A plastic patch which is sewn onto the tongue and makes it very difficult to eat is the latest in extreme weight-loss methods.

The ‘miracle’ patch, which is secured to the tongue with six stitches, makes consuming solid food so painful that users are forced to resort to a liquid-only diet.

Launched in 2009 by Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Nikolas Chugay, the procedure can apparently help you lose up to 30lbs in one month – but not without uncomfortable side effects.

Dr Chugay’s website warns that patients may experience swelling of the tongue and difficulty with speech after getting the patch.

And according to Time, some patients have trouble sleeping and difficulty moving their tongue at all following the procedure, which has yet to be FDA-approved.

What’s more, the patch can only be worn for a maximum of one month, since after that time, the tongue’s tissue begins to grow back, and the patch can then become incorporated into the tongue.

But during that month, Dr Chugay provides an ‘easy to follow’ liquid diet of 800 calories a day, which ‘fulfills nutritional needs’ and ‘maximizes weight loss results’, according to his website.

The most extreme weight-loss method yet? The dieters having a patch sewn onto their tongues to make eating unbearably painful | Mail Online

Vegetarians live longer than meat-eaters, according to a study published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, a Journal of the American Medical Association.

The authors tracked 73,308 members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church for almost six years. The church is known for promoting a vegetarian diet, though not all of its followers adhere to that teaching. Researchers found out what type of diet participants ate, then followed up to find out how many of those participants had died and how.

Vegetarians in the study experienced 12% fewer deaths over the period. Dietary choices appeared to play a big role in protecting the participants from heart disease, from which vegetarians were 19% less likely to die than meat-eaters.

There also appeared to be fewer deaths in the vegetarian group from diabetes and kidney failure.

Caloric intake didn’t seem to matter. The different participant groups generally ate around the same amount of calories daily. Researchers found that the beneficial associations weren’t related to energy intake.

The advantage appeared stronger in men than women, whose diet didn’t seem to make as much of a difference. Eating plant foods didn’t seem to protect participants against cancer, which struck both the vegetarians and non-vegetarians in roughly equal measure.

Vegetarians Live Longer Than Meat-Eaters, Study Finds – WSJ.com

One of the UK’s biggest supermarket chains is planning to spy on the shopping habits of customers who want to slim and advise them on how to eat more healthily.

Tesco will use data from its loyalty card scheme to see who is loading up on high-calorie or fat-laden food such as doughnuts, chocolate and pizza.

Its 16 million Clubcard members could then be offered vouchers for healthier products or given recipes as part of the battle against the growing obesity epidemic. Tesco boss Philip Clarke said customers would need to ‘opt in’, rather than being bombarded by unwanted suggestions.

‘We won’t encourage healthier lifestyles by editing choices, but we can influence choice by making healthier options,’ he told The Grocer magazine. The supermarket’s technology experts have built an online tool – dubbed the ‘healthy little differences tracker’ – that will measure how customers’ habits change following the health drive.

The group is also expected to contribute data to government research into obesity.

However, only anonymous data will be passed to health research organisations, unless customers volunteer their details.

Supermarket keeping track of what customers buy to increase healthy eating | News.com.au

New York City’s campaign to cut consumption of sugary drinks now features ads warning people about sweet teas, sports and energy drinks and fruit-flavored beverages.

The city health department launched the TV and bus ads Monday. The spots say such drinks might sound healthy but are packed with added sugar and that can lead to obesity and other health problems. Some of the ads target kids and teens.

Instead, the health department urges residents to drink fat-free milk, seltzer or water and eat fresh fruit instead of drinking juice.

The ads cost about $1.4 million. They further a “pouring on the pounds” campaign that dates to 2009.

New NYC Ad Campaign Targets Sweetened Teas, Fruit Drinks « CBS New York

They might start calling it the McDiet.

McDonald Corp.’s chief executive, Don Thompson, revealed at an analyst conference this week that he has shed about 20 pounds in the past year by getting his ‘‘butt up’’ and ‘‘working out again.’’ But he said he hasn’t changed his habit of eating at McDonald’s ‘‘every single day.’’

Thompson was responding to a question about how the world’s biggest hamburger chain is adapting amid the growing concerns about ­obesity.

Thompson said that he lost the weight by getting active again. He noted that Europeans walk a lot and that it’s rare to see Europeans who are ‘‘very, very heavy.’’

‘‘And so I think that balance is really important to people,’’ he said.

McDonald’s CEO: I lost weight by being more active – Business – The Boston Globe

The tragic final days of one of the world’s fattest men were spent desperately hoping to lose the weight that kept him bedridden for five years.

Ricky Naputi, who weighed nearly 900 pounds, died in November 2012, but before he passed, the 39-year-old opened up his home to reality TV cameras from TLC. The cable network aired his story Wednesday night in a special called “900 Pound Man: Race Against Time.”

Naputi, who lived in the U.S. island territory Guam, was bedridden and confined to his home, unable to walk or to bathe himself.

“The last time I got out and enjoyed myself must have been years. I miss feeling the sun on my face. Miss showering, feeling water run down my body,” he said at one point.

But Naputi had also vowed to turn his life around. He was working on losing enough weight to be able to fly to the continental U.S. for weight loss surgery.

“I’m willing to try my best,” he said. “My one goal and my one goal only is to get my life back.”

The show also revealed Naputi’s loving relationship with his wife, Cheryl, his primary caretaker.

Cheryl acted as Ricky’s nurse, cooking for him, giving him sponge baths and helping him go to the bathroom, which she likened to “taking care of an overgrown baby.”

World’s fattest man, Ricky Naputi, ate himself to death at almost 900 pounds   – NY Daily News

A new study has found that reducing calories prevents loss of brain cells and slows down cognitive decline.

Calorie restriction is known to prevent aging and reducing the risk of mental conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease. A diet that has fewer calories activates a key enzyme called Sirtuin 1 (SIRT1), which is associated with protection against loss of nerve cells. The study team even found a drug that activates the enzyme and helps the brain retain cognitive abilities.

The study was conducted by researchers from Picower Institute For Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The study included a set of mice that were genetically tweaked to develop neurodegenertive diseases. Researchers kept these mice on a low-calorie diet and monitored the development of the disease. The mice were put on various mental tests after about three months.

“We not only observed a delay in the onset of neurodegeneration in the calorie-restricted mice, but the animals were spared the learning and memory deficits of mice that did not consume reduced-calorie diets,” said Li-Huei Tsai, PhD, lead author of the study.

In the next part of the study, researchers gave a set of mice a drug that activated SIRT1. Test results showed that mice on the drug performed better at memory tasks when compared with mice that weren’t on the drug.

Low Calorie Diet Protects Brain Cells : Health & Medicine : Nature World News

First Lady Michelle Obama has expanded her anti-obesity campaign to museums, enlisting them to offer “healthy food options,” and change their menus.

Mrs. Obama’s “Let’s Move!” initiative is now calling for museums, zoos, gardens, science and technology centers to “join the call to action,” to decrease obesity among children.

The first lady is recruiting these institutions to join the “Let’s Move! Museums and Gardens” project because of their power to “influence real and sustained behavior change” on the eating habits of kids.

“With their impressive reach and great potential for impact, museums and gardens can launch community efforts to create a healthier generation using interactive exhibits, outdoor spaces, gardens and programs that encourage families to eat healthy foods and increase physical activity,” the program said.

So far, 624 institutions across the country have signed up.

One of the goals of the program is that 90 percent of the museums and centers that offer food service will “already offer or will change their menu to offer food options that reflect healthy choices.”

First Lady Expands Anti-Obesity Campaign to Museums | CNS News

The average meal at a chain restaurant contains more than half the calories, 1.5 times as much sodium and almost all the fat that people are recommended to consume in an entire day, researchers in Canada found.

Scientists at the University of Toronto analyzed nutritional information for 685 meals and 156 desserts reported by 26 sit-down restaurant chains. On average, the meals contained 1,128 calories, or 56 percent of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s 2,000 calorie-a-day recommendation.

The meals contained 151 percent of the FDA’s recommended limit for sodium, 89 percent of the limit for fat and 60 percent of the limit for cholesterol, the researchers reported today in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

“Calories, fat, saturated fat and sodium levels are alarmingly high in breakfast, lunch and dinner meals” at chain restaurants, the researchers said. “Addressing the nutritional profile of restaurant meals should be a major public health policy.”

Restaurant Meals ‘Alarmingly High’ in Fat, Study Finds – Bloomberg

Measuring the ratio of someones waist to their height is a better way of predicting their life expectancy than body mass index BMI, the method widely used by doctors when judging overall health and risk of disease, researchers said.

BMI is calculated as a persons weight in kilograms divided by the square of their height in metres, but a study found that the simpler measurement of waistline against height produced a more accurate prediction of lifespan.

People with the highest waist-to-height ratio, whose waistlines measured 80 per cent of their height, lived 17 years fewer than average.

Keeping your waist circumference to less than half of your height can help prevent the onset of conditions like stroke, heart disease and diabetes and add years to life, researchers said.

For a 6ft man, this would mean having a waistline smaller than 36in, while a 5ft 4in woman should have a waist size no larger than 32in.

Children in particular could be screened as early as five using the waist-to-height ratio to identify those at greatest risk of obesity and serious health conditions later in life, it was claimed.

Researchers from Oxford Brookes University examined data on patients whose BMI and waist to height ratio were measured in the 1980s.

Waist to height ratio more accurate than BMI – Telegraph