Featured series 
Tag: Obesity
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Health
D. Mark Hegsted, national force in science of human nutrition, dies
D. Mark Hegsted, who was instrumental in the development of the federal “Dietary Guidelines for Americans,” died Tuesday, June 16, 2009, at the age of 95 at a nursing center in Westwood, Mass. Hegsted was a founding member of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), among the first such…
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Health
Shining light on leptin’s role in brain
In investigating the complex neurocircuitry behind weight gain and glucose control, scientists have known that the hormone leptin plays a key role in the process. But within the myriad twists and turns of the brain’s intricate landscape, the exact pathways that the hormone travels to exert its influence have remained a mystery. Now, a study…
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Health
Majority of new cases of diabetes in older U.S. adults could be prevented
Even as science searches for more clues about the causes of diabetes and medications to prevent it, the vast majority of new cases of the disease in older adults could be prevented by following a modestly healthier lifestyle, according to research led by scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). In a study…
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Health
Smoking, high blood pressure and being overweight top three preventable causes of death in the U.S.
Smoking, having high blood pressure, and being overweight are the leading preventable risk factors for premature mortality in the United States, according to a new study led by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), with collaborators from the University of Toronto and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University…
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Health
Malnutrition, obesity present global food challenges
Even as public health officials deal with the age-old problems of starvation and malnutrition, new nutritional maladies linked to Western diets and lifestyles are spreading around the world, complicating the global nutrition picture.
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Health
Harvard nutritionists take aim at sugary drinks
Comparing the nation’s obesity epidemic to a house on fire, Harvard nutrition experts took aim at sugar-sweetened beverages Monday (April 20), recommending the creation of a new, low-sugar alternative and urging adults and children alike to quench their thirsts the natural way — with water.
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Health
Study shows waist size predictor of heart failure in men and women
Adding to the growing evidence that a person’s waist size is an important indicator of heart health, a study led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has found that larger waist circumference is associated with increased risk of heart failure in middle-aged and older populations of men and women.
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Health
Waist size predictor of heart failure in men and women
Adding to the growing evidence that a person’s waist size is an important indicator of heart health, a study led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has found that larger waist circumference is associated with increased risk of heart failure in middle-aged and older populations of men and women.
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Health
Infant weight gain linked to childhood obesity
As childhood obesity continues its 30-year advance from occasional curiosity to cultural epidemic, health care providers are struggling to find out why — and the reasons are many. Increasingly sedentary environments for both adults and children, as well as cheap and ubiquitous processed foods no doubt play a role, but researchers are finding more evidence…
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Science & Tech
Researchers find majority of fire and ambulance recruits overweight or obese
Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), Boston Medical Center, Harvard University, and Cambridge Health Alliance found that more than 75 percent of emergency responder candidates for fire and ambulance services in Massachusetts are either overweight or obese. The findings, which appear online today (March 19) in the journal Obesity, have significant consequences for…
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Health
Obesity linked to dangerous sleep apnea in truck drivers
Truck crashes are a significant public health hazard, causing thousands of deaths and injuries each year, with driver fatigue and sleepiness being major causes. A new study by Harvard researchers has confirmed previous findings that obesity-driven testing strategies identify commercial truck drivers with a high likelihood of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and suggests that mandating…
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Health
Culture skews human evolution
The rise of agriculture 10,000 years ago meant the end of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle for which human beings had been optimized by millions of years of evolution and the beginning of an era where culture encourages habits unhealthy for us and for the world around, with uncertain evolutionary outcomes.
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Science & Tech
The genes in your congeniality:
Can’t help being the life of the party? Maybe you were just born that way. Researchers at Harvard and the University of California, San Diego, have found that our place in a social network is influenced in part by our genes, according to new findings published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.…
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Health
Obesity: Reviving the promise of leptin
The discovery more than a decade ago of leptin, an appetite-suppressing hormone secreted by fat tissue, generated headlines and great hopes for an effective treatment for obesity. But hopes dimmed when it was found that obese people are unresponsive to leptin due to development of leptin resistance in the brain. Now, Harvard researchers at Children’s…
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Health
New obesity-related genes identified
A large international consortium has made significant inroads into uncovering the genetic basis of obesity, adding six new genetic variants to the two already linked to higher body mass index (BMI) in previous studies. Most of the newly discovered genes had never before been suspected of having a role in body weight and, curiously, many…
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Science & Tech
New class of hormone from “healthy fat cells” benefits body metabolism in mice
Scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) have identified in mice a newly discovered class of hormones — lipokines. In tomorrow’s issue of the journal Cell they report that lipokine is a molecule in mice that helps stop, or even reverses obesity-related conditions such as insulin resistance and “fatty liver.” Lipokines are hormones…
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Health
Joslin study identifies protein that produces ‘good’ fat; finding may lead to ways to treat, prevent obesity
A study by researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center has shown that a protein known for its role in inducing bone growth can also help promote the development of brown fat, a “good” fat that helps in the expenditure of energy and plays a role in fighting obesity. “Obesity is occurring at epidemic rates in…
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Health
Protective mechanism fails when obesity sets in
Reporting in the journal Cell Metabolism, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) said they have shown for the first time that fat-storing cells, or adipocytes, contain a protective anti-inflammatory immune mechanism that prevents the cells from overreacting to inflammation-causing stimuli, such as fatty acids in the diet.
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Health
Recent study: Better to be fit and thin than fit and fat
The risk of heart disease in women associated with being overweight or obese is reduced but not eliminated by higher levels of physical activity, according to a report in the April 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
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Health
Less sleep, more TV leads to fat toddlers
Infants and toddlers who sleep less than 12 hours a day are twice as likely to become overweight by age 3 than children who sleep longer. In addition, high levels of television viewing combined with less sleep elevate the risk, so that children who sleep less than 12 hours and who view two or more…
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Health
Suboptimal sleep, TV watching correlate with overweight in infants and toddlers
Infants and toddlers who sleep less than 12 hours a day are twice as likely to become overweight by age 3 than children who sleep longer. In addition, high levels of television viewing combined with less sleep elevate the risk, so that children who sleep less than 12 hours and who view two or more…
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Health
Obesity linked to higher prostate cancer mortality
Men who are overweight or obese when diagnosed with prostate cancer are at greater risk of death after treatment, according to a new study in the Dec. 15 issue of Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.
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Health
Joslin-led study IDs genes key to regulation of body weight
A new Joslin Diabetes Center-led study has further illuminated the role of genes in regulating body weight and fat distribution. Because obesity is a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes, identifying genes that affect this condition holds promise for the detection of individuals at risk, as well as for potential prevention and treatment methods.…
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Health
Red wine, taken in moderation, reduces risk of prostate cancer
Men who drink moderate amounts of red wine are only half as likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer as those who don’t drink it at all, according to a report in the June issue of Harvard Men’s Health Letter. What’s more, the beverage seems to be especially protective against the most advanced and aggressive…
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Arts & Culture
Food, sex conference draws SRO crowds
Money. Race. Health. War. That list of potent topics summarizes the first four years of conferences on gender sponsored by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. This year’s gender conference (April 12 and 13) added a fifth topic: food, which by some accounts has elements of all the others combined.
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Health
Weight gain in pregnancy linked to overweight in kids
Pregnant women who gain excessive or even appropriate weight, according to current guidelines, are four times more likely than women who gain inadequate weight to have a baby who becomes overweight in early childhood. These findings are from a new study at the Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention of Harvard Medical School (HMS) and…
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Health
Obesity runs in families – and friends, too
Having overweight family and friends increases the likelihood someone will become overweight, according to a Harvard researcher who examined obesity and social network data from the long-running Framingham Heart Study.
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Health
Genome-wide map will help fight diabetes
The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Lund University, and Novartis have announced the completion of a genome-wide map of genetic differences in humans and their relationship to type 2 diabetes and other metabolic disorders. The announcement was made Monday (Feb. 12). All results of the analysis are being made accessible, free of charge, on…
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Campus & Community
Obesity protects against breast cancer
Being overweight or obese from adolescence to menopause reduces a woman’s chances of getting breast cancer, researchers at Harvard Medical School have found. The earlier in life that the researchers looked, the stronger the association, leading to the conclusion that a woman’s weight at age 18 is a strong predictor of breast cancer. In this…
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Campus & Community
More blacks ‘misperceive’ weight problem
Overweight black Americans are two to three times more likely than heavy white Americans to say they are of average weight – even after being diagnosed as overweight or obese by their doctors, according to a new study led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers. Weight misperception was most common among black men and women, and…