(Reuters) – Carrying extra weight doesn’t necessarily mean your heart is ailing, according to a Greek study that adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that overweight people aren’t always unhealthy.
The study, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, found that fewer than 10 percent of healthy obese people in their 50s and 60s without risk factors for heart disease went on to develop heart failure over six years.
By contrast, 16 percent of their slimmer peers, also without the suite of risk factors known as metabolic syndrome, ended up with the debilitating condition.
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This study looks solely at heart health. I am a physician who for thirty years has seen the effects of morbid obesity of the low back, the knee joint, the blood sugar, the cholesterol, the mood, the ability to fit in the seat of a bus or on an airplane and the impact on childhood health and American lifespan. There is now evidence that childhood obesity is linked first and foremost with the BMI of the mother at the time of conception.
“Healthy” is now defined by whether or not you have a heart failure in the ensuing 6 years? Really? Healthy doesn’t involve ability to function effectively, avoid back pain, knee replacements, etc, etc, etc? C’mon title writer – absent of heart failure doesn’t equal health, it’s one of dozens of components involved.