Any excess fat is not good for you; it shortens your life, increases your medical expenses and leads to suffering and age-related disease. The scientific evidence for that statement piles ever more weighty with each passing year - much like the unrepaired cellular damage at the root of aging that your body fat helps to accumulate in your tissues.

With that in mind, here is another round of support for the common wisdom of good health:

Being a little overweight can kill you, according to new research that leaves little room for denial that a few extra pounds is harmful. Baby boomers who were even just a tad pudgy were more likely to die prematurely than those who were at a healthy weight, U.S. researchers reported Tuesday.

While obesity has been known to contribute to early death, the link between being overweight and dying prematurely has been controversial. Some experts have argued that a few extra pounds does no harm.

However, this is one of the first major studies to account for the factors of smoking and chronic illness, which can complicate efforts to figure out how much weight itself is responsible for early death.

"The cumulative evidence is now even stronger," said Dr. Michael Thun, chief epidemiologist of the American Cancer Society who had no role in the research. "Being overweight does increase health risks. It's not simply a cosmetic or social problem."

A separate large study of Korean patients, also released Tuesday, reached the same conclusion. Both are being published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine.

Relatedly, and via the Gerontology Research Group list, you might take a look at this recent study of supercentenarians performed by some of the list folk:

Age range was 110 to 119. Fifty-nine percent had Barthel Index scores in the partially to totally dependent range, whereas 41% required minimal assistance or were independent. Few subjects had a history of clinically evident vascular-related diseases, including myocardial infarction (n=2, 6%) and stroke (n=4, 13%). Twenty-two percent (n=7) were taking medications for hypertension. Twenty-five percent (n=8) had a history of cancer (all cured). Diabetes mellitus (n=1, 3%) and Parkinson's disease (n=1, 3%) were rare. Osteoporosis (n=14, 44%) and cataract history (n=28, 88%) were common.

...

Data collected thus far suggest that supercentenarians markedly delay and even escape clinical expression of vascular disease toward the end of their exceptionally long lives. A surprisingly substantial proportion of these individuals were still functionally independent or required minimal assistance.

There is a lesson to be learned here: a large portion of the the burdens of age-related disease are not a matter of luck. Yes, longevity genes exist, but much of your future is a matter of metabolism and the cellular damage that results. You have a great deal of control over this process across a lifetime; remember that there are no fat people amongst the extremely old and hale. The overweight succumb to diseases and damage resulting from their metabolism long before they can become centenarians, let alone supercentenarians.

Your genes won't be under your control for another few decades, but weight is a choice for most of us, and an important one at that. We live on the cusp of great transformations in medicine and biotechnology - but the dead will be dead and the future of greatly extended healthy longevity is lost for those who fall before we get there. Don't be one of the dead; that choice is most likely in your hands.

Technorati tags: health, life extension

Posted by Reason at August 22, 2006 9:05 PM | TrackBack (0)