Keep Your Diet Plan Simple

Jan 18, 2010 3 Comments »

People who are trying to lose weight often go on guilt trip when they falter or eat something extra. Often the diet plans are successful for a while but later on most of the lost weight is regained. We often blame themselves that we don’t have the enough resolve to stick to the diet plan. Sticking to your diet requires more than will power and dedication. It is something more complex.

 

If you want your diet regimen to be successful, keep your diet plan simple. Don’t follow a complex diet program. Some finer aspect of the diet plan can make you give up your lose weight resolve. This is not some wistful thinking but researchers of from Indiana University and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin have find this out through a study. According to them much more subtle aspect of the diets themselves can also have a big influence on the pounds shed. If you are following a complex diet plan, chances are that you will chuck it sooner or later.

Peter Todd, professor in IU’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences,says, "For people on a more complex diet that involves keeping track of quantities and items eaten, their subjective impression of the difficulty of the diet can lead them to give up on it."

Cognitive scientists from Indiana University and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin compared the dieting behavior of women. These women were given two radically different diet plans to follow and it was more than obvious that the more complicated people thought their diet plan was, the sooner they were likely to drop it.

Jutta Mata, now a professor of psychology at Stanford University, expresses her opinion, "Even if you believe you can succeed, thinking that the diet is cognitively complex can undermine your efforts."

Now the crux of the matter is, Dieting is not all in one’s head. Forces of external environment play their roles too. The physical environment has to be set up properly. You have to put calorie laden snacks out of site. But now scientists say that you have to take cognitive environment into account too.This cognitive environment must also be appropriately constructed, by choosing diet rules that that one finds easy to remember and follow.

For people interested in following a diet plan, Mata suggests they take a look at several diet plans with an eye toward how many rules the plans have and how many things need to be how many things need to be kept in mind.

Mata says, "If they decide to go with a more complex diet, which could be more attractive for instance if it allows more flexibility, they should evaluate how difficult they find doing the calculations and monitoring their consumption. If they find it very difficult, the likelihood that they will prematurely give up the diet is higher and they should try to find a different plan."

While losing weight initially isn’t that difficult but keeping it off remains a challenge to dieters. It generally is believed that the longer people can adhere to their diet plan, the more successful they will be long-term with their weight loss maintenance.

Research on the prevention of Obesity and Diabetics with Interleukin-6

Sep 01, 2009 1 Comment »

The newly discovered molecule, called Interleukin-6, has apparently paved way for inventing new drugs to combat diabetes and obesity. This was concluded in an international project where researchers from Vitagenes, a company that is a part of the Campus program promoted by the University of Granada (UGR).

The technical director, Jose Luis Mesa, of Vitagenes (situated in the Technological Park of Health Sciences (PTS)), collaborated in this project in conjunction with other distinguished scientists of the University to Melbourne and the Baker Heart Research Institute (Australia). Jose Luis Mesa was among the main authors of this study. The most pertinent result of the project that corroborated the statement ‘a potential treatment to prevent diabetes and obesity’ found a place for itself in the international scientific journal of Endocrinology.

The misconceived molecule

The amazing aspect about this study is that, erstwhile the evidence showed that the molecule Interleukin-6 that was chronically high in diabetic and obese people was considered a threat to diabetes and obesity, but this study negated that evidence completely.

In the words of Jose Luis Mesa, "No study had tried to inject interleukin-6 directly to analyse if this molecule was really harmful or, to the contrary, could help to prevent obesity and diabetes". He further states, “our hypothesis was that interleukin-6 was naturally high in diabetic and obese persons precisely to combat such diseases. In order to prove it, we injected human recombinant interleukin-6 daily for two weeks and analysed its behaviour and its effects on the metabolism".

The statement of Mark Febbraio, scientific director in the Baker Heart Research Institute and a member of the Advisory Scientific Committee of Vitagenes, further confirms the validity of this study. He stated, “…we obtained surprising results. The exogenous administration of interleukin-6 improved insulin sensitivity and the absorption of glucose, essential for diabetics".

In connection with obesity, Jose Luis Mesa points out that “interleukin-6 also increased the expression of important genes related to fats metabolism, such as PPAR and UCP2. This suggests that interleukin-6 could be involved in the metabolic control of body weight".

Vitagenes, though managed to find a better use of the molecule Interleukin-6, still maintain that this is a preliminary study conducted in animal models and that further studies are required to be conducted in humans to establish definite conclusions.

Metabolic Programming In Obese people

Aug 31, 2009 3 Comments »

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.