knotical:
Not quite.
DAN says:
"There is no strong body of evidence to suggest that overweight individuals have a greater risk of DCI or that they suffer more dive-related injuries than divers who are within 10 percent of their ideal body weight.
The best indicator of diving fitness is the individual's general health and level of physical fitness."
source:
http://diversalertnetwork.org/medical/faq/faq.asp?faqid=144
Your conditioning is more important than the numbers on the scale. Remember, youll be nearly weightless in the water. Enjoy your class.
While I agree 100% with the general recommendation to go ahead and enjoy your class, I must mention that many researchers might disagree with Mr. Dovenbarger's statement as quoted above. There are many studies that do indeed show a relationship between body fat and/or BMI and risk of DCS and only a few that don't. I have listed some below.
I post this not to deter you from taking your class, as the total risk of DCS for any one diver is very, very low. However, I don't think that Mr. Dovenbarger's opinion of the relationship between body fat and DCS does justice to your initial question.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15241540
2004- "Metabolic disorders are of concern, since adiposity is associated with both, higher bubble grades in Doppler ultrasound detection after scuba dives when compared to normal subjects, and an increased epidemiologic risk of suffering from decompression illness."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15267082
2004- "By demonstrating the dependence of DCS risk on body tissue parameters, the model explains why resistance to DCS in mammals increases with a lower body mass and greater specific blood flow in tissues."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12546293
2003- "Age and height showed no significant influence on DCS incidence, but persons of either sex with higher body mass index and lower physical fitness developed DCS more frequently."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12235035
2002- "Younger, slimmer, or aerobically fitter divers produced fewer bubbles compared with older, fatter, or poorly physically fit divers. These findings and the conclusions of previous studies performed on animals and humans led us to support that ascent rate, age, aerobic fitness, and adiposity are factors of susceptibility for bubble formation after diving."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=10496123
1999- This study found no direct correlation with % body fat, but found a strong correlation with relative VO2max. This is strange because relative VO2max is inversely correlated with body weight, by definition. In other words, if you change nothing but reduce your body fat (and hence, body weight), your relative VO2max will go up and your predicted risk for DCS will go down. Researchers provided no explanation for this discrepancy.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=11766705
1999- "Incidence of decompression sickness was significantly higher in subjects aged 30-36 years than in those aged 19-20 years under the same experimental conditions. In the older subjects body-fat, blood cholesterole and noradrenaline in urine during experiment were significantly higher than those in the younger subjects."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=2773160
1989- "Obesity and past number of bends were therefore important risk factors for DCS after taking into account MWP and number of exposures. The age effect observed in univariate analysis could be due to obesity."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=6535316
1984- "These findings suggest that obesity may be a contributory factor to the occurrence of decompression sickness."
Cameron