Scientists are using imaging tests to show for the first time that fructose can trigger brain changes that may lead to overeating.

Fructose is a sugar that saturates the American diet.

Researchers have found that after drinking a fructose beverage, the brain doesn’t resister the feeling of being full as it does when simple glucose is consumed.

It’s a small study and does not prove that fructose or its relative, high-fructose corn syrup, can cause obesity, but experts say it adds evidence they may play a role.

These sugars often are added to processed foods and beverages, and consumption has risen dramatically since the 1970s along with obesity. A third of U.S. children and teens and more than two-thirds of adults are obese or overweight.

For the study, scientists used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scans to track blood flow in the brain in 20 young, normal-weight people before and after they had drinks containing glucose or fructose in two sessions several weeks apart.

One study leader says that scans showed that drinking glucose turns off or suppresses the activity of areas of the brain that are critical for reward and desire for food.

Yale University endocrinologist Dr. Robert Sherwin adds that with fructose, “we don’t see those changes” and as a result, “the desire to eat continues — it isn’t turned off.”

Brain image study: Fructose may spur overeating | kare11.com

The new data come from autopsies done on U.S. service members who died in October 2001 through August 2011 during combat or from unintentional injuries. Those autopsies were originally performed to provide a full account to service members families of how they died.

The study mirrors autopsy research on Korean and Vietnam war veterans, which found signs of heart disease in as many as three-quarters of deceased service members at the time.

“Earlier autopsy studies… were critical pieces of information that alerted the medical community to the lurking burden of coronary disease in our young people,” said Dr. Daniel Levy, director of the Framingham Heart Study and a senior investigator with the National Institutes of Health.

The findings are not directly comparable, in part because there was a draft in place during the earlier wars but not for Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom/New Dawn. When service is optional, healthier people might be more likely to sign up, researchers explained.

Still, Levy said the new study likely reflects declines in heart disease in the U.S. in general over that span.

Altogether the researchers had information on 3,832 service members whod been killed at an average age of 26. Close to 9 percent had any buildup in their coronary arteries, according to the autopsies. And about a quarter of the soldiers with buildup in their arteries had severe blockage.

Service members who had been obese or had high cholesterol or high blood pressure when they entered the military were especially likely to have plaque buildup, Webber and his colleagues reported Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

One in 12 in military has clogged heart arteries | Reuters

The fast food restaurant chain Dennys recently unveiled a menu inspired by the Lord of the Rings prequel, The Hobbit, but the gut-busting dishes proved no match for the appetite of a competitive eater aptly nicknamed The Bear.

The notorious diner Jamie The Bear McDonald came up with a challenge to eat every single item on Dennys Hobbit menu in one seating, and he did not disappoint.

Within that short amount time, ‘The Bear’ lived up to his moniker by polishing off the Hobbit Hole Breakfast, Shire Sausage Skillet, Frodo’s Pot Roast Skillet, The Ring Burger, Gandalf’s Gobble Melt, Dwarves’ Turkey & Dressing Dinner, Lonely Mountain Treasure, Radagast’s Red Velvet Pancake Puppies, Bilbo’s Berry Smoothie and Lone-Lands Campfire Cookie Milk Shake.

In total, McDonald consumed whopping 8, 610 calories, 426 grams of fat, 775 carbohydrates and 2,530 milligram of heart-stopping cholesterol.

Competitive eater The Bear tears through all ELEVEN items on Dennys Hobbit menu in under 20 minutes and the meal clocked in at 8,610 calories! | Mail Online

The governor on Monday, Dec.17th, sidestepped a decision about whether a condemned inmate is too fat to be humanely executed by sparing him on the grounds that he had poor legal representation.

Republican Gov. John Kasichs decision to grant clemency to Ronald Post mirrored the recommendation of mercy by the state parole board, which said it didnt doubt Posts guilt but said there were too many problems with how he was represented 30 years ago.

Post, who weighs 450 pounds, never raised the issue of his size with the board. And Kasich, who commuted Posts sentence to life with no chance of parole, didnt mention Posts obesity claim in his statement. Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols said the governor didnt consider Posts obesity claim.

The governor said all criminal defendants, regardless of the heinousness of the crimes, deserve an adequate defense.

Fat Thanks to Anant P. for the tip!

Ohio governor spares condemned 450-pound killer

A new study says the feelings you have when quitting junk food are similar to the ones experienced in drug withdrawal.

Researchers at the University of Montreal say a high-fat diet can actually cause chemical changes in the brain.  Those changes could lead to stress and withdrawal symptoms if you switch to a healthier diet.  The research was performed on mice for a period of six weeks.  The author says the chemicals monitored in the mice are similar to those found in the human brain.

Details are in the International Journal of Obesity.

Study: Quitting junk food may cause withdrawal symptoms | abc7chicago.com

Obesity is a bigger health crisis globally than hunger, and the leading cause of disabilities around the world, according to a new report published Thursday in the British medical journal The Lancet.

Nearly 500 researchers from 50 countries compared health data from 1990 through 2010 for the Global Burden of Disease report, revealing what they call a massive shift in global health trends.

“We discovered that theres been a huge shift in mortality. Kids who used to die from infectious disease are now doing extremely well with immunization,” said Ali Mokdad, co-author of the study and professor of global health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, which led the collaborative project.

“However, the world is now obese and were seeing the impact of that.”

The report revealed that every country, with the exception of those in sub-Saharan Africa, faces alarming obesity rates — an increase of 82% globally in the past two decades. Middle Eastern countries are more obese than ever, seeing a 100% increase since 1990.

“The so-called ‘Western lifestyle’ is being adapted all around the world, and the impacts are all the same,” Mokdad said.

The health burden from high body mass indexes now exceeds that due to hunger, according to the report.

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Global report: Obesity bigger health crisis than hunger – CNN.com.

On TLC, there is a show called 600lb Mom: Race Against Time, which is about Dominique Lanoise, a single mom from Miami.

Dominique did two things, she raised her six kids, and ate non-stop.

Sadly, she passed away because she couldnt stop her eating.

She had wanted to do bariatric surgery to shrink the size of her stomach but doctors wouldnt do it unless she lost weight first.

She ended up going on a very strict diet and lost 120 pounds!

Before she could get the surgery, she ended up binging for months, gorging herself on her favorite foods, until she had gained an extra 222 pounds.

Her doctor said:  “Something desperately wrong and catastrophic had indeed happened and it wasnt a one-time slip-up. It was a systematic assassination of her weight loss program.”

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600 Lb. Single Mom Ate Herself To Death | FitPerez.com

Suppose you stick to a five-times-a-week gym regimen, as I do, and have put in a lifetime of hard cardio exercise, and have a resting heart rate that’s a significant fraction below the norm. That doesn’t inoculate you, apparently, from the perils of sitting.

The research comes more from observing the health results of people’s behavior than from discovering the biological and genetic triggers that may be associated with extended sitting. Still, scientists have determined that after an hour or more of sitting, the production of enzymes that burn fat in the body declines by as much as 90 percent. Extended sitting, they add, slows the body’s metabolism of glucose and lowers the levels of good (HDL) cholesterol in the blood. Those are risk factors toward developing heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.

“The science is still evolving, but we believe that sitting is harmful in itself,” says Dr. Toni Yancey, a professor of health services at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Stand-Up Desks Gaining Favor in the Workplace – NYTimes.com

Kids who live in states with strict laws regulating the sale of junk food and sugary drinks in school gain less weight than their peers in states with weak or no such laws, according to a new study published online in the journal Pediatrics.

The study looked at data on 6,300 students in 40 states, tracking their height and weight between 2004 and ’07, from fifth to eighth grade. Six states had strict laws restricting the sale of so-called competitive foods — snacks and drinks sold in vending machines, school stores and during fundraising projects, which compete with school-served meals; seven states had weak laws; and 27 states had no laws governing competitive foods in middle schools.

Laws were considered strong if they included specific nutrition standards — like limiting sugars and fats. They were labeled as weak if they were vague, suggesting the sale of “healthy” foods, for example, without giving detailed guidelines.

Fat Thanks to Sona S. for the tip!

Study: Strict Laws on School Snacks Linked to Slimmer Kids | TIME.com

“Many believe the critical time for the development of obesity is between ages zero and five—before kids go to school,” says lead study author Philippe Froguel, from the School of Public Health at Imperial College London. “Each year after age five is too late, and we wanted to find a way to predict the likelihood at birth. There are many non-genetic factors that are easy to analyze and are costless.”

To develop their formula, called the obesity risk calculator, the researchers analyzed data from the 1986 Northern Finland Birth Cohort that tracks a population of over 4,000 participants who were born in 1986.

Fat Thanks to Sona S. for the tip!

Predicting Obesity At Birth | TIME.com