Author Interviews, Diabetes, JAMA, PTSD / 21.08.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jeff Scherrer, Ph.D. Associate professor; Research director Department of Family and Community Medicine Saint Louis University Center for Health Outcomes Research  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: This study was part of a larger NIH grant to determine if PTSD is associated with poor health behaviors and subsequently whether PTSD remains an independent risk factor for diabetes and heart disease.  Our second focus of the grant was to measure if those patients who experience clinically meaningful PTSD improvement have improved health behaviors (e.g. seeking help to lose weight) and a lower risk for diabetes and heart disease. The rationale for this study of PTSD improvement and lower risk for diabetes is supported from other investigators' findings that PTSD treatment completion is often followed by improvement in sleep, depression, pain and general physical complaints and lower blood pressure.  Because we have found the association between PTSD and incident diabetes is largely explained by obesity, depression and other comorbid conditions that are more common in patients with vs. without PTSD, we hypothesized that improvements in PTSD would be associated with lower risk of diabetes either directly or due to improvements in these comorbid diabetes risk factors. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cancer Research, Cleveland Clinic, Weight Research / 15.08.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Siran M. Koroukian, PhD Director, Population Cancer Analytics Shared Resource Case Comprehensive Cancer Center Director, Population Health and Outcomes Research Core Associate Professor Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences School of Medicine Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, OH MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Previous studies have shown that obesity-associated cancers (OACs) have been increasing in younger people. Using data from over 6 million cancer cases from 2000-2016, we identified the specific age/sex/race-ethnicity groups that were most affected by increases in OACs. We found a substantial shift of obesity-associated cancers to younger age groups, with the most notable increases occurring to the 50-64 age group. In addition, we observed the greatest percentage increase in the number of OAC cases during the study period in Hispanic men and women, as well as for cancers of the thyroid, gallbladder, liver and intrabiliary duct. (more…)
Annals Internal Medicine, Author Interviews, Race/Ethnic Diversity, Weight Research / 13.08.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jonathan Emberson, PhD Associate Professor (Medical Statistics and Epidemiology) Deputy Director of Graduate Studies Medical Research Council Population Health Research Unit Clinical Trial Service Unit & Epidemiological Studies Unit Nuffield Department Population Health University of Oxford    MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Some previous studies had claimed that being overweight is not strongly associated with mortality in Hispanic populations (the ‘Hispanic paradox’). However, these studies had not accounted for the fact that while obesity makes diabetes and several other chronic diseases more common, these diseases may then result in substantial weight loss, thereby hiding the reason why those diseases arose in the first place.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Environmental Risks, NYU, Pediatrics, Weight Research / 26.07.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Melanie Jacobson, PhD, MPH NYU School of Medicine New York, N.Y.  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Our study was about exposure to bisphenols, which are synthetic chemicals found in aluminum can linings, plastics, thermal paper receipts and other consumer products, and their association with obesity among a nationally representative sample of US children and adolescents. We found that children who had greater levels of these chemicals in their urine were more likely to be obese compared with children with lower levels. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Menopause, Weight Research / 25.07.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Yangbo Sun  MD, PhD Department of Epidemiology University of Iowa Wei Bao, MD, PhD Assistant Professor, Department of Epidemiology College of Public Health, University of Iowa Iowa City, IA 52242 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Obesity has become a serious health problem in the United States. Body mass index (BMI) which is calculated as weight (kg)/height (m)2, is the standard measure used to define obesity in clinical and public health guidelines. However, BMI does not distinguish body shape or body fat distribution. Meanwhile central obesity, characterized by relatively high abdominal fat distribution, has been associated with higher risk of mortality, independent of BMI. So for example, two persons with the same BMI of 24 which is considered as “normal weight”, might have different abdominal fat distribution, thus they might be facing different risk of developing disease and mortality. In the most recent obesity management guidelines, measuring central obesity was recommended among people who are either overweight or have class I obesity (BMI 25.0-34.9 kg/m2), but not among people of normal weight. This might send those people with normal weight but with high abdominal fat as well as those public and clinical professionals a wrong message that these people are free of any particular obesity-related risk, while in fact, they are at elevated risk of mortality and might need risk reduction interventions, such as lifestyle modifications and other interventions. So we did this study to evaluate the mortality risk among this neglected group of people. We found that women with normal weight central obesity were at increased risk of mortality. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Cognitive Issues, Gender Differences, Hormone Therapy, JAMA, Menopause, Weight Research / 05.07.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Rachel Zsido PhD student Department of Neurology International Max Planck MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: We integrated measures of brain network structure, visceral adipose tissue (VAT), serum estradiol levels, and cognitive performance from 974 participants in order to shed light on potential mechanisms underlying cognitive health. We believe it is imperative to assess sex-specific risk trajectories in brain aging and cognitive decline, especially given the known sex differences in both VAT accumulation patterns and estradiol fluctuations across the lifespan. Thus, we aimed to answer three questions in men and in women: 1) Does visceral adipose tissue exacerbate the association between age and brain network structure, 2) Does estradiol mitigate the negative association between VAT and brain network structure, and 3) What does this imply for healthy cognitive aging in men and women?  (more…)
Author Interviews, CDC, JAMA, Nutrition, Pediatrics, Weight Research / 24.06.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Liping Pan, MD, MPH Epidemiologist Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Centers for Disease Control and Prevention MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Children with severe obesity face significant health and social challenges. Children with obesity are at higher risk for having other chronic health conditions and diseases, such as asthma, sleep apnea, bone and joint problems, and type 2 diabetes. They also have more risk factors for heart disease such as high blood pressure, impaired glucose tolerance, and high cholesterol than their healthyweight peers. Children with obesity can be bullied and teased more than their healthyweight peers. They are also more likely to suffer from social isolation, depression, and lower self-esteem. Children with obesity are also more likely to have obesity as adults. This can lead to lifelong physical and mental health problems. Adult obesity is associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and many types of cancers.  Childhood obesity is more common among children from lower-income families, as many lack access to healthy, affordable foods and beverages and opportunities for low-cost physical activity. (more…)
Author Interviews, OBGYNE, Pediatrics, PLoS, Weight Research / 16.06.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Henry J. Nuss, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center School of Public Health New Orleans, LA  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Childhood obesity rates in the U.S. have been increasing within the past 30 years. We can point to things like sedentary lifestyle, energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods and savvy marketing techniques of large food corporations that target kids and their parents to buy food items that aren’t healthy. That said, we do know that women who have an unhealthy weight status (as measured by BMI ≥ 25) tend to have offspring that eventually attain an unhealthy weight status themselves. Aside from environmental factors, could this be due to maternal programming or perhaps something in the breastmilk? Or both? We saw some interesting research that showed breastfed infants/toddlers born to asthmatic moms were more likely to develop asthma. Furthermore, this association became stronger the longer the infants/toddlers were breastfed. The conclusion here is that it must be something in the breastmilk. We knew that asthma and obesity are both inflammatory in nature and that there are specific pro- and anti-inflammatory and obesogenic bioactive compounds in human breastmilk. Some have been studied before but there were no studies at the time that tied all of the pieces together. If we could target specific compounds in the milk that were associated with unhealthy growth patterns in infants then we could perhaps be more specific in how we fight this problem. (more…)
Author Interviews, Environmental Risks, JAMA, Weight Research / 12.06.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Lead author: Yong-Moon (“Mark”) Park, MD, PhD Postdoctoral fellow Epidemiology Branch National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences   Senior author: Dale P. Sandler, PhD Chief, Epidemiology Branch, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences National Institutes of Health MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?   Response: A few studies had suggested that exposure to artificial light while sleeping was associated with obesity. However, the previous studies were cross-sectional, so we really do not know which came first - exposure to artificial light while sleeping or obesity. Another problem was that previous studies did not fully account for other characteristics that could affect this association, such as sleep duration and quality, calorie intake and dietary patterns, and physical activity. We studied nearly 44,000 women ages 35-74 from across the US who are enrolled in the Sister Study cohort. Women had body weight characteristics measured at baseline and provided self-reported information on weight at baseline and follow-up – on average 5.7 years later. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Prostate Cancer, Weight Research / 10.06.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Barbra Dickerman, PhD Research Fellow Department of Epidemiology Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Boston, MA MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Obesity is associated with a higher risk of advanced prostate cancer and poorer prognosis after diagnosis. However, emerging evidence suggests that the specific distribution of body fat may be an important prognostic factor for prostate cancer outcomes. In this original investigation, we analyzed body fat distribution on computed tomography imaging and the risk of being diagnosed with, and dying from, prostate cancer. This study was conducted among 1,832 Icelandic men with over a decade of follow-up in the Age, Gene/Environment Susceptibility-Reykjavik Study. (more…)
Author Interviews, Exercise - Fitness, Lifestyle & Health, Weight Research / 16.05.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: sneakers-walkingFrancesco Zaccardi, MD, PhD Clinical Epidemiologist Assistant Director Leicester Real World Evidence Unit Leicester Diabetes Centre UK MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The role of excess body weight on mortality has been extensively investigated during the last decades. Studies from several countries have also shown, however, that the risk of death in persons who are overweight or obese is lower if their fitness, a parameter indicating cardio-pulmonary health, is higher. Most of these studies reported the beneficial effect of fitness in terms of relative risk reduction, for example 20% reduction of risk of death. Relative estimates, though, are difficult to interpret. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, OBGYNE, Weight Research / 09.05.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr-Romy GaillardRomy Gaillard MD PhD LifeCycle Project-Maternal Obesity and Childhood Outcomes Study Group Erasmus MC MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?   Response: Obesity among women of reproductive age is a major problem for society. Scientists have long known that maternal weight before and during pregnancy are associated with pregnancy outcomes. Gestational weight gain is necessary to ensure healthy development of the fetus, but too much weight gain is associated with a higher risk of pregnancy complications. The magnitude of the associations of maternal weight before and during pregnancy with the risks of pregnancy complications, as well as the optimal amount of weight that especially obese women should gain during pregnancy were not well-known. (more…)
Author Interviews, Dermatology, Weight Research / 01.05.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Igor Snast, MD Department of Dermatology Rabin Medical Center–Beilinson Hospita Israel.  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Acne is the most common skin disorder among adolescents. Obesity has been suggested to promote acne, however various studies evaluating the relationship between obesity and acne have yielded contradictory outcomes. Our population-based study demonstrates that overweight, obese and severely obese youths have decreased odds of having acne (20%, 35% and 50% respectively) compared to normal-weight subjects. (more…)
UCSD / 25.04.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Amir Zarrinpar, MD, PhD Assistant Professor, Division of Gastroenterology University of California, San Diego  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Over the last decade, physicians are beginning to recognize obesity as a disease that requires specific attention; they are more engaged with treating obesity itself rather than its metabolic consequences (such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, cholesterol problems, and/or non-alcoholic fatty liver disease). However, treating obesity is very difficult and many patients don’t succeed in getting the minimum weight loss (approximately 5%) needed to get beneficial health effects. Recent obesity treatment guidelines recommend avoiding placing patients who are obese on obesogenic medication, or medication that have weight gain as a significant side effect. Despite this recommendation, we noticed many patients who seek treatment for obesity in our clinics are on obesogenic medications. We first noticed that about 40% of patients who are undergoing bariatric surgery at UCSD were prescribed an obesogenic medication. These patients had worse weight loss outcomes compared to patients who did not have any obesogenic medications published that study recently in the International Journal of Obesity. We wondered whether these findings were specific to bariatric surgery or if patients who were undergoing behavioral treatment (that is, diet and exercise) also had poor weight loss outcomes if they were on obesogenic medications.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Pediatrics, Weight Research / 23.04.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: M. Pia Chaparro, MS, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Global Community Health and Behavioral Sciences School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine Tulane University New Orleans, LA 70112 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: In 2009, the WIC program changed the food packages participants receive to better align them with federal dietary guidelines. These changes included the addition of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains; a reduction in the amount of dairy and juice; and a calibration in formula amounts to match infants’ age and needs. We found that this change in the food package was associated with a 10-12% lower obesity risk at age 4 years among children who participated in WIC in Los Angeles County continuously from birth until age 4. (more…)
Author Interviews, Dermatology, Weight Research / 15.04.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Igor Snast, MD Department of Dermatology Rabin Medical Center–Beilinson Hospital Israel MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Acne is the most common skin disorder among adolescents. Obesity has been suggested to promote acne, however various studies evaluating the relationship between obesity and acne have yielded contradictory outcomes. Our population-based study demonstrates that overweight, obese and severely obese youths have decreased odds of having acne (20%, 35% and 50% respectively) compared to normal-weight subjects. (more…)
Author Interviews, Gout, NIH, OBGYNE / 04.04.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jack A. Yanovski, MD, PhD Senior Investigator Section on Growth and Obesity, DIR, NICHD National Institutes of Health Hatfield Clinical Research Center Bethesda, MD 20892‐1103 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Studies of both mouse models and people suggest that obesity induced inflammation may promote insulin resistance and progression to diabetes. Others have proposed that suppressing this chronic, low level inflammation may slow the onset of diabetes. Nod-like Receptor Family Pyrin Domain Containing 3 (NLRP3) has recently been shown to play a strong role in promoting the inflammatory state in obesity. Colchicine, traditionally used to suppress or prevent inflammation in gout and other disorders is believed to inhibit formation of the NLRP3 inflammasome. Our group hypothesized that colchicine would improve obesity associated inflammation in adults with metabolic syndrome who had not yet developed type 2 diabetes. (more…)
Author Interviews, Endocrinology, Weight Research / 27.03.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Liya Kerem, MD Fellow, Pediatric Endocrine Unit Massachusetts General Hospital for Children Harvard Medical School MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?   Response: The hypothalamic neurohormone Oxytocin (OXT), shown to decrease food intake in animals and humans, is a promising novel treatment for obesity. We previously showed that in men with overweight/obesity, intranasal (IN)OXT reduced the fMRI activation in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), the origin of the mesolimbic dopaminergic reward system, in response to high-calorie food vs non-food visual stimuli. Here, we employed fMRI functional connectivity analysis, which better characterizes the exchange in information between neural systems in a context-dependent manner. We hypothesized that Oxytocin would reduce the functional connectivity of the VTA with food motivation brain areas in response to high-calorie foods.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Duke, Endocrinology, Environmental Risks, Thyroid Disease, Weight Research / 27.03.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Christopher D. Kassotis, Ph.D. NRSA Postdoctoral Research Scholar Stapleton Lab Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment Durham, NC 27708  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
  • So this was something that Heather Stapleton had been curious about for years, as she's been one of several researchers characterizing the hundreds of chemicals that have been measured in indoor house dust. Before I came to Duke, one of her PhD students had measured the ability of many common indoor contaminants to activate the peroxisome proliferator activated receptor gamma (PPARg). The majority of these chemicals did, often quite well, which led to them testing indoor house dust extracts, also finding that the majority of dust extracts were also able to do so at very low levels. As PPARg is often considered the master regulator of fat cell development, the next obvious question was whether these common contaminants (and house dust) could promote fat cell development in cell models. My first work at Duke evaluated a suite of common indoor contaminants, finding that many of these chemicals could promote fat cell development, and that low levels of house dust extracts did as well.
  • We next explored this more systematically in a group of adults involved in a thyroid cancer cohort (this was just recently published in Science of the Total Environment: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969719307715?dgcid=author
  • In this study we evaluated the extent to which house dust extracts could promote fat cell development in a common cell model, and associated this with the metabolic health of adults living in these homes. We found that the greater extent of fat cell development was associated with significantly greater thyroid stimulating hormone concentrations (control residents only, with no evidence of thyroid dysfunction) and lower free triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4). We further found a significant and positive association between extent of fat cell development and the body mass index (BMI) of all adults in the study. So this suggested that the indoor environment might play a role in the BMI and metabolic health of residents, and we next wondered if this would be more pronounced in children, who may be exposed to these contaminants during a critical window of development.
  • The next step, for our current work, was to substantiate these effects in a larger group of households, each with children.
  • Our major conclusions thus far have been that ~80% of house dust extracts promote significant fat cell development in a cell model - either via development from precursor cells into mature fat cells, measured via accumulation of lipids into the cells, or via the proliferation of those precursor fat cells. We also reported positive correlations of fat cell development with the concentrations of 70 different contaminants in the dust from these homes, suggesting that mixtures of contaminants are likely all acting weakly to produce these effects in combination. We’ve also begun to assess the other chemicals present in dust - chemistry can be either targeted (measuring concentrations of specific known chemicals in a sample), or non-targeted, where you try and determine the identity of the other chemicals in a sample. This has greater utility for identifying many more chemicals, though you will often not get chemical concentrations from this, nor absolute confirmed identification - just varying degrees of certainty based on evidence. Thus far we report approximately 35,000 chemicals in house dust samples across this study, and differential analyses have begun to pick out the few (less than 10 in each case) chemicals most differentially expressed between samples that exhibit high degrees of fat cell development in the lab vs inactive samples, for example, or which are differentially present in the homes of children categorized as obese or overweight. We are now working to confirm identity of these select contaminants that are more likely to be causative factors in the results we have observed.
(more…)
Alcohol, Author Interviews, JAMA, Weight Research / 12.03.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Alice R Carter MSc Doctor of Philosophy Student MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit Population Health Science, Bristol Medical School University of Bristol MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?   Response: Higher body mass index and alcohol intake have been shown to increase the risk of liver disease. Some studies have looked at their combined effect by comparing the risk of liver disease between individuals with both high BMI and high alcohol intake and individuals with low BMI and low alcohol intake. However, these studies have produced mixed results. Some possible reasons for that are errors in self-reported BMI and alcohol intake, other factors confounding the association of BMI & alcohol intake with liver disease risk and changes in lifestyle that individuals with ill health may have been advised to adopt. One way to overcome these limitations is to use a technique called Mendelian randomisation. This method uses genetic differences between individuals that influence their characteristics (e.g. their body mass and how much alcohol they drink) to help understand whether these characteristics are causally related to diseases. Our study used this method to explore the joint effects of BMI and alcohol consumption on liver disease and biomarkers of liver injury.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, Pharmaceutical Companies, Weight Research / 12.03.2019

WeightControl.com Interview with: Dr. Lynn Kramer, MD FAAN VP and Chief Clinical Officer & Chief Medical Office Eisai Co., Ltd WeightControl.com: What is the background for this announcement? Response: On February 25th, Eisai announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted its supplemental New Drug Application to potentially update the label for BELVIQ® (lorcaserin HCI) CIV 10 mg twice-daily/BELVIQ XR (lorcaserin HCI) CIV once daily to include long-term efficacy and safety data from CAMELLIA-TIMI 61, a clinical trial of BELVIQ in 12,000 overweight and obese patients with cardiovascular (CV) disease and/or multiple CV risk factors such as type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, Nutrition, Salt-Sodium, Weight Research / 09.03.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Megan A McCrory, PhD, FTOS Research Associate Professor Dept of Health Sciences Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences Boston University 02215 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The prevalence of overweight and obesity has increased in the US, along with documented increases in portion size in the food supply. Fast food is popular, making up about 11% of adult daily calorie intake in the US, and over 1/3 of U.S. adults eat at fast food establishments on any given day. We therefore sought to examine changes in portion size, calories, and selected nutrients in fast-food entree, side, and dessert menu items across the years 1986, 1991, and 2016. (more…)
Author Interviews, Depression, Nutrition, Supplements, Weight Research / 08.03.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Prof. Marjolein Visser PhD Professor of Healthy Aging Head section Nutrition and Health Department of Health Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Amsterdam Public Health research institute MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: More than 40 million Europeans experience a major depressive disorder. One in ten men, and one in five women suffer from clinical depression at least once during their lifetime. Depression is one of the most prevalent and disabling disorders in the EU. Given the increasing prevalence of depression, more people are actively searching for ways to decrease their risk through lifestyle modification, but are often overwhelmed by confusing and contradictory information. The MooDFOOD prevention trial is the largest randomized clinical trial to study the effects of nutritional strategies on the prevention of major depressive disorder. Over 1000 overweight or obese participants identified as being at elevated risk for depression but who were not currently depressed, from four European countries -the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany and Spain, took part in the study. Participants were randomized to either take nutritional supplements containing folic acid, vitamin D, zinc, selenium or to a pill placebo, and half of participants also received a behavioral lifestyle intervention intended to change dietary behaviors and patterns. (more…)
Author Interviews, Depression, OBGYNE, Weight Research / 05.03.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jun Ma, MD, PhD, FAHA, FABMR Professor and Associate Head of Research Department of Medicine Director, Center for Health Behavior Research The University of Illinois at Chicago MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Obesity and depression are major public health problems. Obesity affects 40% of United States (US) adults. About 20% in US women and 13% in men experience major depressive disorder at some point in their lifetime and, additionally, many adults have elevated depressive symptoms that do not meet clinical diagnostic criteria but can nevertheless negatively affect their health and quality of life. Obesity and depression share common risk factors, such as poor diet and lack of exercise, and cause other health problems, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. People with obesity are at increased risk of being depressed and, likewise, people with depression are at increased risk of being obese. Consequently, obesity and depression often co-occur. To date, there has been no integrated therapy to effectively treat patients affected by both conditions at the same time. The RAINBOW randomized clinical trial addressed this gap. The main finding from the trial is that, among adult patients with obesity and depression, a collaborative care intervention integrating behavioral weight loss treatment, problem-solving therapy, and as-needed antidepressant medications significantly improve weight loss and depressive symptoms over one year compared with usual care, which patients received through their primary care physicians.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, Exercise - Fitness, JAMA, Lifestyle & Health, Weight Research / 05.03.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Giuseppe Pugliese, MD, PhD for the Italian Diabetes and Exercise Study 2 (IDES_2) Investigators Department of Clinical and Molecular Medicine ‘‘La Sapienza’’ University Diabetes Unit, Sant’Andrea University Hospital Rome, Italy MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: There is a growing epidemic of obesity and type 2 diabetes worldwide, which are causally related to the increasing prevalence of “physical inactivity”, i.e., an insufficient amount of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity according to current guidelines, and “sedentariness”, i.e., too many hours, especially if uninterrupted, spent in a sitting or reclined position.  These two unhealthy behaviors exert their detrimental effects independently of each other and are very common among people suffering from type 2 diabetes, who would therefore benefit from increasing physical activity and reducing sedentary time, as recommended by current guidelines. However, such a behavior change is generally difficult for a number of internal and external barriers and requires behavioral interventions targeting both physical activity and sedentary habits.  Unfortunately, there is no definitive evidence that this is indeed feasible and, particularly, that, if adopted, change in behavior can be maintained in the long term.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Personalized Medicine, Weight Research / 19.02.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ruth Loos, PhD The Charles Bronfman Professor in Personalized Medicine Director, Genetics of Obesity and Related Traits Program Co-Director, Charles Bronfman Institute for Personalized Medicine Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai New York, NY     MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Which type of body fat distribution carries greater risk of diabetes or other obesity-related health disorders? Response: Obesity broadly consists of two component; [1] there is overall body size (assessed using BMI) and [2] there is fat distribution (assessed using WHR). Both are “heritable”, which mean that they are in part determined by our genome (and the other part is determined by our lifestyle). Over the past 15 years, geneticists have used an approach to screen the whole genome of thousands of people to identify genetic variations that differ between e.g. obese people vs non-obese people. We have applied this approach to both components of obesity and have found so far that genes for “overall body size” seem to act in the brain, likely controlling hunger, satiety, reward, etc., whereas the genes that determine where in the body the excess fat will be stored when you gain weight (i.e. fat distribution) seem to act more “locally” at the fat cell level itself, determining the storage and release of fat.  (more…)
Annals Internal Medicine, Author Interviews, Exercise - Fitness, Heart Disease, Karolinski Institute, Weight Research / 13.02.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Pontus Henriksson | PhD and Registered Dietitian Postdoctoral Researcher | SFO-V Fellow Department of Biosciences and Nutrition Karolinska Institutet  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: In many countries, disability pensions are granted to working-aged persons who are likely to never work full-time again because of a chronic disease or injury diagnosed by a physician. In addition to serving as an important indicator of chronic disease, disability pensions are associated with high societal costs. Hence, we examined whether cardiorespiratory fitness and obesity (two potentially modifiable factors) were associated with disability pension later in life. Our main findings were that low physical fitness and/or obesity during adolescence, were strongly associated with disability pension later in life due to a wide range of diseases and causes.  (more…)
Author Interviews, General Medicine, Heart Disease, Science, Weight Research / 04.02.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Vitor Engrácia Valenti, PhD Professor São Paulo State University Marília MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: Autonomic modulation and cardiorespiratory variables are influenced by numerous factors. Abdominal fat tissue is a relevant variables related to metabolic and cardiovascular disorders, including diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia and hypertension, which are associated to increased risk of morbidity and mortality. We evaluated cardiorespiratory variables and autonomic nervous system before and during recovery from exercise in healthy physically active men divided according to with waist-stature ratio (WSR): G1 – between 0.40 and 0.449 (N = 19), and G2 – between 0.45 and 0.49. This metholodigcal procedure is able to provide important information regarding the risk for developing cardiovascular disease in the future. Our main findings indicated that healthy physically active men with waist-stature ratio values close to the risk limit (between 0.449 and 0.5) presented slower return of autonomic and cardiorespiratory variables to baseline values after moderate exercise. It suggests that this group present an elevated probability of developing cardiovascular disease in the future compared to the groups with lower values of waist-stature ratio. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cancer Research, Global Health, Lancet, Weight Research / 04.02.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Hyuna Sung, PHD Principal Scientist, Surveillance Research American Cancer Society, Inc. 250 Williams St. Atlanta, GA 30303  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: This project was motivated by our previous finding on the rise of colorectal cancer among young adults before age 55. Changes in cancer trends among young age group have significant implications because the newly introduced carcinogenic agents are likely to affect trends among young people before they affect those among older people. Owing to this relationship, cancer trends among young people can be often considered as a bellwether for future disease burden. Given the dramatic increase of the obesity prevalence during 3-4 decades in the US, we wanted to expand the colorectal cancer finding to the more comprehensive list of cancers and explain them in the context of obesity epidemic. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cancer Research, Genetic Research, Weight Research / 24.01.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Brian R. Lane MD PhD Division of Urology Spectrum Health Grand Rapids, Michigan MedicalResearch.com: Can you explain how you conducted your study, and what the main findings were? Response:  We used large-scale genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to identify genetic variants associated with obesity measures, blood pressure, lipids, type 2 diabetes, insulin, and glucose. these genetic variants were used as proxies for the above-mentioned risk factors and evaluated in relation to renal cell carcinoma risk (kidney cancer) using GWAS data from 10,000 RCC patients and 20,000 control participants. -          Based on these genetic data, we found that multiple measures of obesity, as well as diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and fasting insulin, are associated with renal cell carcinoma risk. In contrast, we found little evidence for an association with RCC risk for systolic blood pressure (SBP), circulating lipids, overall diabetes, or fasting glucose.  (more…)