[Explorer89]

Overweight men with physical exercise were much less likely to die from CVD than lean, inactive men.

Purely anecdotal: my father is really overweight, but jogged every day at lunch (the joke being that he was running up to the Custard Stand!) and now that his knees have disintegrated, he power-walks every day. As heavy as he is, he only has moderate blockage being taken care of by one stint (sp?). His much leaner best buddy died a few years back of a massive heart-attack....but this guy was a heavy, heavy smoker. My dad's cardiologist told him that he was better off being heavy than a smoker.

[aruanan]

Purely anecdotal: my father is really overweight, but jogged every day at lunch (the joke being that he was running up to the Custard Stand!) and now that his knees have disintegrated, he power-walks every day. As heavy as he is, he only has moderate blockage being taken care of by one stint (sp?stent). His much leaner best buddy died a few years back of a massive heart-attack....but this guy was a heavy, heavy smoker. My dad's cardiologist told him that he was better off being heavy than a smoker.

In the studies by Blair and others at the Cooper Institute, you're better off being heavy and a smoker that gets sufficient exercise than being a lean couch potato and not a smoker, at least as far as risk of death due to CVD is concerned.