A Benefit of Being Overweight

After all the bad news about the ill-effects of overweight and obesity, it’s a pleasant change to report when there’s one health advantage. Unfortunately, it’s not a very common one. Writing in the American Heart Journal, Californian researchers describe how being overweight or obese may protect against death in acute heart failure.

The study produced quite clear results. The cases were obtained from the US Acute Decompensation Heart Failure National Registry. Over 100,000 patients with acute heart failure were classified into four equal groups according to their body mass index: below 24, 24-28, 28-33, and over 33. Patients in the higher BMI group were younger and had more diabetes than those in other groups.

The mortality rates while in hospital decreased for each group, the lowest BMI having the highest mortality, and so on. The obese group had almost a 50% reduction in mortality. For every 5 BMI unit increase the risk of dying was 10% lower. The findings were unchanged after adjusting for age, sex, kidney function, blood pressure, heart rate, and shortage of breath at rest.

This does not mean that people with a weight problem should feel they can relax their efforts to control the poundage. As the researchers point out, there is strong evidence that obesity is an independent risk predictor for developing heart failure, other cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes, in general. “One swallow does not make a summer”, or something like that.