Nutrition and Diet » Obesity Articles & Stories

Overweight women who engaged in exercise for one to two hours a week lost several pounds over six months without dieting. But paradoxically, those who exercised even more – three hours a week – failed to lose as much as expected.

The researchers, who published their findings in PLoSONE, a Public Library of Science online journal, speculated that the reason for this phenomenon was that the women who exercised the most rewarded themselves with food treats for their “sacrifice.”

Related Stories

- Obesity and Mammogram Errors
- Obesity Medication and Teens
- To Lose Weight, Join the "Portion Patrol"

Obese men are three times more likely than normal-weight men to have low sperm counts and to have sperm that don't "swim upstream," a recent study showed.

"There is a strong relationship between overweight and obesity and altered sperm parameters," wrote Ahmad O. Hammoud and his colleagues at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. They published their work in the journal Fertility and Sterility. They say studies in the future should examine this relationship over time, and also study whether losing weight improves sperm quality. ( Read more about Sperm Quality Worsens With Obesity)

Related Stories

- Life Changing - Gastric Bypass Surgery
- Critical Age for Childhood Weight Gain
- Are Certain Thin People Actually Obese?

America is awash in calories. And as the calorie floodwaters rise, the numbers of us who are overweight and obese rise along with them. One of the main streams swelling the calorie flood is the prevalence of large-portioned meals and drinks - super-sized fast-food meals, all-you-can-eat buffets, seemingly bottomless sodas and slushes. And the way to cut off the stream's influence is to join the "portion patrol" - that is, to rigorously regulate the size of the meals we eat.

Related Stories

- More Exercise Induces Women to Eat Treats
- What Are the Risk Factors of Coronary Artery Disease?
- Obesity Costs

Losing weight isn't just a matter of cutting and burning calories. There are certain inherent qualities of foods, which, if you understand them, can help you craft an eating strategy that will magnify the effectiveness of your fat loss efforts. Your food's "thermic effect." You burn more calories depending on what type of food you're eating. It takes more calories, for example, to digest, absorb and assimilate protein than other food types. So the more proteins you eat, which have a higher co-called thermic effect of food (TEF), the more calories you'll burn.

Related Stories

- Nutritional Mistakes Parents Make
- Weight Loss Retainer
- Weight Gain in Postmenopausal Woman and the Risk of Breast Cancer

With the public health crisis known as obesity reaching emergency proportions in the United States, the public spotlight is turning on the makers of the highly processed, high-calorie junk foods that help to fuel the growing calamity. In a recent study, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 32 percent of children were overweight but not obese, 16 percent were obese, and 11 percent were extremely obese.

Related Stories

- Obesity and Impotence
- Whole Grains
- Sperm Quality Worsens With Obesity

The number of centenarians in America has been steadily rising over the past century - from about 3,000 in 1950, to 37,306 in 1990, to 73,674 in 2004, the most recent year in which those 100 or older have been counted. And the U.S. Census Bureau expects there to be some 1.1 million in the year 2050 - provided bogeymen such as ever-increasing obesity and diabetes don't wreck the predictions. But the secret of living to be 100 or better isn't just in the genes. In fact, a variety of researchers believe genetic factors account for only 25 percent to 35 percent of a person's longevity. The other 65 percent to 75 percent is determined by one's lifestyle.

Related Stories

- Kids and Metabolic Syndrome
- Physical Fitness Program Cannot Be Taken Lightly
- Obesity Surgery Surge

Overeating can cause the brain to lose control and cause damage potentially leading to diabetes, heart disease, and other ills - according to new U.S. research. Eating too much appears to make a usually dormant immune system pathway in the brain, sending out immune cells to attack and destroy non-existent invaders. The finding could help explain why obesity causes so many different diseases, and also may offer a way to prevent obesity itself.

Related Stories

- Understanding The Thyroid
- Are Certain Thin People Actually Obese?
- 10 Dark Secrets of the Food Industry

High triglycerides in your bloodstream can be just as much a danger signal for the health of your heart as high cholesterol, according to the Harvard Heart Letter. Trouble is, people's awareness of the threat of cholesterol, hyped in the media for years, is far greater than that of triglycerides, the most common form of fat in food and the blood. Researchers have determined that the triglyceride danger threshold is 200 milligrams per deciliter of blood. So if your level is above that, the best way to reduce it is to change your lifestyle in the following eight ways.

Related Stories

- Mice and Fat Gene
- Weight Loss Retainer
- Five Overlooked Food Factors in Weight Loss

Sixty-six percent of Americans are overweight, and 32 percent are obese, so many citizens have now gotten serious about losing weight. But many times a dieter or exerciser can hit a weight-loss plateau that's seemingly impossible to get beyond. Therefore, here follows seven areas to focus on to flank excess weight and, hopefully, lead to big improvements in health.

Related Stories

- Exercise Study
- Obesity and Impotence
- Metabolic Syndrome Death Risk

Human fat can be healthy or sick - healthy in lean people and sick in obese. And a new research effort shows sick fat cells can produce proteins that contribute to type 2 diabetes. The study, performed by researchers at Temple University, discovered that fat cells in obese people bear a great deal of stress in a cellular component called the endoplasmic reticulum, which is the cells' protein factory. The stress, says lead researcher Dr. Guenther Boden, apparently produces proteins connected with insulin resistance, a major contributor to obesity-related diabetes. In particular, 19 proteins were more abundant in obese people's fat cells than lean people's, including three that were related to a specific endoplasmic reticulum stress-related response.

Related Stories

- Cellulite Deposits | Description, Causes, Treatments
- Obesity in America
- Obesity Medication and Teens