Yes, It's Possible To Be Obese And Healthy (Sort Of)

Not every obese person is unhealthy. More than one-third of American adults with BMIs north of 30 also have a higher risk for developing conditions like type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke than the general population. But a small sliver of obese adults defy the odds, maintaining metabolic health despite the excess weight. Scientist don’t yet fully understand the biophysical mechanisms behind “fat but fit” or “healthy obese” -- and there’s even some disagreement about whether or not a healthy obese person can maintain their status over a lifetime. Two recent and unrelated analyses of metabolically healthy, yet obese people illustrate the disagreement among experts. The first, an experiment published Jan. 2 in the The Journal of Clinical Investigation, examined how added weight affects metabolic health. The researchers asked obese subjects to actually gain 6 percent of their body weights -- an average of 15 pounds -- over the course of several months. The researchers found that obese participants who had begun the experiment with “metabolically normal” levels of insulin resistance, cholesterol levels, blood pressure and liver fat maintained their metabolic health, while the participants who were “metabolically abnormal” before the fast food binge continued to deteriorate over the course of the experiment. In other words, if they were healthy before the weight gain, they were healthy after. The study's lead investigator, Dr. Samuel Klein of t...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news