Category: Weight Loss Exercise

This study below that I gleaned from the LA Times shows that just altering your diet may not be able to undo a life of bad eating. Maybe if they included exercise in these peoples lives it may have made a bigger difference to their health.

Overturning three decades of conventional wisdom, a new study of low-fat diets in nearly 50,000 healthy older women has shown that reducing fat intake alone does not significantly reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke, breast cancer or colorectal cancer, researchers reported today. Results from the same study reported last month also showed that reducing fats without reducing calories does not lead to significant weight loss.

“Just switching to low-fat foods is not likely to yield much health benefit in most women,” said Marcia Stefanick, a professor of medicine at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, chairwoman of the steering committee for the Women’s Health Initiative study.

“Rather than trying to eat ‘low-fat,’ women should focus on reducing saturated fats and trans fats,” the so-called bad fats, while maintaining their intake of “good” fats, such as vegetable, olive and fish oils.

“Nutrition knowledge has progressed dramatically since the study began,” said Mara Vitolins, a professor of public health sciences at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., and a study co-author. “Today we know that reducing total fat may not be enough — we need to focus on the types of fat we eat.”

The 13-year study, whose results will be reported Wednesday in three papers in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., did hint at some possible benefits from reducing fat intake. Women on the low-fat diet who had the highest consumption of fats at the beginning of the study showed the biggest decrease in breast cancer risk. And those who achieved the lowest rate of fat consumption showed the lowest risk of heart disease. And those who reduced fat intake had a lower incidence of polyps, generally considered to be a precursor of colorectal cancer.

Often as people lose they run into a plateau, often this plateau is not really a time to be bearing down because the is not coming off although it is always a good time to look at all areas of your life to see if there is a good reason that you are not losing weight. Sometimes it is food, sometimes it is inches and sometimes it is just your body adjusting.

If you are not losing then maybe it is time to remeasure yourself. You do measure yourself regularly don’t you? All you need to do is measure in inches or centimeters around your neck, chest, hips, waist, upper leg, calves, upper arm and forearm. Of course also record your as that is a nice thing to relate to your measurements.

This measuring does two things, it lets you know when you are losing inches around your hips or waist and also lets you know if you are gaining muscle and muscle tone in the other parts of your body. You can either keep this on paper or if you have Microsoft Excel or something similar you can put your measurements in a spreadsheet and then you can refer to your gains and losses over time and see how the different times of year affect your size.

Xenical is a very popular prescription fat inhibitor that has been on the market since 1999. Now the company that is making Xenical, GlaxoSmithKline is trying to get approval for another pill, Alli for over the counter purchase. The big pitch by GlaxoSmithKline is that this product has half of the active ingredient of Xenical. The active ingredient in both Xenical and Alli is orlistat. Although the product is not approved yet the over the counter approval may happen in as little as six months.

How Good is Orlistat

Reports of the usefulness of orlistat is mixed at best. In six-month clinical trials, obese people who took orlistat lost on average 5.3 pounds to 6.2 pounds more than did those who were given dummy pills. Glaxo wants people to use the pill for only six months at a time, but as an over-the-counter item, its use could not be policed.

Alli could cost consumers $12 to $25 a week, Glaxo said. The company estimated 5 million to 6 million Americans a year would buy the drug over the counter. Those numbers could mean at least $1.5 billion a year in retail sales. More than 22 million people worldwide have used orlistat in prescription form.

FDA stand on diet supplements

On Monday, FDA panel members questioned whether consumers would be able to distinguish Alli from non-approved dietary supplements also sold as -loss aids. They also expressed concern about its effect on vitamin intake. Half of the patients enrolled in trials of the drug failed to understand labeling directions that they should take supplemental vitamins at least two hours before or after using the pills.

When taken with meals, orlistat blocks the absorption of about one-quarter of any fat consumed. That fat — the equivalent of about 150 to 200 calories — is passed out of the body in stools, which can be loose or oily as a result. Other side effects include gas, incontinence and oily spotting. About half of patients in trials experienced such side effects, the company said.