Health scare of the week: The downside of staying slim
A health professor at the University of Virginia has found a link between body mass index and complications after surgery.
Maintaining a lean physique may be best for your overall health, but it won’t help you survive surgery. Patients with a body mass index that puts them in the normal to thin range “are at higher risk of death 30 days after surgery” compared with heavier people, George Stukenborg, a health professor at the University of Virginia, tells Reuters.com. His study found that normal to thin patients whose BMIs were less than 23.1 had almost three times the risk of dying within a month compared with obese patients whose BMIs were 35.3 or higher.
Researchers aren’t sure what the link is between low BMI and post-surgery complications, but it could be that thinner patients are more likely to be frail or malnourished than their overweight peers. In any case, Stukenborg says, a patient’s body mass is “something we should think more about” when planning operations and caring for recovering patients.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Mountainhead: Jesse Armstrong's tech bro satire sparkles with 'weapons-grade zingers'
The Week Recommends The Succession creator's first feature film lacks the hit TV show's 'dramatic richness' – but makes for a horribly gripping watch
-
10 great gifts to give dear old dad this Father's Day
The Week Recommends Make his day with a thoughtful present
-
Seeing Each Other: Portraits of Artists – a 'riveting' exhibition
The Week Recommends Pallant House exhibition offers fascinating instances of painterly reciprocity
-
Is the world losing scientific innovation?
Today's big question New research seems to be less exciting
-
Breakthrough gene-editing treatment saves baby
speed read KJ Muldoon was healed from a rare genetic condition
-
Humans heal much slower than other mammals
Speed Read Slower healing may have been an evolutionary trade-off when we shed fur for sweat glands
-
Scientists map miles of wiring in mouse brain
Speed Read Researchers have created the 'largest and most detailed wiring diagram of a mammalian brain to date,' said Nature
-
Scientists genetically revive extinct 'dire wolves'
Speed Read A 'de-extinction' company has revived the species made popular by HBO's 'Game of Thrones'
-
Scientists want to fight malaria by poisoning mosquitoes with human blood
Under the radar Drugging the bugs
-
Have we reached 'peak cognition'?
The Explainer Evidence mounts that our ability to reason, concentrate and problem-solve is in decline
-
There is a 'third state' between life and death
Under the radar Cells can develop new abilities after their source organism dies