While a warm, toasty house may feel great in the winter, some researchers suggest warm temperatures also may play a role in the obesity epidemic.

Fiona Johnson of University College London and her colleagues analyzed a number of studies that examined the relationship between exposure to cold temperatures and the ability to burn off energy. Their research is published in the journal Obesity Reviews.

They found evidence that over the past several decades, people in the U.S. and the U.K. have been steadily raising the temperatures in their homes.

They also found indirect evidence that the body’s response to cold, which consists of shivering and hormonal actions, plays a major role in energy expenditure. Regulation of body temperature, they say, is associated with weight.

“Both genetic mutations and ablative lesions that result in abnormal energy expenditure contribute to the development of obesity in laboratory animals,” the authors wrote.

“As ambient temperatures go down, people tend to move around and have more adaptive behaviors that allow them to burn more energy,” said Dr. Peter McCullough, chief academic and scientific officer at St. John Providence Health System in Detroit. McCullough was not involved in the current research.

But other weight loss experts said the connection between cold temperatures and weight isn’t yet very strong and they can’t say for certain whether there’s any association with obesity.

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Obesity is sky rocketing in Europe with over half of the adult population now overweight.

Here is a news report on the BBC that you may want to read.

Over half of adults living in the European Union countries are now overweight or obese according to a report.

The rate of obesity has more than doubled over the past 20 years in most EU member states, international experts say.

The UK comes out worst, shortly followed by Ireland and Malta, where a quarter of the population is obese.

World experts meet this week to discuss how to reverse the “worrying trend”.

The European Commission and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) who compiled the Health at a Glance Europe 2010 report believe the key to success is encouraging children to adopt healthy habits.

Currently, one in seven children in the EU are overweight or obese - and the figures are set to rise even further.

Click Here To Read More on Europeans are overweight.

With the holiday season just around the corner, here’s news which will be welcomed by those who’ve been meaning to lose weight but haven’t got around to it.

Crash dieting is an effective way to slim, scientists have found. Despite health warnings from nutritionists, research showed that dieters who shed the most weight in their first month also lost more in the long run.

And they were just as likely to maintain their new shape as dieters who lost less.

The message, says the study, is that the first few weeks of a diet are critical and may spur dieters on.

University of Florida researchers followed more than 250 obese women who were asked to cut their calorie intake and increase their exercise for 18 months. Those who lost more than 1.5lb a week during the first month lost more than two stone within six months on average.

But those who initially lost less than half a pound a week ended up losing just 11lb overall. The 1.5lb a week figure is well within the safe limits recommended by most dieticians.

Although women in both groups did put some weight back on, those in the speedy group fared no worse than the others.

Writing in the International Journal of Behavioural Medicine, the researchers said: ‘Because weight regain reverses the health benefits achieved with weight loss, considerable efforts have been placed on identifying behavioural factors that may be associated with long-term success. Studies have shown that rate of initial weight loss, even within the first few weeks of treatment, may serve as an important predictor of long-term success.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1274791/Crash-diets-work-best-Rapid-weight-loss-lead-shedding-long-run.html#ixzz0nKM2IGOs

Spare tyre health risk ignored - Active Fat campaigners
A wider waistline carries health risks

People are blinkered to the health dangers of carrying excess weight around the waist, say experts.

Most people have no idea that their spare tyre or muffin top puts them at increased risk of cancer, diabetes and heart disease, a poll of 2,085 shows.

In all, 97% of people were unaware of a link despite 71% of those surveyed saying they had an expanding waistline.

Three leading UK charities are launching a new Active Fat campaign to raise awareness of the dangers.

Excess weight around the middle generates oestrogen and excess chemicals in the stomach, which put people at higher risk of killer diseases.

Women are at risk of Type 2 diabetes and heart disease if their waist measures more than 80cm (31.5 inches) while men are at risk at more than 94cm (37 inches).

Dr Mike Knapton, of the British Heart Foundation charity which is working alongside Cancer Research UK and Diabetes UK, said: “That ‘harmless’ spare tyre around your waist is actually a major health hazard.

READ MORE AT BBC NEWS

The recommended half an hour of exercise a day may not be enough to stop weight gain.

According to a US study of 34,000 women, an hour a day of moderate exercise is needed to fight the flab.

Overweight women need to diet as well as exercise, a Harvard team reports in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The UK government advises adults to exercise for at least half an hour five or more days a week.

The US study followed 34,000 middle-aged women over 13 years.

The women completed regular questionnaires about the amount of time they spent on physical activity.

They were classified into three groups: those who did the equivalent of less than two and a half hours of moderate exercise a week, between two and a half hours and seven hours a week, and more than seven hours a week.

The average age of the women was 54, and the average weight gain was 2.6 kg over the 13 year period.

The high exercise group gained significantly less weight than the rest.

But there was no difference in weight gain between the two lower exercise groups.

The only group who didn’t gain weight during the study were normal weight women who exercised for an hour or more a day.

READ MORE AT BBC

Slightly overweight adult seniors over 70 may live longer and were less likely to die in their 80s than those considered normal weight, Australian researchers have found.

Leon Flicker of the University of Western Australia, said in a release, “Our study suggests that those people who survive to age 70 in reasonable health have a different set of risks and benefits associated with the amount of body fat to younger people,”

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/01/28/overweight-longevity-seniors-australia.html#ixzz0dzlpgtDV

Doctors use the body mass index (BMI) as a simple way of assessing whether a patient needs to lose weight. So look at the chart above and find out if your weight is considered OK, Over Weight, Obese or even Clinically Obese.

The calculation is based on comparing a person’s weight with their body height. It applies equally to men and women.

You can quickly see the BMI assessment for your body on the chart above.

Alternatively, you can calculate your own BMI. Divide your weight in kilograms by the square of your height in metres, or divide your weight in pounds by the square of your height in inches, then multiply by 703.

A BMI of 25 to 29.9 is considered overweight and one of 30 or above is considered obese.

People with BMIs between 19 and 22 live longest. Death rates are noticeably higher for people with indexes 25 and above.

The BMI is not infallible. For instance, it is possible for a healthy, muscular athlete with very low body fat to be classified obese using the BMI formula.

If you are a trained athlete, your weight based on your measured percent body fat would be a better indicator of what you should weigh.

Calculate Your BMI > Click Here

Source

This is an interesting discovery. It seems that weight loss surgery helps women rather then men reduce their risk of cancer.

The correlation between being obese and the increased risk of developing certain types of cancer has been documented before. However what was unclear was whether weight loss surgery would reduce that risk.

Well, a recent study by Swedish researchers published in Lancet Oncology shows that women who have had weight loss surgery reduced their risk of cancer by a 42%.

It must be noted here, that obesity is linked to 20% of all cancers in women and about 14% in men. So a 40 odd percentage reduction in risk is quite substantial.

Apparently, the believe is that the surgery has some impact on the hormone levels.

The research done by this team has been quite extensive stretching for a period of over 10 years involving over 4000 individuals, half of which who had bariatric surgery as against the other half or so who received other forms of weight loss treatment.

Over the period the study was conducted, those who had surgery lost about 20kg as compared to those who did not losing only an average of 1.3kg. Regretfully the surgery appeared to have no effect on men’s cancer risk.

The beneficial effect of weight-loss surgery on women seemed to apply to a wide range of cancers.

However, exactly why the surgery had a beneficial effect remains a mystery - analysis could find no direct link with losing weight, or reducing food intake.

[This Heath report was published in the online edition of BBC News..Read the full article here. Obesity ops 'may cut cancer risk' Image from the BBC]

Well that’s what the Londoners plan to do and it’s going to turn out to be a 75 million pound government campaign. Now these pounds are as in money, not fat and that’s how much the British feel about weight loss.

To be unveiled today under a campaign name ‘Change4Life’, Londoners will see posters and leaflets with images of clogged-up arteries, oozing fat and bloated bodies.

Their target are parents who do not realize that their kids are overweight and the National Obesity Forum hopes to get these parents to do something about it. All of this is part of a run up to a larger campaign drive which will encourage and educate Londoners about fitness ahead of the London Olympics in 2012.

So it looks like it’s going to a fit London come the next Olympics.

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