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Mild obesity appears to improve survival in ALS patients
Date:5/11/2011

Patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, may be an exception to the rule that being overweight is a health hazard. In a retrospective study of over 400 ALS patients, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers found that those who were mildly obese survived longer than patients who were normal weight, underweight or even overweight. The study will appear in the journal Muscle & Nerve and has been published online.

"We have long known that being underweight shortens survival for ALS patients, and several studies in an animal model have shown that weight gain is associated with increased survival," says Anne-Marie Wills, MD, MPH, of the MGH Neurology Clinical Trials Unit, senior author of the report. "Our study was designed to investigate how cholesterol levels affect survival. We were surprised to find that body mass index or BMI a measure of weight adjusted for height made a large difference in survival. Patients with a BMI of 30 to 35, who would be considered mildly clinically obese, lived the longest; and patients who were overweight, with a BMI of 25 to 30, lived the second longest."

ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease affecting motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. Death of these nerve cells stops the transmission of neural impulses to muscle fibers, leading to weakness, paralysis and usually death from respiratory failure. During the course of their disease ALS patients usually lose even more weight than can be attributed to the loss of muscle mass caused by nerve destruction and the related muscle inactivity. Studies have shown that ALS patients burn more calories than would be expected from their limited physical activity, but the mechanism for this metabolic change is currently unknown.

A previous smaller study suggested that ALS patients with higher levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) relative to high-density lipoprotein (HDL) might live longe
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Contact: Mike Morrison
mdmorrison@partners.org
617-724-6425
Massachusetts General Hospital
Source:Eurekalert

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