A carefully scheduled high-fat diet resets metabolism and prevents obesity

New research from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem shows that a carefully scheduled high-fat diet can lead to a reduction in body weight and a unique metabolism in which ingested fats are not stored, but rather used for energy at times when no food is available.

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How ‘beige’ fat makes the pounds melt away

 

The numbers of obese people are climbing steeply all over the world ? with obvious major consequences for their health. Due to excess food intake and a lack of physical activity, but also due to genetic factors, the risk for overweight people dying from diseases like coronary heart disease, diabetes und atherosclerosis increases. “The body’s fat reserves are actually used as a place to store energy that allows surviving lean times,” says Prof. Dr. Alexander Pfeifer, Director of the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology of the University of Bonn. “But nowadays, hardly anyone in the industrialized nations is exposed to such hunger phases anymore.”

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Dana-Farber study shows newly isolated ‘beige fat’ cells could help fight obesity

 

Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have isolated a new type of energy-burning fat cell in adult humans which they say may have therapeutic potential for treating obesity.

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Overweight? There’s a vaccine for that

 

New vaccines promote weight loss. A new study, published in BioMed Central’s open access journal, Journal of Animal Science and Biotechnology, assesses the effectiveness of two somatostatin vaccinations, JH17 and JH18, in reducing weight gain and increasing weight loss in mice.

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Groundbreaking discovery of mechanism that controls obesity, atherosclerosis

 

A*STAR scientists from the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) and the Singapore Bioimaging Consortium (SBIC) have discovered a new signalling pathway that controls both obesity and atherosclerosis. The team demonstrated, for the first time, that mice deficient in the Wip1 gene were resistant to weight gain and atherosclerosis via regulation of the Ataxia telangiectasia mutated gene (ATM) and its downstream signalling molecule mTor. These groundbreaking findings were published in the journal Cell Metabolism on 3rd July and may provide significant new avenues for therapeutic interventions for obesity and atherosclerosis.

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Genes identified for common childhood obesity

Genetics researchers have identified at least two new gene variants that increase the risk of common childhood obesity.

“This is the largest-ever genome-wide study of common childhood obesity, in contrast to previous studies that have focused on more extreme forms of obesity primarily connected with rare disease syndromes,” said lead investigator Struan F.A. Grant, Ph.D., associate director of the Center for Applied Genomics at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “As a consequence, we have definitively identified and characterized a genetic predisposition to common childhood obesity.”

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Scientists create compounds that dramatically alter biological clock and lead to weight loss

Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have synthesized a pair of small molecules that dramatically alter the core biological clock in animal models, highlighting the compounds’ potential effectiveness in treating a remarkable range of disorders— including obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol, and serious sleep disorders.

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Losing belly fat, whether from a low-carb or a low-fat diet, helps improve blood vessel function

Overweight people who shed pounds, especially belly fat, can improve the function of their blood vessels no matter whether they are on a low-carb or a low-fat diet, according to a study being presented by Johns Hopkins researchers at an American Heart Association scientific meeting in San Diego on March 13 that is focused on cardiovascular disease prevention.

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Do women with bulimia have both an eating disorder and a weight disorder?

Researchers at Drexel University have found that a majority of women with bulimia nervosa reach their highest-ever body weight after developing their eating disorder, despite the fact that the development of the illness is characterized by significant weight loss. Their new study, published online last month in the International Journal of Eating Disorders, adds to a body of recent work that casts new light on the importance of weight history in understanding and treating bulimia.

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Top off breakfast with — chocolate cake?

When it comes to diets, cookies and cake are off the menu. Now, in a surprising discovery, researchers from Tel Aviv University have found that dessert, as part of a balanced 6calorie breakfast that also includes proteins and carbohydrates, can help dieters to lose more weight — and keep it off in the long run.

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