February 27, 2006, 10:04 PM CT

Link Between Obesity And The Urban Environment

Scientists at the Mailman School of Public Health are studying the link between the urban environment and how it might contribute to the cause or origins of obesity. In a study that will have wide-reaching applications, the Mailman School is one of 14 groups across the United States to receive funding from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) to study the association between body size and the built environment.

Up until now, obesity research has focused on ways to change individual behavior but with obesity rates continuing to climb, scientists are now turning their efforts to the built environment and the interventions that might be effective in fighting the epidemic. Working with various city departments, Andrew Rundle, DrPH, assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Mailman School, and his research team, are gathering data on neighborhood features such as land use, density of bus and subway stops, availability of nutritious food, the location and quality of parks and recreation facilities -- even the number of trees on a street and the number of buildings with elevators -- that affect a person's diet and activity levels. Upon completion of the research, Dr. Rundle expects to have a large base of evidence linking the built environment to body size.........

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February 22, 2006, 11:43 PM CT
Child obesity

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February 22, 2006, 10:57 PM CT

Obesity and asthma medications

As the nation's collective waistline has swelled in recent decades, rates of asthma diagnoses also have accelerated. Indeed, much research has affirmed a link between the two conditions.

But doctors also recognize that asthma may not behave the same way among people who have different body types. With a variety of asthma medications on the market, what kinds work best for lean people and what kinds work best for obese people? The answer may be different for each group.

A new study suggests that people who are overweight or obese may have better results with the prescription pill sold as Singulair than with a type of inhaled steroid, while leaner people may have better luck with an inhaled steroid, called beclomethasone and sold as beclovent, vanceril and other brand names. The findings are reported in the new issue of the European Respiratory Journal.

"It is increasingly recognized that obese people are more prone to develop asthma, but there is no information about whether obesity influences people's responses to particular asthma medications," says lead author Marc Peters-Golden, M.D., professor of internal medicine and director of the Fellowship Program in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School.

"Our findings are the first to suggest the possibility that obesity might be a factor that influences how well asthmatics respond to particular medications," Peters-Golden says.........

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February 20, 2006, 5:57 PM CT

Field Laborers Eat Hamburger, Not Fruits

In the middle of John Steinbeck country, the "salad bowl of America," most of the Mexican farmworkers who harvest the fruits and vegetables that feed the nation aren't eating enough of it themselves, as per a new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Underpaid and overworked, Salinas farmworkers are eating at fast-food restaurants where the food is high-fat but low-cost. As a result, despite long hours working in the fields, the Latino farmworkers-especially those single, young men living in the agricultural labor camps-are facing a very American problem: obesity.

"They often eat someplace that's cheap and fast with high fat content," said Marilyn Winkleby, PhD, associate professor of medicine at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, who has spent years visiting farm laborers in the Salinas Valley in an ongoing partnership with the Monterey County Health Department. "Their jobs are becoming increasingly mechanized and less active".

Winkleby is the senior author of a study reported in the recent issue of the journal Ethnicity and Health that examines the changes in cancer-related health behaviors within the Salinas Latino population, most of whom are of Mexican origin, over the 10-year period between 1900 and 2000. The study surveyed almost 2,000 Latino women and men from both the community at large and the Latino population within 29 agricultural labor camps.........

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February 14, 2006, 11:45 PM CT

Rimonabant Helps To Lose Weight

Use of the weight-loss medicine rimonabant produced modest yet sustained weight loss after 2 years, and improved HDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels, as per a research studyin the February 15 issue of JAMA.

Approximately two-thirds of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, which greatly increases the risk of developing diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular disease and death from related causes. Scientists think that besides weight loss, obesity management should target improvement in certain cardiometabolic risk factors, which include abnormal cholesterol and glucose (blood sugar) levels and excess weight around the waist, as per background information in the article. Long-term weight management remains a challenge for patients and clinicians.

F. Xavier Pi-Sunyer, M.D., of St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, and his colleagues evaluated the efficacy and safety of the weight-loss medicine rimonabant in conjunction with diet and exercise in promoting reductions in body weight and waist circumference, long-term weight maintenance, and reduction of cardiometabolic risk factors in obese and higher risk overweight patients. The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, conducted from August 2001 to April 2004, included 3,045 adults who were obese (body mass index 30 or greater) or overweight (body mass index greater than 27 and treated or untreated high blood pressure [high blood pressure] or dyslipidemia [abnormal levels of certain lipids and lipoproteins in the blood]). Patients were randomized to receive placebo, 5 mg/d of rimonabant, or 20 mg/d of rimonabant for 1 year. Rimonabant-treated patients were re-randomized to receive placebo or continued to receive the same rimonabant dose while the placebo group continued to receive placebo during year 2.........

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February 7, 2006, 10:33 PM CT

Inequality In Recreational Resources Boosts Weight Gain

In general, minorities and people with lower incomes have much less access than wealthier people to recreational facilities, a new University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill investigation concludes. The result is that they are less physically active and are more likely to be overweight.

That's not the only reason that people with less money in this country often are less active and too heavy, but it appears to be a key factor, the scientists said. The long-term consequences are poorer health and shorter lives.

In their study of some 20,000 U.S. teens, the scientists explored whether resources available for physical activity were distributed relatively equally across all segments of the population, said Dr. Penny Gordon-Larsen, assistant professor of nutrition, a department jointly housed within UNC's schools of public health and medicine. They particularly wanted to learn whether minority and low-income groups - in which obesity levels are high and exercise levels low - had access to such resources to about the same degree as people in richer communities.

"We expected to find that private, fee facilities would be more common in more affluent areas, but the extent and magnitude of the lack of access in poorer communities was very surprising," Gordon-Larsen said. "Even the types of facilities we think of as most equitably allocated, like YMCAs, public parks and youth organizations, were significantly less common in poorer areas".........

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February 7, 2006, 9:52 PM CT

Viruses That Can Make Us Fat

There is a lot of good advice to help us avoid becoming obese, such as "Eat less," and "Exercise." But here's a new and surprising piece of advice based on a promising area of obesity research: "Wash your hands".

There is accumulating evidence that certain viruses may cause obesity, in essence making obesity contagious, as per Leah D. Whigham, the lead researcher in a new study, "Adipogenic potential of multiple human adenoviruses in vivo and in vitro in animals," in the recent issue of the American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology published by the American Physiological Society.

The study, by Whigham, Barbara A. Israel and Richard L. Atkinson, of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, found that the human adenovirus Ad-37 causes obesity in chickens. This finding builds on studies that two related viruses, Ad-36 and Ad-5, also cause obesity in animals.

Moreover, Ad-36 has been associated with human obesity, leading scientists to suspect that Ad-37 also may be implicated in human obesity. Whigham said more research is needed to find out if Ad-37 causes obesity in humans. One study was inconclusive, because only a handful of people showed evidence of infection with Ad-37 - not enough people to draw any conclusions, she said. Ad-37, Ad-36 and Ad-5 are part of a family of approximately 50 viruses known as human adenoviruses.........

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January 28, 2006, 4:12 PM CT

Exercise Good For Protection During Cold

Exercise during the cold and flu season can strengthen the immune system, provided you don't overdo it, says a Purdue University professor who studies exercise and the immune system.

"Exercising during the cold and flu season will help people stay in shape, and most likely fight off colds or reduce the number of days a person is ill," says Michael Flynn, professor of health and kinesiology. "The cold season should not be an excuse for the average person to refrain from exercising - working out at the gym, a brisk walk in the park or a jog through the neighborhood."

While moderate exercise is known to be very beneficial, exceptionally strenuous exercise presents special challenges.

"There is still a lot to learn about how exercise affects the immune system, because it's difficult for scientists to assess the a number of layers of protection within the system," Flynn says. "Strenuous or prolonged exercise seems to suppress the immune system, leaving athletes more susceptible to illness for one to six hours following a hard workout - the so-called open window".

Serious athletes, such as those who run 40 miles a week, have a higher rate of upper-respiratory tract infection than recreational joggers, Flynn says.

For serious athletes to get the most from their training routine, and to be able to fight off illness, it is essential for them to take some time off between hard workouts, he says.........

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January 24, 2006, 9:42 PM CT

Obesity Is A Risk Factor For Kidney Failure

Scientists at the University of California, San Francisco have determined that there is a strong relationship between being obese and developing end-stage renal disease, or kidney failure.

The long-range study found that the obese have up to a seven times greater risk of kidney failure than normal weight people, suggesting that obesity should be considered a risk factor for the condition, and that kidney failure is yet another consequence of obesity.

"There are more and more people with kidney failure, but it hasn't been appreciated much that kidney failure can be a consequence of obesity," said Chi-yuan Hsu, MD, UCSF assistant professor of medicine and lead author of the study. "We think this study is important because it demonstrates quite convincingly that people who are obese or overweight are at much higher risk of kidney failure."

The study, reported in the January 3 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, was conducted jointly with Kaiser Permanente of Northern California Division of Research.

Research findings showed that being even moderately overweight nearly doubles the risk of developing the condition, which is a complete failure of the kidneys to process waste so that dialysis or transplantation become necessary.

"If you are mildly overweight, not even frankly obese, you are roughly 90 percent more likely to develop end-stage renal failure," Hsu said, with the risk reaching over 700 percent greater for the morbidly obese.........

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January 23, 2006, 9:41 PM CT

Obesity And Sleep Apnea In Kids

Growth hormone helps hundreds of children with a rare disorder that causes them to gorge on food, but for some, starting therapy can worsen a dangerous nighttime breathing problem, University of Florida scientists have found.

Sleep apnea disrupts breathing during sleep and is common among morbidly obese children, including those with Prader-Willi syndrome, a disease that compels them to eat nonstop. Scientists say that uncovering how to treat obesity and related problems in children genetically wired to be overweight could help them better battle childhood obesity in general.

Growth hormone has shown to be one of the most effective ways to treat children and adults with Prader-Willi. But UF scientists found that starting therapys can worsen or trigger sleep apnea in obese children exposed to colds, potentially leading to death, as per findings published online recently in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

"Every kid we studied had abnormal sleep at the beginning, before growth hormone," said Dr. Jennifer Miller, a UF assistant professor of pediatrics and the study's lead author. "On growth hormone, most of them got better but not all of them. The ones that got worse tended to be school age. Some of them were just entering school and then they were coming home with upper-respiratory infections.........

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