Posts Tagged ‘Johns Hopkins’

Doctors Aren’t Mean to Fat Patients, They’re Just Nicer to Thin Ones – Jezebel

As a fat person, I’ve never been treated like complete shit at the doctor, although I’ve certainly gone in for a sore throat and been told to go on a diet (ugh, why wouldn’t I stop eating so many strep-laced Ding Dongs!?). But I have had some uncomfortable experiences, and I know plenty of fat people who have had downright abusive and dangerous ones.

Though I’ve never been overtly traumatized by a healthcare professional, I sometimes wonder if I would have been treated better if I was thin. I’ve never been thin at the doctor. Maybe it’s awesome! Maybe going to the doctor while thin is like that episode of Growing Pains when Chrissy goes to bed and then Jason and Maggie do pony-rides around the living room all night. I don’t know! Fortunately, academia is making some significant strides into solving this mystery—measuring and documenting anti-fat bias in clinical situations. (No word yet re: secret ponies. But I’ve got my eye on you, thin people.)

It shouldn’t be surprising or controversial at this point to hear that fat people, in general, get shitty medical care. Or, rather, that fat people have a harder time getting good medical care than thin people do. This is not new. Americans dislike and distrust fat people. Fatness is conflated with myriad moral failings: laziness, selfishness, ignorance, incompetence, whininess, lack of self-control, refusal to take responsibility for one’s choices. When most Americans look, superficially, at a fat person, they assume (not necessarily deliberately!) that they know a lot of things about that person: what they eat, how much they move, how they feel about themselves, how “healthy” they are. Their size tells the whole story; no need to investigate further. And doctors—the people supposedly employed to investigate and solve fat people’s health issues—are not exempt from those assumptions. Doctors don’t exist outside of that system. Doctors are human beings, and absorb the same cultural norms and subtle biases as the rest of us. Doctors can be dicks, and that puts fat people’s lives at risk.

A study last fall supported just that—about 2,300 doctors participated in a “Weight Implicit Association Test,” which revealed that physicians hold the same strong anti-fat biases as the general public. But, as one of the study’s authors noted, “We don’t know if this affects how doctors behave clinically.”

Jackpot! Now we do! A new study out of Johns Hopkins specifically examined doctors’ clinical practices and found that most doctors aren’t necessarily cruel to fat patients; but they measurably withhold the empathy and personal connection that they extend to thin ones. (Anecdotally, fat people are already very aware of how bias affects their doctors’ clinical behavior. Read through the heartbreaking stories of anti-fat medical bias collected here if you’re not convinced.)

Via the New York Times:

In conversations with patients of normal weight, the doctors offered simple comments to show concern — for example, “I’m glad you’re feeling better” to a woman who had experienced hot flashes. When a normal-weight patient had trouble getting an appointment with a specialist, her doctor shared her concerns. “I agree with you,” the doctor said. “That gets extremely frustrating when that happens.”

…And statements like these are no small thing. Studies show that patients are far more likely to follow a doctor’s advice and to have a better health outcome when they believe their doctor empathizes with their plight.

“When there is increased empathy by the doctor, patients are more likely to report they are satisfied with their care, and they are more likely to adhere to recommendations of physicians,” Dr. Gudzune said. “There is evidence to show that after visits with more empathy, patients have improved clinical outcomes, so patients with diabetes have better blood sugar control or cholesterol is better controlled.”

There’s a massive, distracting misconception about bias (and this applies to discrimination against all marginalized groups, by the way)—that it’s loud and ugly and direct. Sure, sometimes it is. Sometimes anti-fat bias is pointing and laughing at a fat person on the street, or telling a fat writer that she’s too fat to get raped. But much more often, it’s subtler. It’s not the presence of hostility, it’s the absence of care: a lack of compassion, of warmth, of representation, of generosity, of willingness to connect. A lack of things that are granted, without question, to other groups, and taken for granted by those groups. That deficit might not be violent or overt, it might be invisible, but it erodes people.

I don’t know what it’s like to be a thin person at the doctor. I don’t know. And that’s the point, really. I know that doctors are people, and plenty of them are wonderful (I personally love my doctor), and some doctors are fat, and some fat people get skillful, life-saving care. But many, many, many fat people don’t—whether overtly or subtly. And just because you might not know what that feels like, or be able to perceive it, doesn’t mean it’s not real. Sometimes you just can’t know someone else’s experience; and it’s especially difficult to perceive, in someone else’s life, the absence of a boon you’d never even noticed in yours. This kind of invisible bias is more entrenched, harder to fight, less fashionable to complain about, and much more painful to recognize and address in oneself. But we have to.

Anti-fat bias in medicine is a devastating problem. Fat people are already reluctant to seek medical care, thanks to entrenched feelings of worthlessness (why take care of this thing I’ve been taught to hate?), lifetimes of conditioning never to show their bodies (wouldn’t want to put the doctor through that), and the paralyzing cultural insistence that they’re on the verge of death anyway (avoidance feels safer than potential confirmation). And then, when they do go, when they do put their trust in the hands of a supposedly caring, objective medical professional, they’re met with the exact same disinterest and dehumanization and cheap myopia that they already get from every other angle. It blows a giant hole in the fallacy that anti-fat bias is really just “care” for fat people’s “health.” If you care about fat people’s health, then you care about their mental health, their emotional health, and their access to the exact same level of health care that thin people enjoy. If you don’t, then you don’t care about fat people.

Article source: http://jezebel.com/doctors-arent-mean-to-fat-patients-theyre-just-nicer-486284863

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Using Fat To Fight Brain Cancer

Johns Hopkins researchers use a type of stem cells from human adipose tissue to chase migrating cancer cells

In laboratory studies, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have found that stem cells from a patient’s own fat may have the potential to deliver new treatments directly into the brain after the surgical removal of a glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive form of brain tumor.

The investigators say so-called mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have an unexplained ability to seek out damaged cells, such as those involved in cancer, and may provide clinicians a new tool for accessing difficult-to-reach parts of the brain where cancer cells can hide and proliferate anew. The researchers say harvesting MSCs from fat is less invasive and less expensive than getting them from bone marrow, a more commonly studied method.

Results of the Johns Hopkins proof-of-principle study are described online in the journal PLOS ONE.

“The biggest challenge in brain cancer is the migration of cancer cells. Even when we remove the tumor, some of the cells have already slipped away and are causing damage somewhere else,” says study leader Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, M.D., a professor of neurosurgery, oncology and neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “Building off our findings, we may be able to find a way to arm a patient’s own healthy cells with the treatment needed to chase down those cancer cells and destroy them. It’s truly personalized medicine.”

For their test-tube experiments, Quinones-Hinojosa and his colleagues bought human MSCs derived from both fat and bone marrow, and also isolated and grew their own stem cell lines from fat removed from two patients. Comparing the three cell lines, they discovered that all proliferated, migrated, stayed alive and kept their potential as stem cells equally well.

This was an important finding, Quinones-Hinojosa says, because it suggests that a patient’s own fat cells might work as well as any to create cancer-fighting cells. The MSCs, with their ability to home in on cancer cells, might be able to act as a delivery mechanism, bringing drugs, nanoparticles or some other treatment directly to the cells. Quinones-Hinojosa cautions that while further studies are under way, it will be years before human trials of MSC delivery systems can begin.

Ideally, he says, if MSCs work, a patient with a glioblastoma would have some adipose tissue (fat) removed – from any number of locations in the body – a short time before surgery. The MSCs in the fat would be drawn out and manipulated in the lab to carry drugs or other treatments. Then, after surgeons removed the brain tumor, they could deposit these treatment-armed cells into the brain in the hopes that they would seek out and destroy the cancer cells.

Currently, standard treatments for glioblastoma are chemotherapy, radiation and surgery, but even a combination of all three rarely leads to more than 18 months of survival after diagnosis. Glioblastoma tumor cells are particularly nimble, migrating across the entire brain and establishing new tumors. This migratory capability is thought to be a key reason for the low cure rate of this tumor type.

“Essentially these MSCs are like a ‘smart’ device that can track cancer cells,” Quinones-Hinojosa says.

Quinones-Hinojosa says it’s unclear why MSCs are attracted to glioblastoma cells, but they appear to have a natural affinity for sites of damage in the body, such as a wound. MSCs, whether derived from bone marrow or fat, have been studied in animal models to treat trauma, Parkinson’s disease, ALS and other diseases.

This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R01-NS070024), the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Other Johns Hopkins researchers involved in the study include Courtney Pendleton, M.D.; Qian Li, Ph.D.; David A Chesler, M.D., Ph.D.; Kristy Yuan, M.D.; and Hugo Guerrero-Cazares, M.D., Ph.D.

SOURCE: Johns Hopkins University

Article source: http://www.bioresearchonline.com/doc.mvc/using-fat-to-fight-brain-cancer-0001?atc~c=771%20s%3D773%20r%3D001%20l%3Da

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Stem cells from body fat can destroy tumour cells: Study

Washington, March 13 (IANS) A new study has found that stem cells from the patient’s own body fat could help seek out and destroy cancer cells in a type of brain tumour.

Johns Hopkins researchers say they have found the stem cells from body fat may have the potential to deliver new treatments directly into the brain after the surgical removal of a glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive form of brain tumour.

According to investigators, the mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have an unexplained ability to seek out damaged cells, such as those involved in cancer, and may provide clinicians a new tool for accessing difficult-to-reach parts of the brain where cancer cells can hide and proliferate anew.

The researchers say harvesting MSCs from fat is less invasive and less expensive than getting them from bone marrow, a more commonly studied method, reports Science Daily.

Results of the Johns Hopkins proof-of-principle study are described online in the journal PLOS ONE.

“The biggest challenge in brain cancer is the migration of cancer cells. Even when we remove the tumour, some of the cells have already slipped away and are causing damage somewhere else,” says study leader Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, professor of neurosurgery, oncology and neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

“Building off our findings, we may be able to find a way to arm a patient’s own healthy cells with the treatment needed to chase down those cancer cells and destroy them. It’s truly personalised medicine,” adds Quinones-Hinojosa.

Article source: http://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/stem-cells-body-fat-destroy-tumour-cells-study-081424713.html

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Using fat to fight brain cancer

Public release date: 12-Mar-2013

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Contact: Stephanie Desmon
sdesmon1@jhmi.edu
410-955-8665
Johns Hopkins Medicine

Johns Hopkins researchers use a type of stem cells from human adipose tissue to chase migrating cancer cells

In laboratory studies, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have found that stem cells from a patient’s own fat may have the potential to deliver new treatments directly into the brain after the surgical removal of a glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive form of brain tumor.

The investigators say so-called mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have an unexplained ability to seek out damaged cells, such as those involved in cancer, and may provide clinicians a new tool for accessing difficult-to-reach parts of the brain where cancer cells can hide and proliferate anew. The researchers say harvesting MSCs from fat is less invasive and less expensive than getting them from bone marrow, a more commonly studied method.

Results of the Johns Hopkins proof-of-principle study are described online in the journal PLOS ONE.

“The biggest challenge in brain cancer is the migration of cancer cells. Even when we remove the tumor, some of the cells have already slipped away and are causing damage somewhere else,” says study leader Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, M.D., a professor of neurosurgery, oncology and neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “Building off our findings, we may be able to find a way to arm a patient’s own healthy cells with the treatment needed to chase down those cancer cells and destroy them. It’s truly personalized medicine.”

For their test-tube experiments, Quinones-Hinojosa and his colleagues bought human MSCs derived from both fat and bone marrow, and also isolated and grew their own stem cell lines from fat removed from two patients. Comparing the three cell lines, they discovered that all proliferated, migrated, stayed alive and kept their potential as stem cells equally well.

This was an important finding, Quinones-Hinojosa says, because it suggests that a patient’s own fat cells might work as well as any to create cancer-fighting cells. The MSCs, with their ability to home in on cancer cells, might be able to act as a delivery mechanism, bringing drugs, nanoparticles or some other treatment directly to the cells. Quinones-Hinojosa cautions that while further studies are under way, it will be years before human trials of MSC delivery systems can begin.

Ideally, he says, if MSCs work, a patient with a glioblastoma would have some adipose tissue (fat) removed from any number of locations in the body a short time before surgery. The MSCs in the fat would be drawn out and manipulated in the lab to carry drugs or other treatments. Then, after surgeons removed the brain tumor, they could deposit these treatment-armed cells into the brain in the hopes that they would seek out and destroy the cancer cells.

Currently, standard treatments for glioblastoma are chemotherapy, radiation and surgery, but even a combination of all three rarely leads to more than 18 months of survival after diagnosis. Glioblastoma tumor cells are particularly nimble, migrating across the entire brain and establishing new tumors. This migratory capability is thought to be a key reason for the low cure rate of this tumor type.

“Essentially these MSCs are like a ‘smart’ device that can track cancer cells,” Quinones-Hinojosa says.

Quinones-Hinojosa says it’s unclear why MSCs are attracted to glioblastoma cells, but they appear to have a natural affinity for sites of damage in the body, such as a wound. MSCs, whether derived from bone marrow or fat, have been studied in animal models to treat trauma, Parkinson’s disease, ALS and other diseases.

This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R01-NS070024), the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Other Johns Hopkins researchers involved in the study include Courtney Pendleton, M.D.; Qian Li, Ph.D.; David A Chesler, M.D., Ph.D.; Kristy Yuan, M.D.; and Hugo Guerrero-Cazares, M.D., Ph.D.

For more information:

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/neurology_neurosurgery/experts/profiles/team_member_profile/36A35BDE9B71CB08318C8F419FD7ACB4/Alfredo_Quinones-Hinojosa

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Article source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/jhm-uft030813.php

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Using fat to fight brain cancer

Public release date: 12-Mar-2013

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Contact: Stephanie Desmon
sdesmon1@jhmi.edu
410-955-8665
Johns Hopkins Medicine

Johns Hopkins researchers use a type of stem cells from human adipose tissue to chase migrating cancer cells

In laboratory studies, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have found that stem cells from a patient’s own fat may have the potential to deliver new treatments directly into the brain after the surgical removal of a glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive form of brain tumor.

The investigators say so-called mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have an unexplained ability to seek out damaged cells, such as those involved in cancer, and may provide clinicians a new tool for accessing difficult-to-reach parts of the brain where cancer cells can hide and proliferate anew. The researchers say harvesting MSCs from fat is less invasive and less expensive than getting them from bone marrow, a more commonly studied method.

Results of the Johns Hopkins proof-of-principle study are described online in the journal PLOS ONE.

“The biggest challenge in brain cancer is the migration of cancer cells. Even when we remove the tumor, some of the cells have already slipped away and are causing damage somewhere else,” says study leader Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, M.D., a professor of neurosurgery, oncology and neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “Building off our findings, we may be able to find a way to arm a patient’s own healthy cells with the treatment needed to chase down those cancer cells and destroy them. It’s truly personalized medicine.”

For their test-tube experiments, Quinones-Hinojosa and his colleagues bought human MSCs derived from both fat and bone marrow, and also isolated and grew their own stem cell lines from fat removed from two patients. Comparing the three cell lines, they discovered that all proliferated, migrated, stayed alive and kept their potential as stem cells equally well.

This was an important finding, Quinones-Hinojosa says, because it suggests that a patient’s own fat cells might work as well as any to create cancer-fighting cells. The MSCs, with their ability to home in on cancer cells, might be able to act as a delivery mechanism, bringing drugs, nanoparticles or some other treatment directly to the cells. Quinones-Hinojosa cautions that while further studies are under way, it will be years before human trials of MSC delivery systems can begin.

Ideally, he says, if MSCs work, a patient with a glioblastoma would have some adipose tissue (fat) removed from any number of locations in the body a short time before surgery. The MSCs in the fat would be drawn out and manipulated in the lab to carry drugs or other treatments. Then, after surgeons removed the brain tumor, they could deposit these treatment-armed cells into the brain in the hopes that they would seek out and destroy the cancer cells.

Currently, standard treatments for glioblastoma are chemotherapy, radiation and surgery, but even a combination of all three rarely leads to more than 18 months of survival after diagnosis. Glioblastoma tumor cells are particularly nimble, migrating across the entire brain and establishing new tumors. This migratory capability is thought to be a key reason for the low cure rate of this tumor type.

“Essentially these MSCs are like a ‘smart’ device that can track cancer cells,” Quinones-Hinojosa says.

Quinones-Hinojosa says it’s unclear why MSCs are attracted to glioblastoma cells, but they appear to have a natural affinity for sites of damage in the body, such as a wound. MSCs, whether derived from bone marrow or fat, have been studied in animal models to treat trauma, Parkinson’s disease, ALS and other diseases.

This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R01-NS070024), the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Other Johns Hopkins researchers involved in the study include Courtney Pendleton, M.D.; Qian Li, Ph.D.; David A Chesler, M.D., Ph.D.; Kristy Yuan, M.D.; and Hugo Guerrero-Cazares, M.D., Ph.D.

For more information:

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/neurology_neurosurgery/experts/profiles/team_member_profile/36A35BDE9B71CB08318C8F419FD7ACB4/Alfredo_Quinones-Hinojosa

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

HOME  
DISCLAIMER  
PRIVACY POLICY  
TERMS CONDITIONS  
CONTACT US  
TOP

Copyright ©2013 by AAAS, the science society.

Article source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/jhm-uft030813.php

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Want To Sleep Better At Night? Shed Some Belly Fat

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Getting a good night’s sleep is important to be healthy. However, a number of problems can prevent us from having a restful night. One such problem is being overweight or obese–an issue that has been studied immensely and closely linked to sleep deprivation.

Now, a team of researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, has found that weight loss, whether it be from dietary changes or from diet and exercise, can improve the quality of sleep among overweight people.

“We found that improvement in sleep quality was significantly associated with overall weight loss, especially belly fat,” said senior study author Kerry Stewart, professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins and director of clinical and research exercise physiology.

The findings of Stewart’s study was presented at the 2012 American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Los Angeles.

For the study, the research team followed 77 overweight or obese individuals with Type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes for six months. The study participants filled out sleep surveys at both the start and end of the study, detailing sleep problems such as sleep apnea, fatigue, insomnia, restless sleep, excessive sleep and use of sleeping aids. The team also measured body mass index (BMI) to track the volunteers’ changes in weight.

The participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group followed a weight-loss diet with supervised exercise training, while the second group only had diet intervention. A total of 55 of the initial 77 volunteers completed all phases of the study.

At the end of the study period, both groups had experienced weight loss of 15 pounds on average and a 15 percent reduction in belly fat. Although a variety of sleep problems were reported by the participants, there was not one particular problem that was most prominent, so the team factored in a composite score, reflecting overall sleep. They found that both groups improved their overall sleep score by about 20 percent.

According to Stewart, belly fat is particularly concerning since it can be metabolically detrimental to health.

“Belly fat is almost like a living organ. It produces proteins that cause inflammation,” Stewart told Time‘s Alexandra Sifferlin in an interview. “When you lose a lot of belly fat in particular, the level of those substances go way down, and the inflammatory response is much less than it was before.”

That means heart disease rates decline as belly fat dissolves. The risk of heart disease is pronounced because of inflammation that aggravates the blood vessels. This inflammation also interferes with the body’s normal physiological processes, and in the end, leads to obesity that in turn puts added pressure on the heart and lungs.

“If you have a lot of belly fat, the lungs can’t expand as well, so it becomes harder to breathe when you’re sleeping, which is why more people get sleep apnea,” said Stewart. “When you have sleep apnea, you wake up more in the middle of the night, and that leads to daytime sleepiness and fatigue. So people are feeling miserable because they haven’t had a good night’s sleep.”

Shedding belly fat triggers a drop in inflammation and can lower insulin resistance and improve metabolism. “This can foster weight loss or prevent further weight gain,” explained Stewart.

It isn’t clear whether sleep problems cause obesity, or obesity causes sleep disturbances, although it is likely it is a combination of both processes. “We are not exactly sure where the problem starts, but we think it is a vicious cycle. Regardless of where it starts, they feed off each other,” concluded Stewart.

Article source: http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1112727135/belly-fat-sleep-loss-110712/

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5 Steps to Automatically Burn Fat Like a Naturally Thin Person

By Jonathan Bailor

In part one of this article, we covered why the traditional calorie counting approach to weight loss fails for more than 95 percent of us. Now let’s cover the simple scientific alternative: Enabling our body to automatically balance calories for us around a slimmer set-point.

Too Good To Be True?

To get started, it sounds like I’m saying that our body can keep us slimmer much like it currently keeps us heavier, and that sounds too good to be true, right? Maybe not. We all know people who eat a lot and exercise a little and stay slim. They’re called naturally thin people, and they prove that the human body is capable of keeping us slim as reliably as it keeps us heavy. So the question is not: “Can the body burn fat automatically?” The question is: “How do we get our body to burn fat automatically like a naturally thin person?” Science shows us that the answer is surprisingly simple.

How Burning Fat Is Like Running Fast

Before we dig into the specifics of getting our bodies to work more like a naturally thin person’s body, let’s quickly set expectations by comparing our ability to burn fat with our ability to run fast. Everyone can run faster if they put a little effort in, but only a few of us will achieve world-class results no matter how much effort we put in. Why? Our genetics play a big role in how fast we are. Back to burning fat. Everyone can be slimmer if they put a little effort in, but only a few of us will achieve world-class results no matter how much effort we put in. Why? Our genetics play a big role in how slim we are.

The Good and Bad News of Burning Body Fat

So there’s good news and bad news. Let’s start with the bad news. For all intents and purposes we’re as likely to look like a fitness magazine cover model as we are to get on the cover of Sports Illustrated. On to the good news. I used the term “a little effort” earlier on purpose. Once we have access to simple and proven science instead of complex and profit-driven myths, getting and staying as slim as our genetics allow is much easier than we’ve been lead to believe.

For example, here’s are five simple steps to enable your body to work more like the body of a naturally thin person:

Step 1: Eat More—But Smarter

Each enough of the following vegetables, proteins, and fats, that you are too full for starches and sweets. To do this at the grocery store, simply avoid the middle aisles and only buy things that need to be refrigerated or frozen and contain three or less ingredients. To do this eating out, tell your server “Hold the starch, double the veggies.” To do this at home, enjoy a double serving of a protein-based main dish and a triple serving of a non-starchy vegetable side.

Enjoy many non-starchy vegetables (vegetables you can eat raw and generally find in salads):

• Spinach, romaine lettuce, kale, any green leafy vegetable
• Broccoli
• Mushrooms
• Peppers
• Onions
• Zucchini
• Cauliflower
• Carrots
• Asparagus

Nutrient dense proteins:

• Any seafood
• Organ meats/sweet breads
• Grass fed beef
• Free range poultry, eggs
• Lean conventional beef
• Lean conventional poultry
• Plain Greek yogurt
• Cottage cheese

Whole food natural fats:

• Almonds
• Flax
• Chia
• Coconut
• Macadamias
• Cocoa
• Cashews
• Pecans
• Walnuts

Step 2: Exercise Less—But Smarter

Instead of spending hours exercising more, spend minutes exercising with more resistance. Try high-intensity interval training on low-impact “cardio” machines like stationary bikes. Do heavy resistance training with your largest muscle groups (legs, back, and chest). Do not worry about building bulky muscles. You are more likely to accidentally burn too much fat than you are to accidentally build too much muscle. Unless you naturally have bulky muscles, you won’t get bulky without steroids. I promise.

Step 3: More Water, Less Everything Else

If you are not drinking at least 128 ounces of water or unsweetened tea (ideally green or white), you are not burning as much fat or feeling as good as you could be. Also, the easiest way to sabotage your health and fitness efforts is to drink calories. Steer clear of any and all beverages that contain calories. This includes not just soda, but also juice, energy drinks, “fancy” coffee, flavored milk, etc. If you want to keep things simple and stay slim, say no to liquid calories.

Step 4: Sleep More

If you are not getting at least seven hours of uninterrupted sleep per night, your fat loss efforts and overall health will suffer. I’m not an expert in improving sleep quality, but there are many free resources on the web.

Step 5: Stress Less

Stress is toxic. The more of it in your life the sicker and heavier you will be. Again, I’m not a stress relief expert, but free internet resources abound.

Slim is Simple

That’s it. It’s not complex. It can’t be. About 90 percent of us avoided obesity and more than 99 percent of us avoided diabetes before we knew what a calorie was let alone counted them. And keeping the common sense rolling, besides rapidly rising obesity and diabetes rates, what are other common trends we’ve seen over the past 40 years?

• More starches and sweets, less non-starchy vegetables, nutrient dense proteins, and whole food natural fats.
• More aerobics, less intense physical activity.
• More liquid calories, less water.
• Less sleep.
• More stress.

Compare our five steps to these five trends. If we simply do what we did before we became sick and heavy we will be slim and healthy without thinking about calories ever again.

Also Read:

10 Breakfast Foods with as Much Sugar as a Candy Bar

Eat More Real Food, Do Less Complex Math

Video: Celebrities Support GMO Labeling

_______________________

Jonathan Bailor is the author of The Smarter Science of Slim which simplifies the analysis of over 1,100 scientific studies to provide a proven lifestyle for lasting wellness by focusing on the quality of food and exercise and then eating more and exercising less – but smarter. The Smarter Science of Slim is endorsed by the world-wide scientific community including top doctors at the Harvard Medical School, Johns Hopkins, and UCLA, and approved as curriculum for registered dieticians (RDs) by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly The American Dietetic Association).

October 30th, 2012

Posted in: Diet Tips, Guest Blog, HIIT, jonathan bailor, smarter science of slim

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Article source: http://www.dietsinreview.com/diet_column/10/5-steps-to-automatically-burn-fat-like-a-naturally-thin-person/

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Why Calorie Counting Fails and How to Burn Fat Without It

Which of the following statements are true?

a. A pound of feathers weighs the same as a pound of lead.
b. We have to consciously decrease calories in or increase calories out in order to burn fat.
c. All triangles have three sides.

If we believe what we’ve been taught, A, B, and C are all true. However, it may come as a surprise (or not, considering the dramatic rise in obesity) that biologists have known for a long time that B is false. We do not need to consciously eat less or exercise more in order to burn fat.

How’s this possible?

There are at least three major biological missteps with calorie counting:

1. It assumes calories out is fixed.
2. It assumes we can calculate calories out.
3. It assumes fewer calories in or more calories out requires the body to burn fat. 

Calories Out is Not Fixed

Calorie counting incorrectly assumes if we burn 2,000 calories per day and cut calories in to 1,500 that we burn 500 calories worth of stored fat.

This is has been proven false in scientific circles for quite some time. Why?

When we consciously cut calories in, the body unconsciously cuts calories out. University of Wisconsin researcher Dr. Keesy tells us, “Disproportionately large declines in resting metabolism are seen in food-deprived men.” In other words, when we consciously cut our calories in, the body negates our efforts by unconsciously cutting calories out. If we aim to burn fat by consciously cutting calories, we are aiming at a moving target.

We Cannot Calculate Calories Out

The internet is full of base metabolic rate (BMR) calculators, and gyms are filled with “cardio” machines claiming to tell you how many calories you burned while using them. The biological fact is that there is no program or tool available to non-scientists that accurately measures how many calories we burn. In fact, even if web-based BMR calculators and cardio machine calculators were accurate, we would still be missing huge contributors to calories out such as:

1. Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT)—calories burned via involuntary movement.
2. Diet-induced thermogenesis (DIT)—calories burned during digestion.
3. Post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC)—calories burned recovering from intense exercise.

Combine this with the first point, and attempting to count calories is like aiming at a moving target that we can’t even see.

Less Calories In or More Calories Out Does Not Require the Body to Burn Fat

If you tell anyone the simple science you are learning here, you will hear something like, “The law of thermodynamics proves if we eat less or exercise more we have to burn fat.” This is incorrect. Thermodynamics proves if we eat less or exercise more, then our body has to do something. It does not prove what that something is. And thermodynamics definitely does not prove that the something is “burn body fat.” In fact, if we starve ourselves, biology shows that we’ll become ravenously hungry, then our metabolism will slow down, then we’ll burn muscle, and then, if we’re still short on energy, we’ll burn fat.

When we use biology instead of physics when discussing our bodies—crazy, I know—we see that thermodynamics proves that counting and cutting calories sets us up for long term fat gain (uncontrollable hunger, slow metabolism, and less muscle) rather than fat loss.

In short, counting calories is like aiming at an incorrect, invisible, and moving target. Is it any wonder we have an obesity epidemic?

The Simple Scientific Alternative to Complex Calorie Math

It is impossible to accurately measure and balance calories, and even if we could, just creating a “caloric deficit” without thinking about nutrition or hormones leads to fat gain if we don’t stay voraciously hungry for the rest of our lives.

I’ll pass.

A much more effective approach is to recognize that our body already balances calories—how else do we stay at whatever weight we’re currently at, seemingly no matter what we do?—and to get our body to balance us at a slimmer body composition. In other words, to get our body to keep us in balance automatically at a slim “set-point” like it does for naturally thin people.

We all know plenty of people who eat a lot and exercise a little and stay slim. They’re not counting calories and we don’t need to either. We simply need to focus on food and exercise quality (vs. quantity) to enable our body to work more like theirs.

Jonathan Bailor is the author of The Smarter Science of Slim, which simplifies the analysis of over 1,100 scientific studies to provide a proven lifestyle for lasting wellness by focusing on the quality of food and exercise and then eating more and exercising less – but smarter. The Smarter Science of Slim is endorsed by the world-wide scientific community including top doctors at the Harvard Medical School, Johns Hopkins, and UCLA, and approved as curriculum for registered dieticians (RDs) by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly The American Dietetic Association).

Also Read:

October 3rd, 2012

Posted in: calories, Guest Blog, jonathan bailor, metabolism, smarter science of slim

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Article source: http://www.dietsinreview.com/diet_column/10/why-calorie-counting-fails-and-how-to-burn-fat-without-it/

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High Fat Diet Triggers Neurological Tendency To Eat More

Editor’s Choice
Main Category: Neurology / Neuroscience
Also Included In: Obesity / Weight Loss / Fitness
Article Date: 28 May 2012 – 15:00 PDT

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A study in the May edition of Nature Neuroscience reveals that Johns Hopkins researchers have found, in animal studies, that new nerve cells formed in a particular part of the brain could influence how much people eat and their consequent weight.

Leading researcher Seth Blackshaw’s PhD., states that it has been evident for a few decades that the brain continues to form new nerve cells (neurons) into adulthood, yet it was believed that this process (neurogenesis) only occurs in two areas of the brain, i.e. in the hippocampus and in the olfactory bulb. The hippocampus is associated with memory function, whilst the olfactory bulb is associated with smell.

Blackshaw, who is an associate professor in the Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, says they now discovered a third location in the brain that also forms new neurons, the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is linked to various body functions, such as body temperature, sleep, hunger and thirst, although the precise source of the neurogenesis and the function of the new neurons have not yet been established.

Blackshaw and his team conducted a mice model to see if there were any high levels of cell growth in a particular location within the hypothalamus that would indicate neurogenesis after injecting the mice with an easily detectable compound called bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) that selectively incorporates itself into newly replicating DNA of dividing cells. After a few days they discovered high levels of BrdU in the median eminence of the hypothalamus located at the base of the brain’s fluid-filled third ventricle.

After examining these rapidly proliferating cells the team discovered that they were tanycytes, bipolar cells that could be well suited to produce new neurons due to the fact that they share many characteristics with cells involved in neurogenesis during early development. Blackshaw and his team bred mice with a fluorescent protein that was only visible in the tanycytes in order to establish that it was indeed the tanycytes that produced the new neurons and not other cell types. Their finding that the cells were produced by tanycyte progenitors was confirmed when after a few weeks the new neurons also proved to be fluorescent.

Having established the neurons source the team started investigating its function. Based on earlier studies, which indicate that animals fed a high fat diet have a considerably higher risk of obesity and metabolic syndrome as adults, the team hypothesized whether hypothalamic neurogenesis may be involved in this phenomenon.

From when they were weaned, the team fed the mice on a high fat diet and periodically examined them for evidence of neurogenesis. They found that compared with animals fed on a normal diet, there was no difference to very young animals on a high fat diet, although as adults those fed on a high fat diet since weaning, neurogenesis quadrupled. They gained more weight and had a higher fat mass compared with those on a normal diet.

Blackshaw and his team killed off new neurons in the high-fat group by irradiating just their median eminences with precise X-ray beams and observed a considerable lower weight gain and fat compared with those who were fed the same diet and that were considerably more active. This indicates that these neurons have a critical impact on weight regulation, fat storage and energy expenditure.

Blackshaw explains: “People typically think growing new neurons in the brain is a good thing – but it’s really just another way for the brain to modify behavior.”

He continues saying that hypothalamic neurogenesis may be a mechanism that evolved to help wild animals to survive and probably also our ancestors. Wild animals that find a rich and abundant source of food typically eat as much as possible as these foods are generally rare to find.

Having unlimited food supplies during youth and therefore prompting the growth of new neurons, which promote food intake and energy storage at a later time would be of a advantage, but Blackshaw explains that in the case of the lab animals and also in people in developed countries who have an almost unlimited access to food, this neurogenesis is not at all beneficial as it potentially encourages unnecessary excessive weight gain and fat storage.

Blackshaw states that should his findings be confirmed in further studies, they may prove important for developing a new treatment for obesity either by blocking hypothalamic neurogenesis through irradiating the median eminence or by designing drugs that can block this process.

Written By Petra Rattue

Copyright: Medical News Today

Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today

“Tanycytes of the hypothalamic median eminence form a diet-responsive neurogenic niche”
Daniel A Lee, Joseph L Bedont, Thomas Pak, Hong Wang, Juan Song, Ana Miranda-Angulo, Vani Takiar, Vanessa Charubhumi, Francesca Balordi, Hirohide Takebayashi, Susan Aja, Eric Ford, Gordon Fishell Seth Blackshaw
Nature Neuroscience, May 2012, doi:10.1038/nn.3079

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Article source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/245911.php

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Advice to fat white women: Suck it up and get tested

Advice to fat white women: Suck it up and get tested

by Public Policy Matters

BALTIMORE, MD.

April 8, 2012
9:00pm

•  Embarrassment, social stigma may discourage use of lifesaving tests

•  ‘No group is perfect when it comes to screening’

Researchers at Baltimore, Md.-based Johns Hopkins Hospital say that obese white women are less likely to seek colon cancer screening than normal-weight women of any racial group.

An earlier study found that obese white women are also less likely to schedule mammograms and pap smears which test women for breast and cervical cancer.

A researcher says obese white women seem reluctant to undergo potentially life-saving medical tests because they feel stigmatized and embarrassed to disrobe for the tests.

Drilldown:

“No group is perfect when it comes to screening, and overall rates of colonoscopy are low, but if obese, female and white, our data show you’re probably even less likely to be screened,” says study leader Nisa Maruthur, an assistant professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Ms. Maruthur notes that the reluctance to be screened is especially serious in this group because obesity is linked to higher risk for colon cancer and an increased risk of death from the disease.

“Being concerned about your weight usually is good, but here it appears to be keeping people from a test we know saves lives,” she says. “Obese white women may avoid screening because they feel stigmatized and embarrassed to disrobe for the tests.”

Despite evidence of the value of colonoscopy — a procedure that sends a flexible tube with a camera into the bowel to search for and guide removal of precancerous polyps and other tumors — only 20 percent of women and 24 percent of men over the age of 50 undergo the test, which is recommended by the United States Preventative Services Task Force for everyone between the ages of 50 and 75 on a periodic basis.

Another suggested test, fecal occult blood testing, which searches the stool for hidden blood that can be another sign of colon cancer, is also underused, with just 12 percent of American men and women using it, says Johns Hopkins.

Preventive care researchers have long tried to better understand barriers to colon cancer screening. Preparatory laxatives, anesthesia, fear of discomfort and embarrassment are known to discourage many.

In the new study, described in the journal Cancer, Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, the Johns Hopkins researchers added evidence that for white women, obesity appears to have a negative impact on screening rates. There was a hint in the data that the same may be true for obese white men, but Ms. Maruthur says research is needed to verify the suggestion.

Negative body image among obese white people may explain this association, which seems to be fostered particularly in white women, where the pressure to be thin appears to be more intense, Ms. Maruthur says.

In an unrelated study she cites, for example, white and African-American women rated magazine images of “thin, average-weight and large” African-American and white women. White women rated large white women lower in interpersonal and career domains, while African-American women did not stigmatize large African-American women in this way.

Ms. Maruthur says another barrier to screening among obese people may be their tendency to have higher rates of pressing health concerns, leading physicians to delay or put off discussions of preventive screening. However, the rates of those medical conditions are not likely higher for obese whites.

Article source: http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=20795

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