University of Cambridge researchers said about 676,000 deaths each year were down to inactivity, compared with 337,000 from carrying too much weight.

They concluded that getting everyone to do at least 20 minutes of brisk walking a day would have substantial benefits.

Experts said exercise was beneficial for people of any weight.

Obesity and inactivity often go hand in hand.

However, it is known that thin people have a higher risk of health problems if they are inactive. And obese people who exercise are in better health than those that do not.

The study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, attempted to tease out the relative dangers of inactivity and obesity.

Obese v inactive

Researchers followed 334,161 Europeans for 12 years. They assessed exercise levels and waistlines and recorded every death.

“The greatest risk [of an early death] was in those classed inactive, and that was consistent in normal weight, overweight and obese people,” one of the researchers, Prof Ulf Ekelund told BBC News.

He said eliminating inactivity in Europe would cut mortality rates by nearly 7.5%, or 676,000 deaths, but eliminating obesity would cut rates by just 3.6%.

Prof Ekelund added: “But I don’t think it’s a case of one or the other. We should also strive to reduce obesity, but I do think physical activity needs to be recognised as a very important public health strategy.”

via BBC News – Inactivity ‘kills more than obesity’.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved the Maestro Rechargeable System for certain obese adults, the first weight loss treatment device that targets the nerve pathway between the brain and the stomach that controls feelings of hunger and fullness.

The Maestro Rechargeable System, the first FDA-approved obesity device since 2007, is approved to treat patients aged 18 and older who have not been able to lose weight with a weight loss program, and who have a body mass index of 35 to 45 with at least one other obesity-related condition, such as type 2 diabetes.

BMI, which measures body fat based on an individual’s weight and height, is used to define the obesity categories. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than one-third of all U.S. adults are obese, and people with obesity are at increased risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and certain kinds of cancer.

“Obesity and its related medical conditions are major public health problems,” said William Maisel, M.D., M.P.H., deputy director for science and chief scientist in the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health. “Medical devices can help physicians and patients to develop comprehensive obesity treatment plans.”

The Maestro Rechargeable System consists of a rechargeable electrical pulse generator, wire leads and electrodes implanted surgically into the abdomen. It works by sending intermittent electrical pulses to the trunks in the abdominal vagus nerve, which is involved in regulating stomach emptying and signaling to the brain that the stomach feels empty or full. Although it is known that the electric stimulation blocks nerve activity between the brain and the stomach, the specific mechanisms for weight loss due to use of the device are unknown.

External controllers allow the patient to charge the device and allow health care professionals to adjust the device’s settings in order to provide optimal therapy with minimal side effects.

via Press Announcements > FDA approves first-of-kind device to treat obesity.

Looking for a silver lining in the cold that’s gripping much of the country? The next time an icy blast of wind cuts through your flesh, remind yourself that it is also stimulating the growth and activity of brown fat, the so-called good fat that burns calories and produces heat.

Located in your chest and back, brown fat’s job is to protect your vital organs which, in winter, means giving you a way to generate additional heat for them. It’s more prevalent in newborns and hibernating animals, whose need for warmth is greater, but researchers discovered about five years ago that adults have some, too.

In contrast to white, or “bad,” fat, which stores energy as those bulges you’re trying to eliminate at the gym, brown fat is full of mitochondria, the glucose-burning power plants of cells, which give brown fat its color. People with more brown fat tend to be leaner and have lower blood sugar levels.

It takes a little time in the cold to crank up the brown fat, but temperatures don’t have to be down at the Polar Plunge level. When researchers exposed people to temperatures of 59 to 60 degrees for two to six hours over 10 consecutive days, they found immediate increases in brown fat activity. In another study, men who slept in rooms for a month at 66 degrees increased their brown fat and its activity by 30 percent to 40 percent. When the night-time temperature was raised to 80 degrees for another month, their brown fat stores declined below baseline levels.

This information has intrigued researchers who wonder whether stimulating brown fat might help in the battles against obesity and Type 2 diabetes.

How does this work? In a study released Thursday, University of California, Berkeley, researchers said they had identified the protein critical to the formation of brown fat. Exposure to increased levels of “transcription factor Zfp516” helped mice gain 30 percent less weight than other mice when both were fed the same high-fat diets. They also found that it helped “brown” that nasty white fat, though other researchers did not report this result.

In an interview, Hei Sook Sul, who led the research, said that in the laboratory, the same process worked on human cells, though the process has not been tested in humans themselves.

She said it’s impossible to determine how long an individual needs to be in the cold to kick-start the process, but recommended giving it a try at safe exposures.

“Get out,” said Sul, a professor in the university’s Department of Nutritional Science and Toxicology. ” The more you do it, the more energy you will lose.”

via A blast of cold jump-starts fat burning and generates body heat – The Washington Post.

An “imaginary meal” pill is the latest weapon developed by scientists to fight obesity.

The pill tricks the body into thinking it has consumed a large amount of calories – as if you have just eaten a substantial meal.

In early tests on mice it effectively halted weight gain, lowered cholesterol, controlled blood sugar, and reduced levels of unhealthy white fat.

US lead scientist Dr Ronald Evans, director of the Salk Institute’s Gene Expression Laboratory in La Jolla, California, said: “This pill is like an imaginary meal. It sends out the same signals that normally happen when you eat a lot of food, so the body starts clearing out space to store it. But there are no calories and no change in appetite.”

The drug, fexaramine, activates a protein called the farensoid X receptor (FXR) that plays a role in how the body releases bile acids from the liver, digests food and stores fats and sugars.

At the start of a meal, FXR prepares for an influx of food, not only triggering bile acid release but also altering blood sugar levels and instigating the burning of some fats.

Other drugs have been developed that act on FXR pathways, but they affect several organs and have unwanted side effects. An important feature of fexaramine is that it only functions in the gut and does not dissolve into the blood like appetite suppressants or caffeine-based diet drugs.

Since it does not reach the bloodstream it is likely to be safer than other FXR-targeting drugs, say the researchers who are working to set up clinical trials that will test fexaramine’s effectiveness in human patients.

Obese mice given a daily dose of the drug for five weeks stopped gaining weight, lost fat, and had lower blood sugar and cholesterol levels than untreated mice.

They also experienced a rise in body temperature, a sign that their metabolism was ramping up. Some of the deposits of white fat in their bodies were converted into the healthier form of calorie-burning “brown” fat.

The drug even affected bacteria in the guts of the mice, although what these changes mean is not yet clear.

Dr Evans compared fexaramine’s effect in the intestine to the start of a relay race.

“The body’s response to a meal is like a relay race, and if you tell all the runners to go at the same time, you’ll never pass the baton,” he said. “We’ve learned how to trigger the first runner so that the rest of the events happen in a natural order.”

via ‘Imaginary meal’ pill makes you feel full and burns fat – Telegraph.

Scientists in the US, where the number of overweight people is soaring, say that obesity does not automatically lead to metabolic changes in the body that can cause health problems, like diabetes and heart ailments.

Researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis asked 20 obese men and women to pack on an additional 15 pounds (7 kilograms) over several months to analyze how the weight gain affected their body’s metabolic functions.

“This was not easy to do. It is just as difficult to get people to gain weight as it is to get them to lose weight,” said chief author Elisa Fabbrini, assistant professor of medicine.

The results of the study, published in the Jan. 2 edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, challenged the idea that being obese automatically translates into poor health. Participants of the study who did not suffer disorders normally connected with obesity – such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure and excess liver fat — did not demonstrate these ailments even after the additional weight gain.

But for those participants who had health problems before the start of the study, these individuals suffered worsening health after packing on extra pounds.

The researchers said the results will allow them to better distinguish obese people who will be more at risk to ill health from those who may enjoy better prospects of staying healthy.

“This research demonstrates that some obese people are protected from the adverse metabolic effects of moderate weight gain, whereas others are predisposed to develop these problems,” Samuel Klein, MD, director of Washington University’s Center for Human Nutrition, told the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

“This observation is important clinically because about 25 percent of obese people do not have metabolic complications,” he said. “Our data shows that these people remain metabolically normal even after they gain additional weight.”

via ​Fat and healthy? Study suggests obesity doesn’t have to be problematic — RT News.

Is sugar making us sick? A team of scientists at the University of California in San Francisco believes so, and they’re doing something about it. They launched an initiative to bring information on food and drink and added sugar to the public by reviewing more than 8,000 scientific papers that show a strong link between the consumption of added sugar and chronic diseases.

The common belief until now was that sugar just makes us fat, but it’s become clear through research that it’s making us sick. For example, there’s the rise in fatty-liver disease, the emergence of Type 2 diabetes as an epidemic in children and the dramatic increase in metabolic disorders.

Laura Schmidt, a UCSF professor at the School of Medicine and the lead investigator on the project, SugarScience, said the idea is to make the findings comprehensible and clear to everyone. The results will be available to all on a website (SugarScience.org) and social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Added sugars, Schmidt said, are sugars that don’t occur naturally in foods. They are found in 74 percent of all packaged foods, have 61 names and often are difficult to decipher on food labels. Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires food companies to list ingredients on packaging, the suggested daily values of natural and added sugars can’t be found.

The FDA is considering a proposal to require food manufacturers to list information on sugars in the same way they do for fats, cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrates and protein. But because so much added sugar is dumped into so many products, one average American breakfast of cereal would likely exceed a reasonable daily limit.

“SugarScience shows that a calorie is not a calorie but rather that the source of a calorie determines how it’s metabolized,” said pediatric endocrinologist Robert Lustig, a member of the SugarScience team and the author of “Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease.” Lustig said that more than half of the U.S. population is sick with metabolic syndrome, a group of risk factors for chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and liver disease that are directly related to the excessive consumption of added sugars in the Western diet.

via Scientific team sounds the alarm on sugar as a source of disease.

A regional governor in Turkey has banned people from using lifts to reach the first three floors of public buildings, it’s reported.

Dursun Ali Sahin, governor of the western province of Edirne, wants people to take the stairs as part of a campaign against obesity, the Daily Sabah website reports. The only buildings exempt from the ban will be hospitals and nursing homes, but people who can’t take the stairs for medical reasons will also be excused, the website reports. “Taking the stairs instead of elevators can add an extra day to your life,” says Mr Sahin, adding that he intends to make the ban apply to private buildings in the future. “This is a move to promote better health. Moreover, it will help to cut energy costs.” Lift supervisors will be posted in public buildings to make sure the new rules are enforced, Mr Sahin says.

Last year, the governor banned coffee shops from serving tea with two cubes of sugar – as is traditional in Turkey – ordering them to just serve one cube instead, the BGN News website reports. The lift ban is reportedly the first of its kind in Turkey, but several social media users point out it won’t take long for people to find a way around it. “This ban won’t work in Turkey,” says Murat Y on Twitter. “Turkish people will use the elevator to get to the fourth floor and walk down to the third floor.”

via BBC News – Turkey: Governor restricts lift use to fight obesity.

Previously, research has linked a variant in the FTO gene to obesity risk. Now, researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Department of Psychiatry suggest in a new study that the impact of this variant on obesity risk depends largely on birth year.

The researchers noticed that most studies investigating the interactions of genes and the environment focused on differences within groups of people born during a particular span of years. The team realized that studies of these birth cohorts would not account for environmental changes occurring over time.

In an attempt to understand whether the environmental conditions experienced across different age groups affect the impact of a gene variant, the team analyzed data from the Framingham Offspring Study, which follows the children of participants from a long-term study that collected data from 1971-2008.

The body mass index (BMI) of the participants was measured eight times during the study period, which allowed the MGH team to examine the correlations between BMI and the FTO variants of the participants.

The researchers found no correlation between FTO variant and BMI for participants born before 1942. However, in participants born after 1942, the correlation between BMI and FTO was twice as strong as had been reported in previous studies.

“Looking at participants in the Framingham Heart Study, we found that the correlation between the best known obesity-associated gene variant and body mass index increased significantly as the year of birth of participants increased,” says lead author Dr. James Niels Rosenquist, of the MGH Department of Psychiatry. He adds:

“These results – to our knowledge the first of their kind – suggest that this and perhaps other correlations between gene variants and physical traits may vary significantly depending on when individuals were born, even for those born into the same families.”

Post-World War II lifestyle changes suggested as contributing factors

Although the environmental differences that caused this change in the association are not identified in the study, the authors hypothesize that the increased reliance on technology, rather than physical labor, and the availability of high-calorie processed foods – both of which emerged following World War II – are likely contributors.

“We know that environment plays a huge role in the expression of genes, and the fact that our effect can be seen even among siblings born during different years implies that global environmental factors such as trends in food products and workplace activity, not just those found within families, may impact genetic traits,” says Dr. Rosenquist.

The researchers believe that their findings are a good example of why any genetic study should be interpreted “with a grain of salt,” while suggesting that new genetic risk factors may emerge in the future as a consequence of ongoing environmental changes.

via Year of birth has an influence on genetic risk for obesity, study finds – Medical News Today.

GPs will be asked to identify patients who are putting on weight under a new national programme to help fight obesity.

 

Simon Stevens, the head of the NHS, said it was time for Britain to “get back in shape” in order to protect millions of people from a host of obesity-related diseases.

 

Under the scheme, family doctors will be asked to identify anyone who has gained weight and is at risk of diabetes – particularly those aged below 40.

 

They will then be offered tests for pre-diabetes, followed by healthy lifestyle advice and close monitoring to ensure they are eating better and exercising more.

It comes as new figures show Britain is now the second fattest nation in Europe, with almost 25 per cent of Britons classified as obese – compared with a European average of 16.7 per cent.

Source: Doctors told to report patients who put on weight – Telegraph