MedicalResearch.com - Latest news, interviews, and insights into medical research, health and wellness, fitness and addiction.
Author Interviews, Pediatrics, Weight Research / 18.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Gerda Pot Lecturer in Nutritional Sciences King’s College London | Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine Diabetes & Nutritional Sciences Division | London UK MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Pot: Previous evidence suggested that the timing of food intake can have a significant impact on circadian rhythms (i.e. the body's internal clock) and therefore on metabolic processes within the body, potentially leading to an increased risk of being overweight or obese. However, the evidence from studies in children is very limited so we set out to establish whether this risk was also associated with the timing of children's evening meals.  MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings? (more…)
Author Interviews, Columbia, Pediatrics, Toxin Research, Weight Research / 18.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Lori A. Hoepner, DrPH Department of Environmental Health Sciences Columbia University New York, NY 10032 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Hoepner: The Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health was funded starting in 1998.  Pregnant African American and Dominican mothers residing in Northern Manhattan and the South Bronx were enrolled from 1998 to 2006, and mothers and their children have been followed since this time.  We collected urine samples from the pregnant mothers in their third trimester and from the children at ages 3 and 5.  At ages 5 and 7 we measured the height and weight of the children, and at age 7 we also measured body fat and waist circumference. MedicalResearch.com:  What are the main findings? Dr. Hoepner:  We found a significant association between increased prenatal exposure to Bisphenol A (BPA) and increases in childhood body fat measures of waist circumference and percent body fat at age 7.  Our research builds on earlier findings of an association between prenatal exposure to BPA and body fat in children up to age 4, and this is the first study to report an association at age 7. (more…)
Author Interviews, CDC, Pediatrics, Weight Research / 16.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Chloe Barrera MPH ORISE Fellow Centers for Disease Control and PreventionChloe Barrera MPH ORISE Fellow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Previous studies have been inconsistent in whether introduction of solid foods to babies before 4 months may be associated with later obesity.  In our analysis of more than a thousand babies followed through the first year of life and contacted again at 6 years, we did not find this association. (more…)
Artificial Sweeteners, Author Interviews, Nutrition, Pediatrics, Weight Research / 15.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Meghan Azad PhD Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics & Child Health and Community Health Sciences University of Manitoba Associate Investigator, Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) Study MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Azad: It is well known that maternal nutrition plays a key role in “programming” fetal development and infant weight gain, but the impact of artificial sweetener consumption during this critical period has not been extensively studied.  Some animal research suggests that consuming artificial sweeteners during pregnancy can predispose offspring to develop obesity, but this has never been studied in humans, until now. (more…)
Author Interviews, Pediatrics, Sleep Disorders, Weight Research / 11.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ofir Turel, Ph.D Professor, Information Systems and Decision Sciences California State University, Fullerton Scholar in Residence, Department of Psychology University of Southern California MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Turel: The study emerged as a response to the growing societal concern regarding potentially problematic information system use” lifestyles”, including videogame addiction, among adolescents. Much research in this domain has focused on negative psychological (e.g., reduced wellbeing, depression) and social/life functioning (e.g., reduction in normal activities, diminished school performance). Less is known regarding potential physiological outcomes of videogame addiction. Interestingly, the increase in videogame addiction-like symptoms among adolescents happened in conjunction with an increase in sleep curtailment and obesity in this population. These are too growing concerns in North America and perhaps elsewhere. Medical research implies that these three phenomena may be related. Hence, we hypothesized that videogame addiction will be associated with increased sleep curtailment and increased abdominal adiposity; and consequently, indirectly, with cardio-metabolic deficits. Our findings suggest that videogame addiction predicts reduced sleep duration which in turn, predicts increased abdominal adiposity. Abdominal adiposity was associated with increased blood pressure, insulin resistance and triglycerides and reduced high density lipoprotein cholesterol levels. Hence, sleep curtailment is an important mediating factor that helps translating videogame addiction into cardio-metabolic deficiencies. (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Weight Research / 06.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dagfinn Aune Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics School of Public Health Imperial College London St. Mary's Campus Norfolk Place, Paddington, London MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The prevalence of overweight and obesity has increased rapidly over the past decades in all areas of the world. This has raised serious public health concerns because of the relationship between excess weight and increased risk of many chronic diseases including cardiovascular disease, several types of cancer, type 2 diabetes, gallstones, gout, osteoarthritis, and several other conditions as well as all-cause mortality. Body mass index (BMI) is an established way of measuring adiposity and is calculated by dividing the weight in kilograms with the height in metres squared. Although overweight (BMI 25-29.9) and obesity (BMI ≥30) has been associated with increased risk of mortality in several previous studies, the largest previous study showed that when compared to normal weight, overweight was associated with reduced mortality, and only grade 2 obesity (BMI ≥35) was associated with increased risk of mortality. However, there were several limitations in that study, for example, smoking and prevalent or prediagnostic illness were not taken into account, both of which can cause lower body weight and increased mortality and may therefore bias the optimal BMI range upwards. In addition, many large studies which did not use the standard WHO categories of normal weight, overweight and obesity, but had used smaller increments to categorize BMI to provide more detailed assessment of the dose-response relationship between BMI and mortality, had been excluded.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Radiology, Weight Research / 05.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Albert Roh MD Radiology Resident Maricopa Integrated Health System MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Roh: Obesity is well documented to be associated with many medical conditions.  Currently, obesity is defined as body mass index (BMI) over 30 kg/m^2.  Although simple to calculate and relatively accurate, BMI has its limitations.  BMI does not factor in the subject’s body type or fat distribution pattern.  For example, a muscular subject and a fatty subject may both have BMI of 30 and be considered obese, although the muscular subject would not be predisposed to the comorbidities associated with obesity.  Similarly, two subjects may have the same BMI but have different fat distribution patterns: “apple” with fat distributed primarily on the chest/abdomen and “pear” with fat distributed on the hips.  The “apple” fat distribution correlates better with the comorbidities associated with obesity. (more…)
Author Interviews, Pediatrics, Weight Research / 29.04.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ashley Wendell Kranjac, PhD Department of Sociology and Kinder Institute for Urban Research Rice University Houston, Texas and Robert L. Wagmiller, Jr. Associate Professor Department of Sociology Temple University Philadelphia, PA 19122 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The Center for Disease Control recently reported a decline in child obesity amongst 2-to5-year old children between 2003/4 and 2011/12 (see, Ogden et al. 2014). We aimed to identify the sources of this decline because this change occurred in a relatively short period of time. What we found is that the decline in obesity did not occur due to the things that you might expect like changes in physical activity or dietary practices (although there were some differences in these factors across years). But, rather, what we found is that because there were differences in obesity rates for the youngest and oldest children in this age range in 2003/4, but not in 2011/12, that the decline in obesity exists. In other words, because the oldest children in 2003/4 had significantly higher obesity rates than the youngest children in this time period, but this effect is not observable in 2011/12, we see a decline in obesity. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome, OBGYNE, Pediatrics, University Texas, Weight Research / 21.04.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Antonio Saad, MD Fellow in Maternal Fetal Medicine & Critical Care Medicine University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Saad: Recently the WHO announced an alarming news, the prevalence of diabetes has increased four fold in the past quarter-century. The major factors attributed for this increase included excessive weight, and obesity. In the US alone, two thirds of people are either overweight or obese. There are shocking numbers that should alert physicians, patients and government officials for awareness and interventions that we can alter the path away from this drastic epidemic. In light of recent events, our group strongly believes that poor diet during pregnancy predisposes offspring in adult life to develop obesity and diabetes through fetal programming. High fructose introduction into our food chain has coincided with the obesity and diabetes epidemics. Hence, we designed an animal study where we fed pregnant mice with either regular diet or high fructose diet until delivery. Then we looked at the offspring, at 12 months of age. We looked at  their blood pressure, glucose tolerance tests, insulin resistance,  and weights. We also tested for serum marker of metabolic dysfunction and used computed tomography imaging to assess for liver fat infiltration and percent visceral adipose tissue. To our surprise, these offspring (mothers were fed high fructose diet) developed several features of metabolic syndrome.  Female offspring’s cardiovascular and metabolic function at one year of age (adulthood) had increased weight, blood pressure, visceral adiposity, liver fat infiltrates and  insulin resistance with impaired glucose tolerance).  The  male counterparts were limited to high blood pressure  and glucose intolerance. Keeping in mind that the amount of fructose given to these animals were equivalent to daily soda cans consumption in humans. (more…)
AACR, Author Interviews, Cancer Research, Inflammation, Prostate Cancer, Weight Research / 20.04.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Charnita Zeigler-Johnson, Ph.D., M.P.H. Assistant Professor Division of Population Sciences Department of Medical Oncology Thomas Jefferson University Philadelphia, PA 19107 Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Dr. Zeigler-Johnson: Obesity has been associated with poor prostate cancer outcomes, included advanced disease at diagnosis, increased risk for cancer recurrence, and risk for mortality. One possible link in the relationship between obesity and prostate cancer progression is inflammation. Obesity produces a state of systemic chronic low-grade inflammation which may contribute to the underlying biology of the tumor microenvironment. The presence of immune cells (T-cells and macrophages) in the tumor microenvironment may indicate aggressive tumors that are likely to metastasize. The goal of this study was to examine prostate cancer tissue to characterize differences in immune cells within the tumor microenvironment by obesity status and cancer severity. We studied tumor samples from 63 non-obese and 36 obese prostate cancer patients. Medical Research: What are the main findings? Dr. Zeigler-Johnson: We found that T-cell and macrophage counts in the tumor did not differ by patient obesity status. However, macrophage (CD68) counts were higher among men diagnosed with higher tumor grade (Gleason Score 7-10). We also found that T-cell (CD8) counts were associated with quicker time to prostate cancer recurrence (indicated by detectable prostate specific antigen levels after treatment.) (more…)
AACR, Author Interviews, Cancer Research, Genetic Research, MD Anderson, Weight Research / 20.04.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Xifeng Wu, MD PhD Department Chair, Department of Epidemiology, Division of OVP, Cancer Prevention and Population Sciences Director, Center for Translational and Public Health Genomics Professor, Department of Epidemiology Division of Cancer Prevention and Population Sciences The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Wu: Obesity is a well-established risk factor for renal cell carcinoma (RCC), the most common form of kidney cancer. It has been estimated that more than 40% of RCC incident cases in the US may be attributed to excessive body weight. Growing body of evidence suggests that obesity may also influence clinical outcome of RCC; however, the findings are sometimes conflicting. So far, the molecular mechanism linking obesity to RCC risk or prognosis is not well understood. In this study, we evaluated the promoter CpG site methylation of 20 candidate obesity-related genes and their association with RCC risk and recurrence in a two-phase study of 240 newly diagnosed, previously untreated RCC patients. Pyrosequencing was conducted on paired RCC tumor and normal adjacent tissues to measure promoter methylation. Among the 20 markers, we found NPY, LEP and LEPR showed significant differential methylation levels between tumors and normal adjacent tissues, and methylation was significantly higher in tumors in both discovery and validation groups. Consistent with our findings, we also found lower expression of LEPR in tumor tissues compared to normal adjacent tissues in data obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas. Additionally, high LEPR methylation in tumors was associated with more advanced tumor features, such as high pathologic stage, high grade and clear cell RCC histology, and increased risk of recurrence compared to the low methylation group. These results suggest that tissue changes in promoter methylation in obesity-related genes may provide some biological basis for the association between obesity and RCC outcome, and that LEPR may be an independent prognostic indicator of recurrence in RCC patients. Further research in larger study population and functional studies are warranted to validate our findings and to elucidate the underlying causal mechanisms. (more…)
AACR, Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Weight Research / 20.04.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Joao Incio MD Research Fellow in Radiation Oncology Harvard Medical School/MGH Boston, MA MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Incio: With  the  current  epidemic  of  obesity,  the  majority  of  pancreatic  cancer  patients  are  overweight  or  obese  at  diagnosis.  Importantly, obesity  worsens treatment  outcomes  in  pancreatic  cancer  patients.  Therefore,  understanding  the  mechanisms  that  underlie  the  poorer  prognosis  of  obese  cancer  patients  is  of  paramount importance.  Obesity  causes  inflammation  and  fibrosis  in  the  normal  pancreas  due  to  the  accumulation  of  dysfunctional  hypertrophic  adipocytes.  Importantly,  desmoplasia  -­  a fibroinflammatory  microenvironment  -­  is  a  hallmark  of  pancreatic  ductal  adenocarcinoma  (PDAC),  and  we  have  shown  that  activation  of  pancreatic  stellate  cells  (PSCs)  via angiotensin-­II  type  1  receptor  (AT1)  pathway  is  a  major  contribution  to  tumor  desmoplasia.  Whether  obesity  affects  desmoplasia  in  PDACs,  and  interferes  with  delivery  and response  of  chemotherapeutics,  was   the focus of our study. (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, 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…)
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…)
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, 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, 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, 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…)
Author Interviews, Cognitive Issues, Weight Research / 16.12.2015

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Anne Martin PhD Research Associate/Research Fellow Physical Activity for Health Research Centre (PAHRC) Institute for Sport, PE & Health Sciences University of Edinburgh TeleScot Research Group Usher Institute for Population Health Sciences and Informatics Edinburgh Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Martin: Impairments in cognitive development during childhood can have detrimental effects on health behaviour, educational attainment, and socio-economic status later in life. Epidemiological evidence indicates an association between childhood obesity and cognition and educational attainment. Knowledge of when obesity related deficits in cognition and attainment emerge, and how large the deficits are at various ages, may be useful to support arguments for school-based obesity prevention initiatives and in translating evidence on this topic into policy aimed at preventing obesity. In this study we explored whether the adverse association between obesity and cognition emerges in early childhood. Measures of cognitive abilities included visuo-spatial skills, expressive language skills and reasoning skills. Our findings indicated that obesity in the pre-school years may be weakly associated with some poorer cognitive outcomes at age 5 years in boys, independently of socioeconomic status. Stronger relationships between obesity and cognition or educational attainment may emerge later in childhood. Evidence from an English cohort study suggested an adverse association between obesity in teenage girls and lower academic attainment in Mathmatics, Science and English. (more…)
Author Interviews, Rheumatology, UCSF, Weight Research / 07.12.2015

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Alexandra S. Gersing, MD Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging University of California, San Francisco Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Gersing:  This study is part of a larger NIH-funded project focusing on the effects of weight change in individuals at risk for and with osteoarthritis. Our group has previously shown that weight gain causes substantial worsening of knee joint degeneration in patients with risk factors for osteoarthritis and now we aimed to show that weight loss could protect the knee joint from degeneration and osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis is one of the major causes of pain and disability worldwide; and cartilage plays a central role in the development of joint degeneration. Since cartilage loss is irreversible, we wanted to assess whether lifestyle interventions, such as weight loss, could make a difference at a very early, potentially reversible stage of cartilage degradation and whether a certain amount of weight loss is more beneficial to prevent cartilage deterioration. To measure these early changes we used a novel Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technique, called T2 mapping, which allows us to evaluate biochemical cartilage degradation in the patient on a molecular level. The most relevant finding of this study is that patients with more that 10% of weight loss benefited significantly more from losing weight compared to the obese controls that did not lose weight or only lost little weight. (more…)
Author Interviews, Karolinski Institute, Lancet, OBGYNE, Weight Research / 03.12.2015

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Professor Sven Cnattingius Professor in reproductive epidemiology Clinical Epidemiology Unit, Department of Medicine Karolinska University Hospital Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden  Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Prof. Cnattingius: Maternal overweight and obesity are associated with increased risks of stillbirth and infant mortality. Weight gain between pregnancies increases risks of other obesity-related complications, including preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, and preterm birth. Weight gain appear to increase these risks especially in women who start off with normal weight. As these complications increases risks of stillbirth and infant mortality, we wanted to study the associations between weight change between successive pregnancies and risks of stillbirth and infant mortality (deaths during the first year of life). Medical Research: What are the main findings? Prof. Cnattingius: The main findings include:
  • Weight gain increases risk of stillbirth in a dose-response manner.
  • In women starting off with normal weight (BMI <25), weight gain  increases risk of infant mortality in a dose-response manner.
  • In women starting off with overweight or obesity (BMI >25), weight loss reduces the risk of neonatal mortality (deaths during the first four weeks of life).
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Author Interviews, Microbiome, Weight Research / 28.11.2015

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Eran Elinav PhD Immunology Department and Prof. Eran Segal PhD Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot , Israel Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Response: Obesity and diabetes are rising epidemics, affecting a significant portion of the world’s population. Blood glucose levels are a major contributor to these epidemics, as they are associated with obesity and with risk to develop diabetes. Normalizing blood glucose can have highly beneficial effects on the health of individuals. Therefore, we decided to study the factors that affect blood glucose. Among these factors are the macro- and micronutrient content of the meal, a person’s lifestyle, medical state, and their microbiome. We then started collecting from participants these exact parameters, and studied their effect on blood glucose. We managed to successfully predict the blood glucose response of many people to many meals and to assign for people beneficial diets based on this prediction. (more…)
Author Interviews, Genetic Research, Nature, Weight Research / 26.11.2015

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Andrew Whittle, joint first-author of the paper and a postdoc in the Prof. Vidal-Puig’s lab at the time the research was conducted. Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Dr. Whittle: Antonio Vidal-Puig heads the disease model core of the University of Cambridge Metabolic Research Laboratories at the Wellcome Trust-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science (IMS). His laboratory has a long-standing interest in the mechanisms that regulate how adipose tissue stores, burns or releases energy. The group studies mice that have increased or reduced susceptibility to obesity and its metabolic complications, in order to dissect the molecular pathways that underpin these phenotypes. Their long-term goal is to develop more effective strategies to manipulate the body’s own regulatory pathways, both to reduce obesity itself or limit the negative impact that excess lipids have on other important metabolic organs. Professor Hideaki Bujo from Toho University Medical Center in Japan has been working for a number of years to understand the role of specific lipoprotein receptors in vascular biology. Specifically he has shown that LR11 is cleaved to release a short soluble for of the protein, sLR11, which can effect changes to vascular smooth muscle cell migration. To further his studies he generated a knock-out mouse model completely lacking LR11. One of the first observations his group made was that these mice remained leaner than control animals. I and Meizi Jiang (a postdoc in the Bujo lab) conducted a collaborative study of the LR11 knockout mice (Lr11-/-), to investigate the mechanisms by which a lack of LR11 resulted in mice being protected from diet-induced obesity.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Hepatitis - Liver Disease, Surgical Research, Transplantation, Weight Research / 17.11.2015

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Barry Schlansky, M.D., M.P.H Assistant Professor of Medicine Oregon Health & Science University Medical Research: What are the main findings and significance of this study? Dr. Schlansky: This study examines how obese patients fare before and after liver transplantation. Similar to other researchers, we found that obese patients do just as well as normal weight patients after liver transplantation. We were surprised, however, to find that very obese patients died more often while on the wait list before liver transplant. (more…)