Children with low vitamin D levels are more likely to be at risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, according to a study suggesting a deficiency could help trigger the disease.Researchers found those with lower vitamin D levels were more likely to be obese and have higher degrees of insulin resistance, when the hormone becomes less effective at lowering blood sugar.

Dr Micah Olson, lead author of the study Diabetes & Metabolic Syndrome: Clinical Research & Reviews , published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, said: “Although our study cannot prove causation, it does suggest that low vitamin D levels may play a role in the development of Type 2 diabetes.”

He added: “Future studies are needed to determine the clinical significance of lower vitamin D levels in obese children, the amount and duration of treatment necessary to replenish vitamin D levels in these children and whether treatment with vitamin D can improve primary clinical endpoints such as insulin resistance.”

The skin helps manufacture vitamin D, but only when exposed to strong sunlight. In the winter and early spring the body’s reserves can drop to low levels, particularly if a person has had insufficient exposure in the summer months.

Vitamin D can also be derived from certain foods, such as oily fish, eggs and fortified breakfast cereals.

Therefore, lack of vitamin D could simply be a sign of a generally unhealthy lifestyle: not getting out for enough exercise in the fresh air, and not eating a good diet.

Children who sit in front of the television for most of the day, snacking on fatty foods, are therefore likely to have lower vitamin D levels and be overweight as well. The two factors might not be biologically related.

Nonetheless, Dr Iain Frame, director of the charity Diabetes UK, said the study “adds to growing evidence of a link between low levels of vitamin D and an increased risk of Type 2 diabetes.”

He went on: “However, as the authors note, the exact causes of vitamin D deficiency and its role in the development of Type 2 diabetes are still unclear.

“Diabetes UK is currently funding research at the University of Glasgow to help establish if people with Type 2 diabetes might benefit from vitamin D supplementation.

“Until we know more, it is not possible to recommend vitamin D supplements to reduce the risk of Type 2 diabetes and people should not see this as an easy fix.

“Maintaining a healthy weight by keeping to a healthy diet and undertaking regular physical activity is still the best way to reduce your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.”

Living an unhealthy lifestyle could make you look older because high blood sugar causes the face to age more quickly, new research has found.People whose blood sugar levels are higher than average look older than those with low levels, experts said.

Blood sugar, which can rise as a result of an unhealthy diet or lack of exercise, was already known to cause ill health but the study is believed to be the first to link high levels to appearance.

Researchers found that every additional millimole per litre increase in blood sugar, which in healthy people is usually between five and six mmol/l, adds five months of ageing to their facial features.

They measured the blood sugar of 602 people, while a group of 60 independent assessors studied two photographs of their faces to come up with a “perceived age” score.

Healthy people with low blood sugar typically looked a year younger than those with high readings, and a year-and-a-half younger than diabetics, the study published in the Age journal found.

The ageing could be caused by a build-up of sugar which sticks to collagen – a protein in the skin which keeps it supple – and is difficult for the body to remove.

Alternatively, the glucose could hamper insulin production which is believed to play a central role in ageing, researchers said.

David Gunn, who led the Unilever study, said: “The higher glucose people had, they started looking older. Diabetics looked older again, and they have had the worst exposure to high glucose levels.

“This adds extra evidence that there is another reason to have a healthy lifestyle – because it is going to affect your appearance as well as your health.”

Diana van Heemst, of Leiden University in the Netherlands, who contributed to the paper, said: “The results from this study further underscore how important regulation of blood glucose levels is for wellbeing and health in advanced middle age.

“The associated benefit of looking younger might provide an extra motivation to bring about healthy lifestyle changes in 50-to-70 year olds.”

From:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/High-blood-sugar-speeds-up-ageing

British women are the most overweight in Europe, according to official figures.Between the ages of 18 and 74, almost one woman in four is so fat their health is suffering.

The figure is far worse than most other countries.

By comparison, 12.7 per cent of Frenchwomen are overweight, 14.4 per cent of Spaniards and just 9.3 per cent of Italians.

Experts from the European Commission, which compiled the figures for the year 2008/9, are concerned at the number of young British women who are obese.

Across most of Europe, very few 18- to 24-year-olds are obese but in Britain 16.6 per cent of young women are too fat.

The data comes from the European Health Interview Survey (EHIS) published by Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office- Overweight and Obesity BMI Statistics.

The statistics showed British men are not far behind, with 22.1 per cent being classed as overweight, coming second only to Malta.

They found the share of overweight and obese people increases with age in all of the 19 member states for which data was available.

The figures also show the proportion of women who are obese or overweight falls as the educational level rises.

The high levels of obesity in the UK are in stark contrast to those in countries such as Romania, where just 8 per cent of women were classed as obese along with 7.6 per cent of men.

Obesity is defined as having a Body Mass Index of over 30. BMI is calculated by dividing one’s weight in kilograms by the square of one’s height in metres.

Earlier this year, a report by the World Health Organisation found that British men were among the fattest in Europe and that, as a nation, we do less exercise than almost every other.

The study ranked British men as the third fattest in Europe, with 67.8 per cent of males aged 15 or older either overweight or obese – only Greece (77.5 per cent) and Malta (73.3 per cent) were fatter.

The report also found that Britain is the ninth least active nation in the world, with 63.3 per cent of adults taking less than 30 minutes of moderate exercise five times a week.

Cardiovascular disease is Britain’s number one killer, accounting for more than 191,000 deaths every year.

A new drug which destroys blood supply to fatty tissue could help people lose a tenth of their body weight in just one month, a study indicates.Obese rhesus monkeys lost on average 11 per cent of their body weight after four weeks of the experimental treatment.

Body mass index (BMI) and waistline also were reduced, while all three measures were unchanged in untreated control monkeys.

Imaging studies also showed a substantial decrease in body fat among treated animals.

A research team led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centre carried out the study.

Co-senior author Professor Renata Pasqualini, at the David H. Koch Centre for Applied Research of Genitourinary Cancers, said: “Development of this compound for human use would provide a non-surgical way to actually reduce accumulated white fat, in contrast to current weight-loss drugs that attempt to control appetite or prevent absorption of dietary fat.”

She said previous attempts to treat obesity have predominantly focused on drugs aimed at suppressing appetite or increasing metabolism, but these efforts have been hampered by their toxic side-effects.

The MD Anderson group designed a new drug, which includes a homing agent that binds to a protein on the surface of fat-supporting blood vessels and a synthetic peptide that triggers cell death.

Their blood supply gone, fat cells are reabsorbed and metabolised.

Co-senior author Professor Wadih Arap, said: “Obesity is a major risk factor for developing cancer, roughly the equivalent of tobacco use, and both are potentially reversible.”

In earlier preclinical research, obese mice lost about 30 per cent of their body weight with the drug, now called Adipotide.

The drug acts on white adipose tissue, the scientific name for the unhealthy type of fat that accumulates under the skin and around the abdomen, and is a disease and mortality predictor.

Prof Pasqualini said: “Most drugs against obesity fail in transition between rodents and primates.  We’re greatly encouraged to see substantial weight loss in a primate model of obesity that closely matches the human condition.”

The primate model also shares other physiological features associated with human obesity, such as metabolic syndrome, characterised by an increased resistance to insulin, which can lead to the development of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Adipotide-treated monkeys showed marked improvements in insulin resistance – using about 50 per cent less insulin after treatment.

Now the research team are preparing for a clinical trial in which obese prostate cancer patients would receive daily injections of Adipotide for 28 consecutive days.

Prof Arap said: “The question is, will their prostate cancer become better if we can reduce their body weight and the associated health risks?”

He said some prostate cancer treatments, such as hormone therapy, cause weight gain.

Greater weight can lead to arthritis, which in turn causes inactivity that leads to more weight gain.

Fat cells also secrete growth hormones that cancer cells thrive on.

Weight, BMI and abdominal circumference all continued to drop for three weeks after treatment ended before turning back up during the eighth week of the study.

Treated monkeys’ abdominal fat levels fell by 27 per cent during the study. Fat levels increased slightly in the control group.

Lean monkeys did not lose weight in a separate study to test for potential effects of the drug in non-obese animals, indicating that the drug’s effect may be selective for obese subjects.

Monkeys in the studies remained bright and alert throughout, interacting with caretakers and demonstrating no signs of nausea or food avoidance.

This is potentially an important finding since unpleasant side-effects have limited the use of approved drugs that reduce fat absorption in the intestines.

The principal side effects were noted in the kidneys.

Study first author Dr Kirstin Barnhart, a veterinary clinical pathologist said: “The renal effect was dose-dependent, predictable and reversible.”

The results were published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

An ingredient found in red wine can combat the harmful effects of obesity and reduce the risk of disease in the elderly, a clinical trial has shown for the first time.When taken regularly a natural compound known as resveratrol, found in red wine and grapes, mulberries and peanuts, can offer similar benefits to low calorie diets and endurance training.

As well as lowering the metabolism – meaning the body needs less food to generate enough energy – it can reduce levels of liver fat, blood pressure and blood sugar.

The compound also improves the rate at which the muscles burn fat, lessens insulin resistance and could protect against certain age-related diseases like Type 2 diabetes and cancer, experts said.

Unfortunately, to consume the amount of resveratrol given to patients in the study a wine-drinker would need to work their way through more than 13 bottles a night, doing far more harm than good!

But researchers said the 150mg dose could easily be taken as a daily capsule with water, or incorporated into existing food supplements.

Prof Patrick Schrauwen of Maastricht University in The Netherlands, who led the study, said the benefits of resveratrol for obese people were small but significant.

He said: “I think the positive thing is that they were very consistent, they cause a small difference on a lot of different parameters.

“Also, we only gave it to patients for 30 days and we do not know what would happen if we gave it for longer. Metabolic changes can take a while before they start to appear so it is quite possible the effects could be larger.”

Dr Andrew Murray, of Cambridge University, who was not involved in the study, said it provided the first real evidence that resveratrol could have a significant effect in humans.

He said: “Although the effects are slight they could make all the difference to people with metabolic complications like obesity.

“What is very exciting about this is that there are many problems related to obesity and the onset of diabetes, and what this study seems to show is that it is not going to make people thin again but it could slow down all the problems associated with lifelong obesity.”

The researchers gave daily injections of resveratrol to 11 obese male patients for a month and found it altered their metabolism in a similar, although weaker, way than extreme dieting or endurance training.

The treatment lowered systolic blood pressure by 5mmHg and reduced the amount of energy participants used by two to four per cent, indicating that their metabolism had slowed down.

Biologically speaking this is healthy because it means we require less energy and need to eat less, but the researchers admitted that burning fewer calories may not be desirable for obese patients.

Prof Schrauwen said: “In our society with so much obesity people want to have a high metabolism because it is easier to lose weight.

“But the lowering of your energy metabolism is actually a good thing because it means that you become more efficient.”

Because the eleven patients tested in the study, published in the Cell Metabolism journal, were all obese men it is not clear whether slimmer people would benefit in the same way.

Prof Schrauwen said: “I can imagine it will work better in people who already have some disturbances in their metabolism – if your blood pressure and blood glucose are normal, then it might not be lowered.”

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Red-wine-holds-key-to-better-health-for-obese-patients

Luxury car makers are building bigger cars as a result of drivers and passengers becoming more overweight.Typical family cars have become more than a foot wider and almost double the weight over the past 50 years as manufacturers struggle with the world’s obesity crisis.

Consequently some luxury manufacturers have begun road testing the next generation of larger sized vehicles.

In plans dubbed “plump my ride” – in a play of words from the television show Pimp My Ride – BMW has recruited 800 volunteers, ranging from the slim to the obese, for a study to gauge how obesity affects mobility while driving.

The unnamed volunteers were put through a series of tests designed in part to examine factors such as getting in and out of cars or looking over their shoulder while reversing.

“People are getting more obese and we want to find out how that limits their range of motion and how our vehicles can adapt to the changing needs of our customers,” Ralf Kaiser, a member of BMW’s ergonomics team, told the Sunday Times.

“We know that a lot of overweight and obese people have problems in daily life, and in the car this starts with getting in and getting out.  In general, these aren’t sporty people. We already have things like the parking distance control, which shows obstacles on a screen when you are reversing.”

He added: “For someone who can find it difficult to turn 140 degrees to look behind them, they can now just look at the screen.  The study will mean we can look at things more scientifically and build a car that at least 95 per cent of people can use.”

Mercedes has unveiled plans to strengthen grab handles above its doors, in part to help heavier passengers support themselves.

Porsche, meanwhile, is installing “electrically-powered steering columns” on top-of-the-range models that rise when the engine is switched off.

Over the past decade, Honda has widened its seats by up to 2 inches to accommodate larger bottoms while its new range of vehicles will also have buttons that will allow for so called “sausage fingers”.

Other manufacturers are installing reversing aids and blind spot detectors as standard.

According to the latest figures a Ford Prefect was 4ft 9in wide with an 18 inch long seat cushion in 1953. This compared to a 2011 Ford Focus that was 6ft 1in wide with a 23 inch long seat cushion.

Government statistics show that more than 60 per cent of adults in England and a third of 10 and 11-year-olds are obese.

In August The Lancet medical journal said that by 2030 more than 11m would classed as obese, with a body mass index (BMI) above 30, compared with a healthy BMI score of between 18.5 and 25.

Obesity and chronic health conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes cost Britain £20 billion a year in terms of lost productivity, it was claimed last month.

It was recently disclosed that over the past five years Yorkshire Ambulance Service spent nearly £10 million on specialist vehicles to transport obese patients.

Speaking earlier this month at a launch that unveiled plans to cut obesity levels by 2020, Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, said Britain had to become a nation of calorie counters to counter the obesity crisis.

An advisory committee has concluded that the recommended daily calorie limits to maintain a healthy weight, laid down 20 years ago, have been slightly on the low side.In 1991 the Committee on the Medical Aspects of Food Policy (COMA) set out that the average man should be eating 2,550 calories daily, and the average woman 1,940.

After lengthy consultation, those have now been raised slightly – by a frugal 55 calories for men, but a comparatively generous 139 calories for women.

Which means 2,605 calories a day for men and 2,079 calories a day for women.

Prof Alan Jackman, chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN), explained that the old figures were based on “limited available evidence”.

They have been updated to take into account advances in science and better understanding of the physical activity people took.

Sadly, that is where the good news ends.

Speaking at a briefing to launch the Government’s new “ambition” to see obesity levels falling by 2020, Prof Jackman; Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary; and Prof Dame Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer for England, emphasised that this was “not a licence to eat more”.

Prof Jackman said “the majority of adults” already ate much more than the new guideline amounts.

“We estimate that on average the population is eating 10 per cent more than they require,” he said.

Thus, as little over a third of the adult population is now not overweight or obese, only that minority is really entitled to an extra guilt-free indulgence.

Mr Lansley decided to unveil the Government’s new anti-obesity ambition the same day, leading to accusations of mixed messages.

The Health Secretary said Britain had to become a nation of calorie counters.

“People should have a pretty good sense of how many calories they are consuming,” he said.

Department of Health policy officers have calculated that England needs to consume five billion fewer calories daily, to ensure average weights fall to healthy levels.

That equates to enough cheeseburgers to cover 20 football pitches, or enough cafe lattes to fill four Olympic swimming pools, said a spokesman.

But Prof Terence Stephenson, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said it amounted to “peanuts”.

He added: “Sixteen dry roasted peanuts per person, per day to be precise.”

Like others, he attacked the Health Secretary’s reluctance to use stronger measures to tackle obesity, which already costs the NHS one pound in every 20 it spends.

The Prime Minister last week said a ‘fat tax’ on some foods was “something we should look at”, but yesterday Mr Lansley would only say that while taxes might have “a part to play”, they were not a “first resort”.

But Jamie Oliver, the chef and healthy eatign campaigner, dismissed the whole strategy as a “farce” and a “cop-out”, saying it was “worthless, regurgitated, patronising rubbish”.

He said: “Simply telling people what they already know – that they need to eat less and move more – is a complete cop out.  The country’s bill of health is shocking, and it’s not going to get any better over the next 30 years if a clearly defined plan isn’t put into place soon.”

“We simply can’t afford the financial or health costs of doing nothing. This Government might be able to navigate us slowly out of a recession, but it has no clue about how to make sustainable change in the short or long term, or how to inspire, enforce or empower public health.”

Dr David Haslam, a GP and chair of the National Obesity Forum, said issuing the new calorie guidelines alongside the updated anti-obesity drive was “really unhelpful”.

“It gives out entirely the wrong message,” he said. “People are going to think that they can eat that little bit more. If anything, that will add to the obesity problem.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8825271/Green-light-to-eat-a-little-more-if-you-are-thin.html

‘Nudging’ people to lose weight by thinking about their lifestyle shows little evidence of success, an analysis of published data suggests.It showed the step by step “nanny state” behavioural approach used in hospitals and clinics led to an average weight loss of 2kg or less.

The report, by The Cochrane Library, looked at studies involving nearly 4,000 people around the world.

The method, known as the transtheoretical model (TTM) stages of change, is used to encourage people to move towards more healthy forms of behaviour.

The five step process encourages people to see the need to change and then give it a go.

It has been shown to be successful in helping people quit smoking, and has also been used in alcohol and drug addiction.

The analysis looked at five trials – in the UK, US, Netherlands, Canada, and Australia – involving 1,834 overweight or obese patients, and 2,076 people of normal weight.

The authors, led by Professor Azeem Majeed and Dr Nik Tuah of Imperial College London, found no convincing evidence of any sustained or significant weight loss.

Professor Majeed: “Changing people’s dietary patterns is very difficult – that’s why we’ve got such a problem with obesity.”

Dr Tuah added: “This review does not necessarily challenge the notion that diet and exercise are effective weight loss strategies, but instead raises questions about how to approach lifestyle changes for individuals who want to adopt them.”

The report concluded: ” The use of TTM SOC resulted in minimal weight loss (about 2 kg or less) and there was no conclusive evidence for sustainable weight loss amongst participants.”

The report’s abstract is at: Transtheoretical model for dietary and physical exercise modification in weight loss management for overweight and obese adults

Obesity and chronic health conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes cost Britain £20 billion a year in terms of lost productivity, analysis by the polling firm Gallup has found.Overweight and obese workers with no chronic problems take twice as many days off as comparable workers of a healthy weight, found the survey of almost 9,000 people.

Those who were overweight or obese and had three or more chronic health problems took 12 times as many sick days as healthy weight individuals with no health problems, or 18 compared to 1.5.

The survey was conducted by Gallup and Healthways, a firm that runs fitness centres.

It also found obesity alone counts for six lost work days per worker each year – or over £1,200 in lost productivity.

Ben Leedle, president and chief executive of Healthways, said it showed that the level of chronic disease in the UK workforce was at “alarming levels”.

He said: “Employers who recognize the importance of improving well-being at the workplace are most likely to gain a competitive advantage.”

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Obesity-and-chronic-disease-cost-UK-PLC-20bn-a-year

Researchers say they have discovered why men may be more likely than women to develop type 2 diabetes – they are biologically more susceptible.Men need to gain far less weight than women to develop the condition, study findings suggest.

The Glasgow University team found men developed the disease at a lower Body Mass Index (BMI) than women.

They believe distribution of the body fat is important – men tend to store it in their liver and around the waist.

Women, meanwhile, have greater amounts of ‘safe’ subcutaneous fat stored on the thighs and hips, for example.

This means women need to accumulate more fat overall than men to develop the harmful fat deposits linked with diabetes, the researchers explain in the journal Diabetologia.

Type 2 diabetes is caused by too much sugar in the blood which occurs when the body’s ability to regulate sugar levels in several different organs becomes disturbed. The condition is linked to excess fat in some of these organs such as the liver and muscles.

Professor Naveed Sattar, of the Institute of Cardiovascular & Medical Sciences, who led the research, said: “Previous research has indicated that middle-aged men are at a higher risk of developing diabetes than women and one possible explanation is that men have to gain less weight than women to develop the condition.

“In other words, men appear to be at higher risk for diabetes.”

For the study, the researchers analysed data from 51,920 men and 43,137 women in Scotland with diabetes, taking into consideration body weight and obesity using the BMI measurement based on height and weight.

The results showed women developed diabetes at a heavier BMI than men – the mean BMI at diabetes diagnosis in men was 31.83 but 33.69 in women.

The researchers say this helps explain why men have higher rates of diabetes in many parts of the world.

Dr Victoria King, Head of Research at Diabetes UK, said: “It is worrying that men develop type 2 diabetes at a higher rate than their female counterparts. Research like this will help us understand reasons why and provide greater insight into what we can do to improve prevention of type 2 diabetes.

“Diabetes UK is calling on both men and women to reduce their chances of developing type 2 diabetes by losing any excess weight, eating a healthy, balanced diet and by taking regular physical activity.”

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15147999