Beware Of Diet Rebound Effects

Each year at this time, almost 75% of people who are overweight begin a diet on their own. They do so either because they have seen a particular diet plan on the media, or a relative commented on it. However, only 20 percent of these people seek medical advice on which diets to follow, says the president of the Spanish Society for the Study of Obesity (SEED).
The expert believes that "in the summer holiday season people want shortcuts to diets that promise quick weight loss and resort to quick solutions. Some of the popular diets can cause hyperthyroidism or mesenteric vein thrombosis and at least the dreaded rebound effect on recovering the lost pounds, and sometimes more. "
This drop occurs because people abandon the enthusiasm ahead of time, causing undesirable effects on the body. Moreover, statistics provided by the SEED indicate that over 77% of people who start diets on a regular basis do so for cosmetic reasons while 38% do so for health reasons.
The fast diets include deficiencies of trace elements (proteins, vitamins and minerals), disorders such as anorexia or bulimia, or the appearance of negative psychological effects. "All are harmful and some have been fatal," says Moreno.
To recognize them, the so-called 'miracle diets' have three clear characteristics. They promises losing more than five pounds a month, ensure that it can be done without effort and that they don't pose health risks. The problem is that during the first month it is possible to get some results, but keeping them constant is the challenge. Yet, these "yo-yo" diet ads sometimes include quotes from celebrities that have allegedly been continuously successful.
Weight loss treatment should be personalized, and always under strict medical supervision.
According to Dr. M. Alemany, Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Barcelona, this "rebound effect" is very common and a great despair in those who suffer. It is coupled with a marked increase in obesity by improving the adaptability of the body against diets with lower energy content. "
"This ability to adapt," says Alemany, can itself be a cause for obesity, or a quantum leap from an overweight to obesity.
The "yo-yo" diets have very serious health risks. The break in the diet means the arrival of food in abundance. This in turns triggers insulin levels and thus enhances the conversion of glucose into fat. Professor Alemany says that "the danger is that it is chronic and has a rebound effect." This is due to the inconsistency in the monitoring of the diets.
Alemany compares it with the risks of indiscriminate use of antibiotics, allowing the proliferation of drug-resistant microbial strains. Dr. Alemany says that this problem could make "racial overweight roots to physiological " and cause a real obesity epidemic for which there is no immediate solution.

Nutrigenomics developing personalized diets for disease prevention

The emerging field of nutrigenomics, which aims to identify the genetic factors that influence the body’s response to diet and studies how the bioactive constituents of food affect gene expression, is explored in a series of provocative, interdisciplinary reports and analyses in the December 2008 Special Issue (Volume 12, number 4) of OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com/omi).
This compendium of papers describing the innovative new area of study encompassed by nutrigenomics research is Part 1 of a two-part series. Part 2 will be published in Spring 2009.
Nutrigenomic’s bidirectional approach to investigating how the genetic traits of an individual or population interact with their diet offers many possibilities for targeted clinical interventions and preventive medicine. These may include modifying either diet or the biochemical response to food exposure to prevent disease in individuals shown to be susceptible to the consequences of unfavorable dietary/genomic interactions. In the future, nutrigenomics may potentially help guide the development of customized diets based on an individual’s genetic make-up.
“In contrast to previous applications of genomics technologies where the goal is to distinguish existing disease from absence of disease, nutrigenomics aims to discern nuanced differences in predisease states such that personalized dietary interventions can be designed to prevent or modify future disease susceptibility,” write Guest Editors Béatrice Godard, PhD, and Vural Ozdemir, MD, PhD, from the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Montreal, Québec, Canada.
“Nutrigenomics opens new and amazing frontiers in 21st century biomedical and clinical research,” says Eugene Kolker, PhD, Executive Editor of OMICS and Chief Data Officer at Seattle Children’s Hospital, Seattle, Washington.