A recent study examining the shared neurobiological substrates of obesity and addiction has concluded that “there are several identifiable circuits in the brain, whose dysfunctions uncover real and clinically meaningful parallels between the two disorders.” N.H. Volkow, et al., “Obesity and addiction: neurobiological overlaps,” Obesity Reviews, September 2012. According to the study’s authors, “Drugs of abuse tap into the neuronal mechanisms that modulate the motivation to consume food, thus, it is not surprising that there is an overlap in the neuronal mechanisms implicated in the loss of control and overconsumption of food intake seen in obesity and in the compulsive intake of drugs seen in addiction.” In particular, the study considers brain dopamine (DA) pathways and their role in both obesity and addiction, cautioning that the current debate over “food addiction” often oversimplifies behavioral patterns involving environmental and biological factors. As a result, the authors seek to sidestep the debate by…
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Mission: Readiness, a non-profit organization of senior retired military leaders, has issued a second report claiming that one in four young adults are still “too overweight to enlist.” Titled “Still Too Fat to Fight,” the latest report alleges that U.S. students “consume almost 400 billion calories from junk food sold at schools each year.” It also cites data from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggesting that efforts to improve school nutrition in New York City, Philadelphia and other cities have led to decreased childhood obesity rates in those areas. Building on its 2010 call-to-action, Mission: Readiness is urging schools and governments to consider limiting the sale of competitive foods in campus vending machines and cafeterias. “Removing the junk food from our schools should be part of nationwide comprehensive action that involves parents, schools, and communities in helping students build stronger bodies with less excess…
A recent commentary published in the International Journal of Obesity has dubbed high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) “one of the most misunderstood ingredients,” arguing that studies linking the sweetener’s use to increasing obesity rates tend to rely on temporal associations, “an ecologic fallacy in which group data are extrapolated to individuals.” D.M. Klurfeld et al., “Lack of evidence for high fructose corn syrup as the cause of the obesity epidemic,” International Journal of Obesity, September 2012. In particular, the article’s authors claim that not only did earlier hypotheses fuel misconceptions about “the metabolism and health effects of HFCS,” but more recent research has failed to identify a mechanism by which HFCS affects the body differently than sucrose, “the leading source of fructose in the American diet.” They also note that obesity and diabetes rates have not declined even as HFCS consumption has decreased and that these rates have persisted in areas…
Employment law practitioners are, according to a recent article, predicting an increase in the number of obesity-related claims filed against employers under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The 2008 amendments have made it easier for employees to prevail in these cases, and a trio of claims filed and resolved in recent months demonstrates that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and courts are recognizing obesity as a disability in itself, rather than focusing on some underlying physiological condition as the basis for the employees’ disability. Settlements of obesity claims in Texas and Louisiana have resulted in payments of $55,000 and $125,000, respectively, while the Montana Supreme Court determined that a physiological disorder underlying morbid obesity is not necessary for a disability claim under a state law that mirrors the ADA. See The National Law Journal, September 24, 2012.
The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) has issued a paper titled “Projecting the Effect of Changes in Smoking and Obesity on Future Life Expectancy in the United States.” Funded by the Social Security Administration and a grant from the National Institute on Aging, the research applied Markov modeling to National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys data from 1999 to 2008 to conclude that reductions in smoking rates coupled with increases in obesity will result in a gain of nearly one year of life expectancy for men and just a quarter of a year’s gain for women. According to the authors, “By 2040, male life expectancy at age 40 is expected to have gained 0.92 years from the combined effects. Among women, however, the two sets of effects largely offset one another throughout the projection period, with a small gain of 0.26 years expected by 2040.” The researchers also project…
The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) has announced that more than 30 public and private hospitals have joined its voluntary Healthy Hospital Food Initiative, a new program seeking to make healthier food choices available in health care settings. Billed as part of the department’s ongoing effort to curb obesity, the new initiative requires participating hospitals to implement the NYC Food Standards established in 2008 by Mayor Michael Bloomberg in four areas: “cafeterias, beverage vending machines, food vending machines and patient meals.” According to DOHMH, these standards are based on U.S. Department of Agriculture and Institute of Medicine nutritional guidelines and “use progressive strategies to make healthy foods easily available.” Under the new initiative, hospital cafeterias must use a variety of techniques “to make the healthy choice the easy choice” by increasing the availability of fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains; limiting the promotion of high calorie…
A recent study has purportedly identified an association between urinary bisphenol A (BPA) concentration and obesity in children and adolescents. Leonardo Trasande, et al., “Association Between Urinary Bisphenol A Concentration and Obesity Prevalence in Children and Adolescents,” Journal of the American Medical Association, September 2012. Relying on data from 2,838 participants ages 6-19 years who were enrolled in the 2003-2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, researchers evidently found that urinary BPA concentration “was significantly associated with obesity.” In particular, the study reported that urinary BPA values in the second, third and fourth quartiles showed “a substantial elevation in the odds of obesity” when compared with first-quartile values, with “an adjusted prevalence of obesity of 22.3%... among children in the highest quartile, compared with a 10.3% prevalence…among those in the lowest quartile.” “To our knowledge, this is the first report of an association of an environmental chemical exposure with childhood obesity in…
The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) has devoted its latest issue to articles focusing on obesity. Among them is a commentary authored by Thomas Farley, who is affiliated with New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which recently adopted a prohibition on sugar-sweetened beverages larger than 16 ounces. Titled “The Role of Government in Preventing Excess Calorie Consumption,” the opinion piece calls for “governments to regulate food products that harm the most people, simultaneously encourage food companies to voluntarily produce and market healthful products, and then provide information to consumers in ways that facilitate their choosing healthful products.” He argues that New York City has taken this approach and compares it to the city’s action on smoking, which has purportedly led to a 35 percent decline in smoking since 2002. Farley claims that industry opposes New York City’s portion rule by portraying it as a “limit…
Researchers with Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity have published a study purportedly assessing the effectiveness of “major obesity public health campaigns from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.” R. Puhl, et al., “Fighting obesity or obese persons? Public perceptions of obesity-related health messages,” International Journal of Obesity, September 2012. After showing a random selection of 10 obesity-related messages to “a nationally representative example of 1014 adults,” the study’s authors reported that participants responded most favorably “to messages involving themes of increased fruit and vegetable consumption, and general messages involving multiple health behaviors.” In particular, those messages that made no mention “obesity” but instead focused on general behaviors and empowerment were rated as more motivating by surveyed adults, while campaigns that “implied personal responsibility and blame… received the more negative/less positive ratings among participants.” “This suggests that messages intended to motivate individuals to be healthier…
A recent study has reportedly documented “lower cognitive performance and reductions in brain structural integrity” among adolescents with metabolic syndrome (MeTS), “thus suggesting that even relatively short-term impairments in metabolism, in the absence of clinically manifest vascular disease, may give rise to brain complications.” Po Lai Yau, et al., “Obesity and Metabolic Syndrome and Functional and Structural Brain Impairments in Adolescence,” Pediatrics, October 2012. Researchers with the New York University School of Medicine and the Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research apparently conducted cognitive testing on 111 adolescents with and without MeTS, concluding that those with metabolic syndrome “showed significantly lower arithmetic, spelling, attention, and mental flexibility and a trend for lower overall intelligence.” In addition, MRIs of the participants reportedly showed, “in a MeTS-dose—related fashion, smaller hippocampal volumes, increased brain cerebrospinal fluid, and reductions of microstructural integrity in major white matter tracts.” According to the report, these “alarming” findings imply that…
