Obesity

COVID Isolation and Anxiety Reinforce Eating Disorders

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In March and April, the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) saw a 78% increase in messages sent to its helpline compared with the same period last year.

Dr. John Morton, medical director of bariatric surgery for Yale New Haven Health System, says he’s seeing patients via telehealth who have gained up to 30 pounds recently. He says it can happen within months.

In addition to a confidential and toll-free helpline, NEDA has created a list of free or low-cost resources related to eating disorders: https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/help-support/covid-19-resources-page.

COVID Isolation, Anxiety ‘Really Reinforce’ Eating Disorders

Georgia Health News © 2020

Citation: Judi Kanne. COVID Isolation, Anxiety ‘Really Reinforce’ Eating Disorders – Medscape – Aug 13, 2020.

The article focuses mainly on anorexia and bulemia but the quote from Dr. Morton caught my eye.  A 30 pound weight gain in a few months is pretty substantial.  I start to panic after a pound or two.  But if you lose 200 pounds and keep it off you tend to overreact  if the scale shows your weight creeping up.

My pandemic weight journey (so far) has been about taking a few of those stubborn pounds off.  I started the year at 192.  This morning I was 179.  There has to be more happy weight loss stories out there.  The article also didn’t mention anything on Orthorexia Nervosa.  I worry about those people too.

 

Nutrition and Obesity in Covid-19

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USCOVID19_IMAGE

NEJM

A healthy diet, rich in fruits and vegetables and low in sugar and calorie-dense processed foods, is essential to health. The ability to eat a healthy diet is largely determined by one’s access to affordable, healthy foods — a consequence of the conditions and environment in which one lives. In the United States, poor diet is the leading underlying cause of death, having surpassed tobacco use in related mortality.2 A study of dietary trends among U.S. adults between 1999 and 2012 showed overall improvement in the American diet, with the proportion of people who reported having a poor-quality diet decreasing from 55.9% to 45.6%; additional analyses, however, revealed persistent or worsening disparities in nutrition based on race or ethnicity, education, and income level.3

Covid-19 and Disparities in Nutrition and Obesity

Screenshot_2020-07-19 Covid-19 and Disparities in Nutrition and Obesity NEJM

The BMJ

Global efforts to develop treatments for covid-19 have focused on drug repurposing, immunotherapies including convalescent plasma and monoclonal antibodies, and vaccines. Despite obesity prevalence rates of 40% in the United States, 29% in England, and 13% globally, to our knowledge none of the several thousand clinical studies of covid-19 in international clinical trial registries proactively recruit participants with obesity. On the contrary, several studies consider overweight or obesity as exclusion criteria. We call for proportional representation of people with obesity in clinical trials of drugs and vaccines, including dose finding studies.

Obesity and covid-19: the unseen risks

More from The BMJ

Covid-19: What we eat matters all the more now

…our food systems are making us ill.11 The covid-19 outbreaks at meat packing plants have focused minds on the meat industry as a driver for acute and chronic disease.12 Last month Monique Tan and colleagues wrote that the food industry should be held partly accountable “not only for the obesity pandemic but also for the severity of covid-19 disease and its devastating consequences.”13 The government must do more to hold the industry to account.

BMJ 2020; 370 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m2840

Lose weight.  Make better food choices.  Wear a mask.

 

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Carnival Cruises Posts 2Q $4.4 Billion Loss

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I’ve been on several cruises in my life.  As an excessive weight challenged individual cruises have always been problematic for me.  Too much food.  Too much alcohol.  The last opportunity to join relatives on a cruise was a few years ago.  I declined to participate.  I just don’t like cruises.

But I also don’t like witnessing businesses crash and burn.  Stunning number.

Source article link.

Cruising

Visceral fat delivers signal to the brain that hurts cognition

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“We have identified a specific signal that is generated in visceral fat, released into the blood that gets through the blood brain barrier and into the brain where it activates microglia and impairs cognition.”

Visceral fat delivers signal to the brain that hurts cognition

Quote and article link presented without the usual sarcasm.

Molecule found in oranges could reduce obesity and prevent heart disease and diabetes

In mice, so don’t start gorging on oranges.

Sorry, sarcasm restriction didn’t last long.

Early studies on the diet suggested red wine was a major contributor to the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet because it contains a compound called resveratrol, which activated a certain pathway in cells known to increase lifespan and prevent aging-related diseases. However, work in Mashek’s lab suggests that it is the fat in olive oil, another component of the Mediterranean diet, that is actually activating this pathway.

Olive oil in the diet may also help mitigate aging-related diseases

 

Taco Bell is launching an all-vegetarian menu feature with 50 meat-free items

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Taco Bell is launching an all-vegetarian menu feature with 50 meat-free items

I’ve been following the Vegan Tsunami for some time now.  See here, here, and here, 2018-The year vegan junk food went mainstream.

A few things to remember:

  • The media is extremely loud on this subject and the percentage of vegetarians in the United States is approximately 5% or less.
  • Fast food is still fast food, meat or no meat.
  • My post is not an endorsement.

I haven’t eaten at a Taco Hell in years.  And the availability of 50 meat free items is not going to entice me to start eating there again.  If you’re eating less meat for health reasons that’s fine.  But don’t pursue your meat-free lifestyle with fast food.

 

 

Improving fruit and vegetable intake attenuates the genetic association with long-term weight gain

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Conclusions

Genetically associated increased BMI and body weight could be mitigated by increasing fruit and vegetable intake, and the beneficial effect of improving fruit and vegetable intake on weight management was more pronounced in individuals with greater genetic susceptibility to obesity.

Improving fruit and vegetable intake attenuates the genetic association with long-term weight gain

Obesity Linked to Nearly 6-fold Increased Risk of Developing type 2 Diabetes

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The researchers found that having an unfavorable lifestyle and obesity are associated with a greater risk of developing T2D regardless of their genetic risk. Obesity (defined as a body mass index of 30 kg/m2 or higher) increased T2D-risk by 5.8-fold compared to individuals with normal weight. The independent effects of high (vs. low) genetic risk and unfavourable (vs. favourable) lifestyle were relatively modest by comparison, with the highest genetic risk group having a 2-fold increased risk of developing T2D compared with the lowest group; and unfavourable lifestyle was associated with a 20% increased risk of developing T2D compared with favourable lifestyle.

Link to source article.

 

Eat Nuts Every Day

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Boosting daily nut consumption linked to less weight gain and lower obesity risk

Increasing nut consumption by just half a serving (14 g or ½ oz) a day is linked to less weight gain and a lower risk of obesity, suggests a large, long term observational study, published in the online journal BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health.

Journal Reference:

Xiaoran Liu, Yanping Li, Marta Guasch-Ferré, Walter C Willett, Jean-Philippe Drouin-Chartier, Shilpa N Bhupathiraju, Deirdre K Tobias. Changes in nut consumption influence long-term weight change in US men and women. BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health, 2019; bmjnph-2019-000034 DOI: 10.1136/bmjnph-2019-000034

Be Nice to Your Liver – Eat Yogurt

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Yogurt improves insulin resistance and liver fat in obese women with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and metabolic syndrome: a randomized controlled trial

Conclusions

Yogurt was better than milk at ameliorating IR and liver fat in obese Chinese women with NAFLD and MetS, possibly by improving lipid metabolism, reducing inflammation, oxidative stress, and LPS, and changing the gut microbiota composition. This trial was registered at www.chictr.org.cn as ChiCTR-IPR-15006801.