The Los Angeles Times (5/24, MacVean) “Booster Shots” blog reports on
findings from an annual poll indicating that food purchases are driven by
taste (87%), price (73%), healthfulness (61%), and convenience (53%).
Seventy-five percent said it is hard to know what nutritional guidance to
believe. Nearly one quarter of the survey respondents said their diets were
“extremely” or “very unhealthful,” although most were trying to improve
their diets. “Less than 20% meet national guidelines for activity. Most men
said it was harder to eat healthfully than to exercise; most women said the
opposite.” The survey was conducted by the International Food Information
Council Foundation. - ama news

Bloomberg News (5/24, Lopatto) reports, “A fatty diet that helps control
epileptic seizures may do so by triggering a chemical change in the brain, a
discovery that could lead to new treatments, according to a” study published
in the journal Neuron and partially funded by the National Institutes of
Health.

HealthDay (5/24, Preidt) reports that the findings “suggest that resistance
to seizures among people who eat what’s called a ketogenic diet is linked to
a protein that modifies cellular metabolism in the brain.” The
investigators, “in tests with mice…found that modifying the
BCL-2-associated agonist of cell death protein led to altered brain
metabolism and protected against seizures.” - ama news

The Washington Post (5/24, Huget) reports in its “The Checkup” blog on a
study published online in Archives of Disease in Childhood, finding that
“babies born by C-section may be more likely than those delivered vaginally
to become obese children.” The study was based on “records for 1,255 
mom/baby pairs; 284 of those babies were delivered by c-section, and 971 
were delivered vaginally. The researchers analyzed the babies’ BMI and a
measure of body fatness called a skin-fold test when the children were 3 
years old.” The results showed that “Babies delivered by c-section were
about twice as likely to be obese at age 3 than those delivered vaginally.”
- ama news

USA Today (5/21) reports, “Ever wonder why health care costs keep rising
faster than inflation? One major contributor is America’s struggle with
weight.” USA attributes obesity to the success of junk food producers at
identifying what people want. It cites the Archives of Pediatrics and
Adolescent Medicine study of the results of California’s regulations on junk
food in schools as well as efforts in private businesses. It concludes,
“Food police? No doubt. And about as comfortable as undersized jeans. But a
change of habit will be necessary if Americans are going to become fitter,
and if that hidden obesity tax is going to come down.” - ama news

The AP (5/21) reports, “Half the nation’s overweight teens have unhealthy
blood pressure, cholesterol or blood sugar levels that put them at risk for
future heart attacks and other cardiac problems,” according to a study
published online May 21 in the journal Pediatrics. What’s more, “an even
larger proportion of obese adolescents have such a risk, according to the
alarming new numbers.” For the study, “the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention research focused on 3,383 adolescents ages 12 through 19” who
were included in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

“Nearly one in four American adolescents may be on the verge of developing
type 2 diabetes or could already be diabetic, representing a sharp increase
in the disease’s prevalence among children ages 12 to 19 since a decade ago,
when it was estimated that fewer than one in 10 were at risk for or had
diabetes,” the New York Times (5/21, Rabin) “Well” blog reports. While the
study “confirmed that teenage obesity and overweight rates had leveled off
in recent years and that teenage rates of high blood pressure and high
cholesterol had not changed greatly, it found that the percentage of
teenagers testing positive for diabetes and prediabetes had nearly tripled
to 23 percent in 2007-8 from nine percent in 1999-2000.” ama news

The Boston Globe (5/18, Kotz) “Daily Dose” blog reported that research
published online in the Annals of Neurology suggests “that saturated fats

The Los Angeles Times (5/22, Healy) “Booster Shots” blog reports that
“losing as little as 5% of one’s body weight

USA Today (5/22, Hellmich) reports, “Diabetes and pre-diabetes have
skyrocketed among the nation’s young people, jumping from 9% of the
adolescent population in 2000 to 23% in 2008,” according to a study
published online May 21 in the journal Pediatrics. For the study,
researchers “examined health data on about 3,400 adolescents ages 12 to 19 
from 1999 through 2008. They participated in the CDC’s National Health and
Nutrition Examination Survey.”

HealthDay (5/22, Gordon) reports, “For the study period overall, 15 percent
of teens were classified as having pre-diabetes or diabetes.” Dorothy
Becker, MD, chief, endocrinology and diabetes, Children’s Hospital of
Pittsburgh, who was not involved with the study, said that “doctors,
parents, school and hospital administrators, and community leaders all need
to take overweight and obesity seriously.” She added, “Physicians need to
say this is important. It’s as big a risk to your health as smoking or
unprotected sex.” Also covering the story are Medscape (5/22,
DeVita-Raeburn), WebMD (5/22, Doheny), and Reuters (5/22, Norton). - ama
news

The Los Angeles Times (5/18, Mestel) “Booster Shots” blog reports, “Rats fed
fructose-laced drinking water for six weeks performed more slowly in a
maze-navigating task, UCLA researchers have found.”

Forbes (5/18, Koleva) reports, “A control group that was fed a standard diet
modeled after that of the American Institute of Nutrition navigated the maze
much faster, as did another group of rats whose high fructose diet also
included omega-3 fatty acids.” The researchers, “in their paper, published
in this week in the peer-reviewed Journal of Physiology…note their
experiment aims to show how foods made with high-fructose corn syrup, which
is abundant in the Western diet, impact cognitive abilities.” - ama news

Dietary interventions during pregnancy limit maternal weight gain and reduce
the risk for certain maternal outcomes, according to a BMJ meta-analysis.

Researchers studied 44 randomized trials in which dietary interventions,
physical activity interventions, and combinations of the two were compared
with control regimens in pregnant women. Most of the studies included women
at any BMI, while the rest were limited to overweight or obese women.

Overall, dietary interventions led to nearly a 4-kg reduction in weight
gain, compared with control regimens. Dietary approaches also significantly
lowered the risk for preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, gestational
hypertension, and preterm delivery. Physical activity and mixed approaches
had no significant effect on these outcomes. Physical activity did lead to
lower birth weight, while dietary interventions did not.

The authors call for more research to determine the best weight-management
strategy in pregnancy, but write: “Dietary intervention is effective, safe,
and potentially cost effective and dominates physical activity based
intervention.” - jwatch