YOUR FAT
GPs and other health professionals should tell people they are fat rather than obese, England’s public health minister says.
Anne Milton told the BBC the term fat was more likely to motivate them into losing weight.
She said it was important people should take “personal responsibility” for their lifestyles.
But health experts said the word could stigmatise those who are overweight.
Slimming supplements a waste of money
IT’S A WASTE , FOR YOUR WAIST
A new research has revealed that the slimming supplements available in the market place do not facilitate weight loss beyond the placebo effect.
“There are scores of slimming supplements out there claiming weight-loss effects through all sorts of mechanisms of action. The market for these is huge, but unlike for regulated drugs, effectiveness does not have to be proven for these to be sold,” said Dr. Thomas Ellrott, lead researcher.
At the 11th International Congress on Obesity hosted in Stockholm, experts were clear when it came to over-the-counter slimming supplements: “save your money, the only thing you are going to lose is your money,” said Judith Stern, a professor in the Departments of Nutrition and Internal Medicine at the University of California Davis.
Two studies presented at the congress showed supplements were ineffective.
Thomas Ellrott, a professor at the university of Goettingen in Germany, presented a study in which nine popular supplements, proposing nine different weight loss solutions, were tested against placebo pills in a controlled trial.
“There are scores of slimming supplements out there claiming weight-loss effects through all sorts of mechanisms of action… the market for these is huge, but unlike for regulated drugs, effectiveness does not have to be proven for these to be sold,” he said.
The participants in his study that took weight loss supplements lost between one and two kilograms, while those taking the placebo lost 1.2 kg on average.
“Not a single product was any more effective than placebo pills in producing weight loss over the two months of the study, regardless of how it claims to work,” he said.
Despite their proven lack of effectiveness, the market for supplements ranging from cabbage powder to fibre pills to plant extracts generates a whopping 13 billion dollars (10 billion euros) per year, said Igho Onakpoya of the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth
But Professor Naveed Sattar, professor of metabolic medicine at Glasgow University, said there was little evidence that diet supplements were effective.
He said: “It might give you a placebo effect but if you fall back into the same old habits you will go back to the weight trajectory you were on. I don’t think the evidence base is that strong.
Only one drug – Orlistat – is licensed for use in the treatment of obesity. It is available at pharmacies, under the name Alli, to patients with a BMI of 28 or more.
However, other products also claim to be backed by scientific research. A trial at the University of Oklahoma found that Capsiplex, which is made from capsicum extract , can help burn as many calories as a 25-minute jog.
Nutritionist Dr Carrie Ruxton, a member of the Scottish Food Advisory Committee, said some supplements may help motivate consumers to improve their diet and exercise regime. But she warned: “Supplements for weight management are no substitute for a calorie-controlled diet and exercise as a means of controlling weight.”
Robert Verkerk, executive and scientific director of the Alliance for Natural Health, said some herbal and natural products could offer help for slimmers. He said: “There is plenty of evidence that some products are very helpful, but by and large they cannot be taken in isolation and they should be coupled with an altered diet and lifestyle regime which incorporates an abundance of exercise.
Pregnancy health warning
Pregnancy health warning
Health professionals are dealing with “an epidemic of obesity” among pregnant women as weight gain across the wider population continues to rise, experts said.
About half of women of childbearing age are either overweight (with a BMI of 25-29.9) or obese (with a BMI of 30 or above) and approximately 16% of women in England are obese from the start of pregnancy, according to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice).
The guidance outlines the importance in achieving a healthy weight and BMI before pregnancy, keeping weight down between children and avoiding “crash dieting” in pregnancy. It emphasises that there is no need to “eat for two” and women should instead follow sensible eating habits to avoid unnecessary weight gain.
Under the recommendations, women should not eat more food than normal until the last three months of pregnancy.
Even then they should only have an extra 200 calories a day – the equivalent of two bananas or a latte. Nice fears that growing numbers of obese women are becoming even fatter during pregnancy because they assume that they can ‘eat for two’.
Professor Poston said that obese women faced a greater risk of “almost every complication in the book in pregnancy”, including pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes, miscarriage and maternal death. At her ante-natal clinics there had been an “exponential increase” in obesity among those attending.
The guidance recommends detailed discussions of diet and habits with all women with a BMI of more than 25, while those with a BMI greater than 30 should be offered advice on losing weight before pregnancy. Such women should not be encouraged to diet during pregnancy, but offered guidance from dieticians on avoiding further weight gain and managing the associated risks.
Weight Loss. With The Web
THE INTERNET HAS WEIGHT- LOSS POTENTIAL
A new study says the more people log on to a weight management websites, the more likely they are to maintain their weight loss.
The three year trial study by the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research was one of the largest and longest ever conducted, with 1,600 participants at four study sites across the United States.
The researchers said the website was designed to offer support for weight maintenance through five behavioural strategies:
Reinforcing existing behavioral self-management such as limiting calories.
Encouraging new self-management skills, such as posing questions to nutrition and exercise experts.
Improving self-monitoring.
Encouraging long-term use of the website by providing innovative content.
Promoting social support on an interactive bulletin board.
Participants had to lose nine pounds in the first six months to remain in the trial, then they were put into three randomized groups: one with no intervention, one that had monthly contact and a personal health coach, and one that was given unlimited access to a weight management website created for the trial.
The Internet group included 348 participants who were encouraged to log in at least once a week. If they didn’t, they received e-mail reminders and follow-up automated phone messages. Once on the website, participants were prompted to record their weight, their minutes of exercise, and the number of days they kept food diaries.
The study says users who consistently logged in and recorded their weight almost every day maintained the greatest weight loss, keeping off an average of nine pounds, the amount they initially had to lose.
People who logged in once a month kept off an average of five pounds, meaning they gained back at least four pounds.
Those who logged on less than once a month kept off an average of three pounds.
At the end of the study, 65% of the participants were still logging on to the website. The study authors said they are encouraged by this level of participation because it is rare to see that kind of commitment — even in shorter-term weight maintenance studies that use the Internet.
“Consistency and accountability are essential in any weight maintenance program. The unique part of this intervention was that it was available on the Internet, whenever and wherever people wanted to use it,” said study lead author Kristine L. Funk.
The study done by Funk and her colleagues was reported in Tuesday’s issue of the Journal of Medical Internet Research
Britain’s heaviest woman has died
Britain’s heaviest woman has died from a heart attack after her family smuggled takeaways and junk food into her hospital room, it has been revealed.
Junk food addict Sharon Mevsimler, 40, weighed 45 stone and needed an oxygen mask due to the strain her weight put on her heart and lungs.
But witnesses at Broomfield Hospital – where she had been a patient for two months – said relatives brought in fish and chips and family-sized buckets of fried chicken to the mother-of-four.
The mother-of-four, who was just five feet tall, had received 24-hour care since 2005. She had begun to comfort eat after suffering severe post-natal depression.
Doctors told her she had just months to live in 2007 because of her size – then about 266 kg.
Mevsimler said earlier this month: “I have been left to die. If I was anorexic I would get proper help but no one has sympathy for obese people.”
She was repeatedly warned she was eating herself to death.
But she refused to stop bingeing – despite undergoing a £30,000 op on the NHS earlier this year to have a gastric band fitted. It was meant to have curbed her huge appetite.
Couch potatoes die sooner than later
According to a new study, not exerting yourself can do more harm than good.
A study that was conducted by Alpa Patel and several of her colleagues at the American Cancer
Society in Atlanta has shown that sitting around too much can have a negative effect on your life. This is true even for people who exercise regularly.
The study published in the Journal of Epidemiology finds that the more a person sits in their spare time the greater their risk is of living a shorter life.
Sitting is something that we all love to do, especially during our leisure time but in future you might want to find some form of physical activity to do instead.
Researchers came to this interesting study finding after analyzing data from surveys of more than 120,000 participants of the Cancer Prevention study.
They found that those who reported sitting for more than six hours a day were more likely to die within a 14 year follow up period than those who reported staying active in their free time.
Oddly enough the study results were the same no matter how active a person was during the day, meaning that a person could be very active at their job for example, but still be at risk of early death because when they got home after work they sat around.
When it came to cause of death, heart disease was the most common disease, even more than cancer, another shocking finding.
Women were also at greater risk than men of earlier death, a fact that researchers are unable to explain.
They do suggest a cause for why people who sit for long periods of time tend to die earlier, that being that they engage in unhealthy eating habits when they do.
LATEST OBESITY NEWS
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- Early puberty linked to obesity in girls - Times of India
