Article by Kolata in NY Times

[Guest guest]

Here's an interesting article from the New York Times yesterday (Week in Review

section):

" Why Thin Is Fine, but Thinner Can Kill, " by Kolata

www.nytimes.com/2005/04/24/weekinreview/24kola.html

(you may have to register, but you should be reading the New York Times anyway!)

From our perspective, it would argue for the more moderate CR of this group.

Here's

some of the article:

" [R]esearchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the

National

Cancer Institute, in a paper about body weight and health risks published last

week,

concluded that the very thin run about the same risk of early death as the very

fat. Their

study showed that 33,000 deaths a year could be avoided if the thinnest 2

percent of

Americans were of normal weight. "

" Almost as intriguing as the study's result is the fact that no one can explain

it. Were the

thin people in the study, with a body mass index below 18.5 (a 5-foot-3 woman

weighing

104 pounds, for example) simply very ill, unable to eat? "

" Not likely, said Dr. Flegal, a statistician at the National Center

for Health

Statistics and the paper's lead author. She and her colleagues looked at thin

people whose

weight was stable for at least three years, for at least five years and for at

least 10 years.

The effect persisted. They looked at thin smokers and thin nonsmokers. The

effect

remained. "

The article hints that there are possible flaws with the study, the original

paper of which I

haven't yet obtained and read.

Thin Man