The Diabetes Epidemic - Obesity A Major Factor
More and more Americans are being diagnosed with diabetes. Is this rise in cases due to better testing, a change in diagnostic criteria, a true rise in incidence, or some combination of these and other factors? In a study in the May issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention examine some of the reasons for this increase. [click link for full article]

Obese Teenage Girls Have High Risk Of Middle Age Death
A girl in her teens who is obese has a much greater chance of dying during middle age than a teenage girl of normal weight, according to researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health. With childhood obesity in many parts of the world on the increase, in years to come we could see life-expectancy coming down. In much of the developed world, and some parts of the developing world, teenage obesity is growing at an alarming rate. In the USA 15.5% of teenagers are overweight. [click link for full article]

Chewing the fat: New theories on world’s obesity pandemic (AFP)
AFP - Fatty hamburgers, sugar-laden sodas and a couch-potato lifestyle: these are the familiar villains in the crisis of obesity sweeping developed countries.

Unitika Confirms That L-arabinose Helps Inhibit Obesity And Diabetes
Unitika announced on May 9 the results of its recent research on L-arabinose, a monosaccharide extracted from sugar beet. The research has found that L-arabinose demonstrates a potential to inhibit obesity and type 2 diabetes. Specifically, in a mice experiment, the company confirmed that a 19-week administration of L-arabinose prevents weight gain, reduces the rise of the fasting blood sugar level and the insulin resistance index. [click link for full article]

‘Improved diet not IVF may fuel twin births’
The rise of identical twin births may be fuelled by mothers' eating more nutritious diets rather than having fertility treatments