In The News
Weight Loss Surgery May Affect Fat-Related Genes
Source: WebMD
Weight-loss surgery changes the levels of genes involved in burning and storing fat, a new study says.
The findings may help lead to the development of new drugs that mimic this weight-loss-associated control of gene regulation, said the authors of the study published online April 11 in the journal Cell Reports.
The Obesity-Inactivity-Cancer chain
Source: Daily Rx
The link between obesity and cancer is nothing new. Lack of regular exercise and cancer are also teammates. A new study has added some links to this chain of knowledge.
Researchers found that higher body mass index (BMI) was associated with a specific type of colorectal cancer. Physical activity decreased the risk of this cancer, which has a specific molecular signature.
Surprising misperceptions about weight status and obesity health risks
Source: Wlshelp
Although the majority of the American public views obesity as a serious public health issue, a surprising number tend to misperceive their own weight status and do not fully understand all the health consequences of being obese, according to results from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey.
The results showed that nearly half of the overweight, but not obese, respondents misperceived their own weight status and thought their weight was about right. And while many of the respondents were aware of the link between obesity with heart disease and diabetes, most were less likely to mention other serious health impacts associated with being overweight or obese.
Disabled by weight: obese with arthritis
Source: Daily Rx
Being obese is just plain unhealthy. All that excess fat can make outcomes worse for patients with any of a number of diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis.
A recent study showed that morbidly obese patients with inflammatory polyarthritis – which includes diseases like rheumatoid arthritis – had higher levels of disability than arthritis patients who were not obese. Morbidly obese patients had about twice the odds of disability compared to those who were not obese.
Seven dangerous myths about weight loss — or are they little white lies?
Source: Forbes
The cover copy of a thousand magazines was attacked this morning in the august pages of the New England Journal of Medicine by Krista Casazza, David B. Allison, both from the University of Alabama, Birmingham, and a long list of co-authors. Much of what you’ve been told about weight loss is wrong and, in the current style of journalists everywhere, they break these misconceptions down into a list of widely-held myths, which they then attack with dry academic savagry.
Eat lunch early and lose weight!
Source: Medical Breakthrough
Trying to lose weight can be awful; you do all the right things but the pounds stay put. Now researchers think they have discovered a significant factor in not only how much weight people lose, but how fast the weight is lost as well. The study says that early eaters lose weight more effectively than individuals who take their meals later on in the day.
Extra weight and slipped discs
Source: Daily Rx
Carrying excess weight can aggravate your lower back and cause other musculoskeletal problems. But when it comes to slipped discs in the spine, not much is known about the effect of that excess weight.
Time for dinner! Time for healthy kids
Source: Daily Rx
There’s more to a meal than eating. The time spent with family at the dinner table can be good both for the heart and to help keep off the extra pounds.
A recently published study found that families who sit down together for 20 minutes or more during meal times can improve kids’ health and better maintain a healthy weight compared to families who do not spend as much time together.
Bedroom TVs associated with childhood obesity
Source: Medical news today
Kids who have a TV in their bedroom are at a significantly higher risk of obesity and a larger waist circumference.
This finding came from a study in American Journal of Preventive Medicine which showed that a child’s waist size may greatly increase with prolonged TV viewing. The research is similar to a prior report which indicated that children’s muscular fitness decreases the more hours they spend watching TV, while their waistline gets bigger.
Kids between the ages of 8 and 18 in the United States watch an estimated 4.5 hours of television each day, and a TV is found in the bedroom of 70% of these children.
Obesity affects one-third of adolescents aged 6 to 19. Previous research demonstrated that childhood obesity can be prevented by sitting down to a family dinner more frequently and reducing the amount of TV viewed.
Studies have also shown that the amount of television viewed as a child remains the same in adulthood, therefore, the person becomes overweight and ends up with high total cholesterol.
A team of researchers, from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, LA, demonstrated the association between having and viewing television in the bedroom and obesity in children, particularly elevated waist circumference.
Peter T. Katzmarzyk, PhD, leading researcher, said:
“The established association between TV and obesity is predominantly based on BMI. The association between TV and fat mass, adiposity stored in specific depots (including abdominal subcutaneous and visceral adipose tissue), and cardiometabolic risk, is less well understood. It is hypothesized that higher levels of TV viewing and the presence of a TV in the bedroom are associated with depot-specific adiposity and cardiometabolic risk.”
There were 369 kids and teens aged 5 to 18 from Baton Rouge, Louisiana who were involved in the study between 2010 and 2011. There was a balance between BMI status, gender, age, and ethnicity among the subjects, who were assessed for:
- fat mass
- stomach fat
- glucose
- waist circumference
- fasting triglycerides
- resting blood pressure
- high-density lipoprotein cholesterol
Analysis showed that when kids had a TV in the bedroom, they had a higher probability of viewing more television.
In contrast to the children who did not have a TV in their room, those with a bedroom TV had a higher waist circumference, more fat and more subcutaneous adipose tissue mass.
The subjects who had a bedroom TV and who also viewed over 2 hours of TV a day, were shown to have 2.5 times the odds of the highest levels of fat mass.
Watching television for over five hours doubled the likelihood of being in the top quartile for visceral adipose tissue mass.
A TV in the bedroom was linked to three times the odds of:
- high waist circumference
- high cardiometabolic risk
- elevated triglycerides
Amanda Staiano, PhD, co-author, concluded:
“There was a stronger association between having a TV in the bedroom versus TV viewing time, with the adiposity and health outcomes. A bedroom TV may create additional disruptions to healthy habits, above and beyond regular TV viewing. For instance, having a bedroom TV is related to lower amounts of sleep and lower prevalence of regular family meals, independent of total TV viewing time. Both short sleep duration and lack of regular family meals have been related to weight gain and obesity.”
When Robotic Surgery Leaves Just a Scratch
Source: nytimes
SURGEONS once made incisions large enough to get to a gallbladder or other organs by using conventional tools they held in their own hands. Today, many sit at a computer console instead, guiding robotic arms that enter the patient’s body through small openings not much larger than keyholes.
