Want to lose weight? Eat a high fat diet, claims study

Agencies

December 7, 2017

New Delhi, Dec 7: While medical experts and nutritionists have always advised against the intake of fat-rich foods for a healthier life, a new study has brought good news for people who wish to eat fatty foods and lose weight at the same time.

Researchers have identified a pathway to prevent fat cell fat cells from growing larger that leads to weight gain and obesity.

According to researchers from Washington University in St. Louis US, by activating Hedgehog pathway in fat cells in mice they could feed the animals a high-fat diet without making them obese.

Senior investigator Fanxin Long said this could lead them to a new therapeutic target for treating obesity. "What's particularly important is that the animals in our study ate a high-fat diet but didn't gain weight, and in people, too much fat in the diet is a common cause of obesity," Long added.

They explained that fat gain is due mainly to increased fat cell size and each fat cell grows bigger so that it can hold larger fat droplets. A person gains weight mainly because fat cells get bigger, as opposed to having more fat cells. He focused on the so-called Hedgehog protein pathway that is active in many tissues in the body.

His team engineered mice with genes that activated the Hedgehog pathway in fat cells when those animals ate a high-fat diet. The results suggested that after eight weeks of eating the high-fat diet, control animals whose Hedgehog pathways had not been activated became obese. But the mice that had been engineered with genes to activate the pathway did not gain any more weight than did control animals that consumed normal diets.

The Hedgehog pathway prevented obesity by inhibiting the size of the fat cells, Long said. By stimulating Hedgehog and related proteins in fat cells, Long's team kept the animals' fat cells from collecting and storing fat droplets. "If we can come up with strategies to carefully target fat cells, then I think activating this pathway could be effective in the fight against obesity," he said.

People with obesity have an increased risk for stroke, heart attack, diabetes and cancer.

The research appears in the journal eLife.

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WHO says reviewing report on concerns over airborne spread of Covid-19

Agencies

July 7,2020

The World Health Organization (WHO) is reviewing a report that suggested its advice on the novel coronavirus needs updating after some scientists told the New York Times there was evidence the virus could be spread by tiny particles in the air.

The WHO says the Covid-19 disease spreads primarily through small droplets, which are expelled from the nose and mouth when an infected person breaths them out in coughs, sneezes, speech or laughter and quickly sink to the ground.

In an open letter to the Geneva-based agency, 239 scientists in 32 countries outlined the evidence they say shows that smaller exhaled particles can infect people who inhale them, the newspaper said on Saturday.

Because those smaller particles can linger in the air longer, the scientists - who plan to publish their findings in a scientific journal this week - are urging WHO to update its guidance, the Times said.

"We are aware of the article and are reviewing its contents with our technical experts," WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said in an email reply on Monday to a Reuters request for comment.

The extent to which the coronavirus can be spread by the so-called airborne or aerosol route - as opposed to by larger droplets in coughs and sneezes - remains disputed.

Any change in the WHO's assessment of the risk of transmission could affect its current advice on keeping one-metre physical distancing. Governments, which also rely on the agency for guidance policy, may also have to adjust public health measures aimed at curbing the spread of the virus.

"Especially in the last couple of months, we have been stating several times that we consider airborne transmission as possible but certainly not supported by solid or even clear evidence," Benedetta Allegranzi, the WHO's technical lead for infection prevention and control, was quoted as saying in the New York Times.

WHO guidance to health workers, dated June 29, says that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is primarily transmitted between people through respiratory droplets and on surfaces.

But airborne transmission via smaller particles is possible in some circumstances, such as when performing intubation and aerosol-generating procedures, it says.

Medical workers performing such procedures should wear heavy-duty N95 respiratory masks and other protective equipment in an adequately ventilated room, the WHO says.

Officials at South Korea's Centers for Disease Control said on Monday they were continuing to discuss various issues about Covid-19, including the possible airborne transmission. They said more investigations and evidence were needed.

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Congenital heart disease more deadly in low-income countries

Agencies

February 4,2020

Despite tremendous advances in treatment of congenital heart disease (CHD), a new global study shows that the chances for a child to survive a CHD diagnosis is significantly less in low-income countries.

The research revealed that nearly 12 million people are currently living with CHD globally, 18.7 per cent more than in 1990.

The findings, published in The Lancet, is drawn from the first comprehensive study of congenital heart disease across 195 countries, prepared using data from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk Factors Study 2017 (GBD).

"Previous congenital heart estimates came from few data sources, were geographically narrow and did not evaluate CHD throughout the life course," said the study authors from Children's National Hospital in the US.

This is the first time the GBD study data was used along with all available data sources and previous publications - making it the most comprehensive study on the congenital heart disease burden to date.

The study found a 34.5 per cent decline in deaths from congenital disease between 1990 to 2017. Nearly 70 per cent of deaths caused by CHD in 2017 (180,624) were in infants less than one year old.

Most CHD deaths occurred in countries within the low and low-middle socio-demographic index (SDI) quintiles.

Mortality rates get lower as a country's Socio-demographic Index (SDI) rises, the study said.

According to the researchers, birth prevalence of CHD was not related to a country's socio-demographic status, but overall prevalence was much lower in the poorest countries of the world.

This is because children in these countries do not have access to life saving surgical services, they added.

"In high income countries like the United States, we diagnose some heart conditions prenatally during the 20-week ultrasound," said Gerard Martin from Children's National Hospital who contributed to the study.

"For children born in middle- and low-income countries, these data draw stark attention to what we as cardiologists already knew from our own work in these countries -- the lack of diagnostic and treatment tools leads to lower survival rates for children born with CHD," said researcher Craig Sable.

"The UN has prioritised reduction of premature deaths from heart disease, but to meet the target of 'ending preventable deaths of newborns and children under 5 years of age,' health policy makers will need to develop specific accountability measures that address barriers and improve access to care and treatment," the authors wrote.

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