Is There an Advantage to Being Obese?

Health Wellness

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If you asked 100 medical experts if there is an advantage to being obese, they would adamantly say NO, without the slightest hesitation. Obesity has been directly linked to increased risk of developing heart disease, strokes, diabetes, high blood pressure and some cancers. There is a ton of evidence to support these claims, so how in the world could anyone ask if there is any advantage to being obese?

In 2005, I was involved in a serious auto accident. We were hit by a teenaged driver who lost control of her car while driving on the interstate. She struck us at the passenger side door where I was sitting. It spun us around, our minivan began to roll towards the driver’s side, then bounced, went airborne and landed upside down caving in the roof over where I was sitting. This caused my head to be pushed down to my left.

By the time paramedics arrived on the scene, I had already climbed out of the vehicle and was sitting on the side by the concrete center partitions. When paramedics arrived, they were amazed that I was alive and not paralyzed. When doctors saw the photos of our vehicle, they were also amazed that I wasn’t killed or paralyzed. They concluded that it was because I was obese and the thickness of my neck kept it from snapping and either killing or paralyzing me. Don’t get me wrong, I was injured, I lost 1 ¼ inches in height instantly due to spinal damage. I suffered 3 herniated and 2 bulging discs in my neck and 5 more disks compressed flat and a wedge compression of a vertebra in the middle of my back, right between the shoulder blades. I live in constant pain, have muscles spasms and pinched nerves on a daily basis and limited range of use of my right arm. Living in constant pain, but, I wasn’t killed nor was I paralyzed and it was because I was obese at the time.

However, a recent study revealed another advantage of being obese, in what they call the obesity paradox, supported by three different studies:

“A study of more than 18,000 people admitted to hospital with an infectious disease in Denmark found those who were overweight were 40% less likely to die, and those who were obese 50% less likely to die, than those of normal weight.”

“A second study using data from 1.7m hospital admissions for pneumonia in the United States in 2013 to 2014 found that overweight patients were 23% more likely to survive and obese patients 29% more likely to survive than those of normal weight.”

“Other data from the US in patients with sepsis – blood poisoning – found a similar pattern. In more than three million hospital admissions, overweight patients were 23% less likely to die and obese patients 22% less likely to die than those of normal weight.”

How does being obese help people survive infections and hospitalizations?

Sigrid Gribsholt from Aarhus University hospital department of clinical epidemiology in Denmark, the lead researcher in one of the studies, believes the reason obesity helps people survive is due to two possible reasons. First, obesity causes a form of inflammation in the body which keeps the immune system active and better ready to fight other infections. Second, many people succumb to infections because they don’t have enough of an energy supply to fight off an infection. Obese people have an ample supply of energy the body can draw on, thus giving them a better chance of fighting off an infection and surviving.

None of the researchers suggest you allow yourself to get obese because of the many other health risks. However, the more body weight one has when hospitalized with an infection, the better their chances of survival. Otherwise, it is highly recommended to lose that extra weight.

Obesity

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