Word: cardiovascular
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...consensus among obesity researchers is that people began getting heavier in the 1970s and have continued to do so. While skeptics don't dispute this, they say that if the extra weight is a problem, it should be reflected in rising death rates from cardiovascular disease. In fact, the opposite has occurred. In March, a month after launching a $A6 million advertising campaign aimed at getting kids to be more active and saying, "obesity is a very serious problem in our society ... obviously it leads to cardiovascular disease," Australia's Minister for Health and Ageing Tony Abbott told a National...
...What's happened, most doctors would say, is that better treatment, broader use of drugs for prevention, as well as less cigarette smoking, mean that despite rising average weight, fewer people are dying from cardiovascular disease. This is small cause for celebration, says Sydney University's Booth. "People who are overweight are more likely to suffer serious, debilitating, chronic diseases before they actually die. We've become quite good at keeping people alive in the presence of these diseases, but they have a really poor life in the meantime, and that doesn't show up in studies like Flegal...
...plunging cardiovascular death rates are a stumbling block for those trying to push the obesity panic button, then type 2 diabetes-studies suggest it afflicts more than 7% of Australia's adult population, twice its prevalence 20 years ago-is a hitch for skeptics. A disease strongly correlated with obesity and once almost exclusively associated with ageing, type 2 diabetes appears to be striking more people, and earlier. For the N.S.W. Schools Physical Activity and Nutrition Survey 2004 (SPANS), researchers took blood samples from 500 Year 10 students and found elevated insulin levels-a precursor to the disease-in almost...
...Others worry that the preoccupation with obesity will discourage people from thinking about their health in a balanced way. More than 80% of cardiovascular disease is explainable by some combination of smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity, diabetes and sedentary living (being male works against you, too). Generally, the poor sod who collapses from a heart attack could tick three or more of those boxes. "We've been fighting to stop doctors and patients thinking about any of these risk factors in a vacuum," says The George Institute's MacMahon, professor of cardiovascular medicine and epidemiology at the University...
...marker of an individual's genetic predisposition to carry it. According to GPs, there are many people who eat sensibly, exercise regularly and have excellent health readings-but have a BMI well over 25. "You can be thin," says The George Institute's Huxley, "and have a much worse cardiovascular profile than if you were...