EDMONTON — A new University of Alberta study of heart failure patients is casting doubt on a common obesity test, suggesting instead that muscle mass may be a better indicator of such patients' potential lifespan.

The research led by PhD student Antigone Oreopoulos was, in part, an attempt to delve into a medical puzzle known as the "obesity paradox."

The conundrum is that while obesity has been linked to numerous health problems, the trend doesn't seem to hold in all cases. Studies in recent years have found that patients who have experienced heart failure tend to have a better prognosis if they are obese rather than a more lean shape.

In other words, obesity increases the risk of developing heart failure, but those who already have heart failure appear to benefit from the extra body fat.

"It doesn't make sense, because how can obesity be providing protection to people in one case and then in other cases be causing all these problems?" Oreopoulos said. "What are the implications of that? Should we be telling these patients to lose weight or not?"

Oreopoulos began to wonder if something were wrong with the way obesity is measured. She noted the previous studies typically used body mass index, or BMI, a simple equation in which a person's weight is divided by their height.


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