Headlines of the day
China blogger beaten to death (CNN)
Unknowing twins marry each other (CNN)
Shotgun jailbreak led to love on the run (CNN)
Hannah Montana caught using body double (CNN)
At long last, have you no decency?
Fat, oil, Saudis—what, do we have to connect the dots for you?
Obesity now a 'lifestyle' choice for Americans, expert says
by Karin Zeitvogel Thu Jan 10, 12:34 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - As adult obesity balloons in the United States, being overweight has become less of a health hazard and more of a lifestyle choice, the author of a new book argues.
"Obesity is a natural extension of an advancing economy. As you become a First World economy and you get all these labor-saving devices and low-cost, easily accessible foods, people are going to eat more and exercise less," health economist Eric Finkelstein told AFP.
In "The Fattening of America", published this month, Finkelstein says that adult obesity more than doubled in the United States between 1960 and 2004, rising from 13 percent to around 33 percent.
Globally, only Saudi Arabia fares worse than the United States in terms of the percentage of adults with a severe weight problem -- 35 percent of people in the oil-rich desert kingdom are classified as obese, the book says, citing data from the World Health Organization and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
With the rising tide of obesity come health problems and an increased burden on the healthcare system and industry.
"But the nasty side-effects of obesity aren't as nasty as they used to be," Finkelstein said.
"When you have a first-rate medical system that can cure the diseases that obesity promotes, you no longer need to worry so much about being obese," he told AFP.
"With our ever-advancing modern medicine there helping to save the day (at least for many people), are government and the media blowing the magnitude of the 'obesity crisis' out of proportion?" his book says.
A study in which Finkelstein and colleagues at the RTI International, an independent research institute in North Carolina that works on social and scientific problems, asked overweight, obese and normal weight people to predict their life expectancy came up with a total difference of four years.
Normal weight respondents predicted they would live to 78, the obese to 74, and the overweight 75.5.
Other studies that looked at death data back the conclusion that people who carry excess weight tend to die slightly earlier, the book says, and draws the conclusion that "many individuals are making a conscious decision to engage in a lifestyle that is obesity-promoting."
"People make choices, and some people will choose a weight that the public health community might be unhappy about. Why should we try to make them thinner?" Finkelstein said.
Linda Gotthelf, a doctor who heads research at Health Management Resources, a private, nationwide firm that specializes in weight loss and management, agreed that Americans now live longer but stressed that quality of life declines with age.
"People are living longer but with more chronic diseases," Gotthelf told AFP.
"That brings a diminished quality of life, especially for the obese who have more functional limitations as they age and tend to be on multiple medications."
Obesity is not a choice for Alley English, a 28-year-old mother from Missouri who has struggled with a weight problem all her life.
"If you knew that you could be what society considers normal, why would you not choose to do that?" English told AFP.
"As we get older, life does get more rushed and we do tend to make the easier choices sometimes," English, who currently weighs 392 pounds (178 kilograms), told AFP.
"But you can't say if you quit going to the drive-through, exercise more and eat more vegetables, you'll lose weight. There are so many more factors involved."
Gotthelf also disagreed that people choose to be obese.
"There are studies in which people have said they would rather lose a limb or be blind than obese. Being obese is not a desire," she said.
"For many, this is a problem they have struggled with for many years... it gets discouraging after a while," she said.
"I would not doubt that if you asked obese people if they could push a button and not be obese, close to 100 percent would say they would push the button."
Finkelstein says he wrote "The Fattening of America" to "encourage discussion of what I understand is probably an uncomfortable position for a lot of people."
Even if private industry and government take steps to protect society against the costs of obesity, many Americans "will likely continue to choose a diet and exercise regimen that leads to excess weight," because losing weight requires too many lifestyle sacrifices, his book warns.
Meanwhile, frustrated by years of unsuccessful dieting and weight loss programs, English has opted to join a growing number of Americans who have gastric bypass surgery -- hailed in Finkelstein's book as "the best-known treatment for severe obesity."
"I have a higher risk of developing diabetes or hypertension if I don't have the surgery," English said.
"I don't care if I end up with a body like whoever-in-the-media thinks I should look like; I just want to be healthy and able to participate in my daughter's life," she said.
No, I said our small is called a grande and our medium is called the “Big Sumbich.”
All this talk about dark energy makes the universe sound so goth. Who knew?
Super-computer Could Throw Light On 'Mysterious' Dark Energy
ScienceDaily (Jan. 11, 2008) — Cosmologists have run a series of huge computer simulations of the Universe that could ultimately help solve the mystery of dark energy.
Results of the simulations, carried out by Durham University's world-leading Institute for Computational Cosmology (ICC), tell researchers how to measure dark energy -- a repulsive force that counteracts gravity.
The findings will also provide vital input into the design of a proposed satellite mission called SPACE -- the SPectroscopic All-sky Cosmic Explorer - that could unveil the nature of dark energy.
The discovery of dark energy in 1998 was completely unexpected and understanding its nature is one of the biggest problems in physics.
Scientists believe dark energy, which makes up 70 per cent of the Universe, is driving its accelerating expansion. If this expansion continues to accelerate experts say it could eventually lead to a Big Freeze as the Universe is pulled apart and becomes a vast cold expanse of dying stars and black holes.
The simulations, which took 11 days to run on Durham's unique Cosmology Machine (COSMA) computer, looked at tiny ripples in the distribution of matter in the Universe made by sound waves a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang.
The ripples are delicate and some have been destroyed over the subsequent 13 billion years of the Universe, but the simulations showed they survived in certain conditions.
By changing the nature of dark energy in the simulations, the researchers discovered that the ripples appeared to change in length and could act as a "standard ruler" in the measurement of dark energy.
ICC Director Professor Carlos Frenk said: "The ripples are a 'gold standard'. By comparing the size of the measured ripples to the gold standard we can work out how the Universe has expanded and from this figure out the properties of the dark energy.
"Astronomers are stuck with the one universe we live in. However, the simulations allow us to experiment with what might have happened if there had been more or less dark energy in the universe."
In the next five to 10 years a number of experiments are planned to explore dark energy. The Durham simulation has demonstrated the feasibility of the SPACE satellite mission proposed to the European Space Agency's (ESA) Cosmic Vision programme.
The project has been put forward by an international consortium of researchers including the Durham team.
SPACE, which is led by Bologna University, in Italy, is through to the next round of assessment by the ESA and if successful is planned to launch in 2017.
Co-principal investigator Professor Andrea Cimatti, of Bologna University, said: "Thanks to the ICC simulations it is possible to predict what SPACE would observe and to plan how to develop the mission parameters in order to obtain a three-dimensional map of the Universe and to compare it with the predictions of the simulations.
"Thanks to this comparison it will be possible to unveil the nature of dark energy and to understand how the structures in the Universe built up and evolved with cosmic time."
Findings are published January 11 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The Durham research was funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council and the European Commission.
Stretching before you start is a key part of intergalactic yoga
An Inconvenient Galaxy: Arms Winding 'Backwards'
ScienceDaily (Jan. 10, 2008) — Discovery of two new components within a puzzling spiral galaxy confirm it must have a pair of arms winding in the opposite direction from most galaxies, according to new results.
“While the existence of a galaxy with a pair of ‘backward’ arms may seem like an inconvenient truth to many, our latest analysis indicates it is, nonetheless, a reality,” says Dr. Gene Byrd, professor of astronomy at The University of Alabama.
The galaxy, known as NGC4622, lies 200 million light years away in the constellation Centaurus.
Spiral arm pairs seen in galaxies are thought to trail, meaning they wind outward, opposite the direction of rotation of the disk material. Leading arms, such as the pair reported by the astronomers for NGC4622, do the opposite, opening outward in the same direction as the rotation of the galaxy’s disk.
Using a Fourier component image method to further analyze a 2001 Hubble Space Telescope image, the team discovered a previously hidden inner counter clockwise pair of spiral arms.
“Contrary to conventional wisdom, with both an inner counter-clockwise pair and an outer clockwise pair of spiral arms, NGC4622 must have a pair of leading arms,” Byrd said. “With two pairs of arms winding in opposite directions, one pair must lead and one pair must trail. Which way is which depends on the disk’s rotation. The outer clockwise pair must be the leading pair if the disk turns clockwise. Alternatively, the inner counter clockwise pair must be the leading pair if the disk turns counter clockwise.”
The team also discovered an outer clockwise single arm, previously hidden by the stronger outer clockwise arm pair. The galaxy also has a previously identified inner single counterclockwise arm. This confirms the galaxy must have a single leading arm. The outer clockwise arm must be the leading arm if the disk turns clockwise. The inner counter clockwise arm must be the leading single arm if the disk turns counter clockwise.
The researchers also performed a more complicated analysis of different color Fourier image components. This revealed the stronger outer clockwise pair of arms as the leading pair.
In 2002, team members first published, to great skepticism, results from a previous method that indicated the galaxy had a leading pair of spiral arms.
Other astronomers were skeptical of the 2002 announcement, in part, because the galaxy disk is only tilted about 19 degrees from face-on and because clumpy dust clouds might be concentrated on one side of the disk, creating misleading results. In response, the team’s new Fourier component method is actually assisted by the small tilt, and the effects of dust are not used in the latest analysis.
“Two independent methods now indicate that NGC4622’s arms do indeed behave in a very unusual fashion, with the outer arms winding outward in the same direction the galaxy turns,” said Byrd, a faculty member within UA’s College of Arts and Sciences.
Further studies of the origin of this behavior are needed, the researchers said. The Hubble Space Telescope image reveals a dark dust lane in the center which suggests the galaxy may have consumed a smaller companion galaxy, the researchers said.
This research is being presented to the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin, Texas January 9, 2008. Presenting the results are Drs. Gene Byrd and Ron Buta, from The University of Alabama; Tarsh Freeman, Bevill Community College; and Dr. Sethanne Howard, retired from the U.S. Naval Observatory. Results are also scheduled for January publication in Astronomical Journal.
Cue the sad people. Cue the carbos…and action
Obese more depressed, depressed more obese
SEATTLE, Jan. 11 (UPI) -- Women with depression are more than twice as likely to be obese and obese women are more than twice as likely to be depressed, a U.S. study found.
Lead author Gregory Simon, a psychiatrist and researcher at Group Health Cooperative in Seattle, said that depression and obesity likely fuel one another.
"When people gain weight, they're more likely to become depressed and when they get depressed, they have more trouble losing weight," Simon said in a statement.
Researchers interviewed 4,641 female health-plan enrollees, ages 40 to 65, by phone on their height, weight, exercise levels, dietary habits and body image. The women also completed the Patient Health Questionnaire, a measure of depression symptoms.
The study, published in General Hospital Psychiatry, found women with body mass index at or above 30 exercised the least, had the poorest body image and ingested 20 percent more calories than those with lower BMIs.
"The stigma of being overweight could hurt self-esteem, and thus, efforts to lose weight," Simon says. "It's not that these women are clueless, it's that they're hopeless."
Wonder if they did any field work at Chippendales?
So, the experts who proposed this—how many car radios do you think they’ve lost?
Should Heroin Be Prescribed To Addicts?
ScienceDaily (Jan. 11, 2008) — Experts debate whether heroin should be prescribed to addicts who are difficult to treat in a recent issue of the British Medical Journal.
Maintenance treatment with heroin is appropriate for heroin misusers under certain circumstances, argue Jürgen Rehm from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto and Benedikt Fischer from the University of Victoria, British Columbia.
They point to trials in Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany, which found heroin assisted maintenance treatment feasible and effective for those resistant to treatment. They also found it to be cost effective compared with methadone maintenance treatment.
In the UK, heroin has also been a treatment option for heroin misusers for several decades, but the practice remains controversial.
"So, if maintenance treatment is generally justifiable, why should heroin not be used as one such pharmacological agent?" they ask.
One reason that has been cited is safety, both for the patient and for the general public. Yet results from the Swiss studies show that mortality among patients in heroin assisted maintenance programmes is low, and lower than for patients in other maintenance programmes.
Overall, say the authors, we see no convincing reason why heroin assisted maintenance treatment should not be part of a comprehensive treatment system for opioid dependence.
But Neil McKeganey, Professor of Drug Misuse Research at the University of Glasgow argues that prescribing heroin to heroin addicts is treating the effects of misuse not the addiction.
The evidence in relation to heroin prescribing is far from conclusive, he says, while the cost of treating an addict with heroin is estimated to be three to four times that of treating an addict with methadone.
Prescribing heroin to heroin addicts is also a risky strategy, which could lead to massive pressure on doctors to prescribe increasing amounts of the drug.
Research has shown that with the right services in place it is possible to do more than simply stabilise addicts' continued drug use through the prescribing route, writes McKeganey. For example, a Scottish study found 29.4% of addicts who received residential rehabilitation were abstinent for at least 90 days compared with only 3.4% receiving methadone maintenance.
Other research has found that most addicts want services to help them become drug free. Health services therefore need to ensure that they are supporting addicts' attempts to become drug free, and they need to be extremely cautious about any extension of a policy that could be seen as a route to maintaining rather than reducing an individual's drug dependency
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment