[Michaelangelica]

Chacmool said:

Fascinating article - thanks Michaelangelica! (could you just please cut down the article to a short excerpt and link to the original source)

Yes sorry. I got a bit excited.( It was a very long article (7 pages))
It was such a good, well written article that summarises everything I have been raving on about on this thread, + some.
The NY Times is a such great paper.
You just don't see such sane,well-researched, well written, in depth articles in many papers here anymore.

Chacmool said:

Strangely, it seems to be in humanity's interest to preserve the "obesity genes", so that we are able to survive in possible leaner times in the future. Isn't biological diversity wonderful?

I posted this (following) last month on the Obesity thread.
It seems obesity genes can be activated in utro

Quote

In 1976, G P Ravelli, Z.A. Stein and M.W. Susser reported the results of a study of 300,000 men born to women who were pregnant during the Dutch Hungerwinter. These researchers discovered that adult men born to women malnourished during the first two trimesters of their pregnancies where more likely to be obese than were men in the general population.

Given that the offspring of mothers who were underfed for the entire duration of their pregnancies are known to be permanently underweight this finding is remarkable indeed.

Alan Jones and M. I. Friedman from Pitzer college tested this Hungerwinter on animals.
In their initial studies they fed pregnant rats 50% of their normal rations for the first 2/3ds of their pregnancies and then allowed them to eat freely for the final trimester.
These rats ultimately gave birth to pups that had body weights that were the same as those born to normally fed mothers.

However, weeks later, after weaning on to a high fat diet, the male-but not the female- offspring of the malnourished mothers ate more and gained more weight than did the offspring of the normally fed mothers.
(even though the offspring of the normally fed mothers were weaned onto the same high fat diet.)

The fat cells of the obese males were larger and there fat pads weighed two to three times the fat pads of the normal males.
FROM:
P118-119
The Dependent Gene"
Prof. David S. Moore, Times BooksNYNY 2001
(For, why this may be so? read p 119-121)

[Michaelangelica]

http://english.ohmyn...313597&rel_no=1

Quote

Another less-publicized probable cause of obesity is the role played by the food additive E-621, or MSG (monosodium glutamate). Scientists in Spain have established a link between MSG and increased appetite. The substance MSG (sometimes called hydrolyzed vegetable protein), which is used by the food industry as a flavor enhancer, was found to produce a 40 percent increase in appetite in experiments on rats.

Critics of the food industry charge that MSG is used in such a way as to get consumers hooked to their products. More militant critics like John and Michelle Erb, co-authors of "The Slow Poisoning of America," believe that the food industry uses MSG as "their own brand of nicotine designed to addict you to their products."

It is believed that MSG could be a key factor behind obesity, particularly in children. Statistics show that from 1980 to 2000, the number of obese children and teenagers in the U.S. almost tripled. Health authorities around the world are raising alarm signals as the faltering health of fat people weigh heavily on health budgets. The projections for the future are even more alarming.

[Michaelangelica]

Quote

In experiments with chickens and mice, researchers found that a virus known as human adenovirus-36 (Ad-36) caused the animals to gain excessive amounts of fat.
In contrast, chickens infected with a bird adenovirus called CELO did not pack on excess fat. While these results do not point to Ad-36 as a cause of human obesity, they do suggest that one or more viruses may be behind some people's weight woes.

In general, adenoviruses cause colds, diarrhea and eye infections, but little is known about how Ad-36 is spread or the types of infections it might cause. The researchers settled on Ad-36 because it does not cross-react with other adenoviruses, meaning it likely has "unique qualities."

The idea that a virus may trigger obesity is not new to the animal world. Four viruses have been shown to cause fat accumulation in animals, one reasearcher noted.
"This," he said, "is the first time a human virus has been associated with obesity."
. . .
In four separate experiments, researchers found that the animals infected with Ad-36 packed on fat, but showed "paradoxically low" cholesterol levels.

http://www.mercola.c...rus_obesity.htm

[Michaelangelica]

High fructose corn syrup another link in the puzzle?

Quote

nvestigating food consumption patterns over the past 35 years, scientists found that in the 20 years from 1970 to 1990 the consumption of the popular soft drink sweetener, high fructose corn syrup, leapt by a massive 1000 per cent.

"HFCS now represents more that 40 per cent of caloric sweeteners added to foods and beverages and is the sole caloric sweetener in soft drinks in the US," said George Bray and colleagues in a recent issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The researchers suggest that this rapid trajectory of HFCS consumption, and processed carbohydrates in general, through food and drinks could be to blame for the steep rise in obesity.
. . .
High fructose syrups, known as isoglucose in Europe, kicked off in the US in the 1970s when the country developed new technologies to process this bulk calorific sweetener. The ingredient, an alternative to sucrose, rapidly gained in popularity and is now used by the soft drinks giants Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Co.

High fructose corn sweeteners begin with enzymes which isomerise dextrose to produce a 42 per cent fructose syrup.
By passing 42-HFCS through a column which retains fructose, refiners draw off 90 per cent HFCS and blend it with 42-HFCS to make a third syrup, 55-HFCS.
Further processing produces crystalline fructose.

http://www.foodnavig...food-ingredient

[Michaelangelica]

Is anyone reading this?

Should I continue to post or not?

Quote

Big-bone genes 'cause obesity'
By Liz Bennett
September 04, 2006
STOCKY people battling the bulge may legitimately be able to put their predicament down to being big-boned, according to new research presented at the International Congress on Obesity in Sydney.

While the news that a genetic defect causes an increase in fat, muscle mass and bone density may come as a welcome excuse for some, the downside is that it only accounts for about 1 per cent of obese people.

"Approximately one in 100 people with clinical obesity defined as a Body Mass Index (BMI) more than 30, may have an MC4R gene problem which explains their obesity," said British researcher Dr Sadaf Farooqi.

Dr Farooqi said the MC4R gene is one of the most common genetic causes of obesity.

"Working out how the MC4R gene and other genes in this pathway regulate appetite and weight will be important in developing ways to prevent and treat obesity," she said.

"This work shows that appetite is very tightly biologically determined and not simply a moral failing."

Studies have shown that in severely obese children affected by mutations in the MC4R gene, injections of leptin led to normal appetite and weight.

More at:
http://www.theaustra...85-1702,00.html

[Michaelangelica]

I notice there are 1,500 hits on this thread in the last four weeks
Should I give up or carry on?
http://www.signonsan...9-1m5obese.html

Quote

Kids may become obese by age 12
By Cheryl Clark
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

September 5, 2006

Parents and pediatricians have one less excuse to shrug off children's extra pounds as just baby fat that kids will eventually outgrow.

A new federal study led by a UCSD researcher tracked the growth of more than 1,000 children for a dozen years. It found that infants and children who are overweight at any point are more likely to remain overweight and even become obese by age 12.

Advertisement
“The general public believes that kids can grow out of any problems they are having with weight. But the point of our study is that they don't grow out of it, in all likelihood,” said Dr. Philip Nader, a pediatrician at the University of California San Diego and principal author of the report, which is published today in the journal Pediatrics.

Nader characterized the results of his report as “sobering but not hopeless.” He said the findings may spur parents to address the causes of obesity, such as spending too much time in front of the TV and computer, getting far too little exercise and eating way too much food high in sugar and fat.

Unlike previous research that documented the increase in overweight children by sampling various demographic populations, Nader's project enrolled infants shortly after they were born from hospitals in 10 cities nationwide. His study started in 1991.

Nader and his colleagues regularly weighed and measured the participants until they became adolescents, recording their weight and height at seven time points – 24 months, 36 months, 54 months and at ages 7, 9, 11 and 12.

Children overweight at least once during their measurements at 24, 36 and 54 months were five times more likely to be overweight at age 12 than those never categorized as overweight, the study concluded.

Children overweight twice during ages 7, 9 and 11 were 25 times more likely to be overweight at age 12. And school-age children overweight three times during the study were 374 times more likely to be overweight at age 12.

Body mass index

To determine if your child is overweight, first calculate his or her body mass index by using the formula for children. You can do this by
going to www.kidsnutrition.org
/bodycomp/bmiz2.html.

The Web site will then show how your child's BMI compares with those of other children who are the same age.
Conversely, no children in the study who weighed less than 50 percent of others in their age groups were overweight at age 12.

An upcoming report will analyze the children's weights at age 15.

Today's study defined “overweight” based on the body mass index, a formula based on gender, age, weight and height. “Overweight” was defined as having a body mass index greater than 84 percent but less than 95 percent of other children the same age. “Obese” was defined as having a body mass index greater than 94 percent of other children the same age.

The report may have underestimated the problem because a significant percentage of the children enrolled were from stable, middle-class families with two parents. Only 20 percent of the families were classified as low-income.

If the study had included more children from poorer socioeconomic backgrounds, who are generally thought to have higher rates for being overweight and obese, the statistics may have come out worse, said James Griffin of the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, the federal agency in Bethesda, Md., that funded the study.

Griffin said he hoped the report would spur pediatricians to pay more attention to childhood weight.

“Sometimes doctors are not necessarily trained in nutrition and may be hesitant to work with the family, even if they know the child is overweight at such a young age,” he said.

Obesity-related problems

Obese children are at higher risk for developing diabetes, hypertension, liver problems, sleep apnea, menstrual abnormalities (for girls), impaired balance, orthopedic problems, low self-esteem, a negative body image and depression.

They also have a greater chance of being subjected to discrimination, bullying, teasing and other forms of social marginalization.

SOURCE: INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE
Dr. Stuart Cohen, a primary-care specialist at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego, said pediatricians are getting tougher in their messages to overweight children's parents.

“Now we point to the consequences of being an obese child in terms of days missed from school from illness, loss of productivity and the social stigma a child endures from being overweight,” he said. Added to that is the higher likelihood of diabetes, heart problems and many other diseases that are more common as the child becomes an adult.

“The overstuffed baby with chubby cheeks, which is the picture of the perfect baby from several generations ago, is no longer the gold standard for our children,” Cohen said.

[Chacmool]

Michaelangelica said:

Is anyone reading this?

Should I continue to post or not?

More at:
http://www.theaustra...85-1702,00.html

Michaelangelica said:

I notice there are 1,500 hits on this thread in the last four weeks
Should I give up or carry on?
http://www.signonsan...9-1m5obese.html

Yes, I read your posts with keen interest! I look forward to many more interesting posts.

[Michaelangelica]

Chacmool said:

Yes, I read your posts with keen interest! I look forward to many more interesting posts.

Thanks Chacmool.
It is nice to know I am not talking to myself

The importance of understanding this issue and not going with our pre-jugements of overeating as the only cause:-
http://health.dailyn...iew/0002407/31/

Quote

'Globesity' Crisis Could Overwhelm National Health Systems
Contributed by Nicole Weaver| 03 September, 2006 17:33 GMT

obesity global pandemic
Obesity is on a rampage in the western world, but developing nations are fast catching up. Health officials gathered at an international conference in Sydney are calling for governments to step in to reverse the pandemic. Obesity's global march is "an international scourge" with potential consequences as severe as the threats of global warming and bird flu, said Paul Zimmet, chairman of the International Congress on Obesity, in his opening address to the conference of more than 2,000 health experts gathered in Sydney on Sunday, according to accounts.

There are now more overweight than undernourished people in the world, he said.

Zimmet, an Australian diabetes expert who is a professor at Monash University, tagged the international crisis "globesity."

Among the repercussions of the obesity pandemic among adults and children are skyrocketing rates of chronic ailments such as diabetes and heart disease, and, ultimately, shorter life spans.
The current generation of children could be the first in history to die before their parents because of health problems related to weight, said Kate Steinbeck, an expert in children's health at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney.

More on genes and Obesity:-

Quote

Genetic Cause Found for Some Cases of Human Obesity
Published: June 24, 1997

HUMAN obesity, a condition affecting a third of Americans, has for the first time been found to have a genetic cause, at least in some cases.
. . .
The two genes involved in the new reports are known in the mouse as ''obese'' and ''fat.''
The obese gene is active in the body's fat cells and makes the leptin protein, which circulates in the bloodstream.
Leptin is sensed by cells in a region of the brain called the hypothalamus and allows them to compute how much fat the body contains.
Based on information signaled by leptin, the hypothalamus tells the body to add weight or get rid of it.
The details of this output are still obscure, but one way the hypothalamus issues its commands is by ordering the secretion of various hormones that influence different body tissues.
The mouse gene, when mutated, causes obesity because of a malfunction in the brain hormone system.

[Michaelangelica]

Tthere is an International Conference on Obesity (near me) in Sydney.
I put a google alert out for it and have had dozens of hits in overseas newspapers but not one locally. Facinating. . .
They are very concerned about Obesity comparing it to Tobacco as a major health problem
EG
http://www.thestar.c...ticleId=3431392

Quote

Too little,too late for fatties
WHO official urges action on obesitybefore we lose the battle of the bulge

September 09, 2006 Edition 1

Malcolm Burgess

Governments must wake up to the scourge of obesity or it will soon be too late to win the battle against the global epidemic, a senior World Health Organisation official warned yesterday.

Professor Robert Beaglehole's warning concluded a week-long summit at which 2 000 delegates exchanged research on a health problem the WHO says now affects more than a billion people globally - nearly one in six people.

Beaglehole, the WHO's director of chronic disease, said public health bodies must learn to "harangue" and educate health ministers who doubted the urgency of acting on obesity.

"The critical lesson from tobacco is waiting too long - 50 years - from the first evidence," he said.

"There would not be one minister of health who doesn't now appreciate the importance of tobacco control."

Obesity was out of control and there was sufficient evidence to convince governments to take urgent action, said Beaglehole. Unless individual nations moved now to rein in expanding waistlines, "we will have missed the boat".

"The evidence is secure enough for the appropriate public health action," he said, dismissing those who doubt data on the extent of the problem.
Click here!

At the 10th International Congress on Obesity in Sydney, a gloomy snapshot emerged of a global menace that disproportionately affects women and the poor, threatens a generation of children, and risks bankrupting nations that fail to act early enough.

[Michaelangelica]

Here is one for the kids
Homework causes obesity!
http://www.washingto...6090701159.html

Quote

Busy Work
Two books accuse educators of burying children -- and their childhoods -- in homework.

Reviewed by Ben Wildavsky
Sunday, September 10, 2006; Page BW10

THE HOMEWORK MYTH

Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing


* Busy Work: Two books accuse educators of burying children -- and their childhoods -- in homework.

By Alfie Kohn

Da Capo. 250 pp. $24

THE CASE AGAINST HOMEWORK

How Homework Is Hurting Our Children and

What We Can Do About It

By Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish

Crown. 290 pp. $24.95
If Kohn is the would-be intellectual theoretician of a new war on homework, Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish have written a battlefield manual for parents. While their central claims are of a piece with Kohn's (they write that "homework overload is compromising our parenting choices, jeopardizing our children's health, and robbing us of precious family time"), this duo's approach is more practical. Employing the chatty, anecdote-driven style of women's magazines, they lay out their case (even claiming that the growing homework burden fuels childhood obesity), then spell out how to lobby schools to have it reduced or eliminated.

[ronthepon]

I knew it!

[Michaelangelica]

This is an interesting article-a spin off from the Sydney confrence.
Still nothing about it in the local press

Some thought provoking extracts

Quote

Published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a comprehensive study designed to associate BMI and death risk sent shock waves through the international medical community.
A research group led by Katherine Flegal, a senior epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, analyzed data from several large U.S. health studies conducted between 1976 and 2000, controlling for factors such as smoking, age, race and alcohol consumption.
They found that while obesity caused about 112,000 deaths a year, being overweight prevented about 86,000 deaths annually. Based on those figures, the net U.S. death toll attributable to excess weight is 26,000 a year (about one-twelfth the figure that many obesity experts had been fond of quoting). But this was more than canceled out by the 34,000 deaths that researchers linked to being underweight—having a BMI lower than 18.5.
What to make of pudginess appearing to prolong lives? Study coauthor David Williamson speculated that since most people are over 70 when they die, some extra fat might have a protective effect in old age.

While some analysts condemned the study as flawed, its findings delighted University of Colorado law professor Paul Campos, whose provocative book The Obesity Myth was published in 2004.
The Flegal study, he says, confirmed at least two of his firmly held views: that the BMI's overweight category is meaningless and that you see a significant increase in the risk of premature death only at the two extremes of weight distribution.
"The vast majority of people who are being judged as weighing too much by public health authorities throughout the Western world are at a weight where there isn't even a correlation with increased health risk, let alone a causal relationship," says Campos.
The notion that overweight and obesity turn people into medical time bombs "is being exaggerated by roughly a factor of 10," he says. "An argument that may be relevant to the heaviest 6% of the population is being applied to 65% of the population."
. . .
Skeptics argue that far from being a fact, the obesity epidemic is a potpourri of scientific, moral and ideological assumptions.
One of these—that fat is bad and will eventually make you sick—ignores evidence that high BMI is associated with lower incidence of numerous diseases and syndromes, including some cancers, emphysema, anemia, bronchitis, osteoarthritis and hip fracture. It also skirts the evidence for fat, in many cases, being little more than a benign marker of an individual's genetic predisposition to carry it. According to GPs, there are many people who eat sensibly, exercise regularly and have excellent health readings—but have a BMI well over 25. "You can be thin," says The George Institute's Huxley, "and have a much worse cardiovascular profile than if you were fat but fit."

Much more (and above should be read in context)
HERE:-http://www.time.com/time/pacific/magazine/article/0,13673,503060918-1533489,00.html

[Michaelangelica]

http://www.nutraingr...d-obesity-japan

Quote

Brown seaweed extract could fight obesity

By Stephen Daniells

All news for September 2006
All news for August 2006

9/12/2006 - Supplementing the diet of obese rodents with a compound found in brown seaweed reduced weight by 10 per cent, and could be developed as a natural extract to help fight the growing human obesity epidemic, Japanese researchers told attendees at the 232nd national meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Francisco.

The research, funded by the Japanese government, is yet more innovation from the Asian country that has consistently been at the forefront of nutrition research.

Professor Kazuo Miyashita and his team from Hokkaido University, focussed their studies on the compound fucoxanthin, a brownish pigment not found in significant quantities in green or red seaweed.

Since fucoxanthin is tightly bound to proteins in the seaweed and not easily absorbed in the form of whole seaweed, said Miyashita, this means that extracts for weight-loss supplements, or even pharmaceuticals, will be the most efficient way of delivering the active form of the fucoxanthin.

Miyashita and his team extracted fucoxanthin from Undaria pinnatifida, a type of kelp also known as wakame, to 200 rats and mice.
They found that the obese animals fed the seaweed extract had weight losses of between five and ten per cent.

The compound was reported to stimulate a protein found in the fat that surrounds internal organs (white adipose tissue), called UCP1, which causes fat oxidation and conversion of energy to heat. Since the abdominal area contains abundant adipose tissue, the compound might be particularly effective at shrinking oversized guts, Miyashita said.

This is the first time that a natural food component has been shown to reduce fat by targeting the UCP1 protein, he said.

The pigment is also reported to have stimulated the liver to produce the omega-3 fatty acid, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) at levels comparable to fish oil supplementation.
Research has shown that DHA can reduce the levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol, which is said to contribute to obesity and heart disease. No adverse side effects from fucoxanthin were reported in the mice and rats used in the study.

[Michaelangelica]

A very intersesting 'fat' site
http://www.fatnews.com/

Quote

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"My grandfather always said that living is like licking honey off a thorn."

--

[Michaelangelica]

Geting fat can make you go blind!!??

Quote

Obese People Twice as Likely to Lose Sight

SightThose who are obese have a greatly increased risk of losing their sight due to degenerative eye conditions, according to a report from Britain's Royal National Institute of the Blind.

Obese people have an increased risk of three major causes of sight loss:

The obese have twice the risk of suffering from AMD and cataracts, and up to10 times the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

ScientificAmerican.com September 6, 2006

http://www.mercola.c..._lose_sight.htm