Weight loss increases the risk of mortality for older people

bigfatscience:

mouthlikevenus:

bigfatscience:

Numerous longitudinal studies have observed that when older people lose weight, their risk of death in the following decades increases.

One such study began following a nationally representative sample of 7000 people when they averaged 65 years of age. In the following ten years, about 25% of the sample died.

The study revealed that fat participants (i.e., BMI > 30) who had lost more than 15% of their body weight at the start of the study experienced a nearly 300% increase in the risk of all-causes mortality. Researchers observed similar increases in mortality risk across the entire weight spectrum for women. 

This means that weight loss is unhealthy and increases the risk of all-causes mortality for older fat people and for older women at all weights.

You’re supposed to gain weight as you age, it helps you survive if you fall ill, especially heart attacks if I remember correctly. And literally if you fall the chances of breaking something are lower.

Fat older people far better than thin older people when they contract pneumonia, when they have a heart attack, when they undergo chemotherapy, when they have an infection, when they undergo dialysis, and when they have diabetes. Oh, and fat older people have about half the risk of developing dementia, too. Basically, fatness seems to offer protection from basically every disease of older age. 

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