Does Smoking Prevent Obesity?

We all know it’s smart to eat right and exercise to stay slim… but should you also light up?

Many people who quit smoking gain significant weight soon thereafter. But why? To a generation raised on the smoke-free gospel, the idea that anything good can come from a tobacco leaf is pure heresy.

However, a new study out of Weill Medical College at Cornell University in New York has found that healthy smokers showed greater activity in a gene that may be critical to the body’s ability to break down fat and control its own weight.

In other words, like it or not, the data indicates that smoking really does help keep you thin. Anecdotal evidence tells us that many longtime smokers begin to eat more after quitting. Then there’s the fact that nicotine boosts the smoker’s metabolism, burning off the calories they eat.

The truth, however, is that no one really knows why so many ex-smokers gain weight. We do know that smoking is bad for you – there is no doubt that it promotes lung cancer, for example, among many other diseases. But being obese is at least as dangerous: the World Cancer Research Fund says that around 17% of breast, bowel, esophagus, kidney, pancreas, endometrium and gallbladder cancers are likely triggered by obesity-related hormone imbalances.

So which is worse: smoking and staying thin, or being a fat non-smoker? The researchers can’t exactly say, noting that the relationship between nicotine use and body mass is, quote, “complex”.

In any case, common sense tells us that inhaling smoke is a bad idea, so until research can demonstrate that smoking is somehow actually good for you, we’d just as soon stay smoke-free. After all, if you set your mind to it you can always lose the weight – but once your lungs are ruined, no amount of willpower in the world will enable you to grow a new set.

The Next Generation

Stress Affects Teen Obesity Recent research shows that a variety of stress factors, including academic problems, drug use and financial concerns, are likely direct contributors to obesity in children and teens. Find out which specific “stress markers” to watch for if you’re concerned that your child may become overweight or obese.

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Does Stress Cause Childhood Obesity?

Obesity is a complex metabolic disease. While its origins are uncertain, researchers are gradually zeroing in on the factors that can trigger obesity in otherwise healthy people – and it’s becoming more and more obvious that one factor – stress – is likely a direct contributor to childhood obesity.

Data from a new Iowa State University study confirms this. The study has found that adolescents exhibiting four or more of five specific “stress markers” have a greater likelihood of becoming overweight or obese.

The research results, to be published in the August issue of The Journal of Adolescent Health, are derived from data obtained from an in-depth study of more than 1000 adolescents and their mothers living in Boston, Chicago and San Antonio. The study subjects were all from low income families, as the lack of security concerning food and money are initial stressors.

The adolescents were first measured and classified according to their individual body mass index, which revealed that 47% of the teenagers were overweight or obese.

The study subjects’ data were then correlated with five stress factors that the researchers theorized to be related to the onset of obesity:

• Academic problems
• Drug and alcohol use
• Depression or other mental health problems
• Inappropriate aggression or other behaviors
• The inability to focus on the future

The correlated data showed that more than 56% of the adolescents who exhibited at least four of these five factors were overweight or obese. In other words, this study indicates that an adolescent who is stressed by poor grades, mental health problems, drug and alcohol use, or some combination of these is likely to develop weight issues.

The upshot, say the researchers, is that obesity care and prevention efforts for adolescents need to focus more on the big picture rather than on diet and exercise alone. By treating obese and overweight students holistically, including addressing stress and home-life factors, we may hope for better results in our battle against childhood obesity.

In the May 29, 2009 edition of WLS News, we’ll examine new research indicating that smoking really can keep you thin, explore the relationship between stress and obesity in teenagers, explain why some Canadian patients have to wait as long as seven years for bariatric surgery, and take a trip Down Under to learn how the government is battling obesity in Australia. (Hint: The bureaucrats have banned birthday cake.) Plus, if you’re at risk for diabetes or know someone who suffers from the disease, be sure to catch Yvonne McCarthy’s segment “WLS on the World Wide Web”. Click on the video player to watch now! Read the full story

Obesity Caused by Overeating, Not Laziness

According to one Australian academic, Americans are fat because we eat too much, not because we’re lazy.

In remarks made at an obesity conference in Amsterdam, Professor Boyd Swinburn of Australia’s Deakin University said “There is no evidence that a marked reduction in physical activity has been a contributor to this obesity epidemic in the United States. The increase in energy intake… virtually explained all of the weight gain.”

According to the professor, all those physical education classes we were forced to take as kids really were the utter waste of time we thought they were — and any increases in the intensity of exercise will have no effect on the weight gain among Americans.  Swinburn says the average American would need to engage in two hours of race-type walking each day in order to achieve a healthy weight while eating the current daily diet. And, odds are, that’s not going to happen soon.

Instead, he says, the solution is simply for all of us to eat less food — 350 calories less per day for kids, 500 calories less per day for adults. Doing so would return Americans to the average weight levels of the 1970s.

So if you think that hopping about in tights at the gym or speedwalking around the neighborhood is going to allow you to eat all the pizza and cheeseburgers you want, think again. Dr. Swinburn advises Americans to limit their expectations of what an increase in physical activity can achieve,and focus more on healthy eating habits than on physical activity.

In other words, put down the fork, America.

Bringing Heart to Mind

Heart disease kills more women in the United States than any other disease – but are American women concerned by that?

Nope. Statistics say that only one in five women gives a hoot about heart disease, whereas a recent survey found that 61% of American women fear getting cancer more than any other health problem.

Don’t get us wrong. Cancer is terrible, but the average woman’s risk of getting terminal cancer is low compared to her likelihood of dying from a heart attack. Excess weight, which often leads to heart attacks and other cardiopulmonary disease, is the real threat to women’s health in the U.S.: eight out of ten American women between the ages of 40 to 60 exhibit excess weight or other risk factors for heart disease, and almost 70% of women ages 45 to 74 are overweight or obese.

And they know it. 97% of women recently surveyed knew that overweight and obesity are risk factors for heart disease – yet relatively few are taking action to reduce their risk by losing the excess weight.

Allergan, developers of the well-known Lap-Band adjustable gastric band, and WomenHeart, a leading nonprofit national organization dedicated to advancing women’s heart health, have decided to do something about it.

They’ve started the Heartfelt Moments Obesity Health Education Campaign, a program to educate dangerously overweight women about the risk of obesity-related heart disease and the importance of reducing this risk through safe, supervised weight loss.

The survey we mentioned at the top of the story also found that 79% of obese women would react positively if a friend or family member spoke to them about their excess weight.

Be that as it may, it’s hoped that the Heartfelt Moments campaign and similar efforts will raise awareness among women of the real health threat posed by obesity, and motivate them to take positive action to reduce their chances of suffering from obesity-triggered heart disease.

Mississippi Approves WLS

In our next story, Mississippi has long suffered with high obesity rates among its citizens – by some counts the highest obesity rates in the nation.  Now, in an effort to curb this trend, Governor Haley Barbour has signed House Bill 15-30, creating a law that guarantees medical treatment for Mississippi state employees with obesity. Experts cite lifestyle factors, poor diet and lack of physical activity as the causes of Mississippi’s obesity problem.

The Magnolia State has long had one of the highest records of heart disease and other obesity-related illnesses of any state, and dietary choices are almost certainly part of the reason why. As a reporter for The Economist noted, quote, “[Mississippi] is famous for its hospitality, strong religious convictions—and its fried, syrupy food. Generations of Mississippians grew up on farms where everything, even collards and turnip greens, were cooked with bacon grease, ham hock or lard; a tradition that remains today”.

The state employee health plan will now be required to cover medically-supervised weight management programs, as well as bariatric surgery for a limited number of employees. Health advocates within Mississippi are hailing the new law and calling for other states to follow Mississippi’s lead.

Good Germs May Burn Belly Fat

Single-celled organisms have no free will as we know it, and are therefore morally neutral. However, some of them by their nature cause us harm, while others do us good. We call the harmful ones “germs”; the beneficial bacteria we call “probiotics”  –  from the Greek words that mean “beneficial to life”.

Probiotics are tiny critters that live inside us, going wherever we go, and they pay for the ride by aiding our digestion and health. And, what’s more, they may also help women control belly fat during the period after pregnancy.

Researchers from the University of Turku in Finland studied a group of 256 pregnant women during their first trimesters. The group was subdivided into three groups:

•    Women in one of the groups received dietary counseling and capsules containing the probiotic bacteria lactobacillus and bifidobacterium

•    The second group also got the counseling, plus a selection of healthful foods to take home, but received placebo capsules

•    And the third group just got the placebo and nothing else.

One year after giving birth, women in all three groups were measured and weighed. The results: 25% of the women who had been given the probiotics and the counseling were obese – but 43% of the women who got only the counseling had become obese, as had 40% of the women who got neither probiotics nor dietary advice.

So do probiotics help fight belly fat? Researchers behind these findings think so, but stress the need for further study before definitively ruling on the question. It is also unknown what effect (if any) probiotics may have on the health of unborn children. As always, if you are pregnant, consult your obstetrician before making any dietary or lifestyle changes.