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Obesity: Study Links It With Atrial
Fibrillation; CDC Says Earlier Info on Obesity Deaths Wrong
Nov. 24, 2004 – A new study says obesity may
increase the risk of developing the heart rhythm disorder artrial
fibrillation. But, on the other side of the coin, the AP is reporting
that earlier government data saying obesity is about to overtake smoking
as the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S. contained statistical errors and
probably overstated the problem.
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Original Obesity Story |
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Study Shows Poor Diet, Inactivity Close To
Becoming Leading Preventable Cause of Death
March 10, 2004 - A new study released by HHS' Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention shows that deaths due to poor diet and physical
inactivity rose by 33 percent over the past decade and may soon overtake
tobacco as the leading preventable cause of death.
More... |
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More Obesity Stories |
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Obesity in Older Adults Tied to Dozens of Health
Problems
Nov. 22, 2004 – A study of over 73,000 older adults
has found obesity is linked to a large number of poor health problems.
Carrying extra weight was tied to 37 of the 41 health conditions studied
in women and 29 of 41 conditions in men.
More...
11/22/04*
Cost of Treating Obesity in Older
Americans Skyrockets
March 10, 2004 - Obesity, particularly in people 50-69,
got a double blast of bad news yesterday. The RAND Corporation released a
study saying the cost of obesity in older Americans could jump by 50 percent
by 2020. At the same time, Health and Human Services announced obesity is now
the second leading cause of death in the U.S.
More... 3/10/04*
FDA Joins War On Obesity
Obesity Working Group Issues Report Urging More, Better
Consumer Information
March 12, 2004 - A Food and Drug Administration report
was issued today that calls for strengthening food labeling, educating
consumers about healthy diet and weight, and encouraging restaurants to
provide calorie and nutrition information.
More... 3/12/04*
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In the new study, investigators looked at 5,282
Framingham participants who did not have AF when the study began. These
participants were divided into three categories of body mass index
(BMI): normal, overweight, and obese. Over a period of almost 14 years,
the scientists found that the incidence of atrial fibrillation increased
across BMI for both men and women. The Framingham Heart Study was
sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the
report is published today in the Journal of the American Medical
Association.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
issued a press release in March on a study co-authored by its director,
Dr. Julie Gerberding, that poor diet and physical inactivity were
responsible for 400,000 deaths in 2000, a 33 percent jump from 1990.
The CDC admitted Tuesday that it made an error in
calculating how many people died from obesity in the last decade,
according to the AP.
Although CDC officials declined to specify the
corrected number of deaths, saying they are still determining the
correct number, The Wall Street Journal reported that the agency may
have overstated the figure by 80,000, representing an increase of less
than 10 percent from 1990 to 2000. The errors were first reported by the
Journal on Tuesday.
The CDC has corrected articles in major journals
before, but "unfortunately it was a paper that received a lot of
attention and had our director's name on it. To my knowledge that
confluence of events really hasn't occurred at the same time," said Dr.
Dixie Snider, the CDC's chief of science, who was appointed to lead the
agency's investigation of the error.
The mistakes consisted of simple mathematical
errors, such as including total deaths from the wrong year, the
newspaper reported.
"Eighty-thousand is an estimate from one of our
scientists - that's not a number we're going with," said Snider, who
declined to speculate on the correct number of obesity-related deaths.
"We regret any confusion that we may have caused about obesity as a
public health issue and we regret the inadvertent computational error."
The CDC plans to submit a correction to the Journal
of the American Medical Association, which published the study in March.
The correction will explain how the error was made, said CDC spokesman
Tom Skinner.
The agency also has
asked the Institute of Medicine, a federal scientific advisory
organization, to hold a two-day workshop next month in Washington to
reach a consensus on the proper way to calculate the health effects of
obesity. That is because the study also caused disagreement in
scientific circles over how deaths can be labeled obesity-related.
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