Gee, Ya Think?

The standard measure of obesity known as body mass index, or BMI, is badly flawed and a more accurate gauge should be developed, according to doctors in the United States.

Gee, you think that a random height/weight calculation that’s not adjusted for *actual* body mass percentages, let alone gender and fitness level, might be a bad indicator of overall health?

I’ve always considered it about as scientific as phrenology, myself.

How many more years are we gonna get this thing thrown at us before it’s retired?

Writing in Friday’s Lancet medical journal, the researchers from the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minn., found that patients with a low BMI had a higher risk of death from heart disease than those with normal BMI.

At the same time overweight patients had better survival rates and fewer heart problems than those with a normal BMI.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 21st, 2006 at 12:52 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.