Doctors and researchers call it the “Obesity Paradox” when fat people do better than non-fat people in certain medical situations.

I wish they would call it what it is – “Fat Protection” or “Fat Evolutionary Benefit Syndrome”. 

There are simply times when being fat provides protection. Nobody seems to know why, and the researchers are scrambling to explain how it could possibly be that the fatties aren’t dying off as quickly as everyone keeps predicting.

I don’t know why either, but I do know that there are old fatties; and that there have been old fatties for pretty much as long as there have been people.

Sorry to be such a disappointment.  (And also fuck you)

Anyhow, yet another study has come around showing that people with higher BMIs do better with acute coronary syndrome

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjcard.2020.09.059

https://www.cardiovascularbusiness.com/topics/acute-coronary-syndrome/obesity-paradox-acs-outcomes-underweight-patients

From the Mayo Clinic:

Acute coronary syndrome is a term used to describe a range of conditions associated with sudden, reduced blood flow to the heart.

One such condition is a heart attack (myocardial infarction) — when cell death results in damaged or destroyed heart tissue. Even when acute coronary syndrome causes no cell death, the reduced blood flow changes how your heart works and is a sign of a high risk of heart attack.

Acute coronary syndrome often causes severe chest pain or discomfort. It is a medical emergency that requires prompt diagnosis and care. The goals of treatment include improving blood flow, treating complications and preventing future problems.

It’s, basically, a heart attack.

What really irritates me is how the authors of the study are touting the idea that with the extremely obese patients (BMI greater than 40) the benefits of the obesity paradox “fades”.

Well, sort of, but their own numbers show that even super-fatties do better than those in the underweight and “healthy” range. 

Overall, after six months, underweight patients had an all-cause mortality rate of 11%. That number was 1% for obese patients and 4% for patients with a “healthy” BMI. Where the obesity paradox “fades”, the researchers noted, was when it comes to extremely obese patients with a BMI greater than 40; their all-cause mortality rate jumped back up to 2%, higher than it is for other obese patients.

Yup.  Super-fatties all-cause mortality rate “jumped back up to 2%” – but as you can see underweight patients rate was 11% and “healthy” weight patients were at 4%.  But extremely obese patients “jumped back up” to only 1% higher than the best rate of 1%.

Guess what they can jump up? 

That’s right, they can jump right up my fat old lady butt.

And the statistics are similar when you look at cardiovascular mortality after six months.  Underweight does worse, “healthy” does next-to-worse; obese does best, and extremely obese does slightly worse than obese (or second best).

So they can just keep right on jumping.