Obesity: Food Kills, Flab Protects
March 11, 2010 by Mohamed
Filed under Weight Loss, Weight Loss Articles and News
Found an excellent article on New Scientist today: Obesity: Food Kills, Flab Protects.
To read it, click DOES FAT PROTECT.
Enjoy!
Mohamed
H1N1 – Swine Flu and Obesity Linked
July 16, 2009 by Mohamed
Filed under H1N1 H1H1 Human Swine Flu, Weight Loss
Fight The Flab To Fend Off Swine Flu (H1N1)
15 July 2009 by Debora MacKenzie
AS IF people struggling with obesity did not have enough to worry about, they now face a new health hazard. According to statistics from the US, overweight people appear more likely to die of swine flu (H1N1).
Most of the people who have died from H1N1 swine flu have had an underlying health problem that weakened their ability to fight off the virus. Among the conditions recognised as increasing the risk from flu are hypertension, diabetes, chronic lung obstruction and coronary disease. Now it may be time to add obesity to the list.
Unpublished figures reported at a recent meeting of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, show that of 99 people who died in the early stages of the pandemic in the US, 45 per cent were obese. As only 26 per cent of US adults are obese, this suggests that obesity doubles the risk of getting seriously ill with swine flu (H1N1).
The figures surprised most flu researchers. “In 40 years of studying flu, I have never heard anything about obesity,” says virologist John Oxford of Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of London. Obesity specialists, however, say it fits with what they have learned in recent years.
The only study looking directly at flu and obesity was done in 2007 by Melinda Beck and colleagues at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. It was already known that abdominal fat releases a continuous stream of chemicals that trigger inflammation, an immune response normally aimed at killing invading pathogens and infected cells. So Beck’s team wondered what effect this had on flu. They were especially interested, she says, because runaway inflammation, known as a “cytokine storm”, is what kills most flu victims.
Beck and her team found that overfed, obese mice are nearly seven times as likely to die of ordinary flu as genetically identical lean mice (The Journal of Nutrition, vol 137, p 1236).
The researchers also measured immune chemicals in the mice’s blood. Prior to infection, the obese mice had much higher levels of a hormone called leptin than the normal mice. During the initial stages of infection, they had fewer virus-killing cells and chemicals.
Leptin is released by fat cells and, among other things, triggers immune reactions. Beck thinks that obese mice become desensitised to leptin, making their immune system slow to react. “Our experiments suggest the problem is the fat itself.”
As their flu worsened, the obese mice did mount an immune response, but it was “too little too late”, says Beck. It failed to get rid of the virus and eventually triggered a runaway immune response that escalated until it killed the mice – much as the cytokine storm does in people.
We don’t know if the same series of events happen in obese people with swine flu (H1N1), Beck warns. But it is possible that, as in mice, obesity dampens our ability to fight flu by disrupting the immune response, says Jesse Roth, a diabetes specialist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. “The resting level of inflammation goes up in obesity,” he says. He suspects that this disrupts the body’s immune response to viruses, making a lethal runaway reaction more likely.
During a flu pandemic, it is more important than ever to tackle obesity, Roth says. “It’s amazing how much obesity-related inflammation you can reverse with just a little diet and exercise.” He says a daily half-hour walk and losing about 5 per cent of body weight if you are overweight is enough to reduce inflammation.
David Fedson, a former flu researcher at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, has long proposed using drugs that damp down inflammation, such as statins, fibrates and glitazones, as an additional way of cutting deaths from flu. These drugs are normally prescribed for obesity-related disorders such as high cholesterol and insulin insensitivity.
The new figures on obesity and swine flu strengthen the case for stockpiling the drugs, given that shortages of vaccine and antiviral drugs are likely, Fedson says. “These drugs are safe and cheap, but they are being ignored by pandemic planners.”
Can Lemons Increase Your Metabolism?
June 2, 2009 by Mohamed
Filed under Weight Loss
We talked about lemons and metabolism a few years ago - you can read the post http://www.lose-weight-feel-great.com/2006/12/17/e-mail-question-does-lemon-juice-boost-metabolism/. But there is still a lot of questions around whether lemons can help increase metabolism.
Doing some new research on the web, I found this information which may help our visitors. The information is very technical in nature, as it was meant for other researchers and doctors. Emphasis is mine of what I thought are keypoints from the abstract – but remember, I’m not a doctor and am not really in a position to provide my opinion on the study or whether this would work for you.
The study below was done on mice – not on humans. I spent several hours searching for any clinical trials on humans, however large or small and was not able to find any information.
The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of dietary lemon polyphenols on high-fat diet-induced obesity in mice, and on the regulation of the expression of the genes involved in lipid metabolism to elucidate the mechanisms. Mice were divided into three groups and fed either a low fat diet (LF) or a high fat diet (HF) or a high fat diet supplemented with 0.5% w/w lemon polyphenols (LP) extracted from lemon peel for 12 weeks. Body weight gain, fat pad accumulation, the development of hyperlipidemia, hyperglycemia, and insulin resistance were significantly suppressed by lemon polyphenols. Supplementation with lemon polyphenols also significantly up-regulated the mRNA level of the peroxisome proliferator activated receptor-? (PPAR?) compared to the LF and HF groups in the liver. Furthermore, the mRNA level of acyl-CoA oxidase (ACO) was up-regulated in the LP group compared to the LF group, but not HF group in the liver, and was also significantly increased in the epididymal white adipose tissue. Thus, feeding with lemon polyphenols suppressed body weight gain and body fat accumulation by increasing peroxisomal ?-oxidation through up-regulation of the mRNA level of ACO in the liver and white adipose tissue, which was likely mediated via up-regulation of the mRNA levels of PPAR?.
Read the full article at http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2581754
Here is to your health!
Mohamed
The HIGH Cost of the Bulge
May 27, 2009 by Mohamed
Filed under Weight Loss
We all know how much it is costing healthcare providers (in some countries, this is the gov’t which in turn means the individual tax payer since healthcare is provided by tax dollars) to treat and manage obesity and related issues that go with it. But have you ever thought what it is costing YOU directly?
Lets do some math — I’ll make it easy.
You head into your local Tim Hortons every morning for a coffee, bagel and donut. Approx. cost $3.50/day. Over one week this is costing you $17.00 and per month it is $68.00 and finally over one year it is $816.00.
Lunch costs you $10.00 per day, over a month about $200 or $2,400 per year.
The occasional family dinner out (perhaps 2x per week) at minimum $50.00 per outing or about $200/month or $2,400 per year.
Now on top of spending money on eating out, you are no doubt spending the same amount on groceries — so in fact you are spending twice the amount on food when you really should not be.
Were you keeping track?
Breakfast – approx $816.00
Lunch – approx $2,400
Occasional Dinner – approx $2,400
TOTAL – $5,616.00 or $15.40 per day
You are probably spending money on groceries as well anywhere from $300 per month to as much as $1,200 per month depending on the size of your family.
Not only will you save on the cost to buy the food, but in turn you will slim down since we all know tht fast food really isn’t good for you unless you’re eating salads with no dressing.
So when you look at the cost of the bulge – don’t look at it only from the point of view of healthcare dollars spent or money spent on prescription medications (I know a diabetic that spends about $300 per month on various medications – about $3,600 per year that is paid through private insurance). What is YOUR OUT OF POCKET expense? Now imagine if you could cut down your outings by 50% or more – how much will you save? Remember the savings are not only the hard cash you will save, but your health.
Next time you decide on the $2.50 bag of chips – think about the cost to your health AND your wallet over the course of a year.
Here is to your health!
Mohamed
Amazing Weight Loss Stories
May 20, 2009 by Mohamed
Filed under Weight Loss
Being overweight can be a real downer. You try, and try to lose weight – but just can’t. But there are many out there that do manage to lose weight, here is just one amazing weight loss story about David Elmore Smith:
David Smith – Amazing Weight Loss Story
David Smith, in 2003 weight over 600 lbs. He lost over 350 lbs and has gone through surgery to remove all the excess skin – read about him:
- http://www.hemmy.net/2007/07/02/david-smith-amazing-weight-lost-story/
- http://www.getfitslowly.com/2008/01/31/david-smith-lost-400-pounds-in-four-years/
YouTube video from 20/20
You can also find David on MySpace – http://www.myspace.com/630lbsdavid
Here is to your health!
Mohamed