Obesi

Canadian youth 4th highest in international obesity study

Canadian youth rank fourth-highest on the obesity scale in a new international study of adolescents from 34 countries, says co-author Dr. Ian Janssen, a professor in Queen's University's School of Physical & Health Education and Department of Community Health & Epidemiology. And sedentary behaviour ?like watching television ?was strongly correlated with being overweight, he adds.</...

Major link in brain-obesity puzzle found

A single protein in brain cells may act as a linchpin in the body’s weight-regulating system, playing a key role in the flurry of signals that govern fat storage, sugar use, energy balance and weight, University of Michigan Medical School researchers report. And although it’s far too early to say how this protein could be useful in new strategies to fight the world’s epidemic of obesity,...

Weight control protein may yield antiobesity drugs

A weight control protein with a key role in the brain's ability to monitor body fat content may yield new approaches for treating obesity and type 2 diabetes, according to a new report in the August issue of Cell Metabolism. The findings in mice further suggest that particular variants of the protein SH2-B might underlie obesity in humans, the researchers said. SH2-B, which has multiple fu...

Contagious obesity? Identifying the human adenoviruses that may make us fat

There is a lot of good advice to help us avoid becoming obese, such as "Eat less," and "Exercise." But here's a new and surprising piece of advice based on a promising area of obesity research: "Wash your hands." There is accumulating evidence that certain viruses may cause obesity, in essence making obesity contagious, according to Leah D. Whigham, the lead researcher in a new study, "Adi...

Study by Einstein researchers could lead to a novel strategy for treating obesity

In their latest finding on the brain's role in controlling appetite and weight, researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine have shown that reducing levels of fatty acids in the hypothalamus causes rats to overeat and become obese. Their results suggest that restoring fatty-acid levels in the brain may be a promising way to treat obesity. The study, published in the January 15th on-lin...

Major obesity gene is 'lost in the shuffle'

Scientists from The University of Tokyo announce today that gibbons, arboreal primates that inhabit the jungles of Southeast Asia, do not carry a major obesity gene that is present in the genomes of all other primates, including humans. This omission is due to a genetic mis-shuffling event that occurred approximately 25 million years ago. Their results are reported in the April issue of the scie...

Sleep deprivation doubles risks of obesity in both children and adults

Research by Warwick Medical School at the University of Warwick has found that sleep deprivation is associated with an almost a two-fold increased risk of being obese for both children and adults. Early results of a study by Professor Francesco Cappuccio of the University of Warwick's Warwick Medical School were presented to the International AC21 Research Festival hosted this month by th...

Higher levels of obesity associated with greater health risks

The health risks for women who are extremely obese may be underestimated as a new study indicates they have a higher prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, and high cholesterol than women at lower levels of obesity, according to a study in the July 5 issue of JAMA. Obesity diagnosis and treatment are typically based on body mass index (BMI) of at least 30. BMI is calculated as weight in kil...

Obesity levels in US are grossly underestimated

Boston, MA ?The prevalence of obesity in the U.S. states has been greatly underestimated. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) analyzed data from health surveys, which are used to estimate obesity levels in states. Because people tend to provide incorrect information about their weight and height, especially in telephone surveys, the researchers concluded that estimates of ob...

Dragonfly's metabolic disease provides clues about human obesity

Parasite-infected dragonflies suffer the same metabolic disorders that have led to an epidemic of obesity and type-2 diabetes in humans, reveal the findings of research conducted at Penn State University that are due to be published in the 5 December 2006 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science and also in the PNAS early online edition at www.pnas...

Magic Beans -- Anti-obesity soya could help prevent diabetes

A diet rich in black soya beans could help control weight, lower fat and cholesterol levels, and aid in the prevention of diabetes, reports Lisa Richards in Chemistry & Industry, the magazine of the SCI. Yellow soya has already been hailed for its cholesterol lowering capabilities; this is one of the reasons why frozen food manufacturer Birds Eye has added the beans to its range. Howev...

Natural gut hormone offers hope for new obesity drug

A hormone found naturally in the gut is the basis of a new drug to tackle obesity, one of three inaugural awards under the Wellcome Trust's Seeding Drug Discovery initiative. The drug is being developed by one of the world's leading obesity experts, Professor Steve Bloom at Imperial College London's Hammersmith Hospital campus. "Over 30,000 deaths a year are caused by obesity in England a...

20-year study shows significant rise in childhood obesity, especially among girls

Four-year-old girls are six times more likely to have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of more than 30 than they were 20 years ago and ten-year-olds are five times more likely, according to research published in the April issue of Acta Paediactrica. Swedish researchers who studied BMI figures for more than a thousand children over two decades discovered that obesity levels had risen significantly a...

Childhood obesity among Quebec Cree raises concerns

Childhood obesity is increasing among the general population in Canada, but the statistics are even more alarming among First Nations, Inuit and Métis children. In a study published recently in the American Journal of Public Health, University of Alberta researchers found that up to 65 per cent of Cree preschoolers in northern Quebec communities were overweight or obese. Dr. Noreen Willows...

In obesity, brain becomes 'unaware' of fat

Critical portions of the brain in those who are obese don’t really know they are overweight, researchers have reported in the March issue of the journal Cell Metabolism, published by Cell Press. These findings in obese mice show that a sensor in the brain that normally detects a critical fat hormone—causing a cascade of events that keeps energy balance in check—fails to engage. Meanwhile, the res...

Fat fish put obesity on the hook

Everyone knows that eating lean fish helps slim waistlines, but researchers from the Center for the Study of Weight Regulation and Associated Disorders at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, OR, have found a new way fish can help eliminate obesity. In a study to be published in the July 2007 print issue of The FASEB Journal, researchers describe the first genetic model of obesity...