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Why skinny people die of 'fat' diseases - and fat people can be healthier than you think (it's all down to the body's inner-workings and a revolutionary blood test can determine YOUR risk)

By Jinan Harb
October 22, 2018 - dailymail.co.uk (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6304471/Why-skinny-people-die-fat-diseases-fat-people-healthier-think.html)

Chubby, but fit, might sound like the kind of excuse overweight people use to keep at the crisps. In fact, there is evidence that — contrary to the mainstream thinking — some overweight people lead long and healthy lives, while some slim, apparently healthy people die prematurely of ‘fat diseases’ such as diabetes and heart disease.

Now doctors appear to have discovered what’s going on, heralding a breakthrough in our understanding of weight and disease: in future, it may not be your weight that matters so much as what’s going on inside your body.

And finding out could involve nothing more than a blood test. What it will mean is that instead of doctors saying being over a certain size means you’re automatically ‘at risk’, they would use the results of this blood test to work out your personal risk.

This could even help identify foods that are problems for you, because of how they affect you in particular.

As one leading expert told us, this ‘is the next big thing in medicine’.

Konstantinos Manolopoulos, a clinician scientist in endocrinology and metabolism at the University of Birmingham, explains: ‘It’s a major step towards personalised medicine — where the aim is to provide customised treatment options for patients.’

For nearly 200 years, BMI (body mass index) has been used as a measure of obesity and health risk. It’s calculated by dividing your weight by your height, and dividing the answer by your height again. A score of 25 or more means you’re categorised as ‘overweight’ and your risk of developing conditions such as diabetes and heart disease is raised significantly.

But, increasingly, there have been questions raised about the reliability of BMI as a predictor of health because it doesn’t show the full picture. For example, someone can be at risk of disease, and yet be slim and have a normal BMI — or have no health problems, despite being classed as overweight according to their BMI.

Now U.S. researchers say they have developed a replacement, an advanced blood test that may provide a more accurate method of identifying our risk of diseases.

The test hones in on and measures all of the compounds in our blood — collectively known as the metabolome. In an analysis of these compounds, scientists were able to identify people at a higher risk of diabetes and heart disease early.

Full Article : dailymail.co.uk (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6304471/Why-skinny-people-die-fat-diseases-fat-people-healthier-think.html)