Group items tagged

As if the recent prediction that half of all Americans will have diabetes or pre-diabetes by the year 2020 isn't alarming enough, a new genetic discovery published online in the FASEB Journal provides a disturbing explanation as to why: we took an evolutionary "wrong turn." In the research report, scientists show that human evolution leading to the loss of function in a gene called "CMAH" may make humans more prone to obesity and diabetes than other mammals.

"Our study for the first time links human-specific sialic acid changes to insulin and glucose metabolism and therefore opens up a new perspective in understanding the causes of diabetes." In this study, which is the first to examine the effect of a human-specific CMAH genetic mutation in obesity-related metabolism and diabetes, Kim and colleagues show that the loss of CMAH's function contributes to the failure of the insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells in overweight humans, which is known to be a key factor in the development of type 2 diabetes. This gene encodes for an enzyme present in all mammalian species except for humans and adds a single oxygen atom to sialic acids, which are sugars that coat the cell surface

Obese children in America are much less physically active, consume larger quantities of food during school meals, and watch much more TV than their normal-weight schoolmates, researchers from the University of Michigan Medical School revealed in The American Heart Journal. Lifestyle is by far the major driving force behind childhood obesity in the USA, and not heredity, the authors stressed after examining data on check-ups of 1,003 Michigan sixth-graders in a school-based health program.

The obese children in this study tended to eat a school lunch rather than a packed one made at home, and spent a considerable amount of time either playing video games or watching television.

58% of the obese children in the study had watched at least two hours of TV the day before, the authors reported, compared to 41% among the other kids. 34% of non-obese children ate school lunches regularly, compared to 45% of the obese ones. Regular exercise, being a member of a school sports team, and rates of physical activity were considerably lower among the obese pupils.

Poor eating and activity habits, not genetics, are the underlying causes for most cases of adolescent obesity, new research suggests. The finding stems from an analysis involving more than 1,000 Michigan sixth-grade students who participated in the Project Healthy Schools program, which is in place in 13 middle schools across the state.

The authors noted that, in 1980, just 6.5 percent of U.S. children aged 6 to 11 years were considered obese, but that percentage rose to nearly 20 percent by 2008. The recent study found that 15 percent of the participants were obese. And almost all had poor eating habits. Nearly one-third of all the students said they drank a soda the day before, while fewer than half said they could recall having eaten two portions of fruits and vegetables in the same time frame. And while 34 percent of non-obese kids consumed lunches provided by their school, that figure rose to 45 percent among obese students. Only one-third of all the kids reported exercising a half hour for five days during the previous week. Obese children were much less likely than non-obese kids to participate in regular exercise and/or physical education classes, and less likely to be a part of a sports team. Among obese children, 58 percent reported watching two hours of TV in the past day. That compared with 41 percent of non-obese kids.