored. In the autumn of 1962, Shin Bet issued a high-level directive to its agents operating in Egypt and Western Europe. The directive was brutally simple: the key scientists working for Nasser were to be tracked down and killed. It was the start of a systematic terror campaign that was to continue throughout the whole of 1963:..."

Scientists blown up, shot, dying in apparent accidents, forced to live cooped up in "science cities" that still were not sufficient to protect them, etc. Jackson continues:

"The constant threat of liquidation, together with serious internal disputes that had risen with the Egyptians, resulted in a group of German technicians leaving Egypt early in 1964. They were followed by more of their colleagues, in increasing numbers. By the middle of 1965 the evacuation was almost complete and the development of Nasser's rockets was brought to a complete standstill....Nasser's dream of launching a rain of high explosives against Israel's cities from a safe distance was shattered."

So remember--we have good longitudinal data that working on stuff that threatens Israel's existence is hazardous to your health, no matter how much Vitamin D you take or what your BMI is.

[daddy]

Anybody know if when NASA makes it's big announcement today about potentially having discovered extraterrestrial life, if they'll give credit to the Islams for their contribution per Obama's directive?

[DrJ]

srp,

Uh oh! I'm reviewing a paper submitted by members of the Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority. Need I worry?

:)

[Rob Crawford]

Anyone else think NASA's announcement is more about the upcoming budget than about any actual discovery (no matter how important)?

From what I understand, they found a bacteria that is arsenic-based rather than carbon-based. That would make it utterly unlike all other life on the planet. Not necessarily from somewhere else, just "life, Captain, but not as we know it".

It does mean there's much more room Out There for other life, though. Not that you'd want to kiss any arsenic-based life...

[Chubby]

((Nice try, Chubby.))

Well, even I was off about "fat genes", you have to admit that the medical establishment's focus on a cure for obesity is biased toward physiological solutions. What I see in that is an underlying assumption that the answer is collectively physical instead of individually moral or spiritual.

[harrjf]

We are all going to die. It is just a case of how we choose to go.

A man visits his doctor due to ill health. They doctor runs some tests and tells him he must stop smoking, drinking and running around with loose women or he will die very within the month. The man says "Doc, I don't do any of those things." The doctor replies, "Then I am sorry but there is no hope for you."

[Captain Hate]

Rob, I don't think it's arsenic-based life per se; rather it can exist on arsenic replacing phosphorus as an essential input.

[sbw]

For their government-funded analysis

Wait a minute. Who the hell is the government to fund any health-related study? Where does it say in the Constitution that this is government's job.

What makes me ask is that NYS is floating charging students $5.93 to take their state-mandated Regents exams (that show such poor results) to see if students learned enough from their state-mandated curricula that distilled out all of the life lessons worth learning.

Rather than charge students $5.93 to help balance the state budget, let's de-fund the ENTIRE State Education Department, including the certification requirements for teachers and administrators, the mandated classroom size, the veggies for lunch -- do away with all the state funding -- such that we pay for what we want on our own, and hire and fire teachers on our own because they succeed, not because they have union seniority.

Education bubble? Time to pop. Tipping point, meet bloated government.

[Rob Crawford]

Rob, I don't think it's arsenic-based life per se; rather it can exist on arsenic replacing phosphorus as an essential input.

Eh -- I still wouldn't kiss it.

[Rob Crawford]

Ah. Crap. Sorry.

[Jane (sit on the couch or save your country)]

"From what I understand, they found a bacteria that is arsenic-based rather than carbon-based. That would make it utterly unlike all other life on the planet."

Amy says it's old news - we've known about it for awhile (at least she has.) New news would be if we found those elements on another planet.

[daddy]

What's so bad about ">http://img.amazon.ca/images/I/51Y1MEQEH5L._SL500_AA300_.jpg"> Arsenic?

[hit and run]

This is what happens when an arsenic-based life form infestats our pixels.

[Clarice]

srp Ledeen has a good piece up today on PJM suggesting this was Iranian because they feared these two scientists were defecting..you might read it.

[hit and run]

It attax spelling too.

[Clarice]

peter, I meant "pesticides" not "organic pesticides". I am too busy this afternoon to locate it, but I recently read a report by a scientist that said without artificial pesticides, organically grown produce produces its own which is rather identical to the artificial stuff.

[Dies laughing.]

srp, look, anduril, you can hide but you can't fun me.
===========

[She was pretty active too.]

Once when she was almost your mother's age, Clarice, my mother told me that all these household labor saving devices were a mistake. We were supposed to stoop, and bend, and lift.
=========

[Stephanie]

Clearing my url line it's acting all wobbly.

[Stephanie]

And it's not clearing with the italics on.

[daddy]

Hey, on FOX now is a shot of the floor of Congress and a vote of some Senate Amendment. Current vote is 195 Dems for and 2 Repub's for and 150 Repubs against.

Don't even know what the vote is but would love to know who the 2 Repubs are...and then tar and feather them:)

[glasater]

Years ago a friend recommended an elixir from the health food store that had all kinds of minerals in it. No vitamins to speak of.
So in reading what was in this drink was just a teeny tiny amount of arsenic.
I bought it and drank it anyway and the product lived up to expectations. Gave me lots of energy and stamina and tasted great.

[centralcal]

daddy - I think it was the "chicken crap" vote on tax cut extensions.

[centralcal]

I have C-Span live streaming. I want to see if Rangel gets censured.

BTW - once again I turned on news during my west coast lunch hour - the slimy Shep Smith so completely pisses me off nearly every day, I seriously think I will actually start watching MSNBC or CNN during my lunch hour.

He is supposed to be a news anchor not an opinionista.

[Jane]

Did you see that guy try and rig the vote CC?

[centralcal]

The House is voting on an amendment to change "censure" to "reprimand."

Rangel is gonna get away easy, I just know it.

[centralcal]

The voice vote, Jane? Yeah, the Chair was in hurry to declare the "ayes, have it."

[anduril]

And now for an expert opinion, via Ron Kessler:

WikiLeaks Prosecution Faces Hurdles

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can be prosecuted in this country for espionage, but he may never be brought back to the United States to face the charges.

That’s the judgment of John L. Martin, arguably the country’s foremost expert on the subject.

For 25 years, Martin was in charge of espionage prosecutions by the Justice Department. By the time he retired in August 1997, Martin had supervised the prosecution of 76 spies. Only one of the prosecutions resulted in an acquittal.

Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. has said the Justice Department has an “active, ongoing criminal investigation” of Assange, who is in hiding, over his apparent release of classified documents.

While Assange could be indicted, “as long as he stays out of the United States, we don’t have any jurisdiction over him,” Martin tells Newsmax. “Moreover, because espionage is considered under international law to be a political offense, extradition treaties do not cover those accused of violating the espionage laws of any country.”

A major reason is that espionage laws could be applied to foreign intelligence officers who are under nonofficial cover and therefore have no diplomatic immunity from prosecution. In addition, a country such as Great Britain has an Official Secrets Act that would apply espionage laws to publishing material that other countries may not consider major breaches of security.

As a result, countries are wary of supporting such laws by honoring extradition requests.

“You would never want to put your people in jeopardy by sending an intelligence officer without diplomatic immunity back to that country to face trial for violating its espionage laws,” says Martin, who was an FBI agent before becoming the country’s chief spy prosecutor.

So, while Assange could be charged by the United States, “He would have to come into the United States voluntarily or by some ruse,” Martin says.

However, aside from any treaties, Martin says a foreign country could decide to cooperate by putting him on a boat or airplane destined for this country under guard. That has happened in the past, Martin says.

While Assange would argue that he is a journalist and therefore exempt from espionage laws, those laws actually have no exception for journalists, editors, or publishers, Martin says.

“The espionage laws, believe it or not, do not make an exception for reporters,” Martin says. However, as a matter of policy, reporters and publishers have never been charged under espionage laws.

Martin says Assange could be charged under Section 793 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, which prohibits unauthorized receipt, possession, or transmittal of classified documents, or under Section 798, which prohibits disclosure or publication of classified communications intelligence information.

...

[daddy]

Uh oh!

">http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/11/30/5555919-see-whats-hot-on-saturn-moon"> Global Warming is Real!

[MarkO]

anduril,

Are you really that stupid?

Yes or no?

[narciso the harpoon]

Daddy, the newest edition of National Geographic has a piece on Bristol Bay, and
the Pebble mine, and they plucked Jay Hammond
out of his usual cave to grunt his apocalyptic
warnings of what happens if it goes through;
something about dog and cats living together
and mass hysteria

[daddy]

Narciso,

I'm still amazed at our Mayor yesterday telling us about halting all Port work the instant a Beluga enters the Inlet. I don't believe they are even officially "Endangered" yet, yet already we're a year behind in fixing the Port that imports 80% of all the goods and food that sustain the state.

And one of Obama's proposals on the gas thing yesterday was to delay it 7 years, which means that it tries to put it out of the ability for his successor, whoever he/she is, to do anything about it during their term in office, should Obama not get re-elected. That's an old Begich trick. That's how he killed us on those illegal Union Contracts. Made 'em all 5 years long so that his successor (Sullivan, mentioned above) can't change them during his tenure. Criminal. So haven't seen the Pebble Story but I'm sure it is more of the same.

[Jane]

we really need to get one of these threads to the next page.

[Ignatz]

--but I recently read a report by a scientist that said without artificial pesticides, organically grown produce produces its own which is rather identical to the artificial stuff--

The highly respected Bruce Ames has been pointing that out for decades, birthday girl.

--Daddy, the newest edition of National Geographic has a piece on Bristol Bay, and
the Pebble mine, and they plucked Jay Hammond
out of his usual cave to grunt his apocalyptic
warnings of what happens if it goes through;
something about dog and cats living together
and mass hysteria--

I cancelled NatGeo when every story, whether it was Egyptian mummies, Prince Rupert's Blue Bird of Paradise or the biomechanics of snot inevitably got around to warning about catastrophic global warming and our impending doom.

[narciso the harpoon]

Well I summarized so you don't have to read it; like the Summarizing Proust competition.

[Clarice]

" I cancelled NatGeo when every story, whether it was Egyptian mummies, Prince Rupert's Blue Bird of Paradise or the biomechanics of snot inevitably got around to warning about catastrophic global warming and our impending doom."
Ditto.

Maybe now that more people know that AGW was a super scam, we can start attacking articles on organic and locavore foods.

[daddy]

Same thing goes for the Smithsonian and their WW2 Hiroshima Bombing revisionism, and the Nat Gallery and its obscenities against Jesus.

It is amazing to read the history of the Smithson endowment, and to see how hard John Quincy Adam's and others fought to not accept the money, believing that in future it would ultimately lead toward corrupting our agrarian Republican society.

[Janet]

Climate talks in Cancun open with a prayer to the Mayan goddess Ixchel.

[Janet]

and this is sickening....Foreign Contractors Hired Afghan "Dancing Boys".

From the article - "The strategy appeared to work when an article was published in July by the Washington Post about the incident, which made little of the affair, saying it was an incident of "questionable management oversight" in which foreign DynCorp workers "hired a teenage boy to perform a tribal dance at a company farewell party".

[macphisto]

and the fact they're worshipping pagan deities is a surprise? these people are all about false gods. All About False Gods.

[Dudley Doo Fries]

If America's government in the future is anything like our government today, then please pass the poutine.

[Janet]

Here is a little more on the whole "tribal dance" lie...Bacha Bazi.

They probably wouldn't view it as "tribal dance" if it was their child.

[srp]

Just a safety tip--I'm not Andruil. He would consider me a neocon. The above comment was in the spirit of "don't mess with Texas" suitably transferred to the Mediterranean.

(I quoted that semi-long passage because it's not online and not too many people have access to an obscure paperback that I found as a ten-year old on a trip to the supermarket.)

[Janet]

The WaPo could have turned THAT story into Obama's Abu Ghraib. Never works that way though does it?

[narciso the harpoon]

I recall that story well, in the novel Odessa File, and in the works of Melman and other historians of the Mossad. Alois Brunner, aka
Georg Fischer was the team leader with the Nazi Scientists, although his reputation proceeded him from other places

[jimmyk]

The highly respected Bruce Ames has been pointing that out for decades, birthday girl.

As well as the birthday girl's other point that making veggies more expensive has much bigger adverse consequences than the pesticides. LUN is an old Reason interview of Ames.