Another Weight Loss Gimmick or Tool?

Friday, May 01, 2009

When Your Diet Needs a Band-Aid
A new "smart patch" determines caloric intake and expenditure.
By Lauren Gravitz


Weight watcher: A foam patch, like the one in this illustration, will monitor caloric intake and expenditure and send the data via Bluetooth to the user's cell phone. Credit: PhiloMetron

It could be a dieter's best friend or worst nightmare: technology that knows how much a person has just eaten, knows how many calories he has burned off, offers suggestions for improving resolve and success, and never lets him cheat. And it's all done by a small, stick-on monitor no bigger than a large Band-Aid.

The calorie monitor, which is being developed by biotech incubator PhiloMetron, uses a combination of sensors, electrodes, and accelerometers that--together with a unique algorithm--measure the number of calories eaten, the number of calories burned, and the net gain or loss over a 24-hour period. The patch sends this data via a Bluetooth wireless connection to a dieter's cell phone, where an application tracks the totals and provides support. "You missed your goal for today, but you can make it up tomorrow by taking a 15-minute walk or having a salad for dinner," it might suggest.

Caloric-intake monitoring has long been the bugaboo of dieting systems. There are devices, such as the bodybugg, that can measure energy expenditure through a combination of accelerometers, pedometers, and temperature and sweat sensors. But the intake side is much trickier to track. Currently, the most reliable way to determine caloric intake is meticulous diary keeping or having a trained professional do the calorie counting.

"What they're working on here, I would argue, is the holy grail in health and wellness," says Don Jones, vice president of business development for health and life sciences at Qualcomm, which specializes in wireless technologies. Other than the two methods mentioned above, he notes, which aren't scalable and aren't always accurate, "there are no good methods for calculating caloric intake."

PhiloMetron won't yet reveal exactly what makes its patch tick, but the company says that it consists of a single chip surrounded by numerous sensors, electrodes, and accelerometers, embedded in a foam adhesive patch. The system, which is designed to be replaced once a week, measures a variety of things (temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, skin conductivity, possibly even the amount of fluid in the body), then throws the data into an algorithm to calculate the number of calories consumed, the number burned, and the net yield. Caloric-intake measurements are accurate only to about 500 calories--about two Snickers candy bars. But PhiloMetron CEO Darrel Drinan says that it is much more accurate in determining net gain or loss and is most useful for measuring trends over the course of a week or a month. In fact, the system only provides users with rolling 24-hour totals and no instantaneous data.

An increasing number of studies conclude that a diet's success or failure depends on simply decreasing the number of calories consumed. Be it a Mediterranean, Atkins, Weight Watchers, or South Beach diet, it's the caloric bottom line that matters.

"A repeatable trend is a more useful value than an accurate number," says Drinan. "The trend line helps you establish the pattern to your behavior." He says that the company is working with the largest device manufacturers, weight management, and pharmaceutical companies--"and none believe we need more sensitivity because of the long-term nature of the underlying problem."

PhiloMetron's prior ventures include the recently launched Corventis which sells a sensor-based patch that detects the volume of fluid in a person with congestive heart failure and notifies her when it's time to take a diuretic. PhiloMetron plans to spin off another startup company to market a calorie monitor, with a product on the market in 18 months. Drinan envisions the product being sold through health-care professionals or personal trainers, or at gyms. But the system will cost a pretty penny: somewhere between $100 and $400, sold as a kit with multiple patches included.

"There's 1.6 billion people in the world who are overweight, and approximately 600 million of them are obese, so there's consumer applications all over the place here--for everything from weight management to part of disease-management programs, to consumer applications for fitness and wellness," says Jones of Qualcomm.

Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, in San Diego, and a practicing cardiologist, is interested in the device as a way to help keep his patients on track. He says that the technology is not only possible, it's reality: "Digestion and metabolic activity affects tissue conductance, and this can be detected via appropriate sensors worn on the skin."

Topol is interested in putting together a randomized clinical trial to see if the device can help people reverse type 2 diabetes, or help prevent progression to the disease in the first place. "I'm not suggesting that this is going to cure the obesity epidemic," he says. "[But] I think it has great potential--if it works and it's validated--to make an impact in the most common public-health problems today."

It Was Only A Matter of Time (and Consequences) Before The FDA Would Take Notice

FDA warns dieters: Stop Hydroxycut use immediately
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press Writer Posted May 1, 2009

WASHINGTON – Government health officials warned dieters and body builders Friday to immediately stop using Hydroxycut, a widely sold supplement linked to cases of serious liver damage and at least one death.

The Food and Drug Administration said the maker of the dietary supplement has agreed to recall 14 Hydroxycut products. Available in grocery stores and pharmacies, Hydroxycut is advertised as made from natural ingredients. At least 9 million packages were sold last year, the FDA said.



























Dr. Linda Katz of the FDA's food and nutrition division said the agency has received 23 reports of liver problems, including the death of a 19-year-old boy living in the Southwest. The teenager died in 2007, and the death was reported to the FDA this March.

Other patients experienced symptoms ranging from jaundice, or yellowing of the skin, to liver failure. One received a transplant and another was placed on a list to await a new liver.

There was no immediate comment from the U.S. distributor of the diet pill, Iovate Health Sciences, headquartered near Buffalo, N.Y. Made by a Canadian company, Hydroxycut is used by people trying to shed pounds and by body builders to sharpen their muscles.

Dietary supplements aren't as tightly regulated by the government as medications. Manufacturers don't need to prove to the FDA that their products are safe and effective before they can sell them to consumers. But regulators monitor aftermarket reports for signs of trouble, and in recent years companies have been put under stricter requirements to alert the FDA when they learn of problems.

Katz said it has taken so long to get a handle on the Hydroxycut problem because the cases of liver damage were rare and the FDA has no authority to review supplements before they're marketed. "Part of the problem is that the FDA looks at dietary supplements from a post-market perspective, and an isolated incident is often difficult to follow," she said.

The FDA relies on voluntary reports to detect such problems, and many cases are never reported, officials acknowledge.

Health officials said they have been unable to determine which Hydroxycut ingredients are potentially toxic, partially because the formulation of the products has changed several times. A medical journal report last month raised questions about one ingredient, hydroxycitric acid, derived from a tropical fruit. The article said it could potentially damage the liver.

FDA Press Release
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RANT:
I've been worried about this product for many years. As well as another weight loss/muscle building supplement commonly known as NO-xplode.





I've seen a few young men in the pediatric ICU with heart issues and found out they were using these products....but the cardiologist were looking at physiological/organic causes rather than inorganic vasodilator/high caffeine/unknown proprietary 'blend' of ghod knows what. These products may be created from "natural" ingredients, but they have real medicinal affects on the human body. And finally there is some active reporting (but why did the doctors WAIT a year to report the death???). It took 81 reported deaths before ephedra was banned by the FDA.

The Dark Side of Vegetarianism

By Steven Reinberg

WEDNESDAY, April 1 (HealthDay News) -- Despite its proven health benefits, a vegetarian diet might in fact be masking an underlying eating disorder, new research suggests.

The study, in the April issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, found that twice as many teens and nearly double the number of young adults who had been vegetarians reported having used unhealthy means to control their weight, compared with those who had never been vegetarians. Those means included using diet pills, laxatives and diuretics and inducing vomiting to control weight.

There's a dark side to vegetarianism, said Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine. He had no role in the research.

"Adolescent vegetarians [in the study] were more prone to disordered eating and outright eating disorders," Katz said. "This is not due to vegetarianism but the other way around: Adolescents struggling to control their diets and weight might opt for vegetarianism among other, less-healthful efforts."

Vegetarianism, or a mostly plant-based diet, can be recommended to all adolescents, Katz said. "But when adolescents opt for vegetarianism on their own, it is important to find out why because it may signal a cry for help, rather than the pursuit of health," he said.

Katz said he thinks a balanced vegetarian diet is among the most healthful of dietary patterns, and the study suggests some of the benefits.

"Adolescents practicing vegetarianism were less likely to be overweight than their omnivorous counterparts and, were the measures available, would likely have had better blood pressure and cholesterol, too," he said. "Eating mostly plants -- and even only plants -- is good for us, and certainly far better for health than the typical American diet."

The study's lead researcher, Ramona Robinson-O'Brien, an assistant professor in the Nutrition Department at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University in St. Joseph, Minn., agreed.

"The majority of adolescents and young adults today would benefit from improvements in dietary intake," she said. The study found, for instance, that the vegetarians among the participants generally were less likely to be overweight or obese.

"However, current vegetarians may be at increased risk for binge eating, while former vegetarians may be at increased risk for extreme unhealthful weight-control behaviors," she said. "Clinicians and nutrition professionals providing guidance to young vegetarians might consider the potential benefits associated with a healthful vegetarian diet, [but should] recognize the possibility of increased risk of disordered eating behaviors."

The researchers collected data on 2,516 teens and young adults who participated in a study called Project EAT-II: Eating Among Teens. They classified participants as current, former or never vegetarians and divided them into two age groups: teens (15 to 18) and young adults (19-23).

Each participant was questioned about binge eating, whether they felt a loss of control of their eating habits and whether they used any extreme weight-control behaviors.

About 21 percent of teens who had been vegetarians said they used unhealthy weight-control behaviors, compared with 10 percent of teens who had never been vegetarians. Among young adults, more former vegetarians (27 percent) had used such measures than current vegetarians (16 percent) or those who'd never been vegetarians (15 percent), the study found.

In addition, among teenagers, binge eating and loss of control over eating habits was reported by 21 percent of current and 16 percent of former vegetarians but only 4 percent of those who'd never followed a vegetarian diet. For young adults, more vegetarians (18 percent) said they engaged in binge eating with loss of control than did former vegetarians (9 percent) and those who were never vegetarians (5 percent), the study found.

Young adult vegetarians were less likely to be overweight or obese than were those who'd never been vegetarians. Among teens, the study found no statistically significant differences in weight.

"When guiding adolescent and young adult vegetarians in proper nutrition and meal planning, it is important to recognize the potential health benefits and risks associated with a vegetarian diet," Robinson-O'Brien said. "Furthermore, it may be beneficial to investigate an individual's motives for choosing a vegetarian diet and ask about their current and former vegetarian status when assessing risk for disordered eating behaviors."

Best Food for a Flat Belly

from Yahoo news & SELF Magazine

By Lucy Danziger, SELF Editor-in-Chief - Posted on Mon, Mar 30, 2009, 12:03 pm PDT
Health Expert for Women's Health

What if someone told you that the way you eat could whittle your waistline? Sure, you'd think. Give up carbs and rely on rabbit food. Not true! I'm happy to tell you that there are other, yummier ways to go. Certain foods and styles of eating can indeed help flatten your belly (and everywhere else, for that matter). Try these tips and you'll uncover an amazing middle in no time.

Gimme a C: I love pink grapefruit and that's a good thing, since research has found that foods that are naturally rich in vitamin C—think citrus fruit, cantaloupe and red peppers—can help reduce fat absorption. In fact, skip it and you may see your middle expand, since diets low in vitamin C have been linked to bigger waistlines. Meet your daily goal of 75 milligrams by snacking on an orange or a cup of strawberries. See how these small changes can add up to big results.

Tea up: Women with the highest consumption of catechins, the plant-based antioxidants in tea that may boost fat burn, put on fewer pounds over 14 years than those who drank less tea, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reveals. Try to choose green or white varieties, which contain the most catechins. Learn how to maximize the benefits of tea and other superfoods.

Peel it off: Reach for a banana and you'll banish bloat faster than you can say Buddha belly. The fruit contains 422 mg of potassium, which controls the amount of puff-producing sodium in your system. Toss a banana in your bag for a fabulous ab-flattening snack. Try our Flat Abs Fast plan for more bloat-reducing tips and tricks.

Go low: Consuming just one meal of low-glycemic-index foods, those that your body digests slowly, can help you feel fuller all day so you're less likely to pack your tummy with treats, a study in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition reports. Low-GI foods include oatmeal and vegetables (sorry, not potatoes), as well as some fruit like grapefruit and blueberries. Oatmeal Meatballs are a tasty way to curb cravings.

Stroll away your sweet craving: Loco for cocoa? Me, too. A little dark chocolate is fine, but if you've already hit your limit, try lacing up your sneakers! Chocolate lovers who walked for 15 minutes reported reduced hankerings during the walk and even afterward, according to a study in the journal Appetite.

Ditch high-fructose corn syrup: Scan labels and you're likely to see high-fructose corn syrup on many ingredient lists...even on things like tomato sauce! When you do, put down that jar and look for something else. Why? High-fructose corn syrup can cause a surge in your blood sugar, and some research suggests it messes up your hunger and satiety signals, like leptin, leaving you less satisfied and causing you to eat more. When leptin responses fail, it's tougher to control appetite. The result: Extra calories get deposited as fat. To prevent this, trade packaged foods with high-fructose corn syrup for ones with healthy fats and fiber—think veggies, hummus, nuts or sunflower seeds.

Snap your snack: Taking a photo of your plateful of food can keep you slim. People who took pictures of everything they ate for five days reported consuming fewer snacks and being less likely to go back for seconds than during a week-long period in which they kept a written food diary, a study from the University of Wisconsin at Madison finds. Try capturing your meals for a week to help eyeball portion sizes as well as color variety—aim for more green, less white (unless it's cauliflower). See an example of this, and get ideas for healthy, photo-worthy meals of your own, at Eat Like Me.

National Nutrition Month and Registered Dietitian's Day

Greeting Card to Registered Dietitians from ADA

March 11, 2009

To my fellow members of the American Dietetic Association:

Happy Registered Dietitian Day!

I have some outstanding news to share, and an invitation for you to watch a milestone in ADA’s history on TV and the Internet.

The American Dietetic Association has been invited –- representing all members of our Association -– to ring the Opening Bell for the NASDAQ stock exchange, the largest electronic equities exchange in the United States, on Thursday, March 12, in recognition of National Nutrition Month and Registered Dietitian Day. I will be joined by a number of ADA members who live in the New York area, and I will deliver some short remarks prior to officially starting the NASADAQ trading day.

I will say that, as a registered dietitian and ADA President, I am proud to represent nearly 70,000 members of our Association – men and women on the front lines who help people everywhere to eat right. I will talk about the great work our members do in health care, foodservice operations, worksite wellness programs, client and patient counseling, scientific research and more. I will highlight our members’ involvement in National Nutrition Month activities throughout the country; and I will promote Registered Dietitian Day, recognizing RDs’ contributions in workplaces and communities and your dedication to optimizing the nation’s health through food and nutrition.

The NASDAQ Opening Bell ceremony is broadcast live at 9:15 a.m. Eastern Time on CNBC and C-SPAN, and on NASDAQ’s Web site at:
http://www.nasdaq.com/about/marketsitetowervideo.asx
The ceremony is broadcast live and is not archived, so it is important to watch it in real time.

The ceremony is also broadcast on video screens in Times Square; ADA’s name and logo will be on NASDAQ’s Times Square tower all day Thursday with the message “The Stock Exchange Welcomes the American Dietetic Association.”

We are excited about this opportunity to promote the Association and the profession. Please be sure to tune in and share in this moment that truly belongs to every ADA member.

Sincerely,

Martin M. Yadrick, MS, MBA, RD, FADA
ADA President

The Key to Weight Loss!!!!

I have a T-shirt left over from the Atkins craze of the past decade. On the front it says "It's the Calories, Stupid". Not very PC to wear it - but with this headline all over the news (I first heard it on Fox News playing in the Joint Base Balad Dining Facility the other night), it's very apropo. It's what Registered Dietitians have been saying for years. This includes both eating habits and activity. A lifestyle you can maintain after you lose the weight. I know, not very glamarous, no flare, no pop, but if the truth fits.....

Cutting calories key to weight loss: study
By AFP - Thu Feb 26, 8:42 AM PST

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Eating heart-healthy, low-calorie foods and exercising is the key to losing weight regardless of levels of protein, fat or carbohydrates, a new study has found.

The research, funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health, seems to argue against blanket use of diets that do not necessarily limit calories but call for eating certain foods such as vegetables or proteins, at the expense of others.

The NIH study of 811 volunteers, 38 percent of them men and 62 percent women, aged 30-70 and either overweight or obese, looked at diets that have been popular in the United States in recent years, even as the number of obese Americans has soared.

The "Preventing Overweight Using Novel Dietary Strategies (POUNDS LOST) study found similar weight loss after six months and two years among participants assigned to four diets that differed in their proportions of these three major nutrients," said researchers.

"The diets were low or high in total fat (20 or 40 percent of calories) with average or high protein (15 or 25 percent of calories). Carbohydrate content ranged from 35 to 65 percent of calories.

"The diets all used the same calorie reduction goals and were heart-healthy low in saturated fat and cholesterol while high in dietary fibre," said researchers, whose study is published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Participants lost an average 13 pounds (5.9 kilos) at six months and maintained a nine-pound (four-kilo) loss at two years.

"These results show that, as long as people follow a heart-healthy, reduced-calorie diet, there is more than one nutritional approach to achieving and maintaining a healthy weight," said Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, director at NHLBI.

"This provides people who need to lose weight with the flexibility to choose an approach that they're most likely to sustain: one that is most suited to their personal preferences and health needs," she stressed.

Sixty-six percent of US adults are overweight and of those, 32 percent are obese, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show.
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For more information on Weight Management, here are a few other great links:
National Weight Control Registry
Fitday.com and CalorieKing.com

From MREs to KFC, a big problem

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske
July 09, 2007 in print edition A-7

When Spc. Matthew Curll left basic training for Iraq nearly a year ago, he traded a bland diet of MREs for burgers, pie and Fudgsicles.

“You go from a lot of MREs and crappy stuff at the mess hall to prime rib on Sundays,” said Curll, 21, of Lancaster, Mass., over a dinner of baked chicken followed by ice cream in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone.

“I wasn’t expecting it at all,” added Spc. Joe Reen, 23, of Norwood, Mass., finishing a turkey wrap and green salad. “You wanted to try everything.”

The two indulged at first, but said they learned to resist most of the fried food and extra desserts that dominate the menu at U.S. dining facilities in Iraq. Others are not so careful, they said, including a few officers ahead of them in the chow line.

“There were three colonels in front of me who got double scoops and extra toppings,” Reen said.

The Army has loaded the menu at the 70 chow halls, run by contractor KBR, with a buffet of fattening fare, from cheese steaks to tacos and Rocky Road ice cream. Many soldiers gain more than 15 pounds on a deployment, military dietitians say. They are also seeing soldiers return from Iraq with higher cholesterol, mostly due to their eating habits.

Lt. Col. Maggie Brandt, a surgeon at the 28th Combat Support Hospital who had just come from a swim, said she was dieting but couldn’t resist the pistachio ice cream.

“I’m on a ‘see food’ diet. If I see food, I eat it,” joked Brandt, 44, of Ypsilanti, Mich.

Soldiers are just as susceptible to overeating and packing on the pounds as anyone else, said Donald Williamson, a professor of nutrition at Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

“Iraq presents some added challenges people don’t face here – sitting around a lot, then going from boring to distressing in a matter of minutes,” he said.

In Iraq, it’s up to a handful of military dietitians to steer the troops away from that second piece of pie a la mode and to the salad bars. Most recognize the hold food has in a place where a taste of home brings comfort.

“There are three things that are absolutely crucial for morale: mail, food and showers,” said 1st Lt. Susan Stankorb, a licensed dietitian with the 28th Combat Support Hospital, a mobile unit that is currently based at Baghdad’s Ibn Sina Hospital. “You have to have your chicken nuggets and your ice cream now and again. For the soldiers, that helps.”

Counting the calories

But how many calories does the average soldier need?

Most MREs, or meals ready to eat, contain about 1,300 calories; three a day are recommended. Supplemented with energy bars and drinks, they give soldiers the 4,500 to 5,000 calories they need for an active day of patrols or on the front line.

But many of the 400,000 meals served daily at chow halls in Iraq are consumed by soldiers who spend most of their time on base or at desk jobs.

And dietary misconceptions abound. Some soldiers load up on high-calorie meat to avoid perceived protein deficiencies. They guzzle sugary sodas, energy drinks and fruit juice to avoid dehydration when they’re better off with water.

Many times soldiers don’t even realize how poorly they’re eating, Stankorb said. So she photographed some of their white plastic dinner plates of food and posted the pictures outside her office with cautionary calorie breakdowns under the headline: “The average soldier gains 10 pounds while deployed. Don’t let that happen to you!”

A sample meal of fried chicken, two cheese sandwiches, chili, cheesecake, Gatorade and orange soda racked up 2,395 calories. A more conservative meal of fried chicken, brown rice, peas and diet soda was only 716 calories, but still above the 500-calorie plate Stankorb recommends for those trying to lose or maintain their weight.

Of course, soldiers also snack between meals, on care packages full of cookies, candy from the post exchange, or fries, pizza and Frappuccinos (“liquid sugar” to military dietitians) from fast food purveyors. There are 73 such outlets on U.S. bases in Iraq, according to the Army & Air Force Exchange Service, which operates them. They include Burger King, Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

“For some of them, it’s their third or fourth deployment, and there’s only so many menu options you can offer,” Stankorb said. “They’re burnt out on the dining facilities and so they go for the Burger King or the Easy Mac their wife sends.”

Stankorb, who is petite and slender, also has boxes of Girl Scout cookies and macaroni and cheese in her office. And she had just ordered nacho fixings online: chips, salsa and Velveeta cheese.

“I get a little frustrated,” she said. “This is the third time this week I’ve had baked chicken.”

Battling bulge

Soldiers have their weight checked against a chart every six months. If they’re too heavy, a commander uses a tape measure around the waist, hips and other areas to gauge their body fat. If soldiers fail this “tape test” they won’t be promoted or receive awards until they lose the weight.

A Pentagon study released in January found the number of overweight service members had increased 20% in the last decade. Almost one-third of 18-year-olds who applied for military service in 2005 were overweight, according to a recent Army report.

Dietitians here say their main concern is that soldiers be fit to fight and don’t become a burden on their unit in the field.

“Our soldiers are like world-class athletes. They should train properly and they should eat properly because that can have a direct impact on the success of their missions,” said Lt. Col. John Ruibal, who saw soldiers eat cheesecake for dinner when he served as dietitian with 30th Medical Brigade in Baghdad last year. “If they don’t eat properly or drink properly the mission may suffer; one of their soldiers may be at risk.”

But with so many extended deployments to boost the U.S. military buildup, dietitians realize it may be too much to ask soldiers already under stress and far from home to diet.

“Sometimes, I’m not sure it’s appropriate to enforce the weight standards for soldiers in theater who are facing a lot of stress,” Stankorb said. “At the same time, when you pick someone up who’s 270 pounds on a litter, it’s a challenge. And it does create some health risks.”

So dietitians created a Weight Watchers-style program called “Operation Weight Loss,” posted cards in the chow halls that show the calories, fat and sodium for different foods and even mounted “Biggest Loser” weight loss competitions.

Brandt, the Michigan reservist, joined one weight loss competition six weeks ago. So far, she’s lost 8 pounds, and hopes to lose 45.

Navy Spc. Emmitt Hawks of Jacksonville, N.C., has dropped 65 pounds since October, down to 180 pounds, by eating healthier foods such as fresh panini at the U.S. Embassy.

But Hawks, 35, said eating healthily can be tough for soldiers in the field facing greater danger and fewer meal options. He said he couldn’t blame a friend of his who holed up with some junk food after seeing the trailer next to his hit by a mortar shell, killing the soldier inside.

“I’ve heard people say, ‘Today could be my last day,’ and they’ll eat,” Hawks said. “But I want to be where I can run as fast as I can to that bunker when I hear a duck-and-cover order.”

molly.hennessy-fiske @latimes.com