Natural Cure

Mayo Clinic physicians have identified that simply being diagnosed as obese increases a patients likelihood of establishing a therapy plan with their physician, a crucial step in improving health. Its a significant finding, because obesity is a growing worldwide epidemic and the second leading cause of preventable death in developing countries.

Reported in the recent issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, the article reveals that an obesity diagnosis is the strongest predictor of obesity management. Mayo Clinic physicians reviewed the records of 2,543 obese patients treated over a one-year period.

Only one in five patients had their obesity documented and a disease management plan made, the studys authors say. But those patients who were diagnosed as obese had a 2.5 times higher chance of forming a weight loss management plan than if they hadnt been diagnosed.

Warren Thompson, M.D., a Mayo Clinic internist from the Department of Preventive Medicine, says physicians should be more proactive in discussing obesity with their patients and patients should initiate the conversation if their weight concerns them. The ramifications are far-reaching for improving the health of those living with obesity, which is a risk factor for diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Even a small reduction in an obese persons weight improves quality of life, reduces morbidity and results in lower health care use and medical costs.


Posted by: Evelyn    Source

Pregnancy may open a window of vulnerability for developing binge eating disorder, particularly for women from lower socio-economic situations, as per a research studyfrom the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill scientists and his colleagues in Norway.

In a long-term study of 100,000 pregnant Norwegian women, the scientists saw an unexpected increase in new incidences of binge eating disorder that began during pregnancy. The research is the largest population-based study of eating disorders during pregnancy.

Previously, small clinical studies had suggested that often eating disorders go into remission during pregnancy, just as some pregnant women spontaneously quit smoking cigarettes.

We need to be very vigilant across the socioeconomic spectrum to screen for the development of disordered eating during pregnancy. Its very important that all women receive adequate prenatal care that includes nutritional support, said Dr. Cynthia M. Bulik, lead study author and William R. and Jeanne H. Jordan Distinguished Professor of eating disorders in the department of psychiatry at the UNC School of Medicine and the department of nutrition in the UNC School of Public Health.

The findings were reported in the August 2007 issue of Psychological Medicine. The research was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health.

Binge eating differs from the normal cravings that pregnant women often report, Bulik explained. People with binge eating disorder regularly consume large amounts of food in a set period of time and report feeling out-of-control during the episode.

The disorder differs from bulimia nervosa in that sufferers dont engage in purging, such as using vomiting or laxatives.

In addition to contributing to weight gain and obesity, binge eating disorder is also linked to health problems such as anxiety and depression, insomnia, and chronic pain.

In the study, for women who already had the disorder, continuation of symptoms during pregnancy was more common than remission, the scientists found. New cases were more likely than other eating disorders to develop during pregnancy. Lower education and lower minimum combined income was linked to new onset cases of binge eating disorders.

The scientists will follow the impact of eating disorders, particularly binge eating, on the women and their children over time. They want to find out, for instance, if fluctuating nutrients during gestation have impact on childrens birth weight, development and childhood and adolescent eating and weight patterns.

We have this group of women that we need to study intensively to find out the impact of binge eating on offspring. We didnt know these women existed before, Bulik said.


Posted by: Evelyn    Source

Scientists have revealed an antiobesity gene that has apparently been keeping critters lean during times of plenty since ancient times. The gene, first discovered by another team in flies, also keeps worms and mice trim, as per the new report in the recent issue of Cell Metabolism, a publication of Cell Press. If the gene works similarly in humans, the findings could lead to a new weapon against our burgeoning waistlines, as per the researchers.

Animals without a working copy of the gene, known as Adipose (Adp), become obese and resistant to insulin, while those with increased Adp activity in fat tissue become slimmer, the scientists found. Moreover, the genes dose seems to determine how slender an animal turns out to be.

Maybe if you could affect this gene, even just a little bit, you might have a beneficial effect on fat, said Jonathan Graff of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, noting that people often become overweight very graduallyadding just one or two pounds a year. After 30 years, thats a lot.

While worms and flies are routinely studied as models of human health and disease, that trend has been less true in fat biology, Graff said. Thats because unlike mammals, worms and flies store their fat in multifunctional cells rather than in dedicated fat cells known as adipocytes. However, those differences didnt preclude the possibility that the animals might use similar genes to accomplish their fat storage goals, he added.

In the new study, Graffs team observed that worms lacking Adp activity became fat, eventhough they appeared to be otherwise healthy and fertile. The scientists scoured the genetic database in search of related genes and found one with tremendous similarity in flies.

Indeed, another scientist, Winifred Doane, had found a naturally occurring strain of plump flies in Nigeria almost 50 years ago that carried a mutation in their Adp gene. The flies lived in a climate marked by cycles of famine, where they may have benefited from being highly efficient at fat storage, Doane had suggested.

To explore Adps function even further, Graff and colleagues produced a strain of mutant flies like those that Doane had found years earlier. They observed that the mutant flies were indeed fat and also had trouble getting around. Flies with only one copy of the Adp mutation fell somewhere in between the fat and normal flies, evidence that the genes effects are dose dependent, they reported.

Treatments that increased Adp in the insects fat tissue led them to lose weight, evidence that the gene operates within fat cells themselves. In mice that expressed the gene in fat-storing tissues, the same patterns emerged.

We made mice that expressed Adp in fat-storing tissues, and lo and behold, what happened" Graff said. They were skinnyweighed less with markedly less fatand their fat cells were smaller. Smaller fat cells commonly translate into better metabolic function, he said, including better blood sugar control.

Its a striking conservation of genes that restrain fat, he said. While fat storage is an important mechanism for getting through lean times, too much fat in times of plenty has deleterious consequences.

The search for molecules underlying weight gain and poor blood sugar control has taken on additional urgency due to the recent dramatic increase in obesity and diabetes, Graff said. But in a modern world where a number of people have essentially unlimited access to food, its a wonder that even more people arent overweight, he added. If this gene plays a similar role in humans, it may be that some peoples Adp works very well.


Posted by: Evelyn    Source