Obesity
Metabolic Syndrome Linked to Liver Disease in Obese Teenaged Boys
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Researchers studying a large sample of adolescent American boys have found an association between metabolic syndrome, which is a complication of obesity, and elevated liver enzymes that mark potentially serious liver disease.
The link between metabolic syndrome and the suspected liver disease did not appear in adolescent girls, said study leader Rose C. Graham, M.D., a pediatric gastroenterologist at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. There were ethnic differences among the boys as well, she added, between Hispanic and non-Hispanic males.
The study appears in the October 2009 print edition of the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition.
Inner Workings of Molecular Thermostat Point to Pathways to Fight Diabetes, Obesity
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Inner Workings of Molecular Thermostat Point to Pathways to Fight Diabetes, Obesity, According to Penn Study
Best known as the oxygen-carrying component of hemoglobin, the protein that makes blood red, heme also plays a role in chemical detoxification and energy metabolism within the cell. Heme levels are tightly maintained, and with good reason: Too little heme prevents cell growth and division; excessive amounts of heme are toxic.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered a molecular circuit involving heme that helps maintain proper metabolism in the body, providing new insights into metabolic disorders such as obesity and diabetes.
Obesity adds to risk of death after stroke
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Obesity increases the risk of death after stroke in younger stroke patients, according to a new study.
Dr. Amytis Towfighi, of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and Dr. Bruce Ovbiagele of the University of California, Los Angeles used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) on 20,050 adults.
Of those adults, 547 had a stroke through 2000 and had weight records available. Of these, 211 were classified as overweight, and 127 were obese.
Obesity increases risk of prostate cancer recurrence for both blacks and whites
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A new look at a large database of prostate cancer patients shows that obesity plays no favorites when it comes to increasing the risk of recurrence after surgery: Being way overweight is equally bad for blacks and whites, say researchers at Duke University Medical Center.
Studies have shown that obesity is linked to generally worse outcomes in many cancers, including prostate cancer. Because blacks are more likely than whites to develop and die from prostate cancer – and because there is a higher prevalence of obesity among black men with prostate cancer, compared to whites – some studies have suggested that obesity might be a more ominous risk factor for blacks than whites.
“Not so,” says Stephen Freedland, M.D., an associate professor of urology and pathology in the Duke Prostate Center and the senior author of the study appearing in the journal Cancer. “Obesity leads to worse cancer in both groups.”
The Pill may be less effective in obese women
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Oral contraceptives behave differently in the bodies of obese women than in normal-weight women, new research shows, suggesting that they may not work as well in preventing pregnancy.
But more research is needed before any recommendations can be made on contraceptive use based on a woman’s body mass index (BMI), a standard measure of the ratio between height and weight, Dr. Alison B. Edelman of Oregon Health & Science University in Portland and her colleagues say.
There’s been some evidence to suggest that the birth control pill may be less effective in obese women, but findings have not been consistent, Edelman and her team note in the journal Contraception. Very little is known about how drug metabolism in the body is affected by obesity, they add, while obese women have been excluded from most studies of oral contraceptives.
Obesity linked to rapid loss of knee cartilage
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Obesity is strongly associated with an increased risk of rapid loss of cushioning cartilage in the knee in people at risk for osteoarthritis or with early signs of the disease, researchers have found.
In osteoarthritis—the most common form of arthritis—the cartilage breaks down and, in severe cases, can completely wear away, leaving the joint without a cushion. The bones rub together, causing further damage, as well as pain and loss of mobility.
“Osteoarthritis is a slowly progressive disorder, but a minority of patients with hardly any osteoarthritis at first diagnosis exhibit fast disease progression,” Dr. Frank W. Roemer from Boston University Medical Center noted in a statement.
Type 1 diabetic youth often overweight: study
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Children and youth with type 1 diabetes are more likely to be overweight than their counterparts without type 1 diabetes, researchers have found.
Ties between type 2 diabetes and excess weight are well documented, but are less clear in type 1 diabetes, which affects less than 10% of people with diabetes but is more common in children and young people, the researchers explain.
“Traditional teaching in the past has been that youth with type 1 diabetes often present at diagnosis having lost weight or underweight,” Dr. Lenna L. Liu, from Seattle Children’s Hospital Research Institute told Reuters Health. “However, with the rise in childhood obesity, even some youth with type 1 diabetes may be overweight at diagnosis and/or afterwards.”
Muscle, bone problems more common in heavy kids
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Overweight and obese children have more aches and pains in their muscles and bones than their normal-weight peers, Dutch researchers report.
Such musculoskeletal problems may lead normal-weight kids to be less active and put on weight, while such problems can make it more difficult for heavy kids to exercise to trim down, Dr. Marjolein Krul of Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam and her colleagues suggest. “We hypothesize that a vicious circle results wherein being overweight, musculoskeletal problems, and a low fitness level reinforce each other,” they write.
In adults, being overweight or obese is known to contribute to musculoskeletal problems, especially in the legs and feet, Krul and her team note in the Annals of Family Medicine, but less is known about how excess weight might affect children’s muscles and bones.
Study finds citrus-derived flavonoid prevents obesity
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A flavonoid derived from citrus fruit has shown tremendous promise for preventing weight gain and other signs of metabolic syndrome which can lead to Type 2 Diabetes and increased risk of cardiovascular disease. The study, led by Murray Huff of the Robarts Research Institute at The University of Western Ontario looked at a flavonoid (plant-based bioactive molecule) called naringenin. The findings are published online in the journal Diabetes.
In the study one group of mice was fed a high-fat (western) diet to induce the symptoms of metabolic syndrome. A second group was fed the exact same diet and treated with naringenin. Naringenin corrected the elevations in triglyceride and cholesterol, prevented the development of insulin resistance and completely normalized glucose metabolism. The researchers found it worked by genetically reprogramming the liver to burn up excess fat, rather than store it.
“Furthermore, the marked obesity that develops in these mice was completely prevented by naringenin,” says Huff, Director of the Vascular Biology Research Group at Robarts and Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry.
New culprit behind obesity’s ill metabolic consequences
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Obesity very often leads to insulin resistance, and now researchers reporting in the July 8 issue of Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication, have uncovered another factor behind that ill consequence. The newly discovered culprit—a protein known as pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF for short)—is secreted by fat cells. They also report evidence to suggest that specifically blocking that protein’s action may reverse some of the health complications that come with obesity.
“With obesity, PEDF release is increased from fat, leading to higher levels of PEDF in the bloodstream,” said Matthew Watt of Monash University in Australia. “PEDF sends a signal to other body tissues, causing insulin resistance in muscle and liver, a major defect that leads to the development of type 2 diabetes.”
Elevated PEDF is also associated with increased release of fatty acids from fat stores, which causes blood lipid levels to rise. That “dyslipidemia” may be associated with other complications including cardiovascular disease.
Lap-Band Weight-Loss Surgery Can Reverse Metabolic Syndrome in Obese Teens
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A new study of obese adolescents has shown that laparoscopic gastric banding surgery—the “Lap-Band” procedure—not only helps them achieve significant weight loss but can also improve and even reverse metabolic syndrome, reducing their risk for cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
Metabolic syndrome is defined as a cluster of risk factors—high blood pressure; low levels of HDL or “good” cholesterol; excessive abdominal fat; and elevated levels of blood sugar, C-reactive protein and triglycerides—that increase a person’s chances of developing cardiovascular disease or diabetes later in life. The single biggest risk factor is obesity, and metabolic syndrome usually improves when a person loses weight.
The study was led by Drs. Ilene Fennoy, Jeffrey Zitsman and colleagues at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital and Columbia University Medical Center and presented at the annual Endocrine Society meeting in Washington, D.C.
Gastric bypass provides long-term diabetes control
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In more than half of obese patients with type 2 diabetes, their metabolic condition resolves after gastric bypass and they remain free from diabetes up to 16 years later, according to study findings presented last week at the 26th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery in Dallas.
In a study of 177 patients with diabetes who underwent gastric bypass for obesity, also referred to as bariatric surgery, between 1993 and 2003, the severity of diabetes before surgery was a key predictor of whether diabetes resolved in the long term. Moreover, long-term diabetes resolution correlated with the maintenance of weight loss.
“The most significant finding is that long-term resolution of diabetes seems to be linked to how severe the diabetes was at the time of surgery,” senior author Dr. James W. Maher, from Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, told Reuters Health. “Patients with diet-controlled diabetes had a 75 percent likelihood of being diabetes-free at long-term followup, while the figure was 65 percent diabetes-free in patients who were originally controlled with oral medications and only 28 percent of insulin-dependent diabetics had long-term resolution.”
Breast-Feeding Moms Who Consume Too Much Fructose Sweetener More Likely to Have Obese Kids
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Mothers who drink an excessive amount of fructose-sweetened beverages during pregnancy or breast-feeding may be likelier to have children—at least sons—who are more prone to becoming overweight and developing type 2 diabetes, authors of a new study reported. The results will be presented Thursday at The Endocrine Society’s 91st Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
The study, conducted in rats, found that the first male offspring had signs of metabolic endocrine disorders in adulthood, even though the sons ate a normal diet with no extra fructose, said co-author Eduardo Spinedi, PhD. He is head of the Neuroendocrinology Research Unit at the Multidisciplinary Institute of Cell Biology in La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Fructose, as in high-fructose corn syrup, is widely found in regular soda pop, fruit juices and other drinks. Many researchers believe that high fructose intake plays a role in the development of prediabetes and the metabolic syndrome, which increases the risk of type 2 diabetes.
Inactivity, Obesity Factors in Adult Asthmatics Higher Health Care Use
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Health care use is higher in adult asthmatic patients when compared with non-asthmatic patients, and inactivity and obesity are contributing to this increase, according to a report published this month in Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI).
Shilpa Dogra, MSc, of the Lifespan Health and Performance Laboratory at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and colleagues, also found that overnight hospital stays were more common in inactive asthmatic patients regardless of body mass index (BMI), whereas both BMI and physical activity were important determinants of physician consultations.
Investigators analyzed self-reported data of an adult population of 6,835 with asthma and 78,051 without asthma from the 2005 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), a nationally representative population-based cross-sectional survey. Their findings include:
First sister study results reinforce the importance of healthy living
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Women who maintain a healthy weight and who have lower perceived stress may be less likely to have chromosome changes associated with aging than obese and stressed women, according to a pilot study that was part of the Sister Study. The long-term Sister Study is looking at the environmental and genetic characteristics of women whose sister had breast cancer to identify factors associated with developing breast cancer. This early pilot used baseline questionnaires and samples provided by participants when they joined the Sister Study.
Two recent papers published in Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention looked at the length of telomeres, or the repeating DNA sequences that cap the ends of a person’s chromosomes. Telomere length is one of the many measures being looked at in the Sister Study. Telomeres protect the ends of chromosomes and buffer them against the loss of important genes during cell replication. Over the course of an individual’s lifetime, telomeres shorten, gradually becoming so short that they can trigger cell death. The papers show that factors such as obesity and perceived stress may shorten telomeres and accelerate the aging process.
“Together these two studies reinforce the need to start a healthy lifestyle early and maintain it,” said Linda Birnbaum, Ph.D., the director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health. The researchers who published these papers are from the NIEHS which sponsors the Sister Study.
