[Michaelangelica]

This explains Obesity in los Angeles?

FEET OBSOLETE? SDSU tests view that we're plump partly because neighborhoods not 'walkable'

By Kelly Thornton
STAFF WRITER

May 19, 2001


Krispy Kreme doughnuts, triple bacon cheeseburgers and stuffed-crust pizza all play their part.

But for the first time anywhere, researchers at San Diego State University are testing an offbeat theory to explain why Americans are the fattest people on the planet: suburban sprawl.

As modern suburbs have expanded, so has the nation's waistline, and researchers believe the exodus from urban centers -- where stores, restaurants, homes and schools are clustered together -- is partly to blame.

"If there's nowhere to walk in your neighborhood, why are you going to walk? We've taken the purposes out of walking," said SDSU professor James Sallis, who is leading the experiment. "The use of land now is based on what is best for cars."
http://phaster.com/u...t_obsolete.html

plastics the problem:-
/
Early puberty: Obesity, environment suspected

WASHINGTON (AP) — Parents come to Dr. Gilbert August mystified: Their little girls, around age 8 and sometimes younger, already are showing unmistakable signs of puberty.

"They say, 'My God, she's too young, do something,"' August says.

Endocrinologists say they're seeing more girls with precocious sexual development, and some medical studies suggest the baffling trend is real, that the beginning signs of puberty are showing up earlier in today's girls than their mothers.

How early? At age 8, almost half of black girls and 15% of white girls start developing breasts or pubic hair. At 9, those numbers reach 77% of black girls and a third of whites.

More striking, 27% of black girls and 7% of whites develop these early puberty signs at age 7 — the second grade — according to a landmark puberty study.

Until recently, doctors and parents didn't expect to see budding breasts until around age 10.

Nobody knows what's causing the shift. Fat is the leading theory, because childhood obesity has doubled in the last 20 years and body fat certainly can spur hormones. Some scientists are hunting environmental culprits, and point to a small study from Puerto Rico — where early breast development is such a problem that it can begin at the stunning age of 2 — that casts suspicion on certain chemicals in cosmetics and plastics.

environmentalists' concern that fetal exposure to certain chemicals, particularly byproducts of plastics and cosmetics called phthalates, could disrupt girls' normal hormone function. They cite a study in Puerto Rico, which has bafflingly high rates of early breast development, that found higher phthalate levels in the blood of 41 early-developing girls — some as young as 2 — than in 35 normal girls.
http://www.usatoday....rly-puberty.htm


Move to the country???

In rural school districts, however, 20% of students were considered obese.

More alarmingly, researchers found that during the years of the survey, between 1999 and 2001, the number of obese students in rural school districts rose about 5%, more than twice the rate of their urban counterparts.

The same trends are being reported from New Mexico to Michigan to West Virginia.

In Michigan, children in rural areas were 3% to 9% more likely to be obese, researchers found. In rural North Carolina children had a 50% greater chance of being obese.
http://www.usatoday....d-obesity_x.htm

[Michaelangelica]

Drugs?
Lyrica and weight gain
Hi,
I started taking Lyrica (at a very low dose) about 2 weeks ago and have gained 7 pounds! Plus, it's making me forgetful and my thought process is dull. Has anyone else experienced this? I'm going to go off it, since it's the only thing I can attribute to this.
http://www.lyrica.com/

[Michaelangelica]

FROM

http://www.abc.net.a...06/s1659789.htm

WA researchers make breast, prostate cancer breakthrough
P
PM - Friday, 9 June , 2006 18:50:00
Reporter: David Weber
MARK COLVIN: Researchers in Western Australia have discovered a gene which could lead to new treatments in breast and prostate cancer, as well as diabetes and obesity.

The gene is called SLIRP, Slirp for short, and it's been identified as having the potential to shut down the hormones that keep cancer cells alive.

The research team says that in the near term the discovery should lead to lower doses of current cancer therapies like radiation.

But the secrets of SLIRP are still being unlocked.

David Weber reports.

DAVID WEBER: The Director of the WA Institute for Medical Research, Peter Klinken, says the identification of SLIRP is achieving worldwide recognition.

PETER KLINKEN: From my perspective, I think it's the most exciting discovery that the institute has made, certainly over the last two years.

It's internationally recognised as a major breakthrough, and to be perfectly honest we're just incredibly proud that Peter and his team have achieved this.

DAVID WEBER: Professor Peter Leedman says his team detected SLIRP using RNA, ribonucleic acid, as opposed to a protein. Proteins are what scientists often employ to find new genes.

Professor Leedman says that until today SLIRP was described as a hypothetical molecule.

PETER LEEDMAN: It's a very interesting molecule that seems to be involved in turning down the pathways that lead to proliferation of breast and prostate cancer cells.

So in particular, SLIRP can turn down the oestrogen signalling pathway that's fundamental for making breast cancer cells grow, and also the androgen, or testosterone, signalling pathway that makes prostate cancer cells grow

DAVID WEBER: Will radiation treatment still be required?

PETER LEEDMAN: Absolutely. I think the approach to cancer therapy now, and over the next 10 years, we're realising that patients really need multiple modalities. And radiotherapy and chemotherapy still have an incredibly important role.

What some of the new drugs that are going to be used and discovered in the next 10 years will enable will be hopefully lower doses of both of these modalities and more specific and targeted therapies, so that we can predict the women who are likely to respond and who may not need as much radiotherapy or chemotherapy as before.

DAVID WEBER: As well as slowing tumour growth, SLIRP has other functions.

It was found in the body tissues that require the most energy, such as the heart, the liver, the testes and skeletal muscle.

SLIRP regulates energy balance and may be involved in fat metabolism.

Professor Leedman says SLIRP is now being scrutinised from a variety of angles. He says eventually it could be added back to muscles to prevent weight gain.

PETER LEEDMAN: It clearly is going to have a role in cancer, but it also has a role in normal tissues. And the normal tissues, how it's going to be involved in regulating energy balance is critical. And it's a challenge for us to work that out. It could be good in some cells of the body and bad in others.

And it certainly has two different guises: one substantial role in cancer, that is the hormone dependent cancers, breast and prostate, but also, and most challenging for us and interesting, especially with the obesity epidemic we have in the population, is to work out its role in skeletal, muscle and heart.

DAVID WEBER: How long before the treatments for prostate cancer and breast cancer are available?

PETER LEEDMAN: The current work, where we're looking at about 600 women at Royal Perth Hospital who've had breast cancer, and we're analysing how abundant SLIRP is in those people, potentially that could be a test that would be offered within a couple of years. Because if it was able to help us predict who was going to respond to Tamoxifen, who's going to relapse, who might have a poor outcome, then it would be a very useful addition to the therapeutic tests that we currently have for breast cancer.

So that's a reasonably short time.

DAVID WEBER: Professor Leedman also says the three-dimensional structure of the gene needs to be solved, and that may take five to 10 years. He hopes it won't be that long.

MARK COLVIN: David Weber.

[InfiniteNow]

Michaelangelica,

I see you were trained in the Racoon school of posting... :hihi:

[Michaelangelica]

InfiniteNow said:

Michaelangelica,

I see you were trained in the Racoon school of posting... :hihi:

yep I keep posting to me for myself to read and then me to post back to so myself can read the post that me has posted.

[Michaelangelica]

Fructose has been hypothesized to cause obesity [2], elevated LDL cholesterol and triglycerides, leading to metabolic syndrome. Unlike animal experiments, some human experiments have failed to show a correlation between fructose consumption and obesity. Short term tests, lack of dietary control, and lack of a non-fructose consuming control group are all confounding factors in human experiments. However, there are now a number of reports showing correlation of fructose consumption to obesity, especially central obesity which is generally regarded as the most dangerous type. (Wylie-Rosett, 2004)(Havel, 2005)(Bray, 2004) (Dennison, 1997)

Foods with high fructose content

Foods with a high fructose content include:

* apples
* coconut milk
* fruit juice (especially from from apples and pears)
* guavas
* high fructose corn syrup (present in some soft drinks, and used to make sushi rice stick together)
* honey
* lychees
* mangos
* melons
* pawpaws
* pears
* persimmons
* quince

[edit]

Foods with high fructan content

Chains of fructose molecules, known as fructans occur naturally in many foods. The following foods have a high fructan content:

* artichokes
* asparagus
* green beans
* leeks
* onions (including spring onion)
* wheat (including most beers, breads, cakes, biscuits, breakfast cereals, pies, pastas, pizzas, and some noodles)
FROM WIKEPEDIA

[Michaelangelica]

Sleep isorders may be implicated in obesity

http://www.twincitie...ws/14850332.htm

The Riverside center was first created for bariatric patients, who have easier recoveries if their apnea is treated before their weight-loss surgeries, said Fairview's Wanda Teply. But interest quickly increased.

"Snoring isn't a joke," Teply said. "People laugh about it. But just as you wouldn't laugh about chest pain in the middle of the night, you shouldn't laugh about snoring."

Sleep specialists or pulmonologists refer patients for sleep studies once they have ruled out other problems such as insomnia or poor sleeping habits. Daytime exhaustion is a classic symptom of sleep apnea, and obesity is a common clue. Extra weight can cause apnea by applying excess pressure on the airway during sleep.

Some sleep-disorder patients are misdiagnosed with depression and given antidepressant drugs that actually worsen their condition.

The renewed focus on sleep disorders is welcome, but the spending on plush furnishings bothers Dr. Mark Mahowald, an internationally known sleep-disorder expert at Hennepin County Medical Center.

Minnesota now has more than 200 beds dedicated to sleep studies — including a handful of for-profit facilities. Mahowald worries centers will fill their beds by recruiting patients whose sleep disorders don't require such sensitive and expensive diagnostic tests. He also criticizes centers that only diagnose sleep apnea and don't offer treatment services or delve into other rare, but severe, sleep disorders.

[Michaelangelica]

So,
You miss a meal, less food,
you get thinner.
Right?

Wrong!
Missing meals can make you fat according to
the
(would you believe it)
"The NSW Centre for Overweight and Obesity"

http://www.coo.healt...pans_report.pdf

Summary
Eating patterns are reasonable for the majority of
students.
However, a significant number skip meals.
This is associated with other poor eating patterns, and
with overweight and obesity.


There is a slight association between poor eating
patterns and low socioeconomic status.

[Michaelangelica]

http://www.asso.org.au/home

Prevalence of obesity in adults aged 25-64

http://www.asso.org.au/home
We seem to be making a lot of assumptions about Obesity which are not being born out by the science.
EG
too much maccas and KFC
not so
a recent study of NSW school children showed they averaged one visit a week to take away like KFC
What is happening is alot of people are becoming alarmed.(see http://www.abc.net.a...ids/default.htm -below is quote)
What can explain the above chart?
We need to fully explore some of the more unintuitive, off-the -wall theories I have posted here, not rely on our prejudices or pat answers.
Here is another

Quote

There is some evidence to suggest that an absence of breastfeeding, and/or low birth weight, can contribute to a child developing excess weight, but the link is poorly understood.

Quote

http://www.abc.net.a...ids/default.htm
Effects of obesity

Although diabetes is just one potential outcome of obesity, it is one of the most prevalent and serious. It is estimated that by 2010 there will be 230 million people with type 2 diabetes worldwide. Currently, around a thousand Australians are diagnosed with the condition each week.

A few decades ago, the disease was generally the product of middle-age weight gain. Today, the major increase is among children. This is a major concern, not only for the related cardiovascular problems (hypertension, heart disease and stroke) but also because many treatments for the disease, apart from insulin, have not been tested on young people.

Other conditions linked to obesity are:

* depression
* low self-esteem
* hypertension
* musculo-skeletal problems
* sleep apnoea
* breast cancer, endometrial cancer, colon cancer
* gall bladder disease
* asthma
* menstrual abnormalities
* high cholesterol
* shorter lifespan.

And just because someone is obese does not mean they are well fed. Obese people often suffer from deficiencies of vitamins and minerals such as iron and vitamin A.

We also assume, wrongly again, that this is just a problem of the west

Quote

A global epidemic

According to the World Health Organization, close to 18 million children and 200 million adults around the world were obese in 1995. As of 2003, there are an estimated 300 million obese adults worldwide. And obesity is not just a product of the western world. In fact, developing countries hold around one-third of the world's obese population.

[Michaelangelica]

We may have a jab for fat soon?
The Borna Virus has been cracked?
http://www.scenta.co....content_view_1

Quote

Quote

"Small agents that bind to the protein in such a way to block its flexibility and keep it in the closed state would prevent replication of the virus and would stop it from spreading."

Rabies virus shares this protection strategy with other viruses of its class: similar complexes of RNA and nucleoproteins have been found in Ebola, measles, rabies and Borna virus.

[CerebralEcstasy]

Has anyone stated the obvious?

We all know that one pound of fat is equivalent to 3500 calories.

Each person requires a set amount of nutrients/vitamins/minerals for the metabolic processes of the body.

A person with a requirement of 2200 calories per day will gain on average 1 lb per week by simply consuming 500 more calories than their daily limit.

This is the main reason why we're getting fat.

When you think about it, the process of getting slimmer isn't as daunting a task as one would think. Small changes over a number of months produce awesome results.

For instance, if you were to remove 500 calories each day for a week, you would lose 1 lb per week. This over the course of a month equals 4lbs, multiply that by 12 and voila you have 48lbs gone.

When you break it down to its simplest form, there is no reason as to why we should be obese. Not withstanding some of the other reasons mentioned prior - ie thyroid problems, medications and so forth.

[Michaelangelica]

CerebralEcstasy said:

Has anyone stated the obvious?

.

Yes but staing the obvious, the generally accepted truth, often does not take us far in science.
Thats why I have been stating the not-so-obvious.
SEE
http://www.celiac.co...tml?p_catid=119
for a connection between obesity and celiac disease.

[pgrmdave]

Does anybody know if there are any credible studies done on the eating habits of people 100 years ago, 50 years ago, and today? Perhaps comparing them would help. I do also think that the easy access to cheap, good tasting, caloric food is partially to blame.

[Michaelangelica]

pgrmdave said:

Does anybody know if there are any credible studies done on the eating habits of people 100 years ago, 50 years ago, and today? Perhaps comparing them would help. I do also think that the easy access to cheap, good tasting, caloric food is partially to blame.

While it is no doubt true
The problem with the "food is making us fat" hypothesis is

1) obesity is also a problem in third world countries where little food is available
2)The incrediblely rapid speed of the increase of obesity over the last 10 years. (When many "bad" food habits have been changed.)

It would be nice to know some history of eating. Have you googled it?
I suspect we know more about what Neanderthals ate!

[Michaelangelica]

http://www.abc.net.a...07/s1686610.htm

Quote

Researchers link asthma to obesity

A Sydney-based medical research institute has discovered a link between asthma and obesity.

Researchers at the Garvan Institute have found that the same fatty acid binding protein that is already known for its role in obesity and diabetes is also present in the lung.

Dr Michael Rolph says it is an important discovery.

"AP2 is a fatty acid binding protein that is already being looked at for the treatment of obesity and diabetes," he said.

"For the first time we have found that aP2 is also active in the lung and is crucial for controlling inflammation in asthma."