Featured series 
Tag: Obesity
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Campus & Community
Study: Gap in energy among teens
A new study by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) shows that America’s overweight teens consumed an average of 700 to 1,000 calories more than required each day over a 10-year period. This “energy gap” – or the imbalance between the number of calories children consumed each day and the number they…
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Science & Tech
Obesity levels in U.S. states are grossly underestimated
The prevalence of obesity in the U.S. states has been greatly underestimated. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health analyzed data from health surveys, which are used to estimate obesity levels in states. Because people tend to provide incorrect information about their weight and height, especially in telephone surveys, the researchers concluded that estimates…
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Health
New findings help explain how brain pathways control body weight
A study led by a scientific team at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center provides another important step in our understanding of the critical role that the brain’s molecular pathways play in the development of obesity and related disorders. The findings, reported in the Nov. 4, 2005 issue of the journal Cell, demonstrate for the first…
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Campus & Community
HSPH joins battle over America’s waistline
The Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) weighed in on the battle over America’s bulging middle Thursday (May 26), with a panel of health experts saying a government study showing that being somewhat overweight may actually save lives is flawed and sends a dangerous message. The event, “Weighing the Evidence: A Forum to Examine the…
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Health
‘Brown fat’ cells hold clues for possible obesity treatments
In laboratory studies of mouse cells, the research team identified genes that govern how precursor cells give rise to mature brown fat cells. There are two main types of fat cells in the body- white, designed to store energy for use in times of need, and brown, which burn energy and generate heat, leading scientists…
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Campus & Community
Obese women two times more likely to have a stroke
A long-awaited federally funded study conducted by researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) recently announced that taking an aspirin a day helps women prevent one of the nation’s leading causes of disability – stroke. Now, another team of BWH researchers has more stroke prevention advice that may have an even greater impact on reducing…
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Health
Explosion of child obesity predicted to shorten U.S. life expectancy
A review by obesity researcher David Ludwig of Children’s Hospital Boston, epidemiologist S. Jay Olshansky of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and colleagues concludes that obesity now reduces average life expectancy by about four to nine months, a conservative estimate. They add that if the current epidemic of child and adolescent obesity continues unabated,…
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Health
Weight status of children ages 8 to 15 predicts obesity and high blood pressure in adulthood
“We have known that kids who are overweight or obese have a higher risk for being overweight or obese as adults. But in this paper, we show that even children in the high normal weight range have an elevated risk of becoming overweight or obese as adults,” said lead author Alison Field, assistant professor of…
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Health
Weight gain and obesity linked to higher risk of kidney stones
“Our study demonstrated that multiple measures of larger body size, including larger waist circumference, higher weight, and higher body mass index, were related to an elevated risk of kidney stones,” said Eric Taylor, M.D., a BWH researcher and nephrologist. The data are based on a study of approximately 45,000 men and more than 200,000 women…
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Health
Study suggests obesity has lesser financial impact on African-Americans
The study published in the January 2005 issue of the American Journal of Public Health is among the first to examine how patient demographic factors affect the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and health-care costs. “From the perspective of the health-care system, obesity may be less costly among African-Americans than among whites,” says Christina…
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Health
Close interaction seen between blood vessel development and fat tissue formation
Findings from researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital could eventually help to solve problems ranging from cancer, to obesity, to the development of replacement organs. The findings involve the key physiological processes of angiogenesis, the growth of new blood cells, and adipogenesis, the development and growth of fat cells, which appear to be so closely interwoven…
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Health
Generous portions of TV make women fat
The first study to compare the effects of inactivity on obesity and diabetes concludes that being a couch potato significantly raises the risk of both diseases. “Our data provide strong evidence that sedentary behaviors, especially prolonged TV watching, are directly related to the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes,” reports Frank Hu, leader of…
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Health
Study identifies risk factors for retained objects after surgery
A study found that errors involving leaving surgical sponges or instruments inside patients are more likely to happen during emergency procedures, or in operations where there is a sudden change in plan. Additionally the research revealed that the higher a patient’s weight, the more statistically likely it is that an object will be inadvertently left…
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Health
Risk of stroke from obesity is now measurable
While it has been suspected for some time that being overweight could potentially increase a person’s chances of a stroke, a study published in the Dec. 9, 2002, issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine offers some of the first concrete evidence that as a man’s weight increases, so do his chances of suffering from…
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Health
Key gene discovered for obesity and diabetes
Obesity is closely associated with insulin resistance and is one of the leading risk factors for type 2 diabetes. Both affect more than 50 percent of the U.S. population. Little has been known about the molecular mechanisms linking these two metabolic diseases. Both are associated with a wide range of inflammatory molecular activity in fatty…
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Health
How the brain keeps extra calories from becoming extra pounds
What determines whether excess calories are turned into fat or are burned off? The key lies in a process known as diet-induced thermogenesis, an intricate system of communications masterminded by the brain which literally means “heat production,” according to the senior author of a new study, Bradford B. Lowell, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s…
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Science & Tech
Americans don’t see obesity as serious health problem
Using unique survey data that they collected, researchers Taeku Lee and J. Eric Oliver presented the first examination of public attitudes towards obesity and obesity policy. They found that, contrary to the views of health experts, most Americans are not seriously concerned with obesity, express relatively low support for obesity-targeted policies, and still view obesity…
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Health
Increased intake of dairy products may help reduce risk of insulin resistance
Milk intake has decreased significantly over the past three decades while the prevalence of obesity and type 2 diabetes has increased. The authors of a Harvard research study note that for most of the past 30 years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the American Heart Association have recommended low-fat diets for the prevention and…
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Health
Study shows obesity can increase risk of pancreatic cancer
Each year almost 30,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. About the same number of people are killed by it. Pancreatic cancer is the fifth-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the U.S. A study by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Dana-Farber…
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Health
Breast-feeding may limit teenage obesity
Infants who were breast-fed more than formula-fed, or who were breast-fed for longer periods, had approximately 20 percent lower risk of being overweight in their preteen and teen years, according to a recent study. In this study, breast-feeding included feeding infants breast milk extracted from breast pumps. The implications are dramatic. “Breast-feeding may prevent obesity…
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Health
Increased consumption of soda promotes childhood obesity
Soft drinks are currently the leading source of added sugars in the daily diet of young Americans. Now, researchers have conducted the first long-term study to examine soda consumption and its precise impact on children’s body weight. Their findings show that for each additional daily serving of a sugar-sweetened soft drink, the incidence of obesity…
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Health
Researchers identify genes that control development of fat tissues
Until now, no one knew the specific trigger that controls the extent to which cells called preadipocytes turn into fat cells. Harvard researchers have identified the genes GATA-2 and GATA-3 as the molecular gatekeepers of that transition. When the genes are defective or missing, preadipocytes change into fat cells and, conversely, when the genes are…