According to a recent study, about half of the U. S. population has a gene variant that allows more efficient fat burning than others who don't have the gene variant. Good news, right? Not necessarily, according to Edward Weiss, Ph.D., assistant professor of nutrition and dietetics at Doisy College of Health Sciences at Saint Louis University. Although those with the variant gene processed more fat, this prevented their bodies from being able to remove sugar from the blood stream, contributing to a greater risk for the development diabetes.

While there are many other factors involved in the development of diabetes, the fat burning gene variant may play an important role.

Labels: fat, genetics, research

Surgery is not the answer for obesity unless all other (less invasive) options for weight reduction have failed. But for those who have tried everything and still have a body mass index of 40 or above (about 100 pounds overweight) and health risk factors such as high blood pressure, sleep apnea, and diabetes, the best option for weight reduction is often gastric bypass surgery. In this procedure, the surgeon reshapes the stomach into a small pouch and connects it to the middle of the small intestine. The remainder of the stomach and the upper portion of the small intestine are "bypassed," which both limits food intake and reduces calorie absorption from food.

Unfortunately, gastric bypass has serious risks such as intestinal blockage, leakage and bleeding and severe nutritional deficiency.

A more recent surgery approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for adults is the lap band surgery. In this procedure, a band (inflatable silicon ring) is placed around the upper portion of the stomach, creating a smaller stomach. This helps the person to limit food portions because he feels full with a smaller amount of food.

The lap band procedure is also "adjustable," because the silicon ring is attached to a port placed under the skin at the time of surgery. Injection of saline (salt water) into the port will inflate the ring, causing the stomach to become smaller. Removing saline through the port will deflate the ring, causing the stomach to become larger.

The lap band procedure has had good results in adults, with most people losing about 50 percent of their weight within a year following surgery. Ann additional benefit is that this procedure has fewer complications associated with it than with gastric bypass surgery.

The FDA has recently approved three medical sites in the U. S. to perform lap band surgery on obese adolescents in order to evaluate how successful it might be in this population. Adolescents involved in the study have tried unsuccessfully to lose weight under medical supervision and have serious obesity-related health problems.

To date, the adolescents have done remarkably well, with weight loss similar to adults who have had the procedure, and fewer and less serious complications than those experienced with gastric bypass surgery.

Labels: gastric_bypass_surgery, lap_band_surgery, weight_loss_surgery

Children who sleep more are less likely to be overweight, a new study from Northwestern University shows.

Among children ages 3 to 8 years, just one extra hour of sleep a night decreases a child's chances of being overweight from 36% to 30%. Among the 8 to 13 years old group, an extra hour lowered the odds from 34% to 30%.

The researchers kept track of 2281 children who were ages 3 to 12 years at the beginning of the five-year study.

Emily Snell, lead researcher, said that a lack of sleep might affect hormones that regulate appetite. She recommended that children ages 5 to 12 years sleep 10 to 11 hours a night. For adolescents, that number is 8 to 9 hours. The seven-year-olds in the study averaged less than 10 hours on weekdays. This study appears in the February 2007 issue of Child Development.

Labels: appetite, overweight, sleep