WP: Fat Accelerates Aging

[Ancalagon the Black]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/13/AR2005061301493.html

Fat Found to Accelerate Aging Process

Obesity Adds Equivalent of Nine Years to Appearance of Cells, Study Says

By Rob Stein

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, June 14, 2005; A02

Scientists have produced the first direct evidence that fat accelerates aging, possibly speeding the unraveling of crucial genetic structures inside cells that wither with age.

A team of researchers from the United States and Britain found that the more a person weighs, the older their cells appear on a molecular level, with obesity adding the equivalent of nearly nine years of age to a person's body.

The findings suggest that many health problems associated with being overweight -- heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis -- may result from fat cells hastening the natural aging process.

"We've known obesity increases your risk of many diseases, and of dying early. What's novel here is that it seems that fat itself actually accelerates the aging process," said Tim Spector of St. Thomas Hospital in London, who led the study, which was published online yesterday by the Lancet medical journal. "This may not be apparent because these people may not have as many wrinkles. But underneath it looks like they are aging at a faster rate."

That could help explain, for example, why an alarming number of obese children are developing the most common form of diabetes, which had been known as "adult-onset" diabetes; prior to the surge of obesity among the young, it almost invariably had been seen only in adults.

"It might just change the whole of the body's metabolism in a way that increases aging and increases the risk for all the aging diseases," Spector said.

Other researchers said the findings are provocative and could lead to fundamental new insights into the effects of fat on a molecular level at a time when public health experts are alarmed about the number of obese people.

"We know obese people live, on average, less time. Here we are going into the DNA sequence of these people and showing this condition is associated with a biomarker of aging," said Eric Ravussin of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La. "I think it's going to stimulate a lot of research."

The study comes amid intense debate over the impact of obesity. More than two-thirds of Americans are overweight, including about one-third who are obese, raising concern the nation could be facing an epidemic of weight-related illnesses. Federal health officials, however, have been criticized recently for producing conflicting estimates of the impact of obesity, including a report that some said suggested people who were overweight but not obese may actually have a lower death rate. CDC Director Julie L. Gerberding and other public health experts said that finding was misinterpreted to suggest weight could be beneficial, and they remain convinced obesity represents a major public health threat.

Skeptics continue to challenge that assertion and question the new findings, saying the researchers had failed to rule out the possibility that other factors may be responsible for the results. People who are overweight, for example, may not get enough exercise, which could account for premature aging.

"It is impossible to determine if the 'aging' association with obesity is due to obesity itself or some other factors that co-vary with obesity, such as diet, physical activity, fitness, or other lifestyle factor," Glenn A. Gaesser of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, wrote in an e-mail.

But Spector said the results are consistent with recent findings that, contrary to the long-held belief that fat cells were inert blobs, they churn out a host of substances that can be toxic to the body.

"So it may be the body has to repair itself much faster and that accelerates the aging process," Spector said in a telephone interview. "We don't fully understand all the mechanisms of how obesity causes ill health, but this may be a central one that underpins all of them."

Spector and colleagues at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey studied 1,122 women ages 18 to 76, including 119 who were obese. The researchers took blood samples so they could examine structures inside their white blood cells called telomeres.

Telomeres are the caps at the ends of chromosomes -- the molecules that carry genes. Every time a cell divides, telomeres shorten. In the natural aging process, telomeres eventually get so short that cells can no longer divide, and they then die. As more and more cells reach the end of their telomeres and die, the inexorable process produces the effects of aging.

Spector found a direct relationship between body weight and telomere length, with telomere length decreasing with increasing body weight. The lean women had significantly longer telomeres than the heavy women, whose telomeres were significantly longer than those of the obese women. Obesity was defined using a standard measurement based on height and weight known as a body mass index, or BMI. Anyone with a BMI of 30 or higher is considered obese.

In addition, the researchers found that the higher levels of a hormone in the blood produced by fat cells called leptin, the shorter the telomeres.

The researchers found a similar relationship with smoking, with the length of telomeres shortening with the number of cigarettes the smokers in the group smoked.

Rudolph L. Leibel of Columbia University said the findings were provocative but did not necessarily mean people who are overweight, or have short telomeres, are destined to die young.

"It may be that in a biological sense the aging process is accelerated in these individuals, but that in and of itself doesn't necessarily permit you to predict what the outcome will be," he said. "Maybe the telomere shortening is comparable to gray hair. Somebody who has gray hair is more likely to be older, but it doesn't cause aging."

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

[carlsbadd]

Well DUH!

Of course being overweight lowers your life span.

You never see 95 year old fat people right?

Most people could have told us this with out the team of researchers.

[Thiebear]

What is this Religion? Got all the sides covered? Thought this was supposed to be Science

Fight the fat, but you won't live longer

By Nigel Hawkes, Health Editor

BEING overweight may not be as dangerous as it is generally portrayed, a new study in the United States has found.

Those who are only moderately overweight have a lower relative risk of death than those of supposedly optimum weight, the results show. Modest obesity — a body mass index of 30 to 35 — increases the risks of dying only slightly, leaving only the grossly obese, with a body mass index greater than 35, with a greatly increased risk. *** well duh ***

While it may be fashionable to be extremely skinny, it does nothing to prolong life. The risks of dying among people with a body mass index of less than 18.5 are slightly increased.

The results, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, have been lauded by some specialists as a useful corrective to the national panic in America over obesity. Steven Blair, of the Cooper Institute in Dallas, Texas, said: “I love it. There are people who have made up their minds that obesity and overweight are the biggest public health problem we have to face. These numbers show that maybe it’s not so big.”

However, the study, by a team led by Katherine Flegal, of the US National Centre for Health Statistics, is limited in its conclusions. It looked only at deaths, not at disease or disability, which generally increase with weight.

Earlier studies have shown that being moderately overweight is not necessarily a bad thing and that being grievously thin is a hazard, so the new results will not astonish experts. Nevertheless, the study is larger and more comprehensive than earlier ones.

The team used data from three US National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, carried out in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. These surveys measured body mass index in a representative sample of the American population, then followed them, recording deaths as they occurred.

The obese categories are linked to 112,000 extra deaths over the time period, which is a fraction of those cited only last year by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, which said that 365,000 deaths a year in the United States were caused by people being overweight — making it the second most important preventable cause of death after tobacco. This new study puts the figures at 26,000 per year.

According to the new study, obesity is the seventh-biggest killer behind tobacco, alcohol, germs, toxins and pollutants, cars and guns.

Julie Gerberding, Director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in America, said: “There’s absolutely no question that obesity is a major public health concern of this country (the US).”

The team itself believes that the risks of being overweight are declining as better drugs emerge to control blood cholesterol and blood pressure, and better care is available for a range of obesity-related conditions.

[codeorama]

Being 100 lbs overweight takes 15 years off your life expectancy.

[Mr. S]

granted im not overweight, increases my drive to go for a run soon.

[redman]

So the way I read that is that it adds nine years onto my life. What's not to like about living longer?

[big#44]

Any one ever see the bowflex commercial with the fifty year old woman?

[Leonard Washington]

a skinny old person looks gross.

[Ancalagon the Black]

Originally posted by Thiebear

What is this Religion? Got all the sides covered? Thought this was supposed to be Science

Did you read the article?

[ChocolateCitySkin]

Originally posted by big#44

Any one ever see the bowflex commercial with the fifty year old woman?

dude, i know her daughter-- shes a stripper

[big#44]

Originally posted by ChocolateCitySkin

dude, i know her daughter-- shes a stripper

serious

[TheKurp]

Looking at this from another angle, why do fat cells accelerate the aging process? In other words, if you believe that nothing in nature is by accident, that everything is designed for a reason, what purpose is served by the fatter you are, the faster you die?

My theory? Food consumption. If you consider that food sources aren't infinite, then nature does not intend for select people to consume their share plus someone else's share. Ergo, before you can eat all your food and start on mine, you'll die first. Or, if you get to start on my food you won't have ample opportunity to do it for long - because the more you eat, the faster you'll die.

[ChocolateCitySkin]

dead serious lives in the washington area

[Cskin]

dude, i know her daughter-- shes a stripper

The daughter is the stripper or the woman from the commercial is a stripper? The woman in the commercial looks damn good for being 50. What they fail to reveal is the surgical work she's had to look like that.... insteac choosing to imply that the bowflex will allow all 50 year old women to look like that. :doh:

[Thiebear]

Originally posted by Ancalagon the Black

Did you read the article?

yes.