Successive governments approach to obesity policies has destined them to fail, say researchers.
Government obesity policies in England over the past three decades have largely failed because of problems with implementation, lack of learning from past successes or failures, and a reliance on trying to persuade individuals to change their behaviour rather than tackling unhealthy environments. This is the conclusion of new research by a team at the University of Cambridge funded by the NIHR School for Public Health Research.
The researchers say their findings may help to explain why, after nearly thirty years of government obesity policies, obesity prevalence in England has not fallen and substantial inequalities persist. According to a report by NHS Digital in May 2020, 67% of men and 60% of women live with overweight or obesity, including 26% of men and 29% of women who suffer clinical obesity. More than a quarter of children aged two to 15 years live with obesity or overweight and
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Scleroderma, a chronic and currently incurable orphan disease where tissue injury causes potentially lethal skin and lung scarring, remains poorly understood.
However, the defining characteristic of systemic sclerosis, the most serious form of scleroderma, is irreversible and progressive scarring that affects the skin and internal organs.
Published in We found that scleroderma inflammation dramatically increases CD38, an enzyme that normally breaks down a metabolic nutrient, NAD+. When NAD+ levels decrease, tissue injury becomes chronic and progresses to scar formation rather than to healthy repair, says study author John Varga, M.D., division chief of rheumatology at Michigan Medicine.
According to the study, treatments that prevented NAD+ reduction in the mice, whether by boosting the levels of the nutrient genetically or pharmacologically, prevented scarring in the skin, lungs and abdominal wall.
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Your food intake patterns are partly under genetic control, according to the latest research from researchers at King s College London, published today in the journal
Twin Research and Human Genetics.
Researchers can study the quality of an individual s typical diet by using a type of analysis called dietary indices . Researchers use dietary indices to understand what foods someone eats and the nutrients provided, compared with recommended guidelines.
The team analysed food questionnaire responses from 2,590 twins, using nine commonly used dietary indices. The researchers studied the degree of similarity among identical twins - who share 100% of their genes - compared with non-identical twins, who share 50% of their genes.
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IMAGE: Parkinson s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder caused by the loss of dopaminergic neurons and characterized by motor signs including bradykinesia, rigidity, resting tremor, and reduced postural reflex. More than. view more
Credit: Masahisa Katsuno
A research team led by Nagoya University in Japan has found that blood pressure, the hematocrit (the percentage of red blood cells in blood), and serum cholesterol levels change in patients with Parkinson s disease long before the onset of motor symptoms. This finding, which was recently published online in
Scientific Reports, may pave the way for early diagnosis and treatment of the disease.
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IMAGE: Brazilian researchers estimate a reduction of 35% in levels of physical activity and a rise of 28% in sedentary behavior in the initial months of confinement imposed by the pandemic view more
Credit: Isabela Roque Marc
Social distancing and working from home help prevent transmission of the novel coronavirus but can be conducive to unhealthy behavior such as bingeing on fast food or spending more time in a chair or on a couch staring at a screen, and generally moving about less during the day. Scientists believe the reduction in physical activity experienced during the first few months of the pandemic could lead to an annual increase of more than 11.1 million in new cases of type 2 diabetes and result in more than 1.7 million deaths.