Why Does Obesity Epidemic Prevail in United States?

In general, people gain weight because of over-eating or a lack of exercise or both. At an International obesity conference in Amsterdam held on March 8, 2009, researchers from the health faculty of Australia's Deakin University cited over-eating as the main cause for the American obesity epidemic. This is simply because physical activity could not fully compensate for the intake of excess calories.

When a person is overweight or obese, advice from his or her family doctor on losing weight would surely emerge as numerous medical disorders like diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), stroke and certain types of cancer will most likely be developed. This also means that the risk of having heart disease is much higher.

As revealed by the study, American children had grown on average of 4 kilos heavier over the past 3 decades with adults putting on an extra weight of 8 kilos.

What Americans should weigh today based on their current, higher food intake was calculated and compared to their actual weight. When the weight was found to be more than projected would imply a drop in physical activity.

The findings suggested the American adults had been increasing their physical activity. Same deduction also applied to American children leading the researchers to conclude that changes in physical activity had had no impact on American children growing fatter. The researchers also believe similar findings would probably apply for other developed countries.

In order for the Americans to return to their leaner bodies in the 1970s, children would have to reduce their intake by about 350 calories a day (equivalent to 1 can of fizzy drink and a small portion of French fries) and adults would need to cut theirs by about 500 calories a day (equivalent to a Big Mac burger). The alternative way is to walk for an extra of 2-and-half hours a day for children and nearly 2 hours for adults.

Nevertheless, the extra walking of nearly 2 hours a day is not a feasible option for people to counter the obesity epidemic, according to the researchers. Instead, they suggest people should pay more attention on the energy intake side rather than on the physical activity. In other words, Americans must eat less.

The findings, however, did not mean to dispute the value of physical activity for weight management and overall health.

What Drugs Can Help Trim The Weight?

Being obese or overweight, people are at high risk of getting heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and even cancer. Therefore, when one is overweight or obese, he or she will turn to weight management for help hoping to get rid of the extra weight in the body.

Although the ideal approach to reduce the weight is through managing the diet and increasing physical activities, this process could take a considerably long period. Some patients just do not have the patience to wait for the results. Many of them may seek help from their doctors for prescription of appropriate slimming pills (drugs) to trim the extra weight.

A recent study carried out on mice by researchers from the Harvard Medical School found that the hormone leptin, when combined with one of the 2 drugs approved by United States, could suppress the appetite of overweight people. The findings were published in the January 7 edition of the journal 'Cell Metabolism'.

Leptin is one that signals the brain to stop eating once the stomach is full, but such mechanism does not work effectively in most obese people.

The 2 drugs used in the study are Phenyl Butyric Acid (PBA) and Tauroursodeoxycholic acid (TUDCA). Not meant to treat obesity, these medications are normally prescribed for other maladies including neurological disease like Alzheimer and Huntington. Meanwhile, PBA is often used for liver dysfunction and cystic fibrosis, while TUDCA is employed in Chinese medicine for centuries, and is meant for treating liver ailments.

According to the researchers, the drugs seem to act as 'leptin sensitizers’ for mice to combat 'leptin resistance' in the brain's hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is the primary brain region that responds to leptin, sending a signal that suppresses appetite.

In the study, weight was reduced in normal mice treated with the drugs. The researchers claimed that the evidence they gathered is the first success in sensitizing obese mice on a high-fat diet to leptin.

Naturally, such findings have given the scientists some sort of excitement because if this could work in humans, it could provide another viable option to treat obesity.

Can Nutrigenetic Diets Help Overweight Individuals Lose Weight?

When an individual becomes overweight or obese, he or she becomes a likely candidate for many medical disorders including heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure (or hypertension). Therefore, he or she will always be advised to trim the weight by appropriate weight management program.

A finding, which appeared at the online journal BioMed Central: Nutrition Journal in November 2007, indicated that overweight individuals might lose weight and keep it off through personalized diets, based on an individual’s genetic makeup. The researchers also found that people on nutrigenetically tailored diets were more likely to stick to the diet, which means they had greater success in the long term.

Cheek cells were used to screen DNA for 24 variations in 19 genes known to affect nutrient metabolism. The researchers then compared the case histories of 50 individuals who were on nutrigenetic diets with those of 43 patients who did not receive a nutrigenetically tailored diet.

The patients participated in the study were attending a weight loss clinic in Athens, Greece. All of them followed a traditional weight management program that involved a Mediterranean diet, together with exercise and regular follow-up clinic visits. Nevertheless, the researchers modify the diet of the nutrigenetic group based on the genetic results of each individual in the group.

During the first few months, there was no difference was noticed in weight loss between the 2 groups. After about one year, however, the traditional diet group showed a slight average weight gain while the group on nutrigenetic diet continued to lose weight. 300 days later, individuals in the group on nutrigenetic diet were about 5-times more likely to have maintained their weight loss than that in the traditional diet group. Improvement in blood sugar levels was also noted in those in the nutrigenetic diet group.

The researchers believe that by adding a genetic, personalized component to a weight loss program may actually improve motivation and compliance. Meanwhile, the personalized diet might well optimize the content of macro- and micro-nutrients for the individual during a period when overall food consumption is reduced and energy expenditure is increased.

Some People Are Prone To Be Obese From Birth!

Being a risk factor for heart disease, obesity is frequently associated with unhealthy lifestyle and diet, but a new study could have probably changed this perception.

A new animal study, conducted by the University of Southern California, Los Angeles and released on February 5, 2008 in the February issue of Cell Metabolism, revealed that obesity might be hard-wired into the brain from birth, and this will make some people to be more prone to put on weight than others do.

It seems that appetite and obesity are built into the brain. In the study, obese rats had faulty brain wiring that impaired their response to the hunger-suppressing hormone leptin. Leptin plays an imperative role in fat metabolism. Produced by fat tissue, it acts as a signal to the brain about the body's energy status. Although its role in weight regulation is still unclear, it is understood that the brain calibrates the need for food intake based in part on leptin levels.

Previous research had shown that the brains of obesity-prone rats were insensitive to these leptin signals, so the researchers looked for brain abnormalities that could explain this. They found defects in the brain circuits that relay leptin signals throughout the hypothalamus, which is the brain's central switchboard for regulating conditions in the body.

According to the researchers, the neurodevelopmental differences in these animals can be seen as early as the first week. The results show that obesity can be wired into the brain from early life. Exercising and eating right might improve the rats’ condition, but the findings suggest that the propensity to gain weight cannot be reversed.

If we replicate the findings in humans, then people should be careful about those one-size-fits-all approach weight management and weight loss, especially those individuals who are genetically predisposed to obesity because of the way their brains are configured.

Do You Know How Many Adults Are Clinically Obese Across The World?

More and more people are seeking ways and means to get rid of the extra fats in their bodies, and they do not mind spending bigger portion of their earning just for this. Weight management, therefore, has become a very hot topic nowadays and the business opportunity associated with it is also very attractive.

Why is this so?

Very simple! People understand obesity or overweight will ultimately bring to us many health problems like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, etc, and more importantly, the escalating healthcare cost can simply wipe off our savings should any of the serious health problems hit us.

A report published early November 2007 in the US Journal of the American Heart Association revealed that about 25 percent of men and women in 63 countries were found to be obese in a study of more than 168,000 people. The research was conducted by France's top medical research institute, and the data was collected in over two half-day periods in each of the 63 countries,

BMI (body-mass index) is used as the benchmark for obesity, and it is defined as one's weight in kilograms divided by the square of one's height in meters. People with a BMI between 18.5 and 25 is considered as healthy. One is considered overweight when the BMI ranges from 25 to 30, and obese when the BMI is equal to or higher than 30..

Out of the 168,159, adults aged between 18 and 80, studied in 2005, 24 percent of men and 27 percent of women were found to be clinically obese. An additional 40 percent of men and 30 percent of women were classified as overweight.

I made a simple calculation based on the findings, and the result is rather shocking:

"between 50 to 66 percent of the world's population is either overweight or obese."

No wonder many health experts believe that mankind is now facing a true epidemic: not in hunger, not in virus, but in obesity.

And not surprisingly, the researchers running this study have again exert pressure on governments urging them to be more aggressive in promoting physical exercise and balanced diets.