Obesity
Childhood ear infections may predispose to obesity later in life
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Researchers are reporting new evidence of a possible link between a history of moderate to severe middle ear infections in childhood and a tendency to be overweight later in life. Their study suggests that prompt diagnosis and treatment of middle ear infections — one of the most common childhood conditions requiring medical attention — may help fight obesity in some people. The findings were presented today at the 236th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS).
Study leader Linda M. Bartoshuk, Ph.D., noted that chronic, repeated ear infections can damage the chorda tympani nerve, which passes through the middle ear and controls taste sensations. Damage to this nerve appears to intensify the desire for fatty or high-energy foods, which could result in obesity, she said.
Other research has shown that middle ear infections, or otitis media, are becoming more common in children. Childhood obesity is likewise on the rise and has reached epidemic levels, particularly in the United States. Although scientists have known for years that ear infections can lead to hearing loss in children that can result in speech and language impairment, a possible link between ear infections and obesity has been largely unexplored until now, said Bartoshuk, who is with the University of Florida’s Center for Smell and Taste in Gainesville.
Adults who eat eggs for breakfast lose 65 percent more weight
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A study published online today in the International Journal of Obesity shows that eating two eggs for breakfast, as part of a reduced-calorie diet, helps overweight adults lose more weight and feel more energetic than those who eat a bagel breakfast of equal calories. [1] This study supports previous research, published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, which showed that people who ate eggs for breakfast felt more satisfied and ate fewer calories at the following meal. [2]
“People have a hard time adhering to diets and our research shows that choosing eggs for breakfast can dramatically improve the success of a weight loss plan,” said Nikhil V. Dhurandhar, Ph.D., lead researcher and associate professor in the laboratory of infection and obesity at Pennington Biomedical Research Center, a campus of the Louisiana State University system. “Apparently, the increased satiety and energy due to eggs helps people better comply with a reduced-calorie diet.”
Internet, alcohol and sleep tied to girls’ weight
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Girls and young women who devote much time to the Internet, get too little sleep or regularly drink alcohol are more likely than their peers to put on excess weight, a new study suggests.
The researchers, who followed more than 5,000 girls between 14 and 21 years old for 1 year, found that the more spare time girls spent on the Internet, the more their body mass index (BMI) increased.
Similar patterns were seen when the researchers looked at alcohol consumption and sleep. In the latter case, lack of sleep was linked to greater gains in BMI—a measure of weight in relation to height.
Studies refute common stereotypes about obese workers
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New research led by a Michigan State University scholar refutes commonly held stereotypes that overweight workers are lazier, more emotionally unstable and harder to get along with than their “normal weight” colleagues.
With the findings, employers are urged to guard against the use of weight-based stereotypes when it comes to hiring, promoting or firing.
Mark Roehling, associate professor of human resource management, and two colleagues studied the relationship between body weight and personality traits for nearly 3,500 adults. Contrary to widely held stereotypes, overweight and obese adults were not found to be significantly less conscientious, less agreeable, less extraverted or less emotionally stable.
Obesity ups a woman’s pancreatic cancer risk: study
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Obese women who carry most of their extra weight around the stomach are 70 percent more likely to develop pancreatic cancer, an international team of researchers reported on Tuesday.
The findings suggest are some of the first evidence that the link between obesity and pancreatic cancer is as strong in women as in men, Juhua Luo of Sweden’s Karolinska Institute and colleagues reported in the British Journal of Cancer.
“We found that the risk of developing pancreatic cancer was significantly raised in obese postmenopausal women who carry most of their excess weight around the stomach,” she said in a statement.
Obesity levels in China rising fast, study finds
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Obesity levels in China are rising fast, with more than a quarter of the population overweight or obese. As people add more meat and dairy products to their diet, serious health problems can develop, a new study says.
Of all the developing countries, only in Mexico is the rate of increase in becoming overweight among adults faster than in China, the study, published in the July/August issue of the journal Health Affairs, says.
“What’s happening in China should be seen as a marker for what is going to hit the rest of the developing world if we fail to act,” said study author Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina.
Population-wide approach needed to curb obesity
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A broad range of policy and environmental initiatives at the local, state and federal levels aimed at increasing physical activity and healthful eating is needed to reduce rates of obesity in the United States, according to an American Heart Association (AHA) scientific statement in the Association’s journal Circulation, published Monday.
In an AHA-issued press release, Dr. Shiriki Kumanyika, chair of the working group that wrote the scientific statement “Population-Based Prevention of Obesity,” noted that “almost all of our current eating or activity patterns are those that promote weight gain—using the least possible amount of energy or maximizing quantity rather than quality in terms of food.”
Kumanyika added, “People haven’t just made the decision to eat more and move less; the social structure has played into people’s tendencies to go for convenience foods and labor-saving devices.”
Companies set to gain from obesity boom: analysts
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Merck & Co , Nike Inc and General Mills Inc are among 15 health-care and consumer products companies best positioned to profit from an effort to combat the growing obesity epidemic, Credit Suisse analysts said in a report on Thursday.
Globally, 1.8 billion people were obese or overweight in 2007, and the number of obese and overweight people now exceeds the amount of those who are underfed, the report said.
“At the same time, companies are capitalizing on the trend toward better health and weight management,” the analysts said in the 188-page report titled, “Obesity and Investment Implications.”
Obese men may have lower hernia risk
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Overweight and obese men may be less likely than their thinner counterparts to develop a hernia in the groin, a long-term study suggests.
Researchers found that among nearly 7,500 Swedish men followed for 34 years, the risk of developing a groin hernia declined as the men’s weight increased.
Overall, men who were obese in middle-age were 43 percent less likely than normal-weight men to be diagnosed with the condition over the next three decades.
Pregnancy pounds may affect kids’ weight
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Women who gain too much weight during pregnancy might raise their child’s future risk of becoming overweight, a new study suggests.
Looking at data from more than 10,000 mother-child pairs, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found that children whose mothers gained more than the recommended amount of weight during pregnancy were 48 percent more likely than other children to be overweight at age 7.
In the U.S., the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends that normal-weight women gain 25 to 35 pounds during pregnancy. Women who were overweight before becoming pregnant are encouraged to gain a little less—15 to 25 pounds—while underweight women should put on 28 to 40 pounds.
Minimally Invasive Weight-Loss Surgery Improves Health of Morbidly Obese Teens
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Teenagers’ obesity-related medical complications improve just six months after laparoscopic gastric banding surgery, according to outcomes data presented this week. The preliminary results by physician-scientists from Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of NewYork-Presbyterian and Columbia University Medical Center were presented on June 17 at The Endocrine Society’s 90th Annual Meeting in San Francisco.
The study reports that the small group of extremely obese teenagers who received the minimally invasive surgery, also called the Lap-Band procedure, as part of a clinical trial lost an average of 20 pounds after six months and had significant improvements in abdominal fat, triglyceride measurements (levels of fat in the blood) and blood sugar levels as measured by hemoglobin A1c—all risk factors for diabetes and heart disease. The patients’ liver function and a measure of immune response also improved, according to the abstract.
“Extremely obese teenagers have obesity-related health problems, particularly diabetes and increased cardiovascular risk. Laparoscopic gastric banding, which has been shown to be a safe and effective way to lose weight, now offers the possibility of reducing obesity’s medical complications,” says lead author Dr. Ilene Fennoy, a pediatric endocrinologist at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of NewYork-Presbyterian and clinical professor of pediatrics at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Red Wine’s Resveratrol May Help Battle Obesity
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Resveratrol, a compound present in grapes and red wine, reduces the number of fat cells and may one day be used to treat or prevent obesity, according to a new study. The results will be presented at The Endocrine Society’s 90th Annual Meeting in San Francisco.
Past research found that resveratrol protected laboratory mice that were fed a high-calorie diet from the health problems of obesity, by mimicking the effects of calorie restriction. Researchers at the University of Ulm in Germany wanted to know if resveratrol could mimic the effects of calorie restriction in human fat cells by changing their size or function. The German team used a strain of human fat cell precursors, called preadipocytes. In the body, these cells develop into mature fat cells, according to the study’s lead author, Pamela Fischer-Posovszky, PhD, a pediatric endocrinology research fellow in the university’s Diabetes and Obesity Unit.
In the cell-based study, they found that resveratrol inhibited the pre-fat cells from increasing and prevented them from converting into mature fat cells.
Moderate Fitness Lowers Risk of Death for Normal Weight or Obese Men with Type 2 Diabetes
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Being even moderately physically fit lowers a diabetic man’s risk of death, regardless of his weight, according to a new study. Results will be presented at The Endocrine Society’s 90th Annual Meeting in San Francisco.
The study found that for men with type 2 diabetes, moderate fitness levels reduced the risk of dying of any cause during an average follow-up period of seven years by 40 to 50 percent, even if they were overweight or obese.
“Death rates were the highest for those who were low fit in all weight categories,” said Roshney Jacob-Issac, MD, an endocrinology fellow at George Washington University Hospital and the Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center in Washington, D.C. She presented the study results.
Overweight Does Not Decrease Sperm Production
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Overweight men are not more likely to be infertile, as past research has shown to be true in obese women, according to a new study. The results will be presented at The Endocrine Society’s 90th Annual Meeting in San Francisco.
Findings of the study, performed in New York in nearly 300 very overweight men, were unexpected, said coauthor Nanette Santoro, MD, an Albert Einstein College of Medicine obstetrician-gynecologist who is trained in reproductive endocrinology.
“We see pretty significant deficits in fertility in women due to obesity, so we thought we’d see an effect in men,” Santoro said. “But that wasn’t the case.”
1 out of 4 obese school-aged children suffers metabolic syndrome
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One out of every four obese school-aged children (6 to 12 years old) develops an illness typically associated with adults that are nearly 40 years old, metabolic syndrome, due to one clear reason: child obesity. It has been revealed in a study carried out by the department chair of the Institute of Food Nutrition and Technology of the University of Granada, Ángel Gil Hernández, who warns that this syndrome provokes arterial hypertension in children, insulin resistance, and, in the long term, type two diabetes, an illness associated with numerous cardiovascular pathologies and whose treatment will mean an elevated cost for the Spanish Health Service in the future.
According to the expert, child obesity affects nowadays 17% of Spanish children, who suffer clinical consequences (hypertension) and biochemical consequences (a high level of triglycerides in plasma) because of it. The appearance of cardiovascular illnesses associated with obesity and diabetes will mean a grave problem in only a few years, postulates Gil Hernández.
