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Why You Should Avoid Being Obese or Overweight? Obesity and overweight are the cause of high cholesterol, Type-2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke and many other medical disorders, as reported by many previous studies. However, it seems that obese or overweight people would face more than just mentioned. According to a Swedish study, overweight middle-aged men might not only have a higher risk of getting heart disease and stroke but also die earlier than their slimmer peers even in the absence of metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is a collection of risk factors that will lead to heart disease and diabetes. These include abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, high blood glucose, low level of HDL (good cholesterol) and high triglycerides. When a person possesses 3 or more of these factors, he or she is said to have metabolic syndrome. This is the guideline proposed by the American Heart Association and National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Past research has suggested that the risk of diabetes, heart disease and stroke of obese and overweight people without metabolic syndrome are not higher than those of normal-weight people. But, researchers from Uppsala University followed 1,758 Swedish men for 30 years found that overweight and obese men had a higher chance of heart attack and stroke, even in the absence of metabolic syndrome.
Among all men without metabolic syndrome, those overweight men were 52 percent more likely to have heart attack, stroke, and other complications than the normal-weight men, while the risk in obese men was nearly double. Their findings were published in January 2010 in the American Heart Association journal ‘Circulation’. Nevertheless, the study also emphasized the additional risk of having metabolic syndrome. For obese men with metabolic syndrome, the risk of getting heart disease, stroke, and related conditions, and death was 2.5 times higher than those men of normal weight and free of metabolic syndrome at the beginning of the study. The study too reported that metabolic syndrome had negatively impact on normal weight men. Those with the syndrome were 63 percent more likely to get heart disease, stroke and related conditions than their peers who were free from metabolic syndrome. Another study conducted by Danish researchers from Copenhagen University Hospital revealed that men who are obese by the age of 20 would die 8 years earlier on average than their non-obese peers. Their findings, which were presented on July 13, 2010 at the International Congress on Obesity in Stockholm, also indicated that obesity usually develops before the age of 20 and that most people are unlikely to develop obesity later in life. The study examined more than 5,000 military conscripts, aged between 20 and 80. About 2,000 of them were already obese when they began the trial. Body mass index (BMI), which divide the weight (in kilos) by the square of the height (in meters), was used to measure the participants’ body fat. Researchers concluded the risk of premature death in already obese men raised 10 percent for every point above the healthy BMI’s level of 25. The results also showed that at the age of 70, 70 percent of the men in the comparison group and 50 percent of those in the obese group were still alive. The researchers estimated that the obese were likely to die 8 years earlier than those in the comparison group since their middle age. Factors such as smoking, age, and education were taken into account but others like inherited diseases were not. While the study did not look at women, it confirmed findings found in similar past studies. An American study reported in 2009 in the medical journal ‘BMJ’ that obesity could cut women’s chances of reaching the age of 80 in good health by nearly 80 percent. The study found that for every one-point hike in the BMI, women had a 12 percent lower chance of surviving to the age of 70 in good health. Meanwhile, a British study suggested in ‘Lancet’ in 2009 that people with a BMI from 30 to 35 die about 3 years earlier than normal, while those who were morbidly fat, with a BMI above 40, die about a decade earlier. Hence, weight loss seems to be the only option for obese and overweight persons regardless of whether they have metabolic syndrome.
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