Why Those Fat Thighs May Help You Live Longer
January 13, 2010
ABC News
By Joseph Brownstein
Public health officials have harped on actively taking steps to reduce obesity, but it seems for some genetically lucky individuals, reducing their body fat isn’t as important.
A new review published by researchers at the University of Oxford and Churchill Hospital in the United Kingdom suggests that people who carry their body fat in their thighs and backside aren’t just carrying extra weight, but also some extra protection against diabetes, heart disease and other conditions associated with obesity.
“It is the protective role of lower body, that is [thigh and backside] fat, that is striking. The protective properties of the lower body fat depot have been confirmed in many studies conducted in subjects with a wide range of age, BMI and co-morbidities,” the researchers write in the most recent issue of the Journal of Obesity.
“If you’re going to have fat, you’re definitely better off if you’ve got some fat in the lower body,” said Dr. Michael Jensen, director of endocrine research at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. “If you look at people who have primarily the pear shape, they’re healthy in all the ways that this fat behaves. It’s not just less heart attacks or less diabetes, it’s all these ways we think about fat as an important organ for our health.”
For years, researchers have looked into the idea that not all fat is created equal. People who carry their fat in their stomachs, also known as “apple-shaped” people, are said to have more problems from obesity than those who carry their fat in their hips
People who carry their fat in their thighs and backsides — otherwise known as their gluteofemoral region — appear to be in a similar class to those with fat in their hips.
“There’s a lot of evidence that shows that the fat depots are not the same in the body,” said Dr. Robert Kushner, a professor medicine specializing in obesity at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
He explained that the fat stored in the stomach is harmful because “it is more metabolically active,” sending fatty contents and messages throughout the body, whereas fat in the lower regions of the body tends to be more stable and release fewer cytokines, which have been implicated in the insulin resistance that can lead to diabetes.
“There’s a whole range of these hormonal markers that seem to be more preferentially released from the belly,” said Kushner.
Getting More Back
But it is unclear if the fat in the thighs and backside are better for you than simply being thin, experts say.
“If you’re a healthy thin weight, you’re going to be every bit as healthy as someone who has weight, but has all the weight in the lower body,” said Jensen.
But while lower body fat may be healthier than upper body fat, at this point people have little control over where their body chooses to store its fat, with spot-toning a myth and the only options coming from pharmaceutical side effects.
“You can’t direct or drive the fat in one part of your body versus another,” said Kushner. “For the average person on the street, it’s determined by genetics.”
He noted, however, that “One can develop, perhaps, medication to deposit in one area,” a possibility noted by the authors of the review who point out that it is one effect of some existing diabetes drugs.
Different Fat, But Better Fat?
While the review seems to indicate that having fat lower down can be a good thing, not all experts are convinced.
“I think that the article makes a fairly compelling point that there are likely differences between these two fat stores,” said Floyd Chilton, a professor of physiology and pharmacology at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C. “But I think it certainly falls short in making a convincing argument that one is protective and the other is the major source of the problem.”
Some of the measurements, he explained, were not performed in a way that would allow for a conclusive judgment. For example, he said a number of studies cited by the researchers used hip circumference to determine where fat was being stored.
Chilton noted that many of the diseases discussed by researchers of the study — including heart disease and diabetes — have been connected to inflammation in the body.
“Many of them are increasing in incidence at a very similar rate to the dramatic increase in obesity,” he said.
Getting the Skinny on Fat
While he is not yet sure that lower body fat can be said to be protective, Chilton said that recent years have shown that biomarkers have helped give a more nuanced picture of how the body regulates itself — and how conditions like obesity really affect the body.
He gave leptin as an example, a recently discovered hormone found to have a role in regulating appetite — and one that may be ignored by a more obese body.
“Leptin in particular is a fascinating one, because like insulin, people who are obese develop leptin resistance, where their brain is no longer responding to leptin,” said Chilton.
It remains to be seen how much doctors can change about what these biomarkers are doing.
Click here for the full report.
Obesity Responsible for 100,000 Cancer Cases Annually
November 06, 2009
Web MD
By Todd Zwillich
As many as 100,000 cases of cancer could be prevented in the U.S. each year if Americans get rid of their excess body fat.
That’s according to estimates released by the American Institute for Cancer Research. The estimates suggest that heart disease, diabetes, and joint problems aren’t the only illnesses in which rampant obesity is causing havoc.
The group says overweight and obesity could be the cause of more than 6% of all the estimated 1.6 million cancer cases diagnosed in the U.S. each year.
A 2007 report from the American Institute for Cancer Research and the World Cancer Research Foundation reviewed hundreds of studies and found what researchers called “convincing evidence” that obesity was tied to several cancers. Those included cancer of the esophagus, pancreas, and kidneys. It also included colorectal cancer and endometrial cancer (a form of uterine cancer).
Researchers also said it was “probable” that excess abdominal fat was a cause of breast cancer in postmenopausal women.
Experts took estimates of obesity’s influence on cancer and applied them to a breakdown of the approximately 1.6 million U.S. cancer cases per year.
The researchers estimate that excess body fat is the cause of 33,000 breast cancer cases each year, nearly one-sixth the total cases in postmenopausal women. Obesity could be to blame for nearly 21,000 cases of endometrial cancer and more than 13,000 cases of colorectal cancer per year.
Researchers stressed that the figures are only estimates, and that individual cancer cases can have many, inter-connected causes.
Eating Curry Fights Dementia
August 20, 2009
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
Regular consumption of curry could reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, according to a study conducted by researchers from Duke University and presented at the annual meeting of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
“If you have a good diet and take plenty of exercise, eating curry regularly could help prevent dementia,” researcher Murali Doraiswamy said.
Researchers conducted experiments on the effects of curcumin, a biologically active ingredient of the essential curry spice turmeric.
“There is very solid evidence that curcumin binds to plaques, and basic research on animals engineered to produce human amyloid plaques has shown benefits,” Doraiswamy said. “You can modify a mouse so that at about 12 months its brain is riddled with plaques. If you feed this rat a curcumin-rich diet, it dissolves these plaques. The same diet prevented younger mice from forming new plaques.”
Amyloid plaques and nerve fiber tangles are thought to be among the causative agents of the brain damage that produces the symptoms of dementia.
A clinical trial is currently underway at the University of California-Los Angeles to see if curcumin has the same benefits in human Alzheimer’s patients as in mice. According to Doraiswamy, the evidence suggests that human beings would need to eat two to three meals of curry per week to lower their risk of dementia.
Because it would take more than 100 grams of curry powder to get enough curcumin to count as a clinical dose, scientists are exploring the possibility of developing a curcumin pill.
Doraiswamy warned, however, that even consuming massive amounts of curcumin could not compensate for a bad diet and sedentary lifestyle, two of the biggest risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease.
Previous research has shown that curcumin also improves the symptoms of cancer and arthritis, and may help suppress the growth of body fat.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
