Welcome to Weekly Health Update

“A critical weekly review of important new research findings for health-conscious readers”

BLUBERRIES, OBESITY, DIABETES AND METABOLIC SYNDROME

Metabolic syndrome includes a constellation of health disorders that are associated with a high risk of developing diabetes and cardiovascular disease.  Specific disorders that are associated with metabolic syndrome include high blood pressure, abnormal cholesterol and triglyceride levels in the blood, obesity, and diabetes (or “pre-diabetes”).  In the United States, where obesity has become an epidemic, public health experts estimate that as much as 25 percent of the population currently meets the criteria for metabolic syndrome.

Excessive calorie intake, a sedentary lifestyle, obesity in the abdominal and waist areas (central, or visceral, obesity), genetic factors, and other adverse health risks are known to contribute to the development of metabolic syndrome.  Therefore, both the prevention and treatment of metabolic syndrome are based upon exercise, a healthy low-fat and low-sugar/low-carb diet, and weight loss.  A new prospective, randomized clinical research study suggests that consuming blueberries may also help to reduce some of the adverse health risks associated with metabolic syndrome.

In this study, which appears in the current issue of The Journal of Nutrition, 48 adults (44 females and 4 males) with metabolic syndrome were divided into two groups.  One group, the “experimental group,” consumed 50 grams of freeze-dried blueberries per day (equivalent to 350 grams of fresh blueberries per day), in the form of a beverage, for a period of 8 weeks.  The other group, the “control group,” consumed a “placebo” beverage that did not contain any blueberries (also for 8 weeks).  Blood pressure checks and multiple blood tests were performed at both 4 weeks and 8 weeks into the study.

When comparing the two groups of patient volunteers, the patients in the “blueberry group” were found to have significantly greater decreases in their high blood pressure when compared to the control group.  The level of oxidized LDL cholesterol in the blood, which is a form of the “bad” LDL cholesterol that can directly damage the lining of arteries throughout the body (atherosclerosis), was also significantly decreased in the “blueberry group” of patient volunteers.  At the same time, there were no significant differences between the two groups of patient volunteers with respect to blood glucose (sugar) levels, triglyceride levels, or the levels of HDL (the “good” cholesterol) or LDL (the “bad” cholesterol) in the blood .

Therefore, while a brief period of a diet supplemented with blueberries did not reverse all of the abnormalities associated with metabolic syndrome, the consumption of the equivalent of about 350 grams of blueberries each day did appear to significantly improve at least two of the adverse health factors associated with this syndrome (i.e., high blood pressure and blood levels of oxidized LDL cholesterol).  Based upon the intriguing findings of this small and short-duration study, patients with one or more health factors associated with metabolic syndrome might consider adding some blueberries to their daily diet, in addition to the standard treatment for this life-threatening disorder!

For more information on blueberries, and other sources of dietary polyphenols, as part of a cancer prevention lifestyle, watch for the publication of my new landmark evidence-based book, “A Cancer Prevention Guide for the Human Race,” in September of this year.

Disclaimer: As always, my advice to readers is to seek the advice of your physician before making any significant changes in medications, diet, or level of physical activity

Dr. Wascher is an oncologic surgeon, a professor of surgery, a cancer researcher, an oncology consultant, and a widely published author

For a different perspective on Dr. Wascher, please click on the following YouTube link: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-Tdv7XW0qg

I and the staff of Weekly Health Update would again like to take this opportunity to thank the more than 100,000 health-conscious people, from around the world, who visit our premier global health information website every month.  As always, we enjoy receiving your stimulating feedback and questions, and I will continue to try and personally answer as many of your inquiries as I possibly can.

Welcome to Weekly Health Update

“A critical weekly review of important new research findings for health-conscious readers”

LACTOFERRIN REDUCES ABDOMINAL (VISCERAL) OBESITY

Disturbingly, two-thirds of the American population already meets the criteria for being overweight or obese, one-third meets the criteria for obesity, and at least 2 percent of Americans are now considered to be morbidly obese.  The cost of this rising epidemic of obesity is enormous (no pun intended), both to obese patients themselves, and to a nation that is struggling to pay for the skyrocketing cost of providing healthcare to its citizens. 

Obesity has been unquestionably linked to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, liver disease, gallstones, gastroesophageal reflux, arthritis, cancer, and multiple other serious illnesses.  Despite these sobering realities, however, the incidence of obesity continues to rise in the United States, and increasingly, throughout the world.

In our high-calorie, low-effort modern world, it is very easy to pack on excess weight over the course of our lives.  People, being people, are always looking for quick, easy solutions to their problems, including excess weight.  Unfortunately, other than decreasing our intake of food and increasing the amount of exercise that we regularly perform, no other cures for obesity have yet been found.

However, a newly published study in the British Journal of Nutrition has identified an unlikely new dietary supplement that may be helpful in the battle of the bulge.  Lactoferrin, which is abundant in the colostrum and milk of most mammals (including humans), is thought to primarily function as an antibacterial and antifungal agent, and may help to protect breast-fed babies from infection (in some countries, lactoferrin is routinely added to infant formula for this purpose).  Recent research has also suggested that lactoferrin may have a beneficial effect on the metabolism of fat within the body, and in particular, the so-called “visceral fat” that accumulates within the abdominal area, and which has been specifically linked to an increased risk of generalized inflammation in the body, as well as cardiovascular disease and cancer.

In this small prospective, randomized, doubled-blinded study, 26 overweight men and women with abdominal obesity were randomized to receive either daily lactoferrin supplements (300 milligrams per day) or an identical placebo (sugar) pill (none of the participating patient volunteers knew which group they were in until the study was completed).  These patient volunteers were then followed for 8 weeks.  All of these research volunteers underwent CT scans to measure the extent of their total body fat, superficial (subcutaneous) fat, and visceral (abdominal) fat. 

At the end of this 8-week study, the group that had been randomized to receive daily oral lactoferrin supplements experienced very significant decreases in visceral fat content, as well as decreased body weight, decreased BMI (a standardized measure of obesity that considers both body weight and height), and hip circumference, when compared to the group of volunteers who were assigned to take the placebo pills.  Additionally, blood tests to evaluate the impact of daily lactoferrin supplements on metabolism did not reveal any apparent adverse side effects associated with lactoferrin supplementation.

While this is a very small study (only 26 patient volunteers were included), and the length of follow-up was very short (only 8 weeks), the prospective, randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled design of this study, when combined with the rather striking results that were observed, are rather compelling.  Certainly, a larger study, with long-term follow-up, needs to be performed before daily lactoferrin supplements can be recommended as both a safe and effective aid to weight loss.  Moreover, such a study would need to show that the reduction in visceral fat that was observed in this small Japanese clinical study is not only reproducible over the long-term, but is also associated with a clinically significant improvement in the illnesses that have previously been linked to abdominal obesity.   Meanwhile, and until such a study is performed, I find the results from this small prospective clinical study to be very interesting, indeed.

For a detailed review of the impact of obesity, exercise, nutrition, and other important lifestyle factors on the risk of developing cancer, watch for the publication of my new landmark evidence-based book, “A Cancer Prevention Guide for the Human Race,” in September of this year.

Disclaimer: As always, my advice to readers is to seek the advice of your physician before making any significant changes in medications, diet, or level of physical activity

Dr. Wascher is an oncologic surgeon, a professor of surgery, a cancer researcher, an oncology consultant, and a widely published author

For a different perspective on Dr. Wascher, please click on the following YouTube link: 

Texas Blues Jam

I and the staff of Weekly Health Update would again like to take this opportunity to thank the more than 100,000 health-conscious people, from around the world, who visit our premier global health information website every month.  As always, we enjoy receiving your stimulating feedback and questions, and I will continue to try and personally answer as many of your inquiries as I possibly can.

Welcome to Weekly Health Update

“A critical weekly review of important new research findings for health-conscious readers”

OBESITY AND CANCER RISK

We have become the heaviest people in the history of our species, with two-thirds of Americans officially classified as overweight, and one of every three of us tipping the scales into the “obese” range.  For too many of us, day after day, we load our bodies with more fat- and calorie-packed foods than our bodies can utilize.  Surrounded by effort-saving devices that have drastically reduced the amount of food-derived energy that our bodies can reasonably metabolize, a majority of Americans are becoming progressively heavier and heavier.  Moreover, obesity now affects a shocking percentage of children and adolescents in our society, and it is no longer uncommon to see children and teenagers with obesity-related diseases, previously seen only in adults, like diabetes, arthritis, high blood pressure, gallstones, and cardiovascular disease.

In addition to chronic illnesses that have long been associated with obesity, it has become increasingly clear that the risk of multiple different types of cancer is also increased by obesity.  Now, a newly published public health study, which appears in a forthcoming issue of The Lancet Oncology, underscores the disturbing extent to which excess weight increases our risks of several different common types of cancer.

In this huge public health study, more than 400,000 patient volunteers from Asia, Australia, and New Zealand were followed for an average of 4 years.  When obese study volunteers (BMI of 30 or higher) were compared with volunteers of normal weight (BMI less than 25), the obese volunteers were found to have a 21 percent higher risk of death due to cancer.  The risk of dying of certain specific types of cancer were even higher among the obese volunteers, including a 50 percent increased risk of death due to colon cancer, a 68 percent increased risk of death due to rectal cancer, a 63 percent increased risk of death due to breast cancer (in postmenopausal women), a 162 percent increase in the risk of dying of ovarian cancer, a 321 percent increase in the risk of death due to cancer of the cervix, a 45 percent increase in the risk of death due to prostate cancer, and a 66 percent increase in the risk of dying from leukemia.

The findings of this enormous public health study are worrisome, to say the least, and reflect the very serious impact that obesity has on our risk of developing cancer, and the risk of dying from cancer.

Obesity is a growing public health problem in the United States and, increasingly, around the world; and the list of chronic, major illnesses associated with obesity continues to expand (along with our collective waistlines).  If you are overweight or obese, then please consult with your physician for advice on how best to lose your excess weight.  Meanwhile, sharply reduce your intake of high-calorie and high-fat foods, and begin a responsible and consistent exercise program, under your physician’s supervision. 

For a more detailed discussion of the scientific links between obesity and cancer, look for the publication of my new landmark book, “A Cancer Prevention Guide for the Human Race,” in August of this year. 

Disclaimer: As always, my advice to readers is to seek the advice of your physician before making any significant changes in medications, diet, or level of physical activity

Dr. Wascher is an oncologic surgeon, a professor of surgery, a cancer researcher, an oncology consultant, and a widely published author

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-Tdv7XW0qg

I and the staff of Weekly Health Update would like to take this opportunity to thank the more than 100,000 new and returning readers who visit our premier global health information website every month.  As always, we enjoy receiving your stimulating feedback and questions, and I will continue to try and personally answer as many of your inquiries as I possibly can.

Welcome to Weekly Health Update

“A critical weekly review of important new research findings for health-conscious readers”

Diacylglycerols (also known as diglycerides) are dietary fatty acids that are found, in small concentrations, in many vegetable-based cooking oils, including canola and soybean oils.  However, triacylglycerols, known more commonly as triglycerides, make up the vast majority of the fat content in vegetable-based cooking oils.  Triglycerides, which are the most common sources of dietary fat, are rapidly absorbed by the body and are easily converted into body fat.  (High levels of triglycerides in the blood have also been linked to obesity and cardiovascular disease.) 

Compared with triglyceride fats, diglycerides are more rapidly metabolized in the human body, and are less prone to being deposited as body fat.  In laboratory studies, dietary supplementation with diglyceride oil has been shown to reduce the accumulation of body fat in rats, and to improve overall fat energy metabolism.

A newly published clinical research study, which appears in the current issue of the Journal of Nutrition, further suggests a potential role for diglyceride oils in the prevention and treatment of obesity in humans.

In this study, 26 overweight women with elevated blood triglyceride levels participated in a “crossover” study of diglyceride oil dietary supplementation.  In the first phase of this study, these women volunteers were secretly randomized to receive either diglyceride-enriched vegetable oil (Enova oil, 40 grams per day) or an oil blend containing standard sunflower, safflower and rapeseed oils (40 grams per day, in a 1:1:1 ratio) for 28 days.  After a 4-week break, these patient volunteers were then switched (or “crossed over”) to the opposite dietary oil group for an additional 28 days.

In this study, diglyceride oil supplementation did not appear to alter overall energy metabolism, nor did it reduce blood levels of triglycerides.  However, the daily intake of diglyceride-enriched cooking oil did, indeed, significantly decrease the accumulation of body fat in these overweight women during the course of this small, brief clinical research study.

While switching to diglyceride-enriched cooking oil, alone, is unlikely to prevent or completely eliminate obesity, this vegetable-based fat source may have an important role to play as part of a lifestyle- and diet-based approach to maintaining a healthy weight. 

Now for some bad news related to diglyceride-enriched cooking oils.  Kao Corporation, the manufacturer of Enova oil (also sold as Econa oil), has recently suspended the sales of this product due to concerns about high levels of potentially carcinogenic glycidol fatty acid esters in this and other diglyceride-enriched products.  (These same fatty acid esters are also present in other vegetable-based cooking oils, but at much lower concentrations.)  Hopefully, though, Kao Corporation, or another manufacturer, will find a way to reduce the concentration of glycidol fatty acid esters in diglyceride-enriched food products, and these products will then return to the marketplace.   

To learn more about the critical roles of diet and weight control in the prevention of cancer, look for the publication of my new landmark book, “A Cancer Prevention Guide for the Human Race,” in the summer of this year.

Disclaimer: As always, my advice to readers is to seek the advice of your physician before making any significant changes in medications, diet, or level of physical activity

For a different perspective on Dr. Wascher, please click on the following YouTube link: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-Tdv7XW0qg