By Allison Cross, Canwest News Service

Obesity is now a bigger overall threat to people’s health than smoking, according to results of the longest ongoing health study of adults in the United States. Photograph by: Tony Melville, ReutersBy Allison Cross, Canwest News Service

Obesity is now a bigger overall threat to people’s health than smoking, according to results of the longest ongoing health study of adults in the United States.

Obesity causes as much or more disease than tobacco, says the study, conducted by researchers from Columbia University and the City College of New York. It adds that while smoking rates are starting to decline, obesity now shortens as many or even more healthy lifespans than tobacco use.

“Health impacts of obesity are, in many ways, much larger, than the health impacts of smoking,” said Dr. Arya Sharma, chairman for obesity research and management at the University of Alberta. “(Smoking) in the end, is limited to heart disease and cancer.”

The study, conducted over 15 years, was based on interviews with more than 3.5 million people and calculations of the number of “quality-adjusted life years” (QALYs) lost to obesity and smoking.

Quality-adjusted life years are a measurement of the quality and quantity of a life lived, and assign higher scores to perfect or good health, and lower scores to illness, injury and death.

Between 1993 and 2008, smoking in American adults declined by 18.5 per cent, while the proportion of obese people increased by 85 per cent, the study says.

Overall, smoking caused more deaths but obesity has a greater impact on illness, said the researchers.

The results of the study support what doctors and researchers have been saying for many years in the U.S. and in Canada, said Sharma.

There’s nothing to indicate the results of the study aren’t mirrored in the Canadian population, he said.

Obesity is a complex disease that can lead to diabetes, liver disease, heart disease, sleep apnea, joint replacement and other problems, said Sharma, who added that the effects of obesity are often treated, but not the obesity itself.

"It hits people at young ages now. We’re looking at an epidemic of childhood obesity,” Sharma said. “None of the prevention methods that are being implemented are showing any signs of working. To be effective, they would have to be pretty drastic.”

A study presented in October at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress in Edmonton said obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol are affecting Canadian teens at alarmingly high rates and are increasing over time.

Sharma said the study demonstrates that anti-smoking campaigns have been effective, but the same approach can’t necessarily be taken to combating obesity.

“The factors causing obesity are so entrenched in our Western lifestyle, from everything starting from how we build our cities and our food policies,” he said. “It’s not just about going out and eating healthy or exercising more. It is, in fact, very difficult for people to eat healthy and exercise more given the lifestyle that most of us currently have.”

Social stigma is no longer an excuse not to speak openly about the dangers of obesity, said Dr. David Lau, president of Obesity Canada and a medical professor at the University of Calgary.

“In 2004, the U.S. surgeon general already announced that obesity has overtaken tobacco as the No. 1 public health enemy, but now we have data to support it,” Lau said. “I think it’s very timely after the Christmas holiday, when we’ve all put on a few pounds, to be more alerted to the fact that obesity is not something to be dismissed.”

The diabetes epidemic in Canada has been fuelled by an obesity epidemic and children and young adults have become susceptible to diseases that normally afflict people in their 40s and 50s, Lau said.

“Of course, we have to talk about genetic predisposition but, be that as it may, the major driver for Type 2 diabetes is not genetic. It has to do with our eating habits,” he said.

© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service

03/02/2010 5:52:00 PM

THE CANADIAN PRESS
MONTREAL - Researchers have discovered that a small proportion of morbidly obese people are missing a chunk of their DNA, and that genetic deletion may be dramatically affecting their weight.

In a study published in this week’s issue of the journal Nature, the international team of scientists suggests that about seven in every 1,000 morbidly obese people are missing the 30-gene section of DNA. The genetic variation was not found in people of normal weight.

About two per cent of North Americans are morbidly obese, with a Body Mass Index over 40. (A healthy BMI, a mathematical ratio of weight and height, is between 18.5 and 24.9.) In about five per cent of cases, excessive weight gain is believed to be linked to genetic causes, including mutations and missing DNA.

“In the past three years, we have made fantastic progress in learning how common genetic changes can lead to chronic diseases like diabetes, as well as to small differences in people’s weight and height,” — said co-author Dr. Robert Sladek of McGill University in Montreal.

“The genetic change identified in this study is much less common, but leads to much more substantial changes in the body weight of the individuals that it affects,” — Sladek said Wednesday in a release.

Previous research has identified several genetic variations that appear to contribute to obesity, most of them single mutations that change the function of a gene.

While the Nature study authors do not know all the functions of the 30 missing genes, mutations in some of them have been linked to delayed development, autism and schizophrenia.

They suggest there may be other genetic deletions, besides the ones they identified, that increase a person’s risk of becoming obese.

“It is becoming increasingly clear that for some morbidly obese people, their weight gain has an underlying genetic cause,” said lead author Philippe Froguel, a professor in the School of Public Health at Imperial College London.

“If we can identify these individuals through genetic testing, we can then offer them appropriate support and medical interventions, such as the option of weight-loss surgery, to improve their long-term health.”

Eating is often made into a social occasion and the holidays are an excellent example of this. All the relatives come from everywhere to celebrate and where do they gather; around the dinner table of course!  It is very easy to overeat at this time of year and if you are not already overweight before the holidays, it is highly likely that you will be so afterward.

Overeating generally refers to the long-term consumption of excess food in relation to the energy expended; leading to weight gain and often obesity.  Overeating can sometimes be a symptom of binge eating disorder or bulimia.  Overeating may be caused by a change in appetite and sometimes outside influences stress us to eat too much.

Women remain disinclined to like or accept what they see in the mirror, and their discontent is spreading to an ever larger number of men, and more disconcertingly, children.  Women are seldom present as guests at meals; they are too busy making preparations and seeing to the guests’ needs. When they finally do sit down to enjoy the meal they are either too fatigued or stressed that they tend to overeat; leading to putting on the pounds – exactly the opposite result of what they strive for. Some tips to consider are:

• Drink plenty of water before the meal. This will help you to feel full and the tendency is not to consume as much food.
• Select your food wisely – high fiber, low sugar foods are best.
• Limit yourself to 1 desert even though they all look great. Perhaps your hostess would allow you to take a small piece home for tomorrow.
• Eat slowly and stop before you feel full. Eating fast may cause you to eat more thereby consuming more calories.
• Limit your alcohol consumption since this is very high in calories and puts on the pounds quickly.
• Go for a walk after dinner so the food will settle but don’t eat more when you get back from that walk.

So, if you want that beautiful dress (and for you guys, that special suit) to fit over the holidays, then ponder over the suggestions presented above and if you would like to read more health related articles go to our web site and register to receive our newsletter.