Obesity

Scientists at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center have discovered that a diet with high levels of fructose, sucrose, and of trans fats not only increases obesity, but also leads to significant fatty liver disease with scar tissue.

A Princeton University research team has demonstrated that all sweeteners are not equal when it comes to weight gain: Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.

The anti-obesity properties of resveratrol have been demonstrated for the first time in a primate. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Physiology studied the compound, generated naturally by plants to ward off pathogens, which has received much interest as a dietary supplement for its supposed life-extending effects.

The "hunger" hormone ghrelin, which acts in the brain to stimulate hunger and increase food intake, heightens the appeal of high-calorie foods over low-calorie foods, according to a study being presented at The Endocrine Society's 92nd Annual Meeting in San Diego.

Fructose, a sugar widely used in soft drinks and processed foods, often gets some of the blame for the widespread rise in obesity. Now a laboratory study has found that when fructose is present as children's fat cells mature, it makes more of these cells mature into fat cells in belly fat and less able to respond to insulin in both belly fat and fat located below the skin.

Obese women with insulin resistance lose more weight after three months on a lower-carbohydrate diet than on a traditional low-fat diet with the same number of calories, according to a new study.

A new study at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) confirms the relationship between depression and abdominal obesity, which has been linked to an increased risk for cancer and cardiovascular disease.

People with larger stomachs in their 40s are more likely to have dementia when they reach their 70s, according to a new study. The study involved 6,583 people age 40 to 45 in northern California who had their abdominal fat measured. An average of 36 years later, 16 percent of the participants had been diagnosed with dementia.

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago have discovered that an unexpected cellular response plays an important role in breaking down and inhibiting the formation of excess scar tissue in wound healing. Their study was published online this week in Nature Cell Biology.

Study links lack of sleep to risk of early death Sleeping consistently for less than six hours a night has been linked to an increased risk of early death. Sleeping consistently for less than six hours a night may cause an early death, but too much sleep could also mean problems, according to a study that claims to have found unequivocal evidence of the potential harm from abnormal sleep patterns.

Sleep apnea may cause metabolic changes that increase insulin resistance, according to researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The intermittent hypoxia associated with sleep apnea causes a...

For years, researchers have known that resistance exercise training -- such as weightlifting, in which muscles work against gravity or another force -- can be one of the most effective ways to fight the debilitating muscle loss caused by aging.