The DOI matches its Crossref record; 5 of the 5 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Physical activity and obesity editorial: is exercise pointless or was it a pointless exercise?
Abstract
In their editorial, Malhotra et al 1 highlighted the important health benefits of physical activity in cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, dementia and cancer, but dismissed any benefit for weight loss in obesity. However, the poor use of existing evidence to underpin this dismissal and the resultant press release generated headlines that could send a misleading message to patients and the public. An evidence-based approach to clinical decision-making involves understanding the best type of evidence to use, how to appraise it, and assessing its usefulness in practice. Such an approach determines the risk of bias and ensures decisions are guided by accurate, meaningful evidence. The GRADE guidelines cite expert opinion alone as very low quality evidence, with a high risk of bias.2 Unfortunately, much of the evidence cited by Malhotra and colleagues was based on expert opinion or was not referenced. For example, when excluding a relationship between obesity and physical activity, the evidence cited was an opinion piece by Luke and Cooper,3 which has been criticised for ignoring observational and experimental studies that support a relation between physical activity and obesity. They give no reference for their claim that, according …
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Physical exercise has beneficial effects on metabolic diseases.
“Physical exercise is an important non-pharmacological treatment option not only as a preventive agent, but also in the treatment of numerous metabolic diseases, such as type II diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease (Nunan et al., 2013; Mahtani et al., 2015).”
From Physical Exercise-Induced Myokines and Muscle-Adipose Tissue Crosstalk: A Review of Current Knowledge and the Implications for Health and Metabolic Diseases (2018) · cites this paper as Mahtani et al., 2015
The opening passage (p. 1) acknowledges health benefits of physical activity in type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and “Current evidence for physical activity and obesity” (p. 2) reports improvements in health risk factors even without weight loss. The paper does not specifically address hypertension or establish exercise as a treatment for each disease named in the citing sentence. (LLM, conf=0.83)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredPhysical exercise is an important non-pharmacological treatment option for numerous metabolic diseases, such as type II diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease.
“Physical exercise is an important non-pharmacological treatment option not only as a preventive agent, but also in the treatment of numerous metabolic diseases, such as type II diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease (Nunan et al., 2013; Mahtani et al., 2015).”
From Physical Exercise-Induced Myokines and Muscle-Adipose Tissue Crosstalk: A Review of Current Knowledge and the Implications for Health and Metabolic Diseases (2018) · cites this paper as Mahtani et al., 2015
The Correspondence section (p. 1) acknowledges important health benefits of physical activity in cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. The discussion of treatment in “Current evidence for physical activity and obesity” (p. 2) concerns overweight and obesity, not treatment of those diseases; our copy does not mention hypertension. It therefore supports the general benefit of exercise but not the full list of treatment claims. (LLM, conf=0.86)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
GRADE guidelines: 3. Rating the quality of evidence
Balshem, H., Helfand, M., Schünemann, H. J., Oxman, A. D., Kunz, R., Brozek, J., Vist, G. E., Falck-Ytter, Y., Meerpohl, J., & Norris, S. (2011) · Journal of Clinical Epidemiology · doi:10.1016/j.jclinepi.2010.07.015 · Cited by 8,285
Exercise for overweight or obesity
Shaw, K. A., Gennat, H. C., O'Rourke, P., & Del Mar, C. (2006) · Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews · doi:10.1002/14651858.cd003817.pub3 · Cited by 950
It is time to bust the myth of physical inactivity and obesity: you cannot outrun a bad diet
Malhotra, A., Noakes, T. D., & Phinney, S. D. (2015) · British Journal of Sports Medicine · doi:10.1136/bjsports-2015-094911 · Cited by 151
Physical activity does not influence obesity risk: time to clarify the public health message
Luke, A. H., & Cooper, R. (2013) · International Journal of Epidemiology · doi:10.1093/ije/dyt159 · Cited by 142
Treatment for overweight and obesity in adult populations: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Peirson, L., Douketis, J. D., Ciliska, D. K., Fitzpatrick‐Lewis, D., Ali, M. U., & Raina, P. S. (2014) · CMAJ Open · doi:10.9778/cmajo.20140012 · Cited by 96
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Leal, L. G., Lopes, M. A., & Batista, M. L. (2018) · Frontiers in Physiology · doi:10.3389/fphys.2018.01307 · Cited by 382
Metadata
- Authors
- Mahtani, K. R., McManus, J., & Nunan, D.
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Hertfordshire County Council (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Mahtani, Kamal R
- Venue
- British Journal of Sports Medicine
- Publisher
- BMJ
- Published
- 2015-06-18
- Volume
- 49
- Issue
- 15
- Pages
- 969-970
- ISSN
- 0306-3674 (ISSN-L)
- 1473-0480
- OpenAlex
- W2168630774
- Cited by
- 9
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2021: 1 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 1
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- British Journal of Sports Medicine (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute for Health and Care Research (CL-2011-13-006)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Physical Activity and Health
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Obesity, Physical Activity, Diet
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Obesity and Health Practices
- Keywords
- physical activity, obesity, weight loss, quality of evidence, risk of bias, expert opinion, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, dementia, cancer, health communication
- MeSH terms
- Humans, Obesity, Sedentary Behavior
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
