Obesity News and Research

Latest Obesity News and Research

High levels of chronic and acute illnesses in Palestinian refugees

New research draws attention to the continuing and urgent health emergency facing Palestinians living under occupation, especially the health and wellbeing issues surrounding refugees from the occupied Palestinian territories. Abstracts of the research, which were presented at the fourth meeting of The Lancet Palestinian Health Alliance in March 2012, are published online in The Lancet.

8 Oct 2012

Kaiser Permanente to improve food offerings in 37 hospitals

Kaiser Permanente, a champion of healthy eating, announced Saturday it has signed a commitment with the Partnership for a Healthier America to improve food offerings in its 37 hospitals.

8 Oct 2012

Department of Veterans Affairs implements pilot version of Diabetes Prevention Program

The Department of Veterans Affairs today announced the implementation of a pilot version of the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP), a program being promoted nationally by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, aimed at reducing the number of Veterans who develop diabetes.

6 Oct 2012

DPP-inhibitors reduce cardiovascular events in diabetes patients

Type 2 diabetes patients who are treated with dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors have a significantly reduced risk for cardiovascular events, particularly myocardial infarction, compared with their peers who take placebo or other drugs, results of a meta-analysis show.

5 Oct 2012

UCLA project to promote healthy nutrition and physical activity to curb obesity

Researchers at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have been awarded a $20 million federal grant to further their innovative efforts to curb obesity, a global pandemic that has reached the level of a national crisis in the United States.

5 Oct 2012

Overweight children more likely to take prescription medications

Overweight children are far more likely to take prescription medications than children of a normal weight-a trend that adds to already higher health-care costs for treating childhood obesity, according to new research from the University of Alberta.

5 Oct 2012

Hormone therapy offsets adverse metabolic effects of menopause

Long-term hormone therapy helps prevent the adverse metabolic effects that occur following menopause, research shows.

4 Oct 2012

The Center Helping Obesity In Children End Successfully receives Aetna Foundation grant

The Aetna Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Aetna, has awarded a $40,000 grant to The Center Helping Obesity In Children End Successfully (C.H.O.I.C.E.S.), an Atlanta-based nonprofit organization that works with communities in the metropolitan area to fight childhood obesity.

4 Oct 2012

Improvements to diagnosis and screening of sleep apnea are critical to stroke prevention

Improvements to the diagnosis and screening of sleep apnea are critical to stroke prevention, according to new stroke care guidelines released today at the Canadian Stroke Congress.

3 Oct 2012

Rising rates of obesity lead to increases in bariatric surgery

With rising rates of morbid obesity, the number of bariatric surgery procedures is likely to increase as well, reports a paper in the October issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).

3 Oct 2012

Direct link between pressure ulcers, patient mortality and increased hospitalization

A new clinical study spearheaded by the dean of UCLA's School of Nursing has found a direct correlation between pressure ulcers - commonly known as bedsores - and patient mortality and increased hospitalization.

3 Oct 2012

UIC to study policy and environmental factors that influence youth behaviors

The University of Illinois at Chicago's ImpacTeen project has been awarded a $4.4 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to study policy and environmental factors that influence youth behaviors related to nutrition, physical activity and obesity.

3 Oct 2012

Obesity from high-energy diets may impair brain, fuel overeating

"Betcha can't eat just one!" For obese people trying to lose weight, the Lays potato chip advertising slogan hits a bit too close to home as it describes the daily battle to resist high calorie foods.

3 Oct 2012

Statins linked to reduced glaucoma risk

Cholesterol-lowering medications in the statin class could significantly reduce the risk for developing open-angle glaucoma, show data for more than 500,000 older-age US individuals with hyperlipidemia.

2 Oct 2012

WBC counts in diabetes risk prediction

An elevated white blood cell count in young men is an independent predictor for the development of diabetes in later life, suggest study findings.

1 Oct 2012

Artificially sweet success at curbing childhood weight gain

Substituting sugar-sweetened drinks with artificially sweetened alternatives could help reduce weight gain in schoolchildren, research suggests.

1 Oct 2012

Dramatic rise in total knee arthroplasty, associated infection rates over past 20 years

Study findings document a steep rise in total knee arthroplasty procedures over the past 20 years, being driven by both an increase in the number of patients enrolled in Medicare and greater per capita utilization.

1 Oct 2012

Cafeteria diet increases risk of stroke or death at a younger age

The fat- and sugar-rich Western diet leads to a lifetime of health problems, dramatically increasing the risk of stroke or death at a younger age, according to a study presented today at the Canadian Stroke Congress.

1 Oct 2012

New insights on global fight to prevent cancers

New insights on the global fight to prevent cancers were presented during the ESMO 2012 Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology in Vienna. The studies highlight the challenges of overcoming misunderstandings about how important lifestyle factors are in reducing cancer risk.

1 Oct 2012

Extending sleep duration may help reduce risk of diabetes in youth

A new study suggests that increasing the amount of sleep that teenagers get could improve their insulin resistance and prevent the future onset of diabetes.

29 Sep 2012