http://www.health.am/weightloss/ 2010-03-17T10:10:00-08:00 http://www.health.am/weightloss/more/teen-girls-look-to-peers-to-gauge-weight-goals/ Their schoolmates’ weight determines whether teenage high school girls will try to lose pounds, new research finds, and the school environment plays a big role in the decision. Although fashion magazines and celebrity culture equate ‘thin’ with ‘beautiful,’ the study in the March issue of Journal of Health and Social Behavior found that girls tend to view their body image in comparison to the peers they see every day in school — and being overweight might be perfectly fine. “Our findings provide evidence that girls’ weight-control behaviors are more complicated than often assumed,” said lead study author Anna Mueller, at the University of Texas at Austin. “Every school does not have the same emphasis on being thin and losing weight, and even within schools, girls respond to the school culture differently.” 2010-03-17T11:10:00-08:00 http://www.health.am/weightloss/more/great-tips-to-lose-weight/ Need some help with your weight loss? Below are some great weight loss tips to help you that extra bit; these weight loss tips offers pointers for practical, effective weight loss tactics. Tips include healthy eating advice, support, exercise, preparation of food and much more. Enjoy! Tip #1 To make a delicious low fat mayonnaise simply combine one teaspoon Dijon mustard or one teaspoon satay sauce with low fat yoghurt. Tip #2 Avoid skipping meals. Eating increases your metabolism, thus skipping meals can trick your body into slowing down its metabolism in an attempt to conserve calories during a period it perceives as a situation where limited fuel is available. 2010-02-28T18:53:01-08:00 http://www.health.am/weightloss/more/sibutramine-ban-will-influence-new-obesity-drugs/ Today the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) voted to recommend the suspension of marketing authorizations for all anti-obesity medicines containing sibutramine. Abbott will comply with the CHMP recommendation and suspend the marketing of Abbott medicines containing sibutramine in all European Union (EU) member countries, as well as Iceland and Norway, which are part of the European Economic Area. Abbott manufactures sibutramine under the brand names Reductil, Meridia, Sibutral, Ectiva and Raductil. The CHMPs recommendation was based on a review of results from the SCOUT study (Sibutramine Cardiovascular OUTcome Trial), which became available in November 2009. Outside the EU, sibutramine remains available and should be used according to the product label. The U.S. Food and Drug Administrations (FDA) review of SCOUT is ongoing. FDA has initiated a label change and the product remains on the market in the U.S. Australias Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) took a similar action. 2010-01-28T11:28:00-08:00 http://www.health.am/weightloss/more/a-gimmick-free-weight-loss-pill-in-the-works/ A Université de Montréal research team is developing a pill composed of leptin, the protein that tells our brain to stop eating. “Mice deprived of leptin will not stop eating. They become so big they have trouble moving around,” says Moïse Bendayan, a pathology professor at the Université de Montréal Faculty of Medicine who has studied the leptin protein extensively. Leptin regulates appetite in mammals and its levels decrease when fasting and rise during meals. It has been proven to be an appetite suppressant when administered intravenously to pathologically obese people. Postdoctoral student Philippe Cammisotto is leading the charge for a leptin-based, appetite suppressing pill with Dr. Bendayan and Émile Levy, a professor from the Department of Nutrition. “Taken orally, such a pill would provide obese people with the sensation of being full. They would eat less and in turn lose weight,” says Dr. Cammisotto. 2010-01-26T22:14:00-08:00 http://www.health.am/weightloss/more/michelle-obamas-anti-obesity-plan/ Saying childhood obesity has tripled in the last 30 years, first lady Michelle Obama asked the nation’s mayors to help her battle an epidemic that could see today’s kids lead shorter lives than their parents. Obama, speaking before the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said no matter how much she’d read and thought about the problem of obesity among young people, the pertinent statistics “never fail to take my breath away.” She said nearly one-third of U.S. children now are overweight or obese. She said one-third of today’s children eventually will suffer from diabetes, and, in the African American and Latino communities, the proportion will be almost half. 2010-01-26T21:10:00-08:00 http://www.health.am/weightloss/more/treatment-of-obesity/ For primary care physicians, obesity is one of the most challenging problems confronted in office practice. The disorder is increasing in prevalence despite the efforts of both patients and physicians. Treatment requires a multimodality approach that addresses diet, physical activity, and behavioral issues. Medication and surgical approaches may be appropriate as well. This review outlines the evidence for each approach, suggests how primary care physicians can best help obese patients, and provides practical tips for weight loss. Obesity is a rapidly growing epidemic worldwide, and it increases the risk of morbidity and mortality. In the United States, obesity may be responsible for as many as 300,000 deaths per year, although this figure is controversial. Direct medical costs in the United States (1999) are estimated to be $70 billion annually. Despite the expenditure of billions of dollars in weight-loss products, the epidemic is getting worse. The most common definition of obesity is a body mass index (BMI) (calculated as weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters) of 30 kg/m2 or greater. Overweight is defined as a BMI between 25.0 and 29.9 kg/m2, and extreme obesity is defined as a BMI of 40 kg/m2 or greater. Approximately one third of Americans are overweight, one third are obese, and 4.5% have extreme obesity. Unfortunately, physicians often do not formally diagnose obesity when it exists (Bardia A, Holtan SG, Slezak JM, Thompson WG, unpublished data, 2006). Assessment of patients for obesity can be facilitated by having office staff enter the BMI into the patient’s record after measuring height and weight. Measuring waist and hip circumference should also be considered because these parameters affect outcome independent of the BMI. Physician diagnosis of obesity is important because a management plan is more likely to be formulated than when no diagnosis is made. This review focuses on optimizing that management plan. 2010-01-20T15:58:00-08:00 http://www.health.am/weightloss/more/bariatric-surgery-can-break-obesity-cycle/ Obesity is a condition that often follows family lines, but bariatric surgery offers hope for breaking this generational pattern. “Bariatric surgery is part of a transformational lifestyle change,” said Christopher Still, D.O., director of the Geisinger Center for Nutrition and Weight Management. “Patients who are most successful after bariatric surgery must adapt to healthy diet and exercise, and many times this new lifestyle will rub off on family members, resulting in a healthier family unit.” While genetics can play a role in obesity, other familial factors can be major contributors to this health issue, said Dr. Still. A 2008 study in the American Journal of Sociology concluded that a family’s lifestyle has a major impact on whether teenagers will end up overweight, and according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), a person’s environment and behavior play a large role in obesity. 2010-01-15T23:49:00-08:00 http://www.health.am/weightloss/more/holistic-weight-loss-a-non-diet-approach/ When your New Year’s resolution to lose weight crumbles as fast as the cookie touching your lips, it’s time to admit that diets don’t work. More successful is a holistic approach to losing weight that lets you feel good about feeding your body the nourishment it craves. “By understanding the whole person, including emotional reasons for eating, stress triggers, medical history and physiological factors, we help each individual approach food in a whole new way,” said Henri Roca, MD, medical director of Greenwich Hospital’s Center for Integrative Medicine. Dr. Roca, board-certified in Family Medicine and Holistic Medicine, works with the Center of Integrative Medicine’s registered dietitian and epigenetic nutritionist to help people understand why they eat what they do. “We look at the emotional aspects of eating and the habits an individual creates surrounding their relationship with food,” said Roca, who points to genetics, metabolism, hormones and physiological factors as potential stumbling blocks to successful long-term weight management. 2010-01-11T20:07:00-08:00 http://www.health.am/weightloss/more/mayo-clinic-diet-book-promotes-healthy-weight-loss/ Confused by the myriad of diet books that promise to help you melt away those excess pounds to produce the body of a supermodel? Scientists at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota have produced a weight-loss program based on clinical research and experience that they say will help people lose weight and keep it off permanently. Dr. Donald Hensrud, a diet expert at the clinic and a co-author of “The Mayo Clinic Diet” spoke to Reuters about why the program is so effective, the research it is based on and what makes it different from all the other diet books. 2010-01-03T20:45:00-08:00 http://www.health.am/weightloss/more/moderate-weight-loss-in-obese-people-improves-heart-function/ Obese patients who lost a moderate amount of weight by eating less and exercising more improved their cardiovascular health, says a study at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The results of this two-year study, published in the Dec. 15, 2009, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, showed that weight loss led to improvement in four key measures of heart and vascular health. The improvements seen in the study participants included decreased thickness of heart muscle, improved pumping and relaxation functions of the heart and decreased thickness of the carotid artery walls. Heart muscle thickening and impaired pumping and relaxation functions are predictors of heart failure, and increased carotid wall thickness is a predictor of plaque formation. The researchers studied 60 moderately obese individuals at regular intervals, and 46 people (78 percent) completed the entire two-year follow-up period. The participants ranged in age from 22 to 64 and had BMIs (body mass indexes) of between 30 and 44. During the study, the subjects were instructed to eat low-calorie diets (1,200 to 1,500 calories for women and 1,500 to 1,800 calories for men) and to exercise for about three and a half hours per week, principally walking.  2009-12-11T19:46:00-08:00