Bariatric weight loss surgery on obese patients with type 2 diabetes helped many to get their blood sugar to healthy levels and to no longer require any diabetes medicines, including insulin, three years after the procedure, according to data presented at a major medical meeting on Monday. The surgery also helped patients reduce the need for high blood pressure and cholesterol medicines and led to quality of life improvements compared with those who received medical weight-loss therapy, researchers found. The study called Stampede, which involved 150 obese patients who had poorly controlled type 2 diabetes for at least eight years, was conducted by Cleveland Clinic researchers. It compared two types of weight loss surgery against weight loss attained by diet and exercise along with nutrition counseling and, for some, additional diabetes medicines that can help promote weight loss, such as Victoza from Novo Nordisk.

By Ransdell Pierson and Bill Berkrot WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Diet drinks may increase the risk of heart attacks, stroke and other heart problems in postmenopausal women, according to an informal study that could take some fizz out of enjoyment of the popular beverages. Compared to women who never or seldom consume diet drinks, those who drank two or more a day were 30 percent more likely to suffer a cardiovascular event and 50 percent more likely to die from related disease, researchers found. The findings were gleaned from an analysis of diet drink intake and consequences among almost 60,000 participants in the Women’s Health Initiative, a long-running U.S. observational study of cardiovascular health trends among postmenopausal women. “Our findings are in line with and extend data from previous studies showing an association between diet drinks and metabolic syndrome,” said Dr. Ankur Vyas of the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, lead investigator of the study.

Title: Weight-Loss Surgery Cuts Risk for Heart Attack, Death: Study
Category: Health News
Created: 3/28/2014 9:35:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 3/28/2014 12:00:00 AM

Title: ‘Grazing’ Appears No Better for Weight Loss Than Standard Meals
Category: Health News
Created: 3/27/2014 9:35:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 3/27/2014 12:00:00 AM

By Allison Bond NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Women with a sunny disposition may also have an easier time adopting healthy habits, according to a new study. “It’s not just having a sunny outlook – rather, this is a marker of other things people do,” said Melanie Hingle, a dietician at the University of Arizona in Tucson. The study used data collected as part of the Women’s Health Initiative, a study of a national sample of postmenopausal women between the ages of 50 and 79. Hingle and her team found that the most optimistic one third of the women saw the most improvement in their diets, whether or not they had completed the nutrition program.

Fertility experts in Southampton are trialling the use of omega-3 fish oil and vitamin D to improve outcomes after in vitro fertilisation (IVF).

(Reuters) – GlaxoSmithKline Plc said some bottles of its weight-loss drug Alli bought in the United States had been tampered with and that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was investigating. Consumers reported that some bottles bought in stores in seven states contained products other than the drug, the company said on Wednesday. The bottles also could be unlabeled and the lot numbers might not match the numbers on the carton, it said. The company did not say if any consumers had taken pills from the bottles or if it was considering a recall.

Elderly women could benefit from consuming 29 percent more protein than the current nutrition guidelines recommend, according to new research from Purdue University.”Our data suggests that the current dietary protein requirement estimate may be too low and reinforces that more research is needed to identify accurate protein amounts for older adults,” said nutrition science professor Wayne W.

For weight loss, popular diets advocate everything from eating according to your blood type to nearly fasting for 2 days a week. Now, one popular instruction – to eat small but frequent meals throughout the day – has been called out by researchers, who say it does not boost metabolism or encourage weight loss.