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Obesity may increase with each generation because overweight mothers give birth to offspring who have a tendency to become heavier, researchers have claimed.

A team of scientists believe that the genetic mechanisms that control the weight of a baby may be changed if the mother is obese before and during pregnancy.

This change could lead in turn to the baby becoming heavier than normal.

Scientists in Houston, America, made the claim after studying the eating habits of several generations of mice.

Dr Robert Waterland from Baylor College of Medicine, led the study.

He explained: “There is an obesity epidemic in the United States and it’s increasingly recognised as a worldwide phenomenon.

“Why is everyone getting heavier and heavier?

“One hypothesis is that maternal obesity before and during pregnancy affects the establishment of body weight regulatory mechanisms in her baby.

“Maternal obesity could promote obesity in the next generation.”

The team split the mice, all of which had a genetic tendency to overeat, into two groups.

One group was provided with a normal diet while the other was provided with nutrient-supplemented diet.

The nutrients in the supplemented diet encouraged the process of DNA methylation - a chemical reaction that silences genes with the hope that it would render the over-eating gene inactive.

The mice on the normal diet gained weight with each generation while the mice on the altered diet stayed roughly the same size.

Dr Waterland explained: “We wanted to know if, even among genetically identical mice, maternal obesity would promote obesity in her offspring, and if the methyl-supplemented diet would affect this process.

“Indeed those on the regular diet got fatter and fatter with each generation. Those in the supplemented group however, did not.”

Dr Waterland said the research had led the team to believe that the process of DNA methylation plays an important role in the development of the region of the brain that regulates appetite - the hypothalamus.
Source: http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1567852/obesity_may_rise_with_generations/

Heart attacks are hitting the overweight more than a decade sooner than “normal” weight people, researchers are reporting.

A study of more than 111,000 people is one of the first to put real numbers to the risk of obesity and suggests “excess adiposity” - fat tissue - is more dangerous to the heart than smoking.

“The leading theory in cardiology right now is that the fat tissue is actually producing factors that precipitate heart attacks,” says lead author Dr. Peter McCullough, consultant cardiologist and chief of nutrition and prevention medicine at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan.

The theory is that cholesterol builds up in the coronary arteries and inflammatory or other chemicals produced by fat cells trigger the plaque to suddenly rupture, causing a blood clot to form and unleashing an acute heart attack.

But until now, earlier studies “simply just didn’t have enough patients of different body sizes having their first heart attack to really evaluate” whether obesity is associated with premature heart attacks, McCullough says.

His team analyzed data from a nationwide U.S. registry of people hospitalized for heart attack and unstable angina, or chest pain, from 2001 to 2007.

A total of 111,847 men and women who had experienced a first heart attack were included in the final analysis. They were grouped according to their body mass index, or BMI, a measure of body fat based on height and weight.

Researchers found that, the heavier the person, the younger the age of a first heart attack.

The most obese people had their heart attacks on average when they were 59.

That compares to about 75 for the leanest group (average body weight 47 kilograms, or about 103 pounds, meaning they were actually considered underweight), and 71 for people of “normal” weight, where the average weight is 65 kilograms, or about 142 pounds.

The most obese group had a BMI of 40 or more and weighed on average 127 kilograms, or 280 pounds.

“It’s not uncommon in daily life to see people at that size,” McCullough says. “I’m sure there are people in your office and people you see all the time at that body weight.”

The rate of diabetes was 17 per cent in the leanest group, and 49 per cent in the most obese. “You can get a feeling of how obesity-driven diabetes is,” McCullough says.

All the patients, regardless of body size, had about the same level of LDL cholesterol, the so-called bad cholesterol thought to be a major risk factor for heart attacks. That means the excess fat is causing heart disease in other ways, McCullough says.

In addition, rates of smoking were equal across the board. “We really can’t blame it on smoking.”

“Those patients at the highest body weight on average lost 12 years of life before their first heart attack.” The second most important factor was smoking, “where they lost just under 10 years of life before a first heart attack.

“This is really the first study that shows now that some factors are more powerful than smoking in terms of the prematurity of myocardial infarction (a heart attack),” McCullough says.

The study involved a type of heart attack called non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction. They always require hospitalization and have an in-hospital fatality rate of about 10 per cent, and about 20 per cent over the next six months, McCullough says. “They are not trivial events. They account for a leading cause of patients to lose time away from work and actually seek medical disability.”

The study clearly shows “that, contrary to some of the arguments out there about whether or not excess weight may be protective … there is a tremendous risk difference in terms of having your first heart attack if you are overweight or obese,” says Dr. Arya Sharma, chair of obesity research and management at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

“You’re having a heart attack a decade before those who don’t have a weight problem,” Sharma says. “And 59 is actually a very young age. These are people who aren’t even close to retirement.”

McCullough says people could reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease by losing weight and body fat. According to the Canadian Community Health Survey, 23 per cent of Canadians aged 18 and older are obese.
Source: http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=b172edd0-a4c2-41a3-bd89-a00f698871e1

Women with breast cancer who are treated with lumpectomy and radiation report a high level of overall quality of life several years after treatment that is comparable to a general sampling of the adult women U.S. population according to a survey conducted by physicians at Fox Chase Cancer Center.

“Treatments for breast cancer may decrease quality of life temporarily, but this is evidence that survivors on average will return to a normal quality of life,” said Gary Freedman, M.D., an attending physician in the department of radiation oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center who led the survey. Freedman’s research was presented today at the 50th annual meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology.

The study included women with early stage breast cancer treated with breast-conserving surgery and radiation with or without chemotherapy and hormone therapy. During routine follow-up visits with their oncologist, the women were asked to complete a brief questionnaire. Of the 1,050 women surveyed, 32 percent submitted 1 survey, 29 percent submitted 2, 21 percent submitted 3 and 18 percent submitted 4 or more surveys. The women were at various points in their follow-up — from 3 months to 15 years after treatment. The mean follow-up time between treatment and the survey (midway between the two extremes) was 3 years.

The survey tool used is called EQ-5D, a standardized and validated instrument for measuring health outcomes. There are 5 general questions about health including questions about mobility, self-care, anxiety/depression, pain/discomfort, and ability to perform usual activities. The survey allows for three possible levels of response (1 = no problems, 2 = some problems, or 3 = extreme problems). The answers are combined to determine a health state for each woman at the time of the survey. Considering the 5 questions and 3 possible answers for each, there were 243 possible health states. An index number between 0 and 1 was assigned to each health state. The index scores gathered in this survey were compared to a survey of the general U.S. adult population (Luo et al Med Care 2005; 43:1078-86).

There were no significant differences in health states between patients by age. The mean index score 5 years after treatment was 0.95 for women ages 18

Obesity significantly increases the risk of recurrent miscarriages, UK researchers have claimed.

When the body mass index (BMI) of almost 700 women who had experienced at least three unexplained miscarriages was investigated, 45% of the women were found to be overweight or obese.

All women had previously undergone comprehensive investigations, but no cause as to why they kept miscarrying was established.

In total, 1% of the women were underweight, 54% were of normal weight, 30% were overweight and 15% were obese.

In those who went on to have a subsequent pregnancy, 19% of those who miscarried again were obese, compared to 11% who had a successful pregnancy.

Mothers being over the age of 35 and high numbers of previous miscarriages were associated with poor pregnancy outcome.

When maternal age and number of previous miscarriages were adjusted, obese women were shown to have a significantly increased risk of a further miscarriage compared to those with a normal weight.

“Ours is the first study to look directly at the link between BMI and recurrent miscarriage. It shows that obese women who experience recurrent miscarriage are at greater risk of subsequent pregnancy loss,” said Winnie Lo of St Mary’s Hospital, London.

Ms Lo advised that all women with recurrent miscarriage should be weighed at their first consultation. Those who are found to be obese should be counselled regarding the benefits of weight loss in increasing their chances of a successful pregnancy, she said.

“Programmes should be in place to help with the weight loss progress,” Ms Lo concluded.

The research was released at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists 7th International Scientific Meeting in Montreal.
Source: http://www.irishhealth.com/?level=4&id=14281

Being obese may dim a man’s chances of becoming a father, even if he is otherwise healthy, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that among 87 healthy men ages 19 to 48, those who were obese were less likely to have ever fathered a child. More importantly, they showed hormonal differences that point to a reduced reproductive capacity, the researchers report in the journal Fertility and Sterility.

Compared with their thinner counterparts, obese men had lower levels of testosterone in their blood, as well as lower levels of luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) — both essential to reproduction.

According to the researchers, these relatively low levels of LH and FSH are suggestive of a “partial” hypogonadotropic hypogonadism. This is a condition in which the testes do not function properly due to signaling problems in the hypothalamus or pituitary gland, two brain structures involved in hormone secretion.

The findings suggest that obesity alone is an “infertility factor” in otherwise healthy men, write Dr. Eric M. Pauli and his colleagues at the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine in Hershey.

Of the 87 men in the study, 68 percent had had a child. Pauli’s team found that the average body mass index, or BMI, was lower among these men compared with those who’d never fathered a child; in the former group, the average BMI was 28, which falls into the range for “overweight,” while the average BMI for childless men was nearly 32, which falls into the “obese” range.

When the researchers assessed the men for several reproductive hormones, they found that the more obese a man was, the lower was his LH and FSH levels. On the other hand, increasing obesity correlated with increasing estrogen levels.

Excess body fat, Pauli’s team explains, may increase the conversion of testosterone to estrogen in a man’s blood. Such hormone alterations could, in turn, signal the brain to suppress FSH and LH production.

Past studies have linked obesity with a dampened libido and increased risk of erectile dysfunction, the researchers note. Those effects, they say, along with the hormonal alterations seen in this study, could act together to decrease an obese man’s fertility.
Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSKEN97315720080919

Regular moderate exercise helps people with diabetes to reduce fat in their livers, in turn potentially preventing liver failure and heart disease, U.S. researchers said on Friday.

People with type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease and one closely tied to obesity, often have elevated liver fat levels and are at high risk for a condition called nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

Diabetics who did a six-month program of cardiovascular exercise and weight lifting three times a week cut the fat in their livers by about 40 percent in the study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

They said the study, which used magnetic resonance imaging scans, is the first to show exercise can get fat out of the livers of people with type 2 diabetes.

“What we were able to demonstrate pretty definitively is that yet another benefit of exercise is to help reduce liver fat,” Johns Hopkins exercise physiologist Kerry Stewart said in a telephone interview.

Stewart presented the findings at an American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation meeting in Indianapolis.

The condition, also known as hepatic steatosis, can lead to cirrhosis of the liver, liver failure, liver cancer and a higher risk for diabetes-related heart problems.

Seventy-seven men and women with diabetes, most of whom were overweight or obese, took part in the study.

About half were assigned to moderate exercise including 45 minutes of running on a treadmill, using a stair-climbing machine or riding a bicycle for 45 minutes three times a week, along with 20 minutes of lifting weights.

The others were not placed in any formal fitness program, and most got little physical activity. At the end of six months, they had no improvement in liver fat.

Those in the exercise group also improved their overall fitness, shedding weight, gaining muscle strength and losing abdominal fat.

Type 2 diabetes is a growing problem in the United States and many other countries, fueled by increasing obesity. The American Diabetes Association said about 24 million people in the United States have diabetes, mostly type 2.
source: http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSN1944083420080919?sp=true

Thinner men in middle age, or those who lose substantial weight as they Action Points
Explain to interested patients that the study found men who were relatively thin when young or who lost weight as they aged were at increased risk of osteoporosis.

Explain that osteoporosis is a significant problem for older men, though less common than in women.

Explain that several treatment approaches are available for osteoporosis.
grow older, may have brittle bones in their 70s, researchers here said.
Some 15.1% of men who lost 10% or more of their body weight after their late 40s had osteoporosis when they reached 75, compared with 0.6% of those who had weight gains of at least 10%, reported Haakon E. Meyer, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Oslo, and colleagues in the Aug. 15 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.

The researchers, who studied nearly 1,500 men over a 30-year period, found that combination of low initial weight and subsequent weight loss was an even stronger risk factor for osteoporosis.

The prevalence of osteoporosis in the quartile with the lowest baseline body mass index and who later lost at least 5% of body weight was 31% (95% CI 24% to 37%), compared with 4% (95% CI 1% to 7%) for those in the lowest quartile of BMI with weight gains of at least 5%.

“Low BMI in middle-age men was related to the risk of osteoporosis three decades later and … this risk was modulated considerably by later weight change,” Dr. Meyer and colleagues wrote.

They said a clinical implication of their findings is that weight loss, while generally beneficial, is not risk-free. “When considering weight-loss interventions, the effect on osteoporosis and fracture should also be included and, if possible, counteracted,” they suggested.

Slimness and short-term weight loss are already recognized as a risk factor for osteoporosis for men as well as women, the researchers said, but their effects had not previously been studied for such a long period.

The new findings emerged from studies of 1,476 Norwegian men in the cities of Oslo and Tromsø who underwent general health exams from 1972 to 1975 and again from 2000 to 2001. The follow-up screening also included bone mineral density testing of the hip.

Participants were 47 to 49 years old during the first scan and 75 to 77 at the second. The time between exams ranged from 26 to 29 years.

Mean baseline BMI was 24.4 (SD 2.6). At follow-up, mean BMI was 26.5 (SD 3.3), with mean weight change of 5.2% (SD 10.2%).

Weight change was inversely associated with baseline BMI (r = -0.21).

Mean age-adjusted bone mineral density at follow-up was 0.933 g/cm2 in the lowest quartile of baseline BMI, versus 1.024 g/cm2 in the highest quartile.

From the lowest to highest baseline BMI quartiles, the prevalence of osteoporosis was 10.9%, 3.5%, 4.4% and 1.2%, respectively, after adjusting for age and smoking status.

Dr. Meyer and colleagues calculated that total hip bone mineral density increased by 0.029 g/cm2 (95% CI 0.023 to 0.036) for each 10% of weight gain between evaluations.

This result was almost completely unaffected when the researchers excluded more than 800 participants who had serious comorbidities known to affect osteoporosis risk.

They also estimated that men in the lowest quartile of BMI who lost at least 5% of body weight would be 2.79 times as likely to suffer a future hip fracture relative to those in the highest quartile and with stable weight.

“Weight change might act on the skeleton through changes in mechanical loading, changes in mechanical muscle stress, changes in hormone regulation of bone metabolism, and changes in intake of nutrients,” the researchers wrote in addressing possible mechanisms.

Altered smoking habits or physical activity can affect weight as well as osteoporosis risk, they said.

They said a limitation on their analysis was that they did not have actual fracture data for participants nor information on family history of fractures.

Also, the lack of bone mineral density testing at the initial evaluation precluded a direct comparison with weight change over time.
Source: http://www.medpagetoday.com/Endocrinology/Osteoporosis/tb/10982

Watching too much television may not only help make children fat, it may also raise their blood pressure, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

They found obese children who watched four or more hours of TV a day were three times more likely to have high blood pressure than children who watched less than two hours a day.

“There is a significant association between hours of television watched and both the severity of obesity and the presence of hypertension in obese children,” Dr. Jeffrey Schwimmer of the University of California, San Diego and colleagues wrote in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Many studies have found a strong link between watching TV and obesity, but this is the first study to show a link between TV and blood pressure in obese children and teens, the researchers wrote.

Obesity in children is on the rise, increasing the risk of heart disease and diabetes. And high blood pressure in children has been rising in right along with obesity rates.

The problem is often undiagnosed in children, and if undetected, high blood pressure can quietly damage the organs, especially the kidneys.

Schwimmer worked with researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of South Alabama. They studied 546 children and teens aged 4 to 17 seen at weight management clinics from 2003 to 2005.

Height and weight were measured to determine a body mass index, or BMI, and blood pressure was recorded.

Children were considered obese if their BMI measures were above the 95th percentile for age and gender. Children in the study had a mean BMI of 35.5. In adults, a BMI of 30 or higher is considered obese.

The children and their parents estimated how much time they spent watching TV, and a doctor reviewed and confirmed their estimates.

The researchers found children who watched two to four hours of TV were 2.5 times more likely to have high blood pressure compared with those who watched less than two hours of television a day. Those who watched more than 4 hours per day were 3.3 times more likely to have hypertension.

The authors said the study illustrates the need for parents to curb their children’s TV time, especially for children who are already obese or have high blood pressure.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends children watch fewer than two hours of TV per day.

Some 17 percent of U.S. children are obese, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Source: http://www.canada.com/topics/bodyandhealth/story.html?id=d23d08f5-3041-494a-ab7a-d52ea6d914a4

Just three tumour proteins can indicate lung cancer as much as a year before symptoms emerge, U.S. researchers said on Monday in a finding that may lead to a blood test for lung cancer within five years.

They said an analysis of blood samples taken from smokers found three proteins or antigens were present in more than half of the people who later developed lung cancer.

“The fact that we got a signal like this with just three biomarkers is very significant,” Dr. Samir Hanash of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle said in a statement.
“If we can enlarge this panel by adding a few more, we could develop a blood test with sufficient sensitivity and specificity for detecting lung cancer much earlier than current screening methods allow,” said Hanash, whose research appears in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

The lung cancer test uses immune-system signals in the same way as blood tests now used to detect human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, which causes AIDS. It looks for an immune response.

“What is going on in cancer is the immune system recognizes the presence of tumour antigens as foreign proteins, even though they are made by cancer cells we have in us,” Hanash said in a telephone interview.

“The immune system thinks those are aberrant proteins and it needs to respond against them.”

Hanash wanted to see if three biomarkers linked with early-stage lung cancer could be detected in the blood of people before any symptoms appeared.

The researchers were looking for two previously identified tumour antigens, annexin1 and 14-3-3 theta, as well as a newly discovered lung cancer antigen, LAMR1.

They tested blood samples from

85 current or former smokers collected within a year of lung-cancer diagnosis and samples from 85 current or former smokers who did not develop cancer.

They found three proteins were present in 51 per cent of the people who went on to develop lung cancer.

“This was a critical step to pass to show that, in fact, a set of antigens do show positivity even before a diagnosis of lung cancer, at a time when subjects don’t have any symptoms,” Hanash said.

The next step is to see if the blood test used in conjunction with computed tomography, or CT scans, can boost early diagnosis of lung cancer, perhaps catching cancers the scan missed.

Eventually, the team wants to have a lung cancer blood test approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“That will take maybe five years if every step of the way we are successful,” he said.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in men and the second-leading cause of cancer death in women worldwide, according to the American Cancer Society.
Source: http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/reallife/story.html?id=3449a6b8-95a7-426f-8bc5-7379ddbe85f5

An experimental breast cancer vaccine makes mice reject tumors — even cancers no longer sensitive to Herceptin.

The vaccine targets breast cancers that grow wildly in response to a growth factor called HER-2. About 25% of women with breast cancer have HER-2 positive tumors.

Herceptin, a man-made antibody approved for the treatment of breast cancer, targets these cancers. But after a while, tumor cells often become resistant to Herceptin.

The new vaccine elicits immune responses that kill HER-2 positive breast tumors in mice, whether or not they’ve become Herceptin resistant, says Wei-Zen Wei, PhD, professor of immunology at Detroit’s Karmanos Cancer Institute.

“Regardless of whether tumor cells are resistant, if immune cells are properly primed by immunization we can destroy these cells,” Wei tells WebMD.

The vaccine developed by Wei’s team uses DNA that carries the genetic code for a key piece of the HER-2 molecule. After injection of the DNA into the skin, a small electric pulse is administered to help cells take up the DNA and produce the protein that elicits immune responses.

Mice given the vaccine made anti-HER-2 antibodies. The vaccine also primed cellular immune responses that attacked breast cancer tumors. These cellular responses alone were enough to kill HER-2 positive cells in mice unable to make antibodies.

A version of the vaccine is now undergoing human safety tests.

Last April, a different HER-2 vaccine made headlines when it halved the number of deaths in women with HER-2 positive breast cancer. The vaccine also slowed breast cancer recurrence.

However, researchers at San Antonio’s Brooke Army Medical Center found that 26 months after vaccination, there was no significant difference in cancer recurrence between vaccinated and unvaccinated women.

Gary Yang, MD, associate professor of radiation medicine at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y., says these human studies are a major step forward.

“These studies accomplished a lot — but we need to find out why the immune system cannot sustain this efficacy,” Yang tells WebMD.

Yang says that is why Wei’s team’s work is so important. What’s learned in the lab must be tested in patients — and then more lab work is needed to answer questions raised by human studies.

“The clinical research into breast cancer vaccines is not going to be a home run,” he says.

Wei is convinced that in the long run, vaccines will prove to be powerful cancer treatments.

“Ultimately, we will be using the best defense we have to fight cancer — the human immune system,” she says. “It is a very challenging thing to do. We hope we have reached a point where we can make it useful to patients.”
Source: http://www.webmd.com/breast-cancer/news/20080915/new-vaccine-fights-breast-cancer-tumors