Research Reveals Restricting Kid’s Video Time Reduces Obesity

Aug 31, 2009 No Comments »

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.

Promising Protection from Obesity Caused by Dietary Fats

Aug 31, 2009 No Comments »

A new chemical entity has been tested on mice at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in France that has shown tremendous potential to provide protection against diet-induced obesity.  The enzyme known as SIRT1 very effectively enhances glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity. It succeeded in accumulation of fat for strengthening specific body tissues and thus resulted in an increase in exercising stamina.

The study papers are presented in the latest issue of Cell Metabolism by the lead author Johan Auwerx, MD a professor at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.

Earlier studies have revealed that the occurrence of aging effects can be slowed down while developing endurance capabilities, if the caloric consumption is reduced by about 20%. It also helped in providing adequate protection against diet-induced obesity and related problems like diabetes etc. Some earlier studies also successfully demonstrated the ability of Resveratrol to give similar metabolic benefits if consumed in large doses. The researchers in the present study focused on the activation of enzyme SIRT1, which they believed, was responsible for managing the population and efficiency of mitochondria, the energy boosters in our cells.

The present research concentrated on finding the role of activated SIRT1 enzyme in controlling diet-induced obesity. SIRT1 also promoted utilization of fat in liver, skeletal muscles and brown adipose tissue and thus effectively curb the negative impacts of fat-rich diet on metabolism.

Johan Auwerx said "These results show that new synthetic SIRT1 activators can reproduce the positive metabolic effects that were previously demonstrated using resveratrol, a naturally occurring SIRT1 activator found in red wine. But unlike resveratrol, these new chemical entities target only the SIRT1 pathway, making them more selective and potent for achieving these metabolic benefits."

There is a huge interest in the people to check the occurrence of obesity and other metabolic disorders though the use of SIRT1 due to ineffectiveness of diet management plans and physical exercises.

Two surprising findings on obesity and heart attack

Aug 31, 2009 No Comments »

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.