Good, Bad And Ugly In Food Marketing Focus Of $6.4 Million Childhood Obesity Grant To Rudd Center At Yale

More Robert Wood Johnson Foundation waste.

"The link between food marketing and the growing childhood obesity epidemic is the focus of a $6.4 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University.

Principal investigators, Rudd Center Director Kelly D. Brownell and Deputy Director Marlene Schwartz, will use the grant to develop a three-year program to identify opportunities to improve the health of children and adolescents in the United States by reducing the harm associated with food marketing to youth."

First.

Kelly Brownell is, IMHO, clearly the wrong person to be involved and an IMHO con in the weight loss game.

Second.

You want "to identify opportunities to improve the health of children and adolescents in the United States"?

Don't look to the marketers.

Kids do not have the discretionary income to buy the products.

Look to the child-abusing parents and those complicit in child abuse - doctors, nurses, teachers, principals, etc.

That will make a difference.

Intelligent 'have better sperm'

Why overweight/obesity researchers, diet gurus and fitness experts have bad sperm.

"Men of higher intelligence tend to produce better quality sperm, UK research suggests."

BTW, fat men also have bad sperm.

The members of these groups are clearly of low intelligence.

Too bad their sperm isn't so bad that reproduction is impossible.

Bummer.

Overweight kids may have more anxiety, depression

Now what about being a fat human-like piglet could lead a kid to anxiety and depression?

"Compared with their thinner peers, overweight children may be more prone to developing depression and anxiety symptoms by the time they reach middle school, a new study suggests.

The study, which followed more than 1,200 U.S. children from age 2 to sixth grade, found those that those who were overweight tended to have more "internalizing" problems as they moved through elementary school -- being somewhat more prone to becoming withdrawn, anxious or depressed.

They were not, however, at higher risk of conduct problems, like acting out at school."

Maybe because they were too fat to move and act out.

"He said that parents should be 'watchful' for signs that their child is having problems -- such as changes in sleep habits, withdrawal from their normal activities or unusual irritability -- but should not become 'overly anxious.'...

Starting in third grade, the researchers found, there was a clear relationship between children's weight and subsequent internalizing symptoms.

The bottom line, according to Bradley, is parents, teachers and health providers should be aware of the signs that children are having such problems, and be ready to help them deal with any negative feelings connected to their weight."

Now that is a joke.

This nutcase researcher is expecting parents who are not "watchful" enough to notice "signs that their child is having problems" like getting way too fat, to care enough to be "watchful for signs that their child is having problems" like "withdrawal from their normal activities."

Such as what? They start eating less?

These child-abusing parents weren't there to help their kids deal with gaining the weight, except as facilitators.

And as to the teachers...these people are complicit in the child abuse to begin with. Expecting them to step up and help is simply ignorant.

More completely moronic happenings in the world of fat kid research.

Put an end to the abuse and silly research.

Make efforts like these part of your New Year's resolution.

Resolve to help the kids.

Many Americans miss exercise goals

They may not fulfill them, but they sure as heck do not "miss" them.

"Many Americans are failing to meet the minimum recommendations for exercise, although confusing guidelines are making it difficult to assess, researchers reported on Thursday.

Depending on which federal exercise recommendations are used, either about half or about two-thirds of Americans meet minimum goals, the team at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found."

Well, finally some acknowledgment that there may be something wrong with the guidelines.

There is.

In fact, there are lots of things wrong with the guidelines.

What is interesting here is that the majority or almost a majority of Americans claim that they are following them.

"Under guidelines released by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department in October, the minimum recommended aerobic physical activity is 150 minutes -- two and a half hours -- a week of moderate activity such as brisk walking, or 75 minutes a week of vigorous activity such as running.

Just under 65 percent of adults reached that goal, the CDC said.

The government's Healthy People 2010 objectives call for at least 30 minutes of moderate activity five days a week, or 20 minutes of vigorous activity three days per week. Only 49 percent of those surveyed met these goals."

What is really wrong is that this large number of people think they are actually following the guidelines.

Personally, I don't believe them.

But, if true, then the guidelines must be faulty since so many people remain fat.

"'Existing scientific evidence cannot determine whether the health benefits of 30 minutes of activity, 5 days per week, are any different from the benefits of 50 minutes, 3 days per week,' the report reads...

About a third of Americans are obese and another one-third are overweight, the CDC says, and they are at higher than acceptable risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer."

That is true.

There are no comparable data available to determine what level of physical fitness places a person at a lower risk of developing certain bad illnesses as BMI does for body weight.

If you want to get fit, physically and nutritionally, go here and give yourself a fighting chance.

Following the CDC or any other main stream approach is doomed to fail you.

Thyroid Function And Structure May Be Altered In Pediatric Obesity

Nutritional child abuse at the glandular level.

"In addition to its strong associations with hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes, pediatric obesity may induce alterations in thyroid function and structure, according to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).

Thyroid hormones drive metabolism, however demonstration of a direct or strong correlation of obesity with deficient thyroid function has been controversial, and previous studies provide conflicting conclusions. While some studies have found that thyroid disorders may lead to obesity, this recent study shows that in some cases, it is the obesity that may cause the disorder.

'Our study shows that alterations in thyroid function and structure are common in obese children and we may have uncovered the link,' said Giorgio Radetti, M.D., of the Regional Hospital of Bolzano in Italy and lead author of the study. 'We found an association between body mass index and thyroid hormone levels which suggests that fat excess may have a role in thyroid tissue modification.'"

For the calorically irresponsible child-abusing and unfit parents of the world, this must be welcome news.

First, it gives them another way to accomplish their goals of abusing their children without culpability.

Second, it gives them another way to extract money from the rest of us to "rescue" their children so they can appear less irresponsible and have their abusive activities underwritten by others since, with certainty, payment for treatment will come from the public coffers. (Ain't "health care" reform great?}

Kudos, fatsos.

You have elevated personal irresponsibility and child abuse to gold standards and national policy.

And if you, dear reader, are sick and tired of nutritional child abuse and paying for this crap, making your feelings known should be among your New Year's resolutions.

Make 2009 the year to end nutritional child abuse.

Young Doctors Exercise Less Than National Average

From the "Do as I say, not as I do Department." These are your leaders, folks.

"In comparison to the national average, young doctors get much less exercise, and this level of exercise is below recommended levels, according to a study released on December 2, 2008 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, one of the BMJ Specialist Journals.

Regular exercise is universally recognized as a prevention measure for a number of health problems, and the UK Department of Health recommends that every adult perform 30 minutes of moderate exercise at least five times a week. It has been shown previously that, in men who exercise regularly, death from all causes is almost halved...

However, only 21% achieved recommended exercise levels, far below the national average of 44%. Additionally, examining the doctors performing too little exercise, most worked at the hospital with a gymnasium -- but one third of the doctors working there said they were unaware of its existence.

In the 35 doctors who used a gym, on-site or elsewhere, only three exercised according to the guidelines."

Another reason not to listen to docs re: nutritional and physical fitness, they have no experience and cannot relate to what they are demanding of us.

Calcium And Vitamin D May Not Be The Only Protection Against Bone Loss

Whole grains and protein may break your bones, and words can really hurt you.

"Diets that are high in protein and cereal grains produce an excess of acid in the body which may increase calcium excretion and weaken bones, according to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM)."

Still think they have any idea of what a "healthy" food is?

And they will likely never know, at least during our lifetimes.

"'Heredity, diet, and other lifestyle factors contribute to the problem of bone loss and fractures,' said Bess Dawson-Hughes, M.D., of Tufts University in Boston, Mass. and lead author of the study. 'When it comes to dietary concerns regarding bone health, calcium and vitamin D have received the most attention, but there is increasing evidence that the acid/base balance of the diet is also important.'"

It is just too complex.

Look at what is involved: "Heredity, diet, and other lifestyle factors..."

Question - How many other "lifestyle factors" do you think there are?

Answer - Too numerous to count. To track. To consider. To know. And they will change over a person's lifetime.

Whatever.

The point?

This stuff is all words describing a moving target that is faster than the brains of the experts.

Don't get outrun by following the travelers in the slow mental lane.

Simply eat healthily and the best that can be will be.

Make this your New Year's resolution.

Secreted Protein Sends Signal That Fat Is On The Way

Another foolish undertaking.

"After you eat a burger and fries or other fat-filled meal, a protein produced by the liver may send a signal that fat is on the way, suggests a report in the December issue of the journal Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication.

Researchers have found in mice that the liver produces a protein called adropin, which rises in response to high-fat foods and falls after fasting."

By now, unless you are brain dead, you should be alert to the fact that everyday in every way, researchers are getting better and better at discovering "new" things that "cause" or are related to overweight/obesity.

And for each new cause, they claim a potential way to a cure.

"The new results suggest that treatments designed to deliver adropin or otherwise boost its levels may hold promise in the war against obesity and associated metabolic disorders, including fatty liver disease and type 2 diabetes."

And the parade of "new" discoveries continues, apparently, infinitely.

This should be proof positive that they will never find "the cure."

Still, if you are a complete moron and have some confidence in them, perhaps this new discovery will convince you, at last, that they have found a way to cause adropin your weight.

If you are not an idiot and recognize what is going on, go here so you can lose weight properly, naturally and successfully.

Institute For Food, Nutrition And Health To Be Established At Rutgers Using $10 From Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

The usually bad sense Robert Wood Johnson Foundation shows uncommon good sense.

RWJF generally funds crap with millions of misdirected dollars based on the conventional stupidity and a completely propagandized sense of right and wrong.

Clearly it is an organization with too much money and too few brain cells.

However, in this instance they had the good sense to contribute only $10 towards the establishment of another doomed to fail weight weight loss undertaking.

"Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, has received a four-year, $10 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to establish the Institute for Food, Nutrition and Health, on its George H. Cook Campus. 

Rutgers President Richard L. McCormick announced his intention to establish the new institute during his Annual Address to the University Community on Sept. 19. In that address, McCormick made it clear the new institute would focus on obesity and its associated diseases, and would 'ask and answer questions such as these: Why are young children developing health problems normally associated with overweight adults? How can we teach portion control and motivate healthier lifestyles? What are the best low-calorie diets to keep children lean? How can we help communities serve those who are most at risk?'"

Oh, it's "$10 million" and Rutgers own press release has a typo.

Bummer.

Too bad. 

So much for the sudden attack of good sense by RWJF.

I can dream can't I?

Dietitian, Nutritionist, Food Advisor, Do You Know The Difference?

Does it make a difference?

"The Health Professions Council (HPC) and the British Dietetic Association (BDA) have launched a joint campaign to raise awareness of the role of 'dietitians' and warn consumers against seeking advice from unregulated and inappropriately qualified sources."

"Unqualified sources" = dietitians.

"As statutorily regulated and qualified health professionals, dietitians work to strict codes of conduct that prevent them from recommending inappropriate nutritional advice, herbal supplements or diagnostic tests. As independent nutrition experts they can provide advice that is current, unbiased and evidence based."

And all the evidence points to diet advice failing everywhere.

"'It is important that the public recognise and understand what dietitians do, as there are many sources offering advice about diet and health - some of which are erroneous and potentially harmful, if not devastating. Dietitians use the most up to date public health and scientific research on food, health and disease, which they translate into easy practical guidance to enable people to make appropriate lifestyle and food choices, taking into account an individual's lifestyle, budget and health.'"

If you find a need to know the difference between dietitian, nutritionist and food advisor, think about the differences among crap, stool and s**t.

What? You can't find a difference?

Bingo.

That explains it all.

Child abuse more common than thought

Clearly.

"About 1 in 10 children in the developed world is abused each year but official statistics indicate less than a tenth of those abused are investigated, a series of international studies showed on Wednesday.

Child protection services are failing to recognise abuse in part because doctors, schools and community health workers underreport it, they wrote in the Lancet medical journal."

As readers of Fitness Watch have known for years.

"'Child maltreatment is common, and for many it is a chronic condition, with repeated and ongoing maltreatment merging into adverse outcomes throughout childhood and into adulthood,' Ruth Gilbert of the Institute of Child Health at University College London and Cathy Spatz Widom of City University of New York wrote.

'The burden on the children themselves and on society is substantial.'"

That is a certainty.

"Parents account for most types of maltreatment except for sexual abuse, which is usually committed by other family members or an acquaintance, researchers said."

"Maltreatment" like nutritional child abuse which, incidentally, was completely ignored in this piece.

Add nutritional child abuse to the stats and child abuse becomes much, much more common than originally thought.

But intentionally ignoring the most common form of child abuse makes sense however, since the article originated in a medical journal, Lancet.

Docs are quick to distance themselves from their legally mandated responsibilities especially when doing so makes them money.

Shameful.

Food Intake Shut Down And 'Siesta Mode' Turned On By Newly Identified Molecule

A rare admission of truth.

"Some 300 million adults worldwide are severely overweight and at risk for life-threatening illnesses such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. But obesity is difficult to treat. 'We do not have good medical therapies for obesity,' Shulman says, noting that the small number of diet drugs on the market now come with intolerable side effects and have only modest impacts on weight."

Tainted, however, with the effort to make a buck.

"Rats treated with extra NAPE for five days ate less and lost weight, hinting that studying NAPE could help researchers design better appetite suppressants or obesity drugs."

It is all about separating you from your money.

Antioxidants 'cannot slow ageing'

Scandalous lies.

No, not the article. The subject of the article.

"Diets and creams claiming their antioxidant properties could cheat ageing may be worthless, a study says...

The team from University College London said, in the Genes and Development journal, there was "no clear evidence" they could slow ageing.

Antioxidants are a staple of the beauty and health industries."

Two clearly reliable industry sources for information.

"This has been based on a 50-year-old theory.

In 1956, it was suggested that ageing was caused by a build-up of molecular damage caused by reactive forms of oxygen, called superoxides or free radicals, circulating in the body. This is known as oxidative stress.

Antioxidants supposedly worked to mop up these free radicals, minimising their damage.

This week's study, however, could explain why many studies aimed at proving the theory have been inconclusive."

Guess it just might.

"A spokesman for the Cosmetic Toiletry and Perfumery Association said cosmetic companies carry out extensive research and rigorous scientific studies to ensure claims are supported by robust evidence."

Wanna bet?

"Pamela Mason, of the Health Supplements Information Service, said: 'Antioxidant vitamins, like any other vitamins were never intended for the prevention of chronic disease and mortality. They are not magic bullets.

'They are intended for health maintenance on the basis of their various physiological roles in the body and in the case of the antioxidant vitamins, this does, in appropriate amounts, include a protective antioxidant effect in the body’s tissues.'"

The bull just keeps on coming.

In any event, this link will take you to a bunch of IMHO medical whores trying to con fools out of their money by selling false hopes.

Obese children risk thyroid damage

Kudos, fatsos.

"Obese children may be damaging their thyroids, creating a vicious cycle of metabolism and overweight, Italian researchers reported on Wednesday."

More nutritional child abuse.

Fat people make their kids fat.

Stop these fatso child abusers.

Exercise improves brain blood flow in older adults

Not bad.

"In older individuals, exercise is associated with an increase in the number of large-diameter vessels in the cerebral region of the brain and with an increase in blood flow in the three major cerebral arteries, researchers announced at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, which is being held here this week.

As the investigators noted, narrowing and loss of small vessels may contribute to cognitive decline. This area of the brain controls functions that include consciousness, memory, initiation of activity, emotional response, language and word associations.

A study of 12 healthy older adults, ages 60 to 80 years, was conducted by Feraz Rahman and colleagues at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Six subjects exercised over 3 hours a week in aerobic sports on a regular basis for 10 or more years, while the other six had exercised less than 1 hour a week during that period."

Only 12?

"'The numbers are small because it is hard to find healthy older adults who can participate ... especially inactive but still healthy older adults,' Rahman explained."

Bad.

And sad.

Workers with sleep apnea may take more sick leave

Kudos, fatsos.

"People with sleep apnea may be at increased risk of needing an extended sick leave from work or going on permanent work disability, a new study suggests.

Obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA, occurs when the soft tissues at the back of the throat temporarily collapse during sleep, causing repeated breathing interruptions. Major symptoms include loud snoring and daytime sleepiness -- the latter of which, studies show, may cause irritability, cloud thinking and concentration, or increase the risk of traffic accidents.

The extent to which OSA interferes with a person's ability to work has not been clear. But the new study, published in the European Respiratory Journal, suggests that the disorder can exact a large toll at work.

Norwegian researchers found that of more than 7,000 workers followed for four years, those with symptoms of OSA were nearly two thirds more likely to take a sick leave of more than eight weeks. They were also about twice as likely to go on permanent work disability."

And who gets OSA?

Fat folk!

"A much higher percentage of obese people suffer from interrupted breathing while sleeping than people of normal weight."

Add this to the already additional costs fat people cost businesses and the way to proceed is clear:

Don't hire them in the first place.

Yale Researchers Discover New Molecule That May Suppress Hunger After Fatty Meals

More Yale-generated bulls**t that will never work.

"In the battle against obesity, Yale University researchers may have discovered a new weapon - a naturally occurring molecule secreted by the gut that makes rats and mice less hungry after fatty meals. The findings are published in the Nov. 26 issue of the journal Cell.

The report suggests the molecule may help regulate how much animals and people eat, according to the team headed by Gerald I. Shulman, Yale professor of medicine and cellular & molecular physiology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.

Shulman's team studied a family of lipids called N-acylphosphatidylethanolamines, or NAPEs, which are synthesized and secreted into the blood by the small intestine after fatty foods are eaten. The team found that mice and rats injected regularly with NAPEs ate less food and lost weight. In addition, treatment with NAPEs appeared to reduce the activity of "hunger" neurons in the brain while stimulating activity in neurons that are believed to play a role in reducing appetite."

The only molecule that will workwith certainty and without side effects is an old one.

It is called SelfControlofMine.

Use it.

The Tongue Is The Start Of The Route To Obesity

No, it's the hand.

"Obesity gradually numbs the taste sensation of rats to sweet foods and drives them to consume larger and ever-sweeter meals, according to neuroscientists. Findings from the Penn State study could uncover a critical link between taste and body weight, and reveal how flab hooks the brain on sugary food.

'When you have a reduced sensitivity to palatable foods, you tend to consume it in higher amounts,' said Andras Hajnal, associate professor of neural and behavioral sciences at Penn State College of Medicine. 'It is a vicious circle.'

Previous studies have suggested that obese persons are less sensitive to sweet taste and crave sweet foods more than lean people. However, little is known about the specific differences between obese and lean individuals in their sense of taste and the pleasure they derive from sweet foods."

The tongue would be out of the loop if the hand did not lift the food to the mouth.

"Compared to the lean and healthy LETO rats, the taste responses in OLETF rats mirror those in obese humans. These rats have normal body weight at first, but they tend to chronically overeat due to a missing satiety signal, become obese and develop diabetes."

But there is one truth from this study. And it is not the plain speculation that rats "tend to chronically overeat due to a missing satiety signal."

Obese people are no smarter than lab rats.

My apologies to the rats.

Phone Helps Dieters Keep Pounds at Bay

Beyond stupid.

"A little support goes a long way. A new study shows that telephone counseling is as effective as in-person sessions in helping obese women keep pounds off and maintain a healthy lifestyle."

No, a lot of support goes a short way.

"For one year of follow-up, the women were divided into three groups.

One group received 15- to 20-minute telephone sessions biweekly from a counselor.

Another group got an hour in-person session every two weeks.

The third group received biweekly newsletters in the mail that provided diet and weight loss tips.

Researchers found that the two groups that got telephone counseling and face-to-face sessions regained less weight (2.6 pounds) than did the group that only got the newsletters (8.15 pounds).

And, telephone counseling was less expensive than the in-person sessions."

What these idiots are saying is that despite the money spent "counseling" the pigs in the study for one year, they regained weight and the only difference was a matter of about 5 pounds while still costing bucks.

And to hide the fact of the clear failures, they said telephone counseling was cheaper than the in-person sessions but did not comment on the cost of the newsletters.

No matter the way, the weight did not stay off.

This is the epitome of boondoggle sick care.

Get used to it. More real crap is coming.

And we are going to pay for it with our incomes, lives and by mortgaging the futures of our children.

Fast Food A Potential Risk Factor For Alzheimer's

Researching fast food as a potential risk for Alzheimer's proves researchers have Alzheimer's.

"Mice that were fed a diet rich in fat, sugar and cholesterol for nine months developed a preliminary stage of the morbid irregularities that form in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. The study results, published in a doctoral thesis from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet (KI), give some indications of how this difficult to treat disease might one day be preventable.

Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia, there being roughly 90,000 patients with the disease in Sweden today. The underlying causes of Alzheimer's disease are still something of a mystery, but there are a number of known risk factors."

Like nothing having to do with fast food and everything, according to these morons, to do with the alleged macronutrient distribution in food.

"'We now suspect that a high intake of fat and cholesterol in combination with genetic factors, such as apoE4, can adversely affect several brain substances, which can be a contributory factor in the development of Alzheimer's,' says Susanne Akterin."

As if fat and cholesterol are only found in fast food.

But blame what you can in order to get more money for your bulls**t research.

"'All in all, the results give some indication of how Alzheimer's can be prevented, but more research in this field needs to be done before proper advice can be passed on to the general public,' she says."

See?

The Minimal Impact of a Big Hypertension Study

You really have to be a complete moron to believe that they will "cure" your overfatness with a pill.

"The surprising news made headlines in December 2002. Generic pills for high blood pressure, which had been in use since the 1950s and cost only pennies a day, worked better than newer drugs that were up to 20 times as expensive.

The findings, from one of the biggest clinical trials ever organized by the federal government, promised to save the nation billions of dollars in treating the tens of millions of Americans with hypertension — even if the conclusions did seem to threaten pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer that were making big money on blockbuster hypertension drugs.

Six years later, though, the use of the inexpensive pills, called diuretics, is far smaller than some of the trial’s organizers had hoped."

All they will cure is their own income deficit.

What you and the rest of us will get are ineffective pills for which we will pay through the nose.

"The aftereffects of the study show how hard it is to change medical practice, even after a government-sanctioned trial costing $130 million produced what appeared to be solid evidence...

Moreover, pharmaceutical companies responded by heavily marketing their own expensive hypertension drugs and, in some cases, paying speakers to publicly interpret the Allhat results in ways that made their products look better."

Which might not be such a bad idea if you fatsos could not swallow food when paying through the nose.

Unfortunately, it does not work that way.

People Wasting Billions Of Pounds On 'Quack' Health Food Products, British Medical Journal

News flash! The obvious is now obvious to some of the experts.

"Globally every year, obese people waste billions of pounds on food products that 'imply' that they aid weight loss, but are totally ineffective, says a nutritional expert on bmj.com today.

Professor Lean from the University of Glasgow, is hopeful that a new European Union (EU) Directive on Unfair Commercial Practices, adopted this year in UK, will finally protect vulnerable consumers who are tricked into to buying useless food products or supplements in attempts to combat their disease."

Great name, Prof. Lean.

And if you want to see some of the IMHO real killers and crooks in this game, go here to read FTC complaints filed about:

Oprah and Bob Greene
Oprah and her diet experts - Oz, Roizen, Katz, Cruise and Greene
Oprah, David Katz and Jorge Cruise

If you agree, then contact FTC and complain about them.

Apparently FTC will only investigate if enough people complain.

Researchers Find Clue To Safer Obesity Drugs

Not even close.

"Once hailed as a miracle weight-loss drug, Fen-phen was removed from the market more than a decade ago for inducing life-threatening side effects, including heart valve lesions. Scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center are trying to understand how Fen-phen behaves in the brain in order to develop safer anti-obesity drugs with fewer side effects.

In a study appearing in the Nov. 25 issue of Neuron, the researchers define a circuit in the brain that explains the ways fenfluramine, a component of Fen-phen, suppresses appetite.

'Our findings provide evidence that the neural circuit we've proposed is sufficient for the neurotransmitter serotonin to regulate food intake and body weight,' said Dr. Joel Elmquist, professor of internal medicine and pharmacology at UT Southwestern and senior author of the study. 'Fen-phen works directly on this pathway. Unfortunately, that drug also adversely affects peripheral tissue such as the heart.'"

Two things.

First, "miracle weight-loss drugs...induc(e) life-threatening side effects" and kill.

Second, if anything, all they did was elucidate a pathway.

They did not prevent "adverse effects."

They did, however, discover wishful thinking.

"'If you could develop a drug that would travel to both the brain and the peripheral tissues, and then give a blocker to protect the heart, it's possible that you could prevent the harmful side effects and still aid weight loss. Admittedly, that's a bit farfetched, but this mouse model could be used to test that theory.'"

"Farfetched" wishful thinking, at that.

Folks, this is the kind of crap that we are all paying for one way or another.

Better to pull the plug on the research and realize that the "Clue To Safer Obesity Drugs" is to never take one.

Losing belly fat may cut risk of eye disease

A chicken or egg problem. They have to see that they are fat to at least know that they need to lose weight, but their vision is bad because they are fat.

"New research suggests that people who lose weight around their middle, particularly those who are obese, can decrease their odds of developing age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of severe vision loss among elderly people...

The researchers found that with a 3 percent or greater drop in waist-to-hip ratio, the odds of AMD fell significantly compared to people with stable weight.

For subjects who were obese at the start of the study, the reduction in AMD risk was even more pronounced. "

What a conundrum.

Eating Dark Chocolate May Be An Efficient Way To Keep Your Weight Down Over Christmas

Santa is bringing morons this year.

"New research at the Faculty of Life Sciences (LIFE) at the University of Copenhagen - shows that dark chocolate is far more filling than milk chocolate, lessening our craving for sweet, salty and fatty foods. In other words, eating dark chocolate may be an efficient way to keep your weight down over Christmas."

How did they show that?

"To compare the effects of dark and milk chocolate on both appetite and subsequent calorie intake, 16 young and healthy men of normal weight who all liked both dark and milk chocolate took part in a so-called crossover experiment. This meant that they reported for two separate sessions, the first time testing the dark chocolate, and the second time the milk chocolate.

They had all fasted for 12 hours beforehand and were offered 100g of chocolate, which they consumed in the course of 15 minutes. The calorific content was virtually the same for the milk and dark chocolate.

During the following 5 hours, participants were asked to register their appetite every half hour, i.e. their hunger, satiety, craving for special foods and how they liked the chocolate."

That is exactly how it is in the real world. 100g of chocolate and then everyone stops eating the stuff.

And the results?

"Two and a half hours after eating the chocolate, participants were offered pizza ad lib.

They were instructed to eat until they felt comfortably satiated. After the meal, the individuals' calorie intake was registered.

The results were significant. The calorie intake at the subsequent meal where they could eat as much pizza as they liked was 15 per cent lower when they had eaten dark chocolate beforehand.

The participants also stated that the plain chocolate made them feel less like eating sweet, salty or fatty foods.

So apart from providing us with the healthier fatty acids and many antioxidants, dark chocolate can now also help us steer clear of all the sweet, salty and fattening Christmas foods."

Hey, more real world.

Everyone waits 2.5 hours after eating chocolate before they eat pizza.

The results were not "significant."

The results were bulls**t.

Obesity fuels fears of faster diabetes rise

Kudos, fatsos.

"The prevalence of diabetes worldwide will far outstrip even the sharp increase currently projected unless rising trends of obesity are controlled, health experts said on Saturday.

Adult-onset diabetes has been linked to risk factors like aging, an inactive lifestyle, unhealthy diets, smoking, alcohol and obesity. The silent, chronic disease damages the heart, blood vessels, eyes, kidneys and nerves and was responsible for 3.8 million deaths worldwide in 2007.

The International Diabetes Foundation estimates a current prevalence of 246 million diabetes cases worldwide and projects it will hit 380 million by 2025, but experts say these figures may well be an underestimate.

'The projections are conservative because they take into account only aging and urbanization but not obesity, which if unarrested, will lead to more cases,' Gojka Roglic of the World Health Organization's diabetes program told a regional diabetes conference in Chennai, southern India.

Roglic said not a single country in the world had shown any signs of a plateau for obesity."

And whose fault is that?

"'It's the responsibility of governments to enable populations to create the conditions where (healthy) lifestyle is an easy choice rather than something that's very difficult to achieve,' Roglic told Reuters."

This is, of course, bulls**t.

People can succeed at weight management in all conditions if they are willing to control their caloric intake. 

They are already "enabled."

The conditions are there.

And they can do it "easily" with just a bit of self-control.

It is just that they are lazy or ignorant or stupid or irresponsible or etc.

To suggest otherwise it to ignore every single fact on the ground:

Schools are available to almost all and lots of kids do not study.
Brakes are available on cars and people still rear-end others.
Books are available in libraries and people still do not read.
Etc.

You have to be completely ignorant to believe that just because you offer something it will be utilized.

Which clearly the experts are.

Christmas Is Coming...And The Kids Are Getting Fat...

Grinches.

"As Christmas approaches, experts are warning parents to be alert to the dangers of childhood obesity. While no parent wants to spoil the party, the festive period is a time when it's easy to over-indulge. And with big rises in health problems associated with obesity, there is more than just indigestion at stake."

It is never about spoiling one party - it is about the child abuse that occurs the other 364.25 days of the year.

"Since the 70s, the greatest yearly increases in childhood obesity have been in Western Europe and the USA, and show no sign of decreasing. In 1970, less than 4% of children were obese. In 1996, 12% of 2-15 year olds in England were classed as obese. By 2006 the level had risen to 17% being classed as obese - if the current trends continue, more than half of all children will be overweight by 2050. Obesity in children can lead in adulthood to diabetes, heart disease, a worsening of asthma and poor self esteem."

Have a holiday.

And have restraint the rest of the year.

UK Study Shows Kids Are Active But Not Eating Their '5-a-day'

So what?

"Most children are still failing to eat five pieces of fruit and veg a day, though their levels of physical activity do meet current Government recommendations, according to the SPEEDY study (Sport, Physical activity and Eating behaviour: Environmental Determinants in Young people). The original results for the study are published in the open access journal BMC Public Health...

'Our results showed that more than two-thirds of children adhere to the physical activity guideline of accumulating at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity each day, but that daily consumption of fruit or of vegetables was only reported by 56.8% and 49.9% of the children, respectively.'"

And kids are still getting fatter.

No surprise since "exercise" is a terribly inefficient way to lose weight.

Possible fixes according to these experts?

"The authors say, '...there is some uncertainty over whether these recommended levels are really sufficient. Promotion of daily fruit and vegetable intake in this age group is also warranted, possibly focusing on children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.'"

Increase the "recommended" exercise levels and eat more fruits/vegs.

Crazy.

Gaining control over caloric intake is the only way any of this stuff will work.

Until the experts get that, there is no chance of success.

Diabetes Drug Linked to Higher Mortality in Medicare Patients

This drug is used to treat Type 2 diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes is fat person diabetes.

"Medicare patients started on a thiazolidinedione for diabetes had a higher mortality rate and were more likely to develop congestive heart failure if given rosiglitazone (Avandia) than pioglitazone (Actos), researchers here reported.

Analysis of data from prescription records of 28,361 patients showed that rosiglitazone use was associated with a 7% to 15% increased risk of mortality compared with pioglitazone therapy, Wolfgang C. Winkelmayer, M.D., Sc.D., of Brigham and Women's Hospital, and colleagues reported in the November 24 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine."

Still think they have any idea what a "safe" drug is?

It is so much safer, cheaper and better for you to shed the pounds naturally than to become dependent on these harmful chemicals from diseases you chose to develop.

Try it.

Obesity, lack of exercise reported in asthmatics

Kudos, fatsos.

"Study findings suggest less than one quarter of asthmatic adults meet national exercise guidelines and, among this group, obesity may be a greater exercise deterrent [than] actual asthma symptoms. (sic)

People with asthma may get caught in a vicious cycle, note Dr. Carol A. Mancuso and colleagues from Weill Cornell Medical College and the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City.

'Obesity leads to worse asthma, which can be associated with less exercise, which predisposes to obesity and long-term (worsening) asthma,' Mancuso told Reuters Health."

Your stupidity is breath-taking.

Figuratively and literally.

Childhood Obesity Fixed By The Age Of Five Says UK Study

Whether age 5 is the cut-off or not, who knows? But the conclusion is right for any age.

"UK researchers studying childhood diabetes found that childhood obesity is fixed by the age of five and suggested that the government should address more initiatives at children's home environment and not just their school environment."

The only way to do this is to go after the nutritional child abusing parents and all others complicit in the abuse.

In the USA, the identities of these child-abusers are spelled-out.

Girls Have Superior Sense Of Taste To Boys

Who knows?

"New knowledge: Girls have a better sense of taste than boys. Every third child of school age prefers soft drinks which are not sweet. Children and young people love fish and do not think of themselves as being fussy eaters. Boys have a sweeter tooth than girls. And teenagers taste differently. The findings of the world's largest study so far on the ability of children and young people to taste and what they like have now been published. The study was conducted jointly by Danish Science Communication, food scientists from The Faculty of Life Sciences (LIFE) at University of Copenhagen and 8,900 Danish schoolchildren."

Whether this is knowledge or bulls**t remains to be seen.

But the suggestions from the study will fail.

As an example:

"'For example, it is quite clear that children do not necessarily prefer sweet things. According to the findings, healthy snacks could easily be developed for boys with slightly extreme and sour flavours.'"

The "healthiness" of a food in the domain of overweight/obesity relates only to how many Calories-worth of it is eaten.

It is and always will be about Calories in vs. Calories out.

To think otherwise, as these researchers suggest, it to think in the way of failure.

But that is the (sad) state of affairs.

High-protein meals may help overweight burn fat

More stupidity.

"Higher-protein meals may help overweight and obese people burn more fat, the results of a small study suggest.

Research has shown that overweight people are less efficient at burning fat after a meal than thinner people are. In the new study, Australian researchers looked at whether the protein composition of a meal affects that weight-related gap.

They found that overweight men and women burned more post-meal fat when they ate a high-protein breakfast and lunch than when they had lower-protein meals. That is, the added protein seemed to modify the fat-burning deficit seen in heavy individuals."

Not even close.

Protein takes more energy to digest than other macronutrients.

So meals high in protein offer fewer net Calories than meals with, say, the same number of Calories as carbs.

So your body will burn stored energy to make up for any deficit.

So this is more bad research.

So sad.

Calculating The Caloric Cost Of Your Christmas Cheer

An article not valuable for the holiday thing. Valuable for its assessment of "exercise" as a means to lose weight. However, its recommendations are wrong.

"'The National Physical Activity Guidelines for adults in Australia recommend at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity (including brisk walking) on most days of the week.

'Unfortunately this advice is not enough to prevent obesity so if you over-indulge at Christmas you will have to walk for longer and at a quicker pace to get rid of the extra energy you have eaten.

'Basically we need to aim to expend 2000 calories or six to seven hours of exercise per week in addition to our usual daily activities to achieve effective weight-loss.'

Professor Byrne said the data helped demonstrate people should not expect marked weight loss in a short time."

Realizing that "exercise" is a terribly inefficient way to control weight is a good first step. But then the guy trips.

You have to be a moron to spend 6-7 hours per week exercising for weight loss when you can spend zero hours per week losing weight by having caloric intake control.

Exercise is and never has been a good means to weight loss.

Calories in vs. Calories out is for weight loss.

Training, a very special form of physical activity, is how you distribute that weight by either adding muscle or losing fat.

Any other conceptual approach leads to where we are today - abject failures.

Obese have right to 2 airline seats: Canada court

Brain freeze from the frigid North.

"Obese people have the right to two seats for the price of one on flights within Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Thursday.

The high court declined to hear an appeal by Canadian airlines of a decision by the Canadian Transportation Agency that people who are 'functionally disabled by obesity' deserve to have two seats for one fare."

The Canuck courts are "functionally disabled by stupid."

Unfortunately, all passengers will have to pay for the court's ignorance.

I say let's up the Canadian ante and push the envelope.

If you are among Fitness Watch's Canadian friends and have a push-the-envelope sense of humor/curiosity, please try this:

1. Buy a ticket for an intra-Canadian flight.

2. Wait until after take-off.

3. Crap in your pants. Something that smells real bad. (you may have to prepare in advance)

4. Explain to the flight staff that you are "functionally disabled by rectal prolapse causing occasional incontinence." You simply cannot make it to the bathroom in time, sometimes.

5. Explain how it will be easier on the other passengers if you have an entire row to yourself, now and in the future.

6. Offer your name for airline compliance to your needs on future flights.

7. Land.

8 Book another flight several days later, reminding the airlines that you're "functionally disabled by rectal prolapse causing occasional incontinence."

9. Ask for a row or section depending on how bad your last episode smelled.

10. If they demand that you wear adult diapers, remind them that your problem is occassional and tell them that if they intend to deny you a seat, you'll sue.

11. If they try to charge you extra, tell them you'll sue. Hey, it's your right to have more than one seat when you are "functionally disabled."

12. Let me know how things turn out.

(Readers with spermatorrhea, can try, too. Just remember to yell, "Incoming" or "Fore" as a courtesy to the other passengers. Keep us apprised.)

There is a difference between the above and fatsos.

The fat problem is not occasional.

Still, I think it would be an interesting experiment.

Thanks in advance for trying.

Eliminating Soda From School Diets Does Not Affect Overall Consumption

Another inexplicable result. Not.

"With childhood obesity increasing, school administrators and public health officials are reducing availability of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) in schools. In a study published in the November/December 2008 issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, researchers found that reduction or elimination of SSB from school menus has little effect on total consumption by adolescents.

Working with four schools in Maine that reduced SSB availability for one school year (intervention schools) and three other schools that took no actions (control schools), the authors followed 456 students from 6 counties in southern and central Maine over two school years. Consumption of SSB decreased in all students, regardless of whether they attended an intervention or control school.

Writing in the article, Janet E. Whatley Blum, states, 'This study suggests that successful reduction of the availability of SSB can occur in public high schools. However, these data suggest the effect of reduced availability of school SSB on consumption of SSB by high school students may be limited.' Commenting on the lack of an effect, she continues, 'A better understanding of beverage consumption patterns may be needed to determine the efficacy of school food policies on those youth susceptible to obesity.'"

This means more research.

Which means more research money for researchers.

Which means more wasted money.

You will know with certainty when the powers that be get serious about the overweight/obesity issue, especially nutritional child abuse.

Research into this type of crap will cease and child-abusing parents and those complicit with them will be held accountable.

Until then, all strategies are losers.

Late-night festive meals won't make you fat

You mean timing is not the key to weight loss as the IMHO crooks Oprah, Katz and Cruise say? (see here, here, here and here)

"'In the pursuit of scientific truth, even widely held medical beliefs require examination or re-examination,' Rachel Vreeman and Aaron Carroll of the Indiana University School of Medicine wrote in the British Medical Journal."

Truer words were never spoke.

"The pair combed through previous scientific studies and searched the Web for evidence to support or refute common beliefs such as one tagging poinsettia plants as toxic. Don't worry, they aren't...

People fret over the holidays about putting on the pounds after so many festive meals. But eating late at night does not pose a problem when it comes to gaining weight, according to the studies the researchers reviewed."

Why?

Because it is all Calories in vs. Calories out.

Want to lose weight in 2009?

Don't listen to any of the gurus and experts. Instead...

Go here.

Is The Economy Making Us Fat?

More MSM stupidity. What, we weren't fat when the economy was "better"?

"Dieticians warn it very well might."

Dietitians are the same idiots who are preventing people from losing weight.

"Almost two-thirds of Americans are already considered overweight...and with rising prices at the grocery store, nutritionists say the percentage could grow as more people turn to fast foods, and eat more overall because they feel stressed-out.

Hungry consumers are finding a buck goes a long way at fast food outlets, and the burger business is booming."

Good for them. They found a bargain. Some might say that is being a savvy consumer.

Now here is how to eat healthily when consuming fast foods. Look at the Fast Food Weight Loss Guide (tm) - it's free.

"As a result, dieticians say, fast food is becoming more appealing than cooking with fresh ingredients."

More dietitian drivel. There is no assurance that "fresh" foods are lower in Calories than prepared foods.

And when it comes to weight, it is all about Calories in and Calories out.

"What's more, despite offering clients huge discounts, gyms around the country are reporting declining membership, due in part to the sluggish economy, and that could add to a perfect recipe for increased American obesity.

Nutritionists point out that eating healthy is actually a good investment, since fewer health problems down the road could mean you save money on health care."

First, exercise is a terribly inefficient way to lose weight.

Second, eating healthily costs less so you do not need to invoke the spurious "good investment" argument. The very fact that they did, shows that they do not understand how to eat healthily.

Third, not paying for the bad advice of a dietitian "is actually a good investment."

Remember that.

The Government's Obesity Strategy, More Of The Same Rhetoric - British Medical Journal

Here is the pot calling the kettle black.

"Nigel Hawkes chronicles a decade of the UK Government's attempts to tackle obesity, including its latest bid to turn the tide on obesity 'which is so smothered in jargon' that it is hard to understand.

He says: 'The danger of wrapping an issue such as obesity up in the language of sociology and systems analysis is that it all begins to seem impossibly complicated.

'It is as if one needs to solve all the problems of society in order to tackle one relatively small sub-problem.' "

Finger-pointing. Not wrong, though.

And it will never change so long as the powers that be continue to offer doomed-to-fail advice which are based on impossible recommendations.

 

Obesity 'set before age of five'

More child abuse.

"Childhood obesity is set before the age of five, ministers will hear from researchers later.

Compared to children in the 1980s, today's youngsters are fatter and most of their excess weight gain happens before school age, they will say.

This suggests initiatives to prevent childhood obesity should be started before school, suggest the authors...

At birth, the children in the study were of similar weight to babies 25 years ago, but had gained more fat by puberty compared with children of the same age in the 1980s."

So much for the genetics.

"The bulk of this excess weight was gained before the children were five.

Weight at five years bore little relation to birth weight, but closely predicted weight at nine years old.

Before an obese girl reaches school age she will have already gained 90% of her excess weight, and boys will have gained 70% of their excess weight."

How can this happen?

How about a big dose of stupid to explain the mystery?

"'What is causing it is very difficult to know.'

He said there must be a factor now that was not there 25 years ago which is making today's children obese.

And, given the young age, this is likely to be in a child's home rather than school environment and linked to upbringing rather than schooling."

"Very difficult to know"?

Bull. Your fat ass, it is.

Any ideas?

What could this factor be?

Microwave ovens?

Paint without lead?

Fire-retardant pyjamas?

Maybe, just maybe, too many Calories in?

"Rather than lack of physical exercise, he believes diet could be to blame.

'It is entirely possible that the calorie density of food and portion sizes could be higher.'"

Duh.

"He said strategies to prevent childhood obesity and its associated health problems, such as type 2 diabetes, might do better to focus on pre-school children.

Professor Wilkin said there had been a lot of focus on school meals, PE time, school runs, television viewing and computer games in the development of childhood obesity, but these are all issues for school age children.

But he said the mandatory measurement of the height and weight of all children in England on school entry at the age of four or five could be helpful, not only as a record of national obesity trends, but also as a pointer to future risk for the individual child."

Absolutely.

But there is an even better, earlier approach.

Fat parents-to-be should be placed on a "Watch List" when they receive pre-natal care or enter the sick care system in order to deliver their at-risk children.

Social services should perform follow-up, at a cost to the fat parents, and monitor the children for the development of overfatness. Possibly their insurer could do the same as a service included in the higher premiums fatso parents pay.

Also, fat parents should be required to take training in proper caloric intake control for themselves and their children before and/or soon after the birth, for which they will pay.

Of course, it is better to discourage fat people from having children until they shed the pounds first since being overfat exposes embryos, fetuses and infants to risks that intended-sized humans don't.

"David Haslam, of the National Obesity Forum, said: 'It is never too late or too early to intervene. The earlier the better in terms of long-term outlook.'

He said early childhood obesity was likely to be down to environment and learned behaviours."

Actually, it is too late when we agree to rescue fat people from the consequences of their behavior at no cost to them solely and at a cost to the rest of us.

But with certainty, early childhood obesity is due to environment and learned behaviours.

And the parents are to blame.

Fruits, veggies slash breast cancer risk: U.S. study

Not exactly.

"Certain breast cancer survivors who load up on fruits and vegetables, eating far more than current U.S. guidelines, can slash their risk the tumors will come back by nearly a third, according to a U.S. study released on Monday.

The finding only held for women who did not have hot flashes after their cancer therapy, the researchers said -- a finding that suggests fruits and vegetables act on estrogen."

Apparently, only for some.

And according to this study claiming "new evidence," maybe not at all.

Still think they have any idea about what is going on?

Fast-food ad ban could cut child obesity: study

In your dreams.

"Banning fast-food advertising on television in the United States could reduce the number of overweight children by as much as 18 percent, researchers said on Wednesday."

Here is how this silly study was performed.

"'The advertising measure used is the number of hours of spot television fast-food restaurant advertising messages seen per week,' they wrote in the Journal of Law and Economics."

What this means is that if you took any statistic that has gone up in number, say registered voters, and compared it to fat kids, you could conclude that increasing voter registration is related to increasing childhood obesity.

Hey! Maybe it is. Wonder if I can get a grant. Hmmm...

The better statistic is rising childhood obesity with rising numbers of big, fat child-abusing parents out of caloric control.

Now there is likely a real cause and effect relationship.

Especially since children have little discretionary income to spend without the assistance of Fat Mom and Fat Dad.

It is just easier to blame the Clown, the King, the Colonel, the Glove and Wendy.

Obesity 'controlled by the brain'

I heard six. I heard six. Do I hear seven? Do I hear seven?

Seven!

Sold!

"Seven new gene variants discovered by scientists suggest strongly that obesity is largely a mind problem.

The findings suggest the brain plays the dominant role in controlling appetite, and that obesity cannot easily be blamed on metabolic flaws.

Two international studies, published in Nature Genetics, examined samples from thousands of people for the tiniest genetic changes.

Many of the seven key variants seem to be active in the brain."

What did I tell you?

And they will continue to find alleged genetic fatso culprits which will only make the "cure" harder to find.

Still think they will find a "genetic" cure to your overfatness?

If you do, then you should not be fat.

You have no brain to blame.

Top Court Lets Smokers Sue for Fraud

Good news.

"Tobacco companies that marketed “light” cigarettes may be sued for fraud, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday in a 5-to-4 decision that will bolster dozens of lawsuits claiming billions of dollars in damages."

If you failed on a diet, then, because of their big lies, diet programs, diet gurus (there are many), Big Sick Care, Big Media, Oprah, etc., should be next, IMHO.

"They sought compensation for economic rather than medical harm. They claimed, in other words, that they had overpaid for cigarettes based on deceptive advertisements suggesting that “light” cigarettes were safer than regular ones; they did not seek money for injuries caused by smoking itself."

Clearly, failed dieters have suffered economic harm and were the victims of deceptive advertising.

The harm likely includes, among other things, the costs of books, programs, foods, drugs and surgeries after failure to lose weight.

Read this complaint to the FTC re: the deceptive advertising practices in which Oprah and Bob Greene engage, IMHO.

If you believe that you were a victim of their Big Lie Diet (or any other diet), then act by, at the very least, sending a complaint to the FTC. It can be done over the internet.

Stop being a victim.

New Evidence Challenges Old Notions About Diet And Survivorship

Still think they have any idea of what a "healthy" food is?

"New evidence is shifting traditional approaches to treating and caring for cancer survivors, according to experts at a major conference on nutrition, physical activity and cancer. Researchers, dietitians and policy makers gathered today in Washington to hear about the latest progress in the study of diet's role in survivorship...

Do soy foods help or hinder recurrence of breast cancer? AICR grantee Stephen Barnes, PhD, of the University of Alabama in Birmingham referred to the large body of often-conflicting evidence from animal studies, clinical trials and studies of large populations in Asia and Western countries.

Dr. Barnes noted that eating soyfoods doesn't seem to offer much protection from breast cancer among healthy post-menopausal women...

...women who increased fruit and vegetables in their diets after breast cancer diagnosis did not generally reduce their cancer recurrence or mortality risk."

Well, they don't.

Study finds six new gene mutations linked to obesity

More bad news for fat people waiting for a genetic "cure" for their caloric irresponsibility.

"Researchers have identified six new gene mutations linked to obesity and said on Sunday they point to ways the brain and nervous system control eating and metabolism."

Though judging by the misinformation presented by the researchers, you would think this is a victory:

"'Today's findings are a major step forward in understanding how the human body regulates weight,' Dr. Alan Guttmacher, Acting director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, said in a statement."

Clearly, this Gut-maker guy is FOS.

It is "a major step forward in understanding how" little we know about how "the human body regulates weight."

They just found six more.

A while back they found: genes affecting the effectiveness of the malpractice known as diet drugs, a bunch of "obesity genes," "networks of genes behind obesity", and on and on and on and on.

It is and will be never-ending, which means never "solved" during our lifetimes by any other means than controlling Calories in vs. Calories out.

"'This study essentially doubles in one fell swoop the number of known and replicated genetic factors contributing to obesity as a public health problem,' added Dr. Kari Stefansson, Chief Executive Officer of deCODE Genetics of Iceland and one of the researchers."

And another study will double these and the next will double all of them and more studies will keep doubling them and then they will have to figure out how all these many factors allegedly linked to obesity interact and...

And they will never do it.

(Perhaps these researchers are young adults, as they are clearly mentally ill.)

But even if they do, supposing I am wrong, then they will have to find ways to treat each variation. And then treat the side effects.

Fortunately, right now there is a 100% safe and effective treatment that costs less money, in fact saves money.

It is consuming fewer Calories than you burn.

Try it.

Deductibles march higher for employer-provided health insurance

Good news!

"Employers are dramatically shifting healthcare costs onto workers, so much so that the average annual deductible for an individual surpassed $1,000 for the first time this year, according to a new study.

Millions of workers -- whether employed by small, medium or large companies -- must now pay an average of $1,001 out of their own pockets before their health insurance coverage begins paying a share of the expenses. That's up 17% from $859 last year."

Unfortunately, the amount is likely not enough to motivate people to better care for themselves, and their children.

"Employers say workers are having to pay more because healthcare coverage is more expensive, up 6.3% to an average of $8,482 per worker this year, according to Mercer. (In Los Angeles, costs rose 5.4% to $7,958 per worker for medical, dental and vision coverage.) To offset steep premium increases, companies are opting for higher deductibles."

You pay the deductible before your insurance payments kick-in after you enter the sick care system.

But, if you lessen the probability of entering the sick care system, say by getting fitter and avoiding diseases of choice, you can possibly save paying the deductible.

"Baker said employers were bracing for potentially bigger increases next year."

The good news just keeps on coming.

Now for increases in co-pays which will do an even better job of motivating people to take care of themselves and their children, I predict.

Family history can trump breast cancer gene test

So much for the excuse, "I am fat because of my genetics."

"If breast cancer runs in the family, women can be at high risk even if they test free of the disease's most common gene mutations, sobering new research shows. The genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 are linked with particularly aggressive hereditary breast cancer, and an increased risk of ovarian cancer, too.

When a breast cancer patient is found to carry one of those gene mutations, her relatives tend to breathe a sigh of relief if they test gene-free.

But those headline-grabbing genes account for only about 15 percent of all breast cancer cases. Even in families riddled with breast cancer, a BRCA gene is the culprit only in roughly one family of every five that gets tested, said University of Toronto cancer specialist Dr. Steven Narod...

'This is contrary to what I think the common perception is,' Peshkin said. 'Unless a mutation is identified in the family, a negative test result doesn't provide reassurance.'"

Clearly, overconsuming Calories trumps genetics.

Still, there is a difference between being fat and breast cancer.

Whatever one's genetic make-up (graciously assuming genetics makes a difference, which it does not), it is IMPOSSIBLE to develop overweight/obesity unless they overconsume Calories.

Calories trump genes 100% of the time.

For Short-Term Weight Loss, Economic Incentives Work

More stupidity.

"Financial incentives appear to be effective for achieving short-term weight loss, according to a study released on December 9, 2008 in JAMA."

And lies. The weight did not stay off. It was coming back. In the short-term.

"In a seven month follow-up, the participants in both of the incentive groups gained weight, but still weighed less than they did at the start of the study.

The authors conclude that this may be an avenue of intervention worth pursuing in weight loss management: 'In conclusion, incentive approaches based on behavioral economic concepts appear to be highly effective in inducing initial weight loss. However, this weight loss was not fully sustained and further work is needed to test the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of these approaches in achieving sustained weight loss.'"

Clearly, the incentives did not work.

To fail at sustained weight loss, it cost close to $400 per person over 16 weeks in the more successful group.

"They claim that 'new strategies are needed to help reduce the rate of obesity in the U.S. population.'"

Clearly.

How about a "new strategy" like this one:

Have all researchers investigating direct or indirect financial incentives for fatsos to lose weight, populate the pot with their own money.

See how many of them will do it to "help" the calorically irresponsible lose weight.

Then tell them to shut their friggin' mouths and seek honest work.

Scum.

Medicare eyes limits for weight loss surgery

Good news! (maybe)

"The U.S. government's largest payer of health care said on Monday it does not plan to cover bariatric weight loss surgery in diabetic patients who are not dangerously overweight, saying there is not enough evidence to show it can improve their health...

The agency said would review any public comments on the draft ruling before making its final decision."

Here are a couple of public comments:

1. Do not cover ANY bariatric weight loss surgery in diabetic patients or anyone else.
2. If you foolishly ignore comment one (see above), then limit all coverage to $0 (zero dollars)

Election 2008 | President-Elect Barack Obama, Congressional Democrats Frame Health Care, Other Proposals as Job-Creation Plans

Kudos, fatsos. The entitlement s**t has hit the fan.

"President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats have begun to frame their proposals for health care and other issues as 'job-creation measures' in response to the current economic downturn, the Washington Post reports. According to the Post, the 'thinking is that universal coverage will lower health care costs and make companies more willing to hire, as well as create new health care jobs.'"

This is in response to the sick care crisis, caused in large part (no pun intended) by fat people.

Let's look into the future-scope.

This is what your caloric (and electoral? - not a political party-oriented comment) irresponsibility will have wrought - looking backwards to today from the perspective of the futurescope. (Got that?):

"The National Health Service is famous for being free at the point of need, but analysts say that if the 60-year-old NHS is to serve an ageing and expanding population, the reality of its cost must be accepted...

Views vary on how to provide the best service for the NHS's 60 million users, but analysts agree on one point: The public and its politicians must accept that the cost of the world's largest publicly funded health service is going up, and acknowledge it is a luxury, albeit one this society can afford.

'We have become fixed on the idea that the NHS is somehow free,' David Furness, a health service analyst at the Social Market Foundation think-tank, told Reuters.

'It is not free. We all pay for it through taxation, and it's free at the point of use -- that's something quite different. There are no blank cheques, but we should be celebrating the fact that our health system can give so much more than anyone ever imagined it would in 1948.'"

How big is the NHS?

"In terms of sheer size of personnel, only China's People's Liberation Army, America's giant Wal-Mart supermarket chain and India's enormous railway system compare with the NHS.

With a workforce of 1.5 million people across Britain, it is Europe's largest employer, and it deals with eight patients every second.

Analysts say a reluctance to recognise the costs of the NHS leads to a lack of realism when it comes to discussing reforms or possible limits on what it can and should provide...

'There are no estimates of how much all this will cost and no indication of just how different the government expects the quality of health services to be in five or 10 years time,' said Niall Dickson, the Fund's chief executive.

The review was slammed by the Conservatives, which is riding high in the polls as Brown's popularity slides.

'The complete lack of vision in these proposals means that, sadly, the government has missed its 'once-in-a-generation opportunity' to enact the real reform that our NHS needs,' said Conservative Health Spokesman Andrew Lansley."

Welcome to the future.

But you can change it. Get fit. It will make a difference.

In Troubled Economy, Binge Eating Bites into Finances

Poor pigs.

"The rising cost of food and the faltering economy are enough to put a pinch on many family budgets. But for those with binge eating disorders, the troubled economy has added additional guilt to an already stigmatizing condition."

As the likely victims of early nutritional child abuse, let them ask mommy for money to support their habit.

Or learn how "In Troubled Economy, Binge Eaters Should Better Manage Their Finances."

Obesity 'programmed before birth'

Kudos, fatsos. Even more about early nutritional child abuse.

"Eating a high-fat diet in pregnancy may cause changes in the foetal brain that lead to over-eating and obesity early in life, research suggests.

Tests on rats showed those born to mothers fed a high-fat diet had many more brain cells specialised to produce appetite-stimulating proteins.

The Rockefeller University team say the finding may help explain why obesity rates have soared in recent years."

Frankly, I do not believe this is "why obesity rates have soared in recent years."

In fact, I think it is lunacy to think this way.

Without someone pushing the Calories into these kids post-natally, there is no way that they can get fat.

Maybe they crave more food, maybe they don't. Whatever is allegedly going on, without the Calories parents use to abuse their kids, overweight/obesity could not happen.

"Dr Leibowitz said: 'We are programming our children to be fat.'"

This is a slippery slope and removes all responsibility for decision-making from the person - in this case the parent and later on the grown child, i.e., adolescent, young adult.

The next time you read/hear about a child being sexually abused, read this.

If this is how you want "progress" to be made, that is your choice.

It is a wrong choice.

Chinese 'living longer than ever'

More about Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

"A UN report on China says the lives of its people have been vastly improved over the last three decades.

Poverty has fallen, adult literacy has climbed and Chinese people are now living longer than ever, it says."

Here, look at this chart. Enlarge it if you have to or see the original by clicking on it and going to page 6 of the report.

If TCM which has been around for-like-ever, was so good, why has life expectancy dramatically increased recently?

Think about it.

Fat border collie Jiffy survives freezing to sidewalk overnight

In the USA, dogs are treated no better than children - overfed and set-up to die.

"A dog weighing more than 120 pounds survived being frozen to a sidewalk overnight, probably because he was insulated by layers of fat, authorities said.

The 'morbidly obese' dog, an aging border collie mix named Jiffy, froze to the sidewalk when he was left out overnight Wednesday, the Sheboygan County Humane Society said. Few dogs could survive the single-digit temperatures, and it was probably the fat that made the difference, shelter manager Carey Payne said."

In the USA, animal abusers are treated more aggressively than child abusers.

"Jiffy's 59-year-old owner was arrested Thursday morning on suspicion of animal neglect, Sheboygan Police Lt. Tim Eirich said."

The cowardly persons in power let child-abusing parents, complicit physicians and law-breaking teachers off the hook.

Kudos, fatsos and kudos to the people in charge.

Obese kids have prematurely aged neck arteries

More on nutritional child abuse.

"The neck arteries of obese children and teens look more like those of 45-year-olds, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's annual meeting.

'There's a saying that 'you're as old as your arteries,' meaning that the state of your arteries is more important than your actual age in the evolution of heart disease and stroke,' Dr. Geetha Raghuveer noted in a written statement. 'We found that the state of the arteries in these children is more typical of a 45-year-old than of someone their own age.'...

The investigators found that the children's 'vascular age' -- the age at which the level of thickening would be normal for their gender and race -- was about 30 years older than their actual age.

"Too bad that the kids' intellectual ages are probably close to the same as their abusive parents - about 30 years younger than their actual age.

Vitamins C and E fail in cancer prevention study

More on the anti-oxidant mania.

"Men who took vitamin E or vitamin C supplements were no more or less likely to develop cancer than men given a placebo, indicating these antioxidants have no cancer-prevention value, U.S. researchers said on Sunday.

Previous research showed that people with diets rich in vitamins E and C had a lower risk of cancer, suggesting that supplements of these vitamins might help ward off cancer, the researchers said...

Taking the vitamins had no impact on the risk for any type of cancer, Howard Sesso of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and colleagues reported at a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.

One week ago, Sesso reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association that in the same population of men, taking these vitamins also failed to reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease including heart attack and stroke."

But I'll bet that if people stop buying the vitamins, the sellers and manufacturers of these products will have heart attacks and strokes.

Especially if consumers sue them for false and misleading advertising. (BTW, this is neither a hint nor a suggestion.)

U.S. menu labeling may be gaining steam

Standardization is good.

"A nationwide system requiring fast-food chains to list calories on their menus could be gaining support in Congress as more states adopt the practice and the restaurant industry concedes change is on the way, a consumer, industry and health panel said on Friday.

Laws requiring that calories and other nutritional information be posted have become increasingly popular as states and cities struggle to combat the country's growing obesity problem while promoting health and nutrition. At the same time, lawmakers in Washington have struggled to get the practice adopted nationwide."

This will only have a prayer of working if consumers are also taught how to use the information to their advantage.

Here is a guide to using fast food Calorie info successfully for weight loss/control. Look for the "FREE - The Fast Food Weight Loss Guide tm" link.

This approach will not work for restaurants that do not have relatively fixed menus and amazing quality control, i.e., non-fast food.

Employers Offer Workers Fewer Health Care Plans

Good news for modern person. Maybe.

"It’s the annual 'open enrollment' season in corporate America, when employees choose their medical plans for the coming year. But this time, even if they are fortunate enough to have a job at a company that still offers health benefits, many workers are finding that the buffet of options has been trimmed to a very short menu.

And typically the offerings now include a health plan with a financially daunting feature: a high annual deductible that is likely to be $1,100 or more for an individual, and much higher for family coverage. Under conventional insurance, the annual deductible — the amount an employee is obliged to spend on medical care before the insurance begins — may be only about one-third as high.

Employers generally try to offset the high deductible with a somewhat lower monthly premium than workers pay with conventional insurance. Another deal sweetener is the opportunity for the worker to put money in a tax-sheltered health savings account whose balance can grow year after year. Many employers also make contributions to those worker accounts.

Despite such lures, high-deductible plans have received only tepid acceptance from employees since they were introduced in 2002. But this year, at more than 100 large companies and hundreds of smaller ones, the high-deductible plans are the employee’s single take-it-or-leave-it option...

Marlin Chapman, the benefits director at Nissan, says the high-deductible plans are 'aimed at getting people to focus on their health.'

'When you are spending your own money,' Mr. Chapman said, 'you are more careful in the way you spend it.'"

We'll see. The likelihood is that the AMA in cahoots with pandering politicians will find a way to "rescue" the irresponsible.

Study Finds No Breast Cancer Reduction From Calcium, Vitamin D Supplements

Vitamin D is the cure-all du jour.

Still think they have any idea what a "healthy" supplement is? Or how to prevent breast disease?

"Women who took vitamin D and calcium supplements developed breast cancer at the same rate as those who did not take the supplements, according to a study by the Women's Health Initiative that is published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the Boston Globe reports. According to the Globe, the findings 'contradic[t] conclusions from previous studies that hinted at benefits from vitamin D.' The authors -- led by Rowan Chlebowski of the University of California-Los Angeles -- wrote, 'The main findings do not support a causal relationship between calcium and vitamin D supplement use and reduced breast cancer incidence, despite the association observed in some epidemiological studies,' adding, 'Current evidence does not support their use in any dose to reduce breast cancer risk'"

Think again.

"Jennifer Ligibel, a medical oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who was not involved in the study, said that the new research is the first rigorous test of vitamin D supplementation that accounts for factors that were not captured in earlier, observational studies. For example, she said that women who take dietary supplements might be healthier to begin with than those who do not, which could have influenced the previous studies. Ligibel added, 'I think this is an important study. It tells us there is absolutely more work that needs to be done on vitamin D. I do think the study should put a little bit of brakes on people telling people to take huge doses of vitamin D to prevent cancer.'"

Important or not, the advice to move slowly on the Vitamin D front is likely sage.

Healthful Plant Nutrients Also Found In Meat And Milk - Journal Of Agricultural And Food Chemistry

Still think they have any idea of what a "healthy" food is?

They you figure this one out.

See here.

How Cancer Progression Can Be Spurred By Eating Red Meat

Still think they have any idea of what a "healthy" food is?

They you figure this one out.

See here.

IVF Patients Helped as Much by Placebo Acupuncture as by Actual Treatment

Still think they have any idea of what an effective alternative/complementary "treatment" is?

"Women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) were more likely to get pregnant with placebo acupuncture treatments than with the real thing.

The overall pregnancy rate with placebo acupuncture was 55.1%, significantly higher than the 43.8% achieved with real acupuncture (P=0.038), Ernest Hung Yu Ng, M.D., of the University of Hong Kong, and colleagues reported online in Human Reproduction.

Dr. Ng also said that there was a trend towards higher rates of clinical pregnancy, ongoing pregnancy, live birth, and embryo implantation in the placebo acupuncture group, although the differences were not significant.

Acupuncture has become a common complement to IVF treatment, the researchers said, but measuring its effects has been difficult because designing a suitable control for acupuncture is challenging, since the treatment requires the insertion of needles."

Well, they don't have any such idea.

"So in their study they used a placebo needle that looked the same as a real acupuncture needle, but it was blunt and retracted into the handle of the needle when pressed on the skin giving the appearance of shortening of the whole needle.

They said the placebo needle still gave the same pricking penetration sensation as a real needle entering the skin, and was administered by a trained acupuncturist. The same acupoints and procedures as in the real acupuncture group were applied."

Nor can it be said to be "safe" as more embryos may have died preventing pregnancy. Hence, the lower pregnancy rate.

In any event, another piece of crap alternative/complementary "treatment" bites the dust.

Good riddance.

Or maybe not.

Armed with data like this it is not unreasonable to expect that Western medicine docs will now offer acupuncture for the first one or two tries in order to increase the number of IVFs a patient will "need."

This will increase their income. The more IVFs, the more money to be made.

Caveat emptor.

U.S. trails other nations in chronic illness care

Yet another good reason to get fit and lessen your likelihood of entering the Sick Care System.

"Chronically ill Americans are more likely to forgo medical care because of high costs or experience medical errors than patients in other affluent countries, according to a study released on Thursday.

The study comparing the experiences of patients in eight nations reflected poorly on the U.S. health care system as President-elect Barack Obama and his allies work on plans to rein in health costs and extend insurance to more people."

Good thinking. Make a bad system available to more people.

That's one way to gain control over population growth.

This is the kind of thinking that reigns in politics.

It is the kind of thinking that will drive the system and us to ruin.

We get what we deserve when, election cycle after election cycle, we vote folks who whore for our votes into office, instead of people who look us straight in the eye and tell us that we need to change our ways and that government cannot do that for us. (This was a party-neutral comment.)