Modern Lifestyle Primary Culprit for Obesity Epidemic: Study

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, July 5, 2016 (HealthDay News) — It looks like the primary culprit behind the obesity epidemic may be the modern-day environment, and not genes, new U.S. research suggests.

Americans were more likely to pack on more pounds if they were born later in the 20th century, regardless of whether they had a high genetic risk for obesity, said senior researcher Maria Glymour. She is an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco.

People with a greater genetic risk for obesity did appear to be more affected by modern developments that promote obesity, such as wide availability of cheap, high-calorie food, neighborhood designs that present fewer opportunities to walk, and couch-potato leisure activities, Glymour added.

“Some people are especially responsive to environmental conditions that encourage obesity,” Glymour said. “Specifically, people with greater genetic risk of being heavy appear to be more influenced by living in settings that foster obesity.”

But even people whose genetics ought to have kept them at a healthy weight have become more flabby, on average, over the decades, Glymour and her colleagues found.

“Even people with very low genetic risk of obesity appear to be heavier since the obesity epidemic,” Glymour said. “This indicates that the environment affects everyone, but people with high genetic risk are even more affected.”

For their study, the researchers relied on data from nearly 8,800 adults participating in a nationwide health and retirement study who were born between 1900 and 1958.

The research team calculated each person’s genetic risk score for obesity, based on whether they carried any of 29 genetic variants linked to obesity. The investigators then compared the risk score to the person’s actual body mass index, or BMI (a measurement based on height and weight).

Most previous studies focused on just one aspect of the environment when looking at a person’s genetic risk for obesity, Glymour said. Her research team decided to instead examine when a person was born, with their age serving as an umbrella marker for all the many factors that promote obesity.

The presence of obesity-linked genes did not increase in the population over time, the researchers found. However, the effect that these genes had on a person’s BMI did increase in subsequent decades, as the modern environment changed in ways that promote obesity.

“The fundamental explanation for the obesity epidemic must lie in environmental changes,” Glymour concluded, though the study did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

“The genes that are linked to obesity were just as common in people born earlier in the century as in people born later in the century, although those same genes had larger effects for people born later in the century,” she explained.

On their own, obesity-related genes had a very small average effect, accounting for only about 1 percent of the variation in BMI among whites and about 1.4 percent for blacks. By comparison, a person’s age accounted for 4.3 percent of the variation in BMI among whites and 4.5 percent among blacks, the investigators found.

The findings were published July 5 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

There are many ways in which the modern environment could interact with a person’s genetics to make them more at risk for obesity, Glymour said.

“One possibility is that genetic factors influence hunger and whether eating makes you feel satisfied,” she said. “It may be that people who have genetic variants that make them persistently hungry and live in settings with easy access to calorie-dense foods gain the most weight. We don’t know this for sure, but it’s one of the most promising possible mechanisms.”

Another explanation might be that modern conveniences have caused people to become more sedentary, said Anthony Comuzzie, a genetic scientist with the Texas Biomedical Research Institute in San Antonio.

“When was the last time you got out of the car and opened your own garage, or got off the couch to change the TV channel?” asked Comuzzie, an expert for The Obesity Society. “I’ll send an e-mail to a person two offices down rather than getting up and sticking my head out of the door,” he added.

“We tend to forget in general that weight gain is a two-sided equation — the number of calories we eat versus the number of calories we burn,” he continued. “People have more money to spend on easily available fast food, and they are less likely to engage in physical activity. It’s a double-edged sword.”

Comuzzie called the new study an “interesting paper” that confirms long-held suspicions.

“The prevalence of those genes didn’t change. It was just the environment,” he said. “The environment is what is causing the genes to have a bigger effect on this outcome, obesity.”

More information

For more on obesity, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Now Pasta Is Good for Your Diet?

TUESDAY, July 5, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Pasta may have gotten a bad rap. New research suggests pasta — specifically noodles in this study — might actually help you lose weight.

Moderate pasta consumption seems linked to lower chances of general and abdominal obesity, researchers found after analyzing data on thousands of Italians.

“Our data show that enjoying pasta according to individuals’ needs contributes to a healthy body mass index, lower waist circumference and better waist-hip ratio,” said George Pounis, first author of the study.

Previous research has touted the heart-healthy benefits of the Mediterranean Diet, which is a way of eating rather than a specific meal plan. It emphasizes fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, peas and olive oil plus fish and poultry.

However, little was known about how pasta — also a staple in the Mediterranean region — affected health, the researchers behind the new study said. This finding fills that gap, they believe.

The results were published online July 4 in the journal Nutrition and Diabetes.

“We have seen that consumption of pasta, contrary to what many think, is not associated with an increase in body weight, rather the opposite,” Pounis added in a journal news release.

Many people have shunned spaghetti, noodles and other types of pasta in recent years because of concerns they were fattening. The new study could potentially cause Americans and others to revise their views.

Pounis and his colleagues at IRCCS Neuromed in Pozzilli, Italy, analyzed results of two large studies involving more than 23,000 Italians. One was the Moli-sani Project, which included citizens living in the Molise region — a little more than halfway down the boot. The other was the Italian Nutrition and Health Survey, which looks at eating habits in all Italian regions.

The researchers didn’t say how much pasta you can eat without bulking up.

Overdoing it, in fact, was linked to added weight.

“The obese population was older and at lower socioeconomic status, had higher waist and hip circumferences and waist-to-hip ratio, and consumed more pasta [grams per day] than normal or overweight participants,” wrote lead author Licia Iacoviello and colleagues, according to CNN.

Still, in light of this research, people trying to lose weight shouldn’t rule out pasta, said Iacoviello, head of the molecular and nutritional epidemiology laboratory at Neuromed Institute.

“We’re talking about a fundamental component of Italian Mediterranean tradition, and there is no reason to do without it,” Iacoviello said.

The message from this study, Iacovielli added, is that the Mediterranean diet, consumed in moderation and including pasta, “is good to your health.”

More information

The American Heart Association explains the basics of the Mediterranean diet.

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Is U.S. Government Subsidizing Fattening Foods?

By Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, July 5, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Americans get more than half of their daily calories from seven farm foods that are subsidized by the U.S. government, but a new study suggests those subsidies may be contributing to the obesity epidemic.

The problem, according to the researchers: The biggest consumers of such food products are also much more likely to be obese, and to struggle with high cholesterol, high inflammation levels or high blood sugar. The foods include grains, dairy and livestock products.

“We know that eating too many of these foods can lead to obesity, cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. However, we still didn’t expect to see such strong results when looking directly at the association between the consumption of subsidized foods and health,” said Edward Gregg. He is chief of the epidemiology and statistics branch in the division of diabetes translation with the U.S. National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

Gregg was not a part of the study. But, a team led by his colleague, Karen Siegel, reported the findings in the July 5 online edition of JAMA Internal Medicine.

The researchers focused on seven leading commodities covered in the 1973 U.S. Farm Bill. Under that law, producers receive direct financial support from the federal government to grow or raise farm products that include corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, sorghum, dairy and livestock.

The goal is to ensure “a plentiful supply of food at reasonable prices,” given that domestic food production accounts for 80 percent of the food that Americans eat, Gregg explained.

The researchers noted that such subsidies amounted to $170 billion between 1995 and 2010.

Unfortunately, much of this food ends up being processed into nutritionally questionable products, including high-calorie sugary sodas and juices (sweetened with corn syrup), high-calorie packaged foods, high-fat meats and high-fat dairy products, the study authors said.

In contrast, fruits and vegetables have historically been excluded from such subsidies, given their “perishable nature and shorter shelf-life,” Gregg said.

To see how this might affect the American diet, the research team analyzed food information collected between 2001 and 2006 by the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

More than 10,000 American adult men and women offered researchers a breakdown of their food intake in the 24 hours prior to being polled.

While smoking histories, exercise habits or socioeconomic backgrounds were not assessed, obesity risk was, along with the risk for high abdominal fat, high overall inflammation levels, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and high blood sugar levels.

The majority of food (56 percent) respondents consumed came from among the seven subsidized food products. And those who consumed the most subsidized food fared the worst, the study findings showed.

For example, the investigators found that people who consumed the most of these food products were 37 percent more likely to be obese, 41 percent more likely to have belly fat, 34 percent more likely to struggle with inflammation, 14 percent more likely to have high levels of “bad” cholesterol and 21 percent more likely to have high blood sugar levels.

Still, Gregg noted that obesity “is a complex public health problem” and that simply consuming more subsidized foods does not make obesity — or any other health problems — inevitable. More research is needed to assess how changes to the current subsidy program might affect such health risks, he suggested.

Lona Sandon, program director of clinical nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, expressed little surprise with the findings.

“We know that people who eat a higher percentage of fruits and vegetables, and less high-fat, less high-starch, less high-sugar foods, tend to have lower body weights,” she said.

“But our eating culture is about an animal-based diet. Meat and dairy,” Sandon said.

“So while the subsidy situation is complicated, and there are no easier answers, it does likely play into the fact that people just don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables,” Sandon added. “It’s kind of a no-brainer.”

More information

There’s more about healthy eating at the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

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Study Cites the Fats That Could Shorten Your Life

TUESDAY, July 5, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Hold the butter, margarine and high-fat dairy: A new study supports the notion that these “saturated” fats are bad for you.

The study, which followed more than 126,000 people for three decades, found that people who ate higher amounts of saturated fats and trans fats died earlier than those who stuck to healthier unsaturated fats.

Unsaturated fats include plant-based, unprocessed fats such as those found in olive, canola or soybean oil, the study authors explained.

“These findings support current dietary recommendations to replace saturated fat and trans fat with unsaturated fats,” concluded a team of researchers led by Dr. Frank Hu of Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.

One nutritionist believes the study should help clear up the confusion many consumers have about dietary fat.

“There’s a common misconception that eating dietary fat makes you gain body fat,” said Sharon Zarabi, a nutritionist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. “It is important to analyze what you’re eating — are they hydrogenated fats coupled with refined carbohydrates [for example, white bread] or are they unsaturated from plant sources?”

In the new study, Hu’s team used data from two ongoing studies involving U.S. nurses and health professionals whose diets and health were tracked over decades.

Participants’ dietary fat intake was assessed at the start of the study and then every two to four years. Their diet and health were then followed for up to 32 years.

During the follow-up, more than 33,300 of the participants died. Hu’s team reported that eating more saturated fat and trans fat was associated with a higher risk of death during the study.

For example, for every 2 percent rise in trans fat intake, there was a 16 percent higher odds of dying during the study period, the researchers found.

Trans fats are an especially unhealthy form of dietary fat that are gradually being phased out of the American food supply, the study authors noted.

Likewise, every 5 percent increase in saturated fat intake was tied to an 8 percent rise in risk of dying during the study period, the findings showed.

But the opposite was true with plant-based unsaturated fats. In that case, eating high amounts of polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fats was linked to an 11 percent to 19 percent reduction in death risk during the study period.

Polyunsaturated fats include the omega-6 fatty acids found in most plant-based oils and omega-3 fatty acids found in fish and soy and canola oils, Hu’s team noted. High intakes of both types of fats seemed tied to longer lifespans, the researchers said.

Shifting your diet from saturated to unsaturated fats might have real health benefits, the study suggested. The investigators found that replacing just 5 percent of calories from saturated fats with equivalent calories from polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fat was associated with a 27 percent and 13 percent reduced risk of death, respectively, during the study period.

Still, Hu’s team stressed that the study was observational — it cannot prove that certain types of dietary fats affect a person’s odds for death over a specific time period.

Zarabi gave some tips on which types of fat to look out for — or avoid.

“Essential fatty acids are found in most foods in their natural state, such as coldwater fish, nuts, seeds, hemp, and avocados,” she explained. “The saturated sources are usually processed, including fractioned oils, hydrogenated oils, margarine, butter, animal fats and high-fat dairy products.”

Mary Grace Webb is assistant director of clinical nutrition at NewYork-Presbyterian/Queens hospital. She agreed that the new data “reinforces the need for consumers to include healthier unprocessed plant-based fats in their diets, which are naturally trans- and saturated-fat free. These fats include oils, nuts and nut butters, and seeds.”

In addition, “eating a more plant-based diet with less meat and more alternative protein sources — such as fish, beans, eggs, and low-fat dairy foods — can also reduce levels of unhealthy fats,” Webb said.

And healthy eating doesn’t mean having to skimp on flavor, she said.

“I love low-fat Greek yogurt topped with raisins and nuts, white balsamic vinegar with extra-virgin olive oil on my salads, and every day I start with crunchy natural peanut butter on whole grain toast with sliced banana,” Webb said.

The study was published online July 5 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

More information

The American Heart Association has more on fats.

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Pregnancy Flu Shot Protects Newborn for 8 Weeks: Study

TUESDAY, July 5, 2016 (HealthDay News) — A flu shot during pregnancy protects newborns against the flu for about two months after birth, a new study finds.

Previous studies have shown that flu vaccination during pregnancy helps protect newborns. This study shows the length of protection is likely limited to the first eight weeks of life, said Marta Nunes, of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, and her co-authors.

Researchers assessed more than 1,000 infants born to women given a flu shot during pregnancy. They found the vaccine’s effectiveness was highest (85.6 percent) during the first eight weeks after birth. Effectiveness ranged from about 25 percent to 30 percent at ages 8 to 16 weeks, and 16 to 24 weeks.

The findings were published online July 5 in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

The results are important because infants have high rates of flu, which puts them at risk for hospitalization and death, the study authors said in a journal news release.

Current vaccines don’t work well in infants younger than 6 months and aren’t approved for use in that age group, they added.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on pregnancy and flu vaccination.

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Junk Food Ads Sway Kids’ Preferences

TUESDAY, July 5, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Any parent who’s ever endured a whining child begging for that colorful box of cereal won’t be surprised by a new study’s findings: Children are more likely to eat junk food when they’ve seen ads for unhealthy foods and beverages.

The new review included 29 past studies. There were more than 6,000 children involved in those studies.

The researchers found that ads and other marketing for products high in sugar or salt have an immediate and major impact on youngsters. And children younger than age 8 might be most susceptible to junk food and beverage marketing, the study authors reported.

The findings show the influence that such ads can have on children, said lead author Behnam Sadeghirad, a doctoral student at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada.

“This [review] shows that the extensive exposure kids have to marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages via product packaging (superheroes, logos), TV and the internet increases their short-term caloric intake and preference for junk food,” Sadeghirad said in a university news release.

Unhealthy products account for more than 80 percent of all televised food ads in the United States and Canada, according to past research. The authors behind the new study noted that recent research revealed that children see an average of five food ads an hour.

Study corresponding author Bradley Johnston said, “Overall, our analyses show the need for a review of public policy on child-targeted unhealthy food and beverage marketing.” Johnston is an assistant professor in the department of clinical epidemiology and biostatistics at McMaster.

“The increasing prevalence of obesity seems to further coincide with marked increases in the food and beverage industry’s budget for marketing aimed at children and youth, with data showing that energy-dense, low-nutrient foods and beverages make up the majority of commercially marketed products,” Johnston said.

More information

The American Academy of Pediatrics has more on nutrition.

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Savvy Marketing Gets School Kids to Snap Up Veggies

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, July 5, 2016 (HealthDay News) — While clever marketing can steer kids towards junk food, a new study shows that creative advertising can also prompt more kids to eat veggies.

The tactic the researchers used was simple and inexpensive: They placed banners around school cafeteria salad bars that featured animated characters dubbed the Super Sprowtz — with a cast including Miki Mushroom, Zach Zucchini and Suzie Sweet Pea. Some schools also played videos of the characters.

Over four weeks, the study found, the marketing effort paid off. The number of children who took vegetables from school salad bars doubled or tripled.

“It’s no secret that marketing works,” said study leader Andrew Hanks, an assistant professor at Ohio State University in Columbus. “But this shows it can also be used to encourage children to make healthy choices.”

Hanks, who was at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., during the study, reported the findings online July 5 in the journal Pediatrics.

The study included 10 urban elementary schools that were randomly assigned to different groups. Some served as “control” groups and stayed with their usual cafeteria set-up; the others added the Super Sprowtz.

For certain schools, that meant using only a vinyl banner on the salad bar. Others put TV screens in the cafeteria that showed short videos of the characters. Some schools used banners and videos.

At schools that used the banner only, the number of children taking vegetables from the salad bar almost doubled over four weeks — from less than 13 percent to 24 percent of students.

The increase was even bigger at schools with the banner and videos: The percentage of children grazing from the salad bar rose from 10 percent to almost 35 percent.

There was no change, however, when schools used the videos only. According to Hanks, that suggests the simple banner was the more persuasive element — possibly because it was actually a part of the salad bar.

“This is an interesting study,” said Tamara Melton, a registered dietitian and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. “It puts a positive spin on advertising.”

It also suggests an accessible way for schools to promote veggies, Melton pointed out. “It’s not really pricey. Most schools could probably afford something like this,” she said.

One question, though, is whether the tactic would keep working. Both Melton and Hanks said it’s possible the “novelty” could wear off.

“You might have to keep adapting it over time,” Melton said.

And what works for elementary school kids is not necessarily going to translate to older kids, Hanks pointed out. “Broccoli with super-human strength may not have much influence with teenagers,” he said.

The hope is that when young kids develop a taste for fruits and vegetables, they’ll retain it, Melton explained.

She had some advice for parents who want to do some vegetable marketing of their own: First of all, eat vegetables yourself.

“Parents have to model healthy habits,” Melton said.

Beyond that, she suggested letting your children help prepare fruits and vegetables, since kids tend to be more interested in eating something they had a hand in making.

“Also try different ways of preparing vegetables,” Melton said. If your children don’t like plain steamed broccoli, for instance, they might like it with a little ranch dressing or hummus.

“You can also try planting a home garden,” Melton said. “If you don’t have much space, you can even do a ‘container garden.’ Letting your child plant something, see it grow, then harvest it is a great learning experience.”

Oftentimes, she noted, when children are asked where vegetables come from, they say “the grocery store.”

More information

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has advice on child nutrition.

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Regular Doctor Visits Can Help Spot Colon Cancer

MONDAY, July 4, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Making regular visits to a primary care doctor increases the odds you’ll be screened for colon cancer, a new study says.

Colon cancer is the third most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States. But colon cancer screening is underused, the study authors said.

“These findings help underscore the continued importance and effectiveness of visits with primary care physicians in a brave new world of virtual care and population health outreach,” said study co-author Dr. Ethan Halm.

He is director of the UT Southwestern Center for Patient-Centered Outcomes Research in Dallas.

The study researchers analyzed data from more than 968,000 Americans, aged 50 to 74, in four health systems across the country.

Those who saw a primary care doctor at least once a year were twice as likely to be screened for colon cancer. And they were 30 percent more likely to have a follow-up colonoscopy, compared with those who did not make regular visits to a primary care doctor, the researchers found.

This was true even among patients in health systems that heavily promote mail-in home stool blood tests that don’t require a doctor visit.

“This result is important because screening for colon cancer can result in an early diagnosis and improved survival,” Halm said in a university news release.

The study was published recently in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more on colon cancer screening.

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Study Hints at HPV Vaccine’s Cancer Prevention Promise

MONDAY, July 4, 2016 (HealthDay News) — The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine appears to prevent abnormalities that can lead to cervical cancer, a new study shows.

Canadian researchers found that young women who received the vaccine through a school-based program were less likely to have such abnormalities when screened for cervical cancer than those who did not receive the vaccine. The young women were screened less than 10 years after they received their first HPV vaccine.

The findings are from the province of Alberta. In 2008, Alberta introduced HPV vaccination for grade 5 girls (aged 10-11) and a three-year catch-up program for grade 9 girls (aged 14-15). The program provided three doses of the vaccine that protects against two strains of HPV. Those two strains of HPV account for 70 percent of all cases of cervical cancer, the researchers said.

The study evaluated Pap test results for more than 10,000 women, taken between 2012 and 2015. During a Pap test, cells are collected from the cervix to check for cervical cancer. The women were between 18 and 21 years old.

Among those women, 56 percent had not received HPV vaccination. The remaining 44 percent had received one or more doses of the HPV vaccine through the school program. About 84 percent of those given the vaccine were considered fully vaccinated. That means they had three or more doses of the vaccine, the researchers noted.

More than 16 percent of unvaccinated women had cervical abnormalities on a Pap test. Among women who had been fully vaccinated, the rate of cervical abnormalities was 12 percent, the study showed.

“Eight years after a school-based HPV vaccination program was initiated in Alberta, three-dose HPV vaccination has demonstrated early benefits, particularly against high-grade cervical abnormalities, which are more likely to progress to cervical cancer,” study author Dr. Huiming Yang and co-authors wrote. Yang is the medical officer of health, and medical director of screening programs, for Alberta Health Services.

The researchers said they hope these findings and future research leads to improved prevention efforts. They also suggested that HPV vaccination programs could be integrated with cervical cancer screening programs.

The study was published online July 4 in the journal CMAJ.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on HPV vaccination.

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Beware Broken Glow Sticks

MONDAY, July 4, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Letting kids chew or cut glow sticks is a bad idea, health experts say.

While safer than sparklers and fireworks, pliable glow-in-the-dark products are easily broken open when put in the mouth. The contents can irritate the skin, eyes and mouth, the experts warn.

Some glow products contain a chemical called dibutyl phthalate (DBP). The liquid typically causes immediate stinging and a burning sensation in the mouth and eyes, according to the Nebraska Regional Poison Center in Omaha.

Last year, the poison center received 321 calls about glow products.

Here are some tips from the poison-control experts:

If ingested, the bitter-tasting chemical will likely cause brief discomfort in the mouth. Thorough rinsing should help.

If the liquid gets on the skin, wash it off immediately to prevent the child from rubbing the chemical in the eyes.

If it gets in the eyes, it will cause redness and burning. Prompt irrigation is necessary.

Exposure to DBP may cause serious symptoms in pets. They can include drooling, gagging and vomiting, according to the poison center.

More information

The Carolinas Poison Center has more about glow sticks.

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