Those overweight people who inherited FTO Genes should no longer feel frustrated. Its right that nature has done some injustice to them to a certain extent. But people with FTO genes should not feel powerless. They should gear up for some exercise to fight the negative effects of fat genes. Experts say that people having junk food genes can lose weight by exercising.

British researchers have collected data from more than 218,000 adults. Researchers studied those having a specific fat mass and obesity associated (FTO) gene. These genes gives a person a genetic predisposition to obesity. But researchers arrived at a conclusion that Obese persons can substantially reduce their weight by exercising. Researchers at the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit analyzed large amount of data and they found that the effect of the FTO gene on obesity risk is nearly 30 per cent weaker among those who exercise and are physically active compared to those who lead a sedentary life.

The researchers concluded that their findings contrasted with previous studies that suggest genetic influences are unchallengeable. You can fight the negative effects of your genes and keep your weight under control with the help of exercise.

People with FTO genes craves for sugar and fat. 49% Britons have one copy of FTO genes and 14% have two copies of such genes. Such people eat 100 more calories per meal and in a week all those calories amount to a whole day’s meal. People having two copies of FTO genes have the 69% change of getting obese than those who have not inherited such genes.

It seems the solution to the problem of weight gain is simple. You have to fit in exercise in your daily routine. The junk food gene was carried by our ancestors too. But they didn’t have modern gadgets at their disposal to make their life simpler. They had to walk extra mile for their daily chores. So FTO genes didn’t manifest in our ancestors like they are doing now. The same fact was revealed in the study. Researchers pointed out the importance of work out. The study revealed that people who lead a couch-potatoes lifestyle and have one copy of the gene, have 30% higher probability of obesity than in those who do not have one cope of FTO gene.

But physically active having the FTO gene only raised the odds by twenty-two percent. It means workout reduces the effect of the FTO gene by twenty-seven percent. The study findings were published in the PLoS Medicine journal. So don’t blame your genes and grab your jogging boots to fight off what is inherited by you in the form of jun food genes.

The studies are being conducted worldwide to find out how early in life metabolic programming that affects the tendency of individuals to gain weight and become obese takes place in their brain. In a recent study at University of Buffalo the researchers found out that this metabolic programming that indicated to the onset of obesity during adulthood occurred in the fetuses of obese mother rats while they were still in the uterus. The study also pointed out to the fact that this programming happens in that part of brain which is in charge of maintaining the body weight of the living being throughout its life. This part of the brain of the fetes is called fetal hypothalamus.

Mulchand Patel, senior author of the study who is also Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Buffalo said “Our earlier studies looked at newborn rats of the obese mothers in the post-weaning period, so we didn’t know how early this programming occurred," and added "Now we know it occurs in utero and specifically in the hypothalamus.” The professor opines that while the current studies were conducted on the rats, there is no reason to think that the system would be different in humans.

Metabolic programming is being studied from earlier times to observe the affect of a mother being malnourished during pregnancy on the offspring. The studies conclusively point out to long term affect of the malnutrition on babies starting from being underweight at birth to increased probability of attracting chronic diseases during adulthood. 

This study points to one very important fact that the women should aim to maintain optimal conditions during their pregnancies. According to one of the studies conducted in 2003, one third of the pregnant ladies in US showed the tendency to become over weight and obese. This of course is something which is not good for the offspring in the long run.

"Our findings that malprogramming effects induced during fetal development in the altered intrauterine environment in obese mother rats predispose the offspring for adult-onset obesity underscore the importance of women maintaining optimal conditions during their pregnancies," Patel noted.

It has been the talk of the town amongst the parents of the overweight kids till now. Even the researchers have now taken steps to study the affect of deep rooted sedative behavior among the children on their weight. The activities like watching TV and playing computer games etc is one of the greatest impediments in weight loss and maintenance efforts of the kids.

The researchers at University of Buffalo studied the affect of reduction in TV viewing time on the BMI of the Kids over a 2 year period. The parents, with the help of a device, managed to reduce the time of their children in front of TV on an average by about 17.5 Hrs every week. The BMI of such kids showed significant downward changes. On the other hand the BMI changes were not significant among the kids whose TV viewing time came down by only about 5 Hrs every week.

Leonard Epstein, a Distinguished Professor with University and the first author of the said study said "Our controlled experiment provided a test of whether reducing access to television and computer time led to a reduction in BMI,". He further added "Results showed that watching television and playing computer games can lead to obesity by reducing the amount of time that children are physically active, or by increasing the amount of food they consume as they as engaged in these sedentary behaviors."

Since the researchers collated data on the kids every six months it was observed that there were significant changes in the BMI in the first and second noting. The overall results for the study period however showed only a modest change in the BMI. Professor Epstein was of the view that though the overall results of the study were not significant the magnified usage of device across US may provide huge reduction in the overall obesity and weight related medical issues.

Two new studies have thrown light on how obesity causes heart attack and also amazingly prevents it from being detrimental.

In one of the studies published in the European Heart Journal, researchers studies more than 1600 patients who underwent angioplasty. Such patients are usually given stents (a mental device placed permanently inside an artery during angioplasty) after a type of heart attack known as unstable angina or non-ST segment elevation. Surprisingly the findings showed that the obese and excessively obese patients were almost at the same level of risk of dying within a span of three years after the attack as people with normal weight.

One of the convincing explanation for this could be that obese people are more have their medical check-ups done at regular intervals and are able to have any heart related problems detected earlier and have treatments accordingly, which help them recover from heart attacks. Besides, it is observed that Heart attack patients who are obese are generally younger. Thus any change in the body that occur with obesity gets noticed and helps in detecting further problems, the study said.

The second study was conducted at a meeting of the American Society of Echocardiography. Here the researchers reported that weight gain is associated with a thickening of muscle in the left ventricle – that part of the heart, which acts as a pump. So if this aspect is detected early, then the problem of obesity can also be handled effectively. Thus the co-relation of obesity and heart attack is not necessarily a negative one – it can rather help patients get timely remedy and keep off their physical problems.

The official journal of the International Union Against Cancer published a new study on how postmenopausal women are susceptible to Breast Cancer because of increased weight, which need not necessarily be abdominal fat. This study was conducted in Europe and published in the online edition of the International Journal of Cancer.

Factors analyzed for risk of breast cancer included fat being a significant contributor to it, though the studies on fat distribution are quite uncertain.

Earlier studies conducted for examining the relationship between body size and breast cancer revealed that taller women were at risk irrespective of weather or not they have reached the menopause stage. The study also suggested that obesity contributed to increased breast cancer risk in postmenopausal women and not in premenopausal women. This study however did not present the result on abdominal fat unambiguously.

Results revealed that body size mattered most in contributing to breast cancer in women at their postmenopausal stage rather than premenopausal. Height is also linked to breast cancer in both the groups, but predominantly in postmenopausal women.

No strong reasons could be attributed to understanding this phenomenon. However, some explanation is found in analyzing factors such as birth weight, diet, infection, energy balance, and insulin-related that influence bone growth as well as breast cancer.

Considering the fat distribution, hip circumference was a strong indicator of breast cancer risk in postmenopausal women who were not using HRT. But waist circumference controlled for overall body fat (BMI) did not show any indication of breast cancer risk in either post or premenopausal women.

The authors final conclusion on this is "Overweight is one of the few modifiable breast cancer risk factors and thus an important measure for breast cancer prevention and prognosis."

Have you ever wondered why our body stores fats? Here is a pretty simple and basic explanation for the same. Human body needs energy consistently for carrying out hundreds of chemical and biological reactions that take place in the body. The energy so needed is supplied by the food that we eat. The anatomy of humans has not changed much since the Stone Age when the most prevalent danger for human’s survival was ever-present food scarcity. Obesity and over consumption of food were unheard of. Human body was designed to store food in adipose tissue when the food was available and during hunting season. The stored fat was utilized to draw energy at the time of food scarcity. This simple logic explains the body’s built in capability to store fat adequately in the natures most amazing creation i.e. humans.

The next most important question that comes to our mind is what kind of food is absorbed by the body and when are these stored to the adipose tissue? Food that we eat contains mostly of water and nutrients like – carbohydrates, proteins and dietary fats. Our gastrointestinal tract system is designed to separate, digest and absorb these nutrients according to their ability to convert into glucose. The excess of these nutrients in stored in the adipose tissue.

Usage and Storage of Carbohydrates:

Carbohydrates are most readily convertible to glucose and are major source of energy for the body. Most of the carbohydrates are converted to glucose in the in the digestive tract itself. The liver then supplies the glucose so formed as energy to various body cells. On the usage of the most immediate energy requirement, the residual glucose formed by carbohydrates is either converted to glycogen or into fatty acids. While Glycogen is stored in the liver or muscles to be used as a temporary source of energy, fatty acids are stored in the adipose cells or the fat cells.

Usage and Storage of Protein:

Proteins are essentials for the cell repair and formation activity to take place in the body. Small intestine breaks the proteins into amino acids that are supplied by the liver to the body cells. Over produced amino acid either gets converted to sugar and is used for immediate energy requirements or keep circulating in the body through the bloodstream. Some part of the surplus amino acids are converted into fatty acids and get deposited in the adipose cells.

Usage and Storage of Dietary Fats:

Small intestine divides dietary fats into fatty acids and glycerol in the stomach. The lymphatic system then distributes these to the cells for various uses including usage as energy in case of absence of enough carbohydrates. However only a little dietary fat (about 5%) is converted to glucose and the body does not prefer them as the energy source, most of it is stored in the adipose cells as fats.

Do you know what makes people to overeat? A dysfunction of ‘reward circuitry’ in the brain causes people to overeat. Usually the gene associated with dopamine signaling causes this ‘reward circuitry’ dysfunction in the brain. Every time we eat something, it results in the release of dopamine. Our eating pleasure or satiation is determined with the amount of dopamine released when we eat. The dopamine so released then works as a neurotransmitter in the brain and completes the ‘reward circuitry’. What this points to is that the satiation from eating is lesser in people with a dysfunction in this ‘reward circuitry’ which makes them overeat. This fact has conclusively brought out in a very recent study at University of Oregon’s Lewis Center for Neuroimaging.

There have been studies that observed lesser dopamine release in obese people as compared to lean people and thus resulting in prevalent overeating in obese.

For this study that was conducted on women, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used. The women were given chocolate milkshakes to eat that are known to produce less than normal dopamine. The results established that the women with weaker "reward circuitry" were at a higher weight gain risk and were eventually prone to become obese, more so in case of women having the genes which are associated with a weakened dopamine signaling in the brain.

Senior researcher and lead author Eric Stice observed "Although recent findings suggested that obese individuals may experience less pleasure when eating, and therefore eat more to compensate, this is the first prospective evidence for this relationship," Eric said further "The evidence of temporal precedence suggests it is a true vulnerability factor that predates obesity onset. In addition, the evidence that this relation is even stronger for individuals at genetic risk for compromised signaling in these brain regions points to an important biological factor that appears to increase risk for obesity onset."

As per the Harvard school of Public Health about 75% of your body weight (after taking out the water weight from total weight) is contributed by different kinds of proteins. Proteins are present in virtually every part of your body like muscles, bones, skin, hair, and any other body tissue. It acts as the source of energy for various chemical reactions that take place in your body and in the hemoglobin for carrying oxygen in the bloodstream.

Your body needs more than 10000 different kinds of proteins for it to look the way it does. However 20 of these known as amino acids are the building blocks for the body and act as raw material for all other types of proteins. These amino acids are essential for cell formations, repairs, formation of antibodies and RNA/DNA, transportation of oxygen throughout the body via bloodstream, building up of active muscles and are a part of various enzymes and hormonal processes. Your body is capable of producing about half of these amino acids by itself and thus these need not be a part of your daily dietary intake. These are known as non-essential amino acids. Remaining amino acids (9 in adults and 10 in young ones) are not produced by the body and thus need to be an essential part of your daily diet.

To have healthy and active muscular function it is essential for you to maintain an appropriate intake of protein because the body does not have stores for protein as it does for fat and glucose. Overconsumption of proteins may result in higher fats intake and thus lead to cholesterol levels increase, heart disease or other related diseases like gout. Kidneys can get damaged because of the additional stress that is put on them for processing high protein intake. On the other hand intake of protein lesser than the required measures may lead to slow growth rate, loss of muscle weight, immunity loss, weakened heart and respiration system etc. The condition of low protein intake is known as kwashiorkor.

For proper intake of protein a nutritionally balanced diet is essential. The daily needs of a healthy adult can be easily met with two to three servings of protein rich diet. A combination of lean meat, skin free poultry, fish, beans, lentils and legumes is best as the fat content in these is minimal. It is best to have the protein with fiber rich vegetables and foods.

There is enough evidence to conclude that excess fat around the waist doubles the risk of premature death, according to a study conducted in Europe over 3,50,000 people. This study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The study offers adequate evidence to prove that people with the same body mass index may run the risk of premature death if their waist is excessively large. In other words, the larger the waist circumference, the greater the risk of death even if the body mass index is within the ‘specified range’. This is applicable also to people who are not obese as such but have a large waistline. With this study, researchers now suggest that doctors should include measuring the waistline and the hips along with the body mass index as part of the health checks done on patients. This is a suggestion made by not only Imperial College London, but the German Institute of Human Nutrition, and other research institutions all over Europe.

Waistline, when compared between subjects that had large waist i.e more than 120 cm in men and 100 cm in women with subject having smaller waist i.e. less than 80 cm in men and less than 65 cm in women, revealed that the risk of premature death is almost double in case of subjects having larger waist.

Every 5% increase in the waistline amplified the mortality risk by 17% in men and 13% in women.

The ratio of waist to hip also formed an integral part of this study. The study showed that about 98 percent of the people had a waist to hip ratio that ranged between 0.78 and 1.10 in men and between 0.66 and 0.98 in women. Given these ranges, an increase of the waist to hip ratio by 0.1 unit resulted in 34% higher mortality risk in men and a 24% risk in women.

The reason for the increased mortality is perhaps attributed to the fatty tissue that is formed around the waistline, which secretes Cytokines (hormones and compounds that are metabolically active), which contribute to the development of chronic diseases, especially cardiovascular and cancer according to the authors.

Though this study is concentrated on how the size of the waistline increase the risk of mortality even when the body mass index is within the specified range, there are enough findings available on the fact that how increased body mass index can significantly affect mortality rate.

The reaction of this study in the words of Prof. Elio Riboli, European coordinator of the EPIC study from the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at Imperial College London, is worth noting. He says “Although smaller studies have suggested a link between mortality and waist size, we were surprised to see the waist size having such a powerful effect on people’s health and premature death. Our study shows that accumulating excess fat around your middle can put your health at risk even if your weight is normal based on body mass index scores. There aren’t many simple individual characteristics that can increase a person’s risk of premature death to this extent, independently from smoking and drinking.”

A recent study (funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health) conducted in the recent years has drawn the attention of physicians, dieticians, and individuals to focus on calorie reduction rather than choosing a specific diet to lose weight. Regardless of the kind of diet you choose (carbohydrate, protein, or low fat), you can lose weight if you manage to reduce your calorie intake somehow.

To testify that reducing calorie is the key to losing weight whichever way you achieve it, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Pennington Biomedical Research Center of the Louisiana State University System conducted a randomized clinical trial. Here overweight participants were assigned four different diets for a two-year period and their performance was monitored at the end, where the results revealed that regardless of the choice of the diet, all the four groups could achieve weight loss through calorie reduction. This study appears in the February 26, 2009 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

Frank Sacks, lead author of this study and a professor of cardiovascular disease prevention at HSPH, said “This is important information for physicians, dieticians and adults, who should focus weight loss approaches on reducing calorie intake.”

The clinical trial involved 811 men and women who were randomly divided into different diet groups with different nutritional components:

• Low-fat, average protein: 20% of calories from fat, 15% of calories from protein, 65% of calories from carbohydrate
• Low-fat, high-protein: 20% fat, 25% protein, 55% carbohydrate
• High-fat, average protein: 40% fat, 15% protein, 45% carbohydrate
• High-fat, high-protein: 40% fat, 25% protein, 35% carbohydrate

These participants differed largely in terms of age, background, income, and geography. The diets administered to all these participants were carefully chosen to ensure heart-friendly principles; use of unsaturated fat instead of saturated fat; and included whole cereal grains, fruits, and vegetables. Every participant was given an individual prescription that encouraged a calorie reduction of 750 per day. All the participants were made to do 90 minute workout in terms of moderate exercises, which their daily food and drink intake were recorded both in a food diary and in a web-based program to evaluate how closely they meet their dieting targets. In the span of two-years, all these participants were provided counseling session at periodical intervals (in every eight week and three group discussions during the first six months, which got reduced to two discussions after six months till 2 years.)

The results when evaluated after 2 years revealed that all the participants lost an average of 13 pounds at six months and could maintain a 9 pound loss at the end of two years. The efficient weight loss was actually achieved during the first six months and after about a year, all participants started to regain their weight which is normally the case even with other diet studies. Here however the weight gain was much less about 20 % when compared to other studies. Further participants could lose about two inches from their waistline at the end of the two-year timeframe. The main finding of this study, in the words of Elizabeth G. Nabel, M.D., Director, NHLBI, “These results show that, as long as people follow a heart-healthy, reduced-calorie diet, there is more than one nutritional approach to achieving and maintaining a healthy weight.”