New obesity treatment possible with novel protein discovery

  

Posted by Neill Abayon

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than one-third of US adults are now obese. But new research published in the Journal of Neuroscience details how a protein in the brain regulates food intake and body weight - opening new doors for the treatment of obesity.

The research team, led by Maribel Rios, associate professor of the department of neuroscience at Tufts University School of Medicine, say their findings may also help explain why some drugs, such as gabapentin and pregabalin, can cause people to gain weight.

The investigators discovered that alpha2/delta-1 - a protein that has not previously been associated with obesity - assists the function of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).

Rios notes that in one of his previous studies, it was found that BDNF is crucial for appetite suppression.


But in this most recent study, the research team found that low levels of BDNF were linked to reduced function of alpha2/delta-1 in the hypothalamus - an area of the brain that plays an important role in regulating weight and food intake.

More here.


 

Hot Spices Aids in Weight Loss

By Neill Abayon

Hot spices such as cayenne pepper, paprika and chilies can help you lose weight according to the German Institute for Nutritional Medicine and Dietetics.

Hot spices make the body sweat, thereby increasing the need for energy, say the experts. People wanting to lose weight after summer holiday excesses should not resort to crash diets. They advise starting the day with a fruit or vegetable juice and eating plenty of fruit and vegetables.

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Big breakfast healthier than a big dinner

Posted by Neill Abayon


Researchers have found that eating a big breakfast of 700 calories promotes weight loss and reduces risks for diabetes, heart disease and high cholesterol.

The study, recently published in Obesitycomes from Tel Aviv University, where Prof. Daniela Jakubowicz and colleagues studied the impact of different caloric intake at varying times of day. What they found is that the time of day we eat has a significant impact on how our bodies process food.

To study how this timing affects our bodies, the team put 93 obese women into two different groups:

• "Big breakfast group" - consumed 700 calories at breakfast, 500 at lunch and 200 at dinner
• "Big dinner group" - consumed 200 calories at breakfast, 500 at lunch and 700 at dinner.

More here.



Lose Weight
Customized Fat Loss
Muscle Maximizer
Female Fat Loss
Fat Burner System
Golden Ratio Systems
Hypothyroidism Revolution
Fat Burning Furnace
Fat Loss Cookbook
Reverse Your Diabetes Today

'Gluten-free' defined by US food regulators

Posted by Neill Abayon

After six years' consideration, US food regulators have created a standard for food products labelled "gluten-free".

The rule requires any product with the label to contain less than 20 parts per million of gluten.

That amount will not make most people with coeliac disease sick, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said.

Foods labelled "no gluten", "free of gluten" and "without gluten" will also have to meet the definition. Firms will have a year to comply.

But the FDA urged food manufacturers to meet the definition sooner.

"This standard 'gluten-free' definition will eliminate uncertainty about how food producers label their products," FDA deputy foods commissioner Michael Taylor said in a statement.

Coeliac disease causes abdominal pain, bloating and diarrhea when sufferers ingest gluten, which is found in wheat, rye and barley and their derivatives.

People with the condition can suffer weight loss, fatigue, rashes and other long-term medical problems.

An estimated three million people in the US have coeliac disease.

US consumers spent more than $4bn (£2.6bn) on gluten-free foods last year, according to the American Celiac Disease Alliance.

More here.

The Effective Way To Lose Weight

By Neill Abayon


All experts agree that , with the rare exceptions of thyroid insufficiency and defective metabolism, the number one cause of obesity is overeating. But what causes overeating?

The basic cause of overeating (and consequent obesity) is a disordered appestat mechanism, which means some abnormality on the person appetite. Nutritional deficiencies caused by denatured foods disrupts the work of the appestat. Plenty of physical activity or the need for exercise is required to keep the appestat working well. Also, appestat function can be disrupted by negative emotions, such as anxiety, fear, hostility, insecurity, etc. Thus obese persons should make every effort to avoid such feelings and foster a positive outlook on life.

Weight management is complicated and no one would ever thought it is. People are more conscious about their body on how to maintain their figure but the fact is they aren't. The process of reducing weight is not easy. The foods are there and its getting harder to resist and it really needs to discipline oneself in order to maintain their body figure.

There are many effective and proven techniques on how to reduce weight but people get tired after spending just a few weeks to their program and instead of loosing weight they end up gaining more pounds. Understanding the exercise you need for your body is very important.

The secret is easy. First, make an outline for your program so that you will be determine to achieve your program as the days or weeks go by depending on how long you want your program to be followed. Then you have to set up your goal every day or every week, this is important because your achievement every day and every week can give you momentum for your overall success of your program. Lastly, be consistent. Be sure that what you have started will eventually lead to your victory.

Proper nutrition plays an important role in your weight loss program. You will trim down your waist a little bit faster if you combine your diet or your healthy menu plans to your exercise. Cutting carbohydrates on your menu makes it perfect and consume more fiber rich foods, avoid excessive meat intake for your protein. You can substitute a plant protein source for it like soya and tofu. Try to make some fasting or cleansing if you can before starting your program, this is also important for your diet. The cleansing stage makes your body free from dead cells and it will rejuvenate and make your cells healthy. It will also prepare your body for the nutritious food on your menu that you are going to deal with, it will make proper absorption of the nutrients that your body needs especially if you are on your rigid exercise program.

Low calorie diet of nutritious foods with emphasis on 5 or 6 small meals, instead of two big meals a days can also help on achieving great results for your program. Plenty of fresh raw fruits and fresh juices might also help. It is also important to note that when it comes to proper nutrition for diet, you have to avoid too much intake of sugars and white flours, and everything made with them. Low salt on your foods are highly recommended. Avoid coffee, tea and alcohol. Avoid all refined and denatured foods. It is much better if you take 2 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar in glass of water every meal but be sure not to drink water especially cold or any other beverages while you were having your meal, this cold beverages can solidify the foods and fats on your stomach and some beneficial enzymes that helps aide for your proper digestion are washed out thus it will result to some abnormalities on your metabolism and in some cases indigestion.

Now, if you really want to focus seriously on your diet while you are having your exercise you should considered just like what I said above the fasting or the cleansing. Take some short juice fast, one week to 10 days. Long juice fast, up to 40 days, or more, can also be undertaken but only under expert supervision.

I'll add some important notes. Persons with a tendency for overweight should take all their vitamins and food supplement after meals, to minimize the appetite-stimulating effect of some vitamins from a B-complex. Most so-called reducing diet pills are harmful, and although some may help to take pounds off, they do so at a cost of damaged health. Those who have tried hard but still did not see any effect on the exercise and proper diets they have, should check the condition of their liver. Liver damages is common among overweight persons and can be a major cause of obesity. A damage liver is unable to synthesize an adequate amount of energy-producing enzymes. Such a person should restore the health of his liver before reducing by a proper diet and exercise can be made possible.

Understanding the exercise which your body needs to do and combined with proper nutrition is surely a great way to a successful weight loss program.

'Diabetes-cure' operation explained

Weight loss surgery can help with diabetes

By James Gallagher

The reason some patients are cured of type-2 diabetes after a gastric bypass may have been explained by US researchers.


Their animal study showed bypassing the stomach made the intestines work harder, use more energy and keep blood sugar levels under control.

They hope their findings, published in the journal Science, will lead to less invasive treatments for the condition.

Diabetes UK said a healthy lifestyle was the best way to avoid the disease.

Type-2 diabetes, which is mostly the result of a bad diet and little exercise, is a growing problem globally.

It leaves people unable to control the amount of sugar in the blood and can culminate in blindness, limb loss and heart disease.

The condition can be managed with insulin injections.

Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital, in the US, were investigating how a type of weight loss surgery affected diabetes.

Dr Nicholas Stylopoulos told the BBC: "Gastric bypass is the most effective weight loss procedure, but it also cures diabetes.

"If we knew how this worked we could develop new treatments that don't require surgery."

More here.

Dubai offers gold as a reward for losing weight

Posted by Neill Abayon

Losing weight is as good as gold under a unique slim-down initiative in Dubai over growing concerns about rising obesity levels in the wealthy Gulf city-state.

Municipal officials are offering a gram of gold -- worth about $45 at current prices -- for each kilogram of weight lost in a 30-day challenge. The minimum drop is two kilograms, or 4.4 pounds, to cash in.

Local media Wednesday quotes Dubai official Hussain Lootah as saying there is no limit on the payout for the golden losers, who must sign up and weigh in Friday.

The plan is the latest attempt to encourage healthier lifestyles in the United Arab Emirates. Across the Gulf Arab states, authorities have raised alarms about rising obesity from increasing fast-food diets and lack of exercise.

But, will the plan work?

Research suggests bribing people could actually bring about meaningful weight loss. A March study from the Mayo Clinic found the chance to win or lose $20 per month based on weight loss goals led dieters to drop an average of nine pounds over a year.

The key is keeping this system in place, according to that study's authors.

Incentives are "not like training wheels where people learn healthy habits and then will continue them on their own" -- you have to keep them up for them to work, Dr. Steve Driver of Mayo in Rochester, Minn., told the AP at the time.

Continue here.

Water before meals helps with weight loss, say researchers

Posted by Neill Abayon

Weight loss techniques are a dime a dozen these days, with experts touting all sorts of different diet and exercise regimens as the solution to obesity. But new research set to be presented at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) offers a simple approach that involves no drugs and has no negative side effects. According to researchers, drinking two glasses of water before each meal will help you to lose more weight.

"We are presenting results of the first randomized controlled intervention trial demonstrating that increased water consumption is an effective weight loss strategy," explained Brenda Davy, Ph.D., senior author of the study, to reporters." In this recent study, we found that over the course of 12 weeks, dieters who drank water before meals, three times per day, lost about five pounds more than dieters who did not increase their water intake."

The philosophy behind the "water cure" suggests that by consuming more water, there is less room in the stomach for food. So in essence, the zero-calorie beverage takes the place of food, which results in less calorie consumption and less additional pounds. However, all participants in the study ate low-calorie foods as part of the study -- and all lost some weight. But those who drank water before their meals lost more than those who did not.

Read the full article here.

Losing weight can cure obstructive sleep apnea in overweight patients

Posted by Neill Abayon

For sufferers of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a new study shows that losing weight is perhaps the single most effective way to reduce OSA symptoms and associated disorders, according to a new study in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, one of the American Thoracic Society's three peer-reviewed journals.

Weight loss may not be a new miracle pill or a fancy high-tech treatment, but it is an exciting therapy for sufferers of OSA both because of its short- and long-term effectiveness and for its relatively modest price tag. Surgery doesn't last, continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines are only as effective as the patient's adherence, and most other devices have had disappointing outcomes, in addition to being expensive, unwieldy and having poor patient compliance. Furthermore, OSA is generally only treated when it has progressed to a moderate to severe state.

"Very low calorie diet (VLCD) combined with active lifestyle counseling resulting in marked weight reduction is a feasible and effective treatment for the majority of patients with mild OSA, and the achieved beneficial outcomes are maintained at 1-year follow-up," wrote Henri P.I. Tuomilehto, M.D., Ph.D., of the department of Otorhinolaryngology at the Kuopio University Hospital in Finland.

Read the full article here.

Weight loss reduces incontinence for women

Posted by Neill Abayon

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Starting a weight-loss regimen significantly reduces urinary incontinence for women, according to researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and the University of California, San Francisco.

A six-month program of diet, exercise and behavior modification resulted in a loss of 17 pounds and nearly one-half (47 percent) fewer incontinence episodes per week on average, the study authors said.

By contrast, an information-only program on diet and exercise without any direct weight-loss training led to a loss of 3 pounds and 28 percent fewer incontinence episodes per week on average, the researchers said.

The results are published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Earlier research has shown that behavioral weight-loss programs have many benefits, including decreasing blood pressure and helping to fight off diabetes. Here we've shown that weight loss has measurable impact on reduced incontinence," said Frank Franklin, M.D., Ph.D., a UAB professor in the School of Public Health and a co-author on the NEJM study.

Read the full article here.

Weight Loss Ideas You Should Ignore

Posted by Neill Abayon

1. Eat According to Your Metabolic Type

The origin of this idea in the modern diet business can be traced to The Metabolic Typing Diet by William Wolcott and Trish Fahey. The general idea dates from the 1970s and perhaps even before that.

The premise is that we all have a “metabolic type” — an individual metabolism that can be manipulated by dietary choices. According to this, we all fall into three metabolic types. And how do you know your metabolic type? Usually, the practitioners of metabolic type diets ask you a range of questions about your body shape, natural food choices, energy levels and many other things. Some may charge for blood or urine tests.

No doubt, you will soon be offered a genetic test that is supposed to identify your best nutrition and training habits based on your genes, which, presumably, create your metabolic type. Already similar services are being promoted to health and fitness enthusiasts — for a fee of course.

There is no evidence that metabolic types have any validity for weight management or fitness training, including weight training. Our genes can influence how our bodies works, but genes are not faultless determinants of physical function — or behavior for that matter. Genes interact with the environment, in this case, with food and physical activity. The idea that we have a metabolic type that reacts rigidly to diet in a certain way because of a genetic component is false, or at least only partly true. Food and exercise are just as likely to change the way these genes function as genes are to demand certain foods for health, perhaps even more likely.

2. Don’t Eat Carbohydrates Because They Turn to Fat

This one still persists, even after all the debunking that has been done. It is a persistent myth of misplaced emphasis that derives from the low-carb diet movement. First, some carbohydrates can be converted to fat and stored, but this is only significant if you overeat. Fructose in corn syrup and cane sugar is more likely to do this than glucose from starches, such as grains.

Second, even if some carbohydrate turns to fat, it is not permanently enshrined in some fat larder on your hips, legs, belly, arms and butt until the end of history. Mostly, you can burn it off just like you can burn off dietary fat that is eaten and stored. What matters is the total calories you consume and the energy calories you expend.

3. Eat Foods that Boost Metabolism or Decrease Appetite

While it is true that chemical substances, such as amphetamines, boost metabolism so that you burn more calories and this helps you with weight loss, amphetamines are powerful substances and few naturally occurring herbs or extracts have this type of effect. Or, if they do, products, such as ephedra, may not be safe for casual consumption. The FDA says ephedra is unsafe.

Other plant-derived substances touted as useful weight loss supplements are caffeine, capsaicin (chili), green tea, hoodia and many others sold as natural remedies. Some, such as hoodia, are supposed to be appetite suppressants.

The main issue with these weight loss solutions is that they aren’t solutions. Some may provide a small benefit, but mostly they cost you extra money and distract from the main game, which is getting your food intake and exercise plan working for you over the long term. There’s no harm in consuming coffee, chili and green tea as part of a normal diet. Spending big on supplements or exotic herbs for this purpose is bound to disappoint you if you don’t address the major factors in weight management.

4. Negative Calorie Foods Can Help You Lose Weight

This one is only for the very naïve. The idea that certain foods use more energy in digestion than they contain in calories is not to be believed, especially when lists of such foods includes fruits that contain significant calories in natural sugars.

If you eat a diet of green leafy vegetables and fruit, you probably will lose weight, but that’s because, overall, you will have reduced your calorie intake substantially. Try the Calorie-Count database to see how many calories are in various foods.

Read the full article here

Discover Your Food Allergies and Accelerate Weight Loss

Posted by Neill Abayon

Some nutritionists estimate that up to 75% of all people have undiagnosed food allergies. They may not be allergies in the way that we commonly think of them – that is, we may not sneeze or get a rash, or go into anaphylactic shock. But they are allergies all the same, if these foods provoke a negative immune response in the body. A good example is lactose intolerance – sometimes called a ‘milk allergy’. People with lactose intolerance cannot digest one of the sugars that milk contains, and milk is harmful to their bodies. They might get a stomach ache, or they might develop a problem with phlegm in the lungs, windpipe or throat. Many people have a similar allergy to wheat or other grains, or to certain vegetables.

But what does this have to do with weight loss? Studies show that food allergies are a leading cause of weight gain. When you eat foods that you are allergic to, they aren’t metabolized properly, and your body will hold onto the calories in these foods for longer, according to one theory. Also, some nutritionists feel that there is a correlation between your food allergies and the foods that you crave or binge on. Often, they are the same foods. In fact, if you eat the foods that you are allergic to, you can develop an addiction to them. Apparently, this is often the case with wheat and other carbohydrates. Apparently, there are some people who are addicted to carbohydrates and sugar – if they eat just a little bit of these foods, they will lose control, and start to eat more and more. To make matters worse, these foods are not metabolized properly by those people, so the natural result is weight gain.

In most cases like this, the underlying cause may be an allergy to wheat and other grains. If you decide to eliminate these foods entirely, it will initially be difficult – just as it’s difficult for a smoker to stop smoking, or for an alcoholic to stop drinking. Once you do it, though, you will be able to reap the benefits. You will lose your urge to binge on these and other foods, and the weight will come off much faster.

If you are trying to lose weight, therefore, it is well worth your while to find out what your food allergies are, if indeed you have any. A naturopath will be able to help you discover this information, often using a process called ‘vega testing’. This may be a little costly, but as more people are doing it, the cost is coming down. At the end of the the visit, the naturopath will give you a printout of the foods you should avoid. You may be dismayed to find that some of your ‘favorites’ are on the list – but if you are committed to your health and weight loss, give it a try. You may be surprised by how little you actually miss the foods you are allergic to once they are gone from your diet altogether.

Some people are skeptical about this process and about the whole notion that so many people are allergic to common foods. Why would so many people have this disorder? It may seem strange – even counter-intuitive. Think about the great variety of foods we eat today, though. In the past, people generally stayed in the same part of the world in which they were born, and they ate the food that was indigenous to that region. Nowadays, that’s all but impossible. For one thing, people move around a lot more. Also, food doesn’t come from the region you live in - it comes from everywhere. Every food is available to everyone all the time, and that’s very different from what it was like in the past. Therefore, there’s a much greater potential for food allergies, because there are probably foods that you eat that your ancestors never would have seen. As a result, you may not have the necessary enzymes to digest them.

You could, of course, try to eat as your ancestors did. For many of us, though our ancestors came from a variety of places, and there’s no telling which set of genetics were passed on to us. Allergy testing, on the other hand, is individual, and may well give you the answers you need.

THE RIGHT WAY TO LOSE WEIGHT

Written by Neill Abayon

By switching to the optional diet plus some walking, you can lose one to two pounds a week. That might not get you slim in time for summer, but it is a sensible health conscious approach to long-term weight management.

HOW FIBERS HELPS - One of the many virtues of fiber is that it acts as a safety mechanism to keep you from overeating. It helps you feel full before you can eat too many calories.
Fiberless foods lack this automatic shutoff, By the time you fell full, you've eaten enough calories for a family of five. Will power is the only thing that stands between you and obesity - and we all know how effective that is!

LOW FIBER FOODS - All animal products lack fiber. They include meat, milk, eggs, and cheese.
In addition, modern food - processing mills take the fiber out of many foods that used to have it. Sugar, white flour, oils and most packaged foods fall into this category.
Corn oils is a good example of this process. It takes 14 ears of corn to make one tablespoon of oil. Imagine trying to eat 14 ears of corn at one sitting. Impossible! Yet its easy to sit down and eat several tablespoon of oil in the form of salad and dressings and fried foods.

YOUR CHALLENGE - Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes are high in fiber. Eat them in abundance. Start with this lowfat, high-fiber soup. Serve it with hearty whole-wheat bread and a salad. Eat all you want. You'll fill up long before you'll fatten up.
Eat whole fruits, with all their fiber, instead of drinking the juice.


THE SKINNY ON CELLULITE

* Thigh creams havent produced lasting results.
* There are no miracle pills. They don't slim down your pocketbook.
* Liposuction is expensive. The fat goes, but not the dimpled skin.
* Massages, wraps and such - save your money.
* With a lowfat, reduced-calorie diet you'll lose one to two pounds a week, and reshape your cellulite.

Best bet:lowfat optimal diet plus regular active exercise.

THE WRONG WAY TO LOSE WEIGHT

Written y Neill Abayon

Here are three wrong ways to lose wight. Take a time to read at them.


1. DIURETICS (water pills) - Since the body is about 70 percent water,

it is relatively easy for such pills to remove several pounds of water

quickly. The scales look good - for a few days. ut gradually the body

balances itself y replacing the water, and there goes the weight loss.


2. EXTRA PROTEIN - An overdose of protei will accomplish asically the

same thing. The liver changes excess protein into the blood urea

nitrogen (UN), which causes the kidneys to force water from the body.

It takes much water to wash out the products of excess protein

metabolism than it does to take care of the breakdown products of

either carbohydrates or fats.
Some quick weight-loss diets take advantage of the fact that a

high-protein in take can cause spectacular weight-loss in a short time.

This is a dangerous practice, however. That is why such diets are

usually physician-supervised and limited to short periiods of time,

normally about two weeks. The scales show gratifyingly low numbers, but

most of the weight returns in a short time as the body replaces lost

water.

3. STARVATION DIETS - Many of the quickie diets drop daily intake of

1800 to 250 calories to less than 500 calories in a day. Some of these

starvation diets may go as low as 300 to 400 calories. The body

misreads this dramatic calorie drop as acute starvation and actually

begins to digest its own protein (usually in the form of muscle) in an

effort to protect more vital tissues. Careful testing has shown that

weight loss on these diets can come from both fat and muscle tissues.
So eware! When you think you're losing 14 pounds of fat for

example, you could actually e losing five pounds of fat, one pound of

protein tissue (muscle), and eight pounds of water.
If you feel you need to go on a diet, make sure that you get

enough calories from protein and carbohydrates to prevent muscle tissue

loss. For an average person this means at least 200 calories of protein

(50 grams) and at least 600 calories of carbohydrates a day.

How Much Exercise Is Enough?

Posted by Neill Abayon

Everyone should exercise for 20 minutes three times per week. No, make that five times per week for 30 minutes. No, make it more like an hour every day. No, scratch that — short bursts of intense activity for 10 minutes at a time, a few times a day.

You hear so much contradictory information about exercise, it's hard to know what to believe. No wonder so many people tune out completely, and go back to surfing the Net or watching TV. A logical conclusion might be that researchers do not know what they are talking about. Actually, the situation is much worse — all of those seemingly contradictory recommendations are probably true.

In actuality, you only need to do gentle activities like walking and gardening to lower your risk of heart disease. Below is a quick guide to what constitutes a reasonable prescription for exercise:

1. If you aren't doing much physically, then mild exercise a few times a week will cut your heart disease risk in half. Americans have become incredibly sedentary — remote controls, drive-up banks, elevators and other conveniences have made it possible to get through the day burning a trivial amount of calories. As a result, even mild activity — like walking at a reasonable clip — a few times per week can make a big difference in the health of your blood vessels. Just raising your heart rate and dilating those arteries modestly can help to lower your blood pressure and fight off atherosclerosis. So, if you are a true couch potato, the orders from this doctor are to begin doing 20- to 30-minute walks three days a week. If you feel chest pressure, light-headed or markedly short of breath, see your doctor right away. But if not, get back out there in two days.


2. If you do mild exercise a few times a week, increase the frequency to every day. At this point, we know it is safe for you to take those one- to two-mile walks. So what's the point of waiting two days before your next one? Going to daily exercise will help you to burn more calories, and that will have a whole range of beneficial health effects.


3. If you can do mild or moderate physical activities daily, start doing short bursts of more intense activity. You can jog five or 10 miles per day at the same slow clip, and you will burn plenty of calories, but you won't really make your cardiovascular system much healthier. One of the painful messages from recent research is that intense activity — 30 to 60 seconds of really pushing yourself — takes the health of your blood vessels to a new level. This kind of interval training is what athletes do, and for good reason. It conditions your arteries to pump out nitric oxide and other chemicals that help them dilate when your muscles really need a lot of blood. And there is pretty good evidence that this kind of stress on the arteries helps to keep them younger.

Naturally, you should not increase your activity level if you feel any of the warning symptoms described above. Those are good reasons to stop, rest and give your physician a call. But the bottom line on exercise is that whatever you are doing, try doing more. If you are burning a lot of calories with long bouts of exercise, you should try exercising more intensely for shorter periods.

It takes discipline to constantly move to a higher level of exercise. Sometimes working with a trainer or going to an exercise class can help. In the meantime, consider these recommendations a doctor's orders.

ANTI OBESITY DRUGS

Written by Neill Abayon

As I promised in my last post, Today I will discuss the effects of antiobesity drugs in our health. You must be aware of this before anything might happen to you or to your friends.

The Food and Drug ADministration (FDA) approved a new antiobesity drug called Xenical, also known as orlistat. It works in the stomach by inhibiting the action of gastric and intestinal lipases. These enzymes break down fat into smaller components for absorption. When one 120-milligram capsule is taken with a meal that derives no more than 20 percent of its calories from fat, Xenical blocks the absorption of roughly 30 percent of ingested fat.
But beware. There are side effects. Symptoms may include abdominal cramps, diarrhea, urgency to defecate, oily formed stools, and increased number of bowel movements. And Xenical is not recommended for patients with malabsorption syndromes

or gallbladder disease, pregnant women, new mothers who are breastfeeding, or anyone who has allergies. Quite a downside isn't it? Because Xenical decreases the absorption of some fat-soluble
vitamins, it is recommended that vitamins D,E,K, and betacarotene be replaced two hours before or after taking the drug. Patients should decrease their fat intake to no more than 30 percent of ingested callories. The average reported weight loss after one year of using Xenical is 13.4 pounds. And don't ever use this without the supervision of a competent health-care professionals.
There are other antiobesity drugs that are called appetite suppressants. They promote weight loss by addecting chemicals in the brain to decrease appetite and give a sensation of being full.
In 1997 the FDA removed two popular appetite suppressants from the maket, fenfluramine and dexfenfluramine. The combination of the drugs with another appetite suppressant drugs, phentermine, caused valvular heart disease and life-threatening pulmonary hypertension - a disease of the blood vessels of the heart and lungs. Phentermine ("phen") is still in use today. Many brave souls are using it with Xenical in a new combination nicknamed "Xen-Phen". However you should be concerned about the safety of this new combination therapy, since it has not been recommended by the FDA.
Like other antiobesity drugs, appetite suppressants have side effects that range from dry mouth, headache, constipation, and insomnia to increased blood pressure.
There is a little information on the long-term effectiveness of antiobesity drugs. Most studies show that the majority of people who stop taking the drugs regain weight. The success of the drugs depends largely on a change in lifestlye, which suggests that in most cases the drugs may not be necessary. These drugs are not a substitute for a healthy lifestlye. The time-honored management of obesity requires dietary reform, regular exercise, and behavior modification.

Fat-Free Yogurt Aids in Weight Loss

Research by Neill Abayon

According to recent reports, studies have shown that fat-free yogurt may actually trim pounds off your tummy. For someone like me (who has battled the buldge since childhood), this was music to my ears! Most days I try my best to have a yogurt for a mid-morning snack. Bored with your yogurt routine? Try spicing it up with Bear Naked granola, cereal or even fruit. Just a minor change will keep you from succuming to routine!

What are your thoughts on this? Do you think it helps you lose weight and live a healthy lifestyle?

While there are dozens of “fat-free” yogurt brands on the shelves, be careful when you are choosing. It may be free of fat, but it could be loaded with sugar. For example, Columbia Fat-free Vanilla yogurt is low in calories, but it has 20+ grams of sugar!

THE HEALTHY WAY TO WEIGHT LOSS

Written by Neill Abayon

This are some tips of how to reduce your weight in a healthy way:

* Eat foods that promote good health (nuts,fruits, and vegetables).Medical literature to day supports the superiority of a vegetarian diet to one high in animal protein.
* Avoid high in saturated fats. Eliminate refined carbohydrates from diet. Eat complex carbohydrates such as soy proteins,beans,bran,apples,etc.
* Caffeine, a central nervous system stimulant, should be eliminated from your diet. Instead of coffee,tea and sodas, drink eight glasses of water per day. It is healthier and cheaper.
* Exercise. The best form of exercise is the cheapest - walking. With patience, perseverance, and determination, the long-term management of obesity can be achieved.

I have tried all this tips before and it's very effective. In just 2 months I lost 15 kls.!