Junkfood Science: Stop the presses! Bariatric surgeons admit obesity does not increase risk of dying or risks for heart disease

Today brought another unbelievable example of ad-hoc reasoning, as well as a remarkable admission that the war on obesity is without scientific merit. It appeared in a paper published in the journal for the American Society for Bariatric Surgery (now called the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery), which is edited by the Society’s president, Dr. Harvey Sugerman, M.D. FACS.

The article, “Do current body mass index criteria for obesity surgery reflect cardiovascular risk?” was “work presented at the 2005 American Society for Bariatric Surgery Meeting in poster form.” The authors, led by Edward H. Livingston M.D. at the University of Texas Southwestern School of Medicine, reported that the conventional risk factors for cardiovascular disease “decreased with increasing degrees of obesity.”

Yes, you read that correctly, decreased.

  “Therefore,” the authors argued ... “the criteria for obesity surgery should be changed to lower BMIs than are currently used.” This twist of logic is reminiscent of the new American Heart Association’s Guidelines for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention in Women which admitted that virtually all heart disease occurs in women without “risk factors,” so rather than admit the risk factors themselves are bogus, they argued that therefore, all women of lower “risk” should be treated for these “risk factors.”

Keep eating those chocolates.

Via The Englishman