Archive for the ‘Obesity’ Category
Obesity is a public health problem of first order, which is associated with high morbidity and socio cost. When it comes to morbid obesity (those patients with a Body Mass Index-BMI over 40), complications are more severe and occur in a shorter period of time. In this regard morbid obesity by itself and leads to a reduction manifests itself in the quality of life between 5-12 years less life expectancy (depending on age of onset of morbid obesity) because of the frequent complications that entails.
The degree of disorder in body weight were classified by body mass index (BMI), found by dividing weight in kilograms by height in meters squared. According to Professor Casanueva, “a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 is considered normal weight, whereas when this ratio is between 25 and 29.9 is overweight and when you have more than 30, there is obesity.” However, in Spain, it is estimated that more than half the adult population is overweight and almost never goes to the consultation of Endocrinology, because, in the words of this expert, “that there is still lack of awareness among the general population to the fact that overweight and obesity are health problems, no picture or aesthetics. “
The energy balance that regulates body weight decrease or increase energy expenditure depending on the intake but with a clear trend of saving energy, so that increasing intake spending increased slightly, whereas if the intake is reduced reduction in spending is much higher. That is, the answer clearly tends to conserve body fat as energy reserves.
“Dietary restriction, explains Dr. Monereo-response is accompanied by a neuro-endocrine and metabolic with decreased leptin and increased neuropeptide Y (NPY), which tends to restore the intake and reduce energy consumption so that the subject or increases not only recovers the lost weight but your body composition changes with a tendency to increased fat accumulation. ” In this respect, continually undergoing food restriction in order to want to lose weight without considering the weight loss as a change in lifestyle leads to the familiar phenomenon of yo-yo weight or cyclic know today, in the words of President the Seen, “which is accompanied by higher final weight, abdominal fat level increased to greater emotional instability, the onset of eating disorders, the frequency of developing metabolic syndrome, with the final increase of cardiovascular risk associated with diabetes 2 and hypertension. ”
So today should be considered irresponsible or induce weight loss advise when this is not necessary or are not re-educate the patient so as to be able to maintain weight loss. “Only to lose weight you will be able to keep in line with changes to be able to make in your lifestyle,” concludes Dr. Monereo. “A sustained restriction of intake is very difficult to achieve, exercise clearly helps, and anti-obesity drugs are likely to be indispensable.”
Calorie diets and lack of exercise, the key problem.
35% of elementary Spanish students suffer overweight, according to preliminary data from a study conducted over 14,000 schools
Far from narrowing; the problem of childhood obesity is becoming acute in Spain, set to lead Europe in a condition that has acquired epidemic proportions.
The combination of physical inactivity and high calorie diets triggered overweight and obesity in children, to the point that both disorders and affect 35% of primary school children aged 6 to 10 years of age, while that obesity alone is already a problem for 16% of these schools, according to preliminary data of the reference School Pilot Program for Health and Exercise Obesity (Perseus), who has had access to this journal.
Final data for the study started in the 2006/2007 academic year over 14,000 students in 67 schools in Andalusia, Canary Islands, Castilla y León, Extremadura, Galicia, Murcia, Ceuta and Melilla will be presented in coming weeks by the Minister of Health, Bernat Soria.
Although not entirely comparable, these data show a slight increase from other studies such as obesity enKid -15.9% and 30.4% of overweight and obesity, but draws a very different picture than that reflected by the National Survey Health 2006, limited to 8.9% prevalence of obesity and overweight 18.7%, although in this case in children and adolescents (2 to 17 years).
At European level, only Portugal, where excess weight affects 29.5% of boys and 34.3% of girls aged 7 to 9 years, presents data as bulky.
The results of the HELENA
Excess weight is also gaining in importance among adolescents. Thus, according to preliminary findings of the HELENA study, a pan-European research conducted on 3,500 overweight youngsters aged 12 to 17 years to be presented these days at the European Commission, 8% of males and 5% of adolescents are obese in Europe.
As for the overweight, already affecting 20% of boys and 16% of girls, explains to Public European study coordinator, Professor at the University of Zaragoza Luis Moreno. “Now we must take action and designing programs to improve the situation through diet and lifestyle, and in particular by encouraging physical activity,” says Moreno. “We must create a favorable environment for healthy things, like walking to school, are seen by children as a good thing,” he adds.
This study, conducted by 26 research groups, also finds that 53% of teenagers drink more than 35% of their calories as fat, and only 40% of men and 20% of women spend more one hour daily exercise.
WASHINGTON (AP) – The United States spends more on health care than any other nation but has lower life expectancy than many others and a new report refers to smoking and obesity.
That might seem surprising, considering that it has banned smoking in public as is common in parts of Europe and obesity is a growing problem in the world.
However, U.S. is leading such unhealthy trends, smoking and getting fatter faster than other high-income countries, and the long-term life expectancy several years lower than in parts of Europe and Japan, said on Tuesday the National Council Research.
In the U.S., life expectancy at birth was 80.8 years for women and 75.6 years for men in 2007. In France it was 84.4 and 77.4 respectively and in Japan, nearly 86 and 79.2.
However, thanks to the decline in smoking over the past 20 years, it is anticipated that life expectancy for males in the United States will improve rapidly in coming decades. This increase will be slightly slower for women, whose smoking rates peak occurred several years after the boys.