Health and Fitness Blog

TUESDAY, Aug. 31 (HealthDay News) -- Exercise can reduce a person's genetic predisposition to obesity by 40 percent, finds a new English study.

Researchers looked at 20,430 people in Norwich and focused on genetic variants known to increase the risk of obesity. Most people had inherited 10 to 13 of these variants from their parents, but some had more than 17 while others had fewer than six.

The participants also provided information about their levels of physical activity.

Overall, each additional obesity-related genetic variant was associated with an increase in body mass index (BMI) equivalent to 445 grams (0.98 pounds) for a person 1.70 meters (5 feet, 6 inches) tall. BMI is a measurement that takes into account a person's height and weight.

However, this effect was greater in sedentary people than in active people, the researchers found. For those with a physically active lifestyle the increase was 379 grams (0.84 pounds) per genetic variant. That's 36 percent less than the increase of 592 grams (1.3 pounds) per genetic variant for inactive people.

The researchers also found that each additional obesity susceptibility variant increased the odds of obesity by 1.1-fold. But this risk was 40 percent lower for active people compared to inactive people, the findings revealed.

The study shows that adopting a healthy lifestyle can benefit people at increased genetic risk of obesity, the authors explained.

"Our findings further emphasize the importance of physical activity in the prevention of obesity," Dr. Ruth Loos, of the Medical Research Council's epidemiology unit in Cambridge and colleagues wrote in the article published online this week in PLoS Medicine.

More information

The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute offers a guide to physical activity.

Source

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Physical exercise can reduce a genetic predisposition to obesity by an average of 40 percent, a new study showed.

The research challenges the notion that an inherited propensity to obesity is impossible to overcome and boosts the case for the benefit of more exercise for anyone looking to shed some weight.

The study, published in this week's Public Library of American Science Medicine journal, is based on examination of 20,430 people living in Norwich, Britain.

It found most of the study's participants inherited between 10 and 13 genetic variants known to increase the risk of obesity, with some inheriting as many as 17 variants, and others as few as six.

Using modelling techniques, the researchers found that each genetic variant was linked to an increase in body mass index (BMI) -- a measure of body size based on both height and weight.

"Each additional genetic variant in the score was associated with an increase in BMI equivalent to 445 grams (1.6 ounces) in body weight for a person 1.70 meters (5.7 feet)," the study said.

For physically active individuals, the increase was just 379 grams (13 ounces).

That was "36 percent lower than in physically inactive individuals in whom the increase was 592 grams (21 ounces) per variant," the research found.

Each additional variant also raised the individual's chances of obesity 1.1-fold, but in physically active individuals, "the increased odds per variant for obesity risk were 40 percent lower."

Ruth Loos of Britain's Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit, who carried out the research, said the study "challenged deterministic view of the genetic predisposition to obesity."

"Our findings further emphasize the importance of physical activity in the prevention of obesity," Loos said.

Source

TUESDAY, Aug. 31 (HealthDay News) -- Exercise can reduce a person's genetic predisposition to obesity by 40 percent, finds a new English study.

Researchers looked at 20,430 people in Norwich and focused on genetic variants known to increase the risk of obesity. Most people had inherited 10 to 13 of these variants from their parents, but some had more than 17 while others had fewer than six.

The participants also provided information about their levels of physical activity.

Overall, each additional obesity-related genetic variant was associated with an increase in body mass index (BMI) equivalent to 445 grams (0.98 pounds) for a person 1.70 meters (5 feet, 6 inches) tall. BMI is a measurement that takes into account a person's height and weight.

However, this effect was greater in sedentary people than in active people, the researchers found. For those with a physically active lifestyle the increase was 379 grams (0.84 pounds) per genetic variant. That's 36 percent less than the increase of 592 grams (1.3 pounds) per genetic variant for inactive people.

The researchers also found that each additional obesity susceptibility variant increased the odds of obesity by 1.1-fold. But this risk was 40 percent lower for active people compared to inactive people, the findings revealed.

The study shows that adopting a healthy lifestyle can benefit people at increased genetic risk of obesity, the authors explained.

"Our findings further emphasize the importance of physical activity in the prevention of obesity," Dr. Ruth Loos, of the Medical Research Council's epidemiology unit in Cambridge and colleagues wrote in the article published online this week in PLoS Medicine.

More information

The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute offers a guide to physical activity.

Source

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Losing the weight gained during pregnancy is a real struggle for many new mothers. But dropping just 10 pounds between pregnancies may help many women diagnosed with a dangerous complication during the first pregnancy to avoid a recurrence the second time around.

Preeclampsia, which is characterized by high blood pressure, protein in the urine and swelling, occurs in about 5 percent of American pregnancies every year.

"It can be more systemic than just high blood pressure. It can affect the liver, kidneys and the body's blood clotting system," Dr. Dorothea Mostello told Reuters Health. It's one of the leading causes of maternal death in childbirth in the developed world, she added.

Mostello, based at the St. Louis School of Medicine, is lead author of a new study in the September issue of the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Mostello and colleagues wanted to know if women could do anything to reduce their risk of a recurrence during a second pregnancy.

Previous research by the team showed that pre-pregnancy weight is one of the "strongest risk factors for recurrence." Because other research suggests that losing even a small amount of weight offers health benefits, such as reduced risk of heart disease, they wanted to know if it would reduce the risk of preeclampsia too.

They analyzed the medical records of nearly 18,000 Missouri women who gave birth twice between 1989 and 2005 and developed preeclampsia during the first pregnancy.

Before their second pregnancies, 1417 of the women had weighed less than before their first, 8,783 had remained about the same, and 8,798 had weighed more. The women who maintained their weights were used as the control group.

Overall, about 16 percent of these Missouri women developed preeclampsia during their second pregnancies. Of the women who had lost weight between pregnancies, 13 percent had a recurrence while 15 percent of women who maintained their weight and nearly 19 percent of those who gained weight had a recurrence.

Small changes in maternal weight between pregnancies -- as little as 10 pounds for an average height overweight woman -- "significantly alter the risk of preeclampsia recurrence," across all weight categories, the authors note.

"If you are overweight and you lose weight, your rate (of preeclampsia recurrence) is as low as someone in the normal weight category, and if you are overweight and gain weight, your rate is as high as someone in the obese category. Similarly, if normal weight people gain weight they have as high a risk as overweight people," Mostello said.

Researchers don't know why some women develop preeclampsia and others don't. Being African American appears to be a risk factor, so is being overweight or obese. While a woman can't do anything about her genetics, she may be able to reduce her risk of a recurrence by "modest, generally achievable degrees of weight loss before pregnancy," the authors conclude.

Few options exist for lowering a woman's risk of developing preeclampsia in her second pregnancy, the authors write. Losing weight between pregnancies "is the most reasonable measure to meaningfully lower the risk," they conclude.

"Most weight-loss programs can get you a 10 or 15 pound weight loss," Mostello said.

The findings also underscore the need for uninterrupted healthcare between pregnancies, Mostello said. "This is the period where we can make a real difference," she said.

SOURCE: http://link.reuters.com/cyg77n Obstetrics & Gynecology September 2010.

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RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Brazilians' waistlines are bulging, belying the country's image as a place of buff sun worshipers and lithe soccer players.

Nearly half of adult Brazilians are overweight and about 15 percent are obese, Brazil's IBGE social statistics agency said on Friday, citing the results of a national study carried out with the Health Ministry.

Among 20- to 24-year-olds, the percentage of men who were overweight jumped to 50.1 percent from 18.5 percent in a survey carried out in 1974, while the percentage of overweight women rose to 48 percent from 28.7 percent.

"We are in a situation of absolute red alert," Brazil's Health Minister Jose Gomes Temporao told reporters in beach-side Rio de Janeiro.

"If we stay at this pace, in 10 years we will have two-third of the population overweight (or obese), as has happened in the United States."

Incomes in Brazil have been rising rapidly in recent years as Latin America's largest country enjoys a prolonged economic boom that has lifted millions out of poverty.

The IBGE did not give reasons for Brazilians' expanding girth but said the biggest incidence was found among higher-income men, older people and in the wealthier south of the country.

"The excess of weight and obesity is a growing phenomenon that is happening everywhere (in Brazil)," said Marcia Quintsler, the IBGE's coordinator. "This information on obesity shows that clearly."

One in three Brazilian children between 5 and 9 years old was above the weight recommended by the World Health Organization, it said.

The IBGE said 49 percent of adult Brazilians were overweight in 2009, based on the body mass index that is calculated from a person's height and weight. That is more than the third of Americans defined as overweight.

The Brazilian obesity rate of 15 percent is still well below the U.S. rate of nearly 27 percent.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Viga Gaier and Stuart Grudgings; Editing by Bill Trott)

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LONDON (AFP) – British health campaigners warned Friday that surgery was being seen as an easy option to tackle obesity after new figures showed weight-loss operations have soared here in the past five years.

Figures from the state-run National Health Service's Information Centre showed 4,246 procedures for obesity were carried out in England in 2008-9, up from 480 in 2003-4 -- an increase of 785 percent.

"These figures just show how bad things have got with the obesity epidemic," said Tam Fry of the National Obesity Forum, which seeks to raise awareness of the impact that growing rates of obesity have on the NHS.

He warned people were turning to surgery rather than trying to shed the weight naturally, saying: "We have alternative ways of losing weight but when people realise this is a possibility, they could go for it.

"A lot of doctors are also starting to skirt around the rules and not insist on months of lifestyle change and pharmaceutical treatment -- instead they are going straight for surgery."

But supporters of weight-loss operations argue they save the health service money, as obese people are at greater risk of dying or being hospitalised, and can suffer from a range of related illnesses.

Procedures include having a gastric band fitted, known as bariatric surgery, which reduces the size of the stomach, and a gastric bypass, where the small intestine is re-routed towards a small stomach pouch.

Peter Sedman, bariatric surgeon and spokesman for the Royal College of Surgeons, said: "The number of morbidly obese patients in the UK is increasing rapidly and we need to continue to put even more resources into what is proven to be a successful and cost-effective method of treatment.

"The burden on the NHS in years to come in obesity-related illness will otherwise be overwhelming."

A similar increase in surgery was recorded in a study published in the British Medical Journal on Friday. The researchers attributed part of this to an improved awareness among patients of surgery as a viable treatment option.

The NHS recommends surgery only for the morbidly obese -- people with a body mass index (BMI) of 40 or more -- and patients must have failed first on other methods, such as traditional diets.

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LONDON (Reuters) – Use of weight-loss surgery has increased 10-fold in hospitals in England since 2000 and those who have gastric bands fitted can reduce their risk of early death and cut health service costs, scientists said on Friday.

In a study published in the British Medical Journal, researchers said one reason for the rapid rise in weight-loss procedures, or bariatric surgery, was increased demand from obese patients as they become more aware of surgery as a viable treatment option.

Bariatric surgery is performed on people who are dangerously obese, as a way of trying to help them lose weight.

The idea is to reduce the size of the stomach, either with a gastric band or a gastric bypass that re-routes the small intestines to a small stomach pouch, or by removing a portion of the stomach.

A team of researchers based at Imperial College London analyzed data on weight-loss surgery for the NHS in England between April 2000 and March 2008 and found that a total of 6,953 bariatric procedures were carried during that time.

The number of operations rose more than 10-fold from 238 in 2000 to 2,543 in 2007, they said in a report of their findings.

Analyzing outcomes for patients at 30 months and one year after surgery, the researchers found that those who had gastric banding had lower post-surgery death rates and had to be readmitted to hospital less and for shorter times than patients who had gastric bypass operations.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which assesses the cost effectiveness of medical treatments for the NHS, recommends bariatric surgery for people with "morbid obesity."

This includes people with a body mass index (BMI) of at least 40, and those who have a BMI of at least 35 and are also suffering from other diseases that could be improved by weight loss.

BMI is equal to weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Steve Addison)

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PARIS (AFP) – Michel Montignac, author of worldwide best-sellers on weight loss in the 1980s and 1990s, has died aged 66, French officials said Thursday.

Montignac, who died last weekend, developed a crash diet based on never eating "bad" carbohydrates at the same time as fats after suffering from obesity himself as a child and battling persistent weight gain.

After testing the principle of disassociating the two on himself, losing 30 pounds (13.6 kilogrammes) in less than three months, he wrote "Dine Out and Lose Weight" in 1986, a book that shot to the top of the best-seller list in France where it sold half a million copies.

The following year he released his most well-known book "Eat Yourself Slim and Stay Slim", which sold millions of copies in 40 countries, according to his website.

His weight-loss recipe classifies carbohydrate-rich foods according to a glycemic index (GI), based on their effect on blood glucose levels after meals.

"Bad" high-GI carbs may not be taken together with fats as Montignac believed these combinations would lead to fats in the food being stored as body fat.

France's latest diet guru is Pierre Dukan, whose slimming plan that kicks off with a "protein only" attack phase is selling by the armload in bookshops.

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WEDNESDAY, Aug. 25 (HealthDay News) -- If you think a few weeks of slothful behavior and caloric overindulgence can be easily worked off at the gym, think again.

New Swedish research suggests that just a month's worth of unhealthy living changes physiology, making piled-on fat even harder to lose.

"A short period of [over-eating] can have later long-term effects," said study co-author Dr. Torbjorn Lindstrom, an associate professor in the department of medical and health sciences within the faculty of health sciences at Linkoping University. "Based on this, it can be recommended to avoid very high food-intake that might occur during shorter periods in normal life."

Lindstrom and his colleagues report their findings in the current issue of Nutrition & Metabolism. They focused on 18 normal-weight healthy participants (12 men and six women), averaging 26 years of age.

For one month, all 18 were placed on a restricted physical activity regimen that involved the equivalent of no more than 5,000 steps per day. Five thousand steps, the team noted, is the threshold for a "sedentary" lifestyle, whereas a "physically active" lifestyle involved 10,000 steps or more.

In addition, participants embarked on diets involving a 70 percent jump in daily caloric intake -- mainly from fast food -- amounting to about 5,750 calories ingested per day. The research also included a comparison group who did not change their diet/activity.

By the end of the month, the feasting group gained an average of 14 pounds. Their fat mass, specifically, was found to have gone up from about 20 percent of total body weight, to nearly 24 percent after the month-long intervention.

Participants lost most (more than 10 pounds) of that new weight over the ensuing six months. However, one year after the study's end, participants still registered a noticeable gain in fat mass (of about 3 pounds on average) compared with their pre-study status.

This fat stuck around despite the fact that the participants had returned to their lower-calorie pre-study diet and more active routines.

Two-and-a-half years after the study, fat mass gains were even greater, registering just under 7 pounds on average, the researchers found. There was no such long-term change among the control group who had stuck to their usual diet.

Based on the findings, the researchers conclude that a brief period of excessive over-eating, coupled with reined-in activity, may change body composition and lead to a significant boost in in body fat levels. And these changes appear to endure, despite a return to healthier behaviors.

Study author Asa Ernersson, a doctoral candidate at the university, said it's tough to tell whether older individuals might be impacted any more or less than younger people.

"Of, course there is a possibility that age has an important role for losing body weight gained after a short term period of overindulgence," he said. "But from this study we cannot draw any such conclusions, since most of the participants were between 20 and 30 years old."

Both Lindstrom and Ernersson said that more research exploring such questions is needed.

More information

For more on healthy eating, visit the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Source

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 25 (HealthDay News) -- If you think a few weeks of slothful behavior and caloric overindulgence can be easily worked off at the gym, think again.

New Swedish research suggests that just a month's worth of unhealthy living changes physiology, making piled-on fat even harder to lose.

"A short period of [over-eating] can have later long-term effects," said study co-author Dr. Torbjorn Lindstrom, an associate professor in the department of medical and health sciences within the faculty of health sciences at Linkoping University. "Based on this, it can be recommended to avoid very high food-intake that might occur during shorter periods in normal life."

Lindstrom and his colleagues report their findings in the current issue of Nutrition & Metabolism. They focused on 18 normal-weight healthy participants (12 men and six women), averaging 26 years of age.

For one month, all 18 were placed on a restricted physical activity regimen that involved the equivalent of no more than 5,000 steps per day. Five thousand steps, the team noted, is the threshold for a "sedentary" lifestyle, whereas a "physically active" lifestyle involved 10,000 steps or more.

In addition, participants embarked on diets involving a 70 percent jump in daily caloric intake -- mainly from fast food -- amounting to about 5,750 calories ingested per day. The research also included a comparison group who did not change their diet/activity.

By the end of the month, the feasting group gained an average of 14 pounds. Their fat mass, specifically, was found to have gone up from about 20 percent of total body weight, to nearly 24 percent after the month-long intervention.

Participants lost most (more than 10 pounds) of that new weight over the ensuing six months. However, one year after the study's end, participants still registered a noticeable gain in fat mass (of about 3 pounds on average) compared with their pre-study status.

This fat stuck around despite the fact that the participants had returned to their lower-calorie pre-study diet and more active routines.

Two-and-a-half years after the study, fat mass gains were even greater, registering just under 7 pounds on average, the researchers found. There was no such long-term change among the control group who had stuck to their usual diet.

Based on the findings, the researchers conclude that a brief period of excessive over-eating, coupled with reined-in activity, may change body composition and lead to a significant boost in in body fat levels. And these changes appear to endure, despite a return to healthier behaviors.

Study author Asa Ernersson, a doctoral candidate at the university, said it's tough to tell whether older individuals might be impacted any more or less than younger people.

"Of, course there is a possibility that age has an important role for losing body weight gained after a short term period of overindulgence," he said. "But from this study we cannot draw any such conclusions, since most of the participants were between 20 and 30 years old."

Both Lindstrom and Ernersson said that more research exploring such questions is needed.

More information

For more on healthy eating, visit the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Source