Exercise plus weight loss key to cutting obesity risk

[Dodger]

Regular exercise alone is not enough to cut the risk of death from obesity, according to new research.

The study which followed 116,000 nurses over 24 years was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and found that a twin process of exercise and weight loss is the key to lowering the risk of dieing from obesity.

Obese women who work out for 3.5 hours per week have a death rate 91 per cent higher than lean women who exercise for the same amount of time, according to the study, yet this figure rises to 142 per cent for obese women who do minimal exercise, thus underlining the importance of regular exercise.

Lean women who only exercise for 3.5 hours per week or less also increase their risk of premature death from obesity and by 55 per cent compared to more active females.

These findings were summed up by lead author Dr Frank Hu, who said: "If you are overweight or obese, exercise is good for you even if you don't lose weight.

"For people who are lean and sedentary, it's really important for them to get out of the couch and exercise, even if they don't have to lose weight."

Professor Neil Armstrong, from the Children's Health and Exercise Research Centre in Exeter, told the BBC that as obesity is linked to a range of diseases, it is crucial that the problem is tackled.

"If you really want to do something about obesity, it really needs to be a two-fold process, which includes aerobic exercise and a reduction in energy intake.

"Obesity is related to many diseases, such as heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes, so it's a very important issue."
http://www.hda-online.org.uk (http://www.hda-online.org.uk/html/about/phnews.asp?ItemID=7401234)
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=18301

[CindySue48]

Does anyone know how they define "premature"???

[dannysk]

"Lean women who only exercise for 3.5 hours per week or less also increase their risk of premature death from obesity and by 55 per cent compared to more active females. "

How do lean women die from obesity ??

danny

[SadLady]

All I know is that my aunt, the only one obese in my family lived to be 86 and in great health, while all the skinny ones died before reaching the age of 60. So, what can I say, I don't believe half of what they say. Genes have a lot to do with your live. My aunt the obese, never excercised and ate whatever she wanted. Don't remember her being sick one day in her life. What would they say about that?

[CindySue48]

I'm curious about the "premature" part.

If the age women are "supposed" to live to is 76, how do they come up with that number? OK....let's say they look at the ages of ALL women when they die. They average that and the average age is 76.

NOW....if there are so many people dying "prematurely", wouldn't that just lower the life expectancy? So if X women die prior to age 76 they are dying prematurely.

BUT, if death from obesity or heart disease or whatever causes 30% of women to die before the age of 76, then that would lower the life expectancy to maybe 74 (or even younger if they were VERY young when they died. ? So doesn't that mean the the women that die at age 74 or 75 are no longer dying "prematurely"????

And what about "unnatural" deaths? Auto accidents? Suicide? Crime related? Military related? Surely none of these can be considered "obesity related".

And.....if so many people are dying prematurely.....shouldn't our life expectancy be dropping? not going up?

This all makes no sense to me at all!

Danny....I thought the same thing.....lean people don't die of obesity....but they DO die of "obesity related diseases" which just proves they're not JUST obesity related.

[Dodger]

Adiposity as Compared with Physical Activity in Predicting Mortality among Women

Frank B. Hu, M.D., Walter C. Willett, M.D., Tricia Li, M.D., Meir J. Stampfer, M.D., Graham A. Colditz, M.D., and JoAnn E. Manson, M.D.

ABSTRACT

Background Whether higher levels of physical activity can counteract the elevated risk of death associated with adiposity is controversial.

Methods We examined the associations of the body-mass index and physical activity with death among 116,564 women who, in 1976, were 30 to 55 years of age and free of known cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Results During 24 years of follow-up, 10,282 deaths occurred — 2370 from cardiovascular disease, 5223 from cancer, and 2689 from other causes. Mortality rates increased monotonically with higher body-mass-index values among women who had never smoked (P for trend <0.001). In combined analyses of all participants, adiposity predicted a higher risk of death regardless of the level of physical activity. Higher levels of physical activity appeared to be beneficial at all levels of adiposity but did not eliminate the higher risk of death associated with obesity. As compared with women who were lean (i.e., they had a body-mass index lower than 25) and active (they spent 3.5 or more hours exercising per week), the multivariate relative risks of death were 1.55 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.42 to 1.70) for lean and inactive women, 1.91 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.60 to 2.30) for women who were obese (defined as a body-mass index of 30 or higher) but active, and 2.42 (95 percent confidence interval, 2.14 to 2.73) for inactive, obese women. Even modest weight gain during adulthood, independent of physical activity, was associated with a higher risk of death. We estimate that excess weight (defined as a body-mass index of 25 or higher) and physical inactivity (less than 3.5 hours of exercise per week) together could account for 31 percent of all premature deaths, 59 percent of deaths from cardiovascular disease, and 21 percent of deaths from cancer among nonsmoking women.

Conclusions Both increased adiposity and reduced physical activity are strong and independent predictors of death.


Source Information

From the Departments of Nutrition (F.B.H., W.C.W., T.L., M.J.S.) and Epidemiology (F.B.H., W.C.W., M.J.S., G.A.C., J.E.M.), Harvard School of Public Health; and the Channing Laboratory (F.B.H., W.C.W., M.J.S., G.A.C., J.E.M.) and the Division of Preventive Medicine (J.E.M.), Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital — all in Boston.

Address reprint requests to Dr. Hu at the Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, 665 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA 02115, or at frank.hu~channing.harvard.edu.

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/351/26/2694