Obesity News and Research

Latest Obesity News and Research

Interleukin-6 could affect hunger and satiety

Researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have identified a molecule in the immune system that could affect hunger and satiety. The researchers hope that new treatments for obesity will benefit from this finding.

24 Sep 2012

Study finds race-specific effect of age and body weight on blood pressure in children

Obesity in black children more severely impacts blood pressure than in white children who are equally overweight, according to a new study presented at the American Heart Association's High Blood Pressure Research 2012 Scientific Sessions.

24 Sep 2012

Study looks at effect of all dietary antioxidants in relation to myocardial infarction

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.

24 Sep 2012

What moms eat before pregnancy affects children epigenetically

Everyone knows that what mom eats when pregnant makes a huge difference in the health of her child. Now, new research in mice suggests that what she ate before pregnancy might be important too. According to a new research report published online in The FASEB Journal, what a group of female mice ate-before pregnancy-chemically altered their DNA and these changes were passed to her offspring. These DNA alterations, called "epigenetic" changes, drastically affected the pups' metabolism of many essential fatty acids.

21 Sep 2012

Smoking, obesity and lack of insurance may be shortening life span for some Americans

The New York Times reports that the nation's life-expectancy trend has reversed by four years since 1990 for the country's least-educated whites.

21 Sep 2012

NCI awards Provocative Questions grant to Mount Sinai School of Medicine researchers

Two Mount Sinai School of Medicine researchers are among a select group of scientists from around the world who have been recognized by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) for their quest to answer the most pressing questions about cancer. Stuart Aaronson, MD, Professor and Chair of Oncological Sciences and Ross Cagan, PhD, Professor of Oncological Sciences at Mount Sinai, have received the NCI's new "Provocative Questions" grant, which was established to explore the important yet less obvious questions about cancer that may have been neglected in this era of significant discovery.

21 Sep 2012

Physical and mental health improves on moving to lower-poverty neighborhood

Moving from a high-poverty to lower-poverty neighborhood spurs long-term gains in the physical and mental health of low-income adults, as well as a substantial increase in their happiness, despite not improving economic self-sufficiency, according to a new study published in the Sept. 20 issue of Science by researchers at the University of Chicago and partners at other institutions.

21 Sep 2012

Obese, but metabolically healthy

A person can be obese and metabolically healthy at the same time, which means that this person will have the same mortality risk for heart disease or cancer that people of normal weight.

21 Sep 2012

First Edition: September 21, 2012

Today's headlines include reports about recent polling results indicating that, despite GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's efforts to frame the Medicare debate, President Barack Obama still has the advantage on this issue.

21 Sep 2012

Location of fat determines diabetes risk in obesity

New tools are needed to discriminate risk for prediabetes and diabetes among obese individuals, suggest findings from a US study.

21 Sep 2012

Cancer fears allayed for shingles patients

Herpes zoster infection, or shingles, is not associated with cancer, show results from a study published in the Canadian Journal of Medicine

21 Sep 2012

Children with mild to moderate kidney disease have carotid atherosclerosis

A federally funded study led by researchers at Johns Hopkins Children's Center has found that children with mild to moderate kidney disease have abnormally thick neck arteries, a condition known as carotid atherosclerosis, usually seen in older adults with a long history of elevated cholesterol and untreated hypertension.

21 Sep 2012

Glucocorticoids can thwart androgen receptor activity and regulate fat storage

In the body's ongoing effort to maintain a healthy weight, an arsenal of cellular proteins called androgen receptors is critical for blocking fat accumulation. Now researchers reporting in the September issue of the Cell Press Journal Chemistry & Biology have discovered that naturally occurring steroids called glucocorticoids can thwart the receptors' activity, ultimately encouraging fat buildup.

21 Sep 2012

Itrim programme effectively reduces weight among obese people

Anyone who wants to lose weight has a wide variety of diets to choose from, but knowledge of what works is often poor. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Uppsala University have now evaluated a Swedish commercial weight loss programme called Itrim, and found it to be effective. After one year, participants had lost 11 kg on average.

21 Sep 2012

Researchers use nanoparticles to deliver drugs to mitochondria within cells

Nanoparticles have shown great promise in the targeted delivery of drugs to cells, but researchers at the University of Georgia have refined the drug delivery process further by using nanoparticles to deliver drugs to a specific organelle within cells.

21 Sep 2012

MiR-34a plays a key role in obesity

Scientists have identified a key molecular player in a chain of events in the body that can lead to fatty liver disease, Type II diabetes and other metabolic abnormalities associated with obesity. By blocking this molecule, the researchers were able to reverse some of the pathology it caused in obese mice.

21 Sep 2012

High uric acid precursor of obesity, metabolic syndrome

The relationship between uric acid and early cardiometabolic risk may precede obesity and the metabolic syndrome, show study findings.

20 Sep 2012

Bisphenol A may contribute to childhood obesity

Research published in JAMA demonstrates strong evidence of a link between childhood obesity and bisphenol A exposure.

20 Sep 2012

Stress may play a major role in obesity epidemic and contribute to racial disparities

Could the impact of chronic stress explain why American black girls are more likely to be overweight than white girls? According to Dr. Tomiyama of the University of California, Los Angeles in the U.S., and her colleagues, higher levels of stress over 10 years predict greater increases in body weight over time in both black and white girls.

20 Sep 2012