• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

The “Obesity Paradox” Doesn’t Exist

March 23, 2023 by Deborah Bloomfield

The idea that overweight or obese people more often survive after heart failure, called the “obesity paradox”, is likely to be false, according to new research. By looking at waist-to-height ratio instead of body mass index (BMI), the researchers discovered that the mysterious correlation disappears, putting further question to BMI as a medical metric. 

Identified by a few different studies, there is an apparent correlation between higher BMI and survival after diagnosis of chronic heart disease, despite excess weight increasing the likelihood of developing the disease. It is counterintuitive and has long been questioned by scientists, with various explanations being put forward: some believe that fat could be protective against heart damage in some unknown way; while others believe the answer lies in BMI being a poor measure of obesity, as opposed to the obesity paradox being an actual health phenomenon. 

Advertisement

“It has been suggested that living with obesity is a good thing for patients with heart failure and reduced ejection fraction – which is when the main chamber of the heart is unable to squeeze out the normal amounts of blood. We knew this could not be correct and that obesity must be bad rather than good. We reckoned that part of the problem was that BMI was a weak indicator of how much fatty tissue a patient has,” said Professor John McMurray, lead author of the study, in a statement. 

To this end, a research team from the University of Glasgow looked to find a more representative measure of body fat. The researchers began by taking a diverse cohort of 1,832 women and 6,567 men who were hospitalized with heart failure and matched them with BMI scores, once again finding that higher-BMI patients fared better post-disease. 

They then went on to adjust these results for different measurements, mainly waist-to-height ratio, waist-to-hip ratio, and waist circumference, but also taking into account biomarkers such as natriuretic peptides, which are the best markers of heart failure according to the researchers. Once they controlled for these, the correlation quickly collapsed. 

They did, however, notice a strong correlation between high BMI, high waist-to-height ratio, and the onset of heart failure, indicating that it is an entirely negative relationship. 

Advertisement

The results indicate that BMI is not a strong indicator of obesity-related health risks, and researchers should explore other metrics as alternatives. The authors note that the study should look to more accurately take measurements and to take them over a longer period to adjust for any changes if they were to improve the findings, but they add to a growing body of evidence that BMI should probably be avoided in healthcare. 

“Would it be feasible to assume that an American professional wrestler (more muscle) and a Japanese sumo wrestler (more fat) with the same BMI would have a similar risk of cardiovascular disease? The same is true for persons such as Arnold Schwarzenegger in his younger years when he starred as the ‘Terminator’ with a BMI of ~30 kg/m2,” writes Professor Stephan von Haehling. 

The study is published in the European Heart Journal, along with an accompanying editorial.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Poland condemns jailing of Belarus protest leaders
  2. China energy crunch triggers alarm, pleas for more coal
  3. China proposes adding cryptocurrency mining to ‘negative list’ of industries
  4. Stranded Dolphins’ Brains Show Signs Of Alzheimer’s-Like Disease

Source Link: The "Obesity Paradox" Doesn't Exist

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • 2024 Saw Higher Levels Of Carbon Dioxide In The Atmosphere Than Ever Before
  • Halloween Fireballs Will Grace Our Skies As The Taurid Meteor Showers Arrive
  • Newly Discovered Hunting Megastructures Suggest Pre-Bronze Age Societies More Sophisticated Than Previously Thought
  • What Is Spectroscopy And Why Is It So Important To Science?
  • Parkinson’s “Trigger” Seen For The First Time: Scientists Image The Toxic Molecules Inside The Human Brain
  • What Flying Animals Exist That Are Not Birds?
  • DNA Evidence Uncovers Surprising Origins Of Native Americans
  • Single Gene Swap “Transfers A Behavior” Between Two Species For The First Time
  • Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS Has A Rare “Anti-Tail”, New Observations Confirm
  • Asteroid Apophis: Animation Shows Asteroid’s Nail-Biting Close Approach To Earth In 2029
  • Titan Breaks A Key Chemistry Rule: What That Means For Alien Life
  • Scientists Studied “Chicago Rat Hole” – They Have Bad News, The South Atlantic’s Magnetic Field Weak Spot Is Growing, And Much More This Week
  • Could This Be The Real Reason Humans Survived And Neanderthals Died Out?
  • Newly Discovered Snail Species Named After Studio Ghibli Co-Founder Is A Hairy Beauty
  • 2025 SC79 Is The Second-Fastest Asteroid Ever Found – And Only The Second Within Venus’ Orbit
  • When Red Devil Spiders Arrived On A New Island, Their Genome Dramatically Shrank In Half
  • Is This The World’s Oldest Story? Ancient Human Tale About The Seven Sisters May Be From 100,000 BCE
  • This Pill Is Actually A Tiny Printer That Repairs Internal Injuries Using Biocompatible Ink
  • “This Is Amazing”: Scientists Have Found Evidence Of A Long-Lost World Deep Within The Earth
  • From The Shiniest World To Lava And Eternal Darkness, These Are The Weirdest Known Planets
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version