By Jeannine Stein, Los Angeles Times

Doctors and public health officials have been admonishing us for years that it’s unhealthful to carry around extra pounds. A new study quantifies just how much that additional weight increases one’s risk of death and finds that being even a few pounds overweight makes a measurable difference.

Researchers analyzed the body mass index, or BMI, of 570,000 white men and women who had never smoked and followed them for an average of 10 years. They concluded that for every 5-point increase in BMI — the equivalent of jumping from the healthy to the overweight category, or from overweight to obese — the chance of dying during the course of the study rose by 31%. The results were published in Thursday’s edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Considering that two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, “even a small increase in the risk of death can be a real public health problem and result in a large number of deaths,” said Amy Berrington de Gonzalez, an epidemiologist at the National Cancer Institute and lead author of the study.

Studies have shown that people who are overweight or obese are more likely to develop heart disease, stroke, diabetes and some types of cancer — all conditions that can cause death. But the effect of excess pounds on death from any cause is less clear.

To read more, visit: Even a little extra weight can be detrimental

By LAURA JOHANNES, The Wall Street Journal

Like the nicotine patch, but for dieters, slimming patches stick on the skin like a Band-Aid. Marketers say the patches reduce cravings and speed metabolism, helping you to lose weight. Some doctors say there’s no proof the patches work, and in recent years the Federal Trade Commission has charged certain companies with false advertising.

Slimming patches are being widely advertised on the Web and in some stores. The ingredients are typically a mixture of plants and natural ingredients, such as hoodia gordonii, a seaweed called fucus vesiculosus and guarana, a stimulant. The Slim Weight Patch, sold by Roduve Healthcare Solutions BV of Rotterdam, the Netherlands, contains a blend of ground seaweed, guarana and nine other ingredients the company’s website says will “control your hunger cravings and speed up your metabolism.”

Some obesity experts are skeptical of the patches. “There is no evidence that it works. I think you are wasting your money,” says Xavier Pi-Sunyer, director of the New York Obesity Nutrition Research Center at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York.

Roduve CEO Tim Thurlings says the patches likely do work in part by providing a psychological boost, and are best used while also being active and not overeating. “It’s not a miracle cure. If you just sit on the couch, it’s unlikely that it will help,” he says.

Typically the patches are applied once a day, anywhere on the body that is clean, dry and hairless. Companies who sell the patches say the active ingredients are absorbed through the skin. Costs vary, but typically range from $15 to $40 for a month’s supply. Some contain instructions for healthy eating; SCI Inc., of Kingwood, Texas, recommends drinking a glass of water before meals, increasing fiber intake and avoiding sugar.

To read more, visit: Do Patches Help Weight Loss?

By Denise Mann – WebMD Health News

If your diet isn’t going as well as you had hoped, the problem may not be your food choices or exercise habits. It may be your sleeping habits. Sleep loss may hamper even your best attempts to lose weight, according to new research in the Oct. 5 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Overweight adults lost 55% less fat when they got 5.5 hours of sleep per night, compared with when they slept for 8.5 hours a night, the new study showed.

“Sleep loss can prevent the loss of fat and make the body stingier when it comes to using fat as a fuel,” explains Plamen Penev, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago. Instead, the body burns off lean body mass, he says. The weight loss may be the same at the end of the day, but people who get adequate sleep lose more fat than their counterparts who are sleep-deprived.

“The sleep loss slows the loss of fat and speeds the undesirable loss of lean body mass, which doesn’t help the body burn energy or calories,” he says. “Sleep loss is accompanied by an increase in hunger that makes it less likely that you could adhere to diet.”

In general, “losing weight becomes a more difficult fight when you don’t get adequate sleep,” he tells WebMD

Read more here: http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20101004/sleep-loss-hampers-weight-loss-efforts

By Amanda Gardner, Bloomberg News

A low-carbohydrate diet that derives fats and proteins from vegetable sources rather than meats is probably healthier, new research finds.

Comparing the two types of diets over two decades, researchers found that the low-carb, vegetable-based plan resulted in reduced rates of death from cardiovascular disease and cancer, and a lower rate of all-cause death overall.

“You can have the initial Atkins-type of low-carb diet, which is loaded with sausages, bacon, steaks, and you can have healthy versions of the low-carb diet with more vegetable- or plant-based protein and fat,” said Dr. Frank B. Hu, senior author of a study in the Sept. 7 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

“We looked at these two versions of low-carb diets and found that the impact of the two are drastically different,” Hu said.

“Those who follow the animal-based low-carb diet have an increased risk of total mortality and cancer mortality in particular,” said Hu, a professor of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.

“It’s the ratio that’s important,” said Karen Congro, director of the Wellness for Life Program at the Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York City. “This tells you that meat is the issue. Red meat is out.”

Although several smaller, short-term studies have shown that the Atkins-type low-carb diets lead to weight loss, “there has been a lot of concern that a low-carb diet, which typically [incorporates] animal fat and animal protein, may increase the risk of chronic diseases,” Hu said. These include type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease.

To read more, visit: http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/642824.html

If weight is an issue for someone you love, we have bariatric products that will help make life better for them.

By Denise Mann, Health.com-CNN

Forget diet pills and cleanses. A new study suggests that an effective weight-loss aid is available straight from your kitchen sink.

Drinking two 8-ounce glasses of water before breakfast, lunch, and dinner while also cutting back on portions may help you lose weight and keep it off for at least a year, according to research presented today at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society, in Boston.

“As part of a prudent, low-calorie weight-loss diet, adding water may help with weight-loss success,” says Brenda Davy, Ph.D., the lead author of the study and an associate professor of nutrition at Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg.

Upeasy Seat Assist is a mechanical lifting cushion that you can take with you wherever you go.

Dietitians have long recommended drinking water as a way to shed pounds, but little research has been done to confirm this conventional wisdom, the researchers say. Though small, Davy’s study is the first randomized controlled trial to examine the benefits of “preloading” with water before meals.

The study included 48 overweight or obese men and women between the ages of 55 and 75 who were on a low-calorie diet (1,200 calories per day for women and 1,500 calories per day for men). Half of the people were instructed to drink 16 ounces of water — the amount in a small bottle of spring water — before meals.

After three months, the participants who drank water had lost an average of about 15.5 pounds, compared with just 11 pounds in the control group, according to the study, the first results of which were published earlier this year in the journal Obesity.

And the weight loss appears to be lasting, new data suggest. After a full year of the same regimen, the water drinkers had slimmed down by an additional 1.5 pounds, on average, while those who didn’t load up on water before meals gained about 2 pounds, Davy says. (Unlike the data published in Obesity, the findings presented today have not been thoroughly vetted by other experts in the field, as is required by most medical journals.)

Davy and her colleagues aren’t sure why drinking water before meals encourages weight loss, but the main reason appears to be that it helps fill your stomach, making you less hungry and less likely to overeat.

To read more, visit: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/08/23/drink.water.lose.weight/index.html?npt=NP1

Total eMedical has a full line of bariatric products to improve your lifestyle.  See our website or call us for more information.

By Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN Medical

Could the obesity epidemic be leading to a boom in business for U.S. specialty medical suppliers?

A June 2010 survey from the medical supply contractor, Novation, which includes hospitals in the University HealthSystem Consortium and VHA member health care organizations, found that a majority of the facilities had purchased at least one type of bariatric equipment including lifts, beds, stretchers or transfer devices to accommodate the rise in morbidly obese patients, people with a body mass indexof 40 or greater. Nearly 80 percent of the hospitals also reported using special wheelchairs, walkers and blood pressure cuffs for larger patients. The supplies, though needed, are also very costly.

“The cost of these supplies is significantly more compared to standard supplies with bariatric beds costing more than $20,000 more, and bariatric wheelchairs costing almost seven times as much,” the researchers explain.

Upeasy Seat Assist is a mechanical lifting cushion that you can take with you wherever you go.

Millennium Research Group, a Canada-based medical analysis group, estimates that U.S. hospitals will spend more than $1.2 billion by the end of 2011, purchasing supplies to accommodate the obese patients.

“It’s definitely a growing market,” says Tiffanie Demone, a senior analyst with MRG. She says their analysis indicates that a standard hospital table now accommodates patients up to 600-pounds, and runs about $30,000 USD. The price of a bariatric sized table, for patients weighing up to 1,000 pounds, jumps to just under $45,000 USD, she says.

“There’s definitely a necessity based on the rising obesity levels in the U.S. That alone is fairly substantial.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 34 percent of adults age 20 and older are obese, and the American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery estimates that around 220,000 obese Americans underwent bariatric surgery– a  common type of weight-loss surgery–  in 2009.

To read more, visit: http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/21/obese-patients-need-larger-more-costly-supplies/