Reducing Body Fat and Increasing Muscle Mass Leads to Longer Life

Korea University Oh Hana - Shin Minjeong Research Team
Develops Dynamic Model for Predicting Body Fat

[Asia Economy Reporter Junho Hwang] It has been found that the higher the body fat mass, the higher the probability of death. In particular, the risk of death from cardiovascular disease was found to be high, and among them, those with sarcopenic obesity?characterized by high body fat mass and low muscle mass?were analyzed to have the highest risk of death.

On the 19th, the research team led by Oh Hana and Shin Minjeong, professors at the College of Health Sciences, Korea University, announced these results after developing a model that predicts body fat mass and muscle mass excluding fat using information such as weight, height, waist circumference, age, gender, and smoking status, and analyzing big data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey linked with cause-of-death statistics. This research achievement was recently introduced in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Body Fat Index Cannot Measure Muscle Mass

The research team created a model that can separately investigate muscle mass because the existing body fat index cannot measure muscle mass separately. Typically, obesity is determined by the body mass index (BMI) value calculated based on weight and height. However, this index does not distinguish between body fat weight and muscle weight. Therefore, it was difficult to examine the association with the occurrence of chronic diseases or the risk of death.

The research team applied this model to statistics from the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. By analyzing big data from 44,060 people, they examined the relationship between obesity and mortality. As a result, the higher the body fat mass, the statistically significantly higher the mortality rate and the risk of death from cardiovascular disease.

What is even more notable is that the lowest mortality rate appeared when the BMI was between 25 and 29.9. This is because, currently in Korea, a BMI of 23 kg/m² or higher is classified as overweight, and 25 kg/m² or higher is classified as obese.

Health Problems Even with Low BMI

With the discovery of the brain's 'switch' that controls food intake and energy expenditure, new possibilities have opened up for obesity treatment. Photo by gettyimagesbank

The research team explained, "The BMI of Koreans showed a J-shaped association with the risk of death. This means that while a very high BMI signals health risks, an excessively low BMI can also cause health problems," adding, "This can be partly attributed to sarcopenic obesity, where body weight is normal but body fat mass is high, and sarcopenia, where muscle mass is reduced."

Professor Oh Hana emphasized, "This means that the highest risk of death is in cases of obesity accompanied by decreased muscle mass, that is, sarcopenic obesity, rather than simply having a high body weight," and added, "For early death prevention and health promotion, the focus should be more on reducing body fat while preventing muscle loss rather than simply losing weight."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.