Dietitians Should Lead In Preventing And Treating Obesity

Dangerous morons.

Weight and obesity are never far from the headlines and with figures reaching epidemic proportions, dietitians are on the frontline when it comes to effective prevention and treatment.

If dietitians are "on the frontline when it comes to effective prevention and treatment," then why are weight and obesity "figures reaching epidemic proportions"?

Because dietitians spout the conventional drivel re: weight loss and the advice of the experts is why diets fail.

Wanna fail at weight loss? Go speak with a dietitian.

Hey, dietitians:

More Efforts Needed in the United Kingdom to Achieve Timely Surgery After TIA

"I am romantic about the NHS; I love it. All I need to do to rediscover the romance is to look at health care in my own country." Donald Berwick, MD, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Patients in the United Kingdom are waiting longer than the recommended 14 days to receive vascular surgery after symptoms of stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA), results of a new audit show, and renewed efforts are needed if the United Kingdom is to meet these standards, according to a related editorial in the July 31, 2010, of The Lancet.

Oops.

Extra pregnancy pounds may hurt baby: study

More early nutritional child abuse.

Many American women may need to start watching their weight during pregnancy so that they do not get too heavy and risk hurting their babies, researchers said on Wednesday.

They found that women who gained more weight during pregnancy gave birth to heavier babies, who in turn are themselves more likely to become obese adults. They also may be more prone to cancer, allergies, and asthma.

"The study suggests that the best time to begin obesity prevention may be actually prior to birth, by focusing on weight gain and diet of the mother during pregnancy," said Dr. David Ludwig of Children's Hospital in Boston, who worked on the study published in the medical journal The Lancet. Ludwig and Janet Currie, an economist at Columbia University in New York, looked at data from all babies born in Michigan and New Jersey over a 15-period, from 1989 to 2003 -- 513,500 women and their 1.1 million offspring.

They wanted to eliminate genetic causes of high birth weight so they compared babies born to the same mother.

Yep.

"[T]he best time to begin obesity prevention may be actually prior to birth, by focusing on weight gain and diet of the mother during pregnancy..."

Dissuade fat people from having kids until the pounds are shed.

More conflicting data on suicide risk with epilepsy drugs

And such is the nature of most drug data, including the "safe" IMHO malpractice diet drugs.

Some seizure drugs may not raise the risk of suicide for patients with epilepsy as feared, but they do increase the risk for people with depression, researchers reported this week in the New England Journal of Medicine.

They say the drugs do not make it more likely that patients with epilepsy will commit suicide. But people take the drugs for a range of other conditions and some of these had a 65 percent higher risk.

Better not to take the meds than get caught in a data whipsaw.

Get fit.

Hundreds 'would miss out if cancer fund cut'

"I am romantic about the NHS; I love it. All I need to do to rediscover the romance is to look at health care in my own country." Donald Berwick, MD, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Hundreds of dying patients would lose out if ministers do not set up a £200m cancer drugs fund, campaigners say.

The Tories promised the money in opposition for those struggling to get access to treatment, but the government has since said there is no guarantee.

The Rarer Cancers Foundation said if just half the amount was made available - as some are suggesting - as many as 3,600 patients could lose out.

But an editorial in the Lancet criticised the fund as "indefensible"

The medical journal claimed the money would lead to a postcode lottery and was unfair on dementia and multiple sclerosis sufferers who arguably struggle just as much to access treatment.

It added: "Scratch the surface, and it quickly becomes clear that what this fund represents is not the victory for patient groups that some believe. Rather, it is the product of political opportunism and intellectual incoherence."

Oops.

When It Comes To Dietary Compounds, Concentration, Timing And Interactions Are Key

When resveratrol kills.

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) chemist Thomas Wang, who specializes in cancer prevention research, has reported evidence that for some dietary compounds, length of exposure over time may be key to whether or not ingestion leads to a beneficial, or detrimental, effect.

Scientists do not know exactly why one person develops cancer and another does not. But they do know that certain nutrients might increase or decrease cancer risk...

Half of those animals were fed a daily diet that included 3 to 6 milligrams of purified resveratrol (equal to roughly the amount in five glasses of wine or grape juice). At first, the tumor cells in the resveratrol-fed lab animals grew slower. But as the animals continued to consume resveratrol, there was an increase in blood vessels developing around the tumors of the resveratrol-fed animals, effectively setting up a system of feeding the tumors.

Oops.

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

Diabetes and literacy key to beat dementia, says study

Type 2 diabetes is fat person diabetes and being a fat person is linked to depression.

Preventing diabetes and depression could have a dramatic impact on cutting cases of dementia, a study suggests.

And the money the rest of us have to pay to rescue and repair the fat, which is a wasteful, failing undertaking, depresses us.

Diabetes costs 'out of control'

"I am romantic about the NHS; I love it. All I need to do to rediscover the romance is to look at health care in my own country." Donald Berwick, MD, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The NHS is spending too much on diabetes drugs say researchers, who found the medicines account for 7% of the UK prescribing budget.

Oops.

High LDL in Youth Predicts Coronary Calcification Later

Fat kids have high LDL. Fat parents have fat kids.

Young adults whose lipid levels are less than optimal are likely in midlife to develop coronary calcium -- a surrogate measure of coronary artery disease, a large prospective cohort study found.

For young adults ages 18 to 30 years whose low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels were 4.14 mmol/L or greater, the adjusted odds ratio for having coronary calcium two decades later was 5.6 (95% CI 2 to 16) compared with those whose levels were below 1.81 mmol/L, according to Mark J. Pletcher, MD, of the University of California San Francisco, and colleagues.

In an editorial accompanying the study, Gerald S. Berenson, MD, and Sathanur R. Srinivasan, PhD, of Tulane University in New Orleans, observed that the findings suggest that the focus of primary and secondary prevention of coronary atherosclerosis should not focus only on lipids but should be expanded to include primordial prevention among high-risk children, "who have an excess prevalence of interrelated risk factors, an epidemic of obesity, increasing occurrence of diabetes, and heart disease that is out of control as adults."

"Pediatric epidemiologic studies have provided more than sufficient data to awaken interest in primordial prevention, which involves improving lifestyle and health behaviors beginning in childhood before abnormal risk factors develop," Berenson and Srinivasan asserted.

Kudos, fatsos.

Researchers find 95 genes affecting cholesterol

That's 95 genes this time.

A scan of the full human DNA sequence has turned up 95 genes that affect blood cholesterol, including a few affected by drugs on the market and others that might be the basis of new drugs, researchers said on Wednesday.

Their findings demonstrate that regulating cholesterol levels is even more complex than many people knew but also point to some short-cuts to prevent heart disease.

As more genes are found, the situation will become even more complex.

You really have to be a brain-dead quality idiot to expect that a genetic cure to this or overweight/obesity will arrive before you are dead.

Better to get fit.

NHS missing out on cancer drug payments

"I am romantic about the NHS; I love it. All I need to do to rediscover the romance is to look at health care in my own country." Donald Berwick, MD, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The NHS may be missing out on millions of pounds of reimbursement for cancer drugs because of onerous paperwork, say researchers.

Oops.

U.S. dietary supplements often contaminated: report

Time to sue the parasites at Whore Foods.

Many popular dietary supplements contain ingredients that may cause cancer, heart problems, liver or kidney damage, but U.S. stores sell them anyway and Americans spend millions on them, according to Consumer Reports.

The consumer magazine published a report on Tuesday highlighting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's lack of power to regulate such supplements, and said the agency rarely uses what little power it does have.

The report from the influential group urged Congress to speed up small moves toward giving the agency more clout, especially in regulating supplements.

Despite the "natural" labels carried by many of the supplements, many are contaminated.

Yet Americans flock to take them, according to the magazine, citing the Nutrition Business Journal as saying the market was worth $26.7 billion in 2009.

"Of the more than 54,000 dietary supplement products in the Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database, only about a third have some level of safety and effectiveness that is supported by scientific evidence," the report reads.

In addition, the FDA has not inspected any supplement factories in China, even though the agency set up field offices there starting in 2008, Consumer Reports said.

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

Formula Milk Not The Cause Of Breast Growth In Babies, Say Chinese Authorities

The Empire Strikes Back.

An inquiry into whether infant formula milk might be linked to breast growth in babies found no link, Chinese authorities announced today. The investigation was ordered after some parents in Hubei complained their babies were growing breasts and one 1-year-old girl in Beijing had premature puberty after drinking formula milk made by Synutra International. (Link)

A Ministry of Health spokesman, Deng HaiHua said the investigation found that the hormone levels within the milk powder were within normal standards "(investigators) found nothing abnormal about the amount of hormones contained in milk powder from Synutra and other brands".

According to Deng, food safety experts from China CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) tested 42 samples of Synutra dairy products and 31 dairy samples from other dairy companies.

One of the samples tested came from the milk residue drunk by one of the babies who had grown breasts - nothing unusual was detect.

And so the controversy rages on.

Milk Formula That Caused Breast Growing In Babies Triggers Further Dairy Tests In China

Explained! Traditional Chinese Medicine.

After claims came in that a brand of infant formula caused breast growth in some babies, Chinese authorities said they are testing a wide range of dairy products, as well as breast milk. It is alleged that formula milk from Synutra International is tainted with hormones and causes premature puberty in Hubei province.

Synutra International adamantly denies its products are tainted. The company's share price has dropped 35%.

This is not the first time food safety problems concerning infant formula or milk powder have been reported in China. Two years ago melamine (a colourless crystalline compound used in making synthetic resins; 2,4,6-triamino-1,3,5-triazine. Formula: C3H6N6) was detected in milk products produced by 22 different Chinese companies, leading to the illnesses or deaths of at least 300,000 Chinese children. Melamine had been added to mask tests for protein content.

Chinese health authorities say tests are currently undergoing on milk products in Beijing and Shanghai, as well as some other major cities. They say it will take a few days before test results are back.

The current allegedly tainted milk products are said to cause unusually high levels of estradiol and prolactin - hormones which stimulate the production of breast milk (lactation).

The Health Ministry says a panel of nine experts has been assembled to carry out the investigation, consisting of endocrinologists (hormone specialist doctors), pediatricians and food safety experts.

So far, three cases have been reported in Hubei of infants with abnormal estradiol and prolactin hormone levels. Their parents suspect this was caused by consuming milk formula made by Synutra International.

The father of a one-year-old girl in Beijing told China Daily, a Chinese newspaper that his daughter was diagnosed with premature puberty signs and symptoms. According to the BBC, the father is "furious".

Stop whining.

Look at the bright side.

At least she can breast feed herself.

Fears public health may be hit in shake-up of NHS

"I am romantic about the NHS; I love it. All I need to do to rediscover the romance is to look at health care in my own country." Donald Berwick, MD, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The overhaul of the NHS may harm the public health drive, experts fear.

Under government plans, primary care trusts in England will be abolished and GPs given control of the budget.

The shake-up will also mean public health is handed to councils, but the King's Fund health think tank said this could lead the NHS to turn its back on issues like smoking and drinking.

Oops.

Type 2 Diabetic Teens Show Brain Abnormalities

Fat parents have fat kids. Stupid parents have stupid kids who become stupid parents.

Brain structure and cognitive function appear to suffer among obese teens with type 2 diabetes, according to MRI and neuropsychology findings.

The differences, compared with other obese teens, included consistently worse performance in all cognitive domains assessed, reduced white matter volume, enlarged cerebrospinal fluid space, and lower microstructural integrity of the white and grey matter.

These effects match what has been seen with type 2 diabetes in adults, Antonio Convit, MD, of NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City, and colleagues reported online in Diabetologia.

Will the circle ever be unbroken?

Picky Eaters: When Waffles and Fries Are All You Eat

Get some government money! Calling all vegetarian, vegans, teetotalers and others who restrict what they eat.

Bob Krause hates Thanksgiving, and not because of that all forced family time.

Krause, 63, calls himself a picky eater -- one who won't eat anything that's served at a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, or any other dinner, for that matter.

Krause survives on little more than grilled cheese sandwiches, French fries and waffles. And, like other picky eaters, Krause hopes that a registry of adult picky eaters, recently begun by Duke University and the University of Pittsburgh, will bring attention to a problem he believes should be considered a medical condition.

The registry, dubbed the Food F.A.D. Study, or the Finicky Eating in Adults study, has already attracted more than 2,000 participants. According to its website, the survey and registry was created to learn more about adults who describe themselves as picky eaters.

"Much of the research on picky eating has been done in children," reads the site, which is run by Dr. Nancy Zucker at Duke University Medical Center along with colleagues at Western Psychiatric Institute in Pittsburgh. "We know very little about what picky eating looks like in adults and whether such eating habits cause any problems for either yourself or your family."

Krause says he knows all too well what picky eating can do to a person's social life. Now on this third marriage, Krause said that his first two ended partially because of his picky eating.

"I absolutely think picky eating is a type of eating disorder," said Krause.

These folks are trying to get money from us contending that "picky eating" is a medical condition.

If so, then those among us who are picky eaters because we do not overeat or refuse to stick some foods in our mouths, e.g., meat, alcohol, animal products, may be in line for the next federal gravy train.

After all, if you do not shove every kind of crap down your pie hole, you must be a "picky eater," i.e., you pick and choose what you eat.

Here is the link to the study website.

Have your friends fill out millions of these questionnaires.

Get in while the getting is good.

Adolescents With Type 2 Diabetes Have Diminished Cognitive Performance and Brain Abnormalities, Study Finds

Effect, not cause, per these researchers - caused by the parents.

A study by researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center have found that obese adolescents with type 2 diabetes have diminished cognitive performance and subtle abnormalities in the brain as detected by Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Identification of cognitive impairments as a complication of type 2 diabetes emphasizes the importance of addressing issues of inactivity and obesity, two important risk factors for the development of the disease among the young...

"This is the first study that shows that children with type 2 diabetes have more cognitive dysfunction and brain abnormalities than equally obese children who did not yet have marked metabolic dysregulation from their obesity, " says Antonio Convit, MD, professor of Psychiatry and Medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center and the Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research. "The findings are significant because they indicate that insulin resistance from obesity is lowering children's cognitive performance, which may be affecting their ability to perform well in school."

Fat parents have fat kids.

Kudos, fatso nutritional child abusers.

B Vitamins Don't Cut Repeat Vascular Events

Say it ain't so.

Taking vitamin B supplements does not appear to reduce vascular risk in patients who have suffered a stroke or a transient ischemic attack, a randomized controlled trial showed.

The clinical trial, conducted among more than 8,000 patients in 20 countries, found that the rate of stroke, myocardial infarction, or vascular death was not significantly different between those who received a B vitamin supplement as part of usual care and those given placebo (15% versus 17%; RR 0.91, 95% CI 0.82 to 1.00), according to Graeme Hankey, MD, of Royal Perth Hospital in Australia, and colleagues.

The trial results add to data from other trials of vitamin B supplementation that have failed to show a benefit for stroke, MI, or vascular death, the researchers reported online in The Lancet Neurology.

"These results do not support the use of B vitamins to prevent recurrent stroke," they wrote. "The results of ongoing trials and an individual patient data meta-analysis will add statistical power and precision to present estimates of the effect of B vitamins."

Time to stop wasting money at Whore Foods.

'Give out statins with junk food'

A way to have some fatsos pay as they go, so the rest don't have to and kiddie doses, too.

Fast food outlets should consider handing out cholesterol-lowering drugs to combat the effects of fatty food, say UK researchers.

Taking a statin pill every day would offset the harm caused by a daily cheeseburger and milkshake, the Imperial College London team said.

It would only cost 5p a customer - similar to a sachet of ketchup.

But the British Heart Foundation warned an unhealthy diet does more harm than just raising cholesterol.

Writing in the American Journal of Cardiology, Dr Darrel Francis and colleagues said it was about reducing harm in the same way that people who smoke are encouraged to use filters and those who drive are told to wear seatbelts.

They took data from trials of almost 43,000 people to calculate whether the statins could override the effects of eating a junk food diet.

A statin a day can neutralise the risk of cardiovascular disease linked to a daily intake of a 7-oz cheeseburger and a small milkshake, they calculated.

The researchers said there could be no substitute for leading a healthy lifestyle, including eating a good diet, but that a complimentary statin would be at least one positive choice among a sea of negative ones.

For those only eating junk food once a year, an annual one-off statin dose would have little effect, but for those who partake more regularly it would have a greater opportunity to neutralise that risk, they added.

Gotta admire the ingenuity.

Can only fly in the USA if we stop paying for fat person medications, which we should.