Tag: Obesity

  • Nation & World

    Immersed in the body politic

    Susan Greenhalgh, a new professor in Harvard’s anthropology department, studies China’s controversial one-child policy, finding lessons for American health policymakers, too.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Ideas to improve the everyday

    All-star Harvard faculty members at “Harvard Thinks Big” dazzled and provoked their audience in 10-minute talks Thursday that framed major questions about happiness, stem cell growth, runaway obesity, and the exploding American prison population.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Exploring roots of hunger, eating behaviors

    Synaptic plasticity — the ability of the synaptic connections between the brain’s neurons to change and modify over time — has been shown to be a key to memory formation and the acquisition of new learning behaviors. Now research reveals that the neural circuits controlling hunger and eating behaviors are also controlled by plasticity.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Why cooking counts

    In a first-of-its-kind study, Harvard researchers have shown that cooked meat provides more energy than raw meat, a finding that challenges the current food labeling system and suggests humans are evolutionarily adapted to take advantage of the benefits of cooking.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Food reform to fight obesity

    Panelists at a Harvard School of Public Health Forum Oct. 20 said that changing agriculture policy may be necessary to reform the nation’s diet, which is blamed for worsening current epidemics of obesity and diabetes.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Health care disparities for disabled

    Two decades after the Americans with Disabilities Act went into effect, people with disabilities continue to face difficulties meeting major social needs, including obtaining appropriate access to health care facilities and services.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Connecting with freshmen

    Harvard College freshmen got their first taste Aug. 26 of the world of ideas awaiting them over the next four years in a talk by Professor Nicholas Christakis, who delivered the 2011 Opening Days Lecture, “Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives.”

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Tax on sugary drinks?

    The global obesity epidemic has been escalating for decades, yet long-term prevention efforts have barely begun and are inadequate, according to a new paper from international public health experts published in the Aug. 25 issue of the journal The Lancet.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Grant backs study of cancer-obesity link

    The Harvard School of Public Health has been awarded a five-year, $10 million grant from the National Cancer Institute for a new research center to study the relationship between obesity and cancer.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Twin dangers: Malnutrition and obesity

    Experts in nutrition gathered at Harvard Medical School to discuss the emerging “double burden” of malnutrition and obesity that is starting to affect the developing world.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    HSPH professor awarded for diabetes research

    Columbia University Medical Center presented the 2010 Naomi Berrie Award to Gökhan S. Hotamisligil, the James Stevens Simmons Professor of Genetics and Metabolism and the chair of the Department of Genetics and Complex Diseases at the Harvard School of Public Health.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    You are where you live

    A Harvard School of Public Health associate professor examines the link between health and neighborhoods to see whether people’s residential landscapes matter.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The rise of chronic disease

    Heart disease, diabetes, and other chronic diseases are becoming enormous problems in the developing world and need more attention even as the challenge of fighting infectious diseases like AIDS shows no sign of abating, according to Institute of Medicine President Harvey Fineberg.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Obesity rate will reach at least 42%

    Researchers at Harvard University say America’s obesity epidemic won’t plateau until at least 42 percent of adults are obese, an estimate derived by applying mathematical modeling to 40 years of Framingham Heart Study data.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Mapping the road to obesity

    Unlike previous investigations, which examined fat cells at a single static time point, this new study mapped several histone modifications throughout the course of fat cell development. With these new findings researchers now have a better understanding of normal fat cell development, and going forward, they can compare normal fat cells with fat cells in…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Progress on obesity

    Researchers have identified 18 gene sites associated with obesity and 13 associated with body fat distribution, helping to unravel the riddle of obesity.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Excess maternal weight gain increases birth weight, study finds

    Expectant mothers who gain large amounts of weight tend to give birth to heavier infants who are at higher risk for obesity later in life. But it’s never been proven that this tendency results from the weight gain itself, rather than genetic or other factors that mother and baby share.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Gokhan Hotamisligil receives honor for the Study of Obesity

    Gökhan Hotamisligil, the J.S. Simmons Professor of Genetics and Metabolism and chair of the Department of Genetics and Complex Diseases at the Harvard School of Public Health, will receive the prestigious Wertheimer Award from the International Association for the Study of Obesity in July in Stockholm.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    60 minutes of exercise per day needed for middle-aged women to maintain weight

    If a middle-aged or older woman with a normal body mass index wants to maintain her weight over an extended period, she must engage in the equivalent of 60 minutes…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Playing on our instincts

    Assistant clinical professor of psychology Deirdre Barrett says that many of today’s ills come from intentional overstimulation of natural human impulses, giving people hard-to-resist appetites for everything from fighting to sex to unhealthy foods.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Buddhism on the dinner plate

    New book by a Harvard nutritionist and renowned monk encourages the Buddhist sense of mindfulness in how people eat.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Right this way! See it! Taste it!

    Former FDA commissioner David Kessler says overeating has to be attacked the same way that tobacco was in the past, by making it socially unacceptable.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Infant mortality down, ailments persist

    José Cordero, dean of the University of Puerto Rico’s School of Public Health, said that the progress made in the 20th century on infant mortality has revealed new health concerns stemming from that success: how to reduce birth defects and provide care for the greater number of children who are surviving them.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Weighing the risk factors

    Risk factors for childhood obesity may be evident before birth and are more likely to occur in African-American and Hispanic children than in Caucasian children. Researchers studied 1,826 mother-child pairs from pregnancy through the child’s first five years of life.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Efforts to prevent childhood obesity must begin early

    Normal 0 0 1 751 4281 35 8 5257 11.1282 0 0 0 Efforts to prevent childhood obesity should begin far earlier than currently thought — perhaps even before birth…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    A molecule that destroys normal metabolism is found

    Overeating in mice triggers a molecule once considered to be only involved in detecting and fighting viruses to also destroy normal metabolism, leading to insulin resistance and setting the stage…

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Study finds decline in birthweight of full-term infants

    Thirteen-pound babies may make headlines, but they aren’t the norm. In fact, U.S. infants are getting smaller, according to Harvard researchers at the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute’s Department of…

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Want to live well?

    Harvard faculty members from a range of fields give tips on how to live healthy.

    11 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Obesity trends will snuff out health gains from decline in smoking

    If obesity trends continue, the negative effect on the health of the U.S. population will overtake the benefits gained from declining smoking rates, according to a study by Harvard and…

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Scientists create energy-burning brown fat in mice

    Harvard researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have shown that they can engineer mouse and human cells to produce brown fat, a natural energy-burning type of fat that counteracts obesity. If…

    4 minutes