{"id":114809,"date":"2009-12-30T09:51:06","date_gmt":"2009-12-30T14:51:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/calorielab.com\/news\/?p=6687"},"modified":"2009-12-30T09:51:06","modified_gmt":"2009-12-30T14:51:06","slug":"dr-j-will-see-you-now-on-ugly-sweaters-swedish-guys-and-bmi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/114809","title":{"rendered":"Dr. J will see you now: On ugly sweaters, Swedish guys and BMI"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"Contributor: “Dr. J”<\/strong>
\nDr. J offers his irreverent, slightly irrelevant, but possibly useful opinions on health and fitness. A Florida surgeon and fitness freak with a black belt in karate, he runs 50 miles a week and flies a Cherokee Arrow 200.<\/div>\n

Ugly sweaters<\/h3>\n

\"ugly-sweater\"
\nA new trend that I just heard about is ugly sweater parties<\/a>. They are especially popular around Christmastime<\/a>. There is even a website<\/a> where you can buy one if you are one of the two people in the country who can\u2019t find one hidden or forgotten in the bottom of a drawer somewhere.<\/p>\n

Swedish guys<\/h3>\n

I have a Swedish friend who is over 90 years old! He is a very fit and healthy 90-year-old. I usually see him at the gym, either in the sauna<\/a>, one of his region of origin\u2019s gifts to the world, or in the aerobic room doing a series of exercises similar to the 5BX — more popularly known as the Canadian Air Force Exercises<\/a> — originally developed in the 1950s. <\/p>\n

He broke his arm last year slipping on the ice in Stockholm during a visit with his family. He’s probably has lived in the Florida sunshine a little too long, and was out of practice. It healed up without any problems!<\/p>\n

Speaking of Swedish guys, a new study has come out of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden on the BMI and health<\/a>. The work was conducted in conjunction with Britain’s University of Bristol, and the results have just been published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

This was not some minor study. It seems these Swedish researchers measured the BMI and mortality among more than a million pairs of Swedes over 50 years!<\/p>\n

Previous studies have found a positive link between BMI and higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease, diabetes and some cancers. In addition, a low BMI had been associated with increased mortality from respiratory disease and lung cancer.<\/p>\n

These findings about health and a low BMI have been challenged, citing that the figures could be skewed by something called reverse causality<\/a>, meaning that people with lung cancer, for example, which will cause significant weight loss, are being factored in as those with a low BMI. Smoking and poor socioeconomic circumstances will also induce this error.<\/p>\n

The results<\/h3>\n

The investigators found a significant relationship between increased mortality and increased BMI. This link was especially noticeable in cardiovascular disease, for which the existing estimates may be “substantially underestimated,\u201d according to the researchers. <\/p>\n

There was also a positive correlation with diabetes and kidney cancer. There was, however, no evidence of an association between having a low BMI and an increased risk of respiratory disease and lung cancer mortality.<\/p>\n

Discussion<\/h3>\n

You may disagree, not like it, think people can be healthy at any size, or fat but fit, feel statistically that the BMI is bogus, or that it falls apart on the individual level, or any other reason you may have to want to argue about the BMI measurement, but this study looked at over two million people over a 50-year period and showed that the BMI is valid. To quote Deep Thought<\/a>, the computer from The Hitchhiker\u2019s Guide to the Galaxy<\/em>, \u201cYes I have the answer, but you\u2019re really not going to like it!\u201d <\/p>\n

I\u2019m not asking anyone to like it. I\u2019m asking those who need it to recognize the health risks.<\/p>\n

I understand if you are protected by youth, or good fortune, and feel that you are healthy in spite of your high BMI that, shall we say, motivation may be lacking to find the need to do anything about it. Please realize that we are concerned about the proven increased potential for early morbidity and mortality. Once you have reached that point with numerous morbidities<\/a>, it is often too late to find ways to significantly help yourself.<\/p>\n

A high BMI, with its well-proven risks to your health, is like that ugly sweater that you may want to ignore or forget about, except try as you might, you can\u2019t take the sweater off without making some substantial healthy changes. You don\u2019t really want to show up unnecessarily early for your funeral in that<\/i> sweater now, do you?<\/p>\n

The time to make those lifestyle changes is now!<\/p>\n

From the RSS feed of CalorieLab News<\/a> (REF3076322B7)<\/p>\n

Dr. J will see you now: On ugly sweaters, Swedish guys and BMI<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Contributor: “Dr. J” Dr. J offers his irreverent, slightly irrelevant, but possibly useful opinions on health and fitness. A Florida surgeon and fitness freak with a black belt in karate, he runs 50 miles a week and flies a Cherokee Arrow 200. Ugly sweaters A new trend that I just heard about is ugly sweater […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114809\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}