Men who are overweight are more likely to have precancerous lesions detected in a benign prostate biopsy and are at a greater risk for subsequently developing prostate cancer, a new study shows.

“It is absolutely clear that obesity increases a man’s risk of dying from prostate cancer,” said Dr. Andrew Rundle, associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York City, who conducted the study.

But, he told NBCNews.com, “We don’t know if obesity causes it (prostate cancer) or makes it harder to treat.” Rundle’s study was published on Tuesday in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

He noted that being overweight is known to cause five cancers -- post-menopausal breast, colon, kidney, endometrial (uterus) and esophageal. Cancer of the prostate -- the gland that releases the male hormone, testosterone, into the body -- is the leading diagnosed cancer in men and the second leading cancer killer of men behind lung cancer.

According to the American Cancer Society, 28,000 men died of it last year in the United States and over 238,000 new cases will be detected in the country this year.

"Studies conducted in the past have attempted to determine if there are subpopulations of men diagnosed with benign conditions that may be at a greater risk for developing prostate cancer,” Rundle said. “This is one of the first studies to assess the association between obesity and precancerous abnormalities."

Rundle and his colleagues studied obesity and future prostate cancer incidence in 6,692 men at the Henry Ford Health System who were followed for 14 years after a biopsy or transurethral resection of the prostate with benign findings. To determine obesity, he used the standard Body Mass Index, which factors in weight and height combined. Taking an average BMI of 30, Rundle said about one-third of the U.S population is considered obese.

The researchers conducted a case-control study among 494 of these patients and 494 matched controls; they found precancerous abnormalities in 11 percent of the patients' benign specimens. These abnormalities were significantly associated with obesity at the time of the procedure, according to Rundle.

After accounting for variables, including family history of prostate cancer, prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels in the blood, and the number of PSA tests and digital rectal exams during follow-up, the researchers found that obesity at the time of the initial procedure was associated with a 57 percent increased incidence of prostate cancer during follow-up.

Generally, a biopsy will be performed after a high PSA level, or if a doctor can detect a hardening of the prostate during a digital rectal examination. The biopsy takes minute slivers of tissue from the gland to test for cancerous cells. But it can be inaccurate, depending on where the tissues are taken from, and can miss cancerous cells.

“It is possible that the tumors missed by initial biopsy grew and were detected in a follow-up biopsy," Rundle said.

Helena Furberg, associate attending epidemiologist at Memorial Sloane-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, said Rundle's findings represented "a significant research study" at a time of controversy over whether obesity is associated with the risk of prostate cancer.

“Now, future studies should look at the question: does losing weight decrease the risk of prostate cancer?” she said in an interview with NBCNews.com.

Furberg also noted the study shows how the accuracy of a biopsy can be affected and fail to detect pre-cancerous lesions in obese patients who have a larger prostate. “In future, clinicians should take into consideration the size of the patients,” she said.

Dr. Marcus Quek, associate professor of urology at Loyola University Medical Center outside Chicago, said previous studies have come to conflicting conclusions about how obesity and prostate cancer may be related.

“This study tells us more work needs to be done on the link between obesity and cancer,” he said. “And if we find they are related, whether we can modify the risk.”

Quek noted Dr. Rundle’s study had found lesions during follow-ups, indicating that they had been missed in the initial biopsy.

“Biopsies are only so accurate,” Quek said. ”People have looked at ways to improve prostate biopsies, with MRI and other imaging technology.”

“But right now, they are only as accurate as where they put the needles.”

By Genevra Pittman
Reuters
Children whose families are on food stamps are just as likely to be overweight and obese as other low-income youth, a new study suggests. 

Researchers found poor children tend to have diets high in processed meats, saturated fat and sugary drinks and low in whole grains and fruits and vegetables - regardless of whether they receive federal nutrition assistance.

The Food Stamp Program, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), places few restrictions on the type of groceries people can buy using food stamps. That has led to concern that the program isn't doing enough to encourage healthy eating, especially among young people.

One report estimated that in 2011 alone, almost $4 billion of SNAP benefits were used to purchase sodas and other soft drinks.

"The true intent of the program was to provide as much optimal nutrition as possible to the people who are in the program," said Dr. Jonathan Shenkin, a health policy researcher from Boston University and a pediatric dentist in Maine.

Shenkin, who wasn't involved in the new study, is a proponent of tighter restrictions on the types of products SNAP benefits can be used to purchase - or, at least, better education for food stamp users about healthy choices.

The new research included about 5,200 low-income kids and teens who were surveyed about their diets between 1999 and 2008 as part of a long-term national health and nutrition study.

Between one-quarter and one-third of those children were part of households currently receiving SNAP benefits. To qualify, a family must be living at 130 percent of the federal poverty level or below - equal to an income of about $2,400 per month for a family of four in 2011.

About 19 percent of kids on SNAP were overweight and another 18 percent were obese, similar to the proportion of low-income children not on federal nutrition assistance who were heavy.

Both groups of young people ate less than the recommended amount of whole grains, fruits and vegetables - just one serving per day or fewer of each - and more processed meat, sugary beverages and saturated fat, researchers led by Cindy Leung from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston found. There was no difference in their overall calorie intake.

Compared to children not on SNAP, those with the extra nutrition assistance consumed more high-fat dairy products and sugary drinks and ate fewer nuts and legumes.

More than 47 million Americans were on SNAP as of late 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"The low intake of nutritious food among children participating in SNAP represents a significant missed opportunity for the program to promote health during an important life stage," Leung and her colleagues wrote in Pediatrics. 

Not used as intended
Shenkin told Reuters Health the study is more evidence that food stamps aren't necessarily helping families be any healthier and aren't being used as they were originally intended.

"The program itself should be paying for nutritious foods that are contributors to health," he said.

Ideally, Shenkin said, the government program would reward people who buy fresh fruits and vegetables with extra benefits, for example - but that would call for increased funding. A more cost-effective option would mean requiring people purchase non-nutritious foods and drinks with their own money and not SNAP benefits, he said.

Not everyone agrees, however, with some researchers and policymakers arguing that limiting what consumers can purchase with food stamps is paternalistic. There's also a concern about a lack of grocery stores carrying healthy options in predominately low-income areas.

One potential solution, according to Shenkin, could be to expand what's covered in SNAP-related education programs to encourage people to seek more healthy options on their own.

"In no way do we want to cut food stamps," he said. "We want to optimize the value that they provide."

By Rachael Rettner
MyHealthNewsDaily

Very obese children and teens may be at risk for multiple sclerosis, a new study suggests.

In the study, very obese girls (those who had a body mass index (BMI) of 35 or higher) were nearly four times more likely to be diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) within the study period, compared with girls who were normal weight. The link was strongest among teenagers.

No link between obesity and multiple sclerosis was found for girls in other weight classes, or for boys.

In people with MS, the immune system attacks the nerve cells of the brain and spinal cord, producing symptoms such as numbness, loss of balance, weakness and tremors. MS is rare in children — about one to two kids out of every 100,000 will develop the condition. Symptoms are similar in children and adults, although youngsters may also experience symptoms not typical of MS, such as seizures or lethargy, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

The findings suggest that, as the prevalence of childhood obesity increases, so will cases of multiple sclerosis, said study researcher Dr. Annette Langer-Gould, of Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research & Evaluation in Pasadena, Calif.

"Our study suggests that parents or caregivers of obese girls and teenagers should pay attention to symptoms such as tingling and numbness or limb weakness, and bring them to a doctor's attention," said Langer-Gould.

However, the study only found an association, and cannot prove that obesity causes multiple sclerosis. It could be that an aspect of the condition itself — such as having trouble exercising before the condition is diagnosed — predisposes youngsters to obesity. But if this were the case, researchers would expect to see the same link in girls and boys, which the study did not find, Langer-Gould said.

The researchers analyzed information from 75 children and teens ages 2 to 18 who were diagnosed with pediatric MS, and compared them with more than 913,000 children and teens who did not have MS. For those with MS, BMI was measured before the condition was diagnosed.

Obesity is known to increase inflammation in the body, which may be involved in the development of MS, Langer-Gould said. Estrogen, a female hormone, also increases inflammation, and together with other inflammatory factors released from fat cells, could accelerate the development of MS, Langer-Gould said. The involvement of estrogen might explain why the link was only seen in girls.

"The authors certainly have opened the door to an interesting association," said Dr. Michael Duchowny, a pediatric neurologist and director of academic affairs at Miami Children's Hospital Research Institute, who was not involved in the study. "These findings need to be repeated, expanded and clarified further" with additional research, including studies that test the estrogen hypothesis, Duchowny said.

Previous studies in adults have suggested that obesity, or related factors, such as levels of appetite hormones, play a role in the development of MS, said Dr. Steven Mandel,  a neurologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

"It doesn't mean that if you're obese or overweight ,you're going to develop MS," but rather, that a link between the two conditions exists, Mandel said. The findings may be another reason to bring childhood obesity under control, he said.

Although preliminary, some saw the findings as hopeful.

"We're beginning to accumulate a good deal of information about some of the environmental factors that may play a role in MS, and environmental factors that are possible to be modified," such as smoking and obesity, said Dr. Nicholas LaRocca, vice president of health care delivery at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. "That’s a very exciting possibility," LaRocca said.

The study will be published today (Jan. 30) in the journal Neurology.

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Evan Agostini / AP

TV personality Star Jones launched a campaign that reflect an emerging trend among African American women: Finding creative ways to combat the obesity epidemic that poses a threat to their longevity.

Nicole Ari Parker was motivated by frustration. For Star Jones, it was a matter of life or death. Toni Carey wanted a fresh start after a bad breakup.

All three have launched individual campaigns that reflect an emerging priority for African-American women: finding creative ways to combat the obesity epidemic that threatens their longevity.

African-American women have the highest obesity rate of any group of Americans. Four out of five black women have a body mass index above 25 percent, the threshold for being overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By comparison, nearly two-thirds of Americans overall are in this category, the CDC said.

Many black women seem to not be be bothered that they are generally heavier than other Americans.

Calorie-rich, traditional soul food is a staple in the diets of many African-Americans, and curvy black women are embraced positively through slang praising them as "thick" with a "little meat on their bones," or through songs like the Commodore's "Brick House" or "Bootylicious" by Destiny's Child. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation and The Washington Post earlier this year found that 66 percent of overweight black women had high self-esteem, while 41 percent of average-sized or thin white women had high self-esteem.

Still, that doesn't mean black women reject the need to become healthier.

Historically black, all-female Spelman College in Atlanta is disbanding its NCAA teams and devoting those resources to a campus-wide wellness program. In an open letter announcing Spelman's "wellness revolution," president Beverly Daniel Tatum cited a campus analysis that found many of Spelman's 2,100 students already have high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes or other chronic ailments.

"Spelman has an opportunity to change the health trajectory of our students and, through their influence, the communities from which they come," Tatum's letter said.

Jones, who underwent open heart surgery in 2010 at age 47 and now urges awareness about heart disease among black women, was met by an overflow crowd earlier this year when she convened a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation panel on black women and obesity.

"We have to get ourselves out of being conditioned to think that using soft words so we don't hurt peoples' feelings is doing them any favor," Jones said. "Curvy, big-boned, hefty, full-figured, fluffy, chubby. Those are all words designed to make people feel better about themselves. That wasn't helpful to me."

Jones once embraced being large and fabulous, at 5 feet 5 inches tall and 300 pounds. But under that exterior, she said, she was morbidly obese, suffering from extreme fatigue, nausea, lightheadedness, heart palpitations and blurred vision. The attorney and TV personality also had gastric bypass surgery in 2003.

Now, she advises women to make simple changes such as reducing salt intake, exercising 30 minutes a day, quitting smoking, controlling portion sizes and making nutritious dietary choices.

Nutritionist and author Rovenia M. Brock, known professionally as Dr. Ro, agrees with Jones. She said getting active is only about 20 percent of the fight against obesity. The rest revolves around how much people eat.

"Our plates are killing us," she said.

Brock said "food deserts," or urban areas that lack quality supermarkets, are a real obstacle. She suggested getting around that by carpooling with neighbors to stores in areas with higher-quality grocery options or buying food in bulk. She also suggested growing herbs and vegetables in window-box gardens.

"Stop focusing on what's not there, or what you think is not there," Brock said. "We have to get out of this wimpy, 'woe is me' mentality."

While first lady Michelle Obama has encouraged exercise through her "Let's Move" campaign targeting childhood obesity, the spark for this current interest among black women may have been comments last year by Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, who observed publicly that women must stop allowing concern about their hair to prevent them from exercising.

Some black women visit salons as often as every two weeks, investing several hours and anywhere from $50 to hundreds of dollars each visit — activity that, according to the Black Owned Beauty Supply Association, helps fuel a $9 billion black hair care and cosmetics industry.

In an interview during a health conference in Washington last week, Benjamin said the damage sweat can inflict on costly hairstyles can affect women's willingness to work out, and she hopes to change that. She goes to beauty industry conferences to encourage stylists to create exercise-friendly hairdos.

"I wouldn't say we use it as an excuse, we use it as a barrier," Benjamin said. "And that's not one of the barriers anymore. We're always going to have problems with balancing our lives, but we could take that one out."

Parker, an actress who starred in "A Streetcar Named Desire" on Broadway earlier this year, understands this dilemma well. Out of personal frustration over maintaining both her workout and her hair, she created "Save Your Do" Gymwrap — a headband that can be wrapped around the hair in a way that minimizes sweat and preserves hairstyles.

"Not just as a black woman, but as a woman, since the beginning of time, beauty has been our responsibility," Parker said in an interview. Because of that, she said, exercise has become linked with vanity instead of health.

"We've turned exercise into a weight-loss regimen," Parker said. "No. Exercise is about being grateful for the body you have and sustaining the life you have. ... Take all the hype out of the exercise and think of it as brushing your teeth."

With their mutual family histories of diabetes and high blood pressure in mind, Carey, 28, and her sorority sister Ashley Hicks, 29, co-founded the running club Black Girls Run. Carey also considered it a new beginning after a bad breakup and a move across country. Since 2009, Black Girls Run has amassed 52,000 members who serve as a support system for runners.

Black Girls Run has about 60 groups nationwide that coordinate local races in Atlanta, New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C, Houston and Greensboro, N.C. Most groups run at least five times a week. Next month, the national running club will take its first "Black Girls Run — Preserve the Sexy" tour to cities with high obesity rates. The tour includes health and fitness clinics with information on nutrition, hair maintenance and running gear.

"We found that when you want to get healthy and when you want to be active, it's intimidating," Carey said. "You don't know where to start. There's a little coaxing that has to go along with that."

Parker said once African-American women place value on their bodies and longevity, everything else will follow. It costs her nothing, she said, to walk around an outdoor track with her husband, actor Boris Kodjoe, or run up and down stairs at home with her headphones.

"One good step breeds another one," Parker said. "You're going to have one less margarita, one less scoop of Thanksgiving macaroni ... and yet you're not doing anything fanatical or dramatic."

By MyHealthNewsDaily Staff
MyHealthNewsDaily

When asked to name the most urgent health problem currently facing the United States, more people than ever say obesity, a new Gallup poll finds.

Nearly 1 in 6 people (16 percent) say obesity is the country's greatest health problem, up from 1 in 7  (14 percent) earlier this year, and 1 in 100 in 1999, according to the nationally representative poll. 

The growing concern is parallel with the rising rates of obesity in the U.S.

However, the top-named concern is access to health care, with 23 percent calling it the nation's most- pressing health problem. Obesity ranks as the third most commonly named problem; the cost of health care ranks second, with 19 percent.

Health care access and cost have been the top two concerns since 2003, according to Gallup. Polls conducted in 2001 named bioterrorism as the top concern, and AIDS topped the list several times during the late 1980s and 1990s.

Ranking fourth in this year's poll, with 13 percent, is cancer.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 35.7 percent of U.S. adults, and 17 percent of children are obese.

Unless the nation's growing obesity rate is curbed, "it is likely this issue will continue to make its way to the top of Americans' list of the most urgent health problems in the country," Gallup said. 

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A simple assessment can predict at birth a baby's likelihood of becoming obese during childhood, scientists said on Wednesday.

The formula, available as an online calculator, estimates the child's obesity risk based on its birth weight, the body mass index of the parents, the number of people in the household, the mother's professional status and whether she smoked during pregnancy.

Researchers who published a study of the test in the journal PLOS ONE say they hope it will be used to identify babies at high risk and help families take steps to stop them putting on too much weight before it's too late.

Childhood obesity is a leading cause of early type 2 diabetes, as well as various types of cardiovascular disease, and is becoming increasingly common in developed countries.

According to data from the American Heart Association, almost 18 percent of boys and almost 16 percent of girls aged between two and 19 in the United States are obese. In England, 17 percent of boys and 15 percent of girls aged between two and 15 are obese, according to National Health Service (NHS) data.

"Once a young child becomes obese, it's difficult for them to lose weight - so prevention is the best strategy and it has to begin as early as possible," said Philippe Froguel of Imperial College London, who led the study.

"Unfortunately, public prevention campaigns have been rather ineffective at preventing obesity in school-age children. Teaching parents about the dangers of over-feeding and bad nutritional habits at a young age would be much more effective."

Froguel's team developed the formula using data from a study set up in 1986 following 4,000 children born in Finland.

They were initially investigating whether obesity risk could be assessed using genetic profiles, but the test they developed based on common genetic variations failed to make accurate predictions. Instead, they found that non-genetic information available at the time of birth was enough to predict which children would become obese.

The formula proved accurate not just in the Finnish children they studied, but also in further tests using data from studies in Italy and the United States.

"This test takes very little time, it doesn't require any lab tests and it doesn't cost anything," Froguel said. The calculator is available here.

Although the team's work using common genetic variants did not prove to be helpful for predicting childhood obesity, they said about one in 10 cases of obesity are caused by rare mutations that seriously affect appetite regulation.

The researchers said tests for these types of mutations could become available to doctors in the next few years as the cost of DNA sequencing technology falls.

By Trevor Stokes
MyHealthNewsDaily
Doctors have similar levels of bias against people who are overweight as the general public, a new study says.

Additionally, physicians are likely not aware of their own biases, the study showed.

"The most striking thing is that physicians are like others in society, and hold negative attitudes about weight," said study researcher Janice Sabin, an assistant professor at the University of Washington. "Our study did not look at behavior, so we don't know whether or not this actually affects the patient-provider relationship," she added.

Previous research identified weight biases in doctors, but the new study found that their level of bias is similar to that of the public.

Sabin and her colleagues included nearly 360,000 participants in their study, including 2,284 medical doctors. The researchers used a computer test designed to measure both explicit biases, of which people are aware, and implicit biases, which people do not recognize they hold.

Results showed that female doctors were less biased against obese people than male doctors. "Even though there was a slight difference, bias was strong among both men and women," Sabin told MyHealthNewsDaily.

Obese doctors were generally more sympathetic to overweight people, the study also found.

Weight bias could affect the nearly two-thirds of people in the U.S. who are overweight or obese, according to researchers.

Rebecca Puhl, director of research at the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University, said the study underscores the need to educate doctors about weight bias, and provide them with strategies to reduce bias in their interactions with patients.

"Weight bias jeopardizes patients' emotional and physical health, and that some patients may even avoid future health care because of weight bias in the health care setting," said Puhl, who was not involved in the study.

Weight bias can show up in many ways — doctors may use derogatory language, blame health problems on weight and even deny certain medical procedures based on weight, Puhl said.

But patients have several options if they feel stigmatized by health care providers. They can express their concerns to doctors, and should be specific and assertive in what they would like to see change, Puhl said.

Bringing along a friend or family member to an appointment can also help. "If patients are reluctant to speak to their provider, or feel that attempts to do so have been unsuccessful, patients can alternatively voice their concerns to the Patient Advocate at their health center," Puhl said.

Sabin noted that the study did not demonstrate that overweight or obese patients are actually treated differently by their doctors.

"Just because a person has bias does not mean that they are going to discriminate, and that's something important that I always try to emphasize," Sabin said.

The study was funded by Project Implicit, a nonprofit organization that examines unspoken biases, and is published online today (Nov. 7) in the journal PLoS ONE.

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By Reuters staff

Regardless of lifestyle and other health-related factors, heavier people were more likely than lean ones to be hospitalized for a variety of conditions, according to an Australian study.

What's more, this was the case not just for obese people but also for those who were merely overweight as well, the researchers wrote in the International Journal of Obesity.

Among middle-aged adults, researchers found that every extra body mass index (BMI) point - equal to about 2.7 to 3.2 kilograms (six or seven lbs) - was tied to a four percent higher chance of being admitted to the hospital over a two-year period.
"There is considerable evidence that severe obesity is bad for your health, resulting in higher rates of disease and consequently higher use of health services and higher death rates," said lead author Rosemary Korda, from the Australian National University in Canberra.

"What this study shows is that there is a gradual increase in risk of hospitalization as BMI increases, starting with people in the overweight range. In other words, even being overweight (but not obese) increases your risk."

Korda and her colleagues recruited close to 250,000 people aged 45 and above from New South Wales. After surveying them about their height, weight and other health and lifestyle issues, the researchers tracked participants through hospital data.

Over the next two years, they had more than 61,000 total hospitalizations lasting at least one night.

Korda's team found that among people considered in the normal range for BMI, there were 120 hospitalizations for every 1,000 men and 102 per 1,000 women each year. For those considered severely obese, on the other hand, there were 203 hospitalizations for every 1,000 men and 183 per 1,000 women, on average.

Overweight and moderately obese people had hospitalization rates somewhere in between.

A BMI of 25 to 30 is classified as overweight, while obese is from 30 on up.

That pattern held up even after taking into account whether participants smoked, how physically active they were and their general health at the start of the study.

Extra weight seemed especially to play a role in people's chances of being hospitalized for diabetes, heart disease, chest pain, arthritis and asthma, the researchers reported.

"Extending the research to overweight individuals... is a unique contribution," said Robert Klesges, a preventive medicine researcher from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis.

"Basically it tells tens of millions of Americans that, 'you are now at risk'," added Klesges, who wasn't involved in the study.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just under 36 percent of American adults are obese. Another 33 percent are overweight.

"While increasing weight leads to increasing risk, this also means that a gradual decrease in weight is likely to gradually decrease your risk - ie, if you are overweight or obese, even small decreases in weight may make a positive difference to your health," said Korda.

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