Your viewing articles about; weight loss

Researchers study women’s wombs for link to obesity

Researchers in the US and Canada are finding potential links to a child’s future obesity and the weight of their mother at conception, but more research is required.

On a base level, it sounds reasonable that an obese expectant mother may pass some gene or chemical on to her unborn child, leaving the child with a similar proclivity towards obesity. But scientists are interested in finding provable links between a mother and child’s obesity, links that, with further research, could yield a healthier generation of people.

Researchers at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center in New York and Laval Hospital in Quebec have been looking at the children born from severely obese women who had a weight-loss surgery before or after child birth. They found that when mothers had weight-loss surgery before giving birth or conceiving, they had children less prone to severe obesity.

As the women who had the surgery didn’t typically change their diet or lifestyle afterwards, the researchers believe that the surgery itself is related. They discovered that the surgery had the effect of making the women’s digestive system less efficient causing lower sugar and fat levels in the blood stream and thus fewer calories to the womb.

However, the researchers weren’t able to pinpoint a particular gene or chemical that may have caused the lower levels of obesity in the children. Robert Waterland, of the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, thinks that perhaps there’s a link to how critical genes are regulated during pregnancy. Chemical “tags” that attach to the developing embryo’s chromosomes may act like switches that control how effective certain genes function.

Waterland has conducted research with mice that are genetically prone to obesity. He found that while obese rats tended to give birth to obese offspring, obese rats fed with food containing a chemical cocktail prevented the genetic obesity trait from functioning as well in the offspring.

Waterland cautions that it’s too soon to tell if the blocking agent that worked in the rats would work in human medical trial. More work must be done to pinpoint the obesity signal that’s transmitted to offspring, but there are hopes that in the future, mothers may use diet or behavior modification to help their children’s obesity levels.

In the meantime, doctor’s recommend that obese women avoid pregnancy until they’ve lost weight, a tactic performed to help future children live a healthier life of their own. In addition, a doctor-approved exercise regime to keep weight gain down during pregnancy is also recommended.

         

Welcome back! If you love Baby Chums, please subscribe to our RSS feed.
Thanks for dropping by and enjoy!

---

Irish women suffering from hormonal disorder given new hope for pregnancy wishes

A new diet-based approach to the disorder will allow almost 300 women who previously couldn’t get pregnant to give birth by the end of the year.

Of all the things that Sasha McDonald could possibly want in the world, what she wanted most was to be a mother. But no matter how she tried, she couldn’t get pregnant. IVF treatments and ovarian drilling had no effect. It seemed like motherhood was out of her grasp.

Doctors said that the main cause for Sasha’s infertility was a medical condition called polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). This malady not only caused Sasha’s infertility, it was also the source of a wide variety of symptoms that affected her including weight gain, mood swings, an irregular period, and an increase in the growth of facial hair.

Then along came Norah Lane, founder of the weight loss company Dietcare. Norah founded the business 30 years ago while she was doing research into metabolic functions of the human body. Norah heard about Sasha’s condition in 2000 and, moved by Sasha’s story, decided to research PCOS further. It didn’t take long for Norah to determine what PCOS—a medical condition that has stumped medical researchers for years—really was.

“I discovered it was a metabolic rate condition,” said Norah.

As a noted expert in the field of weight loss and metabolism, she studied the condition further and created a special diet for PCOS sufferers. Afterwards, she recruited 100 women suffering from PCOS to participate in a two-year study following her special diet. Sasha, one of the recruits, saw real dividends; in six months she lost 38 kilos, saw her mood swings disappear, reduced her facial hair growth, and most importantly became pregnant.

“She had given up hope of having a baby and had applied for adoption,” said Norah. “On the same day that she adopted baby Sarah she discovered she was pregnant with her first child.”

Now Sasha is running a website to support other PCOS sufferers and spread awareness to other doctors, and those doctors are directing patients to Dietcare. But Sasha wasn’t the only success story. Of the 100 women who participated in the research study, 66 of them were able to get pregnant. Additionally, Dietcare fully expects nearly 300 more women to give birth before the end of the year

The success has recently brought Dietcare clinics to Belfast, Carrickfergus, Bangor and Newtownabbey with the hopes of aiding people to not only lose weight, but also to give sufferers of PCOS a chance to take back their lives.

For more information about PCOS and Dietcare, please visit www.dietcare-pcos.com/forum.

         

Watts Loses Baby Weight Without Exercise

English born actress Naomi Watts has reclaimed her pre-pregnancy figure just two months after giving birth.

The 40-year-old actress who is known for her roles in King Kong, Funny Games and 21 Grams gave birth to her second son in December. She insists that she has lost all her baby weight without exercise and has not been on a diet.

“I haven’t even done much exercise yet (and) I eat more now than I did when I was pregnant!” Watts said.