(Press-News.org) The number of children admitted to hospital for problems related to obesity in England and Wales quadrupled between 2000 and 2009, a study has found.
Nearly three quarters of these admissions were to deal with problems complicated by obesity such as asthma, breathing difficulties during sleep, and complications of pregnancy, rather than obesity itself being the primary reason.
Researchers at Imperial College London looked at NHS statistics for children and young people aged five to 19 where obesity was recorded in the diagnosis.
In 2009 there were 3,806 children admitted to hospital for obesity-related conditions, compared with 872 in 2000. Teenage girls accounted for the biggest rises in obesity-related hospital admissions. In 2009, 198 teenage girls experienced complications of pregnancy where obesity was thought to be a factor.
The number of bariatric surgery procedures in children and young people also rose from one per year in 2000 to 31 in 2009. Three quarters of these were in teenage girls.
The findings are published in the open access journal PLOS ONE.
"The burden of obesity is usually thought to have its serious consequences in adulthood, but we now see it manifesting earlier, in childhood," said Dr Sonia Saxena, from the School of Public Health at Imperial, who led the study. "It's clear that rising obesity levels are causing more medical problems in children, but the rise we observed probably also reflects increasing awareness among clinicians, who have become better at recognising obesity."
National surveys in England suggest that around 30 per cent of children aged two to 15 are overweight and 14 to 20 per cent are obese. Children who are obese have a higher risk of health problems such as type 2 diabetes, asthma, and sleep apnoea.
Previous work by the Imperial team and the University of Southern Carolina found that adults in the US are six to eight times more likely to perceive they are overweight or obese if told by a doctor and five times more likely to try to do something about it. But only 45 per cent of overweight patients who visit a doctor recall having been told about their weight problem.
"It's important that doctors speak to patients about their weight, because any attempt to help their patients must begin by recognising the problem."
###
For further information please contact:
Sam Wong
Research Media Officer
Imperial College London
Email: sam.wong@imperial.ac.uk
Tel: +44(0)20 7594 2198
Out of hours duty press officer: +44(0)7803 886 248
Notes to editors
1. J.D. Jones Nielsen et al. 'Rising obesity-related hospital admissions among children and young people in England: National time trends study' PLOS ONE (2013).
2. The earlier study referred to is: R.E. Post et al. 'The Influence of Physician Acknowledgment of Patients' Weight Status on Patient Perceptions of Overweight and Obesity in the United States' Arch Intern Med. 2011;171(4):316-321. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2010.549.
3. About Imperial College London
Consistently rated amongst the world's best universities, Imperial College London is a science-based institution with a reputation for excellence in teaching and research that attracts 14,000 students and 6,000 staff of the highest international quality. Innovative research at the College explores the interface between science, medicine, engineering and business, delivering practical solutions that improve quality of life and the environment - underpinned by a dynamic enterprise culture.
Since its foundation in 1907, Imperial's contributions to society have included the discovery of penicillin, the development of holography and the foundations of fibre optics. This commitment to the application of research for the benefit of all continues today, with current focuses including interdisciplinary collaborations to improve global health, tackle climate change, develop sustainable sources of energy and address security challenges.
In 2007, Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust formed the UK's first Academic Health Science Centre. This unique partnership aims to improve the quality of life of patients and populations by taking new discoveries and translating them into new therapies as quickly as possible.
Website: http://www.imperial.ac.uk
4-fold rise in children treated for obesity-related conditions
2013-06-13
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Scan predicts whether therapy or meds will best lift depression
2013-06-13
Pre-treatment scans of brain activity predicted whether depressed patients would best achieve remission with an antidepressant medication or psychotherapy, in a study funded by the National Institutes of Health.
"Our goal is to develop reliable biomarkers that match an individual patient to the treatment option most likely to be successful, while also avoiding those that will be ineffective," explained Helen Mayberg, M.D., of Emory University, Atlanta, a grantee of the NIH's National Institute of Mental Health.
Mayberg and colleagues report on their findings in JAMA ...
Genetic maps of ocean algae show bacteria-like flexibility
2013-06-13
Smaller than a speck of dust, Emiliania huxleyi plays an outsized role in the world's seas. Ranging from the polar oceans to the tropics, these free-floating photosynthetic algae remove carbon dioxide from the air, help supply the oxygen that we breathe, and form the base of marine food chains. When they proliferate, their massive turquoise blooms are visible from space.
Now scientists have discovered one of the keys to E. huxleyi's success. A seven-year effort by 75 researchers from 12 countries to map its genome has revealed a set of core genes that mix and match with ...
Alzheimer's brain change measured in humans
2013-06-13
Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have measured a significant and potentially pivotal difference between the brains of patients with an inherited form of Alzheimer's disease and healthy family members who do not carry a mutation for the disease.
Researchers have known that amyloid beta, a protein fragment, builds up into plaques in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. They believe the plaques cause the memory loss and other cognitive problems that characterize the disease. Normal brain metabolism produces different forms of amyloid beta.
The ...
Water is no lubricant
2013-06-13
Water in the Earth's crust and upper mantle may not play such an important role as a lubricant of plate tectonics as previously assumed. This is a result geoscientists present in the current issue of the scientific journal Nature (13/06/2013) after the examination of water in the mineral olivine.
Laboratory experiments over the past three decades have suggested the presence of water greatly weakens the mechanical strength of the mineral olivine, a key component of the Earth's upper mantle. In a recent study led by the Bayerisches Geoinstitut in Bayreuth, the Secondary ...
Jammed molecular motors may play a role in the development of ALS
2013-06-13
Slowdowns in the transport and delivery of nutrients, proteins and signaling molecules within nerve cells may contribute to the development of the neurodegenerative disorder ALS, according to researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine.
The researchers showed how a genetic mutation often associated with inherited ALS caused delays in the transport of these important molecules along the long axons of neurons.
Their findings were published in the online journal PLOS ONE on June 12.
Motor neurons are among the longest cells in the human body—some ...
Researchers develop easy and effective therapy to restore sight
2013-06-13
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have developed an easier and more effective method for inserting genes into eye cells that could greatly expand gene therapy to help restore sight to patients with blinding diseases ranging from inherited defects like retinitis pigmentosa to degenerative illnesses of old age, such as macular degeneration.
Unlike current treatments, the new procedure – which takes a little as 15-minutes – is surgically non-invasive, and it delivers normal genes to difficult-to-reach cells throughout the entire retina.
Over the last ...
Fingernails reveal clues to limb regeneration
2013-06-13
Mammals possess the remarkable ability to regenerate a lost fingertip, including the nail, nerves and even bone. In humans, an amputated fingertip can sprout back in as little as two months, a phenomenon that has remained poorly understood until now. In a paper published today in the journal Nature, researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center shed light on this rare regenerative power in mammals, using genetically engineered mice to document for the first time the biochemical chain of events that unfolds in the wake of a fingertip amputation. The findings hold promise for ...
Low birth weight could be a risk factor for age-related vision loss: UAlberta medical research
2013-06-13
Medical researchers at the University of Alberta recently published their findings that rats with restricted growth in the womb, causing low birth weights when born, were most susceptible to developing age-related vision loss, compared to their normal weight counterparts. The research team members say additional work needs to be done to see if this same link exists in people, and if it does, doctors will need to better monitor vision concerns in adults who were born with a low birth weight.
"The consequence of our findings is that we are providing evidence for the need ...
Livermore develops the world's deepest ert imaging system for CO2 sequestration
2013-06-13
LIVERMORE, Calif.-- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers have broken the record for tracking the movement and concentration of carbon dioxide in a geologic formation using the world's deepest Electrical Resistance Tomography (ERT) system.
The research provides insight into the effects of geological sequestration to address the impact of greenhouse gases.
The team led by LLNL's Charles Carrigan obtained time lapse electrical resistivity images during the injection of more than 1 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) more than 10,000 feet deep in an oil ...
Research shows male guppies reproduce even after death
2013-06-13
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Performing experiments in a river in Trinidad, a team of evolutionary biologists has found that male guppies continue to reproduce for at least ten months after they die, living on as stored sperm in females, who have much longer lifespans (two years) than males (three-four months).
"Populations that are too small can go extinct because close relatives end up breeding with each other and offspring suffer from inbreeding," said David Reznick, a professor of biology at the University of California, Riverside and the principal investigator of the research ...