Weight Loss

When roasted at 475 degrees, coffee beans are sometimes described as rich and full-bodied. But for the full-bodied person who is not so rich, unroasted coffee beans - green as the day they were picked - may hold the key to cheap and effective weight loss, new research suggests. In a study presented Tuesday at the American Chemical Society's spring national meeting in San Diego, 16 overweight young adults took, by turns, a low dose of green coffee bean extract, a high dose of the supplement, and a placebo.

Until recently, very few people had ever heard of raspberry ketones, the aromatic compounds that give the berries their distinctive smell. Today, health food stores have trouble keeping the capsules or drops of the stuff on their shelves. Almost overnight, an obscure plant compound became the next big thing in weight loss - and all it took was a few words from Dr. Oz. In a February episode of "The Dr. Oz Show," Mehmet Oz told viewers that raspberry ketones were "the No. 1 miracle in a bottle to burn your fat. " Once Oz calls something a "miracle," it doesn't remain obscure for long.

Until recently, very few people had ever heard of raspberry ketones, the aromatic compounds that give the berries their distinctive smell. Today, health food stores have trouble keeping the capsules or drops of the stuff on their shelves. Almost overnight, an obscure plant compound became the next big thing in weight loss - and all it took was a few words from Dr. Oz. In a February episode of "The Dr. Oz Show," Mehmet Oz told viewers that raspberry ketones were "the No. 1 miracle in a bottle to burn your fat. " Once Oz calls something a "miracle," it doesn't remain obscure for long.

In an age of long commutes, late sports practices, endless workdays and 24/7 television programming, the image of Mom hanging up her dish towel at 7 p.m. and declaring "the kitchen is closed" seems a quaint relic of an earlier era. It also harks back to a thinner America. And that may be no coincidence. A new study, conducted on mice, hints at an unexpected contributor to the nation's epidemic of obesity - and, if later human studies bear it out, a possible way to have our cake and eat it too, with less risk of weight gain and the diseases that come with it. Just eat your cake - or better yet, an apple - earlier.

In an age of long commutes, late sports practices, endless workdays and 24/7 television programming, the image of Mom hanging up her dish towel at 7 p.m. and declaring "the kitchen is closed" seems a quaint relic of an earlier era. It also harks back to a thinner America. And that may be no coincidence. A new study, conducted on mice, hints at an unexpected contributor to the nation's epidemic of obesity - and, if later human studies bear it out, a possible way to have our cake and eat it too, with less risk of weight gain and the diseases that come with it. Just eat your cake - or better yet, an apple - earlier.

WASHINGTON - Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana said they improved his strength and posture. Celebrity Kim Kardashian boasted they allowed her to ditch her personal trainer. But federal and state officials said the rocker-bottom Shape-ups and other toning shoes made by Skechers USA Inc. don't live up to the hype from the company and its high-profile endorsers. On Wednesday, the Manhattan Beach company agreed to pay $50 million to settle false-advertising allegations by the Federal Trade Commission and the attorneys general of 44 states, including California, as well as the District of Columbia.

Which is better for weight loss -- a high-protein diet or a high-carb diet? That endless debate got a new twist on Monday. In a year-long study, Australian researchers found that both diets worked equally well when it came to shedding pounds but those on the low-carb diet were in considerably worse moods. The report, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, assigned 106 overweight and obese men and women to either a low-carb diet high in fat and protein or a high-carb diet low in fat and protein.

If every "miracle" weight-loss product really did the job, people everywhere would be cinching up their belts, gyms would become eerily quiet and TV stations would soon run out of B-roll footage of big bellies at the mall. Clearly, some weight-loss products fall short of their claims. But how can you spot the scams? The Federal Trade Commission has some basic guidelines: Don't trust any product that claims to work for everyone or anything that supposedly helps you lose more than 2 pounds in a week.

A long-ago discredited fad diet has been getting increased attention lately, thanks to Web chatter and the claims of a bestselling author. The so-called HCG diet's recent popularity is a bit surprising -- and not just because research suggests it doesn't work. Other currently popular diets call for cutting back on fat and sugar, consuming whole grains and lean meats, and even indulging in red wine. The HCG diet, in contrast, calls for eating just 500 calories a day while taking daily injections of human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG)

In HER 39 years, Claudia Hallblom has, by her own estimation, lost and regained about 1,000 pounds. Her success at losing weight was always driven by a goal, such as looking nice for her graduation or wedding. Her tactics usually included strict calorie-counting. But success on the scales was always fleeting. Sooner or later, she would revert to her old habits and no longer feel motivated to change. "I didn't know how to lose weight and keep it off," the Downey woman says.

The proposed weight-loss drug Lorcaserin, rebuffed in its bid for Food and Drug Administration approval last October, on Thursday won a recommendation of approval from the agency's advisory committee, a major step toward winning the FDA's go-ahead to enter the U.S. market. If the agency follows the advice of the panel of independent experts--which is common but not routine-- Lorcaserin would become the first new prescription weight-loss drug to go on the U.S. market since Orlistat (now marketed over-the-counter as Alli)

Nearly two-thirds of Americans who are obese try to lose weight, and about 40% of them actually succeed. How did they do it? The old-school way: By eating less, exercising more and switching to more healthful foods, according to a new study . That's not to say that the appeal of fad diets, pre-made diet foods and over-the-counter pills escaped these dieters. But none of these strategies worked. “Liquid diets, nonprescription diet pills and popular diets showed no association with successful weight loss,” according to a study published online Tuesday by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

When roasted at 475 degrees, coffee beans are sometimes described as rich and full-bodied. But for the full-bodied person who is not so rich, unroasted coffee beans - green as the day they were picked - may hold the key to cheap and effective weight loss, new research suggests. In a study presented Tuesday at the American Chemical Society's spring national meeting in San Diego, 16 overweight young adults took, by turns, a low dose of green coffee bean extract, a high dose of the supplement, and a placebo.

A pair of landmark studies demonstrated that weight-loss surgery may be the best solution for Type 2 diabetics with poor control over their blood sugar. So, now what? Experts say that diabetes care is likely to undergo a profound shift. But before diabetics get in line for space on the operating table, a lot of questions need to be answered. Not least of those, say clinicians, is who will do those operations, how well and for how much. Bariatric surgery has exploded in recent years, and with that growth have come concerns about quality of care and patient safety.

In findings that promise radical changes in the care of the 20 million U.S. patients with Type 2 diabetes, two new clinical trials have shown that weight-loss surgery brings about dramatically greater improvement of blood sugar control in obese diabetics than standard diabetes care. In both studies, even rigorously supervised regimens of diet, exercise and medications failed to bring blood sugar under good control after a year or more. In contrast, two teams of researchers - one in Italy, the other in the United States - reported that surgical procedures to reduce the size and sometimes the placement of the stomach often allowed subjects to discontinue diabetes medications within weeks.

If primary care doctors build intensive counseling programs to help their obese patients exercise, lose weight and get healthy, will they work? A new study finds that for half the population, at least, they will. For men and women alike, results will be modest. And for women, they won't last. The authors of the study, published Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, concluded that physicians' efforts to improve their obese patients' health by promoting lifestyle change might do better to embrace "a more realistic expectation": a modest reduction of patients' waist circumference and the prevention of further weight gain.

As people gain weight, their blood pressure tends to go up. Fortunately, as they lose weight, their blood pressure tends to go down -- but only so far, says Dr. Karol Watson, co-director of preventive cardiology and director of the hypertension clinic at UCLA. "If your body weight is normal, getting below doesn't help," she says. Even modest weight loss (say, 5% to 10% of your current heft) is effective at lowering blood pressure for those who have high blood pressure or prehypertension.

The proposed weight-loss drug Lorcaserin, rebuffed in its bid for Food and Drug Administration approval last October, on Thursday won a recommendation of approval from the agency's advisory committee, a major step toward winning the FDA's go-ahead to enter the U.S. market. If the agency follows the advice of the panel of independent experts--which is common but not routine-- Lorcaserin would become the first new prescription weight-loss drug to go on the U.S. market since Orlistat (now marketed over-the-counter as Alli)

Bonnie Addario didn't even know there was a word for what was happening to her. As if lung cancer weren't bad enough, the 54-year-old had lost 30 pounds off her normally 130-pound frame. Her life was limited to her husband's Barcalounger, where she had to recline because she lacked the strength to sit up straight. "It affected everything I did," says Addario, who is alive and well nine years later in San Carlos, Calif. "I literally could not get up and down the stairs. " There is a name for what Addario experienced: cachexia.

A panel of medical experts voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to endorse the controversial weight-loss drug Qnexa, clearing the way for the Food and Drug Administration to approve a new prescription obesity medication for the first time since 1999. The FDA will issue a final ruling later this year, but the agency typically follows the recommendations of its advisory committees. The 20-2 vote in favor of Qnexa was a surprising reversal from 2010, when the same advisory committee decided that the drug's risks of heart problems and birth defects outweighed its weight-loss benefits.