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n order to fight obesity, it is important to understand how so plenty of people have become very fat in this modern day & age. Being so fat that you are classified as very fat is the result of consuming a high calorie diet of processed foods.

Who is to blame – the person eating the food, or the companies that make it?

To discover the causes of obesity you ought to take a closer look at the food they eat, why they are made to eat it & the contemporary lifestyle that fuels the consumption of these ‘fast foods’. Only then will you know how to fight obesity properly.

Your Inactive Lifestyle Choice

It is less hard than ever before to lead an inactive, sedentary life. Most professionals are table bound & overworked, a common set of circumstances that have been linked to obesity. Physical inactivity is the main culprit behind gaining weight over time. As the technology age has risen, leisure activities have been transferred from outside lively games & sports, to inside tv watching & digital gambling.

What this essentially does is it prevents you from burning any extra calories that you have gained throughout the day. Couple this with a high fat, high calorie diet & you are heading for a rapid spike in childhood & adult obesity rates.

With technology slowly replacing our basic need to venture out in to the open air, increasingly people are finding that to fight obesity is a near impossible task. The average day begins by driving or commuting to work, sitting at a table for 8 hours, returning home the same easy way, & then watching tv until you must do it all over again. This is no way to live or fight off obesity.

Fast Food Equals Fast Money

The processed food industry grows larger every year as the need for quicker, bigger meals replaces normal eating habits. Because people are more inactive than they five time were they gain weight, & consequently need to eat more every day to stay satisfied.

Fighting obesity has seldom been more difficult. Our entire society is built around processed foods.

Fast food corporations claim that they are only filling a need, or supplying what people need. They sell fast food to millions of people because it is less pricey than fresh produce. Processed foods packed with chemicals like MSG keep adults & kids coming back again & again.

Fast food restaurants litter the streets; grocery stores are stocking boxed, microwavable meals in lieu of fresh produce. You have virtually no chance of being of a normal weight if you are inactive & eat this kind of food.

Acomplia is yet one of the foremost competitors when it comes to diet pills. Each Rimonabant review ranks it quite high and with good reason too. It is just great at suppressing the appetite and is cheaper than most of the other brands. Also, without having to adhere to strict diets or undergo intensive exercise programs, the Rimonabant review will tell you that it is possible to lose weight fast in just a matter of a few weeks. Buy Generic Acomplia to Lose Weight Today !

We all have heard that men and women are from two different planets so does that mean our workouts should be different too?
What do you see most often when you walk into a gym? Chances are you will see most of the women up on the treadmills walking or running like a hamster on a wheel and most of the guys acting like they are big and tough by grunting through split workout routines… I am sure you’ve heard them, “Today’s a chest and back day, Man!”

Of the two, who is better off? When it comes to women’s workouts , they’re both wrong . Yes, our bodies are different, what we perceive as enjoyable for our workouts are different and that means our workouts are different too.

Treadmill workouts aren’t the answer … in fact, treadmill workouts are boring and and if you don’t have a proper program they can actually make you fatter . You will burn calories, some fat but you also burn your muscle, and you won’t tone your entire body and hit your goals . Your body is smart and doesn’t want to work harder than it has to, so i quickly gets used to your running. To ge results you have to keep adding more and more distance which means spending more and more time.

What the heck are you suppose to do? A combination of cardio and weights. Women’s workouts should include strength training for sure, but just not the grunting and split workouts the guys do. Total body will help you burn more calories, burn more fat and get better results faster.

If you want to give standard weight training a try aim for using weights light enough where you do sets of 12-15 reps but you can’t do more… or another option all together are circuit workotus. Circuits are great, they generally include 6-8 exercises that are performed back to back with little or no rest.

Once you finish the entire circuit enjoy a short break before doing the circuit 1 or more extra times!

Circuits are never boring because it progresses so quickly you can get your workout done in no time at all and feel as if you just worked out forever.

So do you need a new workout? Chances are yes… just don’t ask the moaning guy on the bench beside you for help .

There are many exemplars for ‘ super foods ‘ emerging from the Southern Hemisphere.  Fruit that are meant to not only taste great   but also help improve our health , fruits with amazing health benefits.  They have come in all shapes and sizes, from many sorts of countries.

A fortunate few  have proven to be able to back up their assertions of health benefits, others less so .  One of the newest of such super fruits to show itself is the Mangosteen.  Just Like the others, many people are saying terrific things about how beneficial the Mangosteen can be for our health.  But what are the actual facts?

Mangosteen Facts

The Mangosteen is the fruit of a plant indigenous to the Indonesia , which is why many people in the Western world have still not heard all about it .  This remoteness from Western research also explains why, till today , no one had made claims about the health benefits of the mangosteen – because until now researchers hadn’t had a chance to research it.

Not  that it doesn’t have a ancient history , far from it .  The health giving properties of the Mangosteen have been accepted for over 1400 years.  Locals used a dried and pulped version of the fruit and its rind to make potions and salves as long ago as 600AD

Mangosteen is a smallish fruit, aproximately a similar size as a tangerine.  The rind ( skin  ) of the Mangosteen is purplish and greenish , whilst the inner pulp is whitish .  This pulp is much sought after by locals as an exquisite tasting fruit.

Indeed the English Queen, Victoria (1819 – 1901) is said to have enjoyed the taste of the fruit so much that she offered to bestow knighthoods on anyone who brought her more some of the fruit , which shows how well it was regarded even in Victorian Britain!

Mangosteen Health Claims

As the Mangosteen is just recently starting to be extensively studied by scientists there is still much about it that we are yet to understand .  But initial scrutiny and research has brought a number of pertinent facts about the fruit in to the media . 

• The Mangosteen has over 40 different types of Xanthones in it, making it the strongest single source of Xanthones known to naturally occur .
• Xanthones are useful to our health in a many ways, not least acting as a powerful anti-inflammatory agent, stopping or reducing swelling.  Extremely useful for migraine sufferers.
• Antioxidants .  Antioxidants are vital to help us battle against free radicals – dangerous molecules that may cause cancer.  They are also of import in helping to strengthen our immune system to fight off assorted attacks.
• Illness.  Many of the large amoun of anti-oxidants found in the mangosteen are anti-virals and anti-bacteria, helping us to be able to recover from illnesses rapidly , and potentially guard against an illness that you would differently get.

So however you prefer to enjoy your mangosteen, whether in  juice, fresh or freeze-dried supplement form you now have an understanding of exactly what it is that you are putting into your body.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Even while their blood pressures are still normal, overweight male teens may have elevated levels of a hormone known to increase pressures as well as early signs of heart damage, researchers say.

Medical College of Georgia researchers looking at 126 healthy 15- to17-year-olds in high school in Augusta, Ga., found the hormone aldosterone highest among the overweight males. Early intervention could help these young people avoid growing up to be adults with cardiovascular disease, the number one killer in the United States.

“These associations give us reason to question whether we should be screening for and treating high aldosterone in obese males with normal pressures, particularly those with a family history of cardiovascular disease,” MCG Endocrinology Fellow Dayal D. Raja says of the collaborative study with the Department of Pediatrics.

“Our failure to halt the progression of heart damage is attributed to late detection, because early heart damage is usually asymptomatic,” Dr. Raja says. “We have evidence that we could identify individuals early and stop or even reverse that damage. We need more study to confirm our findings and a plan for whom and how to screen.”

This first evidence of elevated aldosterone levels and early heart damage in a pediatric population with normal blood pressure earned Dr. Raja first place in the poster session at the recent American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists 18th Annual Meeting and Clinical Congress in Houston.

Aldosterone, a hormone produced by the adrenal gland, is known to increase blood pressure by increasing sodium and water retention. Despite normal blood pressures, the overweight males had thickened heart walls and an increase in the size of the pumping chamber of the heart, Dr. Raja says. Structural changes in the young hearts can be linked to a lesser-known aldosterone fact: it also promotes inflammation and formation of fibrous tissue in the heart muscle.

Overweight females in the group did not have elevated aldosterone levels or the associated heart damage, Dr. Raja says, noting that estrogen’s cardioprotective effect may have made the difference.

Blood and urine test are available to measure aldosterone levels, but they typically aren’t measured unless a patient on multiple medications still has uncontrolled blood pressure. By then, Dr. Raja says, significant cardiovascular damage may have been done.

It’s more likely, young, overweight people would be told to lose weight, but that isn’t working for most, Dr. Raja says. “We are trying weight loss but we are failing miserably,” he says, noting the worldwide obesity epidemic. In fact, since that’s today’s standard, losing weight is just what these researchers told their study participants to do. Losing weight – if it happens – will decrease aldosterone levels.

Although the exact relationship between increased fat and increased aldosterone is still being sorted out, the latest research suggests that fat cells stimulate the adrenal glands to make more aldosterone, says Dr. Gregory Harshfield, director of MCG’s Georgia Prevention Institute and a hypertension researcher.

As a follow up to Dr. Raja’s study, Dr. Harshfield wants to block aldosterone levels in overweight teens with a family history of cardiovascular disease to determine if it can prevent or reverse dangerous heart changes and forestall hypertension. The GPI already is doing similar studies blocking the kidney’s production of the powerful blood vessel constrictor angiotensin in young people with an impaired ability to secrete sodium.

The landmark 1999 RALE trial illustrated the potential benefit of reducing aldosterone levels even in people already suffering from heart failure. The study of 1,663 patients was halted early because of significantly reduced death rates in those taking the aldosterone-lowering, anti-hypertensive spironolactone. Patients on other anti-hypertensives failed to show as impressive results.

Source: Medical College of Georgia

Westchester, Ill. — A study in the June 1 issue of the journal SLEEP found that waist circumference and body mass index (BMI) are consistent, independent risk factors for all severity levels of sleep disordered breathing (SDB) in children, suggesting that as with adult SDB, metabolic factors are important risk factors for childhood SDB.

Results indicate that BMI and waist circumference, but not neck circumference, were significant and strong predictors of SDB at all severity levels – primary snoring, mild SDB and moderate SDB. Nasal anatomic factors such as chronic sinusitis, rhinitis and nasal drain were significant predictors of mild SDB; minority status was associated with primary snoring and mild SDB. Tonsil size, assessed by visual inspection, was not a significant risk factor for any level of SDB. Overall, 1.2 percent of children had moderate SDB (an apnea/hypopnea index of five or more breathing pauses per hour of sleep), 25 percent had mild SDB (AHI of at least one but less than five) and 15.5 percent had primary snoring.

According to principal investigator Edward O. Bixler, PhD, of Penn State University College of Medicine in Hershey, Penn., it is often assumed that the primary mechanism of SDB in children is the presence of large tonsils or adenoids. The study suggests, however, that the causes of SDB in children are more complex, that there may be a systemic influence of obesity, and that adenotonsillectomy may not always be the most effective, first-line treatment.

“Risk factors for SDB in children are complex and include metabolic, inflammatory and anatomic factors,” said Bixler. “Because SDB in children is not just the outcome of anatomical abnormalities, treatment strategies should consider alternative options, such as weight loss and correction of nasal problems.”

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine reports that snoring is one warning sign for obstructive sleep apnea, a common form of SDB that occurs when soft tissue in the back of the throat collapses and blocks the airway during sleep. Snoring that is related to sleep apnea tends to be loud and may include obvious pauses in breathing and gasps for breath. Parents often notice that the child seems to be working hard to breathe during sleep.

The study gathered data from 700 children between the ages of 5 and 12 years who were randomly selected from 18 public elementary schools in Dauphin County, Penn. Fifty-two percent were female, and 23.8 percent of the children were either Black or Hispanic.

Each child was evaluated by a physical exam and monitored for nine hours during one night of polysomnography in a sleep laboratory.

The overall average AHI was 0.8 breathing pauses per hour of sleep, with a maximum value of 24.6. The prevalence of moderate SDB was higher in older children; two percent of children between the ages of 9 and 12 years had moderate SDB, compared with only 0.2 percent of children between 5 and 8 years of age.

Source: American Academy of Sleep Medicine

Drs. Timothy Halliday and Sally Kwak, economics professors at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, recently published a paper in Economics and Human Biology titled, “Weight Gain in Adolescents and Their Peers.” The article examines trends in adolescent body mass index (BMI) in a nationally representative dataset.

In their study, Halliday and Kwak document strong correlations in weight gain between adolescents and their friends, even after controlling for confounding factors such as race, sex and age. While these correlations may be indicative of pupils causing their peers to gain weight, the authors provide evidence that a substantial part of the correlations is a consequence of sorting on BMI.

In addition, they discuss many of the econometric issues in estimating such effects while accounting for growth spurts and difficulties in defining adolescent obesity. Halliday and Kwak discuss policy implications of such findings for school-based interventions to combat obesity. Their work contributes to a growing body of literature studying the impact of peers on student outcomes.

Source: University of Hawaii at Manoa

New York, NY, May 27, 2009 – Despite the well-known benefits of having a lifestyle that includes physical activity, eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables, maintaining a healthy weight, moderate alcohol use and not smoking, only a small proportion of adults follow this healthy lifestyle pattern, and in fact, the numbers are declining, according to an article published in the June 2009 issue of The American Journal of Medicine. Lifestyle choices are associated with the risk of cardiovascular disease as well as diabetes.

Investigators from the Department of Family Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston compared the results of two large-scale studies of the US population in 1988-1994 and in 2001-2006. In the intervening 18 years, the percentage of adults aged 40-74 years with a body mass index greater than 30 has increased from 28% to 36%; physical activity 12 times a month or more has decreased from 53% to 43%; smoking rates have not changed (26.9% to 26.1%); eating 5 or more fruits and vegetables a day has decreased from 42% to 26%; and moderate alcohol use has increased from 40% to 51%. The number of people adhering to all 5 healthy habits has decreased from 15% to 8%.

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) is a national survey of non-institutionalized persons in the US conducted regularly by the National Center for Health Statistics. The researchers used data from a sub sample of the NHANES surveys of 1988-1994 and 2001-2006, adults aged 40-74 years, because this age span is the primary time for initial diagnosis of cardiovascular risk factors and disease. In the NHANES 1988-1994, the number of respondents 40-74 years old was 7340, representing a weighted sample size of 78,794,217. For NHANES 2001-2006, the number of respondents was 7811, for a weighted sample size of 65,476,573.

Since people with diagnosed health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, or high cholesterol were part of the samples, the researchers sought to determine whether such individuals were adhering to the healthy habits to a greater or lesser degree than people without those conditions, and whether adherence had changed over time. The study also concluded that people with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholesterol, or risk factors for those conditions, were no more likely to adhere to a healthy lifestyle pattern than people without such risk factors.

Writing in the article, Dana E. King, MD, MS, states, “The potential public health benefits from promoting a healthier lifestyle at all ages, and especially ages 40-74 years, are substantial. Regular physical activity and a prudent diet can reduce the risk of premature death and disability from a variety of conditions including coronary heart disease, and are strongly related to the incidence of obesity. In the US, medical costs due to physical inactivity and its consequences are estimated at $76 billion in 2000 dollars. Research indicates that individuals are capable of adopting healthy habits in middle age, and making an impact on cardiovascular risk.”

Source: Elsevier Health Sciences

ST. PAUL, Minn. – People who take cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins after a stroke may be less likely to have another stroke later, according to research published in the May 26, 2009, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Those who take statins after a stroke may also be less likely to die within the next 10 years than those who do not take statins.

“Considering the large burden that stroke carries around the world, these potential benefits of statins are significant,” said study author Sotirios Giannopoulos, MD, DSc, of the University of Ioannina School of Medicine in Greece. “Also, second strokes tend to result in more disability and longer time spent in hospitals than first strokes, so anything that can prevent these recurrent strokes is beneficial.”

The study involved 794 people who had strokes and had health information available for 10 years after the stroke. Researchers looked back at the records to see what factors affected the risk for having a second stroke or dying within 10 years after the stroke.

During that time, 112 people had a second stroke and 224 people died. Those who took statins were 35 percent less likely to have a second stroke and 57 percent less likely to die within 10 years than those who did not take statins.

About eight percent of those on statins had a second stroke, compared to 16 percent of those not taking statins.

Researchers analyzed other risk factors for stroke, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, and heart problems, but found that statin use was the only factor tied to a reduced risk of recurrent stroke and death.

“It’s possible that effects from the drugs that are separate from their cholesterol-lowering effects are responsible for this result,” Giannopoulos said. “Statins have anti-inflammatory and antioxidative effects and also prevent blood clotting and stabilize plaque in the arteries, so one of these mechanisms may help to prevent recurrent stroke.”

Source: American Academy of Neurology

Most of the current obesity research is not proving helpful in finding solutions to the growing international epidemic, according to a Deakin University public health expert.

Professor Boyd Swinburn believes that research funding would be better directed at testing possible solutions rather than continuing to unpick what is causing the rise in obesity.

“It seems counter intuitive, but knowing the causes or mechanisms for weight gain does not always help with identifying the solutions,” he said.

“For an individual person, we know the causes of weight gain over time include the obesogenic environment, genetic predisposition, and increasing age – none of which can be influenced by the health professional trying to help the person lose weight. At a population level, the commercial drivers which promote our overconsumption of food are unlikely to be reversed by the private sector because there is no commercial gain for the food industry to promote eating fewer calories.

“The twin bottom line is that we need to re-orient our research towards testing potential solutions rather than just better identifying the problem. The most promising approaches for individuals and populations will involve identifying the right set of ‘rules’ or policies which lead to sustainable environmental and behavioural changes.”

Professor Swinburn says that identifying solutions needs specific solutions-oriented research and unfortunately most of the current research into obesity is problem-oriented.

“Interestingly, the solutions that are the most likely to work seem to be ‘rule-based’ solutions,” Professor Swinburn explained.

“For overweight individuals, so long as they can stick to a set of dietary rules which results in a reduced calorie intake, it doesn’t seem to matter what foods are included or excluded. This is why lots of different types of diets which are unrelated to the dietary causes of weight gain can produce weight loss.

“Similarly, at a population level, it is likely that rules or policies are likely to be the most promising for prevention. Education, guidelines, industry self-regulation, and government ads on TV are unlikely to have much influence and stronger policies will be needed.”

Professor Swinburn will be speaking about the causes of the current obesity epidemic and potential solutions today (Thursday 21 May) at the Public Health Association of Australia ACT Branch’s Sax Oration in Canberra.

Study finds sleep apnea widely undiagnosed among obese type 2 diabetics

Sleep apnea has long been known to be associated with obesity. But a new study published in the June issue of Diabetes Care finds that the disorder is widely undiagnosed among obese individuals with type 2 diabetes – nearly 87 percent of participants reported symptoms, but were never diagnosed.

For those with untreated sleep apnea, it doesn’t just mean their sleep is disrupted; existing research shows that it can also mean an increased risk of heart disease and stroke.

“The high prevalence of undiagnosed, and therefore, untreated sleep apnea among obese patients with diabetes constitutes a serious public health problem,” said Gary Foster, PhD, lead author and director of the Center for Obesity Research and Education at Temple University.

The new study, called Sleep AHEAD, looked at 306 obese patients with type 2 diabetes already enrolled in the Look AHEAD trial, a 16-site study investigating the long-term health impact of an intensive lifestyle intervention in 5, 145 overweight or obese adults with type 2 diabetes.

Each participant had a sleep study (polysomnogram) that measures various breathing and brain activity during sleep. Participants also filled out a series of questions about symptoms related to sleep (snoring, sleepiness during the day), and had their weight, height, waist and neck circumferences measured.

Researchers found that 86.6 percent of participants had sleep apnea, yet reported never being diagnosed. More than 30 percent of these had between 16 and 20 episodes per hour where they would stop breathing, and 22 percent had more than 30 episodes per hour, considered severe sleep apnea. Most of these also had a larger waist circumference, which researchers found, along with higher BMI, to be significantly associated with sleep apnea.

Obesity has long been known to be associated with sleep apnea, but researchers say that these findings are alarming.

“Doctors who have obese patients with type 2 diabetes need to be aware of the possibility of sleep apnea, even if no symptoms are present, especially in cases where the patient has a high BMI or waist circumference,” said Foster.

Currently, more than half of obese or overweight individuals have diabetes, the seventh leading cause of death in the United States.

Source: Temple University