Millions Of Overweight People Unaware Of Cardiometabolic Dangers

Millions of fat people are unaware the they or their kids are fat.

Experts meeting at the 2nd International Congress on Abdominal Obesity (ICAO) issued a warning that millions of individuals around the globe are at risk from the cardiometabolic consequences of being overweight. Worryingly, the experts suggest that these people are not being identified by their doctors.

The International Chair on Cardiometabolic Risk (ICCR) released the statement from the ICAO, at a symposium sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline. The statement suggests that the media tends to focus on extremes when discussing obesity: either skinny celebrities who gain or lose a few pounds or the morbidly obese who need the help of fire-fighters to leave their homes. As the proportion of the general population which is overweight or obese increases, so the perception of what is the norm of a healthy weight is being reset. In the minds of society as a whole, including healthcare practitioners, the mental picture of an overweight or obese person has been reset inaccurately to a far heavier model.

Yet it is the millions across the world with BMIs above 25 who may already be suffering the early stages of high blood pressure, dyslipidemia and diabetes, who could benefit most from early intervention, say ICCR.

What did you expect?

CDC: A third of Americans don't sleep 7 hours

Must be the third that is not overfat.

More than a third of U.S. adults sleep less than seven hours a night...

Good for them.

575-pound Spokesman For The Heart Attack Grill Dies Aged 29

Truth in packaging, which is more than we can say for the IMHO cons like Oprah and her experts.

Blair River, 6ft 8inches tall, spokesman for the Heart Attack Grill, died from what appeared to be a complication of flu - pneumonia. The 575-pound man's job was to promote a restaurant unashamed of its high-calorie, unhealthy menu.

At Chandler's Heart Attack Grill, staff walk around in nurses uniforms and the owner, John Basso, has a doctor's white coat - however, the menu is definitely not for those interested in good health or looking after their figure.

The restaurant has meals in excess of 8,000 calories. An active 200lbs man who is 6ft 2ins tall does not require more than 3,000 calories per day. Consuming 8,000 in just one sitting, plus whatever else that person might eat during their other meals would most definitely result in weight gain. The menu features milkshakes, French fries cooked in pig lard and giant hamburgers.

A large sign warns "Caution. This establishment is bad for your health."

R.I.P.

Sugary Drinks Could Boost BP

Killer fruit - agents of destruction.

Patients with hypertension may have to start watching their sugar as well as their salt, new research suggests.
Data from more than 2,600 patients found that those with the highest intakes of sugar-sweetened beverages like soda and fruit juices seemed to have higher blood pressure readings, Ian J. Brown, MD, of Imperial College London, and colleagues reported in Hypertension.

The data "suggest that individuals who consume more soda and other sugar-sweetened soft drinks may have higher blood pressure levels than those who consume less, and the problem may be exacerbated by higher salt intake," Brown said in an e-mail to MedPage Today and ABC News.

Past studies have linked fructose to high blood pressure. So to further investigate the association, Brown and colleagues assessed data from the INTERMAP study, which included 4,680 patients from Japan, China, the U.K., and the U.S.

They focused their analysis on the 2,696 patients who hailed from the U.S. and the U.K., gathering information from urine collections and blood pressure readings. Patients also reported on their regular diet over a period of four days.

The analysis showed that intake of sugar-sweetened beverages was related to blood pressure. In fact, those who drank the most sugary drinks had the highest blood pressure levels.

Beware.

Kaboom!

Study: US has much higher obesity rate than Canada

Yeah, so?

American adults have a significantly higher rate of obesity than their neighbors to the north, a new study says.

About 24 percent of Canadians are obese compared to more than 34 percent of Americans, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study released Wednesday.

An excellent reason for neither to be proud.

Docs Can Help More in Weight Loss

That's not what the AMA says. (see below)

Office-based strategies for long-term weight loss and maintenance remain challenging and disappointing, and more efforts by clinicians are needed, researchers involved in two studies reported.

In one randomized trial that compared a structured program of lifestyle counseling by nurse practitioners with usual care by primary care physicians, no difference was found in mean weight change between the two groups after three years (−1.2% versus −0.6%, P=0.37), according to Nancy C.W. ter Bogt, MSc, of University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands, and colleagues.

Yet, in the second study, U.S. patients who had simply been told by their physicians that they were overweight or obese were more likely to have tried to lose weight in the previous year (OR 2.51, 95% CI 2.15 to 2.94 and OR 2.24, 95% CI 1.74 to 2.88, respectively), according to Robert E. Post, MD, of Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, and colleagues.

Note: "tried to lose weight."

This is different from having lost weight.

And here is what the AMA had to say about the effectiveness of physicians re: weight loss:

Traditionally, physicians have counseled patients to change habits by sharing facts about health and illness (informational power) and/or using their professional credentials (expert power). However, research shows that these means of persuasion are not effective for promoting the lasting behavior changes needed for successful weight management.

This is from Booklet Three of the AMA's Roadmaps for Clinical Practice dealing with overweight/obesity.

Believe that the advice of physicians is not helpful.

Districts recording BMI of students for state

Good, if they use the data properly, as in go after the parents and enablers of nutritional child abuse - which they likely will not.

Body mass index screenings are under way at Zanesville City Schools and will begin at Crooksville Exempted Village School District this month.

Kindergarten, third-, fifth- and ninth-grade students will have their BMI taken, which will be turned into the Ohio Department of Health to track overweight and obese children.

Too bad.

Obesity And Diabetes May Be A Downside Of Human Evolution

No.

New research in the FASEB Journal suggests that a gene called CMAH has been lost during the course of recent evolution, and may lead to an increased risk of Type 2 diabetes in humans

As if the recent prediction that half of all Americans will have diabetes or pre-diabetes by the year 2020 isn't alarming enough, a new genetic discovery published online in the FASEB Journal provides a disturbing explanation as to why: we took an evolutionary "wrong turn." In the research report, scientists show that human evolution leading to the loss of function in a gene called "CMAH" may make humans more prone to obesity and diabetes than other mammals.

Fat people are a downside of human evolution.

10,000 treated in hospital for being dangerously fat as admissions rise TENFOLD in a decade

It has to be an infection or something like that, eh?

The number of patients needing urgent treatment because they are overweight has risen tenfold in the last decade.

Official figures published today reveal the scale of Britain’s obesity crisis.

Some 10,571 patients were admitted to hospital last year because doctors feared they were so fat that their health was in immediate danger.

Kudos, fatsos.

Children given sweets when they are good are the most likely to end up fat and unhappy

There must be an awful lot of good children out there.

A poll of more than 2,000 people has found those given edible treats in childhood for behaving well had a higher chance of becoming heavily overweight, or of developing an eating disorder, than those who were not.

Those who recalled being regularly given food as a reward were four times as likely to have been overweight since childhood than those whose parents did not use snacks to endorse good conduct, the research found.

But, probably not.

Potential Mechanisms for Future Anti-Obesity Drugs Identified

They are called putting too many Calories in the piehole and swallowing.

An interdisciplinary group of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania has, for the first time, identified the neurological and cellular signaling mechanisms that contribute to satiety -- the sensation of feeling full -- and the subsequent body-weight loss produced by drugs used to treat type 2 diabetes. More comprehensive knowledge of these mechanisms could form the basis for anti-obesity medications.

Glad we got that settled.

Texas city updating ambulances to haul heavier passengers.

Oink.

A Texas ambulance service is replacing its fleet to accommodate the growing number of overweight patients.

Medstar is converting its older Ford chassis to heavier Chevrolets, which cost $7,000 more but can carry an additional 800 pounds, said Matt Zavadsky, Medstar associate operations director.

"It's built to carry the extra weight and not be so saggy," he said.

Too bad humans are not designed to carry the extra weight and not be so saggy.

1.6 Million San Diegans are Overweight or Obese

Images from an environment not conducive to being an intended-size human.

Fifty percent of San Diego County children and adults are overweight or obese; that’s a whopping 1.6 million people.

Radio and television commercials will begin airing February 28 across San Diego County, promoting easier access to locally- grown fresh food, nutritious meals in schools and safe bike paths and walkways.

And what is their excuse?

Apparently conditions are not perfect enough in SDC for people to do the politically correct things in order to be intended-size humans.

It will never be perfect enough.

No matter how much money is thrown at lazy, fat, slobs.

F**k you, SDC whiners.

Limit Red Meat To Reduce Risk Of Bowel Cancer, UK Advice

Meat is bad again. Downgraded from good.

People should limit their consumption of red and processed meat to no more than 70g a day to help reduce their risk of bowel cancer, the Department of Health for England announced on Friday.

By red meat, they mean beef, lamb and pork plus minced meat or offal from the same animals. Examples of processed meat include ham, bacon, pâté, burgers, sausages, corned beef and salami...

This is the first time that the UK government has issued such advice, which follows the publication of a new report from the independent expert Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) that reviewed the evidence so far on links between consumption of red and processed meat and risk of colorectal or bowel cancer.

The report concluded that eating red and processed meat probably increases the risk of developing bowel cancer, and people who eat on average 90g a day or more should consider cutting down to an average of 70g a day or less.

What to believe, what to believe.

Study Reveals A Dismal 1 In 1,900 People Met AHA's Definition Of Ideal Heart Health

That's a whopping 0.05%. Who knew it was that high?

Only one out of more than 1,900 people evaluated met the American Heart Association (AHA) definition of ideal cardiovascular health, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Their findings were recently published online in Circulation.

Ideal cardiovascular health is the combination of these seven factors: nonsmoking, a body mass index less than 25, goal-level physical activity and healthy diet, untreated cholesterol below 200, blood pressure below 120/80 and fasting blood sugar below 100, explained senior investigator and cardiologist Steven Reis, M.D., associate vice chancellor for clinical research at Pitt.

"Of all the people we assessed, only one out of 1,900 could claim ideal heart health," said Dr. Reis. "This tells us that the current prevalence of heart health is extremely low, and that we have a great challenge ahead of us to attain the AHA's aim of a 20 percent improvement in cardiovascular health rates by 2020."

Fat chance.

AAN: CV Risk Factors Also Linked to Cognitive Decline

Guess who is most likely to have cardiovascular risk factors. Hint: fatsos.

Middle-age men and women with cardiovascular risk factors like hypertension and high cholesterol are at risk not only for coronary heart disease, but also for later dementia, according to French researchers.

In a study of almost 5,000 people, an adjusted analysis found that each 10-point increment in risk on the Framingham General Cardiovascular Risk Profile was associated with poorer cognitive performance on tests that included thinking, memory, reasoning, phonemic and semantic fluency, and vocabulary (P<0.001 for all), reported Sara Kaffashian, MSc, and colleagues.

Clearly.

The flip side of the obesity crisis: How some U.S. parents are putting their BABIES on diets

And the problem is? Shouldn't parents control what their children consume?

With one in ten children under two overweight, in the U.S. the obesity crisis is getting worse each year. But some parents are so worried about preventing the problem, they are putting their babies on diets.

Leading paediatricians have revealed how increasing numbers of mothers and fathers are controlling the intake of food in children as young as seven months...Dr Hammond said that Mrs Hasan was not concerned when Maya - who is at the low end of the recommended healthy weight bracket for her age - had not gained any weight between check-ups.

Normal is normal.

Shut up, meddling doctors.

Cholesterol 'does not predict stroke in women'

Well this will be news to the American Heart Association.

High levels of cholesterol do not predict the risk of stroke in women, according to researchers in Denmark.

They did detect an increased risk in men, but only when cholesterol was at almost twice the average level.

The report in Annals of Neurology recommends using a different type of fat in the blood, non-fasting triglycerides, to measure the risk.

The Stroke Association said triglyceride tests needed to become routine to reduce the risk of stroke.

A total of 150,000 people have a stroke in the UK each year. Most are ischemic strokes, in which a clot in an artery disrupts the brain's blood supply.

The research followed 13,951 men and women, who took part in the Copenhagen City Heart Study.

During the 33-year study, 837 men and 837 women had strokes.

Poor predictor

They reported that the cholesterol levels in women were not associated with stroke, while there was only an association in men with levels higher than 9mmol/litre. The average in UK men is 5.5.

The researchers at Copenhagen University Hospital said this was "difficult to explain" as LDL, or bad, cholesterol is known to cause atherosclerosis which can block arteries.

And it will also be news to the National Stroke Association.

Oops.

Still think they have any idea what they are talking about?

When Man's Best Friend Is Obese

Abusing animals as if they were the owner's children.

The main culprit: owners who routinely overfeed pets, don't exercise them enough and are unaware of the severe, and costly, health problems caused by excess weight. Common woes include diabetes, arthritis, kidney failure, high blood pressure and cancer. Research also suggests that pets fed less over their lifetime can live significantly longer.

Yup.

Vitamin D Insufficiency

More about the cure du jour. (This piece is from an update sent by PDRNetwork)

While vitamin D deficiency is defined by the presence of bone disease (either rickets or osteomalacia), the term "insufficiency" has been used to describe suboptimal levels of vitamin D that are often associated with other skeletal and nonskeletal health outcomes...However, unlike the well-established skeletal benefits of vitamin D, the evidence for other presumed effects is based mainly on observational studies.

A study published in the January issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings examined the evidence for making clinical decisions based on the strongest research to date for the potential benefits of vitamin D associated with numerous outcomes. These included lower mortality rate; lower cardiovascular mortality; less musculoskeletal pain; and reduced risk of diabetes mellitus, cancer, multiple sclerosis, allergy and asthma, infection, mental illness, and renal disease...

Overall, the authors concluded that most of the current data on vitamin D is mainly based on observational, epidemiological outcomes, which are "useful for generating hypotheses but not for proving causality." Therefore, the evidence for benefits beyond bone health is not strong.

You betcha.