Childhood Obesity - Do you have an overweight child? We offer tips to help your child lose weight and get fit!

A professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School blames many modern problems on the fact that human genes have not caught up with the modern era.

"We still have Stone Age brains inside contemporarily clothed bodies," Professor Deirdre Barrett said. "So we cannot really trust our instincts, we need to trust our intellects."

In some cases, these outdated instincts may be responsible for overweight and obesity, Dr. Barrett noted.

People may crave fat, salt and sugar because it was very scarce years ago, she said, adding that it takes about 10,000 years for genes to catch up to modern conditions.

"Our genes haven't had time to stop craving those things and start craving green leafy vegetables," she noted.

Labels: genetics, brain_activity, brain_development

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Researchers with the School of Public Health at Imperial College London has found a genetic link to morbid obesity. Rather than mutated genes, however, researchers have discovered that a section of DNA is missing altogether.

A Feb. 8 report on MedicineNet.com provided the following details about the study:

• In the study, published in Nature, researchers first identified the missing genes in teenagers and adults who had learning difficulties or delayed development.
  
• The results showed 31 people had nearly identical deletions in one copy of their DNA.
  
• All of the adults with this genetic variation had a BMI over 30, which means they were obese.

The condition is rare, occurring in just seven of every 1,000 people, and seems to be linked with the onset of overweight and obesity in childhood.

Labels: genetics, obese-kids, morbid obesity

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Some people may have a genetic predisposition that makes it hard for them to both lose weight and keep it off once they do, according to new research from Spain's University of Navarra:

• Dr. Estibaliz Soto and his colleagues studied 180 people on a low calorie diet for eight weeks.
• The researchers evaluated the participants at six months and 12 months intervals.
  
• Those with certain mutated or altered genes were not only less likely to lose any weight, they were more likely to gain it back if they did manage to lose some pounds.

Labels: genetics, weight loss

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Two new studies indicate that obesity may be partly caused by genetics and the composition of microbe bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract.

The first study, which was performed at Mayo Clinic, Arizona, examined microbes in the gastrointestinal tracts of three categories of people: those who were of normal weight, those who were morbidly obese, and those who had undergone stomach bypass surgery to lose weight. The researchers, who were trying to determine how microorganisms influence the metabolism of food and affect a person's weight, found "substantial differences" between the three groups of participants. They also found that bypass surgery affects the microbes.

In the second study, researchers with the Department of Genomic Sciences at Imperial College, London, evaluated 1,380 Europeans who had early onset childhood obesity and 1,416 people of the same age but normal weight. The two groups differed in that the obese group was more likely to have three genetic variations.

"Understanding the genetic basis of obesity is the first step towards helping these children," said Professor Philippe Froguel, one of the authors of the Imperial College study. "Once we identify the genes responsible, we can develop ways to screen children to find out who is most at risk of becoming obese."

The Mayo Clinic study appeared in the publication Mayo Clinic Proceedings. The Imperial College study appeared in the journal Nature Genetics.

Labels: genetics, bacteria, stomach

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Still another study, this time from Greece, finds that overweight parents have overweight children.

Researchers from Harokopio University in Athens collected weight and height statistics on over 2,300 preschoolers and their parents. If a child had one obese parent, that doubled his risk of being overweight compared to children of normal-weight parents. Children with two obese parents had a more than doubled risk.

This study, published in the journal BioMedicine Central Public Health, also found that 32% of Greek children were overweight. Researchers expected that percentage to be about 20%.

Labels: genetics, parents, role_models

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Having obese grandparents increases the likelihood that a child will be overweight, even if his parents are normal weight. However, if both parents are obese, a child has double the risk for overweight, regardless of the weight of his grandparents.

Researchers examined data from 2,591 children ages 5 to 19 years old and from their parents and grandparents - the first study to do so. They concluded that overweight patterns are cross-generational.

"Primary care physicians should engage families in discussions about generational patterns of weight as both a window on the children's risk of overweight and an opportunity to discuss familial patterns of diet and physical activity that can affect the health of multiple generations," according to the report published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Practice.

Labels: genetics, families, predictors

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A recent study on brain activity seems to refute the commonly held opinion that overweight people eat more because they love to eat. The study, conducted through the Oregon Research Institute, found that obese people actually enjoy food less, and so end up eating more in order to compensate.

"[When women] tasted a chocolate milkshake or tasteless liquid, the heavier women had less activity in their brains' pleasure centers. The women with the gene variant had the lowest pleasure response when tasting the milkshake. They had to consume more of the shake to get the same pleasure response."

The gene variant, known at Taq1A1, appears to be linked with lower dopamine receptors in the brain. Since dopamine is the primary transmitter for the brain's reward system, fewer receptors means the reward system is impeded. Researchers are now trying to determine whether reward systems can be reset. Source: Health News

Labels: genetics, brain_activity, causes of childhood obesity

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Scientists with the Washington University of Medicine in St. Louis have isolated five genetic factors that may increase the risk of metabolic syndrome, and one factor that appears to protect against it.

People with metabolic syndrome - who are usually overweight - present at least three of the following five conditions: abdominal fat, high levels of bad cholesterol, low levels of good cholesterol, high blood pressure, and elevated fasting blood glucose.

Metabolic syndrome is dangerous because those who have it are four times more likely to develop heart disease and seven times more likely to become diabetic than are individuals who do not have the disorder.

The St. Louis researchers examined DNA from 2000 people and found that the gene variations that predicted metabolic syndrome in prior animal studies carried over into human genetics.

This study, which was financed by the National Institute of Health, was published in the June edition of the journal Human Molecular Genetics.

Labels: genetics, metabolism

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A recent study lead by Professor John Morrison at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center shows that overweight children with high cholesterol, blood pressure and sugar levels are at an increased risk for heart disease or strokes.

"But losing weight significantly lowered health risks. 'This indicates [the risk of heart disease and stroke are] not hard-wired. Some clearly are more susceptible, but susceptibility isn't the same as inevitability,' says William Dietz, who heads the division of nutrition, physical activity and obesity at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

The condition that Morrison studied is called pediatric metabolic syndrome, and is indicated by the presence of at three of the following factors: excess weight, low HDL (the good cholesterol), high triglycerides, high blood pressure and high blood sugar levels. Morrison found that weight was the key driver of the condition. Read more at LangingStateJournal.com.

While being overweight or obese isn't healthy, neither is teenage drug addiction. Learn what signs to look for at Adolescent-Substance-Abuse.com.

Labels: genetics, heart_disease, health_risks

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If both parents are obese, a child has 12 times the risk of being obese compared to a child of two normal weight parents, according to a new study from the United Kingdom.

• Researchers from the University College London used data on 4432 families, who took part in an annual national health survey between 2001 and 2006.
• Fourteen percent of children who had one obese parent were also obese.
• The risk was slightly higher if the mother was the parent who was overweight.
• Only 2% of the children of parents who were both normal-weight suffered from obesity, compared to 22% of children whose parents were both obese.
• Among families in which both parents were severely obese, 35% of the children were too.

This study appears in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
 

Labels: parenting, genetics

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