Being exposed to high levels of nutrition before birth can influence the development of networks within the brain that regulate appetite to permanently set a pattern of appetite for life, according to researchers from the University of South Australia.
Hearty feasts and couch-potato marathons are holiday traditions, but UT Southwestern Medical Center experts warn that packing on pounds and not exercising could be deadly for the 6 million Americans who have diabetes and don’t even know it.
Obese patients are more likely to have a recurrence of colon cancer than their normal-weight counterparts and face an increased risk of dying from the disease, while it’s not clear that losing weight would improve their prognosis.
Six percent of obese kidney transplant patients die in the first year and 14 percent suffer transplant failures. The figures for non obese patients are three percent and eight percent. Experts from seven university hospitals in the Netherlands studied 2067 patients. Their finding appear in the November issue of Transplant International.
Investigators are presenting more than 380 abstracts on preliminary findings in the diagnosis and treatment of allergic diseases at the ACAAI Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, Nov. 9-15. Following are highlights of some key investigations on allergic asthma.
The science of cancer prevention has advanced to the point where researchers now say they can detect ?cancer genes? in the breath of smokers, and can test the presence of two proteins in men they say will predict development of prostate cancer a decade in advance. All of these novel findings need much more examination, of course, but scientists at the American Association for Cancer Research?s Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research meeting, say these examples illustrate how it is becoming increasingly possible to use genes and their protein products to help predict and diagnose cancer, as well as choose therapy that offers the most potential for a good result. These researchers will also discuss a test that can pick out patients who have pancreatic cancer – an advance that offers hope the disease can be treated at earlier stages than it is now – and how several unique genes can predict which prostate cancer or lung cancer patients will develop aggressive tumors that need additional treatment. Cancer is a disease of genes, they say, so genes can be employed as a crystal ball to thwart the disease.
In-hospital bariatric surgery complication rates vary dramatically among the nation’s hospitals, according to a study released today by HealthGrades, the leading healthcare ratings company. The study of 86,520 bariatric-surgery procedures performed over the years 2002 through 2004 finds that a typical patient receiving the procedure in a five-star rated hospital would have, on average, a 66 percent lower chance of developing one or more major inhospital complications compared with a one-star rated hospital.
Results of a Portuguese study suggest that, contrary to expectations, obesity is not associated with an increased risk of asthma.
Which works best in fighting the risk factors for diabetes ?exercise or diet? Exercise and diet work equally well in reducing the risk factors for diabetes, a new study finds.
Abdominal obesity increased more than 65 percent among boys and almost 70 percent among girls between 1988 and 2004. The finding of growing girth is significant because abdominal obesity has emerged as a better predictor of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes risk than the more commonly used Body Mass Index, a weight-to-height ratio that can sometimes be misleading.