Diet and Weight Loss News

Eating lots of tomatoes keeps you slim

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:03:00 +0000

It is thought tomatoes are rich in compounds that alter levels of appetite hormones, making them an easy and cheap way to keep hunger pangs at bay. However, it is not known which part of the tomato dulls the appetite, but it may be lycopene, the pigment that gives tomatoes their red colour. Lycopene is already credited with a host of health benefits, from warding off cancer to boosting fertility.

It is thought to be particularly effective at combating prostate cancer, protecting against the disease and slowing its progress when it does develop.
It may also ward off a host of other cancers, including breast, cervical, skin, lung, bladder, and pancreatic. Previous studies have shown tomatoes can help heart health, with regular helpings of ketchup and tomato juice sending cholesterol levels plummeting in a matter of weeks.

Read more on: DailyMail

TweetWhatYouEat (TWYE), the latest diet craze

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 05:32:00 +0000

How on earth can I stop myself from this endless cycle of eating and not-eating, feeling hungry and then feeling guilty? There has to be a way of taking responsibility. So, thank goodness for a new wheeze (well, newish) by Twitter. It's called TweetWhatYouEat, commonly known as twye. It's the latest diet tool and apparently thousands are signing up to it every week.

The concept is simple. It is, basically, an online food diary where you log absolutely everything you eat and drink.

All you have to do is set up an account (or log in if you are on Twitter) and then start typing away. You can add your weight, your goal weight, even all the foods you shouldn't eat.

Go to TweetWhatYouEat

Source: DailyMail

Lose between 10 and 15 pounds in a month by eating dr. Siegal cookies

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:23:00 +0000

Siegal began his medical practice in Hialeah in the pre-Slim Fast world of the 1950s, and soon noticed most of his clients wanted advice on how to lose weight. So he began focusing on obesity, drawing the conclusion that simply encouraging exercise and healthy eating would not be realistic. If clients wanted to eat, they would.
'Hunger kills diets', is one of Siegal's favorite phrases.

He started experimenting with different protein-based ingredients to make a person feel full. Then he threw in a little flour, a little sugar and created the cookie.
Because the cookie satisfies the eating sensation, Siegal said, the person takes in fewer calories -- 1,000 in a day -- and feels like they are eating much more.

Read more on: The Miami Herald

Weight Mirror, see yourself with less weight in minutes

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 08:49:00 +0000

Weight Mirror is a motivation for people struggling to drop some excess weight. The only exercise you have to do is a simple rep of point, click and drag. You can even add pounds to yourself in an instant, perhaps motivation stay slim and it's kind of fun to see what you might look like with enhanced (or reduced) body parts. A box pops up when you upload your picture, reminding you that the virtual pound-shedding is no substitute for a workout. visualization tool that will show you what you would look like if you lost (or gained) weight within seconds! It's a visualization tool that will show you what you would look like if you lost (or gained) weight within seconds! To use WeightMirror, upload a full-body frontal photo.

Visit Weight Mirror, have fun!

Being overweight is not just the result of personal choices about what you eat

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 08:45:00 +0000

Prevalence of obesity in infants under 6 months had risen 73 percent since 1980. 'Since they're eating only formula or breast milk, and never exactly got a lot of exercise, the obvious explanations for obesity don't work for babies,' he points out. 'You have to look beyond the obvious.' The search for the non-obvious has led to a familiar villain: early-life exposure to traces of chemicals in the environment. Evidence has been steadily accumulating that certain hormone-mimicking pollutants, ubiquitous in the food chain, have two previously unsuspected effects.

They act on genes in the developing fetus and newborn to turn more precursor cells into fat cells, which stay with you for life. And they may alter metabolic rate, so that the body hoards calories rather than burning them, like a physiological Scrooge. 'The evidence now emerging says that being overweight is not just the result of personal choices about what you eat, combined with inactivity,' says Retha Newbold of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) in North Carolina, part of the National Institutes of Health."

Read more on: Newsweek

Qnexa have shown it to be more effective than any other weight-loss medication

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 08:15:00 +0000

Experts claim that patients can lose as much weight with Qnexa as they would if they had obesity surgery. Dr Kishore Gadde, director of obesity clinical trials at Duke University in North Carolina, who led the study, said: “The weight loss observed with Qnexa in these trials far exceeds the weight loss observed for other agents reported in literature.”
The pill is being assessed by the American government’s watchdog, the Foods and Drugs Administration, after completing its final trials. Qnexa could be on sale in the UK within two years.

Read more on: Sunday Express

Overweight LighterLife founder Jackie Cox weighs about 14 stone

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 08:29:00 +0000

Normally this would be a private matter, as is the ongoing battle of countless women with their weight. But as Jackie is the co-founder of LighterLife, the drastic low-calorie weight-loss plan that she pioneered with business partner Bar Hewlett, it is a bitter irony indeed. The regime consists of a 530-calorie-a-day plan, one marketed under the banner that it is fast, simple and safe. It is certainly difficult to dispute 'fast and simple'. Under the ultra-low calorie regime, dieters routinely lose a stone a month, often much more. Whether the methodology is entirely 'safe' - or indeed a long-term solution to weight problems - is rather more open to debate, certainly for a significant number of LighterLife customers.

For some of them, the LighterLife experience has proved, at best, a quick fix. At worst, it has left a legacy of health issues ranging from depression and heart problems to memory loss. Nor is that all: as the Mail revealed this week, it has also been linked to a series of tragic and premature deaths, the latest being that of 34-year-old Samantha Clowe, who collapsed at her home in Leeds from heart failure in June after following the LighterLife diet for 11 weeks.

Read more on: MailOnline

Orlistat (Alli) works not only on a physical level, but also psychologically

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:53:00 +0000

It encourages people to see their diet as a cause of their weight problem. “In addition, the side effects are so unpleasant that people avoid bad eating fatty foods and therefore lose weight. “However, the way in which some people responded to orlistat was surprising. “Some participants in this study reported that their eating behaviour became significantly unhealthier over the six month period.” She added: “People also told us that they were not adhering to the medication as they should.

“It seemed that these people were taking orlistat as a lifestyle drug – choosing to take it when they were eating foods higher in fat to reduce any weight gain or not taking it when going on holiday or out for a meal as they didn’t want to experience the consequences of eating fatty foods.”

Read more on: Telegraph.co.uk

Women who had weight-loss surgery before becoming pregnant had children who were less likely to be heavy

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:51:00 +0000

Researchers found that women who had weight-loss surgery before becoming pregnant had children who were less likely to be heavy when compared with siblings who were born before the weight-loss surgery. The study findings show the importance of the intrauterine environment, which seems to trump even genes and the environment in which the child is raised.

Results of the study will be published in the November issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Read more on: AJC

North American lowbush blueberries holds great promise as an anti-obesity and anti-diabetic agent

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:01:00 +0000

The study, published in the International Journal of Obesity, was conducted by researchers from the Université de Montréal, the Institut Armand-Frappier and the Université de Moncton who tested the effects of biotransformed juices compared to regular blueberry drinks on mice.

"Results of this study clearly show that biotransformed blueberry juice has strong anti-obesity and anti-diabetic potential," says senior author Pierre S. Haddad, a pharmacology professor at the Université de Montréal's Faculty of Medicine. "Biotransformed blueberry juice may represent a novel therapeutic agent, since it decreases hyperglycemia in diabetic mice and can protect young pre-diabetic mice from developing obesity and diabetes."

Read more on ScienceDaily

Is it possible that all that exercise is doing nothing to make us slimmer?

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 04:21:00 +0000

Exercise is, of course, essential for good health, improving our heart and lung function while triggering the release of a host of hormones that bring on feelings of wellbeing. But some surprising studies in America are starting to reveal that even under gruelling training regimes, people fail to lose as much weight as they should. In a study of 464 overweight women, Dr Timothy Church of Louisiana University examined what would happen if they conducted differing levels of exercise.

One group was asked to do no additional exercise, while three other groups were asked to spend 72 minutes, 136 minutes or 194 minutes with a trainer each week for six months. All were asked not to change their diet.
The results were surprising. While all of the women lost weight, including the control group (which is thought to be a consequence of basing the study on overweight women who wanted to lose weight), those who exercised the most did not lose significantly more weight than those who were told not to change their diet.

Read more: Telegraph.co.uk

Daylight can kick-start a fat burning mechanism in the body

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 18:37:00 +0000

A particular type of fat known as brown adipose tissue (or BAT) transfers energy into heat and this boosts calorie burning. The scientists found that by spending time outside, where it is colder, this reaction is boosted and so dieters lose weight. Professor Michael Symonds, from the University of Nottingham, said the study had shown for the first time that daylight is a major factor in controlling brown fat activity. Brown fat is capable of producing up to 300 times more heat per unit mass compared with all other tissues.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

Just turning off the central heating could help spur brown fat into action

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 04:39:00 +0000

We were to expose ourselves to cooler temperatures more often, then a lot of people would probably lose weight,' he says.
'Either that or have a daily sauna and plunge into icy water afterwards. Don't have the heating on in the car and spend more time outdoors, especially in winter. Warmer temperatures, abundant food and too little activity have effectively switched off its usefulness in the modern world. 'Even 30 years ago, it was more difficult to stay warm than it is now,' says Professor Cawthorne. In evolutionary terms, brown fat developed to protect newborn babies from lifethreatening cold temperatures. It is thought that, in a throwback to our ancestors, chilly conditions trigger brown fat to become activated in adults.

Source: DailyMail

Sensa a new weight-loss system is taking the US by storm

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 06:02:00 +0000

Sensa, launched last summer, is now being used by hundreds of thousands of Americans and the numbers are jumping as word spreads.
It’s easy to see why. Unlike Atkins, the F-Plan or the Cabbage Soup Diet, Sensa doesn’t forbid any foods at all but it seems to be responsible for some impressive weight-loss results. What Sensa does, it is claimed, is make you eat less of whatever is on the plate in front of you.

Sensa Tastants are small granules that you sprinkle on everything you eat in the same way you might sprinkle salt and pepper on savoury foods or sugar on cakes and puddings. According to Dr Alan Hirsch, the scientist behind Sensa, the sprinkles make you feel fuller faster by stimulating the part of the brain that tells your body it’s time to put down the fork. They do it by enhancing both the taste and crucially the smell of your food.

Sensa’s Kimberly Tobman says: “What Sensa does is work to enhance the sensory experience of food so you feel satisfied with less.” In the longer term Sensa users learn how much food they really need as opposed to the oversized portions they may be used to. Many report a novel pleasure in happily leaving food untouched.

Source: Daily Express

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) the latest approach to tackling obesity

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 10:52:00 +0000

The new approach is being tested in a U.S. Government-approved trial, which is running for three years. Basically it works by making the patient feel full. During the procedure, patients first have holes drilled into their skull. The electrodes are then implanted - these are attached to wires, which are fed across the surface of the brain and under the skin to a small battery implanted under the collarbone. The operation is performed under local anaesthetic so that surgeons can place the electrodes in the right place, guided by the patient's reactions. The patient is asked whether or not they feel full in order to position the electrodes correctly.
So far, two patients have had the operation, and early indications are 'promising', with both eating less and losing weight.

The surgery was performed by Dr Donald Whiting, a neurosurgeon at West Virginia University Hospital. Dr Whiting admits it is a drastic procedure - 'but obesity is a drastic problem'.
He adds: 'There is a risk of stroke and death from this operation, but this is slight. These patients are probably at greater risk of heart attack and stroke from being obese.'
Only patients who've tried every other treatment, including gastric surgery (such as a gastric band or bypass), are considered for DBS. But Dr Whiting believes the new approach makes greater sense than other surgery.

Source: DailyMail

Ventana's anti-obesity chewing gum eliminates the feeling of hunger

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:21:00 +0000

Ventana's proprietary chewing gum contains an extract of hoodia gordonii and 2-hydroxyoleic acid. Ventana Biotech Inc is developing a appetite-suppressing chewing gum. The active ingredients in the plant extracts are released into the patient's blood stream, and trigger a hormonal response in the part of the brain (the hypothalamus) that tells the body it is "full", thereby suppressing the appetite of the obese patient. Because the plant extracts activate hormones that naturally exist in the body, there are no harmful side effects.

With Ventana's proprietary Anti-Obesity Chewing Gum, users can safely control their appetites. Early indications show the Gum is able to reduce appetite by between 15 and 25 percent. Ventana continues to perfect this promising biotechnology and plans to eventually out-license it to Big Pharma companies.

Source: Medical News Today

Obesity drug Contrave met its main goals in three late-stage clinical trials

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:48:00 +0000

And also surpassed a FDA requirement for effectiveness.
Patients who took Contrave had significantly greater weight loss than those who took a placebo, and the drug reduced other risk factors like waist circumference, the company said. For diabetes patients, the drug also diminished blood sugar levels.
The San Diego-based company said it plans to seek FDA approval for Contrave in early 2010. Orexigen said the drug also tempered food cravings and allowed patients to better control their eating.

Citrus fruits can prevent weight gain and help control Type-2 diabetes

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:01:00 +0000

A flavonoid called naringenin found in citrus fruits helps the body burn extra fat to check weight gain. It also has insulin-like properties to check Type-2 diabetes, says a study by the University of Western Ontario. Flavonoids, which are found in plants, promote antioxidant activity in the human body. They work by genetically reprogramming the liver to burn up excess fat, rather than storing it, according to the study.

What was unique about the study was that the effects were independent of caloric intake, meaning the mice ate exactly the same amount of food and the same amount of fat. There was no suppression of appetite or decreased food intake, which are often the basis of strategies to reduce weight gain and its metabolic consequences.

Read more on: newKerala.com

People who are obese may be at special risk of severe complications and death from the new H1N1 swine flu virus

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 08:56:00 +0000

They described the cases of 10 patients at a Michigan hospital who were so ill they had to be put on ventilators. Three died. Nine of the 10 were obese, seven were severely obese, including two of the three who died. The study, published in advance in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's weekly report on death and disease, also suggests doctors can safely double the usual dose of oseltamivir, Roche AG's antiviral drug sold under the Tamiflu brand name.

"What this suggests is that there can be severe complications associated with this virus infection, especially in severely obese patients," said CDC virus expert Dr. Tim Uyeki.

Read more on: Yahoo Health

ZERONA the fastest growing fat reduction program that rivals liposuction without the surgery

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:38:00 +0000

Dr. J. Shah, weight loss expert and Medical Director at Amari Medical Weight Loss & Body Sculpting Clinic announced today that they are launching the Zerona program, a new body-sculpting procedure designed to remove fat and contour the body without invasive surgery. The ZERONA procedure was proven through a double blind, randomized, multi-site, and placebo controlled study in which patients averaged a loss of 3.5 inches, and some lost up to as much as 9 inches compared to the placebo group that lost only half an inch.

A single injection in the brain to lose weight

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:39:00 +0000

It was Doctor Matthew During, MD, PhD of Ohio State University Medical Center who developed the concept, using a gene in lab mice known as BDNF. "We're putting in a normal, healthy copy of the gene that's already there, but just giving it the instructions to turn it on so that gene is now what we call being expressed," says Dr. During. And when it is expressed, that gene helps control not only how much the animals eat but how efficiently they burn calories.

Clinical trials involving mice yielded impressive results. Within an hour of injection, insulin levels in the mice dropped by a third. Within weeks of injection, the mice shed half their weight. All from a single injection.

Read more: Medical News Today

Combining the EndoBarrier Gastrointestinal Liner with a new EndoBarrier Flow Restrictor nearly doubling the amount of weight loss

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:05:00 +0000

The results were presented today at the 26th annual meeting of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS). The most common side effects included mild to moderate abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting. "These results are unparalleled for a non-surgical treatment for obesity," stated Alex Escalona, M.D., Department of Digestive Surgery, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile and lead investigator for the pilot study.

"Like the United States, Chile is struggling with a growing epidemic of obesity and related metabolic disorders and life-threatening conditions. Traditionally, non-surgical treatment approaches have proven insufficient for the morbidly obese, but these data suggest we may have an effective new option to offer these patients.

Read more on: Medical News Today

The poor are less likely to undergo weight loss surgery

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:34:00 +0000

White women with higher incomes and private health insurance were the most likely to have the surgery, according to a study to be presented Wednesday at the American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) annual meeting, in Dallas.
Using data from the 2006 Nationwide Inpatient Sample, sponsored by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, researchers identified 88,000 morbidly obese adults who had bariatric surgery in the United States in 2006.

Of those, 81 percent were women, 75 percent were white, 80 percent had incomes at least two times the poverty level and 82 percent had private health insurance.

Female patients who had gastric bypass surgery are 42 per cent less likely to develop cancer

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:13:00 +0000

A Swedish study, published in the Lancet Oncology, has found that female patients who had surgery were 42 per cent less likely to develop cancer. But there was no change to the incidence of cancer in men. The authors, based at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, concluded: 'In our study, the significant reduction in overall cancer incidence in the female surgery group emanated from a variety of cancer types, indicating a broad effect of bariatric surgery.'

Dr Andrew Renehan, of the University of Manchester's School of Cancer, said the findings reinforced the importance of studying the sexes separately.
He said the most likely explanation for the weight-loss surgery in reducing cancer risk was its impact on hormones.

Read more on: Mail Online

Ordinary vinegar can help prevent accumulation of body fat and weight gain

noreply@blogger.com (Diet and Weight Loss News) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 10:19:00 +0000

Tomoo Kondo and colleagues note in the new study that vinegar has also been used as a folk medicine since ancient times. People have used it for a range of ills. Modern scientific research suggests that acetic acid, the main component of vinegar, may help control blood pressure, blood sugar levels, and fat accumulation. Their new study showed that laboratory mice fed a high-fat diet and given acetic acid developed significantly less body fat (up to 10 percent less) than other mice.

Importantly, the new research adds evidence to the belief that acetic acid fights fat by turning on genes for fatty acid oxidation enzymes. The genes churn out proteins involved in breaking down fats, thus suppressing body fat accumulation in the body.

Source: Medical News Today