Diabetes, obesity behind 800K cancers worldwide – study

Nearly six percent of new cancers diagnosed worldwide in 2012 – some 800,000 cases – were caused by diabetes and excess weight, according to a study published on Tuesday.

Among the 12 types of cancer examined, the percentage of cases chalked up to these factors was as high as a third, researchers reported in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, a leading medical journal.

Cancers stemming from diabetes and obesity combined was almost twice as common among women as men, the study also found.

And of the two cancer-causing agents, being overweight or obese – above 25 on the body-mass index, or BMI – was responsible for twice as many cancers as diabetes.

The conditions, in reality, are often found together, as obesity is itself a leading risk factor for diabetes.

“While obesity has been associated with cancer for some time, the link between diabetes and cancer has only been established quite recently,” said lead author Jonathan Pearson-Stuttard, a clinical research fellow at Imperial College London’s Faculty of Medicine.

“Our study shows that diabetes – either on its own or combined with being overweight – is responsible for hundreds of thousands of cancer cases each year across the world,” he also said.

A surge in both conditions over the last four decades has made the tally significantly worse, the study showed.

The global increase in diabetes between 1980 and 2002 accounted for a quarter of the 800,000 cases, while the obesity epidemic over the same period resulted in an additional 30 percent of cases.

On current trends, the share of cancers attributable to the two conditions is seen to increase by 30 percent for women and 20 percent for men in less than 20 years, the researchers warned.

“In the past, smoking was by far the major risk factor for cancer, but now healthcare professionals should also be aware that patients who have diabetes or are overweight also have an increased risk,” Pearson-Stuttard, said.

For men, obesity and diabetes accounted for a more than 40 percent of liver cancers while for women they were responsible for a third of uterine cancers, and nearly as many cases of breast cancer.

The threshold for obesity is a BMI of 30. BMI is one’s weight in kilos divided by one’s height (in centimeters) squared.

Persons with a BMI of 25 to 29.9 are considered to be overweight.               /kga

source: lifestyle.inquirer.net

Marriage may be bad for your waistline – US study

Need another reason to blame weight gain on your marriage? When one spouse becomes obese, the other’s risk of obesity almost doubles, a US study suggests.

“Normal weight people whose spouses went from being normal weight to obese were more likely to become obese,” said Laura Cobb, who led the study as a researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

“This suggests that changes in one spouse are likely to also be reflected in the other spouse, likely because of similar changes in diet, physical activity or other behaviors that impact obesity,” Cobb said by email.

Plenty of research already links marriage and weight gain, and scientists have firmly established the connection between obesity and heart disease, diabetes, and certain cancers.

What the current study adds is a fresh take on how couples may gain weight in tandem, insight that might help shape more effective obesity prevention and treatment efforts targeting couples, Cobb and colleagues note in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Researchers followed almost 4,000 couples for up to 25 years, starting between 1987 and 1989. After an initial exam, they had three follow-up visits roughly three years apart, followed by a fifth exam between 2011 and 2013.

At the start of the study, 23 percent of the men and 25 percent of the women were obese.

Non-obese men whose wives became obese between visits in the study were 78 percent more likely to become obese during that period than they would have been had their wives not gained so much weight, the study found.

Having a husband become obese was linked to an 89 percent increased risk of developing obesity for their wives.

Not many people who started out obese lost enough weight to be considered no longer obese, but when they did, their spouse was also more likely to become non-obese.

Shortcomings of the study include the long stretch of time that elapsed between the fourth and fifth exams and the large proportion of people who died or left the study before the final visit, the authors acknowledge.

It’s not unusual for married couples to forge common habits over time that influence their weight, said Ivanka Prichard, a weight loss researcher at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia.

“Over time, similarities in diet, particularly any unhealthy aspects, may lead to weight changes,” Prichard, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email. “There are also a range of pressures in life that could impact this such as having children, work, shared health knowledge, time or finances.”

Like unhealthy habits, though, positive lifestyle choices can also be contagious in a marriage, said Debra Umberson, director of the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin.

“When married people get in shape or lose weight, it’s often because one spouse takes the lead and urges the other spouse along,” Umberson, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email. “Even if the person not taking the lead is resistant, over time they will probably be influenced by the kinds of food and activities their spouse is involved with—especially if the person taking the lead is the one who purchases groceries or prepares meals.” — Reuters

Sleep-deprived kids are more tempted by food

Children who don’t get enough sleep might be more tempted by food, a new study suggests.

Five-year-olds who slept less than 11 hours a night were more eager to eat at the sight or reminder of a favorite snack, compared to those who slept longer, researchers reported in the International Journal of Obesity.

The children who slept less than 11 hours at night also had a higher body mass index – a measure of weight in relation to height – than those who slept 11 hours or more. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends 11 to 12 hours of sleep for pre-school children.


“There is now accumulating evidence in both children and adults to suggest that short or insufficient sleep increases reward-driven ('hedonic') eating,” said Laura McDonald, the study’s lead author and a researcher at University College London, in email to Reuters Health.

“This is, of course, a concern,” she added, “given that we live in a modern ‘obesogenic’ environment” where tasty, high-calorie foods “are widely available and cheap to consume.”

Previous studies have shown that too little sleep significantly increases the chances that a child will be overweight or obese, McDonald and her team point out. But less was known about how sleep affects daily calorie intake.

“Some studies using brain imaging in adults have shown that sleep restriction increases responsiveness in reward centers of the brain in response to images of palatable food . . . however, no studies in children have examined whether sleep changes food responsiveness,” noted McDonald.

The new study involved 1,008 five-year-olds born in 2007 in England and Wales. The researchers had mothers answer a questionnaire about their youngsters’ responsiveness to food cues and their behavior toward food when they were presumably full, soon after eating.

The average sleep duration for the children in the study was 11.48 hours.

Among kids who slept less than 11 hours a night, food responsiveness was 2.53 on a scale of 1 to 5, compared to 2.36 for those who slept 11 to 12 hours, and 2.35 for those who got at least 12 hours of sleep a night.

“In children who do not get enough sleep at night, limiting exposure to palatable food cues in the home might be helpful at preventing overconsumption,” McDonald said.

The study found no link between sleep duration and whether kids were still willing to eat when they were full.

While the study can’t prove that less sleep causes more eating, McDonald said another possibility is that the reverse might be true. “It is definitely a possibility that food responsiveness might impact sleep behavior,” she said. “For example, it could be that children who are more food responsive are also more difficult to settle at night (when adults or older children might be eating).”

Emerson Wickwire, director of the Insomnia Program at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, told Reuters Health by email that the study adds a new twist to research showing sleep is a risk factor for obesity.

“The current study suggests a new potential explanation (hedonic eating) for weight gain among children who sleep less . . . in other words, kids in the study who slept less were more susceptible to unhealthy food cues in the environment,” said Wickwire, who was not involved in the study.

Wickwire said the study also showed the importance of sleep for children.

“We know that parents have a huge influence on the sleep patterns of five-year-olds. So really, it’s incumbent on parents to make sure their kids are getting enough sleep,” said Wickwire, a board-certified sleep specialist. —Reuters

Obesity can be deemed a disability at work – EU court

BRUSSELS - Europe's top court ruled on Thursday that obese people can be considered as disabled, meaning that they can be covered by an EU law barring discrimination at work.

The decision followed a question from a Danish court, which was reviewing a complaint of unfair dismissal brought by Karsten Kaltoft, a child-minder, against a Danish local authority.

Kaltoft, who never weighed less than 352 pounds during his employment, argued that his obesity was one of the reasons he lost his job and that this amounted to unlawful discrimination, an allegation the council denied.

The Court of Justice of the European Union was asked to rule on whether EU law forbids discrimination on the grounds of obesity or whether obesity could be considered a disability.

The Luxembourg-based court ruled that EU employment law did not specifically prohibit discrimination on the grounds of obesity, and that the law should not be extended to cover it.

However, the court said that if an employee's obesity hindered "full and effective participation of that person in professional life on an equal basis with other workers" then it could be considered a disability.

This, in turn, is covered by anti-discrimination legislation.

According to statistics from the World Health Organization, based on 2008 estimates, roughly 23 percent of European women and 20 percent of European men were obese. — Reuters

Child siblings may influence each other’s obesity risk

NEW YORK - Brothers or sisters might have a greater influence than parents on a child’s likelihood of being obese, suggests new US research.

The study, based on data from the larger national Family Health Habits Survey, found that kids with obese parents were about twice as likely to be obese themselves, but having an obese sibling raised a child’s risk of obesity five-fold or more in some cases.

“When you look at a two-child family, a child's obesity status was more strongly related with their sibling than with their parent,” said Mark Pachucki, a researcher with the Mongan Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who led the analysis.

Past research has shown that parents’ obesity, health habits and the environment they create in the household can all influence whether their kids will be obese, Pachuki and his colleagues note in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

But little is known about how siblings affect one another. If brothers and sisters do have more influence on obesity than parents, then they need to be factored into obesity prevention efforts, the authors write.

“This is really the first project to come out the bigger study, in which we are actually merging about 10 years of families’ food purchases with information about their health,” Pachucki said.

For this part of the study, Pachucki and his colleagues focused on participating families with one or two children that had provided information about height and weight for all family members.

A total of 1,948 families were included in the analysis: 1,141 with a single child and 807 families with two children.

The researchers looked at eating and exercise patterns in all the families and used height and weight information to categorize participants as either obese or not obese.

About 12 percent of only children were obese, according to the results, almost a fifth were not physically active and more than a third ate fast food at least two times per week.

The patterns were similar in two-child households, but only 8 percent of the older children were obese compared to 12 percent of their younger siblings.

“We looked at one-child and two-child households, and in one-child households having an obese parent made a child more than twice as likely to be obese themselves,” Pachucki said.

Higher intake of fast food by parents was also associated with greater odds that an only child would be obese, but the risk of obesity was reduced when those kids participated in vigorous physical activities.

In two-child families, having an obese brother or sister was associated with a risk that was more than five times greater than if the sibling was not obese.

In two-child families, the impact of parental obesity on an older sibling was the same as on an only child—approximately doubling the risk—but among younger siblings there was no association between the parent’s and child’s risk of obesity.

The researchers also found that if the two children were of the same gender, the older sibling's obesity was even more strongly linked to obesity in the younger child.

Younger girls with an obese older sister were more than 8 times more likely to be obese than girls whose older sister was not obese, and younger boys with an obese older brother were 11 times more likely to be obese.

“Parents are often very explicit models of behavior; they do the food purchasing, and they control a lot of aspects of their children’s lives,” Pachucki said. “I was expecting there to be a stronger correlation with parents’ obesity, but I was surprised that the siblings were stronger.”

Among other limitations, the study looks at a snapshot in time and cannot prove that the siblings are influencing each other, or how that effect might be transmitted.

However, Pachucki said, “Older siblings especially can be very persuasive. I think younger siblings look up to their older siblings—and older children generally—as different kinds of role models and I think that's probably the best mechanism that we have to explain what we found.”

“Examining sibling influences on weight-related behaviors is important because sibling relationships are the longest lasting relationships, in terms of life expectancy, and thus they may have the most sustained influence on a child's weight and weight-related behaviors over the lifespan,” said Jerica Berge, who was not involved in the study.

“While it's important to take into account the limitations of this study, the findings are interesting and support the need for more family-based childhood obesity interventions,” said Berge, a researcher at the University of Minnesota Medical School, who studies the influence of family members on obesity. said.

As an example, she said, it may be useful to include siblings in setting family goals around health behaviors, or at least including the influence of the sibling in the conversation when setting health behavior goals.

“Using a true family-based approach in childhood obesity interventions will increase the likelihood that child health behavior change will be sustainable, given the child spends a large amount of time with their sibling and are highly influenced by them,” Berge said. —Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Young male smokers may raise obesity risk in their future sons

LONDON - Men who start smoking before the age of 11 risk having sons who are overweight, British researchers have found, adding to evidence that lifestyle factors even in childhood can affect the health of future offspring.

The scientists said the findings, part of ongoing work in a larger "Children of the 90s" study, could indicate that exposure to tobacco smoke before the start of puberty in men may lead to metabolic changes in the next generation.

"This discovery of transgenerational effects has big implications for research into the current rise in obesity and the evaluation of preventative measures," said Marcus Pembrey, a professor of genetics at University College London, who led the study and presented its findings at a briefing on Wednesday.

Smoking rates in Britain and some other parts of Europe are on the decline, but worldwide, almost one billion men smoke - about 35 percent of men in developed countries and 50 percent in developing ones, according to the World Health Organization.

While previous studies in animals and in people have found some transgenerational health impacts, the evidence so far is limited. It points, however, to epigenetics - a process where lifestyle and environmental factors can turn certain genes on or off - having an effect on the health of descendants.

Pembrey said his team's research was prompted in part by signals from earlier Swedish studies that linked how plentiful a paternal ancestor's food supply was in mid childhood with future death rates in grandchildren.

For the new study, published in the European Journal of Human Genetics, the researchers had access to detailed lifestyle, genetic and other health data from 9,886 fathers.

Of these, 5,376, or 54 percent, were smokers at some time and of those, 166, or 3 percent, said they had started smoking regularly before the age of 11.

Looking at the next generation, the team found that at age 13, 15 and 17, the sons of men who started smoking before 11 had the highest Body Mass Index (BMI) scores compared with the sons of men who had started smoking later or who had never smoked.

"These boys had markedly higher levels of fat mass - ranging from an extra five kilograms (kg) to 10kg between ages 13 and 17," the study said.

Although it was there, the effect was not seen to the same degree in daughters.

External experts not involved with the research were more guarded about drawing firm conclusions from its findings.

Graham Burdge, an expert in human nutrition at the University of Southampton said the findings "may potentially provide new insights into factors that may influence development of obesity in childhood".

"However, the findings only show associations and cannot be interpreted as indicating that paternal smoking at an early age causes obesity in their sons," he added.

Tim Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King's College London, said the findings were intriguing and rare.

"The data are persuasive but not yet definitive as we need to confirm the same smoking related epigenetics changes in the kids' DNA," he said. — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

TVs, cars, computers linked to obesity in poor nations

WASHINGTON - In low-income countries, people with cars, televisions and computers at home are far more likely to be obese than people with no such conveniences, researchers said Monday.

Eating more, sitting still and missing out on exercise by driving are all likely reasons why people with these modern-day luxuries could be gaining weight and putting themselves at risk for diabetes, researchers said.

The findings in the Canadian Medical Journal suggest extra caution is needed to prevent health dangers in nations that are adopting a Western lifestyle.

"With increasing uptake of modern-day conveniences -- TVs, cars, computers -- low and middle income countries could see the same obesity and diabetes rates as in high income countries that are the result of too much sitting, less physical activity and increased consumption of calories," said lead author Scott Lear of Simon Fraser University.

"This can lead to potentially devastating societal health care consequences in these countries."

The same relationship did not exist in developed nations, suggesting the harmful effects of these devices on health are already reflected in the high obesity and diabetes rates.

The study included nearly 154,000 adults from 17 countries across the income spectrum, from the United States, Canada and Sweden to China, Iran, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Televisions were the most common electronic device in developing countries -- 78 percent of households had one -- followed by 34 percent that owned a computer and 32 percent with a car.

Just four percent of people in low-income countries had all three, compared to 83 percent of people in high-income countries.

Those that did have electronics were fatter and less active than those that did not.

People with all three were almost a third less active, sat 20 percent more of the time and had a nine-centimeter (3.5 inches) increase in waist circumference, compared to those that owned none of the devices.

The obesity prevalence in developing countries rose from 3.4 percent among those that owned no devices to 14.5 percent for those that owned all three.

In Canada, about 25 percent of the population is obese and in the United States, about 35 percent of people are obese.

"Our findings emphasize the importance of limiting the amount of time spent using household devices, reducing sedentary behavior and encouraging physical activity in the prevention of obesity and diabetes," said the study.  — Agence France-Presse

source: gmanetwork.com

Obesity declines among rich US teens, rises in poor

WASHINGTON - In the past decade, obesity has declined among US teenagers from rich families but has risen among their impoverished counterparts, a gap driven by lack of exercise, said a study Monday.

The research by experts at Harvard University examined what appeared to be an encouraging decline in adolescent obesity and found that only the upper class is benefiting.

"We find that although the overall obesity prevalence has plateaued, the trend looks very different across different subgroups," said the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Using family income as well as the education level of the parents to analyze two major US surveys, researchers found a growing class gap where obesity was concerned.

Beginning in the mid-2000s, obesity rates declined among children of parents who graduated from college.

Meanwhile, obesity rates rose among children of parents who had only a high school diploma.

Similar trends were seen when researchers separated the data by income level.

However, when it came to probing racial differences, researchers said they did not have enough data to reliably explore interactions between class and ethnicity.

The obesity rate among those aged 12-17 in the United States nearly doubled from the late 1980s until the mid-2000s, but began leveling off about a decade ago.

About nine percent of adolescent were obese in the time span of 1988 to 1991, but that rose to 17 percent by 2003-2004, according to government data.

There has been no change in the teen obesity rate since then.

In the United States, obesity in adolescents and children is based on growth charts issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A body mass index, or ratio of weight and height, above the 95th percentile for age and gender is considered obese. Between the 85th and 94th percentile is considered overweight.

Key reasons the poor may be gaining weight are lack of physical activity and excessive food intake, the study said.

According to the study, calorie intake among kids of all income classes has gone down in recent years, but only kids of educated parents have reported getting regular exercise.

"The difference comes down to physical activity," study co-author Kaisa Snellman told AFP.

"Educated families, they are much more likely to engage in physical activities, exercising, biking around, walking."

Access to healthy foods also remains an obstacle for the poor.

The US Department of Agriculture has reported that 9.7 percent of the US population, or 29.7 million people, live in low-income areas more than a mile from a supermarket.

In those areas, "the only options for grocery shopping are 'convenience' stores, liquor stores, gas stations, or fast food restaurants that sell foods high in fat, sugar, and salt," said the study.

Obesity in young people can cause a host of health concerns, including higher risk of type 2 diabetes, obstructive sleep apnea, high blood pressure and psychological problems, experts said.

The study was based on two nationally representative federal health surveys, the 1988-2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and the 2003-2011 National Survey of Children's Health.  — Agence France-Presse

source: gmanetwork.com

Eating slowly may cut meal size

NEW YORK - People may consume fewer calories over the course of a meal when they eat slowly, a new study suggests. But it's not clear if that strategy works as well for people who are overweight or obese as it does for their slimmer peers.

Past studies have come to mixed conclusions on whether how fast people eat affects how much they end up eating, Meena Shah said. She led the new research at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.

"In addition most of the previous studies have not compared the effect of eating speed on energy intake in normal weight or overweight and obese subjects," Shah told Reuters Health in an email.


Her team's study included 35 normal weight people and 35 who were overweight or obese.

All of the participants were asked to eat the same vegetarian pasta meal on two different occasions. The first time around, people were asked to eat either quickly or slowly, based on a random assignment. A few days later, they were given the opposite instructions.

On fast eating days, the researchers asked participants to eat as quickly as possible without feeling uncomfortable - as though they had time constraints. They told them to take large bites, chew quickly, not put utensils down and not pause between bites.

On the slow eating days, they told people to eat as if they had no time constraints. They instructed them to take small bites, chew thoroughly and put their fork or spoon down and pause between bites.

The researchers secretly measured how much food participants ate by weighing their plates after meals.

Normal weight participants consumed 88 fewer calories during the meal when they ate slowly, on average—805 calories compared to 893 calories during the faster meal. That was a clear change.

Overweight and obese people consumed 58 fewer calories during the slow meal—667 calories versus 725 calories. But that difference could have been due to chance, according to findings published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Shah believes the overweight and obese participants may have eaten less because they felt self-conscious during the study.

Participants in both groups drank more water when they ate slowly and felt less hungry at the end of the meal.

"This study provides new data that supports the hypothesis that how you eat may have an effect on appetite and influence body weight," James Hollis told Reuters Health in an email.

Hollis, from Iowa State University in Ames, was not part of the new research.

"This is an interesting study and any method that reduces food intake by 8-10 percent at a single meal would be useful," he said. But more studies are needed to show whether eating slowly could help people manage their weight, Hollis said.

His own recent report published in the same journal found people tended to eat less when they were instructed to chew more before swallowing

"It has not been adequately determined how slow is slow enough or what is the minimum reduction in eating speed required to have an effect on food intake," Hollis said.

He said it's also not clear if all of the techniques - chewing slowly and more times and taking more pauses during meals—have the same effect on how much people eat.

"I would recommend slowing the speed of eating because it may reduce the amount of food consumed as well as lead to a greater degree of fullness or less hunger later on. It is not necessary to time the meal, though," Shah said.

"Eating in my opinion should be an enjoyable experience without having to check the time," she said. — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Screen time again linked to kids’ extra weight

NEW YORK - Children and teenagers who spend lots of time in front of screens—especially TVs—tend to gain more weight as they age, according to a new study.

The findings are consistent with research suggesting all that idle sitting and exposure to advertisements may fuel poor eating habits.

Many parents believe their children are getting a reasonable amount of recreational screen time, Mark Tremblay said. But most US and Canadian kids exceed the recommended two-hour maximum per day.

"We don't pay attention to the fact that it's half an hour here, half an hour there, an hour here, an hour there," Tremblay told Reuters Health. He is the director of Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute in Ottawa, Canada, and wasn't involved in the new study.




Researchers used data from a long-term study of kids who took surveys every other year. The surveys included questions about their height and weight as well as how much time they spent watching TV and DVDs and playing computer and video games.

Kids were between ages nine and 16 when the study started.

Out of about 4,300 girls in the study, 17 percent were overweight or obese. Twenty-four percent of the 3,500 boys were also above a healthy weight.

From one survey to the next, each one-hour increase in children's daily TV watching was tied to an increase of about 0.1 points on a body mass index (BMI) scale, which measures weight in relation to height. That's a difference of approximately half a pound per extra hour of TV.

Increases in total screen time between survey periods were linked with similar but smaller changes in BMI.

"The weight of the evidence is pretty strong that television viewing is related to unhealthy changes in weight among youth," Jennifer Falbe said.

But, she told Reuters Health, "It's important for parents to be aware of all the potentially obesogenic screens that they should really be limiting in their children's lives." Increases in DVD and video watching were tied to weight gain among girls, in particular.

Falbe led the study while at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. She is now at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health.

When kids watch TV, "There is more purposeful, deliberate exposure to eating options, commercials that come on that might cue you to go off to the pantry and grab a cookie or a soft drink," Tremblay said.

"Typically your hands are free when you're watching TV, so should that temptation capture you, you're able to sit there and munch on whether it's a healthy or an unhealthy snack."

What's more, he said, "You can get into a pretty much hibernative state on the couch." Even if kids are sitting down while playing a computer game, for instance, they might be a bit more active, Tremblay said.

The study didn't include many non-white or poor children, the researchers noted. So the findings may not apply to all US youth.

Another study of factors affecting childrens' weight published today in Pediatrics found that kids whose mothers and fathers reported consistent parenting—setting age-appropriate rules and expectations and following through on them—had a lower BMI than their peers. But those differences were small, Pauline Jansen from Murdoch Childrens Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia, and colleagues wrote.

In a third report in the same journal issue, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracked 1.2 million children from low-income families in the US to see how their weight changed over time.

They found 11 percent of kids who were not obese before age two became obese over the next two to three years. Close to two-thirds of children who were initially obese as babies and toddlers were no longer obese a couple of years later. Hispanic and American Indian/Alaska Native children were more likely than white kids to become obese and less likely to stop being obese.

The study "underscores the importance of early life obesity prevention in multiple settings for low-income children and their families," according to researchers led by Dr. Liping Pan. — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Too little sleep linked to heart disease risk

NEW YORK - In a large US study, people who tended to get less than six hours of sleep nightly were more likely to have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and to be obese.

The research is the first to look at differences in risk between racial and ethnic groups, and also finds the strongest effect among Black and Hispanic Americans.

"This is important, since racial minorities are generally at increased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity," Michael A. Grandner said. "And if they also tend to have more sleep difficulties, that could be making things worse."

Grandner led the study at the Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Using nationwide survey data from 2008, researchers divided results from more than 5,000 respondents representing the US population into three groups. Very short sleepers got less than five hours per night, short sleepers got between five and six hours and long sleepers got more than nine hours.

Very short and short sleep were both linked to poor health, Grandner's team reports in the journal Sleep Medicine.

Very short sleepers were twice as likely to have high blood pressure and high cholesterol, compared to people who slept around seven to eight hours. Very short sleepers were also 75 percent more likely to have diabetes and 50 percent more likely to be obese.

Short sleepers were about 20 percent more likely than normal sleepers to report high blood pressure and obesity.

Blacks were most likely to report sleeping less than five hours and very short sleep was most strongly linked to obesity among Blacks.

Short sleep was strongly linked to high blood pressure among Blacks, Whites and non-Mexican Hispanics, while people of Asian descent had the strongest link between short sleep and high cholesterol.

Long sleepers did not appear to experience any negative health effects once researchers adjusted for other factors.

There is no consensus on what the ideal minimum amount of sleep should be for good health, Kristen L. Knutson said.

Knutson studies sleep and heart health in different populations at the University of Chicago Department of Medicine. She was not involved in the new study.

There's no set number for sleep, in part "because there is likely to be some variability in how much sleep different people need," Knutson said. "Still, the majority of large studies have found that people who say they sleep between seven and eight hours are the healthiest."

Recommendations vary by age, with younger people generally needing more sleep than older people.

"Like most aspects of health, too little is bad for you and too much is also likely bad for you," Grandner said.

"It is hard to say that short sleep is worse than long—it's just that we currently have a better idea of why short sleep is detrimental to health," he said.

Quantity of sleep isn't the only important factor though, Grandner said. Insomnia, sleep apnea and waking frequently during the night may be related to heart disease, diabetes and obesity, he said.

"These data do suggest that short sleep, whatever the cause, is associated with important negative health outcomes," Knutson said.

Sleep and health are likely linked in a two-way relationship, Grandner said. Less sleep may negatively impact health, and certain health conditions like obesity might make sleep more difficult.

"Lack of sleep limits your body's ability to keep itself healthy, increasing risk for disease, which puts stress on the body, making sleep harder," he said. "It is likely a cycle like this." — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

US childhood obesity fight sees some success – group

US companies and other groups that have made attempts to reverse the nation's rising childhood obesity rate are starting to see results as more American kids exercise and have better access to healthy foods, they said on Thursday.

More than 1,700 US cities have promoted exercise to get nearly 3 million more kids moving in the last year, according to a report by the Partnership for a Healthier America, a nonprofit that works to get private companies and organizations to pledge specific action to fight the weight epidemic.

Still, if left unchecked, about half of all Americans will be obese by 2030, according to the group, whose partners range from Darden Restaurants Inc and Walmart Stores Inc to the YMCA and the US Olympic Committee.

Some health advocates welcomed the findings but said more effort was still needed, including government action.

Already, one in three US youth are obese and another third are overweight. Experts are worried because heavier children are more likely to remain overweight as adults, and suffer a higher incidence of diabetes, heart disease and other conditions.

"We're seeing pockets of progress toward reversing the childhood obesity epidemic," said Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. "For progress to reach every corner of our country, we must redouble our efforts: parents, schools, nonprofit organizations, government at all levels, and the private sector."

Childhood obesity carries significant healthcare related costs and even poses national security risks, experts say, by reducing the pool of those fit for military service.

Some of the partner companies have pledged to change food offerings on restaurant menus or work to get more children into activities like soccer or tennis, according to the group, which released the report as part of its annual conference in Washington that also headlined First Lady Michelle Obama.

The group has said it wants to help 10 million Americans gain access to healthier foods, saying 23.5 million people in the United States – including 6.5 million children – have no nearby access to options like fresh produce or cannot afford to buy it.

Already, 141 grocery stores have been built or renovated in so-called "food deserts," often low-income urban neighborhoods without nearby grocery stores, helping more than a half-million people, it said.

"In places like Philadelphia, New York City and Mississippi - places where folks from every sector are working together - we've seen childhood obesity rates begin to come down," said Obama, who has made tackling obesity her signature issue while in the White House.

Fruits and vegetables, meat and other whole foods can often be more expensive than processed ones that contain subsidized ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup.

Some health experts have been critical of the food industry for offering unhealthy products. Manufacturers have long pointed to consumer choice, but many have begun to change their offerings in recent years as more US consumers become health conscious.

Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker, another honorary vice chairman and a Democrat, told MSNBC the annual progress report is important for holding companies accountable to their commitments to change.

On Thursday, several more companies joined the partnership, including GE Healthcare, part of General Electric Co, and Cerner Corp, among others. – Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com