Cancer rates among people who are obese continue to rise, new studies indicate. Watch this week’s WLS News to find out more. Read the full story

A high fat diet, particularly a diet high in saturated fat, can increase resistance to the hunger hormone leptin — leaving you hungry even after a hearty meal. Get the details in this report from WLS News. Read the full story

Burn fat with carbs? While it may seem like a long shot, a new British study shows that eating whole-grain carbohydrates can be helpful in burning fat. Read the full story

Moderate Exercise May Be Belly-Fat Buster

Belly fat is dangerous. Not only is it unsightly and can cause your clothes to shrink at the cleaners, it puts strain on the body and releases molecules that travel throughout the body causing inflammation which has been linked with metabolic syndrome – the precursor to heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

But new research has revealed that the inflammation caused by belly fat can actually be reduced by exercise alone.

A study at the University of Illinois looked at the effects of diet and exercise on mice. After fattening up the mice for 6 weeks, the researchers put them into four groups — diet alone, exercise alone, diet and exercise together, and a control group – then watched to see which group would lose the weight fastest. Of course, the assumption was that the diet and exercise mice would lose the most weight.

Wrong. Although the diet and exercise mice did lose weight the researchers found that brief, regular exercise helped the mice just as much as diet alone or diet and exercise. The exercise-only mice also showed less insulin sensitivity, less fat in the liver, and less damage overall.

Researchers point out that the exercise-only mice weren’t working out that hard — the equivalent of a human doing a 30 to 45 minute walk five days a week. If that modest amount of exercise can decrease or prevent the life-threatening diseases caused by obesity, we may all be a few steps closer to beating the danger of belly fat.

Genetically Identical Cells Can Respond Differently

Scientists may be a step closer to knowing why cells within the same body often seem to be at odds with each other.

For example, take any two genetically identical cells in a person’s body: odds are, one cell will store away the fat it receives from the bloodstream like a squirrel storing nuts for the winter. Meanwhile, the other cell burns the fat off, or passes it on to the waste management division.

That’s right: the two cells do the exact opposite of one another, even though they’re identical twins. A group of U.S. researchers thinks they know why.

Scientists at Purdue University’s Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering say that a recent study shows that a cell that processes insulin quickly tends to store up fat faster than other cells.

The researchers focused on a type of genetically identical cells called 3T3-L1 cells. They found that the variability in the cells’ fat storage behavior depended on their individual exposure to insulin, a hormone that triggers cells to take in glucose from the bloodstream and convert it to stored fat.  Cells that were subject to increased and prolonged insulin stimulation stacked away the fat like nobody’s business; cells that missed out on the insulin drenching didn’t.

What makes this important is that these researchers think it might be possible to develop a drug that will short-circuit the reaction that makes insulin-exposed cells hoard fat – and thus help people with obesity.

Teen Pregnancy Boosts Girls’ Risk of Getting Fat

Finally, in our last story, teenage pregnancy is a bad idea for young and unmarried women for a number of reasons.

Now, a new study shows that teenage girls who get pregnant become obese more often than their peers who don’t get pregnant.

Writing in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Dr. Erica Gunderson of Kaiser Permanente in Oakland and her colleagues report that bearing a child may boost body weight and fat accumulation in adolescents.

The researchers examined data from a decade-long national study of a group of nine-year-old girls. By the time they had reached age 19, 31 percent of the girls had been pregnant at some point, and of those, 28 percent of the white women and 49 percent of the black women were overweight or obese.

Among those who had given birth in their teens, 40 percent of whites and 57 percent of blacks were overweight or obese. And all of the women who had children during their teens were heavier and had more body fat than those who did not get pregnant.

Gunderson speculates that fat buildup during adolescence may trigger obesity along with higher insulin, lipid and blood pressure levels, and cities the need for further research on the subject of obesity in teenage mothers.

Researchers Find Gene that Turns Carbs into Fat

A team of U. S. researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, who are performing a study of the formation, development and storage of fat at the molecular level, made a surprise find.

One of the researchers isolated a gene, called DNA-PK, and found that it contributes to the body’s metabolic process in the liver, which is turning that plate of pasta directly into fat.

Typically, after a meal high in carbohydrates, the body’s blood glucose level becomes elevated, which triggers the secretion of insulin.  Excess glucose stored in the liver is then turned into fatty acids, which turn into fat.

This process has long been understood, but the exact molecular pathway had been a mystery.  Until now.The researchers determined that DNA-PK was acting as a signaling molecule in a metabolic chain-reaction in which insulin binds to liver cell receptors. To test their theory, the team bred mice with a disabled version of DNA-PK and basically carbo-loaded them.

The results?  These genetically altered mice were leaner and had 40% less body fat than the control group. Not only did these mice not get fat on a high-carb diet, but they also had lower levels of cholesterol, a major proponent of heart disease.

So what does that mean for us humans? Well, since humans and mice share this same gene, the researchers hope that the findings will help in the understanding of how the body metabolizes carbohydrates, how they contribute to obesity, and most importantly, lead to a drug that can prevent obesity.

Cancer Deaths Will Double Due to Obesity, Reports Say

A new report from the World Cancer Research Fund projects that the number of cancer deaths will double within the next forty years – driven by the continued rise in obesity worldwide. The evidence linking obesity and cancer is substantial. Researchers have long known that excess body fat produces hormones, such as estrogen and insulin that can increase the risk of developing cancer. In fact, a 2007 study by the World Cancer Research Fund found that a poor diet and physical inactivity account for 25 to 30% of cancers worldwide. The researchers noted that about 7 million people die from cancer each year. But, as the obesity rate continues to rise not only in the U.S., but throughout Europe and other parts of the world, by 2020 that number could reach more than 10 million people each year.

Now, an international team of experts has now put out a companion report to the 2007 study that doesn’t just address the increase in cancer rates caused by a sedentary lifestyle and poor dietary choices, but also the social, economic and cultural factors behind those trends.
As part of the report, two independent teams of scientists systematically looked at the evidence for how policy changes and interventions influence the behaviors that affect cancer risk. A separate panel of experts then put together specific policy recommendations for government, industry, media, schools and other institutions to help people make healthier lifestyle choices.

The new report underscores the exponential rise of childhood obesity rates in developed nations, and suggests that health authorities make the fight against childhood obesity a public health priority worldwide.