Plumpish foodies across the country rejoice! Extra pounds can fend off some diseases according to a study profiled in The New York Times. Not only that, but skinny people may be more susceptible to these same diseases. But before you take another biscuit and lay on the fall apple butter, read the whole thing. While pudgy is healthy, obesity is a still a danger.
This isn’t the first complete turnaround in the weight-loss debate. Another long-flogged piece of conventional diet wisdom seems to have fallen: low-fat diets do not prevent disease.
The largest study ever to ask whether a low-fat diet reduces the risk of getting cancer or heart disease has found that the diet has no effect.
The $415 million federal study involved nearly 49,000 women ages 50 to 79 who were followed for eight years. In the end, those assigned to a low-fat diet had the same rates of breast cancer, colon cancer, heart attacks and strokes as those who ate whatever they pleased, researchers are reporting today.
‘’These studies are revolutionary,’’ said Dr. Jules Hirsch, physician in chief emeritus at Rockefeller University in New York City, who has spent a lifetime studying the effects of diets on weight and health. ‘’They should put a stop to this era of thinking that we have all the information we need to change the whole national diet and make everybody healthy.’’
Read more about this at the TierneyLab blog on nytimes.com.
Tags: disease, food research, overweight, The New York Times
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