Obesity has always been touted as one of the biggest controllable risk factors for heart disease and diabetes. While that’s still true, researchers are discovering that a small portion of obese people manage to avoid the associated risks.
Conditions like high blood pressure and high cholesterol sometimes go hand in hand with obesity. Those conditions put a person in high cardiovascular risk.
But a recent Dutch study, presented at the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting, found that 6.8 percent of obese study participants had no health history of cardiovascular disease or diabetes, had none of the conditions that put them at risk, and were basically “metabolically healthy.”
So how do you eat your chili cheese fries and avoid the health risk? Simple answer? You don’t.
While a small portion of the 8,000 plus people in the Dutch study were obese but had no associated risks, there’s no guarantee that they won’t develop health complications in the future. And, as the researchers pointed out, even if they may have some unknown internal protection against heart disease, they’re not immune from joint aches/pains and other issues associated with obesity.
You can’t control risk factors like family history, age, race, and sex, but you can control your weight. And it’s not worth gambling your health over the small chance that you might be one of the metabolically-healthy obese.
You can maintain your weight and with a heart-healthy lifestyle. Some tips:
- Avoid saturated and trans fats, but include a small amount of healthful unsaturated fats (such as olive oil) in your diet. Keep in mind that monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats have health benefits, but still pack a caloric punch so keep them to a minimum.
- Include plenty of fruits and vegetables in your diet. Not only are most naturally low in calories, their nutrients may protect against heart disease.
- Opt for whole grains as much as possible. Some whole grains, like oatmeal (as long as it’s not the highly processed, loaded-with-sugar, microwaveable variety) contain soluble fiber which can help carry cholesterol out of your bloodstream.
- Reduce the amount of salt in your diet. Check labels for sodium content—many processed foods are shockingly high in sodium. And substitute herbs or no-salt seasoning blends for salt while cooking at home. A low-salt diet can help manage blood pressure.
Of course, it’s also important to exercise regularly—so get out there and move!
Originally published on Diet Blog
