Obesity and stress pack a double hit for health

Brandeis researchers explore the relationship between weight and stress-induced inflammation

2014-09-22

(Press-News.org) If you're overweight, you may be at greater risk for stress-related diseases like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer, according to a new study by Brandeis University.

It's long known that psychological stress can trigger biological responses similar to the effects of illness or injury, including inflammation. While normal inflammation is an important part of our body's healing response, runaway inflammation can contribute to chronic and life-threatening diseases.

In a recently published paper in Brain, Behavior and Immunity, Brandeis researchers observed that overweight and obese individuals have higher levels of stress-induced inflammation than those within a healthy weight-range.

"We've known that overweight and obese individuals already have chronic, low grade inflammation," says psychology professor Nicolas Rohleder, the study's principal investigator. "Now, it seems that when you add stress to the mix, it's a double hit."

The paper was authored by graduate student Christine McInnis, with fellow doctoral candidates Danielle Gianferante, Luke Hanlin, and Xuejie Chen, as well as co-investigators Myriam Thoma, Juliana Breines, and Suzi Hong.

The researchers measured interleukin-6 (IL-6), an inflammatory agent linked to stress, to evaluate inflammation levels in normal-weight and overweight individuals over the course of two psychological stress tests. They classified weight based on several factors, including body mass index (BMI) and body fat percentage. Individuals with a BMI of 25 or higher were classified as overweight.

On the first day of testing, lean and overweight individuals reacted similarly to stress, despite higher starting levels of IL-6 in overweight participants. On the second day of testing, however, the IL-6 levels of overweight participants nearly doubled, while the levels of lean participants remained the same as on the first day.

McInnis and Rohleder observed that the relationship between BMI and IL-6 levels was linear — the higher the BMI, even among lean individuals, the higher the IL-6.

"It seems that every percentage point of body fat makes your more susceptible to inflammation," says McInnis.

With about two thirds of Americans classified as overweight, and worldwide obesity rates doubling since 1980, understanding the health risks of obesity could not be more important, says McInnis.

"We know that there are serious diseases associated with obesity. Now we are one step closer to understanding how and why," she says.

INFORMATION: END

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Environment plays bigger role than genetics in food allergic disease eosinophilic esophagitis

2014-09-22

Researchers have found that environment has a much stronger role than genetics in eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), a severe, often painful food allergy that renders children unable to eat a wide variety of foods. Eosinophils are normal cellular components of the blood, but when the body produces too many eosinophils they can cause a variety of eosinophilic disorders. These are disorders involving chronic inflammation and resulting tissue damage, often in the gastrointestinal system. In an international collaboration involving multiple institutions, researchers at ...

Influenza A potentiates pneumococcal co-infection: New details emerge

2014-09-22

Influenza infection can enhance the ability of the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae to cause ear and throat infections, according to research published ahead of print in the journal Infection and Immunity. In the study, the investigators infected mice with either influenza alone, pneumococci alone, or both at once, and then monitored the populations of bacteria and virus over time. They also monitored the mice for development of middle ear infection. Influenza infection enhanced the bacterium's ability to colonize the nasopharynx, and to infect the normally sterile ...

New RFID technology helps robots find household objects

2014-09-22

Mobile robots could be much more useful in homes, if they could locate people, places and objects. Today's robots usually see the world with cameras and lasers, which have difficulty reliably recognizing things and can miss objects that are hidden in clutter. A complementary way robots can "sense" what is around them is through the use of small ultra-high frequency radio-frequency identification (UHF RFID) tags. Inexpensive self-adhesive tags can be stuck on objects, allowing an RFID-equipped robot to search a room for the correct tag's signal, even when the object is hidden ...

Lack of thyroid hormone blocks hearing development

2014-09-22

Fatigue, weight gain, chills, hair loss, anxiety, excessive perspiration — these symptoms are a few of the signs that the thyroid gland, which regulates the body's heart rate and plays a crucial role in its metabolism, has gone haywire. Now, new research from Tel Aviv University points to an additional complication caused by thyroid imbalance: congenital deafness. The study, published in Mammalian Genome, was conducted by Prof. Karen B. Avraham and Dr. Amiel Dror of the Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry at TAU's Sackler School of Medicine. Using ...

Some concussion education more useful than others, parents say

2014-09-22

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Many parents whose kids participate in athletics will be asked to sign a waiver about concussion education, but that's not enough to ensure parents are confident about handling the injury, according to a new University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health. In the poll, about half of the 912 parents of middle and high school children surveyed reported participation in some type of concussion education: 23% have read a brochure or online information 17% have watched a video or attended a presentation ...

King Fire rages on in Eldorado National Forest

2014-09-22

Evacuations of 2,819 people have occurred in the wake of the huge King Fire blazing out of control near the Eldorado National Forest. The King Fire is burning in steep terrain in the South Fork of the American River Canyon, Silver Creek Canyon, and the Rubicon Canyon, north of the community of Pollock Pines. The fire has crossed into Placer County and burned onto the Tahoe National Forest north of the Eldorado National Forest. The anticipated spread is expected to be minimal on Sept. 22 due to thunderstorms that moved through the area overnight, bringing lightning and ...

Blood test may help determine who is at risk for psychosis

2014-09-22

A study led by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers represents an important step forward in the accurate diagnosis of people who are experiencing the earliest stages of psychosis. Psychosis includes hallucinations or delusions that define the development of severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia. Schizophrenia emerges in late adolescence and early adulthood and affects about 1 in every 100 people. In severe cases, the impact on a young person can be a life compromised, and the burden on family members can be almost as severe. The study published ...

NASA's TRMM satellite tallies Hurricane Odile's heavy rainfall

2014-09-22

During the week of Sept. 15, Hurricane Odile and its weakened remnants produced heavy rainfall that caused dangerous flooding over Mexico's Baja California peninsula and southwestern United States. NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite gathers data on rainfall that was used to create a map that showed estimated totals that in one case neared almost three feet! Some of Odile's may have been welcomed in the U.S. Southwest where some areas have been experiencing extreme to exceptional drought conditions, but some was extreme and led to flooding. TRMM ...

Dartmouth's new ZEBRA bracelet strengthens computer security

2014-09-22

In a big step for securing critical information systems, such as medical records in clinical settings, Dartmouth College researchers have created a new approach to computer security that authenticates users continuously while they are using a terminal and automatically logs them out when they leave or when someone else steps in to use their terminal. Dartmouth's Trustworthy Health and Wellness (THaW)/ researchers recently presented their findings at the IEEE Symposium on Security & Privacy. Common authentication methods based on passwords, tokens or fingerprints perform ...

NASA sees Tropical Storm Fung-Wong move through East China Sea

2014-09-22

Tropical Storm Fung-Wong weakened over the weekend of Sept. 20-21 as it moved over Taiwan and approached Shanghai, China. NASA's Aqua satellite captured an image of Tropical Storm Fung-Wong when it was approaching Taiwan on Sept. 20 at 1:35 a.m. EDT. On Sunday, Sept. 21, Tropical Storm Fung-Wong was over Taiwan. It was centered at 26.0 north latitude and 122.0 east longitude, just 60 miles north-northeast of Taipei, Taiwan and moving to the north. Maximum sustained winds were near 50 knots (57 knots/92.6 kph). By Monday, Sept. 22, Fung-Wong's center was approaching ...

Obesity and stress pack a double hit for health

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: