news 2013

Researchers at the University of Leeds have shown that greater dietary fibre intake is associated with a lower risk of both cardiovascular disease and coronary heart disease. Dr Victoria Burley, from the School of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Leeds and senior author of the study, said: “It has previously been difficult to demonstrate the long-term influence of diet on heart attacks or strokes.

The number of obese adults in the UK could be reduced by 180,000 with a 20% tax on sugary drinks, say researchers at the University of Oxford and the University of Reading. The tax could raise over £275 million for the Treasury. The researchers from the British Heart Foundation Health Promotion Research Group at the University of Oxford and the Centre for Food Security at the University of Reading have published their findings in the British Medical Journal .

Researchers believe the gene could be a useful therapeutic target for treating obesity and type 2 diabetes In the future, modulation of KSR2 may represent a useful therapeutic strategy for obesity and type 2 diabetes Sadaf Farooqi Researchers from the University of Cambridge have discovered a novel genetic cause of severe obesity which, although relatively rare, demonstrates for the first time that genes can reduce basal metabolic rate - how the body burns calories.

Babies in a rural area of India are less likely to suffer from acute malnutrition where their families are taking part in a job-guarantee programme to provide work with a guaranteed wage, an Oxford University study has found. However, the Indian government programme appears to have no effect on long-term malnutrition.

Obesity gene testing does not put people off weight loss and may help to reduce self-blame, according to a new study by researchers from the Health Behaviour Research Centre at UCL. Previous studies have shown that genes play a role in a person's risk of becoming overweight. One gene, called FTO, has been found to have the biggest influence so far.

03 Sep 2013 The trend of increasing body mass index (BMI) may be slowing down in most English adults, according to research published by researchers from The University of Manchester online in the International Journal of Obesity this week. Around two thirds of women and three quarters of men may be relatively resistant to further rises in BMI, the study suggests.

They are the latest foodie fashion and look set to become big business in the baking aisles of all the major supermarkets - the blue egg produced by some chickens is prettier and some say tastier and cleaner-breaking than the traditional brown one - and now, thanks to scientists from The University of Nottingham, we know what caused the eggs in some breeds to turn this unusual colour.

Study makes link between poor access to nutrition in infancy and increased risk of mortality in later life Conversely, being born with a silver spoon in your mouth may give life-long advantages Scientists at the University of Sheffield have found a link between poor nutrition during early life and reduced resilience to later-life famine.

White Americans who are obese are twice as likely as black Americans to have surgery to tackle the problem, a study has found. Bariatric surgery is now recognised as a successful treatment for preventing serious complications of obesity such as diabetes and high blood pressure. The new study is one of the first to look at whether people who need surgery most are actually receiving it.

A new study says Europe's first farmers used far more sophisticated practices than was previously thought. A research team led by the University of Oxford has found that Neolithic farmers manured and watered their crops as early as 6,000 BC. It had always been assumed that manure wasn't used as a fertiliser until Iron Age and Roman times.

An international team of researchers has discovered why people with a variation of the FTO gene that affects one in six of the population are 70 per cent more likely to become obese. A new study led by scientists at UCL, the Medical Research Council (MRC) and King's College London Institute of Psychiatry shows that people with the obesity-risk FTO variant have higher circulating levels of the 'hunger hormone', ghrelin, in their blood.

Oxford University researchers have measured the learning gap experienced by five-year old children who are stunted through malnourishment. They are tracking the long-term effects on their schooling and later prospects in the jobs market. The new analysis, which examines children in four countries across three continents, has been conducted by the research group Young Lives, based in Oxford's Department of International Development.

The number of young people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes has seen the sharpest rise over the last twenty years compared to a background of a general increase across the board, new University research has found. The research by Professor Craig Currie, School of Medicine, published in the journal Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism , examined the published data describing the incidence of newly diagnosed cases of type 2 diabetes between 1991 and 2010.

Having too much body fat makes arteries become stiff after middle age, a new study has revealed. In young people, blood vessels appear to be able to compensate for the effects of obesity. But after middle age, this adaptability is lost, and arteries become progressively stiffer as body fat rises - potentially increasing the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease.

Researchers at the University of Liverpool have developed a smart phone app that helps users lose weight by carefully recording their food consumption. The app was developed in response to research from the University's Institute of Psychology, Health and Society , which showed that paying attention to what you eat while you eat it helps reduce food intake and prevents consuming excess calories at future meals.

Researchers at the University of Liverpool have developed a smart phone app that helps users lose weight by carefully recording their food consumption. The app was developed in response to research from the University's Institute of Psychology, Health and Society , which showed that paying attention to what you eat while you eat it helps reduce food intake and prevents consuming excess calories at future meals.

Drinking one extra sugar-sweetened soft drink a day can increase a person's risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 22 per cent, a new study suggests. The finding is based on data from 350,000 people in eight European countries and published in Diabetologia , the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes.

Their study is the first to evaluate a smartphone app as the sole method for monitoring weight loss, with researchers creating My Meal Mate to trial against similar products for monitoring food intake, an online food diary and the traditional paper version. The My Meal Mate app allows users to monitor their food intake and exercise, set a weight loss target and sends a weekly update on progress via text message.

As we uncover more and more variants and genetic links, we will gain a better basic understanding of obesity Sadaf Farooqi Researchers have identified four genes newly associated with severe childhood obesity. They also found an increased burden of rare structural variations in severely obese children.

Landmark study backs advice from World Cancer Research Fund People who follow seven diet and lifestyle recommendations have a 34 per cent reduced risk of dying from several diseases compared to people who don't follow the recommendations, a landmark study has shown. The researchers investigated nearly 380,000 people in nine European countries over 12 years and examined their diet and lifestyle to see how closely they complied with seven of the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) and American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) recommendations for cancer prevention.