August 13, 2008, 0:45 AM CT

In the long run, exertion regulation wins

Long-distance running is widely seen as one of the great physical challenges a human can undertake and as the 2008 Summer Olympics commence in Beijing on August 8, a number of eager sports fans will await with baited breath the last event of the Games the men's marathon, held on August 24. For these armchair fans, how marathon runners can complete the gruelling, 42.195 km event physically and mentally may seem like a great mystery.

Now, reporting in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, Jonathan Esteve-Lanao and Alejandro Lucia at the European University of Madrid and his colleagues at the VU University-Amsterdam and the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse describe their investigation of the physiological methods employed by well-trained runners in order to regulate the great physical strain and effort that are needed in order to complete and perform well in marathons and other endurance challenges.

In order to measure the exercise intensity undergone by male runners of various abilities, Esteve-Lanao and his colleagues reviewed the heart rate response of 211 middle- and long-distance runners during running competitions ranging in length from five to 100 km. These runners were not elite performers but all were serious competitors and some had enjoyed success in regional competitions......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

August 13, 2008, 0:42 AM CT

Poor coordination in childhood is linked to obesity

Poor physical control and coordination in childhood are associated with an increased risk of obesity in later life, suggests a study published on BMJ.com today.

The research contributes to a growing body of evidence on the link between poorer cognitive function in childhood and obesity and type 2 diabetes in adults.

The findings are based on 11 042 individuals, who are part of the ongoing National Child Development Study in Great Britain, which began in 1958.

7990 participants were assessed by teachers at age 7 years to identify poor ability in hand control, coordination, and clumsiness, and 6875 were tested for hand control and coordination at age 11 by a doctor. Tests included copying a simple design to measure accuracy, marking squares on paper within a minute, and the time in seconds it took to pick up 20 matches.

At age 33 body mass index (BMI) was measured. Obesity was defined as a BMI of 30 or over.

The analysis showed that at age 7 years poor hand control, poor coordination, and clumsiness occurred more often among individuals who would be obese adults. In addition, poorer function at age 11 was linked to obesity at age 33.

These findings held true after adjusting for factors likely to influence the results, such as childhood body mass and family social class......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

July 29, 2008, 11:52 PM CT

Obesity predisposition traced to the brain's reward system

The tendency toward obesity is directly correlation to the brain system that is involved in food reward and addictive behaviors, as per a new study. Scientists at Tufts University School of Medicine (TUSM) and his colleagues have demonstrated a link between a predisposition to obesity and defective dopamine signaling in the mesolimbic system in rats. Their report appears in the August 2008 issue of The FASEB Journal

The mesolimbic system is a system of neurons in the brain that secretes dopamine, a neurotransmitter or chemical messenger, which mediates emotion and pleasure. The release of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the mesolimbic system is traditionally linked to euphoria and considered to be the major neurochemical signature of drug addiction.

"Baseline dopamine levels were 50 percent lower and stimulated dopamine release was significantly attenuated in the brain reward systems of obesity-prone rats, compared with obesity-resistant rats. Defects in brain dopamine synthesis and release were evident in rats immediately after birth," said Emmanuel Pothos, PhD, assistant professor in the department of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics at TUSM and member of the neuroscience program faculty of the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

July 29, 2008, 11:50 PM CT

Fat around the heart

When it comes to risk for a heart attack, having excess fat around the heart may be worse than having a high body mass index or a thick waist, as per scientists from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and his colleagues reporting in the recent issue of the journal Obesity

The study was among the first to explore whether there is a link between fat deposits around the heart, known according toicardial fat, and the development of hard, calcified plaque in the arteries. Calcified plaque itself is not considered risky, but it is linked to the presence of less stable fatty deposits that can lead to heart attack and stroke.

"The distribution of body fat may be as important as the amount of body fat in determining risk of heart attacks," said Jingzhong Ding, M.D., lead author and an assistant professor of gerontology. "Even a thin person can have fat around the heart".

The scientists examined data from the Multi-ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), a $68 million study involving 6,800 participants nationwide, to explore their hypothesis that fat around the arteries in the heart contributes to inflammation and to increased risk of fatty deposits in the vessels.

In addition to its role as energy storage, fat is considered to be an "organ" that produces proteins and hormones that affect metabolism and health. Ding's study is based on a new idea in medicine that excess fat around the heart and other organs may impair their function. Pericardial fat, or stores of fat around the heart, is known to have a higher secretion of inflammatory cytokines, proteins that regulate inflammation, than fat stored just under the skin. The researchers suspect that constant exposure of inflammatory proteins produced by fat around the heart may accelerate the development of atherosclerosis......... Posted by: Daniel      Read more         Source

July 23, 2008, 4:46 PM CT

Why eating less can help the environment

An estimated 19 percent of total energy used in the USA is taken up in the production and supply of food. Currently, this mostly comes from non-renewable energy sources which are in short supply. It is therefore of paramount importance that ways of reducing this significant fuel consumption in the US food system are found. In a paper (1) just reported in the Springer journal Human Ecology, David Pimentel and colleagues at Cornell University in New York set out many strategies which could potentially cut fossil energy fuel use in the food system by as much as 50 percent.

The first, and very astute suggestion they put forward is that individuals eat less, particularly considering that the average American consumes an estimated 3,747 calories a day, a staggering 1200-1500 calories over recommendations. Traditional American diets are high in animal products, and junk and processed foods in particular, which by their nature use more energy than that used to produce staple foods such as potatoes, rice, fruits and vegetables. By just reducing junk food intake and converting to diets lower in meat, the average American could have a massive impact on fuel consumption as well as improving his or her health.

Further savings are possible in the food production industry. The authors suggest that moving towards more traditional, organic farming methods would help because conventional meat and dairy production is extremely energy intensive. Similarly, in crop production, reduced pesticide use, increased use of manure, cover crops and crop rotations improve energy efficiency......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

July 23, 2008, 4:43 PM CT

Want a reason to love your lower belly fat?

Fat removed from the lower abdomen and inner thigh through liposuction was found to be an excellent source of stem cells, with higher stem cell concentrations than other areas of the body, reports a Brazilian-based study in August's Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). This is the first study of its kind to examine whether fat tissues from different areas of the body vary in stem cell concentration.

"Adult stem cells, derived from our own tissues, hold strong promise for improved clinical therapies," said J. Peter Rubin, MD, a member of the ASPS Fat Grafting Task Force who is involved in pre-clinical trial work on stem cells taken from fat. "The potential for healing and repairing injury or disease through stem cells, including conditions like breast cancer and reconstruction, heart failure, spinal injuries, diabetes and Parkinson's disease are incredible. We may be able to more permanently and naturally get rid of pesky wrinkles or augment breasts with stem cell enriched fat in the future as well. Knowing more about the biology of stem cells will be of great value when we are ready for clinical trials in this country".

In the study, 23 female patients having liposuction in at least four different body areas agreed to have their fat isolated for adult stem cells and analyzed to determine stem cell concentrations. The body areas that were liposuctioned were: lower abdomen, upper abdomen, inner knee, inner thigh, flank and hips......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

July 23, 2008, 4:40 PM CT

Giving The Right Exercise Advice

It is common knowledge that regular exercise supports physical and mental well-being. Despite this and recommendations from health care providers, the majority of patients with chronic illnesses remain inactive. In a new study, University of Missouri scientists observed that adults with chronic illness who received interventions focused on behavior-changing strategies significantly increased their physical activity levels. In contrast, interventions based on cognitive approaches, which attempt to change knowledge, beliefs and attitudes, and are most usually used by health care providers, did not improve physical activity.

"The information that physicians are giving patients isn't working. Patients are not motivated when they hear 'exercise is good; it will improve your health.' What works is providing patients with simple, action-orientated strategies to increase their activity levels," said Vicki Conn, professor and associate dean of research in the MU Sinclair School of Nursing.

Behavior strategies include feedback, goal setting, self-monitoring, and stimulus or cues. Self-monitoring, any method where participants record and track their activity over time, significantly increased awareness and provided motivation for improvement, Conn said......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

July 23, 2008, 4:34 PM CT

Exercise could be the heart's fountain of youth

Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but endurance exercise seems to make it younger. As per a research studyconducted at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, older people who did endurance exercise training for about a year ended up with metabolically much younger hearts. The scientists also showed that by one metabolic measure, women benefited more than men from the training.

"We know that the heart deteriorates as people get older, and that's largely because they don't stay as active as they used to," says first author Pablo F. Soto, M.D., instructor in medicine in the Cardiovascular Division. "Past research has suggested that exercise can reverse some effects of aging, and we wanted to see what effect it would have specifically on the heart."

The scientists measured heart metabolism in sedentary older people both at rest and during administration of dobutamine, a drug that makes the heart race as if a person were exercising vigorously. At the start of the study, they observed that in response to the increased energy demands produced by dobutamine, the hearts of the study subjects didn't increase their uptake of energy in the form of glucose (blood sugar).

But after endurance exercise training which involved walking, running or cycling exercises three to five days a week for about an hour per session the participants' hearts doubled their glucose uptake during high-energy demand, just as younger hearts do......... Posted by: Daniel      Read more         Source

July 20, 2008, 4:57 PM CT

Refuting common stereotypes about obese workers

New research led by a Michigan State University scholar refutes usually 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.

The research, done in conjunction with Hope College near Grand Rapids, appears in the current edition of the journal Group & Organization Management.

"Prior research has demonstrated that a number of employers hold negative stereotypes about obese workers, and those beliefs contribute to discrimination against overweight workers at virtually every stage of the employment process, from hiring to promotion to firing," Roehling said.

"This study goes a step further by examining whether there is empirical support for these usually held negative stereotypes. Are they based on fact or fiction? Our results suggest that the answer is fiction"......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

July 17, 2008, 9:37 PM CT

Saltwater olives

The news that olives are sources of "good fat" has increased worldwide demand for the luscious, versatile fruits. Olives have become extremely popular, enjoyed as condiments, appetizers, spreads, and additions to salads and sauces. Their heart-healthy oil has is also enjoying superstar status in kitchens around the world.

The olive's reputation as a health food is being borne out by modern science, as studies of olive-consuming Mediterranean peoples have shown. To keep the world's olive lovers satisfied, an intensive wave of olive planting has occurred in the past decade in a number of parts of the world. Traditionally, olives have been cultivated in the Mediterranean region. But fresh water is becoming increasingly hard to come by in semiarid areas, and irrigation of most new olive plantations is often accomplished with low-quality sources of water that contain relatively high levels of salt.

The relationship between the use of "saline water" and olive cultivation has been actively studied for a number of years. As per Professor Zeev Wiesman, Department of Biotechnology Engineering at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, it is well-known that saline conditions can limit the development of olives, mainly because the salty water interferes with the olives' root system and causes "toxic accumulation of chloride and sodium ions on the leaves"......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

July 16, 2008, 9:05 PM CT

Low-fat diets not best for weight loss

A two-year study led by scientists from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) reveals that low-carbohydrate and Mediterranean diets may be just as safe and effective in achieving weight loss as the standard, medically prescribed low-fat diet, as per a new study reported in the prestigious New England Journal (NEJM)

The study was conducted by BGU and the Nuclear Research Center in Dimona, Israel, in collaboration with Harvard University, The University of Leipzig, Gera number of and the University of Western Ontario, Canada.

In the two-year study, 322 moderately obese people were intensively monitored and were randomly assigned one of three diets: a low-fat, calorie-restricted diet; a Mediterranean calorie-restricted diet with the highest level of dietary fiber and monounsaturated/saturated fat; or a low-carbohydrate diet with the least amount of carbohydrates, highest fat, protein, and dietary cholesterol. The low-carb dieters had no caloric intake restrictions.

Eventhough participants actually decreased their total daily calories consumed by a similar amount, net weight loss from the low-fat diet after two years was only 6.5 lbs. (2.9 kg) in comparison to 10 lbs. (4.4 kg) on the Mediterranean diet, and 10.3 lbs. (4.7 kg) on the low-carbohydrate diet. "These weight reduction rates are comparable to results from physician-prescribed weight loss medications," explains Dr. Iris Shai, the lead researcher......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

July 16, 2008, 8:58 PM CT

Men and women may need different diets

Diet can strongly influence how long you live and your reproductive success, but now researchers have discovered that what works for males can be very different for females.

In the first study of its kind, the scientists have shown that gender plays a major role in determining which diet is better suited to promoting longer life or better reproductive success.

In the evolutionary "battle of the sexes", traits that benefit males are costly when expressed in females and vice versa. This conflict may have implications for human diet, aging and reproduction, says a team of researchers from UNSW, the University of Sydney and Massey University.

"When it comes to choosing the right diet, we need to look more closely to the individual, their sex and their reproductive stage in life," says Associate Professor Rob Brooks, Director of the Evolution and Ecology Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. "It may be, for example, that women in their child-bearing years need a different diet to those who are post-menopausal.

"It also underlines the important lesson that what we want to eat or, if you like, what we're programmed to eat, is not necessarily best for us." The scientists are conducting long-term studies on Australian black field crickets and have discovered that the lifespan of both males and females is maximised on high-carbohydrate, low-protein diets, they say in the latest issue of Current Biology........ Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

July 16, 2008, 7:38 PM CT

Can you be born a couch potato?

The key to good health is to be physically active. The key to being active is to be born that way?

The well-documented importance of exercise in maintaining fitness has created the idea that individuals can manage their health by increasing their activity. But what if the inclination to engage in physical activity is itself significantly affected by factors that are predetermined? Two new studies suggest that the inclination to exercise may be strongly affected by genetics.

Controlled experiments into the effects of genetics on human activity have yet to be attempted, but recent studies on mice the standard test species for mammalian genetics have found genetic influences.

In a paper recently reported in the journal Physiological Genomics, a team of scientists led by University of North Carolina at Charlotte kinesiologist J. Timothy Lightfoot announced that they had found six specific chromosomal locations that significantly correlate to the inheritance of a trait of high physical activity in mice, indicating that at least six genetic locations were affecting activity. Now, in a study forthcoming in The Journal of Heredity, the same team has identified 17 other genetic locations that also appear to control the level of physical activity in mice through interaction with each other, a genetic effect known as epistasis. Together, the located genes account for approximately 84% of the behavioral differences between mice that exhibit low activity levels and mice that show high activity traits......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

July 15, 2008, 10:29 PM CT

Peers important for nutrition education

A systematic literature review conducted by a team of scientists from the University of Connecticut, the Hispanic Health Council (Hartford), and the Connecticut Center for Eliminating Health Disparities among Latinos assessed the impact of peer education/counseling on nutrition and health outcomes among Latinos living in the United States. The results, reported in the July/recent issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, provide evidence that peer nutrition education has a positive influence on diabetes self-management and breastfeeding outcomes, as well as on general nutrition knowledge and dietary intake behaviors, among Latinos in the US.

"Overall, these nutrition education demonstration studies suggest that peer education has the potential to change dietary behaviors among Latinos," commented lead investigator Rafael Prez-Escamilla, PhD. "There is a need to better understand how nutrition peer educators can be formally incorporated into the health care system within the Chronic Care Model community health worker (CHW) framework." Latinos are the largest minority group in the United States, accounting for more than 12% of the population, and they are expected to be nearly 25% of the population by 2050. Latinos also have less access to nutritionally adequate and safe foodin comparison to 7.8% of non-Latino white individuals, almost 20% of Latinos are food insecure......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

July 14, 2008, 9:50 PM CT

Exercise may prevent brain shrinkage in early

Mild Alzheimer's disease patients with higher physical fitness had larger brains in comparison to mild Alzheimer's patients with lower physical fitness, as per a research studyreported in the July 15, 2008, issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

For the study, 121 people age 60 and older underwent fitness tests using a treadmill as well as brain scans to measure the white matter, gray matter and total volume of their brains. Of the group, 57 were in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease while the rest of the group did not have dementia.

"People with early Alzheimer's disease who were less physically fit had four times more brain shrinkage when in comparison to normal elderly adults than those who were more physically fit, suggesting less brain shrinkage correlation to the Alzheimer's disease process in those with higher fitness levels," said study author Jeffrey M. Burns, MD, of the University of Kansas School of Medicine in Kansas City and member of the American Academy of Neurology.

The results remained the same regardless of age, gender, severity of dementia, physical activity and frailty. There was no relationship between higher fitness levels and brain changes in the group of people without dementia......... Posted by: Daniel      Read more         Source

July 9, 2008, 9:16 PM CT

How food affects the brain

In addition to helping protect us from heart disease and cancer, a balanced diet and regular exercise can also protect the brain and ward off mental disorders.

"Food is like a pharmaceutical compound that affects the brain," said Fernando Gmez-Pinilla, a UCLA professor of neurosurgery and physiological science who has spent years studying the effects of food, exercise and sleep on the brain. "Diet, exercise and sleep have the potential to alter our brain health and mental function. This raises the exciting possibility that changes in diet are a viable strategy for enhancing cognitive abilities, protecting the brain from damage and counteracting the effects of aging." .

Gmez-Pinilla analyzed more than 160 studies about food's affect on the brain; the results of his analysis appear in the recent issue of the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience and are available online at www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v9/n7/abs/nrn2421.html.

Omega-3 fatty acids found in salmon, walnuts and kiwi fruit provide a number of benefits, including improving learning and memory and helping to fight against such mental disorders as depression and mood disorders, schizophrenia, and dementia, said Gmez-Pinilla, a member of UCLA's Brain Research Institute and Brain Injury Research Center......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

July 9, 2008, 7:37 PM CT

Obese men have less semen, more sperm abnormalities

Obese men should consider losing weight if they want to have children, a scientist told the 24th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology today (Wednesday 9 July). Dr. A Ghiyath Shayeb, from the University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK, said that his research had shown that men with a higher body mass index (BMI) had lower volumes of seminal fluid and a higher proportion of abnormal sperm.

Dr. Shayeb and his colleagues looked at the results of seminal fluid analysis in 5316 men attending Aberdeen Fertility Centre with their partners for difficulties in conceiving. 2037 of these men had complete data on their BMIs. "We felt that it was possible that male overweight might contribute to fertility problems," he said, "especially since it is a known risk factor for problems in conceiving among women".

The researchers divided the men into four groups as per their BMI, from being underweight to being considerably overweight. Taking into account other characteristics that could confound the analysis, such as smoking, alcohol intake, age, social deprivation, and the length of time of abstinence from sex previous to producing a semen sample for analysis, they looked for a relationship between BMI and semen quality. The analysis showed that the men in Group B, who had an optimal BMI (20-25, as classified by WHO), had higher levels of normal sperm than those in the other groups. They also had higher semen volume. There was no significant difference between the four BMI groups in sperm concentration or motility......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

July 9, 2008, 7:30 PM CT

Predicting birthweights in obese mothers

Scientists have found what they believe to be the most accurate way of predicting the birth-weight of babies born to the growing number of obese mothers, as per a research studyin the UK-based journal Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology

Experts from the University of Rochester Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York, USA, have recorded accurate results in more than nine out of ten cases using the gestation-adjusted projection method (GAP).

The GAP method uses a range of ultrasound measurements, taken when the mother is 34 to 36 weeks pregnant, and a mathematical formula to determine whether the baby is larger than the average size of babies for its gestational age. This data is then used to predict the final birth weight.

GAP is very useful when a pregnant woman is obese, as this often makes it difficult for medical staff to obtain a clear ultrasound image of her baby. This is especially true at the end stages of pregnancies, when most birth weight measurements are obtained, so doing this earlier in the pregnancy is a distinct advantage. Prior research carried out at the University of Rochester has already shown GAP to be accurate when used on diabetic and non-diabetic patients.

"Obesity is a risk factor for almost all complications correlation to pregnancy" explains Dr Loralei Thornburg from the Division of Maternal Fetal Medicine at the University. "It is especially important to identify high birth-weight babies over 4,000 grams (just under nine pounds) as these are linked to higher complication rates for mothers and babies......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

July 8, 2008, 8:50 PM CT

Keeping a food diary doubles diet weight loss

Keeping a food diary can double a person's weight loss as per a research studyfrom Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research. The findings, from one of the largest and longest running weight loss maintenance trials ever conducted, would be reported in the recent issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine

Funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health, the study is one of the few studies to recruit a large percentage of African Americans as study participants (44 percent). African Americans have a higher risk of conditions that are aggravated by being overweight, including diabetes and heart disease. In this study, the majority of African American participants lost at least nine pounds of weight, which is higher than in prior studies.

"The more food records people kept, the more weight they lost," said lead author Jack Hollis Ph.D., a researcher at Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore. "Those who kept daily food records lost twice as much weight as those who kept no records. It seems that the simple act of writing down what you eat encourages people to consume fewer calories".

In addition to keeping food diaries and turning them in at weekly support group meetings, participants were asked to follow a heart-healthy DASH (a Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet rich in fruits and vegetables and low-fat or non-fat dairy, attend weekly group sessions and exercise at moderate intensity levels for at least 30 minutes a day. After six months, the average weight loss among the nearly 1,700 participants was approximately 13 pounds. More than two-thirds of the participants (69 percent) lost at least nine pounds, enough to reduce their health risks and qualify for the second phase of the study, which lasted 30 months and tested strategies for maintaining the weight loss......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

July 7, 2008, 9:16 PM CT

Child care factors associated with weight gain in infancy

Nine-month-old infants regularly cared for by someone other than a parent appear to have higher rates of unfavorable feeding practices and to weigh more than infants cared for only by parents, as per a report in the recent issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Almost three-fourths of infants receive some form of child care by persons who are not their parents during the first year of life, as per background information in the article. Child care has been linked to positive development in cognition (thinking, learning and memory), language, social and emotional realms and academics, the authors note. However, no information previously existed regarding the relationship of child care to infants' weight or to certain feeding practices that may affect the risk of becoming overweight, including breastfeeding and introducing solid foods at an earlier age.

Juhee Kim., Sc.D., of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Karen E. Peterson, Sc.D., of the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, analyzed data collected during home visits with 8,150 9-month-old infants. During the visits, which occurred in 2001 and 2002, the infants were weighed and measured and the primary caregiver provided information regarding child care......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

July 2, 2008, 10:29 PM CT

Weight Watchers Versus Fitness Centers

In the first study of its kind, using sophisticated methods to measure body composition, the nationally known commercial weight loss program, Weight Watchers, was in comparison to gym membership programs to find out which method wins in the game of good health. A University of Missouri researcher examined the real-life experiences of participants to determine which program helps people lose pounds, reduce body fat and gain health benefits. The answer is that both have pros and cons and that a combination of the two produces the best results.

Participants who attended Weight Watchers for 12 weeks lost an average of 5 percent of their body weight, or about nine pounds. However, Steve Ball, assistant professor of exercise physiology in the MU College of Human Environmental Sciences, observed that a large percentage of the lost weight was lean tissue and not fat.

"Participants' body fat percentage did not improve at all because they lost a much higher percentage than expected of lean tissue," said Ball, MU Extension state fitness specialist. "It is advantageous to keep lean tissue because it is correlated with higher metabolism. Losing lean tissue often slows metabolism. What your body is made of is more important than what you weigh".

The majority of other Weight Watcher studies had not considered body fat percentage change and only focused on body weight......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

July 2, 2008, 10:07 PM CT

Get smart about what you eat to improve your intelligence

New research findings published online in The FASEB Journal provide more evidence that if we get smart about what we eat, our intelligence can improve. As per MIT scientists, dietary nutrients found in a wide range of foods from infant formula to eggs increase brain synapses and improve cognitive abilities.

"I hope human brains will, like those of experimental animals, respond to this kind of therapy by making more brain synapses and thus restoring cognitive abilities," said Richard Wurtman, MD, senior researcher on the project.

In the study, gerbils were given various combinations of three compounds needed for healthy brain membranes: choline, found in eggs; uridine monophosphate (UMP) found in beets; and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), found in fish oils. Other gerbils were given none of these to serve as a baseline. Then they were checked for cognitive changes four weeks later. The researchers observed that the gerbils given choline with UMP and/or DHA showed cognitive improvements in tasks believed to be relevant to gerbils, such as navigating mazes. After these tests were concluded, the scientists dissected the mouse brains for a biological cause for the improvement. They found biochemical evidence that there was more than the usual amount of brain synapse activity, which was consistent with behaviors indicating higher intelligence......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

June 26, 2008, 9:16 PM CT

Device blocking stomach nerve signals shows promise in obesity

A new implantable medical device, developed in collaboration with Mayo Clinic researchers, shows promise as a reversible and less extreme alternative to existing bariatric surgeries, as per findings reported in the current issue of the journal Surgery

In a six-month open label trial involving three medical centers in Australia, Mexico and Norway, the 31 obese participants who received the vagal nerve blocking device, also called VBLOCTM vagal blocking treatment, lost an average of nearly 15 percent of their excess weight. A quarter of the participants lost more than 25 percent, and three patients lost more than 30 percent.

Michael Camilleri, M.D., is a gastroenterologist who helped design the study and one of the Mayo Clinic scientists whose prior work and know-how contributed to development of the device in collaboration with EnteroMedics, Inc. Dr. Camilleri says the goal is to find a less drastic alternative to bariatric surgery that will still yield significant weight loss. Bariatric surgery techniques include "banding" -- placement of a band around the top part of the stomach to reduce its capacity -- or bypass procedures which reroute food and remove part of the stomach.

"For this study, we wanted to get an initial assessment of whether blocking the vagus nerve electrically could cause obese patients to feel full after a normal-sized meal," Dr. Camilleri explains. "Patients were not put on any restricted diets or given counseling that typically accompanies gastric banding or bypass. We wanted to determine how much weight loss could be attributed to the device alone"......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

June 25, 2008, 10:01 PM CT

Watch out for the wrong kind of sugar

WE KNOW about good and bad fats. Now suspicion is growing that not all sugars are created equal either. Overweight adults who consume large amounts of fructose have been found to experience alarming changes in body fat and insulin sensitivity that do not occur after eating glucose.

Pure fructose is found in fresh fruit, fruit juice and preserves. But much of it sneaks into our diets though high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in soft drinks - which gets broken down into 55 per cent fructose and 45 per cent glucose in the body - or via sucrose (ordinary sugar), which is broken down into the same two sugars.

Fears that fructose and HFCS are fuelling the obesity epidemic and triggering insulin resistance and diabetes have been circulating for years (New Scientist, 1 September 2001, p 26), but there have been few direct investigations in humans.

So Peter Havel at the University of California, Davis, persuaded 33 overweight and obese adults to go on a diet that was 30 per cent fat, 55 per cent complex carbohydrates and 15 per cent protein for two weeks. For a further 10 weeks, they switched to a diet in which 25 per cent of their energy came from either fructose or glucose.

In those given fructose there was an increase in the amount of intra-abdominal fat, which wraps around internal organs, causes a pot belly and has been associated with an increased risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. This did not happen with the group who consumed glucose instead, even though both gained an average 1.5 kilograms in weight......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

June 25, 2008, 9:58 PM CT

Morbid thoughts whet the appetite

Can watching TV news or crime shows trigger overeating? As per new research in the Journal of Consumer Research, people who are thinking about their own deaths want to consume more.

Authors Naomi Mandel (Arizona State University) and Dirk Smeesters (Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands) conducted several experiments in Europe and the United States where participants wrote essays on their feelings about their own deaths. They then checked off items on a grocery list or ate cookies. Consumers who wrote about their own deaths wanted to buy more and ate more than those who wrote about a painful medical procedure (the control group).

"People want to consumer more of all kinds of foods, both healthy and unhealthy, when thinking about the idea that they will die some day," write the authors.

The scientists found people with low self-esteem, in particular, tend to over-consume after death-related thoughts. Mandel and Smeesters explain the effect using a theory called "escape from self-awareness." "When people are reminded of their inevitable mortality, they may start to feel uncomfortable about what they have done with their lives and whether they have made a significant mark on the universe. This is a state called 'heightened self-awareness.' One way to deal with such an uncomfortable state is to escape from it, by either overeating or overspending," they write......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

June 19, 2008, 10:18 PM CT

Weight-loss surgery can cut cancer risk

Successful bariatric surgery allows morbidly obese patients to lose up to 70 percent of their excess weight and to maintain weight loss. The latest study by Dr. Nicolas Christou of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) and McGill University shows that this surgery also decreases the risk of developing cancer by up to 80 percent. Dr. Christou presented his preliminary results yesterday at the 25th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery.

The scientists compared 1,035 morbidly obese patients who underwent bariatric surgery at the MUHC between 1986 and 2002 with 5,746 patients with the same weight profile who did not undergo the operation. The number of cancer diagnoses in first group was 85 percent lower for breast cancer and 70 percent lower for colon and pancreas cancers, and was also distinctly lower for several other types of cancer.

"The relationship between obesity and a number of forms of cancer is well established," said Dr. Christou. "This is one of the first studies to suggest that bariatric surgery might prevent the risk of cancer for a significant percentage of morbidly obese people".

Obesity affects the body in multiple ways, so a single hypothesis cannot fully explain these results, say the researchers. However, excess body fat is widely believed to be responsible for increased hormone production, a major risk factor for breast and colon cancer. Thus so modifications to the patient's hormonal metabolism due to weight loss might explain the lower occurence rate of these cancers in patients who underwent surgery......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

June 5, 2008, 10:17 PM CT

How to lose weight without losing bone

A higher-protein diet that emphasizes lean meats and low-fat dairy foods as sources of protein and calcium can mean weight loss without bone loss--and the evidence is in bone scans taken throughout a new University of Illinois study.

The research, which compared the results of a high-protein, dairy-intensive diet with a conventional weight-loss diet based on the food-guide pyramid, was published in this month's Journal of Nutrition.

"This is an important finding because a number of people, particularly women in mid-life, are concerned with both obesity and osteoporosis," said Ellen Evans, a U of I associate professor of kinesiology and community health and member of the U of I Division of Nutritional Sciences.

"Furthermore, treating obesity often increases risk for osteoporosis. A number of people lose bone mass when they lose weight," she said.

Co-author of study Donald Layman, a U of I professor of nutrition, has previously reported that protein-rich weight-loss diets preserve muscle mass, help lower blood sugar and lipids, and improve body composition by targeting weight carried in the abdomen.

In the recent study, Layman's diet prescribed approximately 30 percent of all calories from protein, with an emphasis on lean meats and low-fat dairy products......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source