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The Risks of Being Overweight During Pregnancy

Many pregnant women are unaware of being overweight or obese, and lack knowledge of the risks it poses to their possible pregnancy, according to findings published in the Medical Journal of Australia. Associate Professor Leonie Callaway and her colleagues surveyed 412 women in early pregnancy that attended a public antenatal clinic or were patients of a private obstetrician.

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Obesity Rates May Be Leveling Off

Here is some remarkable news. We, meaning Americans in general, have finally begun to stop getting fatter. Not that we are any thinner, but at least our national weight expansion has leveled off. This semi-encouraging news comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Women Can Quit Smoking While Controlling for Weight Gain

There are many women who hesitate to quit smoking because they fear gaining weight. Nicotine is known to suppress appetite and boost a smoker's metabolism. A new meta-analysis published in the journal, Addiction, shows that women who quit smoking while receiving treatment for weight control are better able to control their weight gain and are more successful at quitting cigarettes.

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Obesity Gene Also Codes for Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

The gene that codes for susceptibility to obesity also predisposes a woman to polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a common cause of infertility, a recent study discovered.

The study, done by Tom Barber and his colleagues from the Oxford Center for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, of the University of Oxford and Imperial College London, was presented at the annual Society for Endocrinology BES meeting in Britain.

Quicker Dementia Linked to Obesity and Heart Disease

Obesity, along with the diabetes and heart disease that often accompany it, can quicken the onset of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, according to a series of four recent studies, which also point to the importance of adopting practices aimed at early prevention of brain ills.

“This is an important message,” said Ronald C. Petersen, chairman of the Medical and Scientific Advisory Council of the Alzheimer’s Association and director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the Mayo Clinic. He was not involved in the studies, which were published in the journal Neurology. “Development of cognitive decline need not be a passive process. We are not all just sitting here and aging, and sooner or later it’s going to hit us. In fact, there may be some modifiable lifestyle factors that may influence our risk of developing cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease down the road.”

Fatty-Liver Disease Retreats With Weight Loss

If patients lose 9 percent of their body weight, a dangerous condition of the liver can be reversed, a recent study has shown.

The condition, known as nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), is characterized by an abnormal, usually obesity-caused buildup of fat in the liver. This produces inflammation, which damages sensitive liver tissue, resulting in the formation of scar tissue, and eventual liver hardening and impairment of the organ’s function.

Obese Don't Lose Weight Even After Health Breakdowns

Smoking and obesity are two of the biggest risk factors for chronic and deadly diseases. So it would seem that if a smoker or an obese person suffered a heart attack or stroke, or was diagnosed with lung disease, cancer or diabetes, he would quit smoking or lose a lot of weight – fast.

It turns out, however, that, while smokers are three times more likely to quit after a serious health scare than before, obese and overweight people lose only two to three pounds under the same circumstances. The findings were published recently in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

For Obese, Losing a Little Helps a Lot

If obese people lose even a moderate amount of weight, their risk of developing serious health problems, especially heart disease, is dramatically lowered, according to a recent study.

The research, done by doctors at the Methodist DeBakey Heart and Vascular Center in Houston, Texas, is good news for the roughly 50 million Americans who suffer from so-called metabolic syndrome, a cluster of risk factors that lead to heart disease. A person is said to have this syndrome when he exhibits any three of the following five abnormalities: abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, high blood triglyceride levels, low HDL (“good”) cholesterol and blood sugar problems (such as insulin resistance or high fasting blood glucose).

Lifestyle Changes Effective Against Child Obesity

Obese children and teenagers can lose significant weight through lifestyle changes that are occasionally paired with medication, a Dutch team has found in reviewing 64 randomized, controlled studies from five continents.

The overview found that what is known as behavioral lifestyle therapy produces good weight-loss results. Such therapy focused on changing children's thinking patterns and behaviors by teaching them, for example, to have breakfast and to eat regular, portion-controlled meals. Teaching kids to reduce inactive conduct such as watching TV, and to increase physical activity, is also beneficial. To change thinking patterns that promoted unhealthy eating and lack of physical activity, children were educated in using techniques such as self-awareness, self-monitoring, stress management and goal setting.

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Fast Eating Increases Fatness

Wolfing your food and at the same time eating until you feel full cause a near tripling of the risk of being overweight, according to a recent study from Japan's Osaka University.

The researchers, who published their work in the British Medical Journal, used special questionnaires to analyze the eating habits of 1,122 men and 2,165 women ages 30 to 69. The subjects assessed their speed of eating (very slow, slow, medium, fast, very fast) and reported whether they ate until full.

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