Health and Fitness Blog

MONDAY, March 30 (HealthDay News) — Babies who gain weight
quickly during the first six months of life may be more prone to obesity
as toddlers, Harvard researchers report.

“We need to start our preventive methods when children are much
younger,” said study author Dr. Elsie M. Taveras. “Even in the first
couple of weeks of life, we can start guiding parents about how to prevent
rapid weight gain in their infants.”

While past research has established a link between birth weight and
obesity, the impact of factors such as length of gestation, height and
lifestyle of the mother were often not considered.

The researchers tracked 559 children who were part of Project Viva, an
ongoing study of pregnant women and their children. The babies were
measured for weight and height at birth, at 6 months and again at the age
of 3.

After adjusting for factors such as the babies’ length, researchers
found that those who increased their body-mass index (BMI) during their
first six months were more likely to be classified as obese at age 3.

“At present, most guidelines around obesity management recommend that
we start assessment and treatment of children after the age of 2,” Taveras
said.

According to the National Institutes of Health, nearly a third of
adults in the United States are obese. Obese people are 10 percent to 50
percent more likely to die of all causes. In 2000, the obesity epidemic
cost the U.S. health system $117 billion.

“The key indication for this study is the importance of better
education about feeding infants,” said Connie Diekman, director of
university nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis. “Since the
study did not look at what children were fed after weaning, it is hard to
know if overfeeding then is a contributor.”

Addressing this issue may involve simply making minor changes. In
Germany, water fountains were installed in 32 schools located in poor
areas of two German cities. Teachers then presented four lesson plans to
second- and third-grade students about the benefits of water
consumption.

The study found that the students who attended these schools were 31
percent less likely to become overweight than those who attended other
schools not involved in the study.

Both studies are to be published in the April issue of
Pediatrics.

“The researchers themselves identified that we need to study caregiver
and infant relationships, since other studies have shown when there is a
lack of a bonding during feeding, infants will change what they eat,” says
Diekman. “In addition, other potential confounders need to be removed,
and then the study repeated, to see if weight gain during pregnancy is a
factor.”

“Our study raises a lot of questions about the reason rapid infant
weight gain results in obesity later on,” Taveras said. “We need more
research to identify the factors that explain this relationship.”

More information

Visit the U.S. National Institutes of Health for more information
about childhood obesity.

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MONDAY, March 30 (HealthDay News) — Physical fitness programs in
schools improve many aspects of children’s health, but they don’t appear
to combat obesity, a new study in the Canadian medical publication
CMAJ shows.

Improvements in blood pressure, muscle mass, bone mineral density, lung
capacity and flexibility were some of the benefits experienced by the more
than 18,000 students participating in “physical activity interventions” at
their schools; however, the program’s did not noticeably lower the
children’s body-mass index (BMI) — a common measurement of obesity.

The study authors, from the BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver,
concluded that the program’s overall health benefits still warrant their
inclusion in school curriculum, even if they don’t reduce obesity.

The failure to reduce BMI scores might have been because the programs
did not offer enough vigorous activity or that other outside factors may
have had a greater effect on weight, the authors suggested.

The rate of childhood obesity in the United States has tripled in the
past 40 years and similar increases are occurring in Canada and most of
Europe, according to background information in the article.

Louise Baur, from the University of Sydney in Australia, in a
commentary in the same issue of CMAJ, writes that reversing trends
in childhood obesity requires a broader, long-term approach — from
healthier school meals to changes in how cities are developed so that they
encourage more physical activity.

“No simple or short-term changes, such as a physical activity
intervention for a limited length of time in the school curriculum, can be
expected to influence the prevalence of obesity,” wrote Baur, who
specializes in children’s health.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about childhood obesity.

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CHICAGO (Reuters) –
Infants who gain too much weight as babies are more likely to grow into obese toddlers, showing the importance of early eating habits, researchers said on Monday.

Watching children while they eat for cues about when they are full and encouraging them to drink plenty of water may help control their weight, according to two studies in the journal Pediatrics.

Obesity rates among U.S. children have doubled in the last 20 years, and almost a third of American children are either overweight or obese. The epidemic of obesity is linked to a host of health problems such as higher risks for heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

Researchers at Harvard University and Children’s Hospital, Boston, divided 559 children into four groups based on measurements of their weights and heights at birth, six months and age 3. Nearly one of 10 children were obese at 3.

Those heaviest at birth and those gaining the most weight through age 6 months together had a 40 percent higher probability of being obese at age 3.

“(This) suggests that it is rapid weight gain in infancy that puts children at risk” more than heavy birth weight, Elsie Taveras and fellow researchers wrote.

Obesity at age 3 does not necessarily translate into obesity later in childhood or adulthood, but it raises the risks, they said.

The Harvard researchers said it was important to educate parents and other caregivers to improve infant diets and to help them recognize when children are full.

A second study in the journal by Rebecca Muckelbauer and colleagues at the Research Institute of Child Nutrition in Dortmund, Germany, found an easy way to keep children from gaining too much weight was to encourage them to drink more water.

Water fountains were installed in schools in poor areas of Dortmund and Essen, Germany, and 1,641 second- and third-graders were urged to drink more water. They drank the equivalent of an extra glass of water a day compared to children not given the encouragement.

Those who drank more water lowered their risk of becoming overweight by 31 percent.

(Reporting by Andrew Stern; Editing by Maggie Fox)

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) –
A new study suggests that many young recruits for fire and ambulance services are overweight and already have risk factors for heart disease — a problem that poses a threat to public safety, researchers say.

In a study of 370 candidates for Massachusetts firefighter and ambulance services, the researchers found that 77 percent of the young recruits were either overweight or obese, based on body mass index (BMI).

BMI is a measure of weight in relation to height, and it is possible for men who are muscular, but not fat, to fall into the “overweight” BMI category.

However, the study found, overweight recruits were not a generally fit bunch. Compared with their normal-weight peers, they had higher blood pressure, higher cholesterol, higher triglycerides (a type of blood fat) and performed less well on fitness tests.

“These findings are strong evidence against the common misconception in the emergency responder community that many of their members have BMIs in the overweight and obese ranges simply on the basis of increased muscle mass,” senior researcher Dr. Stefanos N. Kales noted in a written statement.

“Even in these young recruits,” he added, “we documented a very strong association between excess BMI and an increased cardiovascular risk profile.”

Kales and his colleagues at Harvard University and Boston University School of Medicine report the findings in the journal Obesity.

For the study, the researchers reviewed medical exam records for 370 mostly male recruits for emergency responder services. All had passed their services’ minimum requirements, so the study group included those recruits most likely to get a job, according to the researchers.

Overall, 44 percent of the recruits were overweight and one-third were obese. While all of the normal-weight recruits met the minimum fitness level on exercise tests, 42 percent of obese recruits did not. Obese and overweight candidates also tended to have higher heart rates after a 3-minute step test.

These results — coupled with the higher cholesterol, triglyceride and blood pressure levels — all suggest that overweight emergency responders face greater personal health risks on the job. On top of that, their health problems could put their coworkers and the public at risk, Kales warns.

“These professionals perform highly psychologically and physically stressful work and are therefore at high risk for cardiovascular events,” he said. “Sudden incapacitation during duty puts these emergency responders, as well as their colleagues and the public, in danger.”

Kales and his colleagues suggest making BMI a “vital sign” on emergency responders’ medical exams. Keeping emergency personnel in shape, they write, may require multiple approaches — including nutrition education, mandatory exercise during work hours and periodic “consequential” health and fitness testing.

SOURCE: Obesity, online March 19, 2009.

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FRIDAY, March 20 (HealthDay News) — More than 75 percent of
candidates for fire and ambulance services in Massachusetts are either
overweight or obese, a situation that has major consequences for public
health and safety, researchers say.

“First, cardiovascular disease and musculoskeletal injury are important
causes of [disability and death] in emergency responders, and excess body
fat is associated with higher risk for both. Second, because of the nature
of emergency response work, any health condition suddenly incapacitating
an emergency responder also potentially compromises the safety of his or
her co-workers and the community,” lead author Antonios Tsismenakis, a
second-year medical student at Boston University School of Medicine, said
in a news release.

A team from BUSM, Boston Medical Center, Harvard University and the
Cambridge Health Alliance reviewed the pre-placement medical examinations
of 370 firefighter and ambulance recruits assessed at two Massachusetts
clinics between October 2004 and June 2007.

They found that 43.8 percent of the recruits were overweight, 33
percent were obese, and only 22 percent were normal weight.

Excess weight as measured by body-mass index (BMI) was associated with
higher blood pressures, worse metabolic profiles and lower exercise
tolerance on treadmill stress tests, the researchers said.

While all normal-weight recruits achieved the National Fire Protection
Agency’s recommended minimum exercise threshold of 12 metabolic
equivalents, 42 percent of obese and 7 percent of overweight recruits
failed to meet the criteria.

The study appears online March 19 in the journal Obesity.

“These findings are strong evidence against the common misconception in
the emergency responder community that many of their members have BMIs in
the overweight and obese ranges simply on the basis of increased muscle
mass. Even in these young recruits, we documented a very strong
association between excess BMI and an increased cardiovascular risk
profile,” study senior author Dr. Stefanos Kales, director of Occupational
and Environmental Medicine Residency, Harvard School of Public Health,
said in the news release.

More information

There’s more on fighting overweight and obesity at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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CHICAGO (Reuters) –
U.S. researchers have found a gene responsible for turning a plate of pasta into fat, offering new clues about how the body metabolizes carbohydrates and how they contribute to obesity.

The gene, called DNA-PK, appears to regulate the process in the liver that turns carbohydrates into fat, the University of California, Berkeley team reported on Thursday in the journal Cell.

“We hope that this research will one day help people eat bread, pasta and rice and not worry about getting fat,” Roger Wong, a graduate student who worked on the study, said in a statement.

When they bred mice with a disabled version of this gene, the mice stayed slim even when fed the equivalent of an all-you-can-eat pasta buffet.

“The DNA-PK disabled mice were leaner and had 40 percent less body fat compared with a control group of normal mice because of their deficiency in turning carbs into fat,” Wong said.

He said the mice who lacked this gene did not get fat when they ate high-carb food and they had lower levels of blood cholesterol, which can reduce the risk of heart disease.

Since humans have the same gene, the team thinks it may serve as a potential target for drugs to prevent obesity.

(Editing by Maggie Fox and Sandra Maler)

Source

Fire fighters are still our heroes, but a new study raises concerns about their health and mobility.

Researchers found that more than 75 percent of emergency responder candidates for fire and ambulance services in Massachusetts are either overweight or obese.

The findings, in the March 19 issue of the journal Obesity, have significant consequences for public health and safety.

Emergency responders (firefighters, ambulance personnel and police) are expected to be physically fit to perform strenuous duties without compromising the safety of themselves, colleagues or the community.

Traditionally, these professions recruited persons of above-average fitness from a pool of healthy young adults. However, given the current obesity epidemic, the candidate pool is currently drawn from an increasingly heavy American youth.

The researchers from Boston University School of Medicine, Boston Medical Center, Harvard University and the Cambridge Health Alliance reviewed the pre-placement medical examinations of firefighter and ambulance recruits from two Massachusetts clinics between October 2004 and June 2007.

Candidates older than 35 and those who had failed their services’ minimum criteria were excluded from the study in order to focus only on young recruits and those most likely to go on to gain employment as emergency responders. Among the 370 recruits, only about 22 percent were of normal weight; 43.8 percent were overweight, and 33 percent were obese. According to the study’s results, today’s young recruits are significantly heavier than older veteran firefighters from the 1980s and 1990s.

The researchers showed that excess weight as measured by body mass index (BMI) was associated with higher blood pressures, worse metabolic profiles and lower exercise tolerance on treadmill stress tests. All normal weight recruits achieved a National Fire Protection Agency’s recommended minimum exercise threshold of 12 metabolic equivalents, while 7 percent of overweight and 42 percent of obese recruits failed to reach this criteria.

“These findings are strong evidence against the common misconception in the emergency responder community that many of their members have BMIs in the overweight and obese ranges simply on the basis of increased muscle mass,” said Dr. Stefanos Kales, assistant professor at the Harvard Medical School and director, Occupational & Environmental Medicine Residency at the Harvard School of Public Health.

“Even in these young recruits we documented a very strong association between excess BMI and an increased cardiovascular risk profile,” said Kales, who was the study’s senior author.

The findings have important implications, especially when looking forward at the effects of aging and career span, said the study’s lead author Antonios Tsismenakis, a second-year medical student at BUSM.

“First, cardiovascular disease and musculoskeletal injury are important causes of morbidity and mortality in emergency responders, and excess body fat is associated with higher risk for both,” Tsismenakis said. “Second, because of the nature of emergency response work, any health condition suddenly incapacitating an emergency responder also potentially compromises the safety of his or her coworkers and the community.”

Emergency responders perform psychologically and physically stressful work and are therefore at high risk for cardiovascular events, Kales said.

“Sudden incapacitation during duty puts these emergency responders, as well as their colleagues and the public, in danger,” he said. “In addition to the dangers posed to public safety, these findings have important economic implications, as state and federal legislation exists for the awarding of benefits to emergency responders who die or are disabled by cardiovascular events, malignancies and work-related orthopedic problems; and the risk of all of these are increased by obesity.”

The study was supported in part by a grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. One of the study’s authors has been a treating physician for Boston Emergency Medical Services, and a paid evaluator in workers’ compensation and disability cases, including cases involving emergency medical technicians and firefighters, as well as a paid consultant to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission and Human Resource Department.

Kales has been a paid expert witness, independent medical examiner, or both in workers’ compensation and disability cases, including cases involving firefighters and other public safety personnel. Kales also has funding from Respironics, Inc and has consulted with Quasar, Inc.

• Obesity: News and Information
• Video – Putting Out Forest Fires
• Natural Disasters: Top 10 U.S. Threats

• Original Story: How Overweight Are Firefighters and Paramedics?

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TUESDAY, March 17 (HealthDay News) — Being obese can shorten your
life, a new study shows.

“Moderate obesity typically shortens life span by about three years,”
said researcher Gary Whitlock, from the Clinical Trial Service Unit at the
University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. “By moderate obesity, I mean
weighing about a third more than is ideal, which for most people would
mean being about 50 or 60 pounds overweight.”

More than one in three middle-aged Americans are now in this category,
Whitlock said. “By contrast, weighing twice your ideal weight — say, an
extra 150 pounds — shortens life span by about 10 years,” he added.

This obesity level is still not common, but it equals the known 10-year
reduction in life span caused by smoking. “So, smoking is about as
dangerous as being severely obese, and about three times as dangerous as
being moderately obese,” he said.

The report is published in the March 18 online edition of The
Lancet.

For the study, Whitlock and other members of the Prospective Studies
Collaboration collected data on 894,576 men and women who participated in
57 studies. The people in these studies came primarily from western Europe
and North America. Their average body-mass index (BMI) was 25.

BMI is a calculation that expresses a relationship between height and
weight. People are considered underweight if their BMI is less than 18.5,
normal weight when the BMI is between 18.5 and 24.9, overweight when BMI
is between 25 and 29.9, and obese when BMI is 30 or more, according to the
U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

The researchers found that men and women whose BMI was between 22.5 and
25 lived the longest. For a person 5 feet 7 inches tall, his or her
optimum weight would be about 154 pounds, they noted.

For those with a BMI over 25, every 10 to 12 pound increase translated
to about a 30 percent increased risk of dying. In addition, there was a 40
percent increase in the risk for heart disease, stroke and other vascular
disease, a 60 percent to 120 percent increased risk of diabetes, liver
disease or kidney disease, a 10 percent increased risk of cancer, and a 20
percent increased risk for lung disease, the researchers reported.

“Obesity causes kidney disease, liver disease and several types of
cancer, but the most common way it kills is by causing stroke and, most
importantly, heart disease. Obesity causes heart disease by pushing up
blood pressure, by interfering with blood cholesterol levels, and by
bringing on diabetes,” Whitlock said.

People who are moderately obese with a BMI in the 30 to 35 range
reduced their life span by two and four years. For those who are severely
obese with BMIs between 40 and 45, their life span was reduced by eight to
10 years. That’s comparable to the effects of smoking, Whitlock said.

In fact, people whose weight was below normal also died earlier, due
mainly to smoking-related diseases, the researchers noted.

“If you are obese and smoke, then, above all else, quit smoking,”
Whitlock said. “If you are obese and don’t smoke, then don’t start, and do
what you can to avoid further weight gain. By avoiding further weight
gain, you may well live a few years longer than you otherwise would do. By
quitting smoking, a smoker can expect to gain several extra years of
life — about as many as a severely obese person might gain by shedding
half of his or her body weight.”

Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale
University School of Medicine, said this study confirms that the obesity
epidemic is “the clear and present danger many of us knew it to be.”

The association between BMI and mortality has been challenged in the
scientific community, due in part to uncertainty about weight estimates
and debate about measurement methods. “Here we have an emphatic
reaffirmation of the fundamental issue: Overweight and obesity take years
from life,” Katz said.

“We know that, in many ways, BMI is a crude measure of the health risks
associated with obesity, since not all excess body fat is created equal,”
he said. “Weight gained around the middle tends to be most dangerous, so
for those subject to this pattern, risks may indeed be higher than this
study suggests. For those with lower body weight gain, risks may be
lower.”

A study published in the Nov. 13 issue of the New England Journal of
Medicine also found that where weight is centered is a risk factor.
Men with the largest waist circumference had more than double the risk of
death, and women with the largest waist circumference increased their risk
of death by 78 percent.

More information

For more about obesity, visit the U.S.
National Library of Medicine.

Source

WEDNESDAY, March 18 (HealthDay News) — Obese pancreatic cancer
patients are more likely than non-obese patients to have worse outcomes
after surgery to treat their cancer, say U.S. researchers.

“We identified a subset of obese patients (BMI greater than 35) who
were at 12-fold increased risk of lymph node metastasis compared with
non-obese patients (BMI of 35 or less),” wrote Dr. Jason B. Fleming, of
the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and
colleagues.

The researchers studied data from 285 pancreatic cancer patients who
had surgery to remove some or all of the organ.

After about 16 months, 152 patients (53 percent) died. Patients with a
body mass index (BMI) higher than 35 survived a median of 13.2 months,
compared with 27.4 months for those with a BMI of less than 23. After
about 32 months, 15 of 20 patients (75 percent) with a BMI of more than 35
had died, compared with 137 of 265 patients (52 percent) with a BMI of 35
of less.

“The estimated disease-free and overall survival rates were decreased
in the obese patients, and the risk of cancer recurrence and death after
pancreatectomy (removal of the pancreas) was nearly twice that in
non-obese patients,” the researchers wrote. “Cancer recurrence was
observed in 95 percent (19 of 20) of patients in the group with a BMI of
more than 35 vs. 61 percent (161 of 264) of all other patients.”

The study is published in the March issue of the journal Archives of
Surgery.

Previous studies have noted a link between a BMI higher than 35 and
increased risk of death from pancreatic cancer.

“Our findings extend these observations to those patients who undergo
surgery to treat pancreatic cancer and suggest that obesity is a host
factor affecting tumor biology,” Fleming and colleagues concluded.

More information

The American Cancer Society has more about pancreatic cancer.

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) –
People lose weight when they cut calories, but a diet with some extra protein may be especially effective at trimming body fat and improving blood fats, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that over one year, a moderate-protein diet was better than a standard high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet at helping overweight adults shed body fat. What’s more, it had greater benefits when it came to boosting “good” HDL cholesterol and lowering triglycerides, a type of blood fat that contributes to clogged arteries.

The findings, reported in the Journal of Nutrition, suggest that trading in some carbs for protein may do dieters good.

For the study, 130 overweight adults were randomly assigned to one of two calorie-restricted diets: the commonly recommended higher-carb diet, with about 15 percent of calories coming from protein, 55 percent from carbohydrates and 30 percent from fats; or a moderate-protein diet where 30 percent of calories came from protein — including lean meat, low-fat dairy and nuts — while 40 percent came from carbs, and 30 percent from fats.

All participants were given menu plans and attended weekly meetings with a dietitian to help them stick with their new lifestyle.

After one year, the average weight loss was similar in the two groups — 23 pounds with the moderate-protein diet, versus roughly 19 pounds with the high-carb diet.

However, the moderate-protein former group lost more fat mass, and had greater improvements in both HDL and triglyceride levels.

The extra protein at each meal helps dieters preserve “metabolically active” muscle mass, explained lead researcher Dr. Donald K. Layman, of the University of Illinois in Urbana. At the same time, he told Reuters Health, the diet’s lower carbohydrate content means lower levels of the blood-sugar-regulating hormone insulin.

So the diet encourages the body to shed more stored fat, according to Layman.

The greater improvement in triglycerides, he said, is largely the result of cutting carbs, which can raise triglyceride levels.

A problem with any diet is that people have to do it right to be successful. In this study, dieters in both groups got a lot of help, with planned menus and weekly educational sessions. Whether people would fare as well on their own is unclear.

“One of the problems with moderate protein diets is that people bring old diet concepts to their approach,” Layman said.

For example, he said, the concept of eating “lots of small meals” throughout the day works when the diet is high-carb, low-fat because people are hungry more often — but it’s a bad idea with a moderate-protein diet.

“The important change is three consistent meals with balance of protein and carbohydrates at each meal,” Layman advised.

“A higher protein diet is not more protein at dinner, but balanced protein at breakfast and lunch.”

SOURCE: Journal of Nutrition, March 2009.

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