Home > Obesity > August
2007
Posted on August 29, 2007 by Gerald Pugliese
Between dog-fighting, gambling referees, and drug allegations, professional sports have been getting a lot of bad press. Here’s some good news. Nate Guidry of
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that the
Steelers and Eagles are teaming up to tackle childhood obesity. Read on:
The Pittsburgh Steelers and the Philadelphia Eagles announced yesterday that they are teaming up with the state of Pennsylvania to fight childhood obesity in middle schools statewide.
The partnership -- called "What Moves U?" -- is designed to motivate students to become more physically active…
… Participating schools can compete to earn prizes, including tickets to NFL games, autographed merchandise and player visits to their schools.
Dr. Calvin B. Johnson, state health secretary, said the program and other initiatives are "long-term investments that will be paid back when our children grow up to be healthy adults."
Sure beats
162 Beef Sticks!
Posted on August 29, 2007 by Gerald Pugliese
Yesterday we learned that
Mississippi is the fattest of the fifty states, but don’t worry Mississippians,
America in general just keeps getting fatter and fatter. Kevin Freking of the
Associated Press reports:
Indeed, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study last year noting a national obesity rate of about 32 percent — a higher rate than was cited for any of the states in the Trust for America's Health report. The CDC's estimate came from weighing people rather than relying on telephone interviews, officials explained.
Generally, anyone with a body mass index greater than 30 is considered obese. The index is a ratio that takes into account height and weight. The overweight range is 25 to 29.9. Normal is 18.5 to 24.9. People with a large amount of lean muscle mass, such as athletes, can show a large body mass index without having an unhealthy level of fat.
A lack of exercise is a huge factor in obesity rates. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found last year that more than 22 percent of Americans did not engage in any physical activity in the past month. The percentage is greater than 30 percent in four states: Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky and Tennessee.
I don’t know about you, but I take pride in not being part of the bloated bell curve.
Posted on August 28, 2007 by Gerald Pugliese
Not exactly a proud day for Mississippians. According to new obesity research,
Mississippi is the fattest state in the nation. Emily Wagster Pettus of the
Associated Press reports:
According to a new study, this Deep South state is the fattest in the nation. The Trust for America's Health, a research group that focuses on disease prevention, says Mississippi is the first state where more than 30 percent of adults are considered obese.
Aside from making Mississippi the butt of late-night talk show jokes, the obesity epidemic has serious implications for public policy.
If current trends hold, the state could face enormous increases in the already significant costs of treating diabetes, heart disease and other ailments caused by the extra poundage.
"We've got a long way to go. We love fried chicken and fried anything and all the grease and fatback we can get in Mississippi," said Democratic state Rep. Steve Holland, chairman of the Public Health Committee.
Don’t fret Mississippi. With the way this country eats, you’ve go plenty of company. For more news on obesity check out
DiseaseProof’s obesity archive.
Posted on August 27, 2007 by Gerald Pugliese
A recent study indicates pediatric type 2 diabetes is still relatively infrequent, experts are concerned about the trend and the impact the condition, particularly its complications, might have on affected children and families.
"It does exist and it's increasing," noted endocrinologist Dr. Silva Arslanian, director of the Weight Management and Wellness Center at Children's Hospital. "It's increasing because more and more children are becoming obese."
I just yesterday came across research (from a 2007 Ohio State study) involving a certain variety of orange tomato called a Tangerine Tomato. Evidently, people are able to better absorb the antioxidant lycopene from this particular type of tomato than from the more typical red tomatoes.
If you have trouble finding Tangerine Tomatoes at your grocery store, try other kinds of orange tomatoes or gold heirloom varieties. But, whatever kind, color, brand, or type of tomato you choose, always be sure to cook your tomatoes in order to receive the greatest absorption of lycopene.
While obesity has long been suspected of hampering a woman's ability to conceive, the University of Adelaide research is said to be the first to find a direct scientific link.
Researcher Cadence Minge said experiments on female mice showed that fat has an impact on the egg before it is even fertilised.
The teacher announced daily snacks must be healthy. Juice boxes were not allowed. A water bottle was fine, but the drinking fountain even better. Geez, I was starting to really like this school. Fruit and vegetables were strongly suggested, but no cookies, mile-high frosted cupcakes or sugary fruit snacks. I nearly stood up and clapped, but I didn't want to freak out a roomful of mommy strangers. After reading Allie's recent post on water, I will definitely pack a water bottle…
…Think fruits and vegetables. Don't throw those sugary graham crackers in your shopping cart. Stay away from the processed carbohydrates. This is your chance to develop healthier habits for a lifetime. Hey, you might not even need to be the fall guy -- hopefully it's "school policy."
''Children could actually blame their mothers for this,'' said Jane Wardle, director of the Health Behavior Unit at University College London, one of the authors of the study in this month's American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
Wardle and colleagues asked the parents of 5,390 pairs of identical and non-identical twins to complete a questionnaire on their children's' willingness to try new foods.
Identical twins, who share all genes, were much more likely to respond the same way to new foods than non-identical twins, who like other siblings only share about half their genes. Researchers concluded that genetics played a greater role in determining eating preferences than environment, since the twins lived in the same household.
- Now, I’m not sure if this is a joke or not, but Diet-Blog is all over something called “The Diet Fork.” Judge for yourself:
The following features will (apparently) lead to weight loss...
- Shorter and dulled teeth inhibiting user from grasping larger pieces of food at any one time.
- Smaller triangular shaped surface area allowing dieter to hold less food than many other forks.
- Uncomfortable grip compelling user to put fork down between bites, slowing the user's eating speed.
Posted on August 22, 2007 by Gerald Pugliese
You know its getting bad when even your pets are bloated.
Evidently it’s so bad in the U.K. that they’ve started launched a website to help Fido slim down.
The Cardio Blog is on it:
The website, called Pets Get Slim, has facts about pet obesity and hints to help curb food intake. Inglis is excited about the site, saying, "Whether your pet is obese or slightly overweight - it matters. A weight problem can affect a pet's quality of life and lead to straining of the joints, causing arthritis, as well as internal illnesses like diabetes, liver disease and heart disease."
Helping your pet get back in shape is not only healthy four your small best friend, but it can also help the family members get in shape. Taking the family dog for a walk rather than sitting in front of the television is a help for everybody.
For more pet inspired posts, try these on fore size:
Posted on August 22, 2007 by Gerald Pugliese
“Boss? Yeah hi. I can’t come in today. I’ve got a bad case of fat.” Here’s more wacky news on the obesity front.
New research claims obesity might at least be partly caused by a common virus. Alan Mozes of
HealthDay News reports:
The roots of obesity are probably complex and various, the U.S. team stressed. However, their lab tests showed that exposure to adenovirus-36 (Ad-36), which causes respiratory and eye infections, also causes stem cells to develop into fat cells.
This is the first time anyone has identified a viral "fattening effect" in humans, said lead researcher Dr. Magdalena Pasarica, an obesity researcher with the Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
The same team was also the first to have shown that Ad-36 is much more prevalent among obese people than among leaner men and women. In that earlier work, the virus was spotted among 30 percent of obese individuals compared with just 11 percent of non-obese people.
What a perfect opportunity for drug-makers to come out with an obesity vaccine—Money, money, mon-ey—MONEY!
Posted on August 20, 2007 by Gerald Pugliese
The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, a government advisory body, has drawn up healthy eating guidelines for both government and privately run schools to follow, said Sandhya Bajaj, a commission member.
"The number of overweight children in schools is growing," Bajaj said in a telephone interview. She said that the commission was getting complaints from parents who said that their children were buying unhealthy food from school cafeterias.
Chronic kidney disease patients who are also obese are much more likely than normal-weight patients to have a condition called hyperparathyroidism, which raises their risk of heart problems and death, U.S. researchers say.
Hyperparathyroidism involves elevated levels of parathyroid hormone (PTH). Normally, parathyroid hormone plays an important role in maintaining normal bone structure. Elevated levels of the hormone can lead to bone abnormalities and increased risk of cardiovascular disease and death. Decreased kidney function is the main cause of hyperparathyroidism in chronic kidney disease patients.
Research shows that watermelons stored at room temperatures have much higher levels of antioxidants (beta-carotene and lycopene) than those kept chilled in the fridge. Warm watermelons are even better than fresh-picked melons.
One caution: once cut, watermelons must refrigerated. So try to enjoy your watermelons as soon as you slice and dice them. Then keep your leftovers cool.
This phenomenon is known as "assortative mating" - when men and women tend to select partners according to nonrandom attributes such as height, religion, age and smoking habits.
Researchers have suggested that assortative mating by obesity could increase the already high prevalence of obesity by helping to pass on genes promoting excess weight to the next generation.
A new study highlighted the summer weight-gain phenomenon among young children. Researchers in the Midwest looked at the body mass index, which relates height to weight, of 5,380 students. They followed them for two years, from kindergarten through first grade, and found the average index grew more than twice as quickly over the summer than during the school year.
Children of the working poor may be especially at risk because they are left indoors while their parents are at jobs. While at home, kids eat and drink what they want, says Dr. Jennifer Bass, a pediatrician who chairs a national pediatricians special-interest group on obesity. Bass estimates as many as 30 percent of her patients are overweight.
The report, issued on Thursday, also urged changes in public and private insurance policies to encourage doctors to spend more time counseling patients on how to stay healthy by eating right, exercising and avoiding tobacco.
Federal, state, and local policies have actually made healthful foods more expensive and less available, have limited physical education in schools and created an environment that discourages physical activity, the report said.
Posted on August 15, 2007 by Gerald Pugliese
Clunky doctor-patient relationships don’t surprise me anymore. Given the amount of medical misinformation out there, you’ve got to question the exchange. Here’s what I mean.
A new study found that obese patients don’t receive formal weight-management plans from their doctors. Amy Norton of
Reuters reports:
The researchers reviewed the medical records of 9827 patients seen at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, between November 2004 and October 2005. A total of 2543 of these patients were obese.
Principal investigator Dr. Warren G. Thompson, and his colleagues, found that only 505, or about one in five obese patients had their condition formally documented. However, patients who did have a formal diagnosis of obesity were 2.5 times more likely to be given a plan of treatment, such as diet changes and exercise goals.
Obese patients who were older or male were less likely to have their condition documented, whereas patients who were morbidly obese, had diabetes mellitus, or obstructive sleep apnea, were more likely to be formally diagnosed, according to the study published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings journal.
I’m a layman, so maybe I’m missing something, but as a doctor, if you have an obese patient, how do you overlook their girth? What do you do, skip it and move on to something easier to fix? Maybe so, check out this quote from Dr. Fuhrman’s book
Eat to Live:
For most people, illness means putting their fate in the hands of doctors and complying with their recommendations—recommendations that typically involve taking drugs for the rest of their lives while they watch their health gradually deteriorate. People are completely unaware that most illnesses are self-induced and can be reversed with aggressive nutritional methods.
I guess this is part of the same paradox as doctors who smoke.
Posted on August 15, 2007 by Gerald Pugliese
Brace yourself. Here comes some earth-shattering news. Ready?
Pot bellies are bad for the heart! Shocking—that was sarcasm. Alan Mozes of
HealthDay News is on it:
Banish the belly, not just the pounds: That's the heart-healthy advice from a new study that finds that "pot" bellies may be a big indicator of future heart disease.
"What we're seeing is a quite strong association between the pot-belly, apple shape among a relatively young group of people and the build-up of plaque in the arteries," said study co-author Dr. James A. de Lemos, an associate professor of medicine and director of the Coronary Care Unit at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.
"Ten to 15 years down the road, this can lead to major cardiac problems, such as a heart attack," he said.
The findings are published in the Aug. 21 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
According to the American Heart Association (AHA), more than 870,000 Americans die from heart disease each year, making it the leading killer of both men and women.
I guess a lot of people don’t realize how harmful even a little extra weight can be. That’s why Dr. Fuhrman encourages patients to keeping losing weight. Even if friends tell them they’re thin enough. From
Eat to Live:
I often have patients tell me they think they look too thin, or their friends or family members tell them they look too thin, even though they are still clearly overweight. Bear in mind that by their standards you may be too thin, or at least thinner than they are.
Posted on August 13, 2007 by Gerald Pugliese
A chubby-cheeked kid might look cute, but, it’s hardly a sign of good health—now and in the future.
New research has determined that childhood obesity boosts a person’s lifetime risk of heart disease. Alan Mozes of
HealthDay News reports:
Compared to healthier youngsters, school-age children with the condition face a 14.5 times greater risk of cardiovascular disease when they reached their 30s and 40s, the study found.
Components of the syndrome include high blood pressure, high body mass, high blood pressure and high triglycerides (blood fats).
"I wasn't exactly shocked, but this is the first time we have shown that children who have this constellation of factors known as metabolic syndrome are at an increased risk for cardiovascular disease in their adult years," said study lead author John A. Morrison, a research professor of pediatrics who also works in the division of cardiology at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Ohio.
The findings are published in the August issue of Pediatrics.
According to the American Heart Association, more than 50 million Americans have the metabolic syndrome. The condition is typically diagnosed on the basis of having at least three of the following characteristics: abdominal obesity; high blood pressure; insulin resistance (in which the body can't process insulin or blood sugar properly); a high risk for arterial plaque build-up due to high levels of triglycerides, low HDL ("good") cholesterol and high LDL ("bad") cholesterol; and a high risk for clotting and inflammation as indicated by the elevated presence of certain blood proteins.
Sound familiar? Other than this being a painfully obvious conclusion. In
Disease-Proof Your Child Dr. Fuhrman maintains that heart disease starts young:
There is considerable evidence that the lipoprotein abnormalities (high LDL and low HDL) that are linked to heart attack deaths in adulthood begin to develop in early childhood and that higher cholesterol levels eventually get “set” by early food habits.1 What we eat during our childhood affects our lifetime cholesterol levels. For many, changing the diet to a plant-based, low-saturated-fat diet in later life does not result in the favorable cholesterol levels that would have been seen if the dietary improvements were started much earlier in life.
As a result of the heart-unfriendly diet, blood vessel damage begins early. Not only does the development of coronary atherosclerosis develop in childhood, but earlier development of atherosclerosis and higher serum cholesterol levels in childhood result in a significantly higher risk of premature sudden death relatively early in life. Sometimes the effects of childhood dietary abuses can be seen relatively early, with premature death or a heart attack at a young age.
When we study people who died young of coronary artery disease, we find that the highest risk of an earlier death occurs in those who were above average weight in childhood.2 Findings from the famous Bogalusa Heart Study show that a high saturated fat intake early in life is strongly predictive of later heart disease burden and the higher blood pressure in childhood and adolescence is powerfully predictive of cardiovascular death in adulthood.3
A low-fiber, high-saturated-fat diet with lots of animal products, dairy fat, white flour, and sugar creates a heart attack-prone person with high cholesterol levels. The anti-cancer lifestyle, a healthy diet style for the entire family, started early in life, will have the added benefit of making it easier for children to become heart attack-proof. A diet high in plant fiber shows a protective effect against developing high cholesterol, obesity, and elevated insulin levels. Eating more of the natural high-fiber plant food in childhood has a powerful protective effect on preventing later-life heart problems, even for those a strong family history of heart disease.4 For those whose family genetically predisposes them to heart disease, early-life dietary excellence can make the difference between a long life free of heart disease and a heart attack in one’s forties or fifties.
Continue Reading...
Posted on August 9, 2007 by Gerald Pugliese
The Diabetes Blog is all over
research linking lack of sleep to obesity and type-2 diabetes. Check it out:
The study found that sleep loss reduced glycogen release from the liver. Since the patient was still awake, requiring energy (and none was being supplied) - the islets withheld production of insulin to sustain existing blood sugar. The aftermath of this suspended glucose metabolism resulted in increased hunger. Yikes.
I’m definitely the pot calling the kettle black here. I know I should be getting more sleep—anyone else an ultra-busy taskmaster? And I’m not exactly doing myself any favors by skipping out on bed time.
According to Dr. Fuhrman sufficient sleep is an important part of long-term health:
Adequate sleep is a necessary component of good health. Our modern society stays up late into the night and wakes in the morning to an alarm clock—long before sleep requirements have been fulfilled. To make matters worse, most Americans partake in stimulating substances—such as caffeine and sugar—to remain artificially alert during the day.
During sleep, your body removes the buildup of waste in the brain. Sufficient sleep is necessary for the normal function of your nervous and endocrine systems. Most civilizations in human history recognized the value of mid-afternoon naps. The desire for a rest, short sleep, or “siesta” after lunch should not be seen as an abnormal need, but rather a normal one. People who “cover up” their lack of sleep by using drugs (such as caffeine) as food and/or food (such as highly processed, sugary foods) as drugs sometimes claim (even boast) that they can get by with very little sleep. As you begin to live more healthfully, you may quickly recognize that you need more sleep than you previously thought.
We need to avoid stimulants in order to be in touch with our body’s need for sleep, and only by meeting these needs can we maximize the body’s tremendous capacity for ongoing repair and regeneration of cells.
Remind me to kill my alarm clock.
Posted on August 6, 2007 by Gerald Pugliese
Like a lot of so-called “Westernized” countries, Australia is getting fatter and fatter. So fat, that
Australian mortuaries are having a difficult time accommodating all the dead weight.
Reuters reports:
Pathologists are calling for new "heavy-duty" autopsy facilities to cope with obese corpses that are difficult to move and dangerously heavy for standard-size trolleys and lifting hoists.
The bodies presented "major logistical problems" and "significant occupational health and safety issues," according to a separate study, which found the number of obese and morbidly obese bodies had doubled in the past 20 years.
Specially designed mortuaries would soon be required if the nation failed to curb its fat epidemic, providing "larger storage and dissection rooms, and more robust equipment," said Professor Roger Byard, a pathologist at the University of Adelaide.
"Failure to provide these might compromise the post-mortem evaluation of markedly obese individuals, in addition to potentially jeopardizing the health of mortuary staff."
For more on the endless roll of obesity news, check out
DiseaseProof’s obesity category.
