Shaped Like an Apple? Beware Kidney Disease
Body shape is important for more than clothing style. Researchers have found exess belly fat — as seen in the apple-shaped body, as opposed to the pear-shaped body where the fat is lower down on the hips and butt — can increase risk of kidney disease.
CREDIT: hatanga | Shutterstock
Are apples bad for the kidneys? The answer is yes, if you’re talking about an apple-shaped body in which fat is concentrated in the abdominal area.
Researchers in the Netherlands have found that excess abdominal or belly fat — as seen in the so-called apple-shaped body, as opposed to the pear-shaped body where the fat is lower down on the hips and buttocks — can significantly raise the risk of kidney disease even among people with a modest-size belly and who are generally not overweight.
While the connection between obesity and kidney disease has long been established, this latest study is the first to show how just a small increase in abdominal fat begins to strain the kidneys, reducing the blood flow to these organs and raising the local blood pressure within them. [8 Reasons Our Waistlines Are Expanding]
The study appears today (April 11) in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
The kidneys are two bean-shaped organs, just below the rib cage, that remove waste from the blood stream and send it out of the body as urine. People can function well with just one kidney. Nevertheless, chronic kidney disease is on the rise. More than 10 percent of American adults now have some form of kidney disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Among diabetics, 35 percent have kidney disease.
Most forms of kidney disease have no cure, except through a kidney transplant from a healthy donor. Kidney disease is the eighth leading cause of death in the United States, according to the CDC, and approximately 90,000 Americans are waiting for a transplant.
To further investigate the known connection between obesity and kidney disease, researchers led by Arjan Kwakernaak, a medical doctor and a Ph.D. candidate at the University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands, analyzed kidney profiles and waist-to-hip ratios in 315 healthy individuals with an average body mass index (BMI) of about 25 kg/m2. The waist-to-hip ratio is a measure of central body fat distribution; and a BMI of 25 is considered the upper border or normal weight.
Even among healthy subjects, higher waist-to-hip ratios were directly associated with lower kidney function, lower kidney blood flow and higher blood pressure within the kidneys.
“We found that apple-shaped persons — even if totally healthy and with a normal blood pressure — have an elevated blood pressure in their kidneys,” Kwakernaak said. “When they are also overweight or obese, this is even worse.”
An apple-shaped body was associated with a twofold-increased risk of high renal blood pressure, seen in both men and women, Kwakernaak said.
The researchers don’t know why this is happening. The reason is not because fat is weighing down on kidneys, crushing them, Kwakernaak said. The researchers speculate that the cause might be from the fat triggering inflammation or insulin resistance, which can impede blood flow, or fat creating free radicals, which can damage the kidneys at a cellular level.
“Our study now provides a possible mechanism for this increased renal risk” seen in obesity, for further investigation, Kwakernaak told LiveScience.
As for anyone with a pear-shaped body, you’re not off the hook. Researchers at University of California Davis found that gluteal adipose tissue — that is, that fat around the backside, thought to be harmless, if not useful for sitting for long periods — secretes proteins associated with inflammation and insulin resistance, the latter being a precursor to diabetes. Their study was published last month in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.
No word yet, though, from researchers on the healthfulness of a starfruit-shaped body.
Christopher Wanjek is the author of a new novel, “Hey, Einstein!“, a comical nature-versus-nurture tale about raising clones of Albert Einstein in less-than-ideal settings. His column, Bad Medicine, appears regularly on LiveScience.
Follow LiveScience @livescience, Facebook Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.
Article source: http://www.livescience.com/28681-belly-fat-and-kidney-disease.html
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Shaped Like an Apple? Beware Kidney Disease
Are apples bad for the kidneys? The answer is yes, if you’re talking about an apple-shaped body in which fat is concentrated in the abdominal area.
Researchers in the Netherlands have found that excess abdominal or belly fat — as seen in the so-called apple-shaped body, as opposed to the pear-shaped body where the fat is lower down on the hips and buttocks — can significantly raise the risk of kidney disease even among people with a modest-size belly and who are generally not overweight.
While the connection between obesity and kidney disease has long been established, this latest study is the first to show how just a small increase in abdominal fat begins to strain the kidneys, reducing the blood flow to these organs and raising the local blood pressure within them. [8 Reasons Our Waistlines Are Expanding]
The study appears today (April 11) in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
The kidneys are two bean-shaped organs, just below the rib cage, that remove waste from the blood stream and send it out of the body as urine. People can function well with just one kidney. Nevertheless, chronic kidney disease is on the rise. More than 10 percent of American adults now have some form of kidney disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Among diabetics, 35 percent have kidney disease.
Most forms of kidney disease have no cure, except through a kidney transplant from a healthy donor. Kidney disease is the eighth leading cause of death in the United States, according to the CDC, and approximately 90,000 Americans are waiting for a transplant.
To further investigate the known connection between obesity and kidney disease, researchers led by Arjan Kwakernaak, a medical doctor and a Ph.D. candidate at the University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands, analyzed kidney profiles and waist-to-hip ratios in 315 healthy individuals with an average body mass index (BMI) of about 25 kg/m2. The waist-to-hip ratio is a measure of central body fat distribution; and a BMI of 25 is considered the upper border or normal weight.
Even among healthy subjects, higher waist-to-hip ratios were directly associated with lower kidney function, lower kidney blood flow and higher blood pressure within the kidneys.
“We found that apple-shaped persons — even if totally healthy and with a normal blood pressure — have an elevated blood pressure in their kidneys,” Kwakernaak said. “When they are also overweight or obese, this is even worse.”
An apple-shaped body was associated with a twofold-increased risk of high renal blood pressure, seen in both men and women, Kwakernaak said.
The researchers don’t know why this is happening. The reason is not because fat is weighing down on kidneys, crushing them, Kwakernaak said. The researchers speculate that the cause might be from the fat triggering inflammation or insulin resistance, which can impede blood flow, or fat creating free radicals, which can damage the kidneys at a cellular level.
“Our study now provides a possible mechanism for this increased renal risk” seen in obesity, for further investigation, Kwakernaak told LiveScience.
As for anyone with a pear-shaped body, you’re not off the hook. Researchers at University of California Davis found that gluteal adipose tissue — that is, that fat around the backside, thought to be harmless, if not useful for sitting for long periods — secretes proteins associated with inflammation and insulin resistance, the latter being a precursor to diabetes. Their study was published last month in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.
No word yet, though, from researchers on the healthfulness of a starfruit-shaped body.
Christopher Wanjek is the author of a new novel, “Hey, Einstein!“, a comical nature-versus-nurture tale about raising clones of Albert Einstein in less-than-ideal settings. His column, Bad Medicine, appears regularly on LiveScience.
Follow LiveScience @livescience, Facebook Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.
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New York's Trans Fat Ban Effective, Study Claims
Love it or hate it, the ban on trans fats in New York City restaurants appears to be having the desired effect of lowering unhealthy trans fat and saturated fat consumption there.
These first results of an ongoing study conducted by the New York City Department of Health Mental Hygiene appear tomorrow (July 17) in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
Fattening the pot for New York City officials was the finding that the positive effects of the ban were widespread across high- and low-income neighborhoods.
Although city health officials analyzed only a sliver of the amount of prepared foods served to New Yorkers daily, the study demonstrates how public health campaigns — however viewed as paternalistic and strong-armed — can improve health habits when properly designed and implemented, said Alice Lichtenstein, a nutritionist at Tufts University, in an accompanying editorial. [8 Reasons Our Waistlines Are Expanding]
The study also may bolster New York City’s latest controversial proposed regulation of super-sized sugary drinks.
Trans fats not natural
Trans fats are nearly universally vilified by health experts. These fats, largely created from plant oils through an industrial process, are cheap for food manufacturers. They also extend the shelf life of foods.
Unfortunately, trans fats raise levels of LDL, the bad cholesterol, and lower levels of HDL, the good cholesterol, leading to heart disease, according to numerous studies. Trans fats also lead to more rapid weight gain and abdominal fat, as first reported by Wake Forest University researchers. Researchers at Harvard School of Public Health estimate that trans fats cause at least 30,000 deaths annually in the United States.
In 2006, the Food and Drug Administration began requiring manufacturers to list the amount of trans fats in their products. These fats had long been hidden from consumers.
Welcome to New York
The same year, New York City, led by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, went one step further. The city became the first locality in the United States to restrict the use of trans fats, targeting the restaurant environment.
The proposed ban was met with much opposition and several lawsuits, but it went into effect in July 2007. The ban restricts all food service establishments in the city, including both chain and nonchain restaurants, from “using, storing, or serving food that contains partially hydrogenated vegetable oil [trans fat] and has a total of 0.5 g or more trans fat per serving,” according to the city’s report.
The city’s study looked at receipts from randomly selected restaurants in 2007 and 2009, before and after the ban when into effect, and also surveyed adult customers.
The researchers found a significant decrease in trans fats, as expected, but not at the expense of an increase in other kinds of saturated fats. They attributed the total decrease in unhealthy fats to new cooking methods and to new offerings, such as grilled chicken sandwiches.
Also, between 2006 and 2008, the number of restaurants using trans fats decreased from 51 percent to 2 percent, and the switch to alternative fats and methods has been cost-neutral.
Onward to soda?
New York‘s trans-fat regulation can serve as a model for similar public health initiatives, said Lichtenstein, who directs the Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory at Tufts.
Missing from the editorial and the city’s study, however, is any mention of New York’s latest health initiative: a proposed ban on sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces sold at restaurants, stadiums and street carts. Approved by the city’s health panel, the regulation faces a public hearing on July 24.
On July 9, New Yorkers held what was dubbed the “Million Big Gulp March,” attracting a few hundred participants who decried the proposal. As heard with the trans-fat ban circa 2006, there were chants of “food Nazi” and arguments about personal freedom.
The connection between sugary drinks and diabetes and obesity, though, is not as firm as it is for trans fats and heart disease, many experts say. Only time will tell if the positive report on the trans-fat ban will give New York City some much needed ammunition for this next fight.
Christopher Wanjek is the author of a new novel, “Hey, Einstein!“, a comical nature-versus-nurture tale about raising clones of Albert Einstein in less-than-ideal settings. His column, Bad Medicine, appears regularly on LiveScience.
Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/yorks-trans-fat-ban-effective-study-claims-210929090.html
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20% 'Fat Tax' Needed to Fight Obesity
It’s a proposition some might find hard to swallow: a 20-percent tax on unhealthy food to improve the health of the nation.
Yet such a tax — spread across the food chain from manufacturer to consumer, coupled with changes in food policy to spur production of healthier food — is needed to reverse the pandemic of obesity and chronic diseases, researchers say.
Two articles published online today (May 15) in the British Medical Journal describe this course of action. These opinion pieces come one week before the 65th World Health Assembly, to convene on May 21 to 26 in Geneva, where diet-related diseases will be the primary topic.
Size of fat tax
One article, led by Oliver Mytton of Oxford University’s Department of Public Health, looked at tax schemes worldwide to see what has worked, however marginally. Many countries are now using such “sin” taxes, which have curbed tobacco and alcohol use, to limit the consumption of unhealthy food, Mytton said. These taxes are based on the basic economic theory that, as the price of an item rises, the consumption of that item will fall. [7 Diet Tricks That Really Work]
But this theory isn’t necessarily true with food, Mytton said. Just because the price of microwave-ready, deep-fried, gooey cheese sticks goes up doesn’t mean the nation will switch to kale. People might continue eating deep-fried, gooey cheese sticks, because that’s what they like to eat and that’s all they know how to eat.
Mytton’s group, however, found numerous cases in which a relatively high tax altered food consumption in a healthful way. One example comes from Denmark, where early assessment is showing that a new relatively high “fat tax” on oh-so-cherished saturated fat has prompted people to eat foods with a healthier fat profile. Another study comes from Boston, at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital cafeteria, where a 35-percent increase in the price of sugary drinks led to a 26-percent reduction in consumption.
Analyzing such food tax schemes, Mytton’s group eyeballed a 20-percent tax as the level at which changes on food consumption become noticeable.
Mytton is cognizant of unintended consequences of food taxes — for example, trading one evil for another, less sugar for more fat, or buying less healthy food for lack of money to buy any food. For this reason, he suggests introducing a sugary beverage tax, in which the alternative is usually drinking more tap water.
“A tax isn’t going to fix obesity; it’s not going to fix diet-related diseases,” Mytton said. “There’s no single solution. But it can have a role in moving people in the right direction” with their eating patterns. Mytton also would like to see subsidies for healthy foods, such as fruit and vegetables.
Food policy and marketing
A second article, by Corinna Hawkes of the Centre for Food Policy at City University, London, calls for broad changes in food policy and marketing. This opinion piece complements a scientific paper Hawkes and her colleagues published last month in the journal Food Policy, which primarily targets the food industry as the best place to fight diet-related diseases.
Hawkes argues that changes in food production — for example, less sugar, salt and trans-fats, used now because they are inexpensive alternatives for healthier ingredients — could dramatically lower the incidence of obesity and heart disease with minimal effect on consumers’ pocketbooks.
In essence, she is calling for a reversal of the changes in the food supply system that, in recent decades, have “coincided with rises in obesity and non-communicable diseases,” she said. During this period, large food processors and retailers have wielded greater control over food production through tightly controlled supply chains. Through better price control and innovative marketing, these companies have created a consumer demand for cheaper but unhealthier food, largely in the form of easy-to-prepare processed foods and drinks.
Strategies similar to what went into the creation of inexpensive, unhealthy food — cheap corn syrup as sweetener, or cheap soy and corn to fatten cattle — could work to make the industry find ways to use healthier ingredients and healthier manufacturing practices, Hawkes said.
And then there’s marketing: “Food marketing to children simply must be stopped,” said Hawkes “It’s absurd that it exists at all.” [10 Ways to Promote Kids' Healthy Eating]
Patrick Basham of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, is one of many who have argued that sugar and fat taxes are misguided, because they do little to change consumer-buying habits. In a March 30 article in U.S. News World Report, Basham said that soda taxes would need to be 100 percent just to see a 10-percent drop in consumption, on average across the entire population.
Also, given the poor economy, governments might be less willing to introduce taxes or changes in the food supply if they have a negative impact on jobs.
Mytton, who describes himself as pragmatic, said that governments actually might see food taxes as a way to generate revenue while reducing health costs. He points to countries such as Mexico, where diabetes now is the leading killer, something entirely the result of a poor diet and which is predicted to bankrupt the country’s health system by the end of the decade.
Christopher Wanjek is the author of the books “Bad Medicine” and “Food At Work.” His column, Bad Medicine, appears regularly on LiveScience.
Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/20-fat-tax-needed-fight-obesity-000726848.html
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Teens With Bulging Bellies at Increased Risk for Hypertension
Armed with nothing more complicated than a tape measure and a scale, researchers are perfecting the art of estimating levels of dangerous body fat in teenagers.
The technique simply combines measurements of body-mass index (BMI) and the waist-to-height ratio. The two measurements, which otherwise independently are imperfect probes of measuring body fat, surprisingly predict the amount of fat floating in the blood and accumulated on bodily organs, which ultimately can lead to diabetes, heart disease and cancers.
The dual method is an inexpensive proxy to body fat measurements using blood tests and whole body scans. Researchers from University of Toronto and the Hospital for Sick Children in Ontario, Canada, report these findings today (April 2) in the journals Archives of Pediatrics Adolescent Medicine.
The problem with measurements
BMI, the ratio of a person’s weight to height, is the most common measurement to determine whether a patient is overweight, yet it comes with numerous limitations: BMI cannot differentiate between lean muscle and unhealthy fat; it doesn’t account well for different body-frame types, often categorizing short, chubby people as “healthy weight” and tall, muscular people as “overweight;” and it can be a poor indicator of obesity in teenagers, who are growing rapidly.
Waist circumference can be more predictive of abdominal fat, which is generally unhealthy and indicative of fat accumulating on organs such as the liver, kidneys and heart. A person can have a large frame with a large waist, however, and not have excess visceral fat on the organs. Regardless, waist circumference — essentially one’s pants’ size — rarely is measured during a medical exam.
Faced with the limitations of BMI, the Canadian researchers decided to examine the added role that waist measurements can have in predicting fat levels and subsequent health risks. They examined more than 3,000 teens ages 14 to 15 in Ontario, collecting waist, height and weight measurements along with blood pressure and blood samples.
For obese teens in particular, a high BMI coupled with a large waistline was associated with high blood pressure and high levels of circulating fat in the blood. Increases in waistline were directly correlated with increases in blood pressure and internal fat. These adolescents are at risk for diabetes and liver and heart disease, the researchers said.
Obese and overweight children with moderate waistlines had only slightly elevated fat levels. Those who had BMIs in the normal to overweight range, but had normal waist measurements, had healthy blood pressure and no excess levels of circulating fat.
Contention among researchers
Despite their simplicity, BMI and waistline measurements are the subject of much contention. Some researchers desire to eliminate them from the vernacular, claiming they are of little value to individuals wondering if they are overweight. BMI, for example, was a tool first used for population studies and only recently became associated with individual dieting goals and a healthy weight range. [5 Diets That Fight Diseases]
Data presented at the 2009 Endocrine Society annual meeting, from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, suggests that BMI and waistline measurements overestimate obesity among African-Americans. A paper published in August 2011 in the Journal of Adolescent Health stated that waist circumference was not a predictor of diabetes risk and shouldn’t be collected.
Other papers have compared the predictive powers of one measurement over another, be it BMI, waist circumference or to the waist-to-height ratio.
This latest Canadian study, led by Michael Khoury of the University of Toronto, is among the first to look at how simple measurements of weight, height and waistline can complement each other. The sum is greater than the parts, the researchers concluded, and they recommend that the basic measurements become routine in medical exams.
The researchers hope to expand their analysis with a larger sample size to better represent race, body types, age and puberty stage.
Christopher Wanjek is the author of the books “Bad Medicine” and “Food At Work.” His column, Bad Medicine, appears regularly on LiveScience.
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/teens-bulging-bellies-increased-risk-hypertension-112012737.html
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Categories: Fat Loss Diary Tags: Bad Medicine, Biggest Diet Myths, BMI, Christopher Wanjek
Low-Carb Diets Imperil People Prone to Heart Disease
A low-carb, high-fat diet might help some people lose weight, but it could be deadly to those with a family history of heart disease, according to research presented March 25 at a meeting of the American College of Cardiology in Chicago.
Researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham found that obese rats fed a high-fat, low-carb diet — comparable to what many humans consume — had more damaging and deadly heart attacks than obese rats fed a low-fat diet.
Worse, the findings suggest that this type of diet also impairs recovery immediately following a heart attack.
Although the researchers say that low-carb diets do have benefits, they advise caution.
“Right now, if I were considering a high-fat, low-carb diet, I would ask myself if the benefits outweigh the heart-attack issues this research has revealed,” said Steven Lloyd of UAB, who led a set of four complementary studies. “If I had heart disease or I was predisposed to having a heart attack, I would think carefully before starting this type of diet.”
Carbs vs. fats
Carbohydrates from foods such as vegetables, nuts and grains have been the primary source of calories for most of the world’s people for millennia. The World Health Organization advocates a diet in which 55 percent to 75 percent of daily calories come from carbohydrates; 15 percent to 30 percent from fats; and 10 percent to 15 percent from proteins. [7 Perfect Survival Foods]
The low-carb Zone Diet advocates a 40:30:30 ratio of carbs, fats and proteins, respectively; the Atkins Diet can be as low as 20 percent carbohydrates, with less concern about the protein-fat ratio. There is considerable scientific support for these low-carb diets as weight-loss programs. And Lloyd emphasized that his research does not suggest that high-fat, low-carb diets cause heart attacks.
Nevertheless, the long-term impact of high protein intake and fat on the heart and other organs is not well known.
At the heart of the damage
Lloyd and his colleagues focused only on naturally occurring heart attacks. They found that for obese rats on a high-fat diet, when a heart attack hit, it was larger and more punishing, causing more damage to the heart muscle and leaving less chance of recovery compared with equally obese rats on a low-fat diet.
One reason might be the role of fat in inducing oxidative stress and creating free radicals, which are highly reactive atoms and molecules that damage DNA and cellular walls, ultimately killing heart muscle cells.
Another reason, Lloyd said, could be that for the rats on a high-fat diet their hearts may have been starved for energy. Carbohydrates are the most efficient fuel when the heart is trying to recover from a damaging event, he said. In the high-fat diet, the primary fuel is ketones from fat metabolism, which is adequate for a healthy heart but not a damaged one. The lack of glucose that would have been supplied by carbohydrates leaves the heart less able to heal itself.
Many advocates on both sides of the diet debate — the low-fat and low-carb camps — have reached some common ground in recent years. Both camps now emphasize “good carbs,” which are complex carbohydrates found in whole grains and beans, as opposed to the simple carbs found in sugar, white bread and potatoes; and “good fats,” such as the healthful omega-3 fatty acids found in some fish, and unsaturated fats found in poultry.
Someday, we might all eat at the same table.
Christopher Wanjek is the author of the books “Bad Medicine” and “Food At Work.” His column, Bad Medicine, appears regularly on LiveScience.
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/low-carb-diets-imperil-people-prone-heart-disease-140015412.html
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Categories: Fat Loss Diary Tags: Bad Medicine, Christopher Wanjek, DNA, Zone Diet