The European Society of Cardiology released a study September 4 2012 that shed light on the obesity paradox.
What is this “obesity paradox“?
Please have a read while I talk myself out of work as a trainer 🙂
According to the largest study on the subject, people can be obese without greater risk of heart disease or cancer.
Obesity does contribute to various conditions of what is referred to as metabolic syndrome. A subset of obese people who are metabolically healthy.
Over 43,000 participants were tested for cardiorespiratory fitness and body fat. 46% of of those obese people studied were metabolically healthy.
“Our study suggests that metabolically healthy but obese people have a better fitness level than the rest of obese individuals. Based on the data that our group and others have collected over years, we believe that getting more exercise broadly and positively influences major body systems and organs and consequently contributes to make someone metabolically healthier, including obese people. In our study, we measure fitness, which is largely influenced by exercise,”
This study revealed that cardio-respiratory fitness should be used as a predictor of health in obese people and that healthy but obese people have the same or similar prognosis and healthy normal weight people. <h3>A second study of more than 60, 000 participants discovered that overweight or obese patients who had developed acute coronary syndrome(ACS) actually have a reduced risk of dying compared to normal weight individuals with
“We believe that no evidence exists that proves weight reduction in itself has a positive prognostic value after ACSs. Actually some evidence suggests that weight loss after ACSs might in fact have a negative effect. We believe that given the current state of our knowledge, obesity paradox requires much more attention and deserves to be recognized in the guidelines.”
Take away from this research that metabolic health is more important than weight loss where heart disease is concerned. Obesity is not necessarily associated with abnormal metabolic function.
