Author Interviews, Blood Pressure - Hypertension, Diabetes, JAMA, Weight Research / 18.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Debbie Lawlor PhD School of Social and Community Medicine University of Bristol, Oakfield House, Oakfield Grove Medical Research Council Integrative Epidemiology Unit University of Bristol, UK and Rachel Freathy PhD, University of Exeter, Institute of Biomedical and Clinical Science, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital,  Exeter  UK MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: A healthy birth weight is important for babies’ health and wellbeing in the first year of their life. It reflects how well the baby has grown and developed in the womb. The experience of fetuses in the womb and how well they grow and develop might also determine their future health, even into adulthood. Both being too light or too heavy at birth is not good for the baby. Lots of studies have shown that mothers who are fatter at the start of their pregnancy have babies who are more likely to be heavier. But is it not clear whether the mother being fatter causes their baby to be bigger at birth. If mothers’ fatness does cause their baby to be heavier at birth, why this happens is not clear. We used genes to find out whether being fatter in pregnancy causes babies to be born heavier. We also tested whether risk factors in the mother that are affected by her fatness, such as her blood pressure, and the level of glucose (sugar) and lipids (fats) in her blood stream affect how heavy her baby is. Our results showed that being fatter during pregnancy did cause a mothers’ baby to be born heavier. We also showed that having higher blood levels of glucose in pregnancy also caused a mothers’ baby to be heavier. But we did not find any effect of mothers’ blood levels of lipids in pregnancy on their baby’s weight. Whilst mothers who are heavier in pregnancy will tend to have higher blood pressure in pregnancy we found that higher blood pressure caused the women’s babies to be lighter. (more…)
Author Interviews, Lifestyle & Health, Weight Research / 17.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Ellen Flint Lecturer in Population Health MRC Strategic Skills Fellow Department of Social & Environmental Health Research London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine London MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Flint: Globally, physical inactivity is a major cause of obesity, chronic disease and premature mortality. Improving population levels of physical activity is therefore a key public health policy aim, in high and middle income countries. In the past, functional active travel was a key source of physical activity for many people. However, since the mass adoption of private motorised travel in the 20th century, the vast majority (63%) of working adults in the UK commute to by car. Using UK Biobank data from more than 150,000 middle-aged adults, we found that those who commuted to work via cycling or walking had significantly lower body fat percentage and lower body mass index (BMI) compared to adults who commuted by car. The strongest associations were seen for adults who commuted via bicycle. For the average man in the sample (age 53 years; height 176.7cm; weight 85.9kg), cycling to work rather than driving was associated with a weight difference of 5kg or 11lbs (1.71 BMI points). For the average woman in the sample (age 52 years; height 163.6cm; weight 70.6kg), the weight difference was 4.4kg or 9.7lbs (1.65 BMI points). Even people who commuted via public transport also showed significant reductions in BMI and percentage body fat compared with those who commuted only by car. This suggests that even the incidental physical activity involved in public transport journeys may be important. The link between active commuting and obesity reduction was independent of other factors such as income, area deprivation, urban or rural residence, education, alcohol intake, smoking, general physical activity, dietary energy intake and overall health and disability. If you're often using public transport, particularly around the New York Area, check out this babylon schedule. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, NYU, Pediatrics, PNAS, Weight Research / 15.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Michele Leardo Assistant Director Institute for Education & Social Policy New York University New York, NY 10012 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: US school districts increasingly distribute annual fitness and body mass index (BMI) “report cards” to students and parents. Such personalized informational interventions have appeal in economics because they can inform parents about their children's obesity status at relatively low costs. Awareness of the weight status can lead to behavioral responses that can improve health. New York City public schools adopted Fitnessgram in 2007-2008, reporting each student’s BMI alongside categorical BMI designations. We examined how being classified as “overweight” for the previous academic year affected the students’ subsequent BMI and weight. Specifically, we compared female students whose BMI was close to their age-specific cutoff for being considered overweight with those whose BMI narrowly put them in the “healthy” category. We find that being labeled overweight had no beneficial effects on students’ subsequent BMI and weight. (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Nutrition, Sugar, Weight Research / 10.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Euridice Martinez Steele  University of São Paulo, São Paulo MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Several leading health bodies, including the World Health Organization, the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation, the American Heart Association, and the US Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee have concluded that excess added sugar intake increases the risk not only of weight gain, but also of obesity and diabetes, which are associated with a heightened risk of cardiovascular disease, and tooth decay. All reports recommended limiting intake of added sugars. In the US, the USDGAC recommended limiting added sugars to no more than 10% of total calories. To design and implement effective measures to reduce added sugars, their dietary sources must be clearly identified. Added sugars can be consumed either as ingredients of dishes or drinks prepared from scratch by consumers or cook, or as ingredients of food products manufactured by the food industry. According to market disappearance data from 2014, more than three quarters of the sugar and high fructose corn syrup available for human consumption in the US were used by the food industry. This suggests food products manufactured by the industry could have an important role in the excess added sugars consumption in the US. However, to assess this role, it is essential to consider the contribution of manufactured food products to both total energy intake and the energy intake from added sugars, and, more relevantly, to quantify the relationship between their consumption and the total dietary content of added sugars. To address these questions, we performed an investigation utilizing 2009-2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). (more…)
Author Interviews, Lifestyle & Health, Pediatrics, Weight Research / 08.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Chance York PhD School of Journalism and Mass Communication Kent State University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Dr. York: A number of studies have examined the effects of heavy television viewing during childhood on childhood levels of Body Mass Index (BMI), but my study added a new element to this literature: it explores the long-term effects of TV viewing on adult-era BMI. The major takeaway is that heavy television viewing during childhood results in an individual propensity to watch TV much later in life, and this propensity to watch television results in increased BMI. In other words, kids who watch a lot of television tend to remain heavy TV users as adults, and the fact that they're heavy TV viewers as adults has a separate, unique effect on their adult BMI. (more…)
Author Interviews, Weight Research / 02.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Samuel Klein, M.D. William H. Danforth Professor of Medicine and Nutritional Science Director, Center for Human Nutrition Washington University School of Medicine St Louis, MO 63110 Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Klein: Most obesity treatment guidelines, including those recently proposed by several major medical and scientific societies, recommend moderate weight loss of 5%-10% to achieve improvements in metabolic function and health outcomes. However, it is much easier to achieve a 5% weight loss than it is to achieve a 10% weight loss, so it is important to understand the benefits that occur with a 5% weight loss and what additional benefits, if any, can be expected with more weight loss in people with obesity. (more…)
Author Interviews, Emergency Care, Surgical Research, Weight Research / 19.02.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Junaid A. Bhatti, MBBS, MSc, PhD Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre Research Institute Toronto, Canada  Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Bhatti: Weight loss surgeries are consistently increasing in the US. While the positive impact of surgery on patient’s health are undebatable, limited information is available about long-term healthcare utilization, especially, emergency care utilization in bariatric surgery patients. This study compared emergency care utilization in bariatric patients three years following surgery to that of three years prior to surgery. Overall, we found that emergency care utilization increased by about 17% following surgery compared to the before surgery period. While complaints related to cardiovascular, ear, respiratory, and dermatology decreased, the complaints related to gastrointestinal, genitourinary, mental health, and substance misuse increased following surgery.  (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Weight Research / 18.02.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Mark A Green PhD Department of Geography & Planning University of Liverpool Liverpool UK Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Green: Previous research on trends in body mass index (BMI) have focused on changes in the middle value (average BMI). We extended this investigation by exploring trends both in the middle (using the median – the mid-point of BMI values), the 5th centile (the BMI value at which bottom 5% of the population with the lowest BMIs fall below) and the 95th centile (the BMI value at which the top 5% of the population with the highest BMIs fall above) to examine how trends have changed both in the middle, and at the top and bottom of the distribution. We found that median BMI increased in England in the 1990s, before beginning to slow its rate of change. This is contrary to the 95th centile which has continued to increase at a higher rate throughout the period, with little change in the 5th centile. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, OBGYNE, Weight Research / 16.02.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Katherine Bowers, PhD, MPH Division of Biostatistics and Epidemiology Cincinnati Children's Hospital MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Dr. Bowers: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affects approximately 1 in 68 children and the prevalence continues to rise. Past studies have suggested that conditions experienced by women during pregnancy (for example, obesity and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM)) may be associated with having a child with ASD. We collected medical record data from patients who resided in the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center’s primary catchment area and linked those data to data from birth certificates to identify metabolic risk factors. Two comparison groups were analyzed; one with developmental disabilities; and the other, controls without a reported ASD or other developmental disability. Descriptive statistics and regression analyses evaluated differences. We found that maternal obesity and  gestational diabetes mellitus were associated with an increased risk of Autism spectrum disorder in the offspring; however, no difference in risk of Autism spectrum disorder according to BMI and GDM was seen when comparing to the group with other developmental disabilities. The strongest observed association was the joint effect of obesity and GDM (compared to neither obesity nor GDM) :OR=2.53 (95% CI: 1.72, 3.73). (more…)
Alcohol, Author Interviews, Nutrition, Weight Research / 13.02.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Francis Tayie, PhD, MPhil, MS. BSc(HONS) Food, Nutrition and Dietetics Department of Human Environmental Studies Southeast Missouri State University Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Dr. Tayie: This article which is the first report to show a positive link between alcoholic beverage consumption and increased moisture intake, also reports increases in calorie intake above what is supplied by alcohol, as well as increased body weight status. The general view is that alcoholic beverages do not contribute to moisture intake. This view is generally due to the diuretic effect of the ethanol in alcoholic beverages, specifically depression of vasopressin resulting in increased loss of moisture via the kidneys. Nevertheless, much of the water in alcoholic beverages, especially in light drinks such as beer and wine may be retained, as indicated in this study. Alcoholic calories count!! The view that alcoholic beverages do not contribute calories to the intake of drinkers is largely debatable. Most of the confusion results from the complex metabolism of the ethanol in alcoholic beverages. Metabolism of ethanol utilizes specific metabolic pathways different from the metabolism of macronutrients. Notably, the
  • 1) alcohol dehydrogenase system,
  • 2) MEOS (microsomal ethanol oxidizing system),
  • and 3) the catalase system.These metabolic systems variably yield some calories but some calories are lost as body heat. It is likely that all of these pathways are not activated simultaneously, and their activities depends on drinking experience. Some calories become available via the alcohol dehydrogenase system, and to a lesser extent via the MEOS. In addition, alcoholic beverage consumption associates with decreased self-restraint, one consequence of which is increased food intake. The promoting effects of alcohol on food intake is multipronged, from social components, to alterations in the effects of appetite regulating neuropeptides.
(more…)
AACR, Author Interviews, Breast Cancer, Cancer Research, Pancreatic, Weight Research / 13.02.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Joao Incio, MD Edwin L. Steele Laboratory for Tumor Biology Massachusetts General Hospital | Harvard Medical School | Boston, MA, U.S.A Department of Internal Medicine | Hospital S. Joao | Porto, Portugal  Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Incio:  The study focused on the effects of obesity on pancreatic and breast cancer, since more than half of those diagnosed with such tumors are overweight or obese. In addition, a number of large-scale studies have found that obesity leads to an increased risk of death in pancreatic, breast and other types of cancer. But prior to the current study the mechanism of obesity-induced pancreatic and breast cancer progression was unclear. We have uncovered a novel mechanism behind the ability of obesity to promote cancer progression.  We found an association between obesity and an overabundance of a factor called PlGF (placental growth factor) and that PlGF’s binding to its receptor VEGFR-1, which is expressed on immune cells within tumors, promotes tumor progression. We found that obesity increased infiltration of tumor-promoting immune cells and the growth and metastasis of pancreatic cancers. Blocking VEGFR-1 signaling shifted the immune environment towards prevention of tumor progression in obese but not in lean mice in both pancreatic and breast cancer models. We also found that PlGF was present in excess in obesity and that reduction of PlGF produced similar results to VEGFR-1 inhibition in the tumors of obese mice. We also discovered that targeting the PlGF/VEGFR-1 interaction prevents weight gain in a genetically obese mouse model but worsens a diabetes-like condition, a worsening that was alleviated by use of the common diabetes drug metformin, which also had beneficial anti-tumor effects. Our findings in cellular and animal models, as well as in patient tumor samples, indicate that targeting the PlGF/ VEGFR-1 pathway may be particularly effective in obese patients. (more…)
Author Interviews, Microbiome, Nutrition, Pediatrics, Weight Research / 12.02.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with Tine Rask Licht, Professor Head of Research Group on Gut Microbiology and Immunology Technical University of Denmark National Food Institute Søborg Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response:  During childhood, the intestinal microbiota is under establishment. This period thus represents a ’window’, where the microbiota is likely to be more susceptible to be affected by external factors such as diet. Currently, it is well known that breast feeding has a major impact on the microbiota of young infants, but only very few studies have addressed the effect of the ‘next step’ in diet exposure, represented by complementary feeding. We studied two cohorts of children, born to normal-weight and obese mothers, respectively, and mapped the composition of bacteria in their fecal microbiota at age 9 months and 18 months.  We found that at 9 months, the microbiota was clearly affected by the composition of the complementary diet, but not by maternal obesity. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Surgical Research, Weight Research / 11.02.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Lance Davidson, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Exercise Sciences Brigham Young University Provo, UT  84602  Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Davidson: A growing body of literature indicates that bariatric surgery imparts a mortality benefit in severely obese individuals.  Whether age at surgery affects this relationship is not well established.  One might suppose that a person who has been severely obese for several decades may already have sustained enough metabolic damage that weight loss surgery would have less influence on subsequent mortality.  We conducted an age-specific analysis of a previously-published mortality cohort in gastric bypass patients and severely obese controls, following them for up to 18 years (mean 7.2 years), and examined mortality rates in four age categories: under 35, 35-44, 45-54, and 55-74. The primary finding of this retrospective cohort study was that gastric bypass surgery attenuated the age-related increase in mortality, demonstrating a widening gap in mortality risk when compared to age-matched severely obese controls as age-at-surgery increased, with a 66% reduction in mortality in the oldest group.  Another interesting result, highlighted in our previous publication on this cohort (Adams et al. NEJM 2007), was a higher mortality rate from external causes (accidents, poisonings, suicides, homicides) in surgery patients.  We explored this phenomenon further by age at surgery and found that externally-caused deaths were only increased in women (not men) who had surgery before age 35. (more…)
Annals Internal Medicine, Author Interviews, Kidney Disease, Weight Research / 09.02.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Yoosoo Chang MD PhD Kangbuk Samsung Hospital Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine Seoul, Korea Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: There is substantial controversy and a lot of interest on the health implications of metabolically healthy obesity, that is, subjects who are obese but do not have metabolic abnormalities in spite of their high body mass index. The risk for chronic kidney disease (CKD) among obese patients without metabolic abnormalities is unknown. In this cohort study of South Korean men and women, metabolically healthy overweight and obese participants had increased incidence of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) compared with normal-weight participants. (more…)
Author Interviews, Genetic Research, JAMA, Pediatrics, Weight Research / 02.02.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Profa. Patrícia Pelufo Silveira, MD, PhD Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul Brazil Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Previous studies have shown that women who carry a certain gene variant (namely the 7-repeat allele of the dopamine type 4 receptor) have increased risk for obesity, especially if they also suffer from eating disorders. We have also demonstrated that girls who have this gene variant prefer to eat more fat when allowed to choose. However, for some neuropsychiatric conditions, this gene was shown to function as a “plasticity gene”. That is to say that being a carrier makes the individual more or less vulnerable to the disease, depending if the environment in which the person lives is bad (more risk) or good (less risk for the disease). This is called the “differential susceptibility” model. Therefore, in this paper, we wondered if the above described higher fat intake already reported in 7-repeat girls could be modified by the social environment in which they are raised. We saw that if a girl has the gene variant and is raised in a poorer environment, she is more likely to prefer to eat fat in her diet as we knew. However, if she has the gene variant but is raised in a better socioeconomic environment, she actually eats less fat in her regular diet compared to her counterparts who do not carry the gene variant. This is important because we change the focus from the gene (previously "blamed" for increasing fat preference and obesity as the years pass by) to the environment, as the genetic association will increase or decrease the risk according to the conditions in which the child is raised. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Cognitive Issues, JAMA, Mayo Clinic, Weight Research / 01.02.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Rosebud O. Roberts, M.B., Ch.B. Mayo Clinic Rochester, Minn.  Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Dr. Roberts: Decline in weight has been observed 10-20 years prior to onset of dementia. We wanted to study whether this decline also occurs for mild cognitive impairment (an intermediate stage in the progression from normal cognition to dementia). Medical Research: What are the main findings? Dr. Roberts: The main finding was that there was indeed a decline in weight (from the maximum weight in midlife to weight assessed in late life) was associated with a increased risk of mild cognitive impairment. (more…)
Author Interviews, Exercise - Fitness, Nutrition, Protein, Weight Research / 29.01.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Professor Stuart M. Phillips Ph.D., FACSM, FACN Department of Kinesiology, McMaster University, Canada Exercise Metabolism Research Group – Protein Metabolism Research Lab Director, Physical Activity Centre for Excellence Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Prof. Phillips: During weight loss with diet only people lose both muscle and fat and muscle. The long-term health consequences of losing metabolically active muscle versus fat are not likely to be beneficial. In the context of this study we thought perhaps the preservation of muscle would also be important in very active young men. We wanted to see whether when men were in a very large energy deficit (40% less energy than they required) higher protein (2.4 g/kg/d) could preserve muscle mass and still result in increased function (strength) and fitness. Our results show that during a marked energy deficit that consumption of 2.4 g protein/kg/d was more effective than consumption of a diet containing 1.2 g protein/kg/d in promoting increases in LBM (1.2 vs 0.1kg increase) and losses of fat mass (-4.8kg vs. -3.5kg) when combined with a high volume of resistance and anaerobic exercise. (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Nutrition, Weight Research / 29.01.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Monica L. Bertoia, MPH, PhD Instructor in Medicine, Channing Division of Network Medicine Brigham and Women’s Hospital & Harvard Medical School Research Associate, Department of Nutrition Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health Boston, MA 02115 Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Most weight loss studies have focused on one type of flavonoid, the flavan-3-ols found in green tea, and are limited to small numbers of overweight and obese study participants. We examined 7 subclasses of flavonoids and weight change in 124,086 healthy adults who reported their diet and weight repeatedly over up to 24 years. (more…)
Author Interviews, Pediatrics, Weight Research / 27.01.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Lauren Fiechtner MD MPH Director of Nutrition Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition Massachusetts General Hospital for Children MedicalResearch: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Fiechtner: In previous studies, we investigated if distance to a supermarket was associated with a child’s BMI or weight status. These were cross-sectional studies measuring only one point in time. We wondered if distance to a supermarket modified how much children in a behavioral intervention improved their weight or dietary intake. In particular we examined 498 children participating in the Study of Technology to Accelerate Research, which was a randomized controlled trial to treat childhood obesity in Eastern Massachusetts. The intervention included computerized clinician decision support plus a family self-guided behavior change intervention or a health coach intervention, which included text messages to the family to promote behavior change. We found that children living closer to supermarkets were able to increase their fruit and vegetable intake and decrease their BMI z-score more during the intervention period than children living farther from supermarkets. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, NYU, Pediatrics, Weight Research / 20.01.2016

More on Obesity from MedicalResearch.com MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Brian Elbel, PhD, MPH, Associate Professor, Department of Population Health, NYU Langone Medical Center Amy Schwartz, PhD, Director, New York University Institute for Education and Social Policy, and the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Chair in Public Affairs, Syracuse University Michele Leardo, MA, Assistant Director New York University Institute for Education and Social Policy Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: New York City, as well as other school districts, is making tap water available to students during lunch by placing water dispensers, called water jets, in schools. Surprisingly, drinking water was not always readily available in the lunchroom. Water jets are part of a larger effort to combat child obesity. We find small, but statistically significant, decreases in weight for students in schools with water jets compared to students in schools without water jets. We see a .025 reduction in standardized body mass index for boys and .022 for girls. We also see a .9 percentage point reduction in the likelihood of being overweight for boys and a .6 percentage point reduction for girls. In other words, the intervention is working. (more…)
Author Interviews, Eating Disorders, Psychological Science, Weight Research / 18.01.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Samuel Chng PhD Researcher in Psychology Applied to Health University of Exeter Medical School St Luke’s campus Exeter, EX1 2LU, United Kingdom Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The study was conceptualised from the curious question from my childhood, “How did my parents influence my behaviours?” Together with my co-author, Dr. Daniel Fassnacht, we decided to explore how a specific form of parental influence, their comments, would influence the development of disordered eating symptoms. From studies conducted with Western samples that parental comments play a role in the development of eating disorder symptoms, and body dissatisfaction is one of the more studied mediator of this relationship. However, we could not find any study that investigated the influential nature of parent comments in Asia. So, we decided to focus our study on Asian parents and their children. Singapore, a developed Asian country that continues to have strong familial roots, provided an ideal population for our study, and we would expect, the relationships we found indicated some potential differences in amongst Asian families. We found that young women, compared to young men, in Singapore generally reported higher levels of parental comments (about their weight, body shape and eating habit), body dissatisfaction and disordered eating symptoms. However what we found for both young women and men was that negative comments from mothers (for example, ‘You need to lose weight’) was the only category of comments that predicted disordered eating and this was mediated by the presence of body dissatisfaction. Positive comments from parents, though suggested from past studies to be a protective factor, did not influence body dissatisfaction and disordered eating. (more…)
AHA Journals, Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, NIH, Nutrition, Sugar, Weight Research / 12.01.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Caroline Fox, MD MPH National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine Harvard Medical School Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Fox: There is evidence linking sugar sweetened beverages with obesity and type 2 diabetes. There is also evidence suggesting that specific adipose tissue depots may play a role in the pathogenesis of these diseases. We found that higher levels of sugar sweetened beverage (SSB) intake was associated with more visceral fat (fat in the stomach cavity) over 6 years. (more…)
Author Interviews, Depression, JAMA, Surgical Research, UCLA, Weight Research / 12.01.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Aaron J. Dawes, MD Fellow, VA/RWJF Clinical Scholars Program Division of Health Services Research University of California Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA 90024 Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Dawes: We reviewed the published literature to answer three basic questions about bariatric surgery and mental health conditions. First, how common are mental health conditions among patients being referred for or undergoing bariatric surgery?
  • Second, do patients who carry a diagnosis of one of these conditions lose less weight after surgery than patients without these conditions?
  • And, third, what happens to the clinical course of mental health conditions after patients undergo surgery? Do they get better, worse, or stay the same?
We found that mental health conditions are surprisingly common among bariatric patients, especially depression and binge eating disorder, which occur at almost twice the rate among bariatric patients than in the general U.S. population. We also found no strong evidence to suggest that patients with depression lose less weight after surgery and some evidence that the condition may actually improve after surgery. Eleven of the twelve studies on the topic found either lower rates or fewer symptoms of depression, at least during the first 3 years post-operatively. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Surgical Research, Weight Research / 10.01.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Sigrid Bjerge Gribsholt MD, PhD Student Department of Endocrinology and Internal Medicine, Aarhus University Hospital 8000 Aarhus C Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Based on our clinical experiences we became aware that surgical, medical and nutritional symptoms were common in this group of patients. To enlighten the prevalence and severity we decided to undertake the study. Our main findings include that 88% of the patients felt better or much better than before surgery and 8% felt worse. Furthermore, we found that 68% of the patients had been in contact with the health care system. (more…)
Author Interviews, Nutrition, Weight Research / 08.01.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Russell Keast Ph.D., CFS Professor Centre for Advanced Sensory Science (CASS) School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, Faculty of Health Deakin University Melbourne Burwood Campus Burwood, VIC 3125 Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Keast: Fatty acids are detected at various stages of food consumption and digestion via interactions with nutrient receptors upon the tongue and within the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. This chemoreception initiates functional responses, i.e., taste perception, peptide secretion and alterations in GI motility that play a fundamental role in food consumption, hedonics and satiety. In obesity, both GI and taste detection of fatty acids is attenuated and this may predispose individuals to increased consumption of high-fat foods, or foods containing greater concentrations of fat.  In other word overweight and obese people are less sensitive to fat and this is associated with overconsumption of fatty foods leading to weight gain. (more…)
Author Interviews, Lancet, Nutrition, Sugar, Weight Research / 08.01.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Kawther Hashem MSc RNutr (Public Health) Nutritionist and Researcher Action on Sugar Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Queen Mary, University of London London UK Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The calculations showed that a 40% reduction in free sugars added to Sugar Sweetened Beverages (SSBs) over five years would lead to an average reduction in energy intake of 38 kcal per day by the end of the fifth year. This would lead to an average reduction in body weight of 1.20kg in adults,  resulting in a reduction in overweight and obese adults by approximately half a million and 1 million respectively. This would in turn prevent between 274,000-309,000 obesity-related type 2 diabetes over the next two decades. Policies such as this will reduce cases of overweight and obesity and type 2 diabetes, this will have a major clinical impact and reduce healthcare costs. (more…)
Author Interviews, Exercise - Fitness, Pediatrics, Weight Research / 28.12.2015

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Michael Rebold, PhD, CSCS Assistant Professor Department of Exercise Science Bloomsburg University Bloomsburg, PA 17815 Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Dr. Rebold: The obesity epidemic seen in children.  If we can make children at a young age physically active then maybe they will be more likely to be physically active into their adult years.  Since parents are the primary role models for younger children we must find ways to get the parents involved in physical activity as well, because children will model their parent's behaviors. Medical Research: What are the main findings? Dr. Rebold: The main findings from this study are that when parents are actively participating in activities with their children, their children spend more time in physical activities and less time in sedentary activities. When parents are not present and children are alone, then they spend more time engaging in sedentary activities and less time in physical activities.  When parents are actively watching their children, children still engaged in a significant more amount of time in physical activities than sedentary activities when compared to the alone condition but still not as great as with parents participating. Children also liked and were motivated to engage in additional physical activity time when parents were participating with them. (more…)
Author Interviews, Pediatrics, Weight Research / 23.12.2015

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: S. Bryn Austin, ScD, Professor Dept. of Social and Behavioral Sciences Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Director, Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders and Katherine L. Record JD, MPH Massachusetts Health Policy Commission Boston  Medical Research: What is the background for this editorial? What are the main concerns regarding thinness in 'Paris' models? Response: The fashion industry has long been criticized for promoting unrealistic and patently unhealthy standards of thinness for girls and women. Furthermore, decades of psychological research have documented the pervasive and pernicious harm caused to body image and sense of self especially for adolescent girls during a most vulnerable time of development. What is often left out of the discussion, though, is the immediate and sometimes deadly harm caused to the girls and young women working as professional models as a result of what amounts to coerced starvation as a condition of employment. Most models begin working in the industry in their early or mid teens -- in other words, as children. We must ask ourselves, what other industry or employer in the United States would ever be allowed by our government to foster practices of coerced starvation of American child labor? (more…)
Author Interviews, Pediatrics, UCSD, Weight Research / 17.12.2015

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Geert W. Schmid-Schonbein, Ph.D. Distinguished Professor and Chairman Department of Bioengineering Adjunct Professor in Medicine University of California San Diego Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Schmid-Schonbein: Most approaches to control/reduce body weight focus on reducing food quantity, improving quality and promoting daily activity. These approaches, effective in the short term, only yield modest weight control. Weight management strategies recommended in the past have not significantly diminished the current trend towards childhood and adolescence obesity. We developed and tested an alternative approach to control weight gain in healthy individuals to reduce the risk for development of obesity and diabetes complications. The essence is to: “Eat deliberately slow AND stop eating when you feel no longer hungry”. The approach avoids any form of special diet, uses no drugs, can be adopted for a lifetime and used in any ethnic environment. Children in a Mexican School in Durango were instructed by a pediatrician to learn to eat deliberately slow and to stop eating when the satiety reflex sets in, i.e. the moment when the feeling of hunger has disappeared. They were instructed to:
  • quench the thirst at the beginning of a meal with water,
  • use a portable 30 second hourglass sand timer,
  • take a bite only when the sand timer was turned, and
  • stop eating when they were no longer hungry (as compared to feeling of fullness), and
  • limit food consumption after the point of satiety.
Over a one-year period, children not using the hourglass excessively increased their body-mass index, while in contrast children using the hourglass grew normally their body-mass index. Body surface area and waist hip ratio followed the same trend. The study shows feasibility of regulating food intake by education that is directed at developing slow eating habits and cessation of eating at satiety. A combination of behavioral training and focused eating monitoring may constitute a weight control method that may serve a life-time and can be promoted for children and adolescents at moderate costs, on a national basis. (more…)