Is obesity good for the heart? And maybe it helps to live better and longer? Absurd questions, until a few weeks ago. But just to upset our few firm beliefs, in recent days the news has been spreading that obesity is good for the heart and that individuals with very high BMI have a longer (and healthier ) life expectancy. ). The doubt that this is a colossal nonsense, of course, already comes from the headlines with which the news is reported. Corriere della Sera even fell for it in its cardiology column. Here’s how the Corriere put it: “ Obesity that can protect the heart“: Nothing could be more false, no type or degree of obesity can protect the heart. In terms of probability, obesity is as easy to protect the heart as it is for obesity itself to be a great corn remover. That things are different, you can guess then by reading the same article, which, apart from the unfortunate title, talks about two studies published in the Proceedings of the Mayo Clinic that are making the rounds of the worldor. To the delight, obviously, of the titolists. In the studies in question, especially in the first of the two, we talk about the correlation between obesity and life expectancy and about a sort of (interesting) obesity paradox: it seems that obese individuals actually have a survival rate for reopening interventions of obstructed arteries 27% higher than normal weight. The fact is that correlation and cause are two very different things:to say that there is a higher survival rate among obese individuals does not at all mean that obesity is the reason for this kind of “benefit”, as the doctors themselves admit. It just means identifying a correlation, but not explaining it. A plausible explanation, however, could be that overweight patients are prescribed more cardioprotective drugs, and that these drugs are effective. So, obesity is not good for the heart, just like last week, and the title reveals more than half an intention to captivate the distracted reader, without bothering at all to make information. But among distracted readers and hasty journalists, the news that obesity is good for the heart has now made the rounds of the internet.