Day: 08/22/2015

Weight gain after quitting cigarettes is linked to how much you used to smoke .

Posted by

0


It’s positively crazy to think – given everything we know about the dangers of smoking – that lots of people actually put off quitting the deadly habit because they’re concerned about the potential negative impact on their waistline. Weight gain isn’t good, sure, but smoking is just about the worst thing you can do to your body.And to others.

Anyway, here we are. And despite what you may have heard, this weight gain smokers face after quitting cigarettes is very real and not just an urban myth. Researchers at Penn State University in the US have found that the amount of weight quitters stand to gain is related to the volume of cigarettes they smoked during their habit. In other words, heavy smokers make for heavier quitters.

To figure out how personal factors might contribute to smokers’ weight gain after quitting, the researchers looked at the data of more than 12,000 people who participated in the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Their research, published in the International Journal of Obesity, looked at weight gain in both continuing smokers, those who quit, and non-smokers over a 10-year period. After 10 years, the average weight for all groups had increased.

“People tend to put on some weight over time and everyone in the study gained weight. The non-smokers gained about a pound [450 grams] a year for 10 years,” said Susan Veldheer, a registered dietician and lead author of the study, in a press release.

For smokers of fewer than 15 cigarettes a day, there was no difference in weight gain between those who continued smoking and those who quit. “This is good news for light to moderate smokers who are concerned about weight gain,” said Veldheer. “It means that in the long term, quitting smoking will not make that big of an impact on their weight.”

The findings were not so good for heavy smokers quitting, or for smokers who were already obese prior to quitting. For people who smoked more than 25 cigarettes per day – or who had a body mass index of 30 or more before giving up – the weight gains over 10 years were markedly increased. Heavy smokers who quit gained 10.4 kg on average over the 10-year period, while obese quitters gained 7.2 kg.

“Although this may seem like a lot of weight, it is important for all smokers to remember that quitting smoking is the single most important thing they can do for their health,” said Veldheer.

“That being said, for heavy smokers and obese smokers, it may be a good idea to work on quitting smoking while also making other healthy lifestyle changes to control their weight.”

Constantly checking your mobile phone can lead to ‘cognitive failures’ .

Posted by

0


High-frequency internet users find it much more difficult to pay attention

Whether sitting on a train or having dinner at a restaurant, many people find it hard to stop fiddling with their mobile phones – firing off a never-ending stream of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter posts.

If this online hyperactivity looks exhausting, it’s no surprise to discover that these high-frequency internet users find it much more difficult to pay attention to what’s going on around them than the rest of us – even when they are not consumed by the web.

New research finds that the most frequent mobile phone and internet users are the most likely to be distracted, for example by being prone to missing important appointments and daydreaming while having a conversation.

In the first study of its kind, an academic from Leicester’s De Montfort University has found that the more times a person uses the internet or their mobile phone, the more likely they are to experience “cognitive failures”.

These include a whole range of blunders, and a general lack of awareness of a person’s surroundings that stretches as far as people forgetting why they have just gone from one part of the house to the other says Dr Lee Hadlington, author of the research.

The study draws the same conclusions among users of mobile phones without internet access as with it – suggesting that mobile phone conversations and surfing the web are similarly associated with distraction.

But whether the most digitally active people are more distracted because their excessive online activity makes them jittery or hyperactive, or whether it is the other way around – that they are more drawn to these activities because they naturally have short “attentional control” – is unclear at this stage, he says.

Dr Hadlington does have a theory, however: that it is a mix of the two. In other words, those people already suffering from short attention spans are drawn to the distractions of modern technology, which makes it even harder for them to pay attention to their surroundings.

His research has been published in the journal Computers in Human Behaviour. He is now working on research to answer this question more comprehensively and to look for ways to solve the problem.

“This is a very underexamined area and a very important one. We are using technology on a daily basis but we don’t understand its effect on us,” Dr Hadlington said.

“We don’t know what’s actually happening to our cognition when we are using this technology and that’s the important thing. What we do know from this research is that there are some statistically significant numbers of people who say they use the internet or their phone a lot and who experience cognitive failures,” he added.

The study was conducted among 107 men and 103 women between the ages of 18 and 65, who spent an average of 22.95 hours a week online.

US government finally admits that cannabis kills cancer cells .

Posted by

0


Controversy: Cannabis does have medicinal health benefits, US health researchers claim

The US government has thrown its weight behind the earth-shattering claims thatcannabis kills cancer cells.

Everyone from hippies to conspiracy theorists and even several creditable scientists have previously argued that smoking or ingesting the herb can have medicinal benefits.

Cancer kills up to 20,000 people worldwide every day, according to global health estimates.

Cannabis farm

Health researchers for the US government claim that cannabinoids – the active ingredients in cannabis – can inhibit the illness by causing cell death and blocking key blood vessels needed by tumours to grow.

They say studies in mice and rats show cannabinoids may be able to kill cancer cells – while still protecting normal cells.

Key chemical ingredients in marijuana were found effective in fighting against colon cancer, liver cancer, breast cancer and several other forms of the disease.

It was also suggested that cannabidiol can boost the effectiveness of chemotherapy – without any of the nasty side effects.

A health researcher on the US government’s Cancer.org website claimed: “Studies in mice and rats have shown that cannabinoids may inhibit tumor growth by causing cell death, blocking cell growth, and blocking the development of blood vessels needed by tumors to grow. Laboratory and animal studies have shown that cannabinoids may be able to kill cancer cells while protecting normal cells.

“A study in mice showed that cannabinoids may protect against inflammation of the colon and may have potential in reducing the risk of colon cancer, and possibly in its treatment.

“A laboratory study of delta-9-THC in hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer) cells showed that it damaged or killed the cancer cells. The same study of delta-9-THC in mouse models of liver cancer showed that it had antitumor effects.”

Genetic Switch Turns White Fat to Beige Fat .

Posted by

0


Scientists developing weight-loss drug based on study results

Researchers working with rodents found a genetic mechanism that caused fat cells to burn energy rather than store it, suggesting new possibilities for treating obesity, they reported.

Mice in which this genetic program was activated were 50% thinner than control mice, did not gain weight on a high-fat diet, and burned energy at a high rate even when sleeping, according to a team of international researchers writing in the Aug. 20 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

“By manipulating this new pathway, we could switch between energy storage and energy dissipation programs at both the cellular and organismal level, providing new hope for a cure against obesity,” said senior investigator Manolis Kellis, PhD, of MIT in Boston, in a press release.

The researchers studied a region of a gene called the fat mass and obesity associated (FTO) gene, which is known to have a strong association with obesity.

“FTO is highly expressed in the brain compared to other tissues, so scientists assumed that it acted in the brain. But we looked at more than a hundred human tissues and cell types and found that this region acts in adipocyte precursor cells,” lead investigatorMelina Claussnitzer, PhD, of Harvard Medical School, told MedPage Today.

“These are predetermined stem cells found in white adipose tissue. We found a huge regulatory element there,” Claussnitzer said.

The researchers found that a single nucleotide variation in the FTO gene region disrupts the activity of a regulating gene called ARID5B. With the regulating effect of ARID5B disrupted, two other genes become highly expressed in adipocyte precursor cells. These two genes, IRX3 and IRX5, cause these cells to shift from energy-dissipating beige fat cells to energy-storing white fat cells.

By using gene editing technology to change one nucleotide in the FTO gene region — in this case swapping a cytosine for a thymine — the scientists were able to restore the function of ARID5B, reduce the expression of IRX3 and IRX5, and reverse the process in human primary adipocytes.

The cells increased their thermogenic activity by a factor of 7, the researchers reported. “This is the first study to correct a genetic variant and recover a complete phenotype,” Claussnitzer said.

Mice in which the IRX3 gene was repressed in adipocytes were generated as well. “These mice had pronounced anti-obesity characteristics, including reduced body size, body weight, fat mass, white and brown fat depots, and adipocyte size,” the investigators reported.

“The effect in these mice was dramatic. They lost half their body weight. They didn’t gain an ounce on a high-fat diet. They burned energy without any kind of exercise or locomotor activity,” Claussnitzer said.

Similarly, the investigators created mice in which the IRX5 gene was repressed. The group is saving that data for a future paper, Claussnitzer said, but the results were generally in line with the other experiments.

 The obesity-associated variant of the FTO gene is common in humans. It affects 44% of Europeans, Claussnitzer said.

The investigators are already working to develop an anti-obesity drug based on their findings. They are screening for small molecules to target IXR3 and IXR5, and they are exploring viral delivery of small molecules or RNA, Claussnitzer said.

“This work has several implications, albeit with certain caveats,” said Clifford Rosen, MD, of the Maine Medical Center Research Institute in Scarborough, and Julie Ingelfinger, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, in an accompanying editorial.

“The results support previous in vitro and in vivo studies indicating that browning of white adipose tissue has physiological relevance and that disorders of mitochondrial function and brown fat may play a role in pathophysiological aspects of obesity,” they indicated.

“Shifting adipocytes from energy storage to energy expenditure with pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic measures may become feasible as the ARID5B-FTO-IRX3/IRX5 regulatory network becomes fully defined,” Rosen and Ingelfinger wrote.

However, they cautioned, “as yet there is still no simple path to an anti-obesity drug that can be derived from this research.”

Extended breastfeeding may expose babies to harmful chemicals

Posted by

0


The chemicals–perfluorinated alkylate substances, or PFAS–appear to build up in infants by 20-30 per cent for each month they are breastfed, the findings showed.

Extended breastfeeding may not be a good ideaPollutants are transferred to the next generation at a very vulnerable age.
 While breast milk is regarded as the best source of nutrition for a newborn, researchers have now found that exclusive breastfeeding for a long time may also expose infants to a class of industrial chemicals linked with cancer and immune system dysfuntion.

The chemicals–perfluorinated alkylate substances, or PFASs–appear to build up in infants by 20-30 per cent for each month they are breastfed, the findings showed.

“There is no reason to discourage breastfeeding, but we are concerned that these pollutants are transferred to the next generation at a very vulnerable age,” said one of the researchers Philippe Grandjean, adjunct professor of environmental health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, US.

“We knew that small amounts of PFAS can occur in breast milk, but our serial blood analyses now show a buildup in the infants, the longer they are breastfed,” Grandjean pointed out.

PFASs are used to make products resistant to water, grease, and stains. These compounds–which tend to bioaccumulate in food chains–are found regularly in the blood of animals and humans worldwide, and have been linked with reproductive toxicity, endocrine disruption, and immune system dysfunction.

For the study, the researchers followed 81 children who were born in the Faroe Islands between 1997-2000, looking at levels of five types of PFASs in their blood at birth and ages 11 months, 18 months, and five years.

In children who were exclusively breastfed, PFAS concentrations in the blood increased by roughly 20-30 per cent each month, with lower increases among children who were partially breastfed.

After breastfeeding was stopped, concentrations of all of five types of PFAS decreased.

Why you should go travelling alone, according to psychology

Posted by

0


A new study has confirmed what the more intrepid amongst us have known for a long time – travelling solo is the best way to go about it.

The research, published by the International Journal of Travel and Tourism Research, took a small sample of 24 participants who had all recently taken solo holidays that lasted an average of nine days.

It found that most people opted to travel without family members, partners or friends because they enjoyed the ‘me time’, as well as not having to compete with what other people want to do and easier planning all round.

However, lead researcher Professor Constanza Bianchi of Queensland University of Technology’s Business School said the team found that the reasons for taking a solo vacay ran much deeper than that.

Travelling alone for holidays also provided some participants with the feeling that they had more control over their lives and actions… Solo travelling also offered some participants the possibility of reflection and self-discovery.