Children's Body Fat Linked to Vitamin D Insufficiency in Mothers

ScienceDaily (May 23, 2012) — Children are more likely to have more body fat during childhood if their mother has low levels of Vitamin D during pregnancy, according to scientists at the Medical Research Council Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit (MRC LEU), University of Southampton.

Low vitamin D status has been linked to obesity in adults and children, but little is known about how variation in a mother's status affects the body composition of her child.

Low vitamin D status is common among young women in the UK, and although women are recommended to take an additional 10μg/day of vitamin D in pregnancy, supplementation is currently not routine.

In new research, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition on May 23 2012, scientists at the MRC LEU, University of Southampton, have compared the vitamin D status of 977 pregnant women with the body composition of their children. The findings from this study showed that the children who were born to mothers who had low vitamin D status in pregnancy had more body fat when they were six years old. These differences could not be explained by other factors such as mother's weight gain in pregnancy, or how physically active the children were. The 977 women are part of the Southampton Women's Survey, one of the largest women's surveys in the UK.

Dr Siân Robinson, Principal Research Fellow, at the University, who led the study, says: "In the context of current concerns about low vitamin D status in young women, and increasing rates of childhood obesity in the UK, we need to understand more about the long-term health consequences for children who are born to mothers who have low vitamin D status.

"Although there is growing evidence that vitamin D status is linked to body fatness in children and adults, this research now suggests that the mother's status in pregnancy could be important too.
"An interpretation of our data is that there could be programmed effects on the fetus arising from a lack of maternal vitamin D that remain with the baby and predispose him or her to gain excess body fat in later childhood. Although further studies are needed, our findings add weight to current concerns about the prevalence of low vitamin D status among women of reproductive age."

This study is part of a wider body of work by the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit into how factors during pregnancy might have a long-term influence on childhood growth and development.
Professor Cyrus Cooper, Director of the MRC LEU comments: "This is a wonderful example of multi-disciplinary research using the unique clinical and biochemical resource provided by the Southampton Women's Survey. The observations that maternal vitamin D insufficiency might be associated with reduced size at birth, but accelerated gain in body fat during early childhood, add to the considerable amount of evidence suggesting that vitamin D status during pregnancy may have critical effects on the later health of offspring."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120523133136.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fhealth_medicine%2Fdiet_and_weight_loss+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Health+&+Medicine+News+--+Diet+and+Weight+Loss%29



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Eating Fast Increases Diabetes Risk

People who wolf down their food are two and a half times more likely to suffer from type 2 diabetes than those who take their time according to new research presented at the joint International Congress of Endocrinology and European Congress of Endocrinology in Florence, Italy.

While numerous studies have linked eating quickly to overeating and obesity, this is the first time eating speed has been identified as an independent risk factor for type 2 diabetes.

A Lithuanian research team led by Dr Lina Radzeviciene compared 234 newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes patients to 468 people who were free from the disease. Cases and controls (ratio 1:2) were matched by gender and age (±5 years). The participants filled out an in-depth questionnaire designed to collect information on possible diabetes risk factors in which they rated their eating speed compared to others (slower, the same, faster). Body measurements (height, weight, waist and hip circumference) were also taken according to World Health Organisation recommendations.

After adjusting for other risk factors (a family history of diabetes, education, morning exercise, body mass index, waist circumference, cigarette smoking and plasma triglyceride levels) the researchers found a more than two-fold increase in the risk of type 2 diabetes associated with faster eating habits (odds ratio (OR) = 2.52, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.56-4.06). Additional findings showed the cases had a higher body mass index and significantly lower education level compared to the controls.

Diabetes mellitus is a very common disorder caused by high levels of sugar in the bloodstream. It affects 6.4% (285 million) of the worldwide population and is associated with an increased risk of heart attacks, stroke and damage to the eyes, feet and kidneys. In type 2 diabetes, which accounts for 90% of all cases, insulin -- a hormone that allows cells to take sugar from the bloodstream and store it as energy -- does not work properly.

Researcher Dr Lina Radzeviciene from Lithuanian University of Health Sciences said: "The prevalence of type 2 diabetes is increasing globally and becoming a world pandemic. It appears to involve interaction between susceptible genetic backgrounds and environmental factors. It's important to identify modifiable risk factors that may help people reduce their chances of developing the disease."

Dr Radzeviciene's team previously found that coffee consumption (four or more cups a day) significantly decreased risk of type 2 diabetes. They also found that smoking and egg consumption (more than five eggs a week) increased the risk. They now hope to perform a larger study looking at how particular types of food, calorie intake, physical exercise, and psychological and emotional wellbeing affect diabetes risk factors.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120507210038.htm


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Baby Food And Infant Formula Found To Contain Traces Of Veterinary Drugs

The quantities are very small, but in milk powder and in meat-based baby food, residues of drugs given to livestock were found. Researchers from the University of Almería (Spain) have developed a system to analyse these substances quickly and precisely.

Antibiotics, such as tilmicosine, or antiparasitic drugs, such as levamisole, are given to livestock in order to avoid illness, but they can remain later in food. Scientists from the University of Almeria (UAL) have confirmed this, whilst checking new methodology to identify the minute quantities of these substances that remain in baby food preparations.

"The concentrations detected have been generally very low. On one hand, this suggests they are not worrying amounts, on the other hand, it shows the need to control these products to guarantee food safety" Antonia Garrido, Professor of Analytical Chemistry at UAL, pointed out to SINC.

With this objective, the team has developed a 'multi-residue' method, which allows several drugs to be detected at a time in baby food. Chromatographic techniques are used for this, in order to separate compounds, and mass spectrometry to identify them.

The "precise, simple and fast" methodology has been validated by analysing twelve meat products (cow, pig or poultry) and nine milk powder samples. Data indicate that concentrations of veterinary drugs vary from 0.5 to 25.2 µg/kg in the former and 1.2 to 26.2 µg/kg in the latter "although with more samples, more conclusive results would be obtained".

Higher concentrations in poultry products

Sulfonamides, macrolides and other antibiotic traces have been found, as well as anthelmintics (anti-worm) and fungicides. In total, they found five veterinary drugs in milk powder and ten in meat products, especially if they were chicken or other poultry.

The study that is published in the Food Chemistry journal, suggests that this could be because in some farms there is no thorough control on the administration of drugs to animals.

Until now, the European Commission has regulated the levels of pesticides and other substances in cereal based foods for children and babies, but not in animal based foods. As a result of the lack of regulation, a zero tolerance policy is usually applied to veterinary drugs in food, as they can cause allergic reactions, resistance to antibiotics and other health problems.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/245594.php


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Pediatric Kidney And Brain Tumors May Be Reduced By Folic Acid

Folic acid fortification of foods may reduce the incidence of the most common type of kidney cancer and a type of brain tumors in children, finds a new study by Kimberly J. Johnson, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, and Amy Linabery, PhD, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Minnesota.

Incidence reductions were found for Wilms' tumor, a type of kidney cancer, and primitive neuroectodermal tumors (PNET), a type of brain cancer.

Since 1998, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has mandated fortification of foods with folic acid because earlier studies show that prenatal consumption of folic acid significantly reduces the incidence of neural tube defects in babies.

"Our study is the largest to date to show that folic acid fortification may also lower the incidence of certain types of childhood cancer in the United States," Johnson says.

The study, published in the current issue of Pediatrics, examined the incidence of childhood cancer pre- and post-mandated folic acid fortification.

"We found that Wilms' tumor rates increased from 1986 to 1997 and decreased thereafter, which is an interesting finding since the downward change in the trend coincides exactly with folic acid fortification," Johnson says.

"PNET rates increased from 1986 to 1993 and decreased thereafter. This change in the trend does not coincide exactly with folic acid fortification, but does coincide nicely with the 1992 recommendation for women of childbearing age to consume 400 micrograms of folic acid daily."

Study authors used the 1986-2008 data from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program (SEER), which has collected information on cancer cases in various areas of the U.S. since 1973. The study involved 8,829 children, from birth to age four, diagnosed with cancer.

"Declines in Wilms' tumors and PNETs in children were detected by multiple analyses of the data," Johnson says.

"Importantly, the reduced rates of Wilms' tumors also were found in a smaller study conducted in Ontario, Canada, that was published in 2011.

"More research is needed to confirm these results and to rule out any other explanations."

Julie A. Ross, PhD, professor and director of the Division of Pediatric Epidemiology & Clinical Research in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota, was a study co-author.

Johnson notes that one concern countries face as they are deciding whether or not to fortify foods to reduce neural tube defects in newborns is the possibility that fortification may cause unintended harm, such as causing new cancers or pre-cancerous lesions.

"Here, we are showing that folic acid fortification does not appear to be increasing rates of childhood cancers, which is good news," she says.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/245619.php


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Testosterone Treatment Helps Obese Older Males Lose Weight, Other Health Gains Too

Restoring low testosterone levels in older, overweight or obese men to normal levels results in dramatic weight loss and other health benefits, such as better blood pressure and blood glucose control, Dr Farid Saad of the Medical Affairs Men's Health Care at Bayer Pharma AG in Berlin, Germany, explained at the 19th European Congress on Obesity in Lyon, France.
Obesity is linked to lower levels of testosterone, which in turn induces weight gain. According to earlier research, men aged 45 years or older with low levels of testosterone are about twice as likely to be obese and suffer from type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure as compared with age-matched controls.

Saad and team decided to examine the impact of normalizing blood testosterone levels in predominantly older men with low testosterone levels (hypogonadal) in a cumulative, prospective study.

They analyzed 251 men between the ages of 38 and 83 years, with an average age of 61. The men's baseline testosterone levels ranged from between 0.14 to 3.5 ng/mL, with the cut-off point for testosterone treatment ≤ 3.5. ng/mL (12 nmol/L), a standard cut-off point for testosterone levels to be considered as 'low'. 214 men were followed-up for at least 2 years, whilst 115 were followed-up for at least 5 years. All participants received testosterone undecanoate 1000 mg, with injections given at baseline, after 6 weeks and then every 12 weeks throughout the study period.

Testosterone therapy turned obese men into overweight ones

Those followed-up for 5 years lost, on average, 16kg with an average weight drop from 106 kg to 90 kg. The average waist circumference dropped from 107 cm or 42 inches to 98 cm or 38.5 inches, whilst the average body-mass index (BMI) dropped from 34 to 29, meaning that the men dropped from being classed as 'obese', which is a BMI of over 30 to 'overweight', which is a BMI of 25 to 30.

The participants also showed an improvement in other metabolic indicators, such as a drop of LDL or 'bad' cholesterol (mg/dL) from 163 to 109, whilst triglycerides (mg/dL) went down from 276 to 189, and the average blood glucose measurements (mg/dL) fell from 103 to 94. In addition, the participants' systolic blood pressure decreased from 153 to 137 mm Hg and diastolic from 93 to 79 mm Hg.

According to the researchers, there could be various factors responsible for the findings, given that increased testosterone levels improve energy and motivation to perform physical exercise and more movement in general. Testosterone also raises lean body mass, or fat free mass and enhances the patient's energy levels.

The researchers also observed no higher risk of prostate cancer in the participants - their risk of the disease did not rise above the average for other people of their age and general health.

The authors concluded:

"Raising serum testosterone to normal reduced body weight, waist circumference, and blood pressure, and improved metabolic profiles. These improvements were progressive over the full 5 years of the study."

Written by Petra Rattue
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/245181.php



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A Very Sugary Diet Makes You Stupid

As we near the final year exams for schools and universities, students should be wary of powering up on buckets of soda and pocketfuls of candy bars. A UCLA study on rats suggests that fructose slows down the brain and memory functions. Too much sweetness can also prevent learning. The findings are published in Journal of Physiology and also show omega-3 fatty acids helping to negate the effect.

Earlier studies have shown that fructose is involved in causing diabetes, obesity and a fatty liver, but this is the first research to uncover how sugar can influence the brain. In the Americas, high fructose corn syrup is widely used, whereas in Europe and Asia sucrose is more prevalent; this study focused on fructose.

Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, a professor of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a professor of integrative biology and physiology in the UCLA College of Letters and Science said

"Our findings illustrate that what you eat affects how you think ... Eating a high-fructose diet over the long term alters your brain's ability to learn and remember information. But adding omega-3 fatty acids to your meals can help minimize the damage."

It is estimated that the average American consumes around 47 pounds of sugar and another 35 pounds of high fructose corn syrup per year. In the late 1800s, this figure was about 2 pounds per year. The soaring rates of diabetes, obesity and even cancer have been linked to a sugary diet. A part of the problem is the prevalence of sugar and high fructose corn syrup that is laced into everything from apple sauce, yoghurt and fruit juices to bread, ketchup - even hamburgers and processed meat often have sugar added. Avoiding sugar is not as simple as not drinking sodas and eating candy bars.

Gomez-Pinilla, who is also a member of UCLA's Brain Research Institute and Brain Injury Research Center, goes onto explain:

"We're less concerned about naturally occurring fructose in fruits, which also contain important antioxidants ... We're more concerned about the fructose in high-fructose corn syrup, which is added to manufactured food products as a sweetener and preservative."

To carry out the study, Gomez-Pinilla and his study co-author Rahul Agrawal, a UCLA visiting postdoctoral fellow from India, looked at two groups of rats. Both group was given drinking water laced with fructose solution, but the second group was also fed flaxseed oil and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). These contain omega-3 fatty which are thought to protect against damage to the synapses, which are essentially the electrical connections between the brain cells.

As a control, the animals were fed on standard rat feed for five days before the fructose diet started. They were also trained on a maze twice per day and tested to see how well they performed. They also placed visual markers in the maze to help the rats remember their way around.

Gomez-Pinilla recounts his experience of testing the rats after six weeks on the sugary diet:

"The second group of rats navigated the maze much faster than the rats that did not receive omega-3 fatty acids ... The DHA-deprived animals were slower, and their brains showed a decline in synaptic activity. Their brain cells had trouble signaling each other, disrupting the rats' ability to think clearly and recall the route they'd learned six weeks earlier."

The rats that went without the fatty acids, also started to show insulin resistance. Gomez-Pinilla postulates that this is most likely the cause of the loss in memory, because insulin is involved in regulating how brain cells are able to use and store sugar for the energy required for processing thoughts and emotions. A diet high in sugar causes more insulin release and perhaps makes the cells become tolerant to the hormone, as they do with other hormones and drugs that are artificially introduced.

Gomez-Pinilla practices what he preaches, and says he maintains a diet low in sugar and high in fatty acids. He recommends taking one gram of DHA per day and eating foods like salmon, walnuts and flaxseeds that are rich in DHA. He concludes that:

"Our findings suggest that consuming DHA regularly protects the brain against fructose's harmful effects ... It's like saving money in the bank. You want to build a reserve for your brain to tap when it requires extra fuel to fight off future diseases."

The UCLA study was funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Gomez-Pinilla's lab will next examine the role of diet in recovery from brain trauma.

Written by Rupert Shepherd
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/245531.php



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Longer Sleep Times May Counteract Genetic Factors Related to Weight Gain

Toss out another old wives' tale: Sleeping too much does not make you fat. Quite the opposite, according to a new study examining sleep and body mass index (BMI) in twins, which found that sleeping more than nine hours a night may actually suppress genetic influences on body weight.

The study looked at 1,088 pairs of twins and found that sleeping less than seven hours a night was associated with both increased BMI and greater genetic influences on BMI. Previous research has shown that genetic influences include things like glucose metabolism, energy use, fatty acid storage and satiety. In this study, the heritability of BMI was twice as high for the short sleepers than for twins who slept longer than nine hours a night.

"The results suggest that shorter sleep provides a more permissive environment for the expression of obesity related genes," said principal investigator Nathaniel Watson, MD, MSc, of the University of Washington. "Or it may be that extended sleep is protective by suppressing expression of obesity genes."

Watson and colleagues determined that for twins sleeping less than seven hours, genetic influences accounted for 70 percent of the differences in BMI, with common environment accounting for just 4 percent and unique environment 26 percent. For twins averaging more than nine hours of sleep, genetic factors were attributed to 32 percent of weight variations, with common environment accounting for 51 percent and unique environment 17 percent.

More research is needed, Watson said, but these preliminary results may suggest that behavioral weight loss measures would be most effective when genetic drivers of body weight are mitigated through sleep extension.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120501085702.htm


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Vitamin D: A D-lightful story for good health. Dr Michael F. Holick

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Increased Fructose Consumption May Deplete Cellular Energy in Patients With Obesity and Diabetes

Obese people who consume increased amounts of fructose, a type of sugar that is found in particular in soft drinks and fruit juices, are at risk for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NFALD) and more its more severe forms, fatty inflammation and scarring.

Now researchers at Duke University Medical Center believe they better understand what mechanism may account for fructose-related liver injury.

Chronic fructose consumption in a diet puts people at risk for depleting their store of critically important molecules called ATP, which provide liver cells (and other body cells) energy for important cellular processes, including metabolism.

"The stores of liver ATP are decreased in obese and/or diabetic individuals who chronically consume increased amounts of fructose-containing beverages," said lead author Manal Abdelmalek, MD, MPH, associate professor of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Duke.

The study was published online at the Hepatology journal site on May 2.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is currently the leading cause of chronic liver disease in the United States. This condition can lead to elevated liver enzymes, inflammation and rarely even advanced scarring (cirrhosis) in individuals who do not drink alcohol. In obesity and/or diabetes, the ability of the cells to optimally make ATP may already be impaired.

Unlike other simple sugars, fructose requires ATP for its metabolism. The inability to optimally generate cellular energy as well and the continued consumption of ATP from chronic fructose ingestion can result in the liver's depletion of energy. ATP depletion may increase risk for inflammation and scarring in the liver.

"The state of being insulin resistant impairs the ability of a vital enzyme, AMP kinase, to make new ATP molecules," Abdelmalek explained. "Increased fructose consumption, and excess utilization of ATP favors the increase in molecules that lead to increased fatty acid synthesis as well as increased uric acid."

The researchers also noted that more uric acid is produced in the body when excess fructose is consumed. Too much uric acid is associated with conditions that include gout, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome and uric acid stones, a form of kidney stones.

The silver lining is that measuring the amount of uric acid in these individuals may help doctors predict the presence and monitor the severity of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, Abdelmalek said.
Research Abdelmalek published in the Journal of Hepatology in 2008 showed that, within a small subset of patients, fructose-containing beverages were associated with NAFLD compared to patients with comparable weight, age, and gender. Her 2010 research, published in Hepatology, went further and linked fructose with the liver injury and scarring (fibrosis).

The current study evaluated adults enrolled in the NIH-sponsored Look Ahead Fatty Liver Disease Ancillary Study headed by senior author Jeanne M.Clark, M.D., MPH, at Johns Hopkins University. The researchers analyzed dietary questionnaires collected in patients who underwent a magnetic resonance imaging to measure liver fat as well as an intravenous fructose challenge to evaluate the liver's ATP stores and response to ATP depletion.

Patients enrolled in the Look Ahead study had been counseled on lower dietary sugar consumption for the management of diabetes. Despite the overall lower levels of fructose use in this study population, the researchers found evidence of liver ATP depletion in those who consumed more fructose.

"The fact we found a difference in liver ATP stores at lower levels of dietary fructose intake does suggest that higher fructose consumption (as would occur with the consumption of processed food and sweetened beverages) could deplete the liver of energy and thus risk causing worse metabolic problems and potentially even liver injury," Abdelmalek said. In the past 30 years, Abdelmalek and authors wrote, fructose consumption has more than doubled.

Other authors include Dr. Anna Mae Diehl, chief of the Duke Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology in the Department of Medicine; Mariana Lazo, Alana Horska, Susanne Bonekamp and Jeanne M. Clark, Departments of Epidemiology, Russel H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science and Medicine, at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore; Division of Metabolism, Edward W. Lipkin, Endocrinology & Nutrition, University of Washington, Seattle; Ashok Balasubramanyam, Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology & Metabolism, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston; John P. Bantle, Division of Endocrinology & Diabetes. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; and Richard J. Johnson, Division of Nephrology, University of Colorado, Denver.
The study was supported by NIH/NIDDK grants and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine General Clinical Research Center, plus a NIH/NIDDK Career Development Award.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120502112705.htm


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