obesity tagged posts

A new study finds that the pleasure center of the brain and the brain’s biological clock are linked, and that high-calorie foods – which bring pleasure – disrupt normal feeding schedules, resulting in overconsumption.

During the years 1976 through 1980, 15% of U.S. adults were obese. Today, about 40% of adults are obese. Another 33% are overweight.

Coinciding with this increase in weight are ever-rising rates of heart disease, diabetes, cancer and health complications caused by obesity, such as hypertension...

Effects of hepatic Ago2-deficiency on MD-miRNA expression in the liver

New treatment for a major health problem? Obesity and its related ailments like type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease pose a major global health burden, but researchers report in Nature Communications that blocking an RNA-silencing protein in the livers of mice keeps the animals from getting fat and diabetic conditions.

Takahisa Nakamura, PhD, and colleagues at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center genetically deleted a protein called Argonaute 2 (Ago2) from the livers of mice. Ago2 controls the silencing of RNA in cells, affecting energy metabolism in the body, according to the study...

Norbert Leitinger, Ph.D. (left), and Vlad Serbulea, Ph.D., of the University of Virginia School of Medicine, have determined why obesity causes harmful inflammation that can lead to diabetes, clogged arteries and other health problems. Doctors may be able to use this knowledge to battle these chronic diseases and others driven by damaging inflammation.
Credit: Dan Addison, University of Virginia Communications

Finding points to new approaches to battling diabetes, other chronic conditions. New research from the University of Virginia School of Medicine explains why obesity causes harmful inflammation that can lead to diabetes, clogged arteries and other health problems. Doctors may be able to use this knowledge to battle these chronic diseases and others driven by damaging inflammation...

More than 135,500 cases of cancer a year in the UK could be prevented through lifestyle changes, according to new figures from a Cancer Research UK landmark study published today.* This equates to 37.7% of all cancers diagnosed each year in the UK – rising to 41.5% in Scotland.

The latest figures, calculated from 2015 cancer data, found that smoking remains the biggest preventable cause of cancer despite the continued decline in smoking rates. Tobacco smoke caused around 32,200 cases of cancer in men (17.7% of all male cancer cases) and around 22,000 (12.4%) in women in 2015, according to the research published in the British Journal of Cancer.

Excess weight is the second biggest preventable cause of cancer. Around 22,800 (6...