Weight Loss
Therapy prevents weight gain from antipsychotics
|
|
Early behavioral intervention prevents a significant amount of the weight gain associated with antipsychotic drug therapy, Spanish researchers report.
Up to 80 percent of patients taking antipsychotic drugs to treat schizophrenia and other mental conditions gain a significant amount of weight.
To assess if drug-related weight gain can be attenuated, investigators used early behavioral intervention (EBI), designed to teach patients ways to maximize control over their weight, using nutrition, exercise and behavioral strategies.
Before Dementia Appears, Weight-Loss Rate Doubles
|
|
A long-term study of the elderly has revealed that their average rate of weight loss doubles in the year before symptoms of Alzheimer’s-type dementia first become detectable. The finding may be useful to researchers seeking ways to detect and treat Alzheimer’s before it causes irreversible brain damage.
The study is the first to confirm in precise detail a link between weight loss and dementia tentatively identified a decade ago. Researchers report in the September 2006 Archives of Neurology that one year before study volunteers were diagnosed with very mild dementia, their rate of weight loss doubled from 0.6 pounds per year to 1.2 pounds per year. The analysis used data from the Memory and Aging Project at the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Computer-automated weight loss counseling works
|
|
An Internet-based weight loss program that provides users with automated and tailored behavioral counseling may be as effective in the short-term as an Internet program that incorporates human e-mail counseling, new study findings suggest.
“This study shows that an Internet behavioral weight loss program providing weekly feedback about weight, diet, and activity from either a computer-automated program or a human e-mail counselor produced significant weight loss,” Dr. Deborah F. Tate, of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and her colleagues write in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
What’s more, both types of programs appear to be more successful than a self-directed program that offers no additional counseling.
When eating is sport, victory as agonizing as defeat
|
|
Jeremiah Jimenez had just wolfed down his 11th bratwurst at an eat-off here earlier this month when he began to experience what is politely known in the competitive eating world as a “reversal in fortune.”
It was a crisis moment and the 29-year-old, who competes on the eating circuit as “El Toro,” decided to try to play through, swallowing hard and reaching for another sausage.
“But when my hand touched the 12th brat,” Jimenez says. “I just gagged. The greasiness just sent a message to my brain to stop ... I was really disappointed. My capacity is double that.”
Normal weight gain best for most pregnant teens
|
|
Gaining a lot of weight during pregnancy does not help teens have heavier babies, and may also have the unwanted side effect of increasing a mother’s risk of being overweight or obese in the future, research suggests.
Pregnant African American women and adolescents are more likely to have low birth weight babies, and they are often counseled to strive for weight gains at the upper recommended limit in order to ensure that their infants are born at healthier weights.
But there is growing evidence that this advice may do nothing to improve infant health while putting a mother’s health at risk.
Many parents don’t admit their child is overweight
|
|
Many parents do not identify their child as “overweight,” but will select a sketch of a heavier model when asked to choose one representative of their child, new study findings show.
“Comparisons between images and sketches showed that parents’ visual perceptions of their children more clearly reflect their child’s physical appearance than words they might use to classify the child’s weight,” study author Dr. Helen J. Binns, of Northwestern University in Chicago told Reuters Health.
“So parents have a correct visual perception, but don’t consider that to fit in the medical ‘diagnostic categories,’” she added.
New study gives insight into the dairy and weight loss link
|
|
A new clinical trial published today in Obesity Research (the journal of NAASO, the Obesity Society) provides more insight into why consuming dairy foods is linked to weight and fat loss.
This well-controlled study found that when exercising adults on a slightly reduced-calorie diet consumed 3 to 4 servings of dairy foods daily, their metabolism changed so that their bodies burned more fat than they did when they had one serving of dairy under the same conditions.
South African women become more weight conscious
|
|
Like many South African women, Bongi Tsuene is worried about her weight.
The difference is that Tsuene, featured in a television advertisement promoting a dieting formula, is black.
Experts say more black women like Tsuene are shunning the traditional African reverence for the fuller figure as they adapt to the pressures of post-apartheid South Africa, raising fears they could become vulnerable to eating disorders.
After Gastric Bypass Surgery, Important to Check Vitamin B1 Deficiency
|
|
A deficiency in vitamin B1 can be a serious complication following a popular surgery to treat obesity, according to a case study published in the December 27, 2005 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. If untreated, vitamin B1 deficiency can lead to Wernicke encephalopathy, a severe neurological condition.
In the study, a 35-year-old woman developed many difficulties after gastric bypass (bariatric) surgery for obesity. Difficulties included nausea, anorexia, fatigue, hearing loss, forgetfulness, and ataxia, or an inability to coordinate muscle movements. By the 12th week following surgery, she had lost 40 pounds and had difficulty walking and concentrating.
Overproducing Leptin Receptors in Fat Cells Key to Halting Weight Gain
|
|
A new study by researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center suggests that when fat cells increase in size – as they do during the development of obesity – the cells progressively lose receptors for the hormone leptin, a powerful stimulus for fat burning.
Leptin, a hormone produced by the body’s fat cells and involved in the regulation of body weight, was first discovered in 1994. It was thought leptin itself would be a key to curing obesity in humans, but the hypothesis did not readily translate into weight loss in obese people. Using mouse models, UT Southwestern researchers have now shown that if enough receptors are present on the fat cells, it is impossible for the cells to store fat and obesity would be blocked.
Lifestyle change adds to weight-loss drug’s effect
|
|
Obese patients who took the diet drug Meridia and received intensive weight-loss counseling lost twice as much weight as patients who only took the drug, according to a study released on Wednesday.
Nearly a third of Americans are considered overweight and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regards a diet pill as effective if it helps a 200-pound (90-kg) person lose at least 10 pounds (4.5 kg) in a year. Although most obese people need to lose far more than 10 pounds (4.5 kg), doctors contend even a moderate loss has health benefits.
Daily Weighing Helps People Lose Weight, Prevents Gain
|
|
People who are trying to either lose weight or avoid gaining do better by weighing themselves daily, according to a new study in the December issue of Annals of Behavioral Medicine.
The research team evaluated self-weighing practices of more than 3,000 people participating in either a weight-loss or a weight-gain prevention program. The study’s key finding: “Higher weighing frequency was associated with greater 24-month weight loss or less weight gain.”
Lose Weight Prevent Diabetes
|
|
A few months ago (March 2005), the American Diabetes Association announced the findings of the comprehensive Diabetes Prevention Program. The DPP was conducted at over 25 medical centers nationwide and involved thousands of participants who volunteered to have their habits monitored and to follow dietary and exercise recommendations. All participants had been diagnosed with ‘pre-diabetes’, a condition where the blood sugar levels are higher than normal, but not yet in diabetic ranges. Untreated, more than half of those people diagnosed with pre-diabetes will develop full-blown type 2 diabetes within a decade.
For the study, the participants were divided into two groups. One half were given dietary recommendations. The other half got the same dietary recommendations, plus the recommendation to exercise at least 30 minutes daily, five times a week.
Weight loss pep talks by phone can work
|
|
Having trouble sticking to your diet and exercise program? Results of a new study suggest that telephone-based weight-loss counseling can help people shed pounds just as well as face-to-face counseling sessions. It’s also more convenient and less expensive.
Early results from a 26-week study show that overweight adults randomly assigned to weight-loss counseling by telephone lost almost as much weight as those receiving weight-loss services by going to meetings.
A Simple Plan for Weight Loss
|
|
The math is pretty simple. One pound of fat equals 3500 calories. Want to lose a pound a week? Then you need to consume 3500 calories less per week than you use. That’s about 500 calories a day. By cutting out 500 calories a day from your normal daily diet, while keeping your activity level the same, you can lose approximately one pound a week.
All right - that doesn’t sound like much, especially if you’re more than 25 pounds overweight. Study after study has shown, though, that those people who lose weight gradually - at a rate of 1-2 pounds per week -are far more likely to keep the weight off and maintain a normal weight for a lifetime.
