Reading helps overweight girls

I am a fan of reading, whatever the reason given, but when it can actually help overweight girls then it seems a win-win situation. New research on obesity at Duke University in the USA has found reading, if the material is right, actually encouraged weight loss in girls aged from 9-13 who took part in their study.

Getting children to lose weight is not something they can do alone, so Duke Children’s Hospital, has a family-focused weight loss programme that addresses the patients’ medical, dietary and behavioural needs. As part of the study, 31 girls who took part were given a novel called Lake Rescue (Beacon Street Girls). It’s the 6th in a series about the Beacon Street Girls by US author Annie Bryant, and in it the main character is an overweight preteen girl who struggles with low self-esteem, feelings of isolation and teasing because of her size. Another group of 33 girls read a different book called Charlotte in Paris, which did not have an overweight heroine, and another group of 17 girls read neither book.

They were all assessed after six months, and ALL the girls who read books had lost weight, but the girls who read Lake Rescue lost more.

The idea behind the study was to find a way to motivate the girls without resorting to the usual carrot and stick approach of so many dietary approaches and avoiding the often authoritative voice that goes with that. Lake Rescue was the perfect instrument, because it presents a likable character the girls could relate to and whom they could emulate. As the book progresses, its heroine learns to make healthier lifestyle choices and finds a mentor to help keep her on track. In other words, she learns that she can become healthier, and through her actions and the, ‘I can do it’ attitude really resonated with the preteen girls in the study.

The amount of weight lost was not huge, but the positive effect on the girls’ self-esteem would, the researchers believe, have a long-lasting effect that would help them maintain the weight loss. Healthy 9-13-year-old girls typically have a BMI between 16 and 19; the BMI of the girls in the study group was on average between 27 and 28. Without intervention, if these overweight girls were to continue to increase their BMI at their old rate, then in six months they would probably be at 28. Now, instead of going from 27 to 28, they are now going from 27 to 26.3, which would put her in the normal BMI range by time she is 13. If the weight is left unchecked, these girls would have a BMI of over 30 by the time they are 13, which would be obese even by adult standards.

Other Options?

The only viable option for obese pre-teens at the moment is a combination of lifestyle and behaviour-modification programmes, combined with counselling, which can be effective but unpredictable. There are some drugs available to counter severe weight-loss, but these are not suitable for anyone under the age of 15 – and used with caution by anyone over that age. The other newer option for obesity is to have a gastric bypass operation, but again this is far too risky for this younger age group.

As I said, I am all for encouraging reading, and buy Lake Rescue (Beacon Street Girls). If anyone knows of a similar story from a UK author that also features an overweight girl in a similar situation then I would be very happy to hear about it.

Golfers live longer

Though it may just seem that way if you happen to be a ‘golf widow/widower!’ I don’t think of Sweden as a golfing nation, but a study conducted by the Karolinska Institutet, and published in the ‘Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports’, has revealed that people who played golf had a 40% lower mortality rate than their equivalent non-golfing counterparts. In real terms that means they can expect to live 5 years longer.

A round of golf means being outside for four or five hours, walking at a fast pace for six to seven kilometres, all of which are things that are known to be good for health. Also, golf is a game people usually play well into their old age so maintain their level of fitness, plus there are other social and psychological aspects to the game that can be of help.

Mental acuity, plus physical exercise and companionship is a very potent cocktail, and, it may seem unfair, but their research also found that golfers with the lowest handicap enjoyed the lowest mortality rates. It seems this is because it takes more playing time to reach a higher level of proficiency in the game, so you are out in the fresh air and exercising for longer. Another good reason to lower your handicap!

Celery and the brain

Researchers at the University of Illinois report that a plant compound found in abundance in celery and green peppers can disrupt a key component of the inflammatory response in the brain. This could be important news for the research on ageing, and on diseases such as Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis.

Inflammation plays a key role in many neurodegenerative diseases and also is implicated in the memory and behaviour problems that can arise as we get older. Inflammation is not always a bad thing; it is a critical part of the body’s immune response that in normal circumstances reduces injury and promotes healing, but when it goes wrong then it can lead to serious physical and mental problems.

The new study looked at luteolin, a plant flavonoid in celery and green peppers which is known to impede the inflammatory response in several types of cells outside the central nervous system. Herbalists have known about the cooling properties of celery for decades and prescribe it for arthritis and hot flushes, but now it seems scientists are also taking it seriously. Add celery and green peppers to your diet and you will whizzing through the crossword in record time. If you don’t like the taste of them – and I know some people who don’t – then if you have a juicer add it to your mix. I juice celery regularly with apples and carrot to boost my immune system and help with arthritis and even celery-haters love the taste of the juice.

Aspartame – The sweet deception

I know I have mentioned aspartame before – probably too often – but I can’t emphasise strongly enough that sweeteners do you no favour, especially if you are trying to lose weight. Your body does not recognise a sweetener as sugar, and so you unconsciously seek it out in other ways. Many experts now believe that Aspartame is one of the most dangerous substances ever added to food, not only because it has been proven to make you fatter, but because of its links to serious health problems such as cancer and neurological diseases.

Why am I mentioning it now? Because many people just don’t think it’s true, or that I am a scaremongering killjoy (only on Halloween and never when it concerns your health!) Can I just point out that Aspartame has brought more complaints to the Food and Drug Agency in the USA than any other additive-ever. It’s responsible for a staggering 75% of the complaints they receive and from 10,000 consumer complaints, the FDA compiled a list of 92 symptoms, including death.

Now I think death is a pretty serious symptom – so if you are addicted to diet drinks and sweeteners, could you at least cut down and stop me worrying about you?

Criminals watch your diet!

This story is irresistible to a woman who writes so often about the effects of diet on health. What I didn’t realise is that what you eat could also get you banged up! Dr John Bond, a researcher at the University of Leicester and scientific support officer at Northamptonshire Police, is the inventor of a revolutionary forensic fingerprint technique that will help put unhealthy criminals behind bars.

He claims that criminals who eat processed foods are more likely to be discovered by police because their fingerprint sweat corrodes metal – just shows you what fast food does to your stomach if just the sweat can eat away an external surface like that! Apparently the police already love consumers of processed foods as they tend to be leave better fingerprints for the police to identify.

It’s down to the fact that sweaty fingerprint marks made more of a corrosive impression on metal if they had a high salt content – and processed food, fish and chips and burgers tend to be high in salt as a preservative. The body needs to excrete excess salt, which comes out as sweat through the pores in our fingers, and so when you touch a surface it will be high in salt if you eat a lot of processed foods – the higher the salt, the better the corrosion of the metal.

Not sure whether I should be encouraging fast food diets in criminals, to aid their capture, or encourage them to switch to the Mediterranean diet!

Using your head after trauma

One of the most worrying concerns for patients who suffered a head trauma is how well they will recover. Now there may be increased hope for them and their families, as a new study shows that our brain can adapt to help improve our ability to cope with mental tasks, we just have to use more of it than before the trauma.

Canada’s Baycrest Center for Geriatric Care is an academic health sciences centre, internationally-renowned for its aging brain research, clinical treatments and cognitive rehabilitation strategies. Their latest research has found that brain injury patients used more of their brains for similar performance on mental tasks compared with healthy participants that they studied as a control.

Traumatic brain injury often results in impaired working memory, particularly executive control, as we have seen in previous reports, and in this study the patients completed a series of tasks that tested how they performed specific tasks. The patients underwent a series of trials in which they were asked to maintain or alphabetize a set of letters. They performed the tasks as well as the healthy control group, but they were using different areas of the brain to access the information and process it. They were, it is true, processing information more slowly, but this seemed to have no significant difference in their overall ability to perform the task in roughly the same time frame as the control group.

It gives hope to those suffering traumatic brain injury that recovery of normal tasks and abilities can be achieved although the authors were cautious in saying that such injury is often associated with chronic pain, depression, and anxiety, and that can influence the rate and extent of recovery.

Blue light for cancer treatment

A blue curing light used to harden dental fillings also may stunt tumour growth, according to researchers at the Medical College of Georgia in the USA. Before you rush off to your dentist to request a quick blast, this research has so far only been tried on mice.

So what are they basing this on? According to a quartet of professors at the College, the light dentists use sends wavelengths of blue-violet light to the composite used in your filling, and it then, which triggers it to set and harden. Or in professor-speak “The light waves produce free radicals that activate the catalyst and speed up polymerization of the composite resin” The important thing is that in oral cancer cells, those radicals cause damage that decreases cell growth and increases cell death.” Or in other words, it can stop the tumour from growing and kill off cancerous cells.

The results so far indicate an approximate 10% increase in cell death in tumours treated with the blue light and almost 80% decrease in cell growth. It also appears that the non-cancerous cells appear unaffected at light doses that kill tumour cells and this could mean using this method alongside conventional cancer therapy so that patients could receive lower doses of chemotherapy – and reduce the unpleasant side effects that such exposure can bring.

Mediterranean magic

It’s not up to date news, just a reminder of something that will substantially improve your health – and is enjoyable as well. I am off on a Mediterranean cruise calling near to Florence in a few weeks, so when a piece of research from that area came in it caught my attention. The British Medical Journal this week published a study from the University of Florence that showed that people who followed an authentic Mediterranean diet lived longer and suffered few serious diseases.

The so-called Mediterranean Diet had great favour a few years ago, but sadly it is no longer followed as strictly or by as many people – even in the Mediterranean itself. So what are the benefits? Well research done on an extremely large scale and across Mediterranean populations and others in the U.S., Northern Europe, and a group of Europeans living in Australia gave impressive results.

Dr Sofi of the University of Florence and colleagues followed the diets of 1,574,299 individuals for intervals of three to 18 years, and showed that those who followed the dietary rules got all this:

** a 9% lower overall death rate

** a 9% lower risk of dying from heart disease

** a 6% lower incidence of contracting, or dying from cancer

** a 13% lower risk of contracting Parkinson’s disease

** a 13% lower risk of contracting Alzheimer’s disease

And what do you have to suffer to achieve these impressive improvements in your health and longevity? The Mediterranean diet is rich in vegetables, fruits, legumes, cereals, fish, nuts, olive oil, and a moderate intake of red wine during meals. So that’s no hardship is it? On the downside the diet is also low in red meat, dairy products, and alcohol in large quantities BUT the key word is low. You don’t have to give them up altogether just eat moderately in comparison to the other elements of the diet – we may not have much Mediterranean sunshine at the moment, but we can at least benefit from their dietary habits!

DVT risk from pollution

We have become used to the idea that being immobile for long periods such as on a long-haul flight, or sitting in the same position at a desk for hours, may pose a risk for DVT (deep vein thrombosis), but now it seems that the air pollution produced by the burning of fossil fuels can drastically increase the risk of developing these potentially fatal blood clots as well. Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health did some research on the air pollution levels in the Lombardy region of Italy. They chose an area where 870 known DVT patients lived, along with their 1200 healthy neighbours. When they analysed the air pollution they found that for every 10 microgram per square meter increase in particulate concentration, a person’s risk of DVT increased by a staggering 70%.

I don’t know if Lombardy is particularly polluted, but if you live in an industrial area, it would pay you to know about the warning signs for DVT – though it has to be said sometimes, there are none at all. The first sign can be chest pain or discomfort which usually gets worse when you take a deep breath or when you cough. You might have get an unexplained sudden onset of shortness of breath, which is the most common symptom, or feel lightheaded, dizzy or even a bit anxious. If you are at all concerned, please consult your doctor, and if it is a severe chest pain get immediate help.

Swedish proton therapy project

More than 4,500 cancer specialists will gather in Göteborg, Sweden this weekend for their annual conference of sessions, lectures, and presentations. Unfortunately most patients have to shuffle from place to place for different aspects of treatment but the conference organisers have just announced that in 2011 Sweden will launch a new process for treating cancer, which is unique in Europe. The concept of ‘distributed competence’ involves eight Swedish university hospitals performing treatment plans close to the patients’ home, with the patients then treated in a single place. It would be good to see the idea extended to the UK too wouldn’t it?

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