To any dieter who has ever sworn off bread and pasta, the next sentence may come as no surprise. A new study, published in the Nov.9th issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, shows that after dieting for one year, people following strict, low-carb diets had more bad moods than dieters eating a high-carb (albeit low-fat) diet. And, …
Obesity
More pint-sized patients getting grown-up surgeries
Childhood obesity rates are through the roof. In the past 30 years, the percentage of overweight kids has nearly tripled in every age group, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Obesity in children is defined as a body mass index, BMI, at or above the 95th percentile for children of the same age and sex.) The …
Slow food: Good for the planet and the waistline
The slow food movement may have started as a means to support sustainable food practices but a slew of recent studies show eating slowly and mindfully has plenty of physical perks as well.
For instance, a study slated for upcoming publication in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism shows that those who snarf their food …
Forget about acne: Heart disease may be the new teenage rite of passage
A 7-year study peering into the heart health of 20,000 Canadian teens uncovered that most already have at least one major risk factor for heart disease. The findings, presented this week at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress, showed that rates of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and obesity among the sampling of the country’s 14- …
Just a little respect? Not for obese patients
A new study seems to confirm what many obese people have long suspected…that doctors think less of their heaviest patients. For the study, published in the November issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, collected data from 238 obese patients …
Obese moms struggle to manage pregnancy weight gain
Any woman who has given birth knows that shedding baby weight can be a long and arduous process. Now scientists are finding that women who start off with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher—technically obese—are at a huge disadvantage. According to the new study, slated to appear in next month’s issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology, …
Does targeting fast food joints actually help combat obesity?
A law put into effect in July 2008 that banned fast food restaurants in a section of Los Angeles for one year may have been well intended, but missed the point, according to a study by the non-profit research organization, RAND Corporation, published online in the journal Health Affairs. Economist Roland Sturm and natural scientist …
A mysterious decline in hip fractures
Hip fractures may be one of the most devastating injuries that humans face, but they’re also less frequent than they used to be. Today Canadian researchers announce that the hip-fracture rate fell 31.8% for Canadian women and 25% for Canadian men between 1985 and 2005. (A decline has also been noted in the U.S., but over a shorter …
Cutting sugar from your diet? There’s an easy place to start
The American Heart Association is urging Americans not to eat so much sugar — a major villain in the country’s obesity epidemic, and a possible cause of other risk factors for heart disease too, including high blood pressure. Adult women should generally eat no more than six teaspoons per day of added sugars (100 calories) and men …
Ad for healthy school meals raises eyebrows at the White House
The White House isn’t happy with a new poster ad in DC metro stations, according to the Washington Post. The ad depicts an eight-year-old girl with the speech bubble, “President Obama’s daughters get healthy school lunches. Why don’t I?”
The poster comes from the non-profit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a group …
Four lifestyle rules to keep you healthy
Follow four simple rules and you could reduce your chronic-disease risk by as much as 80%, according to a new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The golden lifestyle rules: never smoking, maintaining a healthy body weight, exercising regularly, and eating a balanced diet.
Sounds simple? It is — and yet only 9% of the nearly …
Is My Child Overweight?
Recently I wrote an article for TIME about the struggle between parents and pediatricians when a child is too heavy. Many well-intentioned parents, it seems, don’t recognize signs that their own kid is overweight, especially when the child is still young (say, before adolescence). This parental ignorance may itself be because a …
Burning More Energy, Naturally
Scientists say they’ve engineered mouse and human cells to make more “brown fat” — the stuff the body uses to convert stored fat into heat. They hope this finding can lead to a simple new obesity treatment.
