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PT blog: The doctor weighs in

Research on obesity/overweight (RSS)


While I agree, parents need to be good role models and set limits, I also believe that there are so many influences in kids lives today, ranging from TV, to the internet, to peers in play groups and day care, that placing all of the responsibility and blame on parents seems naive to me. Read More

posted by: Pat, Wednesday, September 13, 2006 5:35 PM   201 Comments
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Have you noticed that you are ravenously hungry an hour or two after certain meals? Or that you stay fuller, longer after others? Many people have learned that adding protein to their breakfast meal is the best insurance against the mid-morning munchies. And a bit of chicken in your lunchtime salad may help you make it to dinner without a trip to the vending machines. Protein, it turns out, enhances satiety (the feeling of fullness) and helps you lose weight. Read More

posted by: Pat, Thursday, September 07, 2006 1:15 AM   2 Comments
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Now here is the punch line: Although normal and overweight individuals were similar in their ability to estimate the number of calories in food, the overweight individuals in Study 1, who had eaten a fast food meal, ate larger meals. Because everyone significantly underestimates the number of calories in large meals, these overweight people actually ate many more calories than they thought they had. Read More

posted by: Pat, Tuesday, September 05, 2006 11:47 PM   202 Comments
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They also found that men’s BMI was an independent risk factor for fertility in both older and younger men. Even after adjustment for other factors that could affect fertility (high BMI of the woman, age, cigarette smoking, alcohol intake, and solvent and pesticide exposure) the researchers found that there was a general increase in infertility with increased BMI, reaching a nearly 2-fold increase among obese men. "The data suggest that a 20-pound increase in men's weight may increase the chance of infertility by about 10 percent," says Markku Sallmen, lead author on the paper who is now at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health. Read More

posted by: Pat, Saturday, September 02, 2006 7:47 PM   199 Comments
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Vince and Rob’s research indicates that the ACE Score likely captures the cumulative biologic consequences of these exposures. Multiple, well done analyses of the ACE data have been published in good medical journals. They demonstrate that the ACE score has a strong graded relationship to: Obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, liver disease and other leading causes of death in the United States Smoking, alcohol use and abuse, as well as illicit and IV drug use Early initiation of sexual intercourse, promiscuity, and sexually transmitted disease (STDs) Teen and unintended pregnancy, stillbirths, and spontaneous abortion Suicide attempts, depression and poor health-related quality of life Read More

posted by: Pat, Thursday, August 31, 2006 11:16 PM   206 Comments
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When it comes to absorbing nutrients, it makes a difference how you prepare a food (cooked or raw) and what foods you eat with it. The science of understanding nutrient absorption is an area called “bioavailability.” Read More

posted by: Pat, Tuesday, August 29, 2006 4:02 PM   199 Comments
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Instead of continuing to argue that "all obesity is bad" or "obesity is not all that bad," we should look more closely at the data to determine if there are some easily identifiable subsets of the population who will have devastating health consequences when they gain weight. Let's take this debate to the next level so we can get on with the serious business of promoting health in this country. Read More

posted by: Pat, Wednesday, August 23, 2006 10:43 PM   1 Comments
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Successful strategies for getting it off and keeping it off included Self monitoring (weigh oneself, planning meals, tracking fat and calories) Exercising 30 or more minutes daily Adding physical activity to the daily routine. The odds of being a successful weight loser were 48% - 76% lower for those reporting that aspects of exercise behavior were influencing factors (no time to exercise, too tired to exercise, no one to exercise with, too hard to maintain exercise routine) compared to those who reported little or no barriers to exercise as a weight control measure. Read More

posted by: Pat, Tuesday, August 22, 2006 11:45 PM   2 Comments
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That being said, what is so exciting about this line of research is not only the potential for new therapies, but also how it adds to our understanding of body’s complex control of appetite and body weight. There are a lot of folks who want to believe that obesity is purely a “personal responsibility” issue. But the more we learn about hormones, like ghrelin, the more we understand that weight gain is more than a personal choice. Rather, it is also the result of humans evolving to survive in a world where food was scarce and hard to come by, but now living in a world where energy dense food is always at our fingertips. Read More

posted by: Pat, Thursday, August 17, 2006 2:00 AM   3 Comments
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Here is a summary of some of the findings in studies of overweight and obese adults: Obesity contributes to significantly lower quality of life. This was true even in obese people who did not have chronic diseases (diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea). Obesity is associated with decreased health status and a higher incidence of depression. Obese people had a significantly higher number of visits to health care providers. Physicians spent less time educating obese patients about their health and more time discussing exercise. Obesity was not related to discussions about nutrition. Read More

posted by: Pat, Wednesday, August 09, 2006 12:54 AM   1 Comments
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“Eat more, weigh less” sounds like a slogan for the type of weight loss products you find on the back pages of your favorite woman’s magazine. But, a study in the August 2006 issue of Journal of the American Dietetic Association has found that people who eat diets containing a lot of low energy density foods, such as fruits and vegetables, eat more than people who eat diets rich in energy-dense foods (such as chips and other snack foods with high fat contents). Despite eating a greater amount of food, by weight, people eating a low energy density diet consume fewer calories. So, they can indeed eat more and weigh less than people who eat high energy dense diets. Read More

posted by: Pat, Tuesday, August 08, 2006 12:19 AM   7 Comments
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Walk 10,000 steps. Walk for 30 minutes three times a week. Walk 60 minutes most days of the week. Walk farther and walk longer. These are typical exercise prescriptions. But there is another component of your daily walk that is also important. It is how fast you walk. Read More

posted by: Pat, Tuesday, July 18, 2006 1:29 AM   (Comments Off)
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The take home message. Don't just assume, if you are a diabetic, that you cannot or should not exercise. If your cardiovascular risk is low and you do not have diabetes complications, such as nerve or eye disease, physical activity can have many beneficial effects on your current and future health. Read More

posted by: Pat, Tuesday, June 13, 2006 9:44 PM   1 Comments
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The first presentation at this symposium described how fat deposits in the liver lead to insulin resistance. We have known for years that “central obesity” is a risk factor for Type 2 diabetes. Remember the warnings that fat in an “apple” pattern is worse for us than fat in a “pear” pattern?. But it isn’t that subcutaneous fat (fat deposited below the skin) that’s really bad for us, rather it is fat inside the abdominal cavity, called visceral fat, that increases our risk for heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes. Now we know that the worst fat may be the fat that gets deposited in our organs—fat in our liver cells, fat in our muscle cells, and maybe, fat deposited in our heart cells. Read More

posted by: Pat, Saturday, June 10, 2006 2:57 AM   57 Comments
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There is debate in the medical literature about how frequently dieters should weigh themselves. Proponents of frequent weighing (e.g., daily) believe it an important behavior that helps keep dieters on track. Opponents fret about the negative impact of frequent weigh-ins on mood and body image. What is the evidence? Read More

posted by: Pat, Sunday, May 21, 2006 8:13 PM   (Comments Off)
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