[HN Gopher] Excess weight, obesity more deadly than previously b...
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Excess weight, obesity more deadly than previously believed
Author : CharlesW
Score : 70 points
Date : 2023-02-24 21:53 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.colorado.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.colorado.edu)
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _Masters pointed out that a lifetime carrying excess weight can
| lead to illnesses that, paradoxically, lead to rapid weight loss.
| If BMI data is captured during this time, it can skew study
| results.
|
| "I would argue that we have been artificially inflating the
| mortality risk in the low-BMI category by including those who had
| been high BMI and had just lost weight recently," he said._
|
| It's like the teetotaling bias -- a chunk of people who teetotal
| do so because they have an illness that makes drinking very
| unwise (or would conflict with medication).
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| Reminds of the parachute study that was shared here recently:
|
| https://healthjournalism.org/blog/2019/02/breakthrough-resea...
| [deleted]
| ehPReth wrote:
| Man, food is so addictive and not like you can just stop eating
| it like you can quit drinking booze or quit smoking!
| nugget wrote:
| For me, carbohydrate consumption and appetite are massively
| correlated.
|
| When I reduce carbs below 30g/day, my appetite is naturally
| suppressed (or avoids over-stimulation). Food feels much less
| addictive. It's easier not to snack in the face of stress. Keto
| probably added 10+ years on to my life expectancy.
|
| YMMV.
| exfatloss wrote:
| Cutting out carbs + protein worked even better for me:
| https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/losing-43lbs-in-144-days-
| on...
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| What's unique about food is that unlike smoking, drugs or
| booze, a human will always have to go back to eating, it's
| essential for day-to-day life unlike Jameson, Marlboro and
| meth.
|
| If you have a healthy relationship with food then you're fine,
| otherwise every day you're faced with willpower checks that you
| might struggle to consistently pass.
| exfatloss wrote:
| I don't think willpower has anything to do with it.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| This seems useful. However, some people, both inside and outside
| medicine, believe that negative consequences' education can be a
| solution to the overweight/obesity issue, even though after 40
| years we've seen near no positive correlation. We've seen some
| positive outcomes from interventions (e.g. mental health
| treatments, actionable plans, etc.) but the funding/resources for
| those continue to be scarce. So the trend keeps falling back to
| education in the professional setting or bullying in the social
| one as a "solution" because it is free, ignoring the lack of
| efficacy.
|
| I actually think our "personal moral failing" thinking is a large
| impediment to _actionable_ solutions for society, because instead
| of looking at WHY even 18-year-olds have gone from below 20 BMI
| in 1879 to over 26 BMI in 2022[0] we just go around and around in
| circles about how it is a personal responsibility issue not a
| systemic one, while the data continues to show that it is across
| all of society. We continue to subsidize sugar substitutes (corn
| turned into HFCS) at the production side but sugar taxes to
| offset the subsidies are seen as "attacks on freedom." The US's
| overproduction of HFCS has even lowered the international price
| of sugar indirectly.
|
| Because sugar is so cheap, and so addicting, in our capitalist
| system the manufacturer willing to exchange other ingredients
| (e.g. fats, proteins, etc) for sugars may be both cheaper AND
| taste better, even if ultimately it isn't satiating. So we have a
| bunch of foods which are high in sugar relative to historical
| norms or that simply never existed since they exist to act as a
| "sugar delivery system" (e.g. soda).
|
| [0] https://www.calciumhealth.com/the-american-obesity-
| epidemic-...
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| [dead]
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Excess weight or obesity boosts risk of death by anywhere from
| 22% to 91%
|
| A strange statistic, as the actual risk of death is 100% for all
| of us.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Could this be meant as "risk of death at certain age"?
| qup wrote:
| So far.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Strange in the same way it's strange that people might say that
| playing Russian roulette increases risk of death by an easily-
| calculable amount.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| "I intend to live forever, or die trying." - Groucho Marx
| exfatloss wrote:
| What if you eat a lot of vegetables though
| exfatloss wrote:
| Previously believed by whom? Pretty sure we've been aware that
| obesity is a huge problem for a generation now. I mean we
| literally talk about an obesity epidemic.
|
| Next, science is going to find out that water is wet.
| saurik wrote:
| The "science" has been saying for a long time now that there's
| might even be a health _benefit_ from being a bit overweight,
| and that --as this article carefully explained (which means I
| guess you didn 't read it)-- there is a "U-shaped" distribution
| of outcomes; in contrast, this study claims all that prior work
| is wrong, and that there is a "straight upward line".
| dkarl wrote:
| The U-shaped distribution of outcomes has been discussed for
| many, many years, and I've never seen it mentioned without
| the caveat that most doctors and scientists suspect that it's
| a misleading statistic attributable to serious illnesses that
| cause weight loss. This definitely isn't the first study to
| support that interpretation, either.
|
| In other words, the longstanding conventional wisdom (at
| least as presented in the media) is exactly what this study
| set out to vindicate, not the opposite, like the press
| release claims.
|
| It's possible that this study is a significant step up in
| quality from existing ones, and it's possible that their
| method of considering past BMI is new and interesting, but
| the framing of it as the first to challenge conventional
| wisdom is pure marketing hype.
| exfatloss wrote:
| This. The U (or typically J as I've heard it described)
| shape comes mostly from the fact that very many very
| unhealthy people lose a ton of weight and end up with a
| super low BMI.
| netrus wrote:
| The point is not that its deadly, but more deadly then
| previously thought (as indicated by the title).
| vanilla_nut wrote:
| I don't believe this myself, but I do know a _lot_ of people
| who believe being overweight is unfairly demonized and not as
| harmful as TPTB would have us believe. Many point to BMI as an
| inaccurate gauge of healthiness (there 's a fair point there
| about eating disorders and ethnic predispositions towards
| higher BMIs) and unhealthy obsessions with thinness (as opposed
| to fitness). Look up "Fat Acceptance" if you'd like to know
| more.
|
| Personally, I don't think we should view fatness as a moral
| failing; some people _do_ naturally tend towards higher
| weights, especially as they get older. But I also feel that
| fatness is really dangerous and unhealthy and the "Fat
| Acceptance" movement makes me a bit uncomfortable because, much
| like smoking cigarettes, some people need a bit of a push to
| kick bad habits like overeating. Obesity is very expensive,
| both in money and lives, so if we can reduce it, we should.
| exfatloss wrote:
| > some people need a bit of a push to kick bad habits like
| overeating
|
| I think this is the real culprit - the idea that overeating
| is the root cause and not a symptom, and that a little bit of
| a push makes a difference.
| swatcoder wrote:
| * * *
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > I do know a lot of people who believe being overweight is
| unfairly demonized
|
| Because it is. As you yourself allude to later...
|
| > I don't think we should view fatness as a moral failing
|
| It clearly is not. I suspect the only people who believe that
| are the folks 'born on third base' as it were.
|
| > some people need a bit of a push to kick bad habits like
| overeating
|
| Some people? The vast majority of people are overweight.
| Anyone who isn't fit & trim has no business commenting on
| anyone else's bad habits and moral failings. None. Got a
| little bit of a spare tire? Shush. Got some love handles?
| Shush. Skinny fat? Shush again!
|
| > if we can reduce it, we should
|
| 100% agree.
| tekla wrote:
| > Because it is. As you yourself allude to later...
|
| No its not. Its nowhere near demonized as it should be.
|
| > It clearly is not. I suspect the only people who believe
| that are the folks 'born on third base' as it were.
|
| It's a failure of self control.
|
| > Some people? The vast majority of people are overweight.
| Anyone who isn't fit & trim has no business commenting on
| anyone else's bad habits and moral failings. None. Got a
| little bit of a spare tire? Shush. Got some love handles?
| Shush. Skinny fat? Shush again!
|
| Untrue. The vast majority of people in rich countries are
| overweight.
| exfatloss wrote:
| > It's a failure of self control.
|
| Disagree. The root cause of the problem is that you can't
| apply to more willpower if you don't know how to actually
| fix it, and we don't.
|
| There are currently 0 known methods to lose fat
| sustainably. Yea, you can starve yourself for a few weeks
| in a thousand ways, but none of them lead to lasting fat
| loss. Neither does any kind of exercise.
|
| We need to find the true root cause, or this will not
| change.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| > Previously believed by whom?
|
| The previous data/methodology. The whole point of the study was
| to look at three untracked externalities[0] in BMI-outcome
| research. They used historical NHANES data combined 2015 data
| on mortality data.
|
| > (1) confounding bias from heterogeneity in body shape; (2)
| positive survival bias in high-BMI samples due to recent weight
| gain; and (3) negative survival bias in low-BMI samples due to
| recent weight loss.
|
| https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00324728.2023.21...
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| https://asdah.org/health-at-every-size-haes-approach/ - and
| similar efforts have sprouted like wildfire these last several
| years in the name of inclusivity. Claiming or hinting that
| obesity is bad for one's health is considered highly gauche in
| polite company.
| thriftwy wrote:
| There was an article[1] about two gene mutations which cause (a)
| lose fat, lose muscle, and (b) lose fat, gain muscule.
|
| If you could build a selector between these three models (normal
| human, (a), (b)), you could solve HALF OF HUMANITY PROBLEMS. For
| real.
|
| That's not a joke. I see a lot of people around whose lifes are
| crippled by the fact they're not in the body mass which would be
| most productive/healthy for them. People are losing a decade of
| life and another decade of productivity due to this. A lot of
| interpersonal problems are also due to this, more than you can
| imagine. Half of world's perceived social injustice go away once
| you fix BMI.
|
| We do not even realize the amount of self-humiliation humanity
| suffers by not being able to control something so fundamental.
|
| Disclaimer: My own body weight is normal, though I would perhaps
| accept additional muscle; but it pains me seeing people who
| suffer from this every day, people who are better than me in most
| other respects.
|
| 1. https://davidepstein.substack.com/p/the-diy-scientist-and-
| th...
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