Tag Archives: obesity

NRT = nicotine replacement therapy

NRT improves quitting success rates and reduces cessation-induced weight gain.  It’s a fact; and there are a lot of anti-addictive pharmacological interventions that do too.

Dear obesity researchers, primary care physicians, and smokers,
Pay attention.
Sincerely,
Bill

Rimonabant is the anti-“munchies” drug that blocks the marijuana receptor CB1.  It causes weight loss.  But 20 mg daily also increases the odds of successfully quitting smoking by 50 – 60% (Cahill and Ussher, 2007).

Relevance?
Marijuana: not really addictive.
Obesity diets: delicious, but not really addictive.
Cigarettes: definitely addictive.
Rimonabant: anti-addictive.  It causes weight loss in overweight but not lean people, perhaps because lean people don’t eat obesity diets (?).

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The curious effects of calories in mice

What is the biological impact of a history of obesity and weight loss?  The metabolic trajectory of two calorically restricted skinny mice depends entirely upon whether or not they used to be fat.  The end of this story might be: ‘Tis better to have lost and re-gained than never to have lost at all; or it’s just an interesting new take on the body weight set point theory.

Caloric restriction chronically impairs metabolic programming in mice (Kirchner et al., 2012)

divide and conquer

Part 1.
Study 1. Calorie restricted lean mice: the effect of diet composition.

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Coffee and cigars, the breakfast of champions

Or more specifically, caffeine and nicotine… or really just nicotine.  Today is about the lesser of two evils: nicotine, Mother Nature’s little helper (the other evil being cigarettes [not coffee]).  This curious little molecule is an anti-inflammatory memory boosting appetite suppressant.  If it didn’t screw with the reward mechanisms in your brain, it’d be a vitamin. Part 1.  Cigarettes, nicotine, and metabolic function Exhibit A: Activation of the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway ameliorates obesity-induced inflammation and insulin resistance  (Wang et al., 2011) translation: “nicotine is good for mice.” Continue reading

Up in smoke

I’m not pro-big tobacco or cigarettes, but I am anti-scare tactics.  It is usually the news media or politicians, exaggerating and/or grossly misinterpreting some study findings in order to make a great headline or secure votes.  But in this case, it wasn’t. The predators who were preying on our fear were the scientists.  Smokers of the world, unite!

Myocardial infarction and sudden cardiac death in Olmsted County, Minnesota, before and after smoke-free workplace laws  (Hurt et al., 2012)

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Soda vs. childhood obesity

What happens if you give skinny kids a can of fully sugared regular soda to drink every day for a year?

What happens if you take the soda away from overweight kids for a year?

The answer to these two questions should be a definitive user’s guide to the question: how bad is soda for my children?   And we got those answers this week.

 

A set of powerful studies were recently published, the likes of which I thought we’d never see.  It’s unethical to assign anyone to start smoking so we can properly study the effects of cigarettes; and before today, I would’ve thought it unethical to assign young children to start drinking fully sugared regular soda.  And not just one or two cans…  over 350.  For the 4 year olds the first study, by the end of the trial they had been on soda for almost a third of their life… during a critical period of development.  Ethics schmethics.  Hopefully this study will never be repeated.

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