Study: Obesity alone does not increase risk of death
91亚色 U study could change the way we think about obesity and health
TORONTO, July 12, 2018 鈥 Researchers at 91亚色鈥檚 Faculty of Health have found that patients who have metabolic healthy obesity, but no other metabolic risk factors, do not have an increased rate of mortality.
The results of this study could impact how we think about obesity and health, says , associate professor at the School of Kinesiology and Health Science, who led the research team at 91亚色.
鈥淭his is in contrast with most of the literature and we think this is because most studies have defined metabolic healthy obesity as having up to one metabolic risk factor,鈥 says Kuk.
鈥淭his is clearly problematic, as hypertension alone increases your mortality risk and past literature would have called these patients with obesity and hypertension, 鈥榟ealthy鈥.聽 This is likely why most studies have reported that 'healthy' obesity is still related with higher mortality risk.鈥
Kuk鈥檚 study showed that unlike dyslipidemia, hypertension or diabetes alone, which are related with a high mortality risk, this isn鈥檛 the case for obesity alone.
The study followed 54,089 men and women from five cohort studies who were categorized as having obesity alone聽or clustered with a metabolic factor, or elevated glucose, blood pressure or lipids alone or clustered with obesity or another metabolic factor. Researchers聽looked at how many people within each group died as compared to those within the normal weight population with no metabolic risk factors.
Current weight management guidelines suggest that anyone with a BMI over 30 kg/m2 should lose weight. This implies that if you have obesity, even without any other risk factors, it makes you unhealthy. Researchers found that 1 out of 20 individuals with obesity had no other metabolic abnormalities.
鈥淲e鈥檙e showing that individuals with metabolically healthy obesity are actually not at an elevated mortality rate. We found that a person of normal weight with no other metabolic risk factors is just as likely to die as the person with obesity and no other risk factors,鈥 says Kuk. 鈥淭his means that hundreds of thousands of people in North America alone with metabolically healthy obesity will be told to lose weight when it鈥檚 questionable how much benefit they鈥檒l actually receive.鈥
The study, 鈥Individuals with obesity but no other metabolic risk factors are not at significantly elevated all-cause mortality risk in men and women鈥 is published today in .
Media Contact: Anjum Nayyar, 91亚色 Media Relations, 416 736 2100 ext. 44543聽anayyar@yorku.ca
NOTE:聽 The 91亚色 U media studio is available for double-ended broadcast interviews.
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