Many Studies Show Ideal BMI For Older People Is Fat Fat Fat

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There are just so many studies that show BMI of 30 is ideal.

And it may be all people, not just older people.

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A significant increased risk of mortality over the 12 years of follow‐up was observed for

underweight (BMI <18.5; relative risk (RR) = 1.73, P < 0.001) and
obesity class II+ (BMI >35; RR = 1.36, P <0.05).

Overweight (BMI 25 to <30) was associated with a significantly decreased risk of death (RR = 0.83, P < 0.05).

The RR was close to one for obesity class I (BMI 30–35; RR = 0.95, P >0.05).

Our results are similar to those from other recent studies, confirming that underweight and obesity class II+ are clear risk factors for mortality, and showing that when compared to the acceptable BMI category, overweight appears to be protective against mortality. Obesity class I was not associated with an increased risk of mortality.

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This study is one of MANY showing the risk of being thin is FAR greater than being fat. And that being fat is healthy and protective so long as it's not incredibly fat.
 

RWilly

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This study is one of MANY showing the risk of being thin is FAR greater than being fat. And that being fat is healthy and protective so long as it's not incredibly fat.

I think the life insurance companies must believe this too, since they play the game of odds. When I applied, it seemed they were more interested in whether I lost a lot of weight in the last year, than if I was overweight.
 
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ecstatichamster
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ideal BMI for men or women seems to be high 20s.

And as I said here, the less you lose when you are calorie restricted, the longer you will live, according to this mouse study.

As Dr. Peat has said in one of the interviews:

Andrew: Would you start with what you think the ideal body fat percentage should be?
Ray: I think it varies according to gender and age. For example, young women who are overweight have better outcome of breast cancer (a lower incidence of breast cancer) than those who are underweight.
Sarah: And what are you saying [as] young women?
Ray: In the 20's and 30's. And one of the greatest increases in cancer is occurring among women between the ages of 25 and the early 30's. It's tripled in the last 30 or 40 years in that age group. But because of that relationship it's better for a young woman to be on the plump side...
Andrew: With saturated fats...
Ray: Yeah, if it's a good diet. And then in older people, being somewhat leaner for women is reducing the risk of breast cancer. But in old people in general mortality is lower with heavier body weight. They just have a greater resistance to stresses. So you have to look at the individual, and their age and gender. And overall mortality goes down in old people who are slightly on the heavy side.
Andrew: So it's very much relative to age then. Age and gender then, because obviously that percentage will change.
Sarah: I thought you said that older people who are slightly more plump have...
Andrew: Yeah, he did...
Sarah: Have a more decreased mortality.
Ray: Yeah, same with increased cholesterol. And a slight increase in blood pressure in old age is good. Same thing with...
Andrew: What do you think that body fat percentage would be then? 20%? 24%?
Ray: I think a little higher.
Sarah: That's pretty low.
Andrew: That's too low, huh?
Sarah: I remember when I was 19 I had it measured at 19%
Andrew: Ah, ok.
Sarah: The person said, "I don't think you'd ever be able to get pregnant at 19%."
Andrew: So how about 30%?
Ray: Yeah, I think 30%.
 
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ecstatichamster
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I think the life insurance companies must believe this too, since they play the game of odds. When I applied, it seemed they were more interested in whether I lost a lot of weight in the last year, than if I was overweight.


Most people want to lose weight rapidly.

But in reality, people who lose weight rapidly off and get sick. I think it's very common to get cancer and other disease after you've lost a lot of weight.

But I am always harping on this so-called obesity Paradox were fat Paradox as it should be called. The reality is that people who are heavier tend to be more healthy and Society tells us that the reverse is true, that thin people are healthier.

As you get older, being thin is a very high risk factor for early death.

The problem also with RAPID weight loss is it is generally RAPID lean mass loss. If you can lose fat and not lean mass, it is probably safe to lose weight fairly fast.
 
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ecstatichamster
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Dr. Peat said in an interview that there was a study of fasting that showed that people who fasted, or maybe it was pigs, I can't remember, but anyway, fasting organisms lost a lot of lean mass ...but if they were given some fruit juice and some mineral replacement, they lost mostly all fat and very little lean mass.

The emphasis was on the replacement of minerals that are lost during fasting. That replacement seems to reduce the loss of lean mass dramatically during fasting.

Weight loss increases and fat loss decreases all-cause mortality rate: results from two independent cohort studies. - PubMed - NCBI
OBJECTIVE:
In epidemiological studies, weight loss is usually associated with increased mortality rate. Contrarily, among obese people, weight loss reduces other risk factors for disease and death. We hypothesised that this paradox could exist because weight is used as an implicit adiposity index. No study has considered the independent effects of weight loss and fat loss on mortality rate. We studied mortality rate as a function of weight loss and fat loss.

DESIGN:
Analysis of 'time to death' in two prospective population-based cohort studies, the Tecumseh Community Health Study (1890 subjects; 321 deaths within 16y of follow-up) and the Framingham Heart Study (2731 subjects; 507 deaths within 8y of follow-up), in which weight and fat (via skinfolds) loss were assessable.

RESULTS:
In both studies, regardless of the statistical approach, weight loss was associated with an increased, and fat loss with a decreased, mortality rate (P < 0.05). Each standard deviation (s.d.) of weight loss (4.6 kg in Tecumseh, 6.7 kg in Framingham) was estimated to increase the hazard rate by 29% (95% confidence interval CI), (14%, 47%, respectively) and 39% (95% CI, 25%, 54% respectively), in the two samples. Contrarily, each s.d. of fat loss (10.0 mm in Tecumseh, 4.8 mm in Framingham) was estimated to reduce the hazard rate 15% (95% CI, 4%, 25%) and 17% (95% CI, 8%, 25%) in Tecumseh and Framingham, respectively. Generalisability of these results to severely (that is, body mass index BMI) > or = 34) obese individuals is unclear.

CONCLUSIONS:
Among individuals that are not severely obese, weight loss is associated with increased mortality rate and fat loss with decreased mortality rate.
 
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BMI between 25 and 30 doesn't sound like "fat" to me though -- that's more just a bit overweight/maybe chubby you could say but nothing extreme.

Actual "fat" as in most people would look and think "fat-fat"/unhealthy I think would be a BMI closer to 35 rather than 25-30. With clothes on you probably can't even see a 5 BMI point/big difference in plenty of people; so it's hardly noticeably "fat" as in problematic obesity maybe. You can be overweight and healthy, but it's not always ideal.

I also wonder what it is about the extra bodyfat that's beneficial in old age that is generally believed to be better in young age (being leaner). For example, younger people are advised to be a bit leaner and this doesn't usually create health negatives if we assume metabolism/health in other ways is more on point. So what is it about older people that they can't just reap the same benefits? I've seen elderly who are thin and healthy -- no diseases, heart issues, etc. -- so it must not be just fat alone that can help maintain this. Older people should have robust metabolisms and health even if they want to be leaner too and gain the benefits of less adipose tissue/etc.
 
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lampofred

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I think the more active your adrenals are, the faster you lose weight upon restricting calories because it means you are accustomed to running on fat instead of sugar. HPA overactivity is responsible for the cancerous, unhealthy kind of weight loss.
 

opethfeldt

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Being lean as a male is always going to be ideal. Fat is hormonally active tissue constantly converting testosterone into estrogen and DHT into inactive metabolites, as well as increasing the amount of active cortisol. However, it's difficult to achieve 10-15 percent body fat without caloric restriction or fasting, which are both bad for your health. I'd be happy with sustaining high teens body fat percentage, personally.
 

somuch4food

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Why dont I see many fat 80+ year olds?

Both my grand parents are fat and relatively healthy and aware at 83 years old.

Many elderly lose their appetite and that's probably why many are thin.

That said I like this subject. I've mostly been on the chubby side hovering between 25 and 30 BMI. I'm rarely sick and when I am the symptoms are mild.
 

LLight

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Does it really imply that for one person, being leaner would not be healthier?

The Personal Fat Threshold Theory could explain such "paradoxical" data.

Otherwise, in what way is fat protective?
 
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vulture

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BTW, I have being gaining weight recently, I stopped caring so much about not getting "fat", and as soon as I boosted calories my strength started going up significantly as well as my muscle size. Females say I look more attractive, have more butt, etc
 

boris

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Does it really imply that for one person, being leaner would not be healthier?

The Personal Fat Threshold Theory could explain such "paradoxical" data.

Otherwise, in what way is fat protective?

Saturated fat is protective in many ways.

Fats, functions and malfunctions.

I heard this in an interview, don't remember who it was and I can't find it anymore, but it was something along the lines of skinny elderly people have been found to be more prone to die than fuller people.

It's literally stored emergency energy, the problem of having a little fat on the body is mostly when it's PUFA fat.
 

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In the late 1990’s the WHO lowered the cut off for overweight and obese and made it the same scale for men and women.
 

LLight

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Saturated fat is protective in many ways.

Fats, functions and malfunctions.

I heard this in an interview, don't remember who it was and I can't find it anymore, but it was something along the lines of skinny elderly people have been found to be more prone to die than fuller people.

It's literally stored emergency energy, the problem of having a little fat on the body is mostly when it's PUFA fat.

Yeah maybe, but I believe you don't need 10kg or more fat for it to be protective regarding PUFA or short term energy deficiency?

And I'm not denying that someone skinny has more chance to die than someone fat. But if I understand well, these results are coming from epidemiology and can't explain how mortality probability would vary if someone fat would lose it (without him becoming underweight, anorexic or malnourished).

If we accept the Personal Fat Threshold theory as being true (you don't have to, it's a theory after all), we can think that thin people (in the current very obesogenic environment) have more chance of having reached their threshold and thus metabolic syndrome/hyperinsulinemia and the other diseases that come with that.

In contrast, fat people may have more chance of having the capacity to gain more fat, that save them.
 
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ecstatichamster
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Being lean as a male is always going to be ideal. Fat is hormonally active tissue constantly converting testosterone into estrogen and DHT into inactive metabolites, as well as increasing the amount of active cortisol. However, it's difficult to achieve 10-15 percent body fat without caloric restriction or fasting, which are both bad for your health. I'd be happy with sustaining high teens body fat percentage, personally.

that's not what these studies say. I think that is WRONG.

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Although a clear risk of mortality is associated with obesity, the risk of mortality associated with overweight is equivocal. The objective of this study is to estimate the relationship between BMI and all‐cause mortality in a nationally representative sample of Canadian adults. A sample of 11,326 respondents aged ≥25 in the 1994/1995 National Population Health Survey (Canada) was studied using Cox proportional hazards models. A significant increased risk of mortality over the 12 years of follow‐up was observed for underweight (BMI <18.5; relative risk (RR) = 1.73, P < 0.001) and obesity class II+ (BMI >35; RR = 1.36, P <0.05). Overweight (BMI 25 to <30) was associated with a significantly decreased risk of death (RR = 0.83, P < 0.05). The RR was close to one for obesity class I (BMI 30–35; RR = 0.95, P >0.05). Our results are similar to those from other recent studies, confirming that underweight and obesity class II+ are clear risk factors for mortality, and showing that when compared to the acceptable BMI category, overweight appears to be protective against mortality. Obesity class I was not associated with an increased risk of mortality.
 

boris

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But I am always harping on this so-called obesity Paradox were fat Paradox as it should be called. The reality is that people who are heavier tend to be more healthy and Society tells us that the reverse is true, that thin people are healthier.

Remember heroin chic from the 90s? How many girls started to stick their fingers in their throat to look like these models....
I wouldn't be suprised if these wrong images are being pushed on us on purpose.

00330m.jpg


I was always proud of my extremely low body fat, because I perceived it as healthy and desirable. But I am in the process of changing that now.

That little belly there is not by accident :lol::
raypeat1.jpg
 

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