Obesity creeps up in US

Obesity continued to creep up in the United States last year and now affects more than one in four US adults, a US government report showed Friday.In 2005, 23.9 percent of adults in the United States were obese, or had a body mass index greater than 30, while in 2007, the percentage had grown to 25.6 percent, data issued by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) showed.

Body mass index is calculated by dividing a person's weight in kilos by his or her height squared in meters.

In three states -- Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee -- nearly one in three adults was obese.

Mississippi, which is also the poorest US state, had the highest rate of obesity in the United States, at 32 percent. Colorado had the lowest rate of obesity at 18.7 percent and was the only state in which obesity was running at less than 19 percent.

No state has achieved the official target to bring obesity down to 15 percent of the adult population by 2010, the report showed.

Obesity was highest for non-Hispanic black women, nearly four in 10 of whom were obese.

University graduates were the least likely to be obese -- around 22 percent compared with 29 percent of people who only obtained a high school diploma.

A report issued last year by the Trust for America's Health (TFAH) said the percentage of obsese adults more than doubled in the past 25 years across the United States, growing from 15 percent in 1978-80 to 32 percent in 2003-04.

Overweight problems seen even in infants

New research indicates that problems associated with being overweight occur at a much younger age than previously thought.In a study reported in the journal Pediatrics, overweight infants were at increased risk for developmental delays and possibly breathing problems, such as asthma. Moreover, in most cases, parents were unaware of their child's weight problem.

"Although the consequences of infant and childhood excess body weight may seem to manifest in later years, this perception is inaccurate," Dr. Ron Shaoul, from Bnai Zion Medical Center in Haifa, Israel, and colleagues warn.

"Our findings indicate a need to intervene during these critical years by adopting proper eating habits and active lifestyles," they add.

The findings are based on two studies. The first involved 2139 infants not older than age 2 who were admitted for any reason to the Bnai Zion Medical Center in 2004 and 2005. The second study was community-based and used parental interviews to assess the problems seen in 79 overweight infants and 144 normal-weight infants.

The infants were considered overweight if they had a body mass index (BMI) above the 85th weight-for-height percentile on 2 or more measurements taken at least 3 months part. This means that 85 percent of children their age and gender have a lower BMI, which is a measure of weight in relation to height.

In the first study, the researchers found that infants between the 85th and 94th weight-for-height percentiles actually had fewer hospital admissions and repeat admissions than normal-weight infants. However, higher than expected admission rates were seen in the most overweight infants (95th or higher percentile).

In the second study, overweight infants were more likely than their normal-weight peers to have developmental delays and snoring. There was also evidence that asthma and other breathing problems were more common in overweight infants.

When surveyed, only about 32 percent of mothers with an overweight child believed that their child was overweight.

Parents need to be aware that even infants are at risk for problems related to excess body weight and, therefore, should strive to achieve a normal weight in their young children, Shaoul and colleagues conclude.

SOURCE: Pediatrics, August 2008.

Clinton honors 43 schools for anti-obesity efforts

Former President Clinton is honoring 43 schools for their anti-obesity efforts, including one that banished candy from its building and another that offers a student fitness club.In a ceremony Wednesday at his presidential library in Little Rock, the former president planned to recognize the schools from a dozen states for their participation in the Healthy Schools Program, a joint initiative of the William J. Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association.

"Despite the rising food prices and constrained budgets impacting programs nationally, these schools are using innovative approaches to curb the country's alarming rates of childhood obesity," Clinton said. "Schools around the country are stepping up and making progress."

The schools being honored include Kenly Elementary School in Tampa, Fla., which banished candy from its building.

A fitness club is offered to students at the Pine Hill Middle School in New Jersey, and the staff does yoga twice a week.

The Healthy Schools Program started in 2006 and now includes nearly 3,000 schools and more than 1.66 million students. It provides in-person support to 1,364 schools and aims to boost that number to 8,000 by 2010.

Scientists Create Mice Resistant to Obesity

Researchers have developed a strain of mice resistant to diet-induced obesity.The findings could one day lead to possible drug treatments for obesity in people. They also shed light on the brain circuitry that controls energy homeostasis -- the balance between how much energy (i.e., food) an animal takes in and how quickly it burns that energy.

Dr. Julio Licinio, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, called the research a "technological tour de force."

Dr. Bradford Lowell, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, led the study, which was published online Aug. 10 in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

According to lead study author Qingchun Tong, most research into energy homeostasis has involved what scientists call genetically encoded neuropeptides, rather than small molecule neurotransmitters.

Neurotransmitters "have been postulated to play a very important role in neurocommunication, but in this field, essentially no critical studies have been performed to address this issue," Tong said. "So I set up an experiment to create an animal model in which a particular group of neurons in the brain couldn't release a small neurotransmitter, and by examining those animal models, I could know the function of those molecules."

Tong and Lowell focused on one neurotrasmitter in particular, called GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid). They developed transgenic, or mutant, mice that lacked the ability to release GABA in a subset of brain cells in the hypothalamus -- the brain region that controls processes such as hunger, thirst and body temperature.

On a normal diet, the normal and mutant mice weighed roughly the same, with mutant mice weighing slightly less. On a high fat diet, however, the mutant mice gained far less weight than the normal mice, even though the two groups ate approximately the same amount of food. The reason: The mutant mice were burning energy at a faster rate, the researchers said.

"We found that the mice without GABA release from AgRP neurons have increased energy expenditure and are resistant to diet-induced obesity," Tong said.

These transgenic mice were also resistant to the effects of the hormone ghrelin, which governs hunger. When normal mice were given ghrelin, their food intake increased. In the mutant mice, however, that effect was dampened, Tong said.

Finally, the researchers shed some light on the brain cell networks controlling energy homeostasis. They found that another group of neurons in the hypothalamus, called pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) neurons, receive the GABA signal from AgRP neurons.

"The function of AgRP neurons is probably to reserve the energy for maintaining life," Tong said. "So if the animal doesn't have enough food, the animal should have some strategy to preserve energy, and this group of neurons, by releasing GABA, restrains energy expenditure to maintain enough energy to survive under the conditions in which food is not readily available."

According to Licinio, these findings underscore the importance of the GABA neurotransmitter in regulating the relationship between food consumed and energy expended. "I think it makes the role of GABA in obesity much more relevant than previously thought," he said.

Of course, as with all animal studies, it remains to be seen whether the findings can be repeated in humans.

Obese people can be healthy: study

Some obese people are in good health and are not predisposed to heart ailments, according to a surprise study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.And yet another study showed that being slim doesn't automatically protect you from heart-related illnesses such as high blood pressure and cholestrol, and diabetes.

In the first study, conducted by Norbert Stefan and a team at the University of Tubingen in Germany, the researchers studied the fat around the internal organs and under the skin of 314 individuals with an average age of 45.

The obese individuals in the study were divided into two groups: those who were resistant to insulin and those who were not. Insulin resistance is a pre-diabetic condition, meaning some symptoms of diabetes are present and progression to full-blown diabetes is likely.

Those who were obese and resistant to insulin had more muscle fat, fat in their livers and thicker carotid-artery walls -- an early sign of artery narrowing, which is a heart-disease risk factor -- than obese individuals without insulin resistance, the study found.

In addition, obese individuals who were not insulin-resistant had no differences in artery-wall thickness from the normal-weight group.

"We provide evidence that a metabolically benign obesity can be identified and that it may protect from insulin resistance and atherosclerosis," the researchers wrote.

The second study carried out by Rachel Wildman at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York examined body weight and cardio-metabolic abnormalities -- including high blood pressure, elevated triglycerides and low levels of so-called good cholesterol -- in 5,440 individuals between 1999 and 2004.

The study found that some obese people are metabolically healthy.

"Obese individuals with no metabolic abnormalities were more likely to be younger, black, more physically active and have smaller waists than those with metabolic risk factors," the authors wrote.

Those of normal weight with health risks were older, less active and had a larger waist than the average population.

Among the US population aged 20 and older, some 23 percent (16 million adults) of normal weight have metabolic abnormalities, while 51 percent (36 million) of overweight adults and 32 percent (19.5 million) of obese adults "were metabolically healthy," the authors wrote.

Mood hormone may affect fat, U.S. study finds

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A brain chemical strongly linked to mood and appetite may also directly affect fat gain, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.

They said levels of serotonin, the nerve-signaling chemical targeted by many antidepressants, may also direct the body to put down fat regardless of how much food is eaten.

"It may be one reason diets fail," metabolism expert Kaveh Ashrafi of the University of California, San Francisco, who led the study, said in a telephone interview.

The findings, published in the journal Cell Metabolism, could lead to better diet drugs and treatments for diseases like diabetes.

Serotonin may help the body decide whether to burn off excess calories, or store them as fat, Ashrafi said.

He worked with roundworms for his experiment but said the findings may relate to humans. "These worms, although they are microscopic, they have around 20,000 genes ... and if you compare them side by side they are about 50 percent similar to us," he said.

Genes controlling appetite, fat storage and metabolism are especially similar, he said. The tiny worms can be manipulated to see changes to their metabolism, appetite and weight gain.

"It has been known for a long time that increasing serotonin causes fat reduction," Ashrafi said.

"At the molecular level we are trying to understand what is the mechanism that allows that to happen. What we discovered in the worm is that those mechanisms can be separated from the mechanisms that mediate the effects of serotonin on appetite."

The research found serotonin levels affected the worms' appetite, but they also affected how much fat the worms accumulated, and this was via a separate process.

If the worms detect a food shortage, their metabolisms shift and they store more fat. This could explain why some people get fat more easily than others -- and why dieting can cause more weight gain later.

"Different people may have similar diets, may have similar rates of physical activity, but may have very different body weights," Ashrafi said. "Appetite is only part of it."

But for now the remedy for excess body fat remains obvious. "Nothing in our study says that good nutrition and physical activity are not good for you," Ashrafi said.

Simply raising serotonin levels can have serious side-effects. The diet drug fenfluramine, which has the effect of raising serotonin levels, was pulled off the market in 1997 after it caused sometimes deadly heart valve damage.

Source: news.yahoo.com

Lifestyle change key for obesity surgery success

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -
Anyone thinking about having
weight loss surgery should be sure to do their homework
beforehand, and must understand they need to dramatically
change the way they eat for the surgery to be successful,
advises the head of the U.S. government agency responsible for
research on health care quality and patient safety.

"People who succeed and lose weight and keep it off eat
very, very differently," Dr. Carolyn Clancy, director of the
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) in Rockville,
Maryland, told Reuters Health. "Essentially, you've got to eat
a whole lot less."

Clancy has written about the realities of operations to
promote weight loss, known as bariatric surgery, in the latest
issues of Nursing for Women's Health and Health for Women, both
published by the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and
Neonatal Nurses.

Bariatric surgery has skyrocketed in popularity, Clancy
noted in an interview, but just a fraction of people who could
benefit most from the surgery have gotten it. According to
AHRQ, evidence for the procedure's benefits is strongest for
people with body mass indexes (BMIs) of 40 or higher, or
individuals with BMIs of 35 or greater who have a serious
medical condition, such as diabetes or severe sleep apnea.

Nevertheless, she added, the surgery "is not risk free, and
I think it's really important for all people, women and men, to
know about the risks and to be very clear about what they're
getting into."

For example, Clancy said, 7 percent of people who undergo
the surgery need to be rehospitalized for complications. Four
out of 10 will develop complications within 6 months of the
surgery. These complications include nausea, cramps and
vomiting due to overeating.

People should also seek out a surgeon and health care team
they can communicate with effectively, because post-surgical
follow-up care is just as important as the procedure itself,
Clancy added. If you don't "click," or you feel your surgeon
isn't hearing your concerns, she advised, look elsewhere.

People may want to seek out bariatric surgery programs
designated as Centers of Excellence by the American Society for
Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (http://www.asbs.org/), Clancy
suggested.

Finally, she said, people need to find out before having
the surgery whether or not their insurer covers it. Some will
require documentation that a person has made a serious effort
to lose weight by other means before they will pay for the
procedure.

SOURCE: Nursing for Women's Health, February/March 2008.

School nutrition policy can prevent obesity

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -
Philadelphia schools that cut
out soda, revamped snack selections and took other measures to
prevent childhood obesity were able to halve the odds of
students becoming overweight by sixth grade, a study has found.

Among fourth-graders at five schools that instituted the
new nutrition policy, 7.5 percent became overweight over the
next 2 years, compared with 15 percent of students at five city
schools that did not make the changes, researchers report in
the journal Pediatrics.

The findings show that a comprehensive approach to battling
childhood obesity in schools can make a significant difference,
according to lead researcher Dr. Gary D. Foster of Temple
University.

Schools have been at the center of the controversy over
what to do about U.S. children's rising rates of overweight and
obesity. Critics have pointed to vending machines, sugary "a la
carte" items in school cafeterias, and reductions in gym class
as part of the problem.

At the same time, schools are considered the ideal place
for children to learn healthy eating and exercise habits, and
various school-based programs have been developed with that
aim. The results have been mixed, however.

For their study, Foster and his colleagues evaluated a
program developed by a non-profit community group called the
Food Trust. Ten schools enrolled in the study; half were
randomly assigned to adopt the nutrition program, while the
other half served as a comparison group.

Schools in the program made an array of changes. They
replaced soda with water, low-fat milk and 100-percent fruit
juice, and rid vending machines and cafeterias of snacks that
did not meet certain nutrition criteria. They educated students
on how diet and exercise affect their health, and gave them
raffle tickets for bikes and other prizes to reward them for
choosing healthy snacks.

The schools also got parents involved through meetings and
nutrition workshops that encouraged them to give their kids
more fruits, vegetables and other healthy foods.

Among the 1,349 students Foster's team followed from fourth
to sixth grade. As mentioned, there was about a 50 percent
reduction in the incidence (new cases) of overweight at the end
of 2 years among the children attending the program schools,
while no changes were seen among the children attending the
schools without a program.

The prevalence (total number) of overweight children also
declined during the study period in the program group. However,
no differences in the prevalence of obesity were seen between
the program group and the comparison group.

The results, Foster told Reuters Health, underscore the
benefits of schools having a comprehensive nutrition program,
rather than taking only individual measures -- like removing
vending machines, for instance.

He and his colleagues also stress that the urban schools in
this study had largely low-income, minority student populations
-- children who are at particularly high risk of obesity. Black
children appeared to particularly benefit from the nutrition
policy.

In the sixth grade, the study found, African-American
children in these schools were 41 percent less likely to be
overweight than African Americans in the comparison schools.

Despite the success, Foster's team writes, the fact that
7.5 percent of children in the program schools still became
overweight shows that even more needs to be done.

They say that obesity-prevention programs should start
before fourth grade, and possibly include a broader range of
measures -- such as devoting more time to gym class and
enlisting the corner stores near schools to offer healthier
snack options.

SOURCE: Pediatrics, April 2008.

Dad's early obesity tied to liver disease in kids

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -
Having a father who becomes
obese at a relatively young age may increase a person's risk of
developing serious liver problems, a new study shows.

Individuals whose fathers were obese before age 45 were
more likely than those whose parents were not obese to have
high levels of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) in their blood,
an enzyme that signals liver injury, Dr. Rohit Loomba of the
National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland and
colleagues found.

High ALT levels in the general population can be associated
with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, an obesity-related
condition, Loomba and his team say. One severe, progressive
form of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is nonalcoholic
steatohepatitis, which can lead to cirrhosis and even liver
cancer, they note in the medical journal Gastroenterology.

To investigate whether parental obesity might be related to
high ALT levels, as well as levels of another enzyme related to
liver damage, aspartate aminotransferase (AST), the researchers
looked at measurements of both enzymes in 1,732 men and women
participating in the Framingham Heart Study.

The researchers divided study participants into three
groups: people whose parents became obese unusually early
(before age 41 for women and before age 45 for men), those with
parents who became obese later on, and those with parents who
were never obese.

Having a father with early-onset obesity increased a
person's likelihood of having elevated ALT levels, regardless
of their own weight, the researchers found. But there was no
link between maternal obesity and ALT levels, and no
relationship at all between parental obesity and AST levels.

Developing a condition like obesity early can indicate
genetic susceptibility to that condition, the researchers note
in their report. The findings suggest that genes that promote
early-onset obesity could also influence ALT levels, they add.

"These results support the need for further studies to
establish whether individuals with early-onset parental obesity
and elevated serum ALT levels are at a higher risk for
developing progressive liver disease such as nonalcoholic
steatohepatitis," the researchers conclude.

SOURCE: Gastroenterology, April 2008.

Metabolic Syndrome Triggered by Overeating, Not Obesity

(HealthDay News) -- Overeating, not the obesity
it causes, is the actual cause of metabolic syndrome, suggests a study
with mice by researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical
Center at Dallas.

Metabolic syndrome is a collection of health factors that increase the
risk of developing insulin resistance, fatty liver, heart disease and type
2 diabetes.

This study was among the first to propose that weight gain is an early
symptom, not a direct cause, of metabolic syndrome, the researchers
said.

"Most people today think that obesity itself causes metabolic
syndrome," senior author Dr. Roger Unger, professor of internal medicine,
said in a prepared statement. "We're ingrained to think obesity is the
cause of all health problems, when, in fact, it is the spillover of fat
into organs other than fat cells that damages these organs, such as the
heart and the liver. Depositing fatty molecules in fat cells where they
belong actually delays that harmful spillover."

In this study, Under and his colleagues compared normal mice to mice
that were genetically altered to prevent their fat cells from expanding.
Both groups of mice were overfed.

The normal mice got fat but didn't develop signs of metabolic syndrome
until after about seven weeks of overeating. The genetically altered mice
stayed slim but became seriously ill within a few weeks and displayed
evidence of severe heart problems and major increases in blood sugar
levels eight weeks before minimal heart problems developed in the normal
mice, the researchers said.

The genetically altered mice showed significant damage to heart cells
and to the insulin-secreting cells in the pancreas. They also got sick
quicker, because the extra calories they consumed weren't stored in fat
cells, but rather in other tissues, the researchers said.

The study was published online in the journal Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences.

Canadian cancer survivors obese and inactive

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
Cancer survivors in Canada are more
likely to be obese and less likely to exercise than the rest of
the population -- putting themselves at risk of having their
cancers come back, researchers said on Monday.

The trends, likely to be seen in cancer survivors around
the world, suggest patients need help and support in staying
active and keeping the weight off, said Kerry Courneya of the
University of Alberta in Edmonton, who led the study.

"It's a challenge for all of us to eat properly and
exercise, and it may be especially challenging for cancer
survivors who have been through difficult treatments and may
have lingering health issues," Courneya said in a statement.

"But eating well and exercising are two of the best things
we can do for our mental and physical health, even in trying
times. Rest is rarely the best medicine for any health
condition."

Courneya and colleagues analyzed data from a 2005 survey of
more than 114,000 adults.

Fewer than 22 percent of former cancer patients described
themselves as physically active. This compares with 25 percent
of the general Canadian population, they reported in the
journal Cancer.

They also found that 18 percent of cancer survivors were
medically obese, compared to 15 percent of the general
population, and 34 percent were overweight.

Many cancers are linked with obesity and a lack of
exercise.

"These findings tell us that we need to look at ways to
better support cancer survivors to become more active and to
maintain a healthy body weight," Courneya said.

"We know that physical inactivity and obesity are risk
factors for developing cancer. These are also risk factors for
the recurrence of cancer. Lifestyle is just as important after
diagnosis."

The researchers defined someone as physically active if
they walked at least an hour a day or did the equivalent in
swimming, cycling or some other activity. Inactive people
walked or exercised less than 30 minutes a day.

(Reporting by Maggie Fox, editing by Todd Eastham)

Obesity, smoking cuts many US women's life expectancy: study

WASHINGTON (AFP) -
Life expectancy has declined for many women in the United States, largely due to smoking-related diseases and obesity, a study published Tuesday showed.

Nearly one in five US women saw the number of years they are expected
to live decline or hold steady, starting in the 1980s, showed the joint
study by the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Washington.

The study looked at data from more than 2,000 county "units" between 1959 and 2001.

In around 1,000 of those counties -- mainly poor, rural areas -- life
expectancy for women dropped starting in the 1980s, "primarily because
of chronic diseases related to smoking, overweight and obesity, and high blood pressure," according to the study.

In the United States as a whole, in contrast, life expectancy for women
rose by more than six years and for men by more than seven years during
the same period, it showed.

"There is now evidence that there are large parts of the population in
the United States whose health has been getting worse for about two
decades," Majid Ezzati, associate professor of international health at
the Harvard School of Public Health, and lead author of the study, said
in a statement.

Worst affected by the downturn in longevity were the south -- the region hardest hit by poverty, according to the US Census Bureau -- the Appalachians, southern parts of the Midwest and areas of Texas.

Men in the same areas also saw a drop in life expectancy, but numbers
were less alarming than among women -- only four percent -- and the
fall was attributed to different causes, mainly HIV/AIDS and homicide.

"Life expectancy decline is something that has traditionally been
considered a sign that the health and social systems have failed, as
has been the case in parts of Africa and Eastern Europe," said the
study's co-author Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

"The fact that this is happening to a large number of Americans should be a sign that the US health system needs serious rethinking," he added.

Obesity, low birthweight mar health of kids

CHICAGO (Reuters) -
Rising obesity rates and a large
percentage of children born with low birthweight are dragging
down the overall health of American children in their first
decade of life, according to a report tracking the health and
well-being of young children in the United States.

While U.S. children overall have seen improvements in their
well-being in recent years, American children aged 6 to 11 are
four times more likely to be obese than similarly aged children
in the 1960s, the report found.

The report, led by researchers at Duke University in North
Carolina and the Foundation for Child Development, a private
advocacy group, looked at the well-being of children in early
childhood, those from birth to age five, and middle childhood,
or those aged 6 to 11, from 1994 to 2006.

The researchers found obesity among children in middle
childhood is nearly four times more common than in children of
the same age in a national survey in 1960s. For children aged 2
to 5, it is three times higher.

"These are dramatic increases in the prevalence of
overweight children in American society from one generation to
the next," the researchers wrote. "The importance of this trend
for the health and well-being of children is difficult to
exaggerate."

They said overweight children have greater risks of type 2
diabetes, and often have elevated risk factors associated with
heart disease, such as high cholesterol and high blood
pressure.

They also found that the percentage of babies born with low
birthweight rose 12.3 percent from 1994 to 2005, an increase
they said was likely tied to delayed childbearing among working
mothers and an increased use of fertility drugs.

Low birthweight has been linked in large studies to a
higher risk of developmental and learning problems and to lower
academic achievement. It also has been linked with higher rates
of chronic health conditions.

Other trends were more positive.

The researchers found significant improvements in the
mortality rates of children, with the most dramatic improvement
for children aged 1 to 4. Death rates among these children fell
to 29.4 deaths in 100,000 in 2005, compared with 42.9 deaths
per 100,000 in 1994.

For those aged 5 to 9, rates of death fell 27 percent to
14.5 deaths per 100,000 in 2005.

The researchers cite a host of contributing factors,
ranging from better health care and nutrition to car safety
seats.

The report also noted a dramatic 84 percent drop in the
rates of lead poisoning among children aged 0 to 6. Lead
poisoning can result in physical, neurological and cognitive
problems.

Still, many children remain at risk for moderate levels of
lead in their blood should continue to be monitored, they said.

Obesity and low birthweight mar health of kids

While U.S. children overall have seen improvements in their
well-being in recent years, American children aged 6 to 11 are
four times more likely to be obese than similarly aged children
in the 1960s, the report found.

The report, led by researchers at Duke University in North
Carolina and the Foundation for Child Development, a private
advocacy group, looked at the well-being of children in early
childhood, those from birth to age five, and middle childhood,
or those aged 6 to 11, from 1994 to 2006.

The researchers found obesity among children in middle
childhood is nearly four times more common than in children of
the same age in a national survey in 1960s. For children aged 2
to 5, it is three times higher.

"These are dramatic increases in the prevalence of
overweight children in American society from one generation to
the next," the researchers wrote. "The importance of this trend
for the health and well-being of children is difficult to
exaggerate."

They said overweight children have greater risks of type-2
diabetes, and often have elevated risk factors associated with
heart disease, such as high cholesterol and high blood
pressure.

They also found that the percentage of babies born with low
birthweights rose 12.3 percent from 1994 to 2005, an increase
they said was likely tied to delayed childbearing among working
mothers and an increased use of fertility drugs.

Low birthweight has been linked in large studies to a
higher risk of developmental and learning problems and to lower
academic achievement. It also has been linked with higher rates
of chronic health conditions.

Other trends were more positive.

The researchers found significant improvements in the
mortality rates of children, with the most dramatic improvement
for children aged 1 to 4. Death rates among these children fell
to 29.4 deaths in 100,000 in 2005, compared with 42.9 deaths
per 100,000 in 1994.

For those aged 5 to 9, rates of death fell 27 percent to
14.5 deaths per 100,000 in 2005.

The researchers cite a host of contributing factors,
ranging from better health care and nutrition to car safety
seats.

The report also noted a dramatic 84 percent drop in the
rates of lead poisoning among children aged 0 to 6. Lead
poisoning can result in physical, neurological and cognitive
problems.

Still, many children remain at risk for moderate levels of
lead in their blood should continue to be monitored, they said.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen, Editing by Maggie Fox and
Cynthia Osterman)

Overweight warning: More than exercise needed

"Even high quantities of physical activity are unlikely to
fully reverse the risk of coronary heart disease in overweight
and obese women without concurrent weight loss," Dr. Amy
Weinstein and colleagues at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess
Medical Center reported.

"Regardless of body weight, (the findings) highlight the
importance of counseling all women to participate in increasing
amounts of regular physical activity and maintaining a healthy
weight to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease," they
concluded.

The study, appearing in the Archives of Internal Medicine,
was based on information from a study of nearly 39,000 women
that began in 1992 and traced a number of health issues.

The researchers said 34 percent of the women in the study
were physically active based on government guidelines, 31
percent were overweight and 18 percent were obese.

In the end, 948 women were diagnosed with heart disease.
Active women with normal weight had the lowest risk of
developing heart problems while there was a slightly higher
risk for those with normal weight who were not active.

The risk was next highest for active women who were either
overweight or obese, and highest for similar women who were
inactive.

Fat cells produce chemicals that can speed up hardening of
the arteries and increase inflammation, the researchers said,
harming blood vessels, while physical activity makes for
healthier blood vessels and reduces the risk of blood clots.

(Reporting by Michael Conlon; editing by Maggie Fox and
Bill Trott)

source:news.yahoo.com

Gastric Bypass May Also Relieve Low Back Pain

(HealthDay News) -- Obese people who underwent surgery
that reduced the amount of food they could ingest not only lost weight,
they also lost some of their lower back pain, according to a new report.

Thirty-eight morbidly obese patients with low back pain who underwent
gastric bypass surgery reported that their pain decreased by an average of
about 44 percent six months after surgery, according to researchers at the
University of Southern California. The average amount of individual
weight loss among the group of 30 women and eight men was about 85 pounds.

"This study provides evidence that substantial weight reduction
following bariatric surgery results in moderate reductions in pre-existing
back pain within six months of weight loss. While this initial research
is promising, larger long-term trials are needed to prove the efficacy of
this treatment," Dr. Paul Khoueir said in a prepared statement.

Khoueir was expected to present the findings in Chicago April 29 at the
annual meeting of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons.

According to recent statistics, more than one-third of U.S. adults --
more than 72 million people -- were obese in 2005-2006. An estimated 75
percent to 85 percent of all Americans will experience some form of back
pain during their lifetime.

Obese people are known to have a higher rate of hip and knee arthritis,
but little is known about the extra weight's effect on lumbar spinal
degeneration. While obese patients with back pain are frequently advised
to lose weight, the association between these medical conditions remains
unproven.

source:news.yahoo.com