One Can of Sugar-Laden Soda Heightens Diabetes Risk
Drinking one extra sugar-sweetened soft drink a day can increase a person’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 22 percent, a new study suggests.
The finding is based on data from 350,000 people in eight European countries and published in Diabetologia, the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/04/one-can-sugar-laden-soda-heightens-diabetes-risk
Childhood and adolescent obesity rates in the United States have increased dramatically in the past three decades. Being obese puts individuals at greater risk for developing Type 2 diabetes, a disease in which individuals have too much sugar in their blood. Now, Univ. of Missouri researchers found vitamin D supplements can help obese children and teens control their blood-sugar levels, which may help them stave off the disease.
“By increasing vitamin D intake alone, we got a response that was nearly as powerful as what we have seen using a prescription drug,” says Catherine Peterson, an associate professor of nutrition and exercise physiology at MU. “We saw a decrease in insulin levels, which means better glucose control, despite no changes in body weight, dietary intake or physical activity.”
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/03/vitamin-d-may-lower-diabetes-risk-obese-youngsters
Early Consumption of Carbs Heightens Obesity Risk
Consumption of foods high in carbohydrates immediately after birth programs individuals for lifelong increased weight gain and obesity, a Univ. at Buffalo animal study has found, even if caloric intake is restricted in adulthood for a period of time.
“This is the first time that we have shown in our rat model of obesity that there is a resistance to the reversal of this programming effect in adult life,” explains Mulchand Patel, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry and associate dean for research and biomedical education in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/03/early-consumption-carbs-heightens-obesity-risk
Obesity Gene is Risk Factor for Cancer
The gene most strongly linked to obesity and overeating may also increase the risk of malignant melanoma — the most deadly skin cancer, reveals research published in Nature Genetics.
Cancer Research UK scientists at the Univ. of Leeds showed that people with particular variations in a stretch of DNA within the FTO gene, called intron 8, could be at greater risk of developing melanoma.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/03/obesity-gene-risk-factor-cancer
Losing Weight While Younger is Better for the Heart
In a study of the impact of weight loss on reversing heart damage from obesity, Johns Hopkins researchers found that poor heart function in young obese mice can be reversed when the animals lose weight from a low-calorie diet. However, older mice, who had been obese for a longer period of time, did not regain better heart function after they were on the same low-calorie diet.
“Our research indicates that the longer mice are obese, the greater the risk that their heart damage is irreversible,” says Majd AlGhatrif, the first author of the study and an assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins Univ. School of Medicine.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/03/losing-weight-while-younger-better-heart
Wal-Mart is putting special labels on some store-brand products to help shoppers quickly spot healthier items. Millions of schoolchildren are helping themselves to vegetables from salad bars in their lunchrooms, while kids’ meals at Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants automatically come with a side of fruit or vegetables and a glass of low-fat milk.
The changes put in place by the food industry are in response to the campaign against childhood obesity that Michelle Obama began waging three years ago. More changes are in store.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/02/anti-obesity-campaign-prompts-change
Old Drug Points to New Treatments for Diabetes, Obesity
Researchers at the Univ. of Michigan’s Life Sciences Institute have found that amlexanox, an off-patent drug currently prescribed for the treatment of asthma and other uses, also reverses obesity, diabetes and fatty liver in mice. The findings from the lab of Alan Saltiel, the director of the Life Sciences Institute, are published online in the journal Nature Medicine.
“One of the reasons that diets are so ineffective in producing weight loss for some people is that their bodies adjust to the reduced calories by also reducing their metabolism, so that they are ‘defending’ their body weight,” Saltiel says. “Amlexanox seems to tweak the metabolic response to excessive calorie storage in mice.”
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/02/old-drug-points-new-treatments-diabetes-obesity
Rules Aim to Eliminate Junk Food from Schools
Most candy, high-calorie drinks and greasy meals could soon be on a food blacklist in the nation’s schools. For the first time, the government is proposing broad new standards to make sure all foods sold in schools are more healthful.
Under the new rules the Agriculture Department proposed, foods like fatty chips, snack cakes, nachos and mozzarella sticks would be taken out of lunch lines and vending machines. In their place would be foods like baked chips, trail mix, diet sodas, lower-calorie sports drinks and low-fat hamburgers. The rules, required under a child nutrition law passed by Congress in 2010, are part of the government’s effort to combat childhood obesity. While many schools already have improved their lunch menus and vending machine choices, others still are selling high-fat, high-calorie foods.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/02/rules-aim-eliminate-junk-food-schools
Obesity Study May Be Tainted by Authors’ Financial Associations
Fact or fiction? Sex burns a lot of calories. Snacking or skipping breakfast is bad. School gym classes make a big difference in kids’ weight. All are myths or at least presumptions that may not be true, say researchers who reviewed the science behind some widely held obesity beliefs and found it lacking. Their report in today’s New England Journal of Medicine says dogma and fallacies are detracting from real solutions to the nation’s weight problems.
“The evidence is what matters,” and many feel-good ideas repeated by well-meaning health experts just don’t have it, says the lead author, David Allison, a biostatistician at the Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham. Independent researchers say the authors have some valid points. But many of the report’s authors also have deep financial ties to food, beverage and weight-loss product makers — the disclosures take up half a page of fine print in the journal.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/01/obesity-study-may-be-tainted-authors%E2%80%99-financial-associations
Exposing pregnant mice to low doses of the chemical tributyltin – which is used in marine hull paint and PVC plastic – can lead to obesity for multiple generations without subsequent exposure, a UC Irvine study has found. After exposing pregnant mice to TBT in concentrations similar to those found in the environment, researchers saw increased body fat, liver fat and fat-specific gene expression in their “children,” “grandchildren” and “great-grandchildren” – none of which had been exposed to the chemical.
These findings suggest that early-life exposure to endocrine-disrupting compounds such as TBT can have permanent effects of fat accumulation without further exposure, says study leader Bruce Blumberg, UC Irvine professor of pharmaceutical sciences and developmental and cell biology. These effects appear to be inherited without DNA mutations occurring.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/01/fetal-exposure-pvc-linked-obesity
Coca-Cola to Address Obesity
Coca-Cola became one of the world’s most powerful brands by equating its soft drinks with happiness. Now it’s taking to the airwaves for the first time to address a growing cloud over the industry: obesity.
The Atlanta-based company will today begin airing a two-minute spot during the highest-rated shows on CNN, Fox News and MSNBC in hopes of becoming a stronger voice in the intensifying debate over sodas and their impact on public health. The ad lays out Coca-Cola’s record of providing drinks with fewer calories over the years and notes that weight gain is the result of consuming too many calories of any kind — not just soda.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/01/coca-cola-address-obesity
Parasite Treat Diseases Associated with Obesity
On the list of undesirable medical conditions, a parasitic worm infection surely ranks fairly high. Although modern pharmaceuticals have made them less of a threat in some areas, these organisms are still a major cause of disease and disability throughout much of the developing world.
But parasites are not all bad, according to new research by a team of scientists now at the Univ. of Georgia, the Harvard School of Public Health, the Université François Rabelais in Tours, France, and the Central South Univ., Changsha, Hunan, China. A study published recently in Nature Medicine demonstrates that once inside a host, many parasitic worms secrete a sugar-based anti-inflammatory molecule that might actually help treat metabolic disorders associated with obesity.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/01/parasite-treat-diseases-associated-obesity
Few Americans Know All Obesity Risks
Heart disease and diabetes get all the attention, but what about the many other ways obesity can damage your health?
Carrying too many pounds may lead to or worsen some types of cancer, arthritis, sleep apnea, even infertility. But a new poll suggests few Americans realize the links. Only about one-quarter of people think it’s possible for someone to be very overweight and still healthy, according to the poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/01/few-americans-know-all-obesity-risks
As part of their ongoing research on the physiologic factors that contribute to the development of obesity, Joslin Diabetes Center scientists have identified a cell cycle transcriptional co-regulator – TRIP-Br2 – that plays a major role in energy metabolism and fat storage. This finding has the potential to lead to new treatments for obesity. The study is being published ahead of print by Nature Medicine.
Transcriptional co-regulators manage the expression of DNA, either by activating or suppressing the expression of genes. TRIP-Br2 regulates metabolic genes involved in fat storage and energy metabolism. Joslin scientists are actively involved in studying the regulation of the many factors that control the storage, mobilization and utilization of excess energy in adipocytes (fat cells).
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/01/cell-discovery-key-new-obesity-treatment
When a woman is postmenopausal and overweight, losing weight is a good thing, but gaining back just a few pounds may actually be detrimental to her cardiovascular health. New research from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center found that gaining weight back after intentional weight loss is associated with negative long-term effects on some cardiometabolic (CM) risk factors in postmenopausal women.
In this paper, published online by the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, lead authors Daniel Beavers and Kristen Beavers wanted to look at how weight regain affects health risk in these women. The researchers looked specifically at CM risk factors – a cluster of risk factors that are indicators of a person’s overall risk for type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. They include blood pressure, HDL and LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, fasting glucose and insulin.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2012/12/gaining-weight-back-dangerous-women
