Physical Activity Interventions for Children Have 'Little Impact', Study Suggests

As every Fitness Watch reader already knows.

Physical activity interventions for children have small impact on overall activity levels and consequently the body fat and mass of children, a study published on bmj.com today suggests.

Previous studies have shown that greater activity levels are associated with lower levels of BMI (body mass index) but that physical activity interventions have been unsuccessful in improving children's BMI. Many previous reviews have not, however, confined their analyses to whole-day activity and some relied on questionnaires rather than objective measures of physical activity like pedometers to measure daily steps taken. This is the first systematic review to measure physical activity using accelerometry devices which provide a measure of total bodily movement across waking hours...

The authors conclude that in the mind of the public, physical inactivity is a major cause of childhood obesity and although the need to increase it is intuitive the "small increase gained from formal interventions seems insufficient to improve the body mass / fat of children." They suggest that further studies should capture both whole day activity and activity related to intervention-specific periods.

In an accompanying editorial, authors from University College London suggest that the study's chosen method of analysis does have "inherent limitations" although the results provide the best evidence to date on the effectiveness of activity interventions in childhood. They suggest that the focus of other studies should also shift away from overweight and obese children and instead look at outcomes that relate to improving health in children regardless of their weight. Hamer and Fisher suggest that future research should focus on how changes to the indoor and outdoor environment can encourage children's activity.

There is no need for further studies.

The work has been done.

Find it here, here and here.

Circadian Desynchrony May Disrupt The Systems In The Brain That Regulate Metabolism, Leading To Obesity

This is it! This is the key.

When Thomas Edison tested the first light bulb in 1879, he could never have imagined that his invention could one day contribute to a global obesity epidemic. Electric light allows us to work, rest and play at all hours of the day, and a paper published this week in Bioessays suggests that this might have serious consequences for our health and for our waistlines.

Daily or "circadian" rhythms including the sleep wake cycle, and rhythms in hormone release are controlled by a molecular clock that is present in every cell of the human body. This human clock has its own inbuilt, default rhythm of almost exactly 24 hours that allows it to stay finely tuned to the daily cycle generated by the rotation of the earth. This beautiful symmetry between the human clock and the daily cycle of the Earth's rotation is disrupted by exposure to artificial light cycles, and by irregular meal, work and sleep times. This mismatch between the natural circadian rhythms of our bodies and the environment is called "circadian desynchrony".

It must be circadian desynchrony.

What else could it be?

Moron researcher.

USPSTF Recommends Obesity Screening for All Adults

Ooh. An official recommendation.

That will fix the problem.

Clinicians should screen adults for obesity and offer intensive, multicomponent behavioral interventions to those with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 kg/m2 or higher, according to updated guidelines from the USPSTF.

Screening?

More formal than it needs to be in the overwhelming majority of cases.

Just look.

Fitness in Middle Age Lowers Risk for Future Chronic Disease Emma Hitt, PhD

Yep.

Staying fit during middle age is associated with a decreased risk of developing chronic diseases, such as diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, and heart disease, during the next several years, a new study suggests.

Benjamin L. Willis, MD, MPH, from the Cooper Institute at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, and colleagues, reported the findings in an article published online August 27 in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

According to the researchers, "physical activity...likely represents an important determinant of healthy aging," but "studies have reported inconsistent results," and the "incremental contribution of [physical activity] to healthy aging beyond other healthy lifestyle characteristics remains unclear."

"To our knowledge, the association between midlife fitness and healthy aging has not been reported," they write. "[W]e hypothesized that higher midlife fitness levels would be strongly associated with healthy aging as defined by a low burden of chronic condition...outcomes," Dr. Willis and colleagues write.

Their knowledge must be lacking.

We told them so years ago.

Factors That Regulate Size Of Cellular Fat Pools, Obesity

Error alert!

As the national waistline expands, so do pools of intra-cellular fat known as lipid droplets. Although most of us wish our lipid droplets would vanish, they represent a cellular paradox: on the one hand droplets play beneficial roles by corralling fat into non-toxic organelles. On the other, oversized lipid droplets are associated with obesity and its associated health hazards.

Until recently researchers understood little about factors that regulate lipid droplet size. Now, a study from the Stowers Institute of Medical Research published in an upcoming issue of Journal of Cell Biology reports a genetic screen of roundworms that identifies two proteins required for the dramatic expansion of lipid droplets. That study, from the lab of Assistant Investigator Ho Yi Mak, Ph.D., sheds new light onto the molecular processes linked to fat metabolism.

One - obesity has nothing to do with "droplet size."

Two - there is only one factor.

Three - that factor is more Calories in than out.

Four - done.

First Simultaneous Robotic Kidney Transplant, Sleeve Gastrectomy Performed

How fat are you?

Surgeons at the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System are developing new treatment options for obese kidney patients.

Many U.S. transplant centers currently refuse to transplant these patients due to poorer outcomes.

By simultaneously undergoing two procedures -- robotic-assisted kidney transplantation and robotic-assisted sleeve gastrectomy -- patients have only one visit to the operating room and one general anesthesia. Surgeons can utilize the same minimally invasive incisions.

You are so fat that human beings can no longer operate on you.

Kudos, fatsos.

Future Health Risks for Obese Children May Be Greater Than Previously Thought

More about nutritional child abuse.

Being obese as a child or adolescent may have a larger effect on future health than previously thought, suggests a study published on bmj.com today.

It comes as New York City passes a ban on large-size sugary drinks to help tackle obesity and related health problems in the US. MPs are now calling on the government to introduce similar legislation in the UK.

Researchers at the University of Oxford show that obese children and adolescents have several risk factors for heart disease including raised blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels, and a thickening of the heart muscle, compared with normal weight children.

They warn that, if these risk factors are allowed to progress into adulthood, obese children could already be at a 30-40% higher risk of future stroke and heart disease than their normal weight counterparts.

Being overweight in adulthood is well known to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. The effect of obesity on children is less well understood, but a growing body of evidence suggests a similar association.

So a team of researchers based at the University of Oxford set out to examine the scale of the association between weight and risk factors for heart disease in children.

They analysed the results of 63 studies involving 49,220 healthy children aged between five and 15 years old. Only studies conducted after 1990 in highly developed countries and published between 2000 and 2011 were included.

The studies measured weight and one or more known cardiovascular disease risk factors, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and blood glucose levels.

Overweight was defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 25 to 30 and obesity was defined as BMI of 30 or more. Differences in study quality were taken into account to identify and minimise bias.

Compared with normal weight children, obese children had significantly higher blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Overweight children also had raised blood pressure, but to a lesser degree than obese children.

Fasting insulin levels and insulin resistance (known markers for diabetes) were significantly higher in obese children, but not in overweight children.

Obese children also had a significant increase in left ventricular mass (a thickening of the heart muscle and often a marker for heart disease) compared with normal weight children, even after adjusting for height. The authors say that the exact ages at which changes in a child's risk factors begin need to be established to help build a more accurate picture of the cardiovascular risk these young people are likely to face as adults.

"Weight, and especially obesity, has a significant effect on the risk parameters for cardiovascular disease that are present in children from age five years," they conclude. "This effect could give them a head start on their normal and even overweight classmates for future cardiovascular disease, diabetes and stroke."

In an accompanying editorial, Lee Hudson and Russell Viner at the UCL Institute of Child Health in London, say this review "provides a stark illustration of the probable threat that childhood obesity poses to disease burden in the population."

They say further work is needed to guide assessment and treatment decisions, and to tease out the effects of age and pubertal status on cardiovascular risk. In the meantime, the findings "challenge us to rethink our approaches to identifying cardiometabolic abnormalities in obese children."

Stop the abuse.

Walnuts Appear to Improve Semen Quality in Healthy Men

If you say so.

The daily addition of 75 g of whole-shelled walnuts to a typical Western-style diet appears to have positive effects on the vitality, morphology, and motility of sperm in healthy men, according to the findings of a randomized, parallel, 2-group, dietary intervention trial.

Wendie A. Robbins, PhD, and colleagues from the University of California, Los Angeles, published their findings online August 15 in Biology of Reproduction.

The authors note that despite the connection between food and reproduction throughout history, the evidence of the effects of diet on male fertility is lacking.

"Dietary habits and essential nutrients to promote successful reproductive outcomes have been identified for the maternal peri-conceptional and peri-natal period, but healthy dietary habits and essential nutrients for paternal reproductive fitness are less clear," the authors write.

"Evidence is particularly limited for men who routinely consume Western-style diets that may lack optimal nutrients and [polyunsaturated fatty acid] profiles needed for healthy sperm and fertility," they continue.

More interesting is what prompted the study.

I mean, who would think to do such a thing?

This study was funded through a grant from the California Walnut Commission. Dr. Lamb has received grant support from the National Institutes of Health and from the William and Ella Owens Medical Research Foundation.

Answers: These folks and payola.

Gene That Makes Women Happy Identified

Really?

A gene that seems to make females happy, but not males, has been identified by researchers at the University of South Florida, Columbia University, and the New York State Psychiatry Institute.

Their study has been published in Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry. The authors describe it as the first happiness gene for women.

The scientists explained that the low-expression of the gene MAOA (monoamine oxidase A) is linked to higher levels of happiness in adult females. They added that they were not able to find such an association in men.

Now you can expect your tax dollars to be spent on happiness gene therapy.

A Brave New World coming soon to a sick care delivery system near you.

Study Finds Working Mothers Spend Less Time Daily On Their Children's Diet, Exercise

So what?

When it comes to cooking, grocery shopping and playing with children, American moms with full-time jobs spend roughly three-and-half fewer hours per day on these and other chores related to their children's diet and exercise compared to stay-at-home and unemployed mothers, reports a new paper by a Cornell University health economist.

Male partners do little to make up the deficit: Employed fathers devote just 13 minutes daily to such activities and non-working fathers contribute 41 minutes, finds the study, which will be printed in the December issue of Economics and Human Biology and is posted online*.

The findings are consistent across socio-economic lines measured by the mothers' education, family income, race and ethnicity.

To make up for this time deficit, working mothers are significantly more likely to spend time purchasing prepared foods - takeout from restaurants or prepackaged, ready-to-eat meals from grocery stores - which are generally less nutritious than home-cooked meals.

"It's inaccurate to pin rising childhood obesity rates on women, given that husbands pick up so little of the slack," cautioned lead author John Cawley, professor of policy analysis and management and of economics at Cornell's College of Human Ecology.

The study does not prove that employment alone drives the way mothers spends their time. "For example, mothers who choose to work might be those who enjoy cooking less and who would cook less whether working or not," Cawley said.

Right. The study proves nothing.

All it does is give a platform for a political posture, not a scientific one.

Does Severe Calorie Restriction Help You Live Longer? Probably Not

At last, some sanity.

According to a 25-year study using rhesus monkeys, a lifetime on a very-low calorie diet did not help them live any longer, researchers from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge reported in the journal Nature. Rhesus monkeys are genetically relatively similar to humans. They were fed on a diet consisting of 30% fewer calories than the control group were for a quarter of a century.

The authors say that there are two factors which have the largest impact on lifespan: Good genes A healthy and well balanced diet Don Ingram, a gerontologist who designed the study nearly thirty years ago while he was at the NIA (National Institute on Aging), said "To think that a simple decrease in calories caused such a widespread change, that was remarkable."

At the start of the study, there were already suggestions that severe calorie restriction over the long term might have a positive impact on longevity. Several studies had shown that half-starving roundworms lived much longer than their well-fed counterparts. Animal studies with rats had demonstrated how low-calorie diets kept them youthful for longer.

Scientists from the Washington University School of Medicine, in St. Louis, Missouri, proposed that low-calorie diets reduce a human's core body temperature, resulting in longer life. A study carried out by researchers from the Department of Genetics Evolution and Environment at University College London, published an article in Nature which said that high protein diets make us live longer, not low calorie ones.

But they still have no idea what they are talking about.

Association Between Diets High In Total Antioxidants And Lower Risk Of Myocardial Infarction In Women

More about the killer antioxidants.

Coronary heart disease is a major cause of death in women. A new study has found that a diet rich in antioxidants, mainly from fruits and vegetables, can significantly reduce the risk of myocardial infarction. The study is published in the October issue of The American Journal of Medicine.

"Our study was the first to look at the effect of all dietary antioxidants in relation to myocardial infarction," says lead investigator Alicja Wolk, DrMedSci, Division of Nutritional Epidemiology, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. "Total antioxidant capacity measures in a single value all antioxidants present in diet and the synergistic effects between them."

They probably should have looked at something different.

As in substances that do not kill or harm to yield their results.

Squeezing A Ball Before Competition Could Help Athletes Avoid Choking Under Pressure

Nothing to do with fitness per se, but does answer an important question.

Some athletes may improve their performance under pressure simply by squeezing a ball or clenching their left hand before competition to activate certain parts of the brain, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

Why do baseball players make adjustments at the plate?

Sorry.

Could not resist.

Energy Drinks Help Heart Function

Apparently New York failed to get the memo.

Energy drinks improve the contractions of both the left and right ventricles of the heart; they have a beneficial effect on myocardial function, Dr Matteo Cameli, from University of Siena, Italy, explained at the European Society of Cardiology 2012 Congress, in Munich, Germany. Dr. Cameli added that energy drinks raise the risk of cardiometabolic diseases.

An energy drink is said to boost mental and physical energy. There are several brands today, including Red Bull, Monster, Rockstar, and Full Throttle. They usually have large amounts of caffeine and also contain taurine. Taurine (2-aminoethanesulfonic acid), an organic acid, is a major constituent of bile.

This is one of the very few proper studies to demonstrate a health benefit for energy drinks.

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

Normal Weight People With Belly Fat More Likely To Die

Not possible. All people are 100% likely to die.

A person of normal body weight who has excess belly fat is more likely to die prematurely than an obese person with a fair spread of fat around the body, researchers from the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. explained at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2012 in Munich, Germany. Dr. Francisco Lopez-Jimenez said that people with a high waist-to-hip ratio, i.e. those with big bellies, but whose BMI (body mass index) are of normal weight, are more likely to die from a cardiovascular event or any cause than anybody else.

But, there is some sense to this.

If you are a little person and all fat, you are probably in a worse position than a big person who is fatty and has some muscle.

Plausible.

Middle Aged Fitness Protects Health In Old Age

And this is news, why exactly?

Middle aged people who regularly exercise and are physically fit have a much lower risk of developing chronic health conditions associated with old age, researchers from the Cooper Institute, Dallas,

USA reported in Archives of Internal Medicine. The authors added that even a moderate increase in fitness during midlife can help reduce the risk of developing several chronic conditions twenty years later.

Several studies have looked into how physical fitness might impact on elderly health and longevity.

A report published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in 2008 showed that midlife aerobic fitness can delay biological aging by up to 12 years, as well as securing an independent lifestyle during old age.

What is it about being fit longer that keeps you fit longer?

Remember that "Fitness is the only REAL preventive medicine." ^tm

Long-Term Weight Loss Extremely Hard For Post-Menopausal Women

Poor, fat babies.

Have to do something hard.

Postmenopausal women naturally consume much less energy than when they were younger, the strategies and behaviors they followed earlier in life are simply not sustainable or effective in the long-term any more, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Department of Health and Physical Activity, reported in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

The authors added that several factors work against postmenopausal women when they try to lose weight over the long term. Several studies have looked at postmenopausal body weight control and diets.

A team of researchers from the University of Illinois said that postmenopausal dieting women should eat plenty of protein so that they do not lose too much muscle. Another study warned that high-protein diets may encourage bone density loss in postmenopausal women.

Even for younger females and men of all ages, dropping the pounds initially during a diet is usually achievable, but keeping the weight off over the long term is challenging.

So what?

Woman up.

Not Even Best Treatment Mitigates Obesity Effect on Breast Cancer

Kudos, fatsos.

There is now more evidence that obesity can worsen breast cancer outcome. The association occurs even when overweight women receive optimal treatment in a major clinical trial, according to a study published online...in Cancer.

As if there wasn't enough already.

Breast Cancer Recurrence Higher Among Overweight Women

Boobs, Moobs. Noobs (no boobs).

Obese and overweight women are more likely to experience breast cancer recurrence compared to women of normal weight, regardless of the type of cancer treatment they received, researchers reported in the journal Cancer.

Joseph Sparano, MD, of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine's Montefiore Medical Center, New York, and team explained that the patient does not necessarily have to be obese, she may be just within what is considered as overweight. He added that the higher recurrence risk is for the most common type of cancer.

The authors believe that excess body fat may trigger hormonal changes and inflammation that encourage the spread and recurrence of cancer, despite the type of treatment that was administered.

Why make your mammaries, memories?

Your choice, fatsos.

In The Future Weight May Be Managed By Manipulating The Microbiome

Bulls**t.

Vaccines and antibiotics may someday join caloric restriction or bariatric surgery as a way to regulate weight gain, according to a new study focused on the interactions between diet, the bacteria that live in the bowel, and the immune system.

Bacteria in the intestine play a crucial role in digestion. They provide enzymes necessary for the uptake of many nutrients, synthesize certain vitamins and boost absorption of energy from food.

Fifty years ago, farmers learned that by tweaking the microbial mix in their livestock with low-dose oral antibiotics, they could accelerate weight gain. More recently, scientists found that mice raised in a germ-free environment, and thus lacking gut microbes, do not put on extra weight, even on a high-fat diet.

Unless you control the mictobiome with laxatives.

Get a copy of the upcoming book "S**t and Stay Thin,"