Whats worse? Overweight or inactivity?
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| Fri, 09-10-2004 - 6:12pm |
Inactivity may trump fat as heart risk
CHICAGO, Illinois (Reuters) -- When it comes to heart disease, being fit may be more important than being thin, according to a study of more than 900 women published Tuesday.
"Our study shows that the lack of physical fitness is a stronger risk factor for developing heart disease than being overweight or obese," said Timothy Wessel, a physician at the University of Florida who headed up the research.
The study involved 906 women whose health histories were tracked from 1996 to 2000. Seventy-six percent were overweight at the start of the study, when the mean age of the group was 58.
In addition to being measured for weight, the women were asked about their ability to do common physical activities at home, work and at leisure, such as climbing a flight of stairs, running a short distance or walking around the block without stopping.
During the study, 68 of the women died and 455 suffered a heart disease-related problem such as a heart attack or stroke.
When analyzed by categories of weight and activity, women who were at least moderately active were less likely to develop heart disease or related problems than women with low activity scores, no matter which weight category they were in, according to the study published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association.
"These results suggest that fitness may be more important than overweight or obesity for cardiovascular risk in women," the study concluded.
C. Noel Bairey Merz, a physician at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and another of the study's authors, said that because physical fitness "has beneficial effects on many factors related to cardiovascular risk, including obesity, increased activity appears to be an ideal therapy for women with coronary heart disease."
She said the American Heart Association endorses at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity for women on most or all days of the week.
A second study published in the same journal, however, found that being overweight is a bigger risk factor than inactivity when it comes to adult-onset diabetes among women.
"We observed a modest reduction in the risk of diabetes with increasing physical activity level compared with a large increase in the risk with increasing body mass index," said the report from the Boston VA Healthcare System and Brigham and Women's Hospital.
"Because physical activity is a significant individual predictor and has a beneficial effect on body mass index, it remains an important intervention for diabetes prevention. Our study suggests that to further reduce the risk of diabetes with physical activity, it should be performed in conjunction with achieving weight loss," the study said.

Inactivity, hands down. My family is obese. My grandparents lived to be in their 90s, they were obese most of their lives but the were always active. Farming will tend to keep you active.
I'm happy to see there are researchers out there finally getting that inactivity is not good, regarless of size.
Thanks!
Lisa
And by healthy, I mean the major indicators'factors of good health - Blood pressure in proper range, low cholesterol, stable blood sugar.
Fat is not the cause of sickness. A fat cell in itself is fairly innocuos. It as a cell does not get cancer. Fat in you BLOOD is not good in large doses. Overweight people who do NOT exercize compound the problem by inactivity. Take Paris Hilton. She is skinny, parties till she can't party no more, eats crap..is she healthier than me? Shawna? Furry? Linda? Jodi?
Just simply taking a 20 minute walk (sweating and out of breath is not necessary)can improve circulation, be good for the mind, is relaxing AND energizing...
MOVE, Ladies.
Keeyah
~~Linda
~~Linda