Childhood antibiotics and antacids may be linked to heightened obesity risk

These drugs may alter gut microbes associated with weight gain, say researchers

October 30, 2018

Science Daily/BMJ

Young children prescribed antibiotics and, to a lesser extent, drugs to curb excess stomach acid, may be at heightened risk of obesity, new research suggests.

These drugs, particularly if taken for lengthy periods, may alter gut microbes that have been associated with weight gain, explain the researchers.

The composition of gut bacteria (the microbiome) has been linked to various aspects of human health, including obesity. And certain drugs, such as antibiotics and acid suppressants-histamine 2 receptor antagonists (H2RA) and proton pump inhibitors (PPIs)-can alter the type and volume of bacteria in the gut.

To try and find out if exposure to these drugs in early childhood might increase the risk of obesity, the researchers looked at the medicines prescribed to 333,353 infants, whose medical records had been input into the US Military Health System database between 2006 and 2013, in the first two years of their lives.

In all, 241, 502 (72.5%) had been prescribed an antibiotic; 39,488 (just under 12%) an H2RA; and 11,089 (just over 3%) a PPI during this period. Some 5868 children were prescribed all three types of drug.

Some 46,993 (just over 14%) children became obese, of whom 9628 (11%) had not been prescribed any antibiotics or acid suppressants.

Boys, those born after a caesarean section, and those whose parents were below officer rank were more likely to become obese.

But after taking account of potentially influential factors, a prescription for antibiotics or acid suppressants was associated with a heightened risk of obesity by the age of 3 -- the average age at which obesity was first identified in these children.

A prescription for antibiotics was associated with a 26 per cent heightened risk of obesity. This association persisted, irrespective of antibiotic type, and strengthened with each additional class of antibiotic prescribed.

Acid suppressants were also associated with a heightened obesity risk, although to a lesser extent, and this association strengthened for each 30-day supply prescribed.

Although the largest study of its kind, it is nevertheless observational, and as such, can't establish cause. And potentially influential information on how much the children's mothers weighed, and whether they smoked or had other underlying conditions wasn't available.

And the researchers emphasise that the links between the individual, the environment, and obesity are complex, highlighting the "current difficulty of drawing clear conclusions about the interplay between exposure history, gut microbiota and propensity to develop obesity."

They add: "There is an important therapeutic role for microbiota-altering medications. The long term risks to health must be weighed against the short-term benefits."

But they also point out that over prescription of both antibiotics and acid suppressants, including in young children, is "a significant problem."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181030184507.htm

Differences between male and female fat tissue, and health

Mouse study provides important clue as to how females stay healthier than males, even as body fat increases

October 23, 2018

Science Daily/York University

In a new study, researchers found that the abdominal fat on female mice had more blood vessels than the fat on male mice, and that this protected the health of the female mice as they gained fat from eating a high-fat diet.

Published today in Frontiers in Physiology -- Vascular Physiology, the research focuses on the differences between abdominal fat in obese male and female mice. A team of researchers under the direction of Professor Tara Haas found that the abdominal fat on female mice had more blood vessels than the fat on male mice, and that this protected the health of the female mice as they gained fat from eating a high-fat diet.

Males and females develop fat tissue differently and also differ in susceptibility to cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance and diabetes. However, the underlying biology behind why fat tissue in females is more protective against these conditions was not well understood, says Haas, a professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science, Faculty of Health.

Blood vessels are critical for maintaining healthy fat tissue by ensuring that the expanding fat cells are supplied with enough oxygen and nutrients, so the researchers looked at whether the abilities of the fat tissue to grow blood vessels and maintain healthy fat tissue would be different between males and females.

"We found that female mice have a higher number of blood vessels in their fat than males, and that females increase the number of blood vessels as they are fed a high fat diet, while males do not. We concluded that this response enabled females to maintain healthier fat and better insulin sensitivity," says Haas.

Martina Rudnicki, a York post-doctoral associate and first author of the study, pointed out that the study was unique because it focused on the differences in male and female fat tissue in the abdominal area. Although fat accumulates in different regions of the body, it is abdominal fat that is closely linked with increased risk of developing diabetes, particularly in males. So, the fact that females grow new blood vessels in this abdominal fat during weight gain may exert a health advantage for females.

The sex differences in the fundamental cellular processes that regulate the growth of blood vessels were unappreciated in the past, said Haas. It is important to understand them because they may contribute to an individual's susceptibility to develop serious obesity-related health complications such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer, ultimately impacting the health of more than 5.3 million Canadian adults.

The research team plans to confirm these findings in human samples. While it is clear that females also develop health problems with obesity, the fact that there was such a difference in the vascularization in male and female fat may mean it would be more effective to have different treatments for males and females.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181023130529.htm

Gut microbiota of infants predicts obesity in children

October 23, 2018

Science Daily/American Society for Microbiology

Evaluating the gut microbiota of infants may help identify children who are at risk for becoming overweight or obese. The research revealed that gut microbiota composition at two years of life is associated with body mass index (BMI) at age 12. In addition, the BMI at age two was not significantly higher in children who later became overweight/obese, indicating that gut microbiota composition may be the earliest warning sign for detecting obesity.

"Our study provides more evidence that the gut microbiota might be playing a role in later obesity," said lead author Maggie Stanislawski, PhD, who is a research associate at the LEAD Center, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Colorado School of Public Health, Aurora, Colorado. "If our findings can be confirmed by other studies, the gut microbiota might play an important part of the obesity prediction algorithm, to identify at-risk kids early in life, before they start to gain any excess weight that might put them at risk for later obesity."

Prior to this study, a growing body of evidence has demonstrated that the gut microbiota plays a role in obesity, and there is some evidence that the role might be causal. To shed more light on the issue, the University of Colorado researchers collaborated with Merete Eggesbø, MD, PhD, who leads the NoMIC study at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health in Oslo, and analyzed data from 165 infants who had BMI measured at 12 years.

The NoMIC study began in 2002 as one of the earliest birth cohorts in the world to investigate the early life gut microbiome and includes roughly 550 kids who are now teenagers. The study recruited moms and infants in the hospital at the time of delivery. At 12 years of age, 20% of the 165 children in the study cohort were overweight or obese.

The researchers compared the BMI at age 12 with gut microbiota samples from six time points throughout their childhood, at day 4, day 10, one month, four months, one year, and two years. They performed 16s rRNA gene sequencing on the gut microbiota samples. "We looked at whether there were specific taxa that were predictive of later BMI at each time point," said Dr. Stanislawski.

The researchers found qualitative differences in the composition of children's gut microbiota at day ten and at two years that were associated with BMI z-scores at age 12. BMI z-scores are measures of relative weight adjusted for child age and sex. They also examined how much of the variation in childhood BMI z-scores was explained by the early gut microbiota taxa.

"At the early time points, there was somewhat of a relationship between the gut microbiota taxa and later BMI, but the relationship was much stronger as the kids got older," said Dr. Stanislawski. "At one year, it was stronger than the earlier time points. At two years, it was the strongest. We found this very interesting because, at two years, there wasn't any obvious phenotype in terms of whether or not the kids were going to become obese. Kids who became obese later in life didn't have high BMI z-scores at age 2. The findings suggest that the gut microbiota phenotype was present before any overt sign of overweight or obesity. Since the gut microbiota is influenced by diet, this association could also reflect dietary choices that are precursors to obesity."

Dr. Stanislawski said the study was limited in that the entire cohort was of Norwegian descent. This research, she said, needs to be repeated in other cohorts, but if replicated, it may lead to a new tool to identify kids at risk for developing obesity. "It is better to identify at-risk kids early. It is easier to prevent obesity than to reverse it," said Dr. Stanislawski. "It's possible that if we follow up some of these findings in the lab, it will reveal more about the pathophysiology of obesity as well."

The study also exposed a potential health caution. The researchers found that some gut microbes that are generally thought to be healthy in both children and adults were associated with higher childhood BMI. This highlights that we do not fully understand the dynamics of the gut colonization process.

"When I was pregnant, my doctor suggested giving the baby probiotics every day, and I think a lot of people are giving their infants probiotics," said Dr. Stanislawski. "However, it might not be the best idea to give babies the same types of bacteria every day, particularly in very early life when overloading the gut with one or two strains may prevent colonization with other types of important bacteria." She pointed out that one way to improve the gut microbiota in kids and adults is to eat a well-balanced diet with lots of different types of vegetables and fiber, so there are lots of things feeding the gut microbiota.

Future research will focus on further examining the colonization process in relation to other markers of metabolic health in children. "We will focus on the temporal dynamics of first two years," said Dr. Stanislawski.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181023085640.htm

Effects of a high-fat diet may be passed on for three generations

October 12, 2018

Science Daily/BioMed Central

A high-fat diet in female mice affects their offspring's obesity, insulin resistance and addictive-like behaviors for three generations, according to a new study.

Researchers at ETH Zurich, Switzerland showed that second generation offspring -- grandchildren of mice that had consumed a high-fat diet before, during and after pregnancy showed addictive-like behaviors such as increased sensitivity and preference for drugs, as well as characteristics of obesity, including changes in their metabolism. In third generation offspring (the great grandchildren), the authors observed differences between males and females, with only females showing addictive-like behaviors and only males showing obesity characteristics.

This was the case although the original female mice themselves never became obese and although none of the following generations consumed a high-fat diet.

Dr Daria Peleg-Raibstein, the corresponding author said: "Most studies so far have only looked at the second generation or followed the long-term effects of obesity and diabetes on the immediate offspring. This study is the first to look at the effects of maternal overeating up until the third generation in the context of addiction as well as obesity."

The authors investigated these effects specifically for transmission via male offspring up until, and including, the third generation. To do so, they fed female mice either high-fat diet or a standard laboratory diet for nine weeks -- pre-mating, during pregnancy and during lactation. Their male offspring were then mated with females that had been fed a standard laboratory diet to generate the second-generation offspring. The male offspring of these mice was again mated with females that had been fed a standard laboratory diet to generate the third-generation offspring.

The authors measured body weight, insulin sensitivity, metabolic rates, and blood plasma parameters such as insulin and cholesterol in second and third-generation offspring. In behavioral experiments they investigated if the mice chose a high-fat over a standard laboratory diet or an alcohol solution over water, as well as their activity levels after exposure to amphetamines. They did this to better understand if a maternal high-fat diet had an effect on obesity, overeating and drug sensitivity in subsequent generations.

Dr Peleg-Raibstein said: "To combat the current obesity epidemic, it is important to identify the underlying mechanisms and to find ways for early prevention. The research could help improve health advice and education for pregnant and breastfeeding couples and give their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren a better chance of a healthy lifestyle. It may also provide a way of identifying risk factors for how people develop obesity and addiction and suggest early interventions for at-risk groups."

Dr Peleg-Raibstein added: "It is quite a leap to apply conclusions from mouse studies to humans, but studying effects of maternal over-eating is almost impossible to do in people because there are so many confounding factors, such as socio-economic background, the parents' food preferences or their existing health conditions. The mouse model allowed us to study the effects of a high-fat diet on subsequent generations without these factors."

Further studies are needed to determine the molecular mechanism by which the effects of a female high-fat diet may be passed on to following generations.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181012082710.htm

Study firms up diet and depression link

October 10, 2018

Science Daily/James Cook University

In an unusual experiment, researchers have found that among Torres Strait Islander people the amount of fish and processed food eaten is related to depression.

A JCU research team led by Professors Zoltan Sarnyai and Robyn McDermott looked at the link between depression and diet on a Torres Strait island, where fast food is available, and on a more isolated island, which has no fast food outlets.

Dr Maximus Berger, the lead author of the study, said the team interviewed about 100 people on both islands.

"We asked them about their diet, screened them for their levels of depression and took blood samples. As you'd expect, people on the more isolated island with no fast food outlets reported significantly higher seafood consumption and lower take-away food consumption compared with people on the other island," he said.

The researchers identified nineteen people as having moderate to severe depressive symptoms: sixteen were from the island where fast food is readily available, but only three from the other island.

"People with major depressive symptoms were both younger and had higher take-away food consumption," said Dr Berger.

The researchers analysed the blood samples in collaboration with researchers at the University of Adelaide and found differences between the levels of two fatty acids in people who lived on the respective islands.

"The level of the fatty acid associated with depression and found in many take-away foods was higher in people living on the island with ready access to fast food, the level of the fatty acid associated with protection against depression and found in seafood was higher on the other island," said Dr Berger.

He said it was important to remember that contemporary Western diets have an abundance of the depression-linked fatty acid (n-6 PUFA) and a relative lack of the depression-fighting fatty acid (n-3 LCPUFA).

"In countries with a traditional diet, the ratio of n-6 to n-3 is 1:1, in industrialised countries it's 20:1," he said.

Professor Sarnyai said depression affects about one in seven people at some point in their lives and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are disproportionately affected by psychological distress and mental ill-health compared with the general population.

"Depression is complex, it's also linked to social and environmental factors so there will be no silver bullet cure, but our data suggests that a diet that is rich in n-3 LCPUFA as provided by seafood and low in n-6 PUFA as found in many take-away foods may be beneficial," he said.

Professor Sarnyai said with the currently available data it was premature to conclude that diet can have a lasting impact on depression risk but called for more effort to be put into providing access to healthy food in rural and remote communities.

"It should be a priority and may be beneficial not only to physical health but also to mental health and wellbeing," he said.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181010093645.htm

Vitamin D supplements may promote weight loss in obese children

September 27, 2018

Science Daily/European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology

Vitamin D supplements may promote weight loss and reduce risk factors for future heart and metabolic disease in overweight and obese children, according to new research. These findings indicate that simple vitamin D supplementation may be part of an effective strategy to tackle childhood obesity and reduce the risk of serious health problems, such as heart disease, in adulthood.

Obesity in childhood and adolescence represents a major health problem worldwide, which leads to the development of expensive, serious and debilitating complications, including heart disease and diabetes, in later life. Although vitamin D deficiency is typically associated with impaired bone health, in recent years it has been increasingly linked with increased body fat accumulation and obesity, with the precise nature of this relationship currently under intense investigation by researchers. However, the effect of vitamin D supplementation on the weight and health of obese children and adolescents had not yet been investigated.

In this study, Dr. Christos Giannios, Professor Evangelia Charmandari and colleagues at the University of Athens Medical School and the 'Aghia Sophia' Children's Hospital in Athens, assessed 232 obese children and adolescents over 12 months, with 117 randomly assigned to receive vitamin D supplementation, in accordance with the Endocrine Society's guidelines on treatment and prevention of deficiency. Levels of vitamin D, body fat, and blood markers of liver function and heart health were assessed at the start of the study and 12 months later. The study reported that children given vitamin D supplements had significantly lower body mass index, body fat and improved cholesterol levels after 12 months of supplementation.

"These findings suggest that simple vitamin D supplementation may reduce the risk of overweight and obese children developing serious heart and metabolic complications in later life," says lead researcher Prof Charmandari.

The team now plan to investigate the effects of vitamin D supplementation on the health of obese children and adolescents that already have unhealthy conditions, such as high blood pressure, high blood glucose and high cholesterol, all of which increase the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

Prof Charmandari cautions, "Although these initial findings indicate that vitamin D could be used in the treatment of obesity, there remains a lack of evidence on the safety and long-term effects of supplementation, particularly if there is no vitamin D deficiency. However, if your child is overweight or obese I recommend that you consult your primary care physician for advice, and consider having their vitamin D levels tested."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180927215656.htm

Overweight pregnant women can safely cut calories, restrict weight gain

Healthier for mom and baby to control mom's weight gain during pregnancy

September 24, 2018

Science Daily/Northwestern University

With proper nutrition guidance, it is safe and feasible to restrict weight gain in obese and overweight pregnant women, a new study shows.

Being obese or overweight during pregnancy can result in serious health problems for the mother and child. Obstetricians are often reluctant to recommend restricted weight gain for pregnant women due to safety concerns for the baby and lack of time and tools to safely guide women in their weight control efforts.

A new Northwestern Medicine study shows with proper nutrition guidance it is safe and feasible to restrict weight gain in obese and overweight pregnant women. The obese and overweight women in the study gained five pounds less during their pregnancy than those in the control group. Their babies were born in the normal weight range.

The approach included nutritional counseling on a healthy diet and lifestyle as supported by a commercially available smartphone diet app, with ongoing coaching via the phone and online.

"We need to help these women, who make up the majority of pregnancies in the U.S, leverage this unique opportunity during their pregnancy to adopt a healthier diet and lifestyle plan that they can follow throughout pregnancy and, hopefully, post-partum," said lead study author Linda Van Horn, professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "These results show promise in harnessing modern technology to help a mom achieve those goals."

The majority of U.S. women of reproductive age are overweight or obese, and the risk of excess gestational weight gain is higher for them than women of healthy weight. Among the risks for women and their babies: diabetes, preeclampsia, hypertension and birth defects.

Van Horn, along with obstetrician colleague Dr. Alan Peaceman, developed and led the study, called MOMFIT (Maternal Offspring Metabolics: Family Intervention Trial). It was part of the Lifestyle Interventions for Expectant Moms (LIFE-Moms) Consortium, a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-supported research project, with each study implementing separate interventions.

The Northwestern study was novel because it concentrated on improving diet quality and healthy lifestyle in the moms using modern tools and focused on potential maternal fetal nutrition advantages that could have lifelong benefits, Van Horn said.

The study will be published Sept. 24 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

This is believed to be the first study of obese and overweight pregnant women using a technologically advanced, commercially available weight-loss smartphone app to test the effects of a specially tailored diet combined with modest physical activity.

Existing commercial weight control technologies target non-pregnant women and don't address prenatal energy and nutrient needs, the authors said. Most commercial apps are designed to support weight loss. During pregnancy, weight gain is anticipated and appropriate, but it should be curtailed in overweight and obese women.

"MOMFIT demonstrates the feasibility of counseling pregnant women in healthy diet and lifestyle behaviors through nutrition coaching using modern technology," Van Horn said. "Applying this approach in a clinical setting could help women achieve recommended weight-gain goals during pregnancy and improve postpartum lifestyle behaviors for the whole family."

One unusual outcome of the trial was a higher rate of cesarean sections for the women in the intervention group. Researchers are investigating possible contributors to this finding.

Will MOMFIT kids have less risk of developing obesity?

"The next big question is whether the children born to moms who restricted their weight gain will have a reduced risk of becoming obese themselves compared to children whose moms were in the control group," Van Horn said.

Children born to overweight and obese moms have more than a 50 percent chance of becoming overweight themselves. If both parents are overweight or obese, this risk can increase to more than 70 percent, according to epidemiological data.

The difference in the children's obesity risk won't be evident until they are three, four and five years old, which is when weight trajectories start to separate. Van Horn and colleagues have recently launched a new study -- KIDFIT -- to monitor the children of the women in her MOMFIT study and determine whether prenatal and/or postpartum diet and lifestyle counseling can help these children lower their risk of obesity.

Rebooting the whole family's diet

The study's goal was not weight loss. "Weight loss during pregnancy is not encouraged. Rather, we aimed for controlled weight gain by developing healthy diet habits and increasing physical activity that could be sustained long term.

"The overarching goal of MOMFIT was to help the mom make these changes while she was still pregnant, a time when many women are more motivated to do what is right for their babies, and then maintain these new behaviors and become a role model for the family and better informed about how to feed them," Van Horn said.

"The perpetuation of obesity is a never-ending cycle. We're attempting to interrupt that cycle and successfully influence the risk for developing pediatric obesity starting in utero and -- with additional follow up -- protect that child from adopting that parental heritage in the family home."

Fewer participants in the intervention group, 68.6 percent versus 85 percent, exceeded the National Academy of Medicine recommendations for pregnancy weight gain for obese and overweight women, which is limited to 11 to 25 pounds compared to 25 to 35 pounds for women of healthy weight. This is important evidence demonstrating the challenges of encouraging pregnant women to adhere to recommended diet and activity levels at a time when emotional-eating and reluctance to exercise tend to increase.

How the study worked

MOMFIT studied 281 ethnically diverse overweight or obese women ages 18 to 45, who were divided into the intervention or control group. Women in the intervention group met with a nutritionist who calculated the appropriate amount of calories for each participant and counseled her on a DASH-type diet -- higher in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, fish and lean protein. It was modified to the restricted weight gain recommendations for each participant.

The DASH (Diet Approach to Stopping Hypertension) eating pattern is ideally suited to pregnancy, providing a pregnant woman with the calcium, potassium and protein she needs without the salt, sugar and saturated fat that she does not need, Van Horn said.

The women were also encouraged to walk at least 30 minutes or take 10,000 steps per day. The nutrition coach tracked each woman's weight gain, food intake and exercise. Telephone, text message prompts and e-mail reminders encouraged women to adhere to the program.

"It was technologically convenient yet strategic and nutritionally individualized," Van Horn said. "MOMFIT took a precision medicine approach to healthy eating utilizing a commercially available product."

Women tracked their food intake with the Lose It! app. Participants were also encouraged to sleep seven to nine hours daily, because sleep deprivation hampers metabolism and contributes to weight gain.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180924084332.htm

Anti-inflammatory protein promotes healthy gut bacteria to curb obesity

New approach to weight loss and diabetes prevention published

September 19, 2018

Science Daily/University of North Carolina Health Care

Scientists have discovered that the anti-inflammatory protein NLRP12 normally helps protect mice against obesity and insulin resistance when they are fed a high-fat diet. The researchers also reported that the NLRP12 gene is underactive in people who are obese, making it a potential therapeutic target for treating obesity and diabetes, both of which are risk factors for cardiovascular disease and other serious conditions.

The study, published in Cell Host & Microbe, showed that NLRP12's anti-inflammatory effect promotes the growth of a "good" family of gut-dwelling bacteria, called Lachnospiraceae, that produce small molecules butyrate and propionate, which in turn promote gut health and protect mice against obesity and insulin resistance.

"Obesity is influenced by inflammation, not just by overeating and lack of exercise, and this study suggests that reducing inflammation promotes 'good' bacteria that can help maintain a healthy weight," said study senior author Jenny P-Y Ting, PhD, a William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Genetics. "In mice, we showed that NLRP12 reduces inflammation in the gut and in adipose fat tissues. Although a direct causal effect is difficult to show in humans, our collaborators did help us show there are reduced expression levels of NLRP12 in individuals who are considered obese."

In humans, NLRP12 is produced by several types of immune cells and appears to function as a brake on excessive inflammation. Ting and colleagues in recent years have published studies showing that mice lacking the NLRP12 gene are highly susceptible to excessive inflammation, including experimental colon inflammation (colitis) and associated colon cancer.

In recent years, researchers have found evidence that inflammation in the gut and in where fat is deposited promotes obesity. About 40 percent of adults and 20 percent of children and teens age 2 to 19 in the United States are considered obese, according to recent government estimates. Being obese or even overweight can lead to a host of other conditions, including heart disease, stroke, cancers, and diabetes. Ting and colleagues in this study therefore sought to determine whether mice lacking the NLRP12 gene are more susceptible to obesity. The findings showed that they are.

The scientists fed mice that lacked the NLRP12 gene (NLRP12-knockout mice) and ordinary mice a high-fat diet for several months. The NLRP12-knockout mice ate and drank no more than their healthy cousins but accumulated significantly more fat and became heavier. The knockout mice also showed signs of insulin resistance, which involves a reduced ability to clear glucose from the bloodstream and tends to follow the development of obesity.

The absence of NLRP12 in these mice led to increased signs of inflammation in the gut and in fat deposits, but it wasn't clear how this led to extra weight gain until the researchers moved the animals from one facility to another. Following standard safety protocols to prevent disease spread, the researchers dosed the mice with antibiotics before the move.

"We noticed that the mice treated with antibiotics gained less weight than the mice that stayed in the old facility," said study co-first author Agnieszka Truax, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in the Ting lab during the study. "That led us to suspect that gut bacteria were involved in promoting obesity."

Further tests showed that when NLRP12-knockout mice were kept in a bacteria-free condition, the mice did not gain weight because there were no bacteria. The deficiency of NLRP12 didn't matter as much. This suggested that "bad" bacteria had been driving the excess weight gain during a high-fat diet.

Remarkably, the knockout mice were also protected from excess weight gain when they were co-housed with control mice, hinting that "good" bacteria from the control mice were getting into them and helping to protect them.

Scientists have known that high-fat diets, as compared to low-fat diets, tend to reduce the diversity of bacterial species in the gut by suppressing some species and allowing a few others to proliferate abnormally. The UNC researchers confirmed this in their high-fat-eating mice, and they observed that the loss of bacterial diversity was much worse in the Nlrp12-knockout mice.

The experiments suggested that inflammation caused by a high-fat diet and worsened by the absence of NLRP12 was a major cause of this shift. Killing off rival bacterial species allowed a sharp rise in the levels of a bacterial family called Erysipelotrichaceae. These microbes became more prominent as gut inflammation worsened and exacerbated the weight-gain from a high-fat diet when put into the guts of otherwise germ-free mice.

By contrast, the Lachnospiraceae family of bacteria, which tended to die off in mice fed a high-fat diet, appeared to be highly beneficial. The researchers fed Lachnospiraceae to NLRP12-knockout mice prior to and during three weeks of high-fat eating and found that these "good" bacteria reduced gut inflammation, eliminated the hegemony of harmful Erysipelotrichaceae, and promoted more bacterial diversity. The Lachnospiraceae also significantly protected the animals against obesity and associated insulin-resistance.

"All the inflammatory and metabolic changes we had seen in the NLRP12-knockout mice during a high-fat diet were essentially reversed when we re-supplied Lachnospiraceae," Truax said.

Lachnospiraceae contain enzymes that convert carbs and fiber into small molecules called short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). The scientists observed that two in particular, butyrate and propionate, appeared in significantly greater abundance when Lachnospiracea levels rose. Butyrate and propionate are known to have anti-inflammatory properties that promote gut health. The UNC team fed these SCFAs to the NLRP12-knockout mice and found that SCFAs protected the animals from the absence of NLRP12 just as well as the Lachnospiraceae had done.

Butyrate, propionate, and other SCFAs are already widely available as health supplements. But are these results in mice relevant to humans? A further test suggested that they are. Collaborating scientists Mihai Netea, MD, PhD, and Rinke Stienstra, PhD, from Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands examined fat cells from obese human patients and observed that the higher the measure of obesity -- the body-mass index -- the lower the activity of the NLRP12 gene tended to be.

Thus, treating people with "good" bacteria or the beneficial SCFAs they produce might one day be a relatively inexpensive strategy to combat obesity as well as diabetes and other obesity-driven conditions. Ting and colleagues plan to continue their investigations in that direction.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180919133616.htm

Young children's oral bacteria may predict obesity

September 19, 2018

Science Daily/Penn State

Weight gain during early childhood is related to the composition of oral bacteria of two-year-old children, suggesting this understudied aspect of a children's collection of microorganisms could serve as an early indicator for childhood obesity.

Weight gain trajectories in early childhood are related to the composition of oral bacteria of two-year-old children, suggesting that this understudied aspect of a child's microbiota -- the collection of microorganisms, including beneficial bacteria, residing in the mouth -- could serve as an early indicator for childhood obesity. A study describing the results appears September 19 in the journal Scientific Reports.

"One in three children in the United States is overweight or obese," said Kateryna Makova, Pentz Professor of Biology and senior author of the paper. "If we can find early indicators of obesity in young children, we can help parents and physicians take preventive measures."

The study is part of a larger project with researchers and clinicians at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center called INSIGHT, led by Ian Paul, professor of pediatrics at the Medical Center, and Leann Birch, professor of foods and nutrition at the University of Georgia. The INSIGHT trial includes nearly 300 children and tests whether a responsive parenting intervention during a child's early life can prevent the development of obesity. It is also designed to identify biological and social risk factors for obesity.

"In this study, we show that a child's oral microbiota at two years of age is related to their weight gain over their first two years after birth," said Makova.

The human digestive tract is filled with a diverse array of microorganisms, including beneficial bacteria, that help ensure proper digestion and support the immune system. This "microbiota" shifts as a person's diet changes and can vary greatly among individuals. Variation in gut microbiota has been linked to obesity in some adults and adolescents, but the potential relationship between oral microbiota and weight gain in children had not been explored prior to this study.

"The oral microbiota is usually studied in relation to periodontal disease, and periodontal disease has in some cases been linked to obesity," said Sarah Craig, a postdoctoral scholar in biology at Penn State and first author of the paper. "Here, we explored any potential direct associations between the oral microbiota and child weight gain. Rather than simply noting whether a child was overweight at the age of two, we used growth curves from their first two years after birth, which provides a more complete picture of how the child is growing. This approach is highly innovative for a study of this kind, and gives greater statistical power to detect relationships."

Among 226 children from central Pennsylvania, the oral microbiota of those with rapid infant weight gain -- a strong risk factor for childhood obesity -- was less diverse, meaning it contained fewer groups of bacteria. These children also had a higher ratio of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes, two of the most common bacteria groups found in the human microbiota.

"A healthy person usually has a lot of different bacteria within their gut microbiota," said Craig. "This high diversity helps protect against inflammation or harmful bacteria and is important for the stability of digestion in the face of changes to diet or environment. There's also a certain balance of these two common bacteria groups, Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes, that tends to work best under normal healthy conditions, and disruptions to that balance could lead to dysregulation in digestion."

Lower diversity and higher Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes (F:B) ratio in gut microbiota are sometimes observed as a characteristic of adults and adolescents with obesity. However, the researchers did not see a relationship of weight gain with either of these measures in gut microbiota of two-year-olds, suggesting that the gut microbiota may not be completely established at two years of age and may still be undergoing many changes.

"There are usually dramatic changes to an individual's microbiota as they develop during early childhood," said Makova. "Our results suggest that signatures of obesity may be established earlier in oral microbiota than in gut microbiota. If we can confirm this in other groups of children outside of Pennsylvania, we may be able to develop a test of oral microbiota that could be used in clinical care to identify children who are at risk for developing obesity. This is particularly exciting because oral samples are easier to obtain than those from the gut, which require fecal samples."

Interestingly, weight gain in children was also related to diversity of their mother's oral microbiota. This could reflect a genetic predisposition of the mother and child to having a similar microbiota, or the mother and child having a similar diet and environment.

"It could be a simple explanation like a shared diet or genetics, but it might also be related to obesity," said Makova. "We don't know for sure yet, but if there is an oral microbiome signature linked to the dynamics of weight gain in early childhood, there is a particular urgency to understand it. Now we are using additional techniques to look at specific species of bacteria -- rather than larger taxonomic groups of bacteria -- in both the mothers and children to see whether specific bacteria species influence weight gain and the risk of obesity."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180919083508.htm

Strength-based exercises could help child obesity fight

September 19, 2018

Science Daily/University of Edinburgh

Encouraging young people to do strength-based exercises -- such as squats, push ups and lunges -- could play a key role in tackling child obesity, research suggests.

Taking part in exercises that cause muscles to contract, and strengthen muscles and bones, was found to reduce children's body fat percentage.

The findings also suggests an increase in muscle mass -- gained from strength-based exercises -- could help boost children's metabolism and energy levels.

The effects were small but meaningful, prompting calls for further research to investigate how resistance training could treat and prevent the growing issue of child obesity.

Researchers at the Universities of Edinburgh and Dundee examined the findings from a number of studies that explored effects of resistance training on body weight for children aged nine to 18 years.

They found that resistance training decreased body fat, but had no overall effect on other measures, including lean muscle mass, body mass index and waist circumference.

This is the most extensive review so far of resistance training's impact on young people.

Research from 18 studies across eight countries was examined, including the US, Australia, and Japan.

Helen Collins, a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh and Sport and Exercise Scientist at the University of Dundee, said the results show the positive effect resistance training can have on maintaining a healthy weight and reducing body fat for young people.

"Treatment, and more importantly, prevention, of child obesity is a growing concern. Our findings highlight the need for more robust research into the role strength-based exercises can play in helping everyone make healthy life choices and be more physically active."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180919083145.htm

Either too much or too little weight gain during pregnancy is associated with adverse outcomes in children aged 7 years

September 17, 2018

Science Daily/Diabetologia

New research shows that if a woman gains either too much or too little weight during pregnancy, there are adverse effects in children at 7 years of age.

There have been various studies on the effects of weight gain during pregnancy (gestational weight gain or GWG), however data on the metabolic effects in the children subsequently born have not been comprehensively studied. This study aims to evaluate the relationship between GWG and cardiometabolic risk in offspring aged 7 years.

The study included a total of 905 mother-child pairs who were enrolled in the follow-up visit of the multicentre Hyperglycemia and Adverse Pregnancy Outcome study, at the study centre in Hong Kong. Women were classified as having gained weight below, within or exceeding the 2009 Institute of Medicine (IOM) guidelines. Also factored in the study were standardised GWG values based on pre-pregnancy body-mass index (BMI).

Among the 905 women, the mean pre-pregnancy BMI was 21 kg/m2, the total prevalence of overweight and/or obese participants was 8.3%. The weight change from pre-pregnancy to delivery was 15kg on average, with 17% having gained weight below, 42% having gained weight within and 41% having gained weight exceeding the IOM recommendation.

Independent of pre-pregnancy BMI, gestational hyperglycaemia and other confounders, women who gained more weight than the IOM recommendation had offspring with larger body size at age 7 years, and increased odds of higher body fat, high blood pressure and poor blood sugar control, while women who gained less than the recommendation had offspring with increased risks of high blood pressure and poor blood sugar control at 7 years of age, compared with those who gained weight within the recommended range.

The authors say: "We found evidence of linkage between GWG and several cardiometabolic risk factors in the offspring aged 7 years, independently of maternal BMI prior to pregnancy and glucose level during pregnancy. These findings have important implications for both prevention and treatment. There is a need for greater awareness and monitoring of weight gain during pregnancy. Pregnancy might be a potential window of opportunity for intervention through modifiable behaviours, including maternal nutrition and physical activity."

However, they add: "Although limiting excessive GWG may help minimise the intergenerational cycle of obesity, the benefits of lower weight gain must be balanced against other cardiometabolic risks -- such as high blood pressure and poorer blood sugar control -- and risk of stunted growth in the offspring if GWG is inadequate."

They conclude: "Long-term follow-up of these children is necessary to evaluate the effect of maternal GWG on cardiometabolic risk in adolescence and adulthood."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180917191907.htm

Anti-inflammatory diet linked to reduced risk of early death

September 13, 2018

Science Daily/Wiley

Adhering to an anti-inflammatory diet was associated with lower risks of dying from any cause, dying from cardiovascular causes, and dying from cancer in a recent Journal of Internal Medicine study.

In the study of 68,273 Swedish men and women aged 45 to 83 years who were followed for 16 years, participants who most closely followed an anti-inflammatory diet had an 18% lower risk of all-cause mortality, a 20% lower risk of cardiovascular mortality, and a 13% lower risk of cancer mortality, when compared with those who followed the diet to a lesser degree. Smokers who followed the diet experienced even greater benefits when compared with smokers who did not follow the diet.

Anti-inflammatory foods consist of fruits and vegetables, tea, coffee, whole grain bread, breakfast cereal, low-fat cheese, olive oil and canola oil, nuts, chocolate, and moderate amounts of red wine and beer. Pro-inflammatory foods include unprocessed and processed red meat, organ meats, chips, and soft-drink beverages.

"Our dose-response analysis showed that even partial adherence to the anti-inflammatory diet may provide a health benefit," said lead author Dr. Joanna Kaluza, an associate professor at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences, in Poland.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180913113815.htm

The link to this guide below contains a great deal of additional information about probiotics including common myths associated with them as well as how to select the right strain for your body.
https://sibosurvivor.com/probiotics/

High blood sugar during pregnancy ups risk of mother's type 2 diabetes, child's obesity

September 11, 2018

Science Daily/NIH/National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases

Mothers with elevated blood glucose during pregnancy -- even if not high enough to meet the traditional definition of gestational diabetes -- were significantly more likely to have developed type 2 diabetes a decade after pregnancy than their counterparts without high blood glucose.

For children born to mothers with elevated or normal glucose, researchers found no statistically significant difference between the two groups of children in terms of their combined overweight and obesity, the study's primary outcome. However, when obesity was measured alone, children of mothers with elevated blood glucose were significantly more likely to be obese.

The results are part of a follow-up study published Sept. 11 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Funded primarily by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), part of the National Institute of Health, the Hyperglycemia and Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes-Follow-up Study or HAPO-FUS, followed mothers and their children 10-14 years after birth.

The original HAPO study found that even modestly elevated blood glucose levels increased the risks of complications for the baby both before and shortly after birth. Based on these results many, but not all, organizations adopted a new definition of gestational diabetes, a type of diabetes that occurs during pregnancy.

HAPO-FUS compared the long-term effects of blood glucose levels in mothers who would have met the new definition of gestational diabetes with those who did not. Researchers aimed to learn if modest increases in blood glucose increased the mother's risk of developing type 2 diabetes or prediabetes and the risk of obesity in the mother's offspring at least a decade after giving birth.

The study found the harms of even modestly elevated blood glucose for both mother and child extend more than a decade. Among women with elevated blood glucose during pregnancy, nearly 11 percent had type 2 diabetes at the follow-up study visit 10-14 years after childbirth and about 42 percent had prediabetes. Of their counterparts who did not have elevated blood glucose during pregnancy, about 2 percent had type 2 diabetes and about 18 percent had prediabetes. The study examined 4,697 mothers for type 2 diabetes, prediabetes and other disorders of glucose metabolism.

Researchers analyzed 4,832 children for overweight and obesity, collecting data using body mass index (BMI), body fat percentage, skin fold thickness and waist circumference. They found that these measures all showed that children born to mothers with elevated glucose levels were more likely to be obese. For example, using BMI, 19 percent of children born to mothers with elevated blood glucose were obese, compared with 10 percent for children of mothers with normal glucose.

Adjusting for the mother's BMI reduced -- but did not eliminate -- the differences between the groups.

"The differences in mothers and their children due to the mother's higher blood glucose are very concerning. Even accounting for the mother's weight, glucose had an independent effect," said Dr. Barbara Linder, a study author and senior advisor for childhood diabetes research at the NIDDK. "Our findings add to the motivation to find ways to help women at high risk for gestational diabetes who are or plan to get pregnant to take steps to reduce their risk."

The original HAPO study looked at 23,316 mother-child pairs and found that a mother's blood sugar levels, even short of diabetes, were associated with her newborn's birth weight and body fat. HAPO results led an international panel of experts to recommend new diagnostic criteria for gestational diabetes in 2010. However, not all professional groups adopted these proposed criteria.

"HAPO helped redefine gestational diabetes, and now its follow up continues to raise important alarms about the long-term danger of high blood glucose levels during pregnancy," said study chair Dr. Boyd Metzger, emeritus Tom D. Spies Professor of Nutrition and Metabolism at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago. "This study shows that both mothers with elevated blood glucose levels and their offspring are at higher risk for adverse health effects later in life. More research is needed to find interventions to help both these women and their children."

None of the women in HAPO-FUS were diagnosed with or treated for gestational diabetes during their pregnancy. HAPO recruited an international, racially and ethnically diverse group. Limitations of the data in HAPO include that body mass index was obtained during pregnancy, not before. As well, HAPO-FUS did not collect data on the women or children's lifestyles to evaluate other factors that could contribute to obesity or type 2 diabetes.

The results build on findings from other studies showing that type 2 diabetes in mothers during pregnancy is associated with obesity in that mother's offspring and that elevated blood glucose increases risk of type 2 diabetes in the woman after pregnancy.

"HAPO and its follow-up study have shown the detrimental long-term effects of elevated blood glucose on both mother and child and the importance of early intervention for women at risk for gestational diabetes," said NIDDK Director Dr. Griffin P. Rodgers. "We hope these results will be used to improve the health of generations to come."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180911152429.htm

Change your diet to save both water and your health

September 10, 2018

Science Daily/European Commission Joint Research Centre

Shifting to a healthy diet is not only good for us, but it also saves a lot of fresh water, according to a new study. Compared to existing diets, the water required to produce our food could be reduced by up to 55 percent for healthy pescetarian and vegetarian diets.

Compared to existing diets, the water required to produce our food could be reduced by between 11% and 35% for healthy diets containing meat, 33% and 55% for healthy pescetarian diets and 35% and 55% for healthy vegetarian diets.

Researchers compared these three diet patterns, defined by respective national dietary guidelines, to the current actual food consumption, using available data from more than 43 thousand areas in France, the UK and Germany.

They found that eating more healthily could substantially reduce the water footprint of people's diets, consistent across all the geographical entities analysed in the study.

The study is the most detailed nationwide food consumption-related water footprint ever made, taking into account socio-economic factors of food consumption, for existing and recommended diets.

Influences on the food we eat

The scientists also show how individual food consumption behaviour -- and their related water footprints -- depend strongly on the socio-economic factors like age, gender and education level.

They found interesting correlations between such factors and both the water footprint of specific foods and their resulting impact on overall water footprints.

For example, the study shows how in France, the water footprint of milk consumption decreases with age across the municipalities analysed.

Across London, they show a strong correlation between the water footprint of wine consumption and the percentage of the population of each area with a high education level.

Background

The water footprint is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce goods consumed, food in this particular case.

The scientists used national dietary surveys to assess differences in food product group consumption between regions and socio- economic factors within regions.

The diet scenarios analysed in the study take into account total daily energy and protein requirements as well as maximum daily fat amounts.

They are based upon national dietary guidelines, in which for every food product group specific recommendations are given according to age and gender.

By downscaling national water footprints to the lowest possible administrative boundaries within a country, the scientists provide a useful tool for policy makers at various levels.

The methodology could also be applied to other footprints assessments -- like the carbon, land or energy footprints related to food consumption.

Animal products -- and especially meat -- have a high water footprint.

The average European diet is characterised by overconsumption in general, particularly of animal products.

A healthy diet would contain less sugar, crop oils, meat and animal fats, and more vegetables and fruit.

Due to the numerous negative impacts of an intensive livestock production system on the planet's resources and ecosystems, as well as the growing demands of non-western countries for animal products, moving to a more resource-efficient (and healthier) vegetable-rich diet in the EU is a necessity.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180910142419.htm

Longer daily fasting times improve health and longevity in mice

Benefits seen regardless of calorie intake, diet composition in new study

September 6, 2018

Science Daily/NIH/National Institute on Aging

Increasing time between meals made male mice healthier overall and live longer compared to mice who ate more frequently, according to a new study published in the Sept. 6, 2018 issue of Cell Metabolism. Scientists from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) at the National Institutes of Health, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, reported that health and longevity improved with increased fasting time, regardless of what the mice ate or how many calories they consumed.

"This study showed that mice who ate one meal per day, and thus had the longest fasting period, seemed to have a longer lifespan and better outcomes for common age-related liver disease and metabolic disorders," said NIA Director Richard J. Hodes, M.D. "These intriguing results in an animal model show that the interplay of total caloric intake and the length of feeding and fasting periods deserves a closer look."

The scientists randomly divided 292 male mice into two diet groups. One group received a naturally sourced diet that was lower in purified sugars and fat, and higher in protein and fiber than the other diet. The mice in each diet group were then divided into three sub-groups based on how often they had access to food. The first group of mice had access to food around the clock. A second group of mice was fed 30 percent less calories per day than the first group. The third group was meal fed, getting a single meal that added up to the exact number of calories as the round-the-clock group. Both the meal-fed and calorie-restricted mice learned to eat quickly when food was available, resulting in longer daily fasting periods for both groups.

The scientists tracked the mice's metabolic health through their lifespans until their natural deaths and examined them post-mortem. Meal-fed and calorie-restricted mice showed improvements in overall health, as evidenced by delays in common age-related damage to the liver and other organs, and extended longevity. The calorie-restricted mice also showed significant improvement in fasting glucose and insulin levels compared to the other groups. Interestingly, the researchers found that diet composition had no significant impact on lifespan in the meal fed and calorie restricted groups.

According to the study's lead author, Rafael de Cabo, Ph.D., chief of the Translational Gerontology Branch of the NIA Intramural Research Program, scientists have studied the beneficial effects of caloric restriction for more than a century, but the impact of increased fasting times has recently come under closer scrutiny.

"Increasing daily fasting times, without a reduction of calories and regardless of the type of diet consumed, resulted in overall improvements in health and survival in male mice," said de Cabo. "Perhaps this extended daily fasting period enables repair and maintenance mechanisms that would be absent in a continuous exposure to food."

The researchers say their findings are encouraging for future studies on how these types of time-restricted eating patterns might help humans to maintain healthy weight and reduce some common age-related metabolic disorders. According to de Cabo, next steps for this research include expanding these findings to other strains of mice and other lab animal species using both sexes, and to find the potential translation of the findings in humans.

For more information on what the research shows about calorie restriction and fasting diets in humans visit: https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/calorie-restriction-and-fasting-diets-what-do-we-know

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180906123305.htm

Pregnant women can safely control weight gain through diet and lifestyle changes

September 6, 2018

Science Daily/Northwestern University

Many overweight/obese women gain too much weight during pregnancy. New trials showed these women can safely limit their weight gain with diet and exercise interventions. The reduced weight gain, however, did not result in fewer obstetrical complications. The finding suggests that the lifestyle changes need to start before pregnancy.

A new group of trials funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) showed that pregnant women can safely limit their weight gain with diet and exercise interventions. It is the largest set of trials in the U.S. to target pregnancy weight gain of overweight and obese women. The trials included diverse socioeconomic groups, which means the findings are generalizable to a large population.

"This is an important study because it affirms that women can change behaviors to control the amount of weight gained in pregnancy," said lead author Dr. Alan Peaceman, chief of maternal fetal medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a Northwestern Medicine high-risk obstetrician.

However, the reduced weight gain -- about four pounds per woman -- did not result in fewer obstetrical complications, including cesarean sections, diabetes, hypertension, and preeclampsia, or change the average birth weight of the baby.

"We think that by the time these women are already in the second trimester, it may already be late to change important outcomes," Peaceman said. "To lower the risk of obstetrical complications, they may have to start changing their lifestyle before or immediately after they conceive."

Investigators are hopeful that there will be longer-term benefits of the interventions in the infants, such as less childhood obesity or fewer metabolic abnormalities such as childhood diabetes.

The study was published Sept. 6 in the journal Obesity.

Seven teams of investigators recruited 1,150 participants for the LIFE-Mom trials (579 women had the lifestyle intervention, 571 had standard care), which ran from the second trimester to birth. Each trial offered a varied lifestyle intervention, but all aimed to improve diet quality and reduce calories, increase physical activity and incorporate behavior strategies such as self-monitoring.

Overweight and obese women are "hard nut to crack"

Overweight and obese women are a critical group to target, because they have higher rates of excess pregnancy weight gain and of retaining that weight postpartum. They also are more likely to have children who are obese. The majority of U.S. women of reproductive age are overweight or obese.

About 62 percent of the women in the intervention groups, versus 75 percent in the control groups, exceeded the National Academy of Medicine recommendations for pregnancy weight gain. The recommendation is overweight women limit their pregnancy weight gain to 15 to 25 pounds and obese women to 11 to 20 pounds, compared to 25 to 35 pounds for non-overweight women.

The fact that so many women in the intervention groups still exceeded the recommended weight gain shows the challenges of encouraging pregnant women to adhere to recommended diet and activity levels at a time when overeating and reluctance to exercise tend to increase, Peaceman said.

"It's a very hard nut to crack," he said.

A seesaw history of pregnancy weight gain

The advice doctors gave women about pregnancy weight gain has varied widely from decade to decade. In the 1950s, doctors often instructed their patients not to gain more than 15 pounds, Peaceman said.

By the late 1970s and early 1980s, mothers weren't gaining enough weight and were having small babies, which could lead to developmental problems in childhood. Then doctors started encouraging women to gain more weight.

"Doctors essentially told them that they could eat for two," Peaceman said.

"Then women started gaining excessively, but it wasn't thought to be a medical issue, just a cosmetic one," Peaceman said. "The attitude was, 'there's more weight for you to lose when you're done, but that is not a major medical concern'."

In the early 2000s, physicians started noticing that excessive pregnancy weight gain was associated with certain pregnancy complications: higher incidence of high blood pressure, gestational diabetes and cesarean sections.

"Then we started seeing more worrisome things," Peaceman said. "Excess maternal weight gain was not just associated with bigger babies, but those babies ended up with an increased risk of obesity and childhood diabetes."

A few researchers began investigating whether they could help women avoid excess weight gain during pregnancy. Trials testing different strategies for limiting pregnancy weight gain in overweight and obese women had mixed results, in part due to different populations studied and the lack of standardized clinical outcome measures.

"That's why NIH recognized the need to do this study in diverse populations and with standardized clinical outcome measures," Peaceman said. "It provides more reliable evidence."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180906184239.htm

Obesity: We inherit the dangerous fat from Dad -- and the good fat from Mom

September 6, 2018

Science Daily/University of Southern Denmark

Brown fat cells burn off a lot of calories, whereas an excess of white fat cells make us overweight and ill. Now researchers have identified a new gene in brown fat cells; a gene that may be crucial for the future's treatment of obesity.

A team of researchers, led by Professor Jan-Wilhelm Kornfeld from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Southern Denmark, Elena Schmidt from the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research, Cologne, Germany and Martin Bilban from the Medial University, Vienna, Austria, have made a groundbreaking discovery in obesity research.

The team has discovered a new function of the gene H19. This gene proves to have a unique protective effect against the development of overweight and consequently could affect the onset of overweight-associated disease such as diabetes, overweight and cardiovascular diseases.

H19 belongs to the app. one percent of our genes, which we -- as opposed to the remaining 99 percent -- inherit exclusively from either our mother or father, the so-called monoallelic genes.

As a result of extensive studies, the researchers have also discovered how genes derived from our father primarily lead to the development of white fat tissue, which most often are found on the stomach, thighs and backside, and which can lead to metabolic diseases.

Likewise, it appears that genes from our mother primarily lead to the development of brown fat tissue, which is characterized by having a protective effect against obesity.

Professor Jan-Wilhelm Kornfeld and Martin Bilban are delighted with the research results.

In their view the results could constitute a first step towards the development of better treatments of obesity.

"By using mouse models, we have identified that the gene H19 performs a form of gene control in brown fat cells. We have been able to demonstrate that an overexpression of the H19 gene in mice protects against obesity and insulin resistance. In addition, we have been able to detect similar patterns of gene control in obese people. We therefore believe that our results can be the first step towards developing groundbreaking new and improved treatments for obesity-related diseases," says Professor Jan-Wilhelm Kornfeld.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180906100438.htm

Fish oil supplement in pregnancy is linked to increase in lean and bone mass by age 6 years

September 4, 2018

Science Daily/BMJ

Taking fish oil supplements in the later stages of pregnancy is associated with a higher weight (BMI) in children in the first six years of life, but not an increased risk of overweight or obesity by age 6, a new study suggests.

Fish oil supplement in the later stages of pregnancy is associated with a higher body mass index (BMI) in children in the first six years of life, which is explained by an increase in total lean and bone mass at 6 years of age, but with no increase in fat mass, suggest the findings of a large randomised controlled trial published by The BMJ today.

Studies in animals have shown that supplementing the diet with fish oil during pregnancy affects adipogenesis (the development of fat cells). However, while trials in humans have shown that pregnant women with a higher intake of fish oil give birth to higher birth weight infants, the impact on children later in life has been unclear.

So a team of researchers based in Denmark and the UK set out to examine the effect of taking fish oil supplements during pregnancy on the growth and body composition of children later in life.

The trial involved 736 pregnant women from the Copenhagen Prospective Studies on Asthma in Childhood study who were randomised to receive n-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCPUFAs) (fish oil) or olive oil (control) daily from week 24 of pregnancy week until one week after birth.

Height, weight, head and waist measurements were assessed 11 times from birth to age 6 years and adjusted for age and sex. These revealed a sustained higher BMI from 1 year to 6 years of age.

Body composition was assessed using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scans at 3.5 and 6 years of age and demonstrated that the higher BMI was not the result of a higher fat percentage, but reflected a proportional increase in lean mass, bone mass, and fat mass, suggesting that the fish oil supplementation had a general growth stimulating effect.

At age 6, DXA scans showed children whose mothers had taken fish oil supplements while pregnant had a 395g higher total mass, 280.7g higher lean mass, 10.3g higher bone mineral content and 116.3g higher fat mass compared with children of mothers who took the control oil.

The researchers conclude: "The body composition at age 6 years in children given fish oil supplementation was characterised by a proportional increase in lean, bone, and fat mass suggesting a general growth stimulating effect."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180904190616.htm

Changes in breakfast and dinner timings can reduce body fat

August 30, 2018

Science Daily/University of Surrey

Modest changes to breakfast and dinner times can reduce body fat, a new pilot study reports.

During a 10-week study on 'time-restricted feeding' (a form of intermittent fasting), researchers led by Dr Jonathan Johnston from the University of Surrey investigated the impact changing meal times has on dietary intake, body composition and blood risk markers for diabetes and heart disease.

Participants were split into two groups -- those who were required to delay their breakfast by 90 minutes and have their dinner 90 minutes earlier, and those who ate meals as they would normally (the controls). Participants were required to provide blood samples and complete diet diaries before and during the 10-week intervention and complete a feedback questionnaire immediately after the study.

Unlike previous studies in this area, participants were not asked to stick to a strict diet and could eat freely, provided it was within a certain eating window. This helped researchers assess whether this type of diet was easy to follow in everyday life.

Researchers found that those who changed their mealtimes lost on average more than twice as much body fat as those in the control group, who ate their meals as normal. If these pilot data can be repeated in larger studies, there is potential for time-restricted feeding to have broad health benefits.

Although there were no restrictions on what participants could eat, researchers found that those who changed their mealtimes ate less food overall than the control group. This result was supported by questionnaire responses which found that 57 percent of participants noted a reduction in food intake either due to reduced appetite, decreased eating opportunities or a cutback in snacking (particularly in the evenings). It is currently uncertain whether the longer fasting period undertaken by this group was also a contributing factor to this reduction in body fat.

As part of the study, researchers also examined if fasting diets are compatible with everyday life and long term commitment. When questioned, 57 percent of participants felt they could not have maintained the new meal times beyond the prescribed 10 weeks because of their incompatibility with family and social life. However, 43 per cent of participants would consider continuing if eating times were more flexible.

Dr Jonathan Johnston, Reader in Chronobiology and Integrative Physiology at the University of Surrey, said:

"Although this study is small, it has provided us with invaluable insight into how slight alterations to our meal times can have benefits to our bodies. Reduction in body fat lessens our chances of developing obesity and related diseases, so is vital in improving our overall health.

"However, as we have seen with these participants, fasting diets are difficult to follow and may not always be compatible with family and social life. We therefore need to make sure they are flexible and conducive to real life, as the potential benefits of such diets are clear to see.

"We are now going to use these preliminary findings to design larger, more comprehensive studies of time-restricted feeding."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180830084826.htm

Switching to hunter-gatherer lifestyle may increase diversity in children's gut microbes

August 29, 2018

Science Daily/American Society for Microbiology

Immersing city dwellers in the traditional lifestyle and diet of a rainforest village for two weeks increases the diversity of the visiting children's -- but not the adults' -- gut microbiota. In a small pilot study, researchers show that the immersion visit did little to shift the adults' skin, oral, nasal and fecal microbiota.

An international team of researchers has shown that immersing city dwellers in the traditional lifestyle and diet of a rainforest village for two weeks increases the diversity of the visiting children's -- but not the adults' -- gut microbiota. In a small pilot study published this week in mSphere®, an open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, the team shows that the immersion visit did little to shift the adults' skin, oral, nasal and fecal microbiota.

"We wanted to look at the question of whether microbiota change during a drastic, radical change of diet and lifestyle," says Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello, a microbial ecologist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey who led the study with microbiologist Monica Contreras from the Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Research. "In this village, there was no market economy, no bodega, no Coca-Cola -- so this represented a radical shift in diet from a high percentage of processed foods in urban places to zero processed foods and an all-natural diet."

Dominguez-Bello, along with researchers from New York University and two Venezuelan institutes, took advantage of a visit planned by five, city-dwelling adult visitors -- and two of their children -- to live among an indigenous Yekwana village in the Bolivar State of Venezuela for 16 days. The village has a hunter-gatherer-gardener lifestyle and diet.

Typical fare includes cassava (a starchy, high-fiber tuber), corn, various wild fruits, including plantains, pineapples, and berries, fish, and small amounts of game meat and eggs gathered from wild birds. Visitors had two meals a day that consisted of soup with a bit of fish or meat. The rest of their diet consisted of "all-day snacking on cassava with fruit" says Dominguez-Bello. The visitors also bathed in the river without soap and followed the natural circadian rhythms of their hosts.

"The diet contains very little animal protein and it's very, very high in fiber and very low in fat," compared to Western diets, says Dominguez-Bello.

While it is known that people with traditional diets have higher gut microbiota diversity compared to those with urban diets, it was unknown if urban dwellers could shift the diversity of their microbiota higher simply by following a traditional lifestyle and diet. In the gut, a high diversity of microbes is considered a sign of good health.

Traditional people eat diets rich in unprocessed plant material, which are much more chemically complex compared to processed foods. The smorgasbord of chemicals acts as fuel for a higher variety of microbes. Traditional people use less antimicrobial medicines and compounds in daily life, which might also contribute to their increased gut microbe diversity.

During the 16-day visit, the researchers collected samples from the visitors' skin, mouth, nose, and from a fecal swab. Age-matched samples were also collected from villagers. The samples were sequenced and compared.

Surprisingly, none of the adult visitors' microbiota shifted significantly during the visit, while the two children's gut microbiota trended toward a higher number of total microbial species present. Although these results were not statistically significant and in just two subjects, the researchers saw this as interesting nonetheless, given the children's ages of 4 and 7.

Up to now, it was thought that children's gut microbiota become stable and more 'adult-like' by the time they reach 3 years of age. "This indicates that the window for maturing your microbiome may not be 3 years of age, but longer," says Dominguez-Bello. Her team plans to do a larger study with 12 children participating in an "immersion summer camp" to a traditional village.

Because the children's gut microbiota exhibited more plasticity, these results raise an interesting possibility that urban children who eat a more traditional, high-fiber, low-fat and low-processed diet early in life might cultivate a more diverse set of gut microbes. Conversely, adults may have a limited response due to their low microbiome plasticity.

Dominguez-Bello was not terribly surprised that the adults' gut and other microbiota changed so little: "If you take traditional people and bring them to New York, give them antibiotics and McDonald's to eat everyday, it's not surprising that they lose diversity," she says. "But if, as an urban dweller, you've already lost that gut microbe diversity and you move to a high-diversity diet, maybe you cannot 'bloom' diversity because you simply don't have those microbes present anymore."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180829133429.htm