Fat but fit is a myth, says study

A major new study has found that people who are obese run an increased risk of heart failure and stroke even if they appear healthy. Worse still there are no warning signs such as high blood pressure or diabetes.

The findings of the study which were presented at the  European Congress on Obesity in Porto, Portugal, may be the final death knell for the claim that it is possible to be obese but still metabolically healthy – or “fat but fit”, scientists say.

The new study involved 3.5 million people, approximately 61,000 of whom developed coronary heart disease. The scientists examined electronic health records from 1995 to 2015 in the Health Improvement Network — a large UK general practice database. They found records for 3.5 million people who were free of coronary heart disease initially and divided them into groups according to BMI and whether they had diabetes, high BP [hypertension], and abnormal blood fats [hyperlipidemia], which are all classed as metabolic abnormalities.

Anyone who had none of those was classed as “metabolically healthy obese”. The study found that those obese individuals who appeared healthy in fact had a 50 per cent higher risk of coronary heart disease than people who were of normal weight. They had a 7 per cent increased risk of cerebrovascular disease – problems affecting the blood supply to the brain — which can cause a stroke, and double the risk of heart failure. The study showed that the idea that large numbers of people can be obese and yet metabolically healthy and at no risk of heart disease was wrong.