Sellheart via Health News

The millions of Americans who are overweight or obese are putting their health in jeopardy. Obesity is the second leading cause of preventable death, and can raise your risk of developing heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, asthma and even gum disease. The underlying causes of obesity are numerous, from genetic disposition to binge eating, which may be caused by the same brain changes responsible for addiction. This link prompted researchers to test a potential addiction drug on lab rats bred to be obese-with surprising results.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory tested the drug, called vigabatrin or GVG, in 50 rats, some of which were bred obese and some were of normal weight. The animals were either given injections of various amounts of vigabatrin or a placebo for up to 40 days. The genetically obese rats lost up to 19 percent of their body weight, and normal-weight rats lost 12 to 20 percent of their body weight. “Our results appear to demonstrate that vigabratrin induced satiety in these animals,” said Amy DeMarco, who worked on the study. “When we gave GVG, they would steadily lose weight, and when we took them off GVG, they would steadily gain weight,” she told Reuters Health. » Read the rest of the entry..

(HealthDay News) — The path to heart disease begins in childhood, and that means preventive measures must be embraced by those at risk long before adulthood, researchers report.

Two of the biggest threats to heart health that trace back to childhood are prehypertension –blood pressure just below the official high blood pressure reading of 140/90 — and obesity.

“The message of the Bogalusa Heart Study is that coronary artery disease, atherosclerosis, hypertension and heart disease all begin in childhood,” said study director Dr. Gerald Berenson, a professor of cardiology at the Tulane Center for Cardiovascular Health, in New Orleans.

Berenson was to present the findings Wednesday at the American Society of Hypertension annual meeting, in New Orleans.
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Daily doses of statins and blood pressure medications will not be enough to prevent heart disease among the ever-growing number of Baby Boomers who are overweight or obese, a new study suggests.

The simple truth, experts say, is that pounds must also be shed to keep cardiovascular trouble away.

“There is a debate out there about whether this generation is going to live as long as their parents, and the truth is they probably won’t,” said study author Dr. Gregory L. Burke, director of the division of public health sciences at Wake Forest University School of medicine in Winston-Salem, NC.

“My ultimate worry is that we’ve seen a 50-year decline in cardiovascular disease mortality, but if you begin to look at recent trends, it’s beginning to plateau,” he added. “And my fear is that because of the increase in obesity we’re going to begin to see a reversal of that trend where heart disease rates begin to go up.” » Read the rest of the entry..