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Posts with tag: obesity | Return to HealthNewsBlog.com Homepage
Study Finds Chili Pepper Ingredient Helps Fight Fat
 Scientists are reporting new evidence that capsaicin, the stuff that makes chili peppers hot, may cause weight loss and fight fat buildup. The scientists believe the capsaicin triggers certain beneficial protein changes in the body. The new study appears here in the ACS' monthly Journal of Proteome Research.
Laboratory studies have hinted that capsaicin may help fight obesity by decreasing calorie intake, shrinking fat tissue, and lowering fat levels in the blood. Nobody, however, yet knows exactly how capsaicin might trigger such beneficial effects.
In an effort to find out, the scientists fed high-fat diets with or without capsaicin to lab rats used to study obesity. The capsaicin-treated rats lost 8 percent of their body weight and showed changes in levels of at least 20 key proteins found in fat. The altered proteins work to break down fats.
"These changes provide valuable new molecular insights into the mechanism of the antiobesity effects of capsaicin," the scientists say.
Capsaicin is already used in capsaicin creams, which help fight arthritis pain. The latest research could potentially lead to new drugs to fight obesity.
Photo: Stephen Ausmus/USDA
Posted on June 12, 2010
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Depressing Study Suggests Most People Will Become Overweight
MSNBC.com reports on an obesity study that followed 4,000 white adults aged 30 to 59 years for over 30 years. That study found that 90% of men and 70% of women will become overweight at some point in their lives.
Just when we thought we couldn't get any fatter, a new study that followed Americans for three decades suggests that over the long haul, 9 out of 10 men and 7 out of 10 women will become overweight.
Even if you are one of the lucky few who made it to middle age without getting fat, don't congratulate yourself -- keep watching that waistline.
Half of the men and women in the study who had made it well into adulthood without a weight problem ultimately became overweight. A third of those women and a quarter of the men became obese.
The article does not say what criteria was used to determine whether a person is overweight. Some experts are very critical of the often used BMI index because it rates athletes like Michael Jordan as overweight. However, the study does indicate that people need to always try and follow a healthy lifestyle because weight gain is always a risk even for people that have remained lean into their 30s or 40s.
Posted on October 4, 2005
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