Chubby People Live Longer than Skinny People

Friday, June 19, 2009 9:39 AM

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Health experts have long warned of the risk of obesity, but a new Japanese study warns that being very skinny is even more dangerous, and that slightly chubby people live longer.


People who are a little overweight at age 40 live six to seven years longer than very thin people, whose average life expectancy was shorter by some five years than that of obese people, the study found.


"We found skinny people run the highest risk," said Shinichi Kuriyama, an associate professor at Tohoku University's Graduate School of Medicine who worked on the long-term study of middle-aged and elderly people.


"We had expected thin people would show the shortest life expectancy but didn't expect the difference to be this large," he told AFP by telephone.


The study was conducted by a health ministry team led by Tohoku University professor Ichiro Tsuji and covered 50,000 people between the ages of 40 and 79 over 12 years in the northern Japanese prefecture of Miyagi.


"There had been an argument that thin people's lives are short because many of them are sick or smoke. But the difference was almost unchanged even when we eliminated these factors," Kuriyama said.


Main reasons for the shorter lifespans of skinny people were believed to include their heightened vulnerability to diseases such as pneumonia and the fragility of their blood vessels, he said.


But Kuriyama warned he was not recommending people eat as much as they want.


"It's better that thin people try to gain normal weight, but we doubt it's good for people of normal physique to put on more fat," he said.


The study divided people into four weight classes at age 40 according to their body mass index, or BMI, calculated by dividing a person's weight in kilograms by their squared height in metres.


The normal range is 18.5 to 25, with thinness defined as under 18.5. A BMI of 25 to 30 was classed as slightly overweight and an index above 30 as obese.


Copyright AFP


Woo Hoo, Yes, I will have that Hot Fudge Cake!

OK, for medicinal reasons I will make sure I order desert from now on! Bring on the hot fudge sundae!

Mmmm... Donuts

Alice Horton would be proud.

MMmmmm! Maybe I'll eat all the Pecan Praline bundt cake that my MIL made......

Oooooooooo. Can you post the recipe??? I've got to cook at my mother's house next weekend and that sounds great!

I can get it for you!

::zzzzzzzzzzooooooooommmmmmmsssss to email MIL::

What?!?! Great. Just what I needed to hear. Twenty years of starving myself and now I learn that it'll be the death of me. Cripes, when does that pizza shop open?

Ask and you shall receive!!

Praline Bundt Cake

From Recipe is by Paula Gebhart in the St. Isidore Catholic Church cookbook.

Makes 1 large Bundt cake.

Cake:
1 pkg. Betty Crocker Supermoist yellow cake mix
11/4 cups water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup Heath toffee bits

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a Bundt pan. In large bowl, beat cake mix, water, oil and eggs with electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds.

2. Beat on medium 2 minutes, scraping bowl. Fold in pecans and toffee bits.

3. Bake 34 to 40 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

4. Cool 30 minutes and remove from pan. Cool completely

Glaze:
1/4 cup butter (not margarine)
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 tbls. corn syrup
2 tbls. milk
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 cup Heath toffee bits

1. In quart-size pan, melt butter. Stir in brown sugar, corn syrup and milk. Heat to rolling boil, stirring frequently; remove from heat.
2. Immediately beat in powdered sugar and vanilla with wire whisk until smooth.
3. Drizzle over cake and sprinkle with Heath toffee bits.
.

Funny, I've seen other research that claims people and animals who live calorie restricted diets live longer. This guy my mom knows onyl fed his cats salad and one lived to be 21 I think. I don't recall hearing how old the other was.

I don't care if I live a long time. I just want to be healthy while I am alive. Then I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my uncle, not screaming and carrying on like the passengers on his bus.

I'm going to have to make this!! I'll have to watch the pecans tho!

Oh that sounds so good.

Now I don't feel so bad about the Wild Mushroom Trio Pasta with Cream Sauce and the Raspberry Almond Torte I had for dinner last night!

CP, you have a recipe for that Pasta dish?

Sorry, was out at the local restaurant last night.

Oh I am so going to have to make this!!!! I can bring it into work and try a small piece then watch it get devoured (spelling????) by my co-workers. Just sounds too yummy to pass up.

Maybe Thomas can "lighten it up" a bit for us

You could always substitute apple sauce for the vegetable oil. I've done this before and cakes still come out very moist - you don't miss the oil at all.