{"id":74184,"date":"2015-10-09T12:47:59","date_gmt":"2015-10-09T16:47:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/?p=74184"},"modified":"2021-02-08T09:41:03","modified_gmt":"2021-02-08T14:41:03","slug":"obesity-paradox-doesnt-hold-up","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/news\/articles\/2015\/obesity-paradox-doesnt-hold-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Obesity Paradox Doesn\u2019t Hold Up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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October 9, 2015<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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\"ObesitySmoking\"A study co-authored by Andrew Stokes<\/a>, assistant professor of global health, shows obesity does not protect patients with cardiovascular disease.<\/p>\n

Study after study has shown obese or overweight people with cardiovascular disease outliving their normal weight counterparts\u2014the so-called obesity paradox.<\/p>\n

Stokes and Samuel Preston, professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, set out to solve the puzzle.<\/p>\n

By accounting for weight history, and adding in smoking as a factor, the researchers found the paradox no longer holds up.<\/p>\n

Stokes and Preston started with data from more than 30,400 participants of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey<\/a> between 1988 and 2011. The survey is a nationally representative sample considered the gold standard in the United States. Of those participants, 3,388 had cardiovascular disease.<\/p>\n

Most research of this type looks only at weight at time of survey. For example, if a participant who used to weigh 300 pounds lost one-third of their mass by the time of weigh in, they would be counted as 200 pounds.<\/p>\n

Including weight history is a key innovation, says Stokes. Not doing so \u201cwould be like classifying a lifelong smoker who quit the day before the survey as a non-smoker.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weight history \u201cturns out to have a profound effect on the findings,\u201d\u00a0 eliminating the mortality advantage for those who are overweight or obese.<\/p>\n

Stokes and Preston also limited their pool to lifelong non-smokers. Smokers are less likely to be obese, and those who are obese are less likely to smoke. This correlation is even stronger for those with cardiovascular disease.<\/p>\n

Accounting for weight history makes the obesity paradox disappear. Incorporate smoking, and being obese equates to significantly higher mortality for those with cardiovascular disease.<\/p>\n

The researchers said these results could improve disease treatment, since some clinicians may use the obesity paradox in patient care decisions.<\/p>\n

Read their full paper in the journal Obesity<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

A version of this story first appeared at PennNews.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Obesity does not protect patients with cardiovascular disease.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10989,"featured_media":74209,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":""},"tags":[1767,2265,1701,1615],"bu-publication":[3516],"sphnews-article-category":[3519,3532,3540],"sphnews-topic":[],"bu_edition":[],"media_type":[],"profile_tax":[1402],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/74184"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10989"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74184"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/74184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191100,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/74184\/revisions\/191100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74184"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=74184"},{"taxonomy":"sphnews-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sphnews-article-category?post=74184"},{"taxonomy":"sphnews-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sphnews-topic?post=74184"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=74184"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=74184"},{"taxonomy":"profile_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile_tax?post=74184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}