OBESITY surgery is soaring in popularity, but figures show for the first time that the benefits of the procedure for the average patient fall far short of the costs, making simpler alternative treatments better value for money.
A quarter of Australians over 18 were estimated to be obese in 2007-08, an 8.4 percentage point [...]
A variant of an obesity gene carried by more than a third of the U.S. population also reduces brain volume, raising carriers’ risk of Alzheimer’s disease, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
People with a specific variant of the fat mass and obesity gene, or FTO gene, have brain deficits that could make them more vulnerable to [...]
Obese pregnant women are at increased risk of having a baby with a congenital heart defect, a new study finds.
On average, obesity is associated with a 15 percent increased risk of having a baby with a heart defect. But the risk rises with the level of obesity. Compared to normal-weight women, the risk is [...]
A too-fast heartbeat in early adulthood is a warning sign for increased risk of cardiovascular problems decades later on, a Japanese study suggests.
The study of 614 residents of a rural farming community in southwestern Japan found that a heart rate greater than 80 beats a minute during a first examination in 1979 predicted the development [...]
Researchers have identified at least six new gene mutations linked to obesity and said on Sunday they point to ways the brain and nervous system control eating and metabolism.
Joel Hirschhorn at Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston led a team called Genetic Investigation of Anthropometric Traits or GIANT to screen 15 different studies [...]
Breast cancer patients who are overweight have more aggressive disease and are likely to die sooner, U.S. researchers reported on Friday.
A dangerous type of breast cancer, known as inflammatory breast cancer, was seen in 45 percent of obese patients, compared with 30 percent of overweight patients and 15 percent of patients of healthy weight.
“The more [...]
The mix of bacteria in a baby’s gut may predict whether that infant will become overweight or obese later in life, a new study suggests.
Babies with high numbers of bifidobacteria and low numbers of Staphylococcus aureus may be protected from excess weight gain, according to a team of researchers from the University of Turku in [...]
Researchers in Sweden have discovered a protein that stimulates the formation of fat cells, a finding that could potentially be used to treat obesity, the Karolinska Institute said.
The protein, called TRAP (tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase), “stimulates the formation of new fat cells and can thus precipitate the development of obesity,” the Institute said in a statement.
The [...]
Being obese or even overweight may increase a person’s risk of developing up to a dozen different types of cancer, European researchers report in a new study.
Doctors have long suspected a link between weight gain and certain cancers, including colon and breast cancers. But the new study, published Friday in the journal Lancet, suggests it [...]
Children lacking enough shut-eye face a greater risk of becoming obese than kids who get a good night’s sleep, according to a study released Thursday.
Each extra hour of sleep cuts a child’s risk of becoming overweight or obese by nine percent, according to an analysis of epidiomogical studies by researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School [...]
