Biosketch:
Gabriel Leung is Associate Professor in Translational Public Health at
the University of Hong Kong and holds an adjunct appointment at the University
of Pennsylvania.
Leung's
research focuses on synthesizing best, current evidence for high-impact
public health priorities in Hong Kong and other East Asian populations,
particularly Greater China and the Asian Tigers. He has published widely
on chronic disease and cancer epidemiology, infectious disease epidemiology,
pediatric and lifecourse epidemiology, evidence-based medicine, and
health services and policy research.
Abstract:
There have been recent controversial suggestions in the scientific and
lay media that "some extra heft may be helpful". Particularly
in older people, it is unclear whether obesity relates to mortality,
which calls into question its etiologic role in disease, the significance
of obesity in deaths attributable to lifestyle habits, and the appropriate
public health interventions for the rapidly growing older population
worldwide. This apparent lack of relationship in older people could
be an artifactual result of their diverse health states. Using data
from the Hong Kong Elderly Cohort, I will show that the effect of body
mass index on mortality varied with baseline health status such that
in the healthiest group, where obese people had higher mortality but
in the unhealthiest group they had lower mortality compared with subjects
of normal weight. Independently, physical activity was associated with
lower mortality compared with inactivity in the unhealthiest group but
not in the healthiest group.
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