Tag Archive for: obesity

The Bottom Line on Loneliness

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Loneliness is a terrible thing. My father-in-law missed my mother-in-law from the day she died until the day he did. He was never without people in the assisted-living residences where he lived; the staff was wonderful and we visited him often, but he was terribly lonely. He lived to 94 and it was a good life, but the last three were unarguably his worst—even getting shot at in World War II was better. One of the reasons I shed no tears when he died was because I knew he was finally where he wanted to be: with his Ruthie.

For those of us still alive and in no hurry to leave this world soon, loneliness, social isolation, and living alone are things we may have to confront. The longer we live, as Dad did, the greater the possibility we might have to face these issues. But how great is the risk? Let’s take a look.

 

The Studies

The critical thing to understand is that meta-analyses can tell us something about a large group of people, but they can’t tell us anything about ourselves. While the total number of subjects is impressive, there are no hard comparable numbers to examine. Not reported was how they assessed loneliness and social isolation in each of the 70 studies. This was a presentation, not a paper. When it becomes a peer-reviewed paper, that may help us examine details, but for now we just don’t know.

One thing they didn’t assess due to the nature of the study was the risk for people who were lonely, isolated, and obese. If the logic holds true, they should be at the highest risk.

These studies raise questions. One of the commentaries suggested that this study hadn’t considered the effect of mobile devices. Does it make people feel part of a social group to be interacting on Facebook and Twitter, as well as texting? Or does that make them feel more alone?

 

The Bottom Line

While the science is not the strongest, it raises some significant issues. What will happen to your social fabric as you age? Most people prepare for financial wellness, but how about social wellness? Where are you going to be and who might be with you? Should you move to your retirement destination or into assisted living earlier so you’ll have more energy to make friends before your health deteriorates? Is staying in your home the best option? My mother-in-law was much happier after moving into a nursing home because she finally had a big group of friends and lots of activities—and of course Dad visited almost every day.

And this is an issue for younger people as well. If you feel lonely and isolated, it’s time to reach out; reconnect with family and friends and find new activities that will help you meet new people.

Just as you eat well and exercise for your body, it may be time to prepare your mind for your social situation as you get older. It’s also an important issue to explore with your parents. I’ll keep doing my part to get and keep you healthy, and I’ll continue to be in touch three times a week.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet

 

Reference: www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170805165319.htm.

 

Loneliness Is Worse than Obesity

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Let’s take a look at the second study on loneliness by the same research group and presented at the 2017 American Psychological Association Convention. In this study, researchers analyzed 70 studies in a meta-analysis; simply put, it’s a way of combining data from many studies to get a more robust statistical look at an issue. In this case, the number of subjects was over three million from countries all over the world.

What they found was that social isolation, loneliness, and living alone were all independently associated with early mortality similar to obesity and other physical risk factors. The researchers called for more research to find out how to address these factors. Their concern was that as the population of the world ages, this could become a greater public health issue.

How at risk are you? Is this a real concern? What can you do about? I’ll finish this up on Saturday.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet

 

Reference: www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170805165319.htm

 

The Link Between Loneliness and Mortality

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Have you ever felt alone even though you were surrounded by dozens of people? That can happen to anyone at times but when it happens on a regular basis, can it impact your health? Could it even be worse than being obese? Recent research suggests that it just might be.

Before we get to the studies, let’s define some terms.

  • Social isolation is a physical lack of contact with other human beings.
  • Loneliness is a subjective feeling of being lonely no matter how many people are around.
  • Living alone is just what it says: you live alone. Up to 25% of the adult population lives alone in the U.S.

Researchers did two meta-analyses on the relationship between social isolation, loneliness, and living alone. In the first study, people with more social connections had up to a 50% reduction in early mortality. That in and of itself is interesting, but it’s what they reported in the second study that was more profound. I’ll cover that on Thursday.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet

 

Reference: www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170805165319.htm

 

Obesity: A Global Problem

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The overwhelming conclusion by the Global BMI Mortality Collaboration is that the rate of mortality linked with the degree of obesity follows the same pattern in the entire world with one exception: South Asia. If you look at the graphs of the mortality rate per BMI category, they’re virtually identical in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and East Asia. One of the reasons that South Asia might be different was that only three studies were included in the analysis.

We are not alone in our fight to lose weight and get healthier. Actually, that’s a completely different . . .

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Death by Obesity

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The Global BMI Mortality Collaboration examined the mortality of being overweight and obese in most parts of the world. They purposefully did not include people in the meta-analysis who had ever smoked or had a chronic disease when the study began; that makes sense because both can affect mortality within the five-year span they were examining. The range of the subjects was 20 to 89 years old and a BMI greater than 15.0.

They performed a hazard ratio analysis of the combined data, which examines the rate of an event (in this case death) within each weight . . .

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The World’s State of Obesity

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A week ago, I talked to a reader and visitor to my website who continues to check her BMI occasionally to see where she stands; she still hasn’t made it to the normal range but continues to try. I understand—I’m not there yet either. But there’s good reason to keep trying based on a recently published study.

The Global BMI Mortality Collaboration decided to examine the deaths from overweight and obesity in the entire world. Sometimes we think that the U.S. is the only overweight nation in the . . .

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Observations: It Can’t Be Fun

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I need a mental break from the research and scientific analysis, and I’m thinking maybe you do, too. I like to observe life around me, so I’m going to share some observations this week.

The obesity rate is higher than it’s ever been according to a recent study (1). The two groups that are the fattest in the U.S. are Baby Boomer men and black women in any age group. I observe men my age as well as black women who are struggling just to walk. That can’t be fun to carry an extra 100 . . .

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Raising HDL: Weight Loss

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Before I finish up this week’s look at HDL cholesterol, I want to wish every mother a Happy Mother’s Day. I hope it’s a great day with your children.

The number one way to increase HDL cholesterol is to lose weight. Losing fat helps increase HDL levels while simultaneously lowering LDL cholesterol. We still don’t know precisely why, but there’s really nothing debatable about it.

I’ll give you my theory of why weight loss helps raise HDL cholesterol. In order to lose weight, you have to eat less and/or move more; more than . . .

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The Bottom Line on High-Fat Dairy

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If you’re a long-time reader, you know that science by headlines makes me crazy because news reports often distort the findings of the research papers to make them seem more important than they are. It doesn’t help that research institutions send out press releases that contribute to the hype of their research findings. Such is the case with the two papers I reviewed this week.

In the first paper, researchers examined blood values of fatty acids found in high-fat dairy products as potentially . . .

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Recent Research: Milk and Obesity

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The second research paper included in many news articles that talked about the potential benefits of full-fat dairy products was a report from the Women’s Health Study (1). Researchers collected dietary data and self-reported body weight and height from over 39,000 women. The analysis included only about 18,000 middle-aged and older women who had a normal BMI when the study began; they analyzed the change in body weight over 11 years of follow up.

All women gained weight over time. Those who had the highest number of high-fat dairy products gained less weight . . .

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