Long-term effects of obesity surgery on adolescent skeleton are favorable
2015-03-06
(Press-News.org) San Diego, CA-- The skeletons of obese adolescents are usually more dense than those of normal weight teens, but after gastric bypass surgery, most return to normal density within two years, a new study finds. The results will be presented Thursday, March 5, at ENDO 2015, the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society, in San Diego.
"In the short term, the participants' bone density decreased proportionally to the successful weight reduction resulting from surgery. After two years, though, their average bone density was back in the normal range," said lead study author Eva Gronowitz, RN, PhD, Research Coordinator for the AMOS (Adolescents Morbid Obesity Surgery) study in Sweden
The number of adolescents having obesity surgery is growing, and the effects of laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (LRYGB) on the adolescent skeleton are significant but poorly understood. Nutrition and weight affect skeletal structure, and bone is constantly turning over in a balance of breakdown and synthesis.
The effects of LRYGB appear to differ between boys and girls. The balanced cycle of bone formation and breakdown is affected to different degrees in boys and girls. This may be related in part to physical activity and sex hormones such as testosterone and estrogen, which are known to effect bone metabolism.
To investigate how LRYGB, involving the bypass of most of the stomach and the first part of the intestine, affects bone density in adolescents, Dr. Gronowitz and her colleagues followed 50 female and 22 male adolescents who were undergoing LRYGB for morbid obesity.
Their average age was 16.5 years. Before their surgery and at one- and two-year follow ups, they underwent dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) imaging to measure their body composition and bone mineral density, as well as blood testing for serum bone markers to indicate of the extent bone synthesis and destruction.
In both groups, the body mass index decreased significantly. Boys lost a greater proportion of their fat mass than girls, while girls lost more of their muscle mass than boys. Markers in the blood showed that bone turnover was greater in boys than in girls. Bone turnover increased in both groups between the preoperative levels and one year after surgery and decreased over the second year. After two years, it was back in the normal range. Absolute bone marker levels were higher in boys.
"Adolescents have a greater proportion of their lives remaining," Dr. Gronowitz said. "Therefore this work is extremely important to ensure that, among the many positive effects, any negative effects that may emerge can be identified early and addressed appropriately. No previous study has reported on serum bone markers to assess bone turnover after bariatric surgery in the adolescent. This research offers clinical scientists new areas for research into specific mechanisms of the observed effects on bones."
INFORMATION:
The Swedish Government and Swedish Research Council funded this study.
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2015-03-06
San Diego, CA-- A letrozole pill once a week restored fertility in obese, infertile men and led to their partners giving birth to two full-term, healthy babies, according to a new study from Canada. The results will be presented Thursday at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego.
"To our knowledge, this is the first report of successful pregnancies with the use of letrozole at this low dose in men," said the study's lead investigator, Lena Salgado, MD, an endocrinology fellow at the Centre Hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CHUM).
Letrozole ...
2015-03-06
San Diego, CA-- A new study finds that after weight loss surgery, people whose breath has high concentrations of both hydrogen and methane gases have a lower percentage weight loss than other bariatric surgery patients do. The study results will be presented Thursday at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego.
"Our new study suggests that gastrointestinal colonization with methanogens makes it harder to lose weight after bariatric surgery," said lead investigator Ruchi Mathur, MD, director of the Diabetes Outpatient Treatment and Education Center at Cedars-Sinai, ...
2015-03-06
San Diego, CA-- The extract of onion bulb, Allium cepa, strongly lowered high blood glucose (sugar) and total cholesterol levels in diabetic rats when given with the antidiabetic drug metformin, according to a new study. The study results will be presented Thursday at The Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego.
"Onion is cheap and available and has been used as a nutritional supplement," said lead investigator Anthony Ojieh, MBBS (MD), MSc, of Delta State University in Abraka, Nigeria. "It has the potential for use in treating patients with diabetes."
To ...
2015-03-06
A new study finds that not only low but also high maternal thyroid hormone levels during early pregnancy may significantly lower the infant's IQ later in childhood. The study results, which will be presented Thursday at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego, suggest that the common practice of treating pregnant women who have mild thyroid hormone deficiency may pose unexpected risks to the developing baby's brain.
Doctors already know that low thyroid hormone levels in pregnant women are linked to lower child IQ scores as well as other risks to the ...
2015-03-06
San Diego, CA-- Abaloparatide-SC, an injectable drug being studied for the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis, reduces the rate of new spinal fractures by a statistically significant 86 percent and as well as statistically significant reductions in the fracture rate at other parts of the body, a phase 3 clinical trial finds. Results of the ACTIVE fracture prevention trial will be described in a late-breaking oral presentation Thursday at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego.
"The investigational drug abaloparatide-SC, if approved, may offer patients ...
2014-12-20
The ability of some breathalyzers widely sold to the UK public to detect potentially unsafe levels of breath alcohol for driving, varies considerably, reveals research published in the online journal BMJ Open.
The findings call into question the regulatory process for approving these sorts of devices for personal use, say the researchers, particularly as false reassurance about a person's safety to drive could have potentially catastrophic consequences.
The researchers compared the diagnostic accuracy (sensitivity) of three personal use breathalysers to detect alcohol ...
2014-12-19
Before Charlotte the spider spelled the word "humble" in her web to describe Wilbur the pig, she told Templeton the rat that the word meant "not proud."
That's probably what most people say if you put them on the spot. But if you give them time to think about it deeply, like a new study just did, other themes emerge that have a lot to do with learning.
And these intellectual dimensions of humility describe the spider as well or better than the pig.
"Wilbur has many of the dimensions of humility in general: regard for others, not thinking too highly of himself - but ...
2014-12-19
The sun emitted a mid-level flare on Dec. 18, 2014, at 4:58 p.m. EST. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun constantly, captured an image of the event. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.
To see how this event may affect Earth, please visit NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center at http://spaceweather.gov, ...
2014-12-19
New UCLA research indicates that lost memories can be restored. The findings offer some hope for patients in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease.
For decades, most neuroscientists have believed that memories are stored at the synapses -- the connections between brain cells, or neurons -- which are destroyed by Alzheimer's disease. The new study provides evidence contradicting the idea that long-term memory is stored at synapses.
"Long-term memory is not stored at the synapse," said David Glanzman, a senior author of the study, and a UCLA professor of integrative ...
2014-12-19
Not all species may suffer from climate change. A new analysis shows that Dolly Varden, a species of char common in southeast Alaska, adjust their migrations so they can keep feasting on a key food source - salmon eggs - even as shifts in climate altered the timing of salmon spawning.
The resiliency of species to climate change may depend on how well they adapt to climate-driven changes in their food and habitat, such as altered growth of plants they feed on. A mismatch in timing between predators and the availability of prey could cause some species to lose access to ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Long-term effects of obesity surgery on adolescent skeleton are favorable
