Posts Tagged ‘excess weight’

The pear shaped individuals were led to believe they had better odds of staying healthy while packing on the pounds. Research just proved that long held belief doesn’t hold water. Excess weight causes problems in both the apple and pear shaped individuals.

 Apple and Pear Studies

New research from Denmark points to a another possibility for those that are middle-aged and are overweight. They found that apple-shaped men who store their fat mainly around the waist and pear-shaped women who have their fat mainly around the hips are at a higher risk of developing blood clots, and deep vein thrombosis (DVT).

The study was the work of  Dr Marianne Tang Severinsen, a researcher in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology at Aarhus University Hospital in Aalborg in Denmark, and colleagues, and was published online in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association on 26 October.

Venous thromboembolism (VTE), also called deep vein thrombosis (DVT), is a significant concern in adults. It happens when a blood clot breaks free from one blood vessel and blocks the flow of blood in another. A typical VTE blood clot will travel from a vein in the leg to the lungs.

Monitoring all the challenges overweight and obese people are likely to face keeping healthy is not productive.To suggest that all these studies will scare people into health is not logical. Now doctors can increasingly monitor these individuals for this possible condition.

The 10-year prospective study, which was funded by grants from the Herta Christensens Research Foundation and the Danish Obesity Research Center (DanORC), Severinsen and colleagues assessed the link between body mass, weight distribution and incidence of VTE in 27,178 men and 29,876 women who were between 50 and 64 years old at the start of the study.

The results showed a statistically significant positive link between any type of VTE and all measurements of body size, including body weight (BMI), total mass of body fat, waist size and hip size, in both men and women.

Severinsen and colleagues also found a direct relationship between VTE and weight distribution in both men and women.

And when they adjusted for waist and hip size, they found hip circumference was positively linked with VTE incidence in women but not men and waist circumference was positively linked to VTE incidence in men but not women. The link was just as strong when they took out the effect of possible smoking, exercise, height, blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol and in the women, hormone replacement therapy (HRT).

Severinsen told the press that:

“The implications to the public are that all types of obesity increase the risk for VTE, but the location of body fat also plays some unknown role.” “For health professionals, the implication is that all types of fat distribution should be taken into account when evaluating risk for VTE,” she stressed.

Conclusion

Scientific monitoring all the challenges overweight and obese people are likely to face keeping healthy is not productive. To suggest that all these studies will scare people into health is not logical. Now doctors can increasingly monitor these individuals for this possible condition.

Uncovering new risks is counter productive.The real danger resides on our dinner plate.  Apple and pear shaped is just a term for a body build that is predetermined, the weight of the individual is from the lifestyle. Seeing this clearly we will be able to manage health risks. Beyond the studies is the reality that there are man made environmental factor which are causing the decline in health. The shocking revelations are that our food giants, and pharmaceutical industry are leading the assault on our health.

The researchers recommend that further studies be done to explore the underlying mechanisms of these links. Just ask why is the public packing on the pounds. This alone is responsible for the increased health problems later in life.

This is not about apples and pears, this is about dollars and sense. Skip the definitions. The proportion of overweight and obese individuals are on the rise. The focus should be to create a climate that fosters health. What you need to know for maintaining and restoring health is what should be in the journals. To report all the potential dangers that are associated with our diets is not going to protect us. What it does is line the pockets of those in the sick care business.