PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Physicians' belief about obesity causes impacts advice and care

2013-02-08
(Press-News.org) How physicians view the causes of obesity may impact the advice they give their patients. The findings are from a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who compared the relationship between primary care physicians' beliefs about the causes of obesity with the frequency of nutritional counseling. They found that physicians who believed over consumption of food to be a major contributor to obesity were significantly more likely to counsel their patients to modify nutritional habits. The results are featured in the February 2013 issue of Preventive Medicine.

"Our study found that primary care physicians, who believed that overeating was a very important cause of obesity had significantly greater odds of counseling their obese patients to reduce portion sizes, avoid high-calorie ingredients when cooking and reduce sugar-sweetened beverage intake. Similarly, primary care physicians who associate sugar-sweetened beverage consumption as a primary cause of obesity were significantly more likely to advise their patients to cut back on sugary beverages such as soda and juices," said Sara Bleich, PhD, lead author of the study and an associate professor with the Bloomberg School's Department of Health Policy and Management. "Improved primary care physician education related to the causes of obesity may be a feasible strategy for increasing the frequency of nutritional counseling--particularly concrete dietary tips that primary care physicians can easily share with their patients."

Bleich, along with colleagues from the Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, analyzed a national cross-sectional Internet-based survey of 500 U.S. primary care physicians collected between February and March of 2011. Researchers assessed physician beliefs about the causes of obesity with the question, "How important is each of the following possible causes of obesity for your patients?" Possible causes included overconsumption of food, restaurant or fast food eating, consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, genetics or family history and metabolic defect. For each cause, primary care physicians indicated whether it was very important, somewhat important, not very important, or not at all important. Nutritional counseling habits were assessed using the question, "How frequently do you provide each of the following types of nutritional counseling to your obese patients?" Nutritional recommendations included reading nutritional labels to determine calorie or nutrition content, avoiding high-calorie ingredients when cooking, avoiding high calorie menu items when eating outside the home, reducing consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and reducing portion size. For each nutritional recommendation, primary care physicians indicated whether they provided it very frequently, somewhat frequently, not very frequently or not at all frequently.

"Eighty-six percent of primary care physicians indicated that overconsumption of food is a very important cause of obesity, followed by 62 percent of physicians reporting that restaurant or fast food eating is a very important cause and 60 percent attributing consuming sugar sweetened beverages as a very important cause," noted Bleich. Few physicians reported genetics, family history or metabolic defect as an important cause of obesity.

"Do physician beliefs about causes of obesity translate into actionable issues on which physicians counsel their patients?" was written by Sara N. Bleich, Kimberly A. Gudzune, Wendy L. Bennett and Lisa A. Cooper.

### END


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

New strategy prevents rheumatoid arthritis in mice

New strategy prevents rheumatoid arthritis in mice
2013-02-08
BOSTON—Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists have demonstrated a new strategy for treating autoimmune disease that successfully blocked the development of rheumatoid arthritis in a mouse model. They say it holds promise for improved treatment of arthritis and other autoimmune disorders in people. The scientists report in the Journal of Clinical Investigation that infusing a highly specific type of cell that regulates immune responses into arthritis-prone mice shut down the cascade of inflammation that damages tissues and joints. The method worked best when the infusions ...

New brain-test app

New brain-test app
2013-02-08
Two years ago, researcher Josef Bless was listening to music on his phone when he suddenly had an idea. "I noticed that the sounds of the different instruments were distributed differently between the ears, and it struck me that this was very similar to the tests we routinely use in our laboratory to measure brain function. In dichotic listening, each ear is presented with a different syllable at the same time (one to the left and one to the right ear) and the listener has to say which syllable seems clearest. The test indicates which side of the brain is most active during ...

Implants make light work of fixing broken bones

2013-02-08
Artificial bone, created using stem cells and a new lightweight plastic, could soon be used to heal shattered limbs. The use of bone stem cells combined with a degradable rigid material that inserts into broken bones and encourages real bone to re-grow has been developed at the Universities of Edinburgh and Southampton. Researchers have developed the material with a honeycomb scaffold structure that allows blood to flow through it, enabling stem cells from the patient's bone marrow to attach to the material and grow new bone. Over time, the plastic slowly degrades as ...

New insight on relationship between parents, preschoolers and obesity

2013-02-08
PULLMAN, Wash. - While sugary drinks, lack of exercise and genetics contribute to a growing number of overweight American children, new research from Washington State University reveals how a mom's eating habits and behavior at the dinner table can influence her preschooler's obesity risk. The findings come from WSU alumna Halley Morrison's undergraduate honors thesis, which recently was published in the journal Appetite. As a biology major and student fitness instructor, Morrison knew she wanted to focus on health and the human body. She learned about the childhood ...

Babies born to immigrant women in Ontario bigger than those born in their mothers' native countries

2013-02-08
TORONTO, Feb. 8, 2013—Women who immigrate to Ontario have babies who are bigger than those born in their native countries, new research has shown. But the babies of immigrant mothers from East and South Asia are still smaller than babies born to mothers who were themselves born in Canada. The typical male born to an immigrant mother in Ontario weighs 115 grams more than babies in her native country, said Dr. Joel Ray, a researcher and physician at St. Michael's Hospital. The typical female weighs 112 grams more than babies in her mother's native country, he said. His ...

Forensic pathology: tracing the origin of the Usutu Virus

2013-02-08
The effects were dramatic: throughout Vienna it was impossible not to notice that the blackbirds were disappearing. Their melodious song no longer rang around the courtyards of the inner city nor woke tired partygoers in the outlying districts. The birds were simply no longer there. Thankfully, they gradually reappeared and a few years later their population had returned to its original levels. But the sudden crash in numbers was alarming and scientists rushed to find the cause. It soon became apparent that the birds had died as a result of a new kind of viral infection. ...

Support needed for children losing parent at early age

2013-02-08
A study exploring the impact of early parental death has revealed the long-term damage and suffering that can be experienced by individuals in adult life if appropriate levels of support are not provided at the time of bereavement. The new research, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, describes the low self-esteem, loneliness, isolation and inability to express feelings of some individuals who lost a parent in childhood, with the effects felt for as long as 71 years after the bereavement. The researchers found common themes that affect the experience ...

3D printing on the micrometer scale

2013-02-08
This press release is available in German. At the Photonics West, the leading international fair for photonics taking place in San Francisco (USA) this week, Nanoscribe GmbH, a spin-off of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), presents the world's fastest 3D printer of micro- and nanostructures. With this printer, smallest three-dimensional objects, often smaller than the diameter of a human hair, can be manufactured with minimum time consumption and maximum resolution. The printer is based on a novel laser lithography method. "The success of Nanoscribe is an example ...

Scientists using holiday snaps to identify whale sharks

Scientists using holiday snaps to identify whale sharks
2013-02-08
Holidaymakers' photos could help scientists track the movements of giant endangered sharks living in the waters of the Indian Ocean. A new study, led by a researcher from Imperial College London, is the first to show that these publically sourced photographs are suitable for use in conservation work. Tourists scuba diving and snorkelling in the Maldives frequently take underwater pictures of the spectacular and docile whale shark, often called the world's largest fish. Conservationists have long hoped to use this photographic resource to help them trace the sharks' life ...

Evaluating evolutionary rates could shed light into functions of uncharacterized genes

2013-02-08
PITTSBURGH, Feb. 8, 2013 – Genes that have roles in the same biological pathways change their rate of evolution in parallel, a finding that could be used to discover their functions, said a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in the February issue of GENETICS. Humans have nearly 21,000 genes that make as many proteins, but the functions of most of those genes have not been fully determined, said lead investigator Nathan Clark, Ph.D., assistant professor of computational and systems biology at the Pitt School of Medicine. Knowing what a particular ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Older teens who start vaping post-high school risk rapid progress to frequent use

Corpse flowers are threatened by spotty recordkeeping

Riding the AI wave toward rapid, precise ocean simulations

Are lifetimes of big appliances really shrinking?

Pink skies

Monkeys are world’s best yodellers - new research

Key differences between visual- and memory-led Alzheimer’s discovered

% weight loss targets in obesity management – is this the wrong objective?

An app can change how you see yourself at work

NYC speed cameras take six months to change driver behavior, effects vary by neighborhood, new study reveals

New research shows that propaganda is on the rise in China

Even the richest Americans face shorter lifespans than their European counterparts, study finds

Novel genes linked to rare childhood diarrhea

New computer model reveals how Bronze Age Scandinavians could have crossed the sea

Novel point-of-care technology delivers accurate HIV results in minutes

Researchers reveal key brain differences to explain why Ritalin helps improve focus in some more than others

Study finds nearly five-fold increase in hospitalizations for common cause of stroke

Study reveals how alcohol abuse damages cognition

Medicinal cannabis is linked to long-term benefits in health-related quality of life

Microplastics detected in cat placentas and fetuses during early pregnancy

Ancient amphibians as big as alligators died in mass mortality event in Triassic Wyoming

Scientists uncover the first clear evidence of air sacs in the fossilized bones of alvarezsaurian dinosaurs: the "hollow bones" which help modern day birds to fly

Alcohol makes male flies sexy

TB patients globally often incur "catastrophic costs" of up to $11,329 USD, despite many countries offering free treatment, with predominant drivers of cost being hospitalization and loss of income

Study links teen girls’ screen time to sleep disruptions and depression

Scientists unveil starfish-inspired wearable tech for heart monitoring

Footprints reveal prehistoric Scottish lagoons were stomping grounds for giant Jurassic dinosaurs

AI effectively predicts dementia risk in American Indian/Alaska Native elders

First guideline on newborn screening for cystic fibrosis calls for changes in practice to improve outcomes

Existing international law can help secure peace and security in outer space, study shows

[Press-News.org] Physicians' belief about obesity causes impacts advice and care