# Fat and Fitness in today's Washington Post



## TCUBOB (Apr 17, 2007)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...7/04/14/AR2007041400184.html?hpid=smartliving

The article ain't perfect, but it at least presents multiple sides of the arguments.

Bob


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## EtobicokeFA (Apr 17, 2007)

First they open with studies like this:



> Numerous studies link excess weight and lack of fitness to a higher risk for many chronic illnesses, including heart disease, diabetes and stroke. But some recent research is challenging the view that being fat and fit are mutually exclusive.
> "It's not a question of either/or," said Arthur Frank, medical director of the George Washington University Weight Management Program. "These are two separate issues. Being fit is largely a choice. Being fat is a disease. The only choice is how much effort you want to put into controlling it."
> Some experts say the scientific community places too much blame for diseases like diabetes and heart disease on obesity instead of targeting the real culprit: a sedentary lifestyle.
> "I don't want to minimize the impact of obesity -- there is no question that there are real problems associated with being overweight," said exercise physiologist Glenn Gaesser, director of kinesiology at the University of Virginia. "But there is almost no weight-related health problem that can't be helped with exercise."
> ...



Then they seem to take it back with stuff like this! 



> Another study in the same issue of JAMA found diabetes risk -- four times as high in overweight women than in healthy-weight peers and 12 times as high in obese women -- was only modestly reduced when these women were physically active.
> "Many women who exercise regularly believe that they are protected from diabetes, even though they remain at an unhealthy weight," said Amy Weinstein, who led the study at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. "However, our study suggests that physical activity does little to counter a woman's risk of developing diabetes if she has a body mass index considered overweight or obese."
> Last year a JAMA study -- drawn, like Weinstein's study, from the Women's Health Study, a long-term clinical trial involving about 38,000 women -- concluded that no amount of exercise can compensate for the cardiovascular risks of being overweight.



So, now the studies are going against each other!


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## LoveBHMS (Apr 17, 2007)

I don't think the studies are going against each other. One thing that gets unmentioned is that obesity is often more of a side effect. In other words, if you eat nothing but KFC, you will gain weight, and you will also possibly develop high cholesterol and high blood pressure due to the excess sodium. So it is not being overweight that causes those problems, it's the unhealthy eating habits. 

Also, when they say subjects that were overweight but exercised were less likely to have heart attacks than thin but sedentary peers, that doesn't tell you anything. How overweight are they talking about? How much exercise? Are we talking a person who is 50 pounds overweight who exercise an hour per day or one who is 100 pounds overweight and exercises for 15 minutes. Those studies also would have to factor in genetics and eating habits to have any meaning. If you got obese by drinking olive oil all day, you might be at less risk for a heart attack then somebody who stayed skinny eating one hot dog.

As far as the diabetes study. What they are saying is exercise alone without accompanying weight reduction was not found to lower the risk of diabetes. Again, the are not telling what type of diet the subjects followed or their genetic predisposition to diabetes. All that stuff matters. If you exercise but continue to eat a dozen donuts each morning, the exercise probably won't cut your diabetes risk.


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## pani (Apr 17, 2007)

I would treat the women's health study suspiciously. It that related to the nurses and health study also done at Brigam Young in MA. JoAnn Manson ran part of it. Turns out she has ties to major pharmaceuticals who produce diet drugs. And the stats were so distorted. For instance, she found the risks of the largest women were 300% greater than the thinnest for nonfatal heart attacks. The acutual number? Thin women, approx 3 heart attacks in every 10,000, largest women, approx 10 in every 10,000. (I believe it is March 1990 NDJM) 38,000 sounds like an impressive number, but the larger the sample, the easier it is to find the results one wants. And BigPharma wants obesity to be a disease!


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## Jon Blaze (Apr 17, 2007)

pani said:


> I would treat the women's health study suspiciously. It that related to the nurses and health study also done at Brigam Young in MA. JoAnn Manson ran part of it. Turns out she has ties to major pharmaceuticals who produce diet drugs. And the stats were so distorted. For instance, she found the risks of the largest women were 300% greater than the thinnest for nonfatal heart attacks. The acutual number? Thin women, approx 3 heart attacks in every 10,000, largest women, approx 10 in every 10,000. (I believe it is March 1990 NDJM) 38,000 sounds like an impressive number, but the larger the sample, the easier it is to find the results one wants. And BigPharma wants obesity to be a disease!



Maybe I can become a Pharmacist that fights against that.


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