Family Intervention Reduces Childhood Obesity in 2-Year Study

A pediatric obesity intervention that focused on frequent, low-dose family support was able to effectively reduce excess weight in mild to moderately overweight children. The intervention and the weight loss occurred during a 2-year study.

Rachael W. Taylor, PhD, from the University of Otago in New Zealand, and colleagues published the results of their randomized trial online July 20 and in the August issue ofPediatrics. The study included 206 children between the ages of 4 and 8 years who had a body mass index (BMI) in the 85th percentile or higher.

The children were recruited at a weight screening initiative. Many of the children who were selected for inclusion in the study had parents who were initially unaware their children were overweight.

The researchers randomly assigned families to either the tailored package (TP) treatment group, which provided parents with personalized, brief monthly support, or the usual care (UC) group. Parents in both groups were informed that their children were overweight.

The investigators retained 88% of the children through the 2 years of the study. At 2 years, the intervention was associated with a significantly lower BMI score relative to control and a significant BMI z score of 0.12.

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New Study Says Obesity Costs $315 Billion In Health Care Every Year

Obesity Can Be Beat - Learn How

A brand new study has been published in the journal PharmacoEconomics, and it says that obesity costs the United States health care system $315 billion every year. But the study looks more closely, too, at the way these costs are distributed.

Physician Aaron Carroll says that the way we presently talk about obesity suggests that “if everyone in the US would just lose a little weight, we’d save massive money.” Contrarily, he notes that the study suggests only a small percentage of the population are actually served.

“Current strategies that focus on cutting calories and boosting physical activity aren’t working for most patients to achieve weight loss and maintain that,” explains lead researcher Dr. Alison Fildes. ”The greatest opportunity for fighting the obesity epidemic might be in public health policies to prevent it in the first place at a population level.”

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Obesity Epidemic

Obesity is an Epidemic that has solutions.  Find your solution at Pacific Med.

Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center researchers have discovered that a gene known to cause cancer also may play a role in determining if someone becomes obese.

Recent discoveries suggest that the gene Astrocyte elevated gene-1 (AEG-1) could even be controlled with certain therapies to prevent or reverse obesity and obesity-related cancers.

"This is a completely new function of AEG-1, and we did not expect this," said Devanand Sarkar, Ph.D., Harrison Endowed Scholar in Cancer Research and member of the Cancer Molecular Genetics research program at VCU Massey Cancer Center, associate professor in the Department of Human and Molecular Genetics at the VCU School of Medicine and member of the VCU Institute of Molecular Medicine.

AEG-1 interacts with a variety of proteins to regulate genetic functions related to vitamins, hormones and lipids. Sarkar and his colleagues have been studying the gene for years, investigating its role in disease formation and metabolism.

Last year, they showed that AEG-1 blocks the ability of Vitamin A to kill liver cancer cells. The team is delving deeper with its research as documented in a series of papers recently published online in the Journal of Biological Chemistry and Bioconjugate Chemistry.

In one paper, the team describes the creation of a novel therapy that inhibits AEG-1 and stops the growth of liver cancer cells.

In another, they show that AEG-1 blocks thyroid hormone function and contributes to nonthyroidal illness syndrome, a condition common in patients with liver cancer and others who are starving or gravely ill.

And in the third, the team details its finding that AEG-1 may play a key role in regulating fat metabolism.

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Other Sources

Most Obese People Will Never Reach Normal Weight: Study

Obesity: 'Slim chance' of return to normal weight

Pacific Med Health Group - Obesity