Tuesday, August 1, 2017
School study proves obesity prevention can work
A unique approach to obesity prevention has helped schools in the ACT reduce the number of students who are overweight or obese, and even had a positive effect on mental health.
The 'It's Your Move!' program - an initiative of Deakin University and ACT Health - was run in selected ACT schools over a three year period with the aim of preventing obesity among teens.
The project used three intervention schools and compared them with three 'control sites', targeting students aged between 12 and 16. Data was collected from 656 students, including BMI measurements and self-reported behavioural changes.
At the program's end, two of the three intervention schools showed a significant decrease in the number of students classified as overweight or obese, compared to no change in the control group.
The results were published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health.
Lead author Professor Steven Allender, director of the Global Obesity Centre within Deakin's School of Health and Social Development, said the program was unique in that it looked at a whole range of contributing factors to obesity in combination.
"The intervention included multiple initiatives at individual, community and school policy level to support healthier nutrition and physical activity," Professor Allender said.
"Each school developed a 'Food at School' policy that encompassed canteen food, food at sport and fundraising events, and school catering.
"The policy included instigating a traffic light colour coding system for food sold at the canteen, healthy morning teas for staff to encourage positive role-modelling, cooking classes after hours for staff and students, and increased access to water fountains in the school yard."
Each school also picked a key objective, including increasing active transport, increasing time spent physically active at school and supporting mental wellbeing.
ACT Deputy Chief Health Officer, Dr Andrew Pengilley congratulated the three Canberra-based schools: Alfred Deakin High, Calwell High and Melrose High who participated in the pilot.
"The schools achieved a decrease in the proportion of students who were overweight or obese, an increase in the proportion who ate five or more vegetables a day, and an increase in the proportion of students who drank four or more glasses of water at school," Dr Pengilley said.
"It is not easy to achieve an overall drop in overweight and obesity, but the pilot managed that in two schools, with the third school maintaining stable rates.
"These are welcome results that show by engaging school communities in the design of initiatives for their students, we can make positive changes to the health and wellbeing of young people.
"'It's Your Move!' has helped change each school for the long term by embedding healthier practices into their curriculum and policies, so students will continue to benefit from the program into the future."
Professor Allender said the work was critical as obesity affected two thirds of Australia's population and cost $60 billion per year.
"Even more worrying is that some recent studies show rates of obesity among children are as much as double our previous understanding," he said.
"This has significant impacts on mental health, education attainment and employment prospects. But this trial proves that obesity is preventable."
Professor Allender said there was a significant decrease in depressive symptoms at the school that had made a special goal of improving mental well-being through the promotion of healthy eating and physical activity.
"Students who reported symptoms of depression dropped from around a quarter of the group, to just over 17 per cent," he said.
"This is great evidence that modifiable lifestyle behaviours - like what we eat and our amount of daily physical activity - can affect our mental wellbeing.
"Yet the number of obesity prevention interventions that include mental health follow-ups is low. We think this work demonstrates that community interventions can, and should, be multi-purpose.
"Systems thinking is the critical next stage in obesity prevention. We can't keep looking at health promotion activities in isolation from each other. A holistic approach is what is going to get results."
'It's Your Move!' has now been rolled out to 11 high schools in the ACT and 11 communities in South Western Victoria, with a further 100 communities on a waiting list to take part.
Article: School-based systems change for obesity prevention in adolescents: outcomes of the Australian Capital Territory 'It's Your Move!', Steven Allender et al., Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, doi: 10.1111/1753-6405.12696, published 27 July 2017.
Hunger-controlling brain cells may offer path for new obesity drugs
Is the solution to the obesity epidemic all in our heads? A study by researchers at The Rockefeller University suggests that it might be.
"We have identified two new populations of cells in the brain that potently regulate appetite," says Alexander Nectow, first author of the paper, published in Cell. The two types of cells, located in a part of the brainstem called the dorsal raphe nucleus, are potential targets for new drugs to treat obesity by controlling the hunger signals that drive the search for and consumption of food.
The new findings are the latest evidence that eating is a complex biological behavior mediated by multiple sites in the brain. They also offer a possible solution to a problem that has dogged previous efforts to address obesity at the neuronal level.
In 1994, Jeffrey Friedman, Marilyn M. Simpson Professor and head of Rockefeller's Laboratory of Molecular Genetics, launched a new era in obesity research by discovering a hormone called leptin, which acts on neurons in the brain's hypothalamus region to suppress hunger. Injections of the hormone have been shown to promote dramatic weight loss in patients with a rare leptin deficiency, however many obese people don't respond to this therapy.
"Obesity is generally associated with leptin resistance," says Friedman, whose lab produced the new study. "And our recent data suggest that modulation of the activity of specific neurons with drugs could bypass leptin resistance and provide a new means for reducing body weight."
The cells that trigger eating
Nectow and his colleagues zeroed in on the dorsal raphe nucleus, or DRN, when whole-brain imaging made with iDISCO, an advanced technique developed at Rockefeller, revealed that this part of the brain becomes activated in hungry mice. Subsequent imaging of other mice that were fed more than their normal amount of food, until they were full, revealed a different pattern of DRN activity. These results indicated quite clearly that neurons in that part of the brain played a role in feeding behavior.
The next step, explains Nectow, now an associate research scholar at Princeton University who did the research while a Ph.D. student and visiting fellow in Friedman's lab, was to determine which of the several types of neurons that make up the DRN were involved. Genetic analysis of the activated cells in the two groups of mice showed that the neurons triggered by a full belly released glutamate, a chemical that nerve cells use to signal one another, while the neurons triggered by hunger released a different neurotransmitter, known as GABA.
"There are two possibilities when you see something like that," Nectow says. "One is that the cells are just along for the ride - they are getting activated by hunger but they're not actually driving the food intake process. The other possibility is that they are in fact part of the sense and respond mechanism to hunger - and in this case, we suspected the latter."
Manipulating the system
Armed with two proven methods for activating targeted neurons at will - one optical, one chemical - the researchers were able to turn on the glutamate-releasing cells in obese mice. This suppressed the animals' food intake and made them lose weight. And it confirmed that the DRN neurons turned on by hunger did indeed drive food intake.
Similarly, flipping on the GABA-releasing neurons in the same part of the brain had the opposite effect and increased food intake. Notably, turning on the "hunger neurons" automatically turned off the "satiety neurons," maximizing the effect.
The researchers also studied the effect of switching off hunger neurons in obese mice. "We were excited to see that prolonged inhibition of these neurons could dramatically reduce body weight," says postdoctoral fellow Marc Schneeberger Pane, a co-first author of the paper.
The findings open up new avenues of research into exactly how the brain controls eating, and suggest that drugs designed to activate or inhibit neurons in the DRN could be effective in treating obesity and preventing its related disorders, such as diabetes and hypertension.
And it offers fresh hope to hundreds of millions of obese people around the world. As it turns out, the brainstem, the oldest part of the brain in evolutionary terms, is the new frontier.
Article: Identification of a Brainstem Circuit Controlling Feeding, Alexander R. Nectow et al., Cell, doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2017.06.045, published 27 July 2017.
Monday, July 31, 2017
How to Re-Integrate a Splintered Self
You're reading How to Re-Integrate a Splintered Self, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you're enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
1-Listen
Identify the voices inside you. Last week, I wrote a letter from one clearly defined part of myself to another. These parts had NOT gotten along for some time, but now, I suddenly saw clearly that they could be first partners, then part of a larger, happier whole. Borrowing Gail Sheehy’s wonderful terms from “Passages”, one part of me was “The Seeker”, and the other was “The Merger”. I was concentrating on looking back and somehow making sense of the most difficult part of my life, and I knew that time had fragmented myself. The letter from the “Seeker” to the “Merger” and the response identified the key disputes concerning what happened during that period.2-Accept the Different Parts of Yourself
One of life’s great lessons is accepting. From my work on the stage, both as actor and playwright, I know that one of the theatre’s greatest gifts is the art of improv. Yes, improv is just what it sounds like, working on something without any preparation and making that lack of preparation a gift. But that’s not the core of improv. The core of improve is acceptance. If you’re on the stage doing improv, if your partner tells you you’re in the desert, then you’re in the desert, even if the theatre happens to be leaking rain at that moment. If you don’t accept, you can’t do improv. If the splintered parts of you can’t accept each other, then you can’t “perform” or participate in the drama of life together. So, each part of you, read that letter, overcome the negativity toward the other part and accept that why he or she did or didn’t do something.3-Find Your Internal Coach
Your Internal Coach is really simply a fancy or inspirational name for a nourishing internal parent. After my Seeker and Merger accepted each other, they realized they need another internal force who would supervise their integration, bring the best out in both, help them set goals, and most of all, help them find happiness in every moment, in every situation. The biggest thing the internal coach does is outlaw toxic self-criticism inside the newly integrated being.4-Coaching to the Best Outcome
Each day holds the possibilities of happiness, regardless of circumstances. Each day holds the possibilities of making the most of opportunities, no matter what they might be. Toxic internal criticism creates a re-splintering, and you have just overcome that, so here’s a way to mediate both feelings and events in a way that teaches with compassion. Here’s how.5-Diary Time: Record the Day’s Events and Feelings.
1-Give thanks for all, no matter what. (Remember your improv training around acceptance!) 2-Perhaps you made a mistake or didn’t do something as well as you might have. The splintered is not inclined to provide a teaching moment in such circumstances. The coach will. The coach will act as your kind adult and say, “What would have been a better approach?” You will tell the coach, and the coach will applaud your maturity. You can then add that to what you’re grateful for. So, you see, each day is a new opportunity to reknit yourself, in case any splintering went on during the day. Everyone wants to live their life with a full deck. Everyone wants to make the most of who they are. Everyone wants to be happy. These elements are all about a life of wealth. An integrated being is the best way to maximize your assets. Be rich!Lars Nielsen has decades of experience helping individuals and businesses discover and share their core message. Whatever your message or audience, grab his "Make YOUR Message Matter Cheat Sheet" and put his time-tested techniques to work immediately.
You've read How to Re-Integrate a Splintered Self, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you've enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
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