Using data from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study, the team followed 13,549 middle aged (45-65 years) Americans for nearly 20 years, looking to see if ischemic stroke risk was associated with several measures of obesity; body mass index (BMI), waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio.

The intriguing report has just been published online in the journal Stroke.

Medicine defines a stroke as an interruption of the blood supply to a part of the brain. A stroke happens when blood flow to a part of the brain is interrupted because a blood vessel is blocked or bursts open.

If the flow stops for even a few seconds, the brain can’t get the oxygen it needs and the cells start to die. This death can result permanent damage.

“We found that the risk of stroke was increased with each measure of obesity,” explains study lead author Dr. Hiroshi Yatsuya, a visiting associate professor of public health at the University of Minnesota. The degree of risk varied by ethnicity, as well as for men and women, with risks especially high for blacks.

This increased risk has been confirmed by many earlier studies, and has also been seen in Asians, though no one knows precisely why.

In this research, the increased stroke risk that came with added weight was seen in every ethnic group – men and women in the highest obesity categories had almost double the risk for stroke as did those in the lowest category.

For instance, those in the highest BMI category had a 1.43 to 2.12 times’ higher risk of stroke, with variations by race and sex.

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Stroke Risk Increases As Weight Goes Up Continued…

Measure obesity by waist circumference and the stroke risk ratios ranged from 1.65 to 3.19, from 1.69 to 2.55 when the waist to hip ratio was used.

“Degree of obesity, defined by body mass index, waist circumference, or waist-to-hip ratio, was a significant risk factor for ischemic stroke regardless of sex or race,” the study authors point out.

Experts think that obesity increases the incidence of high blood pressure and diabetes, both major risk factors for stroke and other diseases of the cardiovascular system.

When the researchers factored in blood pressure and diabetes the association between obesity and stroke risk was weaker, but sill there.

“Obesity contributes to both diabetes and hypertension [high blood pressure], which are associated with stroke and at an earlier age,” points out Daniel Lackland, a professor of epidemiology at the Medical University of South Carolina and spokesman for the American Heart Association.

When it comes to stroke prevention, the organization stresses the need for controlling your weight by following a healthy diet as well as getting regular physical activity.

Controlled trials would need to be conducted to provide clear evidence that obesity also brings down stroke risk, but until they are, if you’re concerned take steps to reduce your weight, and you’ll very likely reduce your stroke risk too.

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But there are surprising risks to your health from those added pounds that are not nearly as well documented.

Some recent studies have found that overweight woman…

- Might have a harder time getting health insurance, or have to pay more for it.

- Are at higher risk of being misdiagnosed, or getting an inaccurate dosage of a drug.

- Are less able to find a fertility doctor who will help them get pregnant.

- Are less likely to have cancer detected early.

Current numbers have just about 70 million American women considered overweight, which makes for a lot of patients who may not be getting the care they need.

Overweight or not, these findings should have everyone taking note, and taking steps to be sure you get the quality healthcare you deserve. Overweight or not, being mistreated or dismissed by your doctor because of your weight is unacceptable – you don’t want that person in charge of your medical care.

“Our culture has enormous negativity toward overweight people, and doctors aren’t immune,” explains Harvard Medical School professor Dr. Jerome Groopman, M.D., author of How Doctors Think. “If doctors have negative feelings toward patients, they’re more dismissive, they’re less patient, and it can cloud their judgment, making them prone to diagnostic errors.”

When it comes to just how many diagnostic errors are due to a patients’ weight, there are no hard numbers to attest to the problem, though it’s long past time for the medical community to take a hard look at the biases that might be affecting the treatment they give overweight patients.

Data on diagnostic errors for the general population is sobering. “Doctors make mistakes in diagnosing 10 to 15 percent of all patients, and in half of those cases it causes real harm,” Groopman says.

Carrying too much weight does bring legitimate concerns to the operating table, and those with high BMIs often find that surgeons are reluctant to offer a procedure to very overweight patients as they make for longer, more difficult operations.

Hospitals too, who track data on surgical complication rates may warn doctors off more high risk cases in order to preserve their standing with insurance companies. Patients may be denied procedures like cardiac catheterization, organ transplants of kidney or liver, knee surgeries and more because of their weight.

Being too heavy can even get in the way of effective cancer treatment according to the experts. The most likely culprit is underdosing, basing chemotherapy drug doses on the patient’s ideal weight, rather than their actual weight.

Trials usually only include women of average weight, so doctors don’t have a good handle on the doses for larger women. And since these drugs are quite toxic, no one wants to take chances with the dosing.

Doctors have known that obese women are more likely to die from breast or ovarian cancers. Especially troubling then is the finding that obese women are less likely to get Pap smears than women of normal weight, but the screening lapse isn’t all on the women here. A University of Connecticut study of more than 1,300 doctors found that 17% were reluctant to do a pelvic exam on an obese patient; the number jumping to 83% if the patient herself seemed hesitant about the exam.

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Health Repercussions Of Being Overweight Continued…

That should NEVER happen.

But you can’t blame it all on doctors as being overweight can obscure illnesses like heart disease and some types of cancer. All those extra pounds bring added strain to joints and pain you might not be having if you were thinner.

What’s more, large patients don’t always fit into the small spaces of diagnostic scanning machines. Computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and even X-rays and ultrasounds aren’t able to deliver as clear a picture, and without that, imagine your doctor driving blindfolded as he tries to treat you.

Ultrasounds are particularly vulnerable to added fat; the beams can’t penetrate the tissue if you have more than 8 centimeters of subcutaneous fat. Naturally this affects more women since ultrasounds are used to spot uterine tumors and ovarian cysts, not to mention to check on the baby’s health during a pregnancy.

Researchers have also confirmed false positives to mammograms in overweight and obese patients.

This leaves a doctor with little to go on except the symptoms you mention and intuition. That isn’t the best option in the emergency room. “If we can’t get the imaging because of a patient’s weight, and we are concerned about a pulmonary embolism or appendicitis, for example, we have to go ahead and treat based on our clinical impression,” explains Dr. Archana Reddy, M.D., a practicing emergency room physician.

Certainly something we all need to be aware of when it comes to medical care.

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The work out of California based biomedical research organization The Scripps Research Institute finds that an enzyme that normally helps to break down stored fats becomes highly active in some cancer cells, making them more aggressive and more likely to spread.

These findings might help to explain the reported link that many experts believe exists between obesity and cancer.

“Historically, research has focused on the mechanisms leading to cancer formation, and therapies have focused on taking out cancer cells,” explains contributing author Benjamin Cravatt, chair of the Scripps Research Department of Chemical Physiology. “But here we were looking for pathways that lead to cancer aggressiveness.”

As a cancer grows, some cells take on more aggressive characteristics – the ability to invade an area and spread to other parts of the body.

One enzyme in particular, known as monoacylglycerol lipase (or MAGL for short), was detected by the team using a technique pioneered in Cravatt’s lab – activity based protein profiling that allows experts to see all active enzymes in a cell at the same time.

MAGL was found to go into overdrive in cancer cells, breaking down stored fats to produce large amounts of free fatty acids. These are the building blocks of cell membranes and fatty molecules that act as signals between cells.

Free fatty acids then produce other smaller molecules that encourage cancer growth and progression.

The research found that MAGL was highly elevated in aggressive cancers. It was also found to change cancer cells to a more malignant form.

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Stored Fats = Aggressive Cancer Continued…

While the enzyme was known to break down stored fats, the ability to regulate free fatty acid production was a new revelation brought by the research. “As cancer cells become more aggressive, the lipase is increased and its activity is targeted to the release of free fatty acid,” adds Daniel Nomura, a postdoc in Cravatt’s lab.

Said another way, cancer cells co-opted MAGL’s activity in order to support their own progression.

At present, there are more than 100 different cancers and all of them begin in cells, the body’s basic unit of life. In 2008 the U.S. saw over 1,437,180 new cancer cases diagnosed, not including nonmelanoma skin cancer.

And while rates of cancer diagnosis and death are declining, too many people are still finding themselves face-to-face with this dreadful potentially deadly disease.

The researchers are hoping that understanding aggression-promoting MAGL might reveal a new way to treat aggressive cancers or prevent cancer progression.

If the findings were to bring a new cancer therapy, the advantages over the therapies we’re using today could be significant. Since the MAGL enzyme isn’t necessary for cell survival, but only for progression of the cell, it may be safer to target because it isn’t involved in a survival mechanism common to all cells.

You should also know that eating high fat foods introduces free fatty acids into the body on a regular basis and contributes to obesity, which increases your risks for diseases and chronic health problems.

There are things you can do to help yourself reduce the high fat food you eat by shopping smart and cooking with care.

By making slow, steady changes to the foods you choose (at home and in restaurants) you can gradually, painlessly be eating a diet that’s free of most of the unhealthy foods, and the health consequences, that come with them.

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And now it seems that more of us may be getting the message and trying to get our weight under control, or at least not so many of us are packing on unhealthy pounds.

According to a review of CDC data that has just been released online in the Journal of the American Medical Association, figures from the National Center for Health Statistics put a still too high 34% of Americans over 20 (double the number of 20 years ago) as obese, and another 34% in the overweight category in 2007-2008.

As for kids, there’s another study in the same JAMA issue that puts 17% of kids aged 2 to 19 (three times the number from 20 years ago) in the obese category, another 32% overweight.

As always, overweight was considered a body mass index of 25.0 to 29.9, and obesity was defined as a body mass index higher than 30.0.

The good news in these numbers is that the CDC statisticians found the rapid (and worrisome) obesity growth rates of the 80s and 90s seem to be slowing for both women and (most recently) men.

In 2007-08 the prevalence of obesity was 32.2% among adult men, 35.5% for adult women – still high, but not nearly as high as it might have been if earlier rates had held. It seems that the percentage of the very overweight has leveled off.

The one exception to the good news is the rate of obesity in heavyweight boys, aged 6 to 19, whose numbers keep going up. “The heaviest boys may be getting even heavier, ” the researchers point out.

Experts point to environments of unhealthy food and lots of physical inactivity as the likely culprits, and these have not changed much over the last few years.

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Obesity Rates: At Last Some Good News Continued…

Obesity rates in these studies are based on data that includes the height and weight of 5,555 adults and about 4,000 children considered representative of the total U.S. population collected as part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).

Once the data was gathered, detailed statistical analysis was performed and the data from 2007-08 was compared with that from 1999 to 2006.

“Right now we’ve halted the progress of the obesity epidemic,” said Dr. William H. Dietz, director of the division of nutrition, physical activity and obesity at the disease control centers. “The data are really promising. That said, I don’t think we have in place the kind of policy or environmental changes needed to reverse this epidemic just yet.”

Ten years ago federal health officials had set a goal that no more than 15% of adults would be obese in 2010. Clearly we’re not near that, nor have we moved very far in that direction. What we have done is slow our progress in the wrong direction.

Why the slowdown? Increased awareness of obesity and the risks to health may be a factor, especially among women who buy food and prepare meals for their families.

There have also been efforts to make food choices at school healthier, and this may also be bearing fruit. Another theory is that the plateau might suggest we’ve reached a limit, biologically, as to just how big we can get.

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But a new study by researchers out of the University of Texas at Austin looked for ways to help us to resist temptation and suggests the key to doing so is to exaggerate the threat.

So if you’re on a diet, focus on the threat of that cookie or piece of delicious chocolate to your weight loss goals. Exaggerating the negative may in fact help you resist just about any temptation.

For this study, researchers focused on two self-regulatory areas – dieting and academic goals.

“Four experiments show that when consumers encounter temptations that conflict with their long-term goals, one self-control mechanism is to exaggerate the negativity of the temptation as a way to resist, a process we call counteractive construal,” the study authors point out.

For one of the experiments, female participants were asked to estimate the calorie count of a cookie, half being offered the cookie as a complimentary gift for their participation, the other half were not offered any reward.

Those with a strong dieting goal saw the delectable treat as having more calories than it actually did… and being more threatening to their long term weight loss goals.

Another test found that environmental factors, in this case posters of fit models (vs. those with nature scenes) helped women stay focused on their diet goals. They too were more likely to exaggerate the calories in a tempting drink that they planned to enjoy later, and drank less when offered the drink.

When self-control conflicts arise, another of the experiments looked at the so-called counteractive construal to see if it would be helpful. This experiment involved 93 college students, finding that those with higher grade point averages were more likely to overestimate the length of time an upcoming party would last (taking time away from studying), and were less likely plan on attending the event when reminded of their academic goals.

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Resist Temptation: Exaggerate The Threat Continued…

So, tricking yourself into seeing that tasty treat (or another indulgence) as a bigger threat to your weight loss goals than it actually is could be a smart strategy to help you resist temptation. Or at the very least, limit how much you indulge.

Besides exaggerating the down side of what tempts you… here are a few more suggestions to help you resist temptation.

- Remember the Law of Attraction (also known as The Secret) where what you think about comes to be. Shift your focus from what you’re trying to resist, to what you want to do.

- Focus on good behaviors like the taste of fresh fruits and veggies, or the sense of accomplishment you’ll have after that workout.

- Reward yourself with healthy, fun treats… going to the beach or watching a favorite program… to celebrate your success.

- Plan ahead to resist temptation, especially in situations where you know you’ll be especially tempted. Give yourself something else to do (or eat) instead of indulging in something less healthy.

- Don’t beat yourself up for not succeeding all the time. Be accepting and compassionate, and keep at it.

These findings are set to appear in the June 2010 issue of the Journal of Consumer Research.

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Add this our general tendency not to be as physically active as we should be and it’s easy to see the risks these individuals have for heart disease, type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.

The study was based on data collected in Dallas, Texas and found that one in ten participants, all of whom fell into the obese (BMI’s over 30) category, were satisfied with the size of their body and didn’t think they needed to lose weight.

“That is a sizeable percentage who don’t understand they are overweight and believe they are healthy,” points out lead researcher Tiffany Powell, a cardiology fellow at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

She has presented the results of this work at a meeting for the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2009 just held in Orlando, Florida.

For the research, Powell and her team examined 2,056 people of an average age of 40 who were obese and also taking part in the Dallas Heart Study.

The subjects looked at 9 sex specific figures (outlines of bodies) with the first showing the slimmer figure, and going up to the ninth and largest one. They had to choose what they thought they looked like now, as well as their ideal figure type.

Almost 8% of the obese subjects indicated that they thought their body size was smaller than it really was, considering themselves healthy for their age. These people thought their bodies looked like a 4 (lean) on the figure scales they were given to use, putting their ideal body size at about 5.

Other obese subjects were more on target, choosing an average of 6 (obese) to represent their current body size, and just under a 4 for an ideal body shape.

In cases where participants didn’t recognize themselves as obese, the BMI measurements were, on average, nearly 35. What’s more, 35% of these subjects had high blood pressure, 15% had high cholesterol, 14% were diabetics and 27% were smokers.

Those with misperception of body size were also less likely to go to a doctor – 44% hadn’t been for a checkup in the last year. And they didn’t exercise.

Those who did see their body size accurately had BMI measurements of just about 37 and similar percentages in terms of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes and number of smokers.

These participants were more likely to exercise regularly, and when visiting a doctor, about 70% of them recalled being advised to lose weight.

So if both groups share the same risks, what benefit to recognizing you’re too heavy?

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Obese Don’t Recognize A Weight Problem Continued…

Certainly having a more realistic body perception would offer some motivation to start eating better and getting more exercise in order to correct a problem you can see, and feel.

Denial of the problem only delays taking action, and this is dangerous, today and over the long term.

And with obesity becoming more common all the time, many more of us are carrying all that extra weight, resetting what many people see (and think of) as healthy.

Minority populations are also seeing rises in obesity, and the study found that African Americans and Hispanics were significantly more likely than their white counterparts to be satisfied with their body size – believing that they didn’t need to lose any weight.

Recognize that this study doesn’t show a cause and effect relationship between perceptions of body size and unhealthy behaviors like eating too much or not exercising.

Powell suggests that both doctors (and loved ones) need to offer a nudge in the right direction to those who are obese so that they can take the steps to get healthier now, before some of the nastier health risks of all that weight have taken hold.

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According to the calculations of some respected experts, last year over 124,000 Europeans developed cancer because they were overweight. And with rates of obesity steadily rising, these cancer numbers could climb dramatically in the years to come.

“It is possible that obesity may become the biggest attributable cause of cancer in women within the next decade,” warns lead researcher Andrew Renehan of Cardiff University in Britain.

The startling findings were presented at Europe’s largest cancer meeting, the European Cancer Organization and the European Society for Medical Oncology held recently in Berlin.

Renehan and his team used data from the World Health Organization and the International Agency for Research on Cancer to come up with a sophisticated model to estimate the proportion of cancers that might be attributed to carrying too much weight.

In 2002, the latest year figures on cancer are available; the team calculated that 70,000 new cases of cancer diagnosed in 30 European countries could be attributed to the patient being overweight.

The work used the World Health Organization definitions for overweight and obese, though these numbers may be slightly different from the ones you’ve seen in other places. A BMI (body mass index) that falls between 25.0 and 30.0 is classified by the WHO as overweight; a BMI anywhere over 30.0 is considered obese.

The researchers then projected the figures from 2002 forward to 2008, accounting for the reduced use of hormone replacement therapy after 2002 when it was linked to increased risks of breast cancer.

They also accounted for the wider availability of prostate cancer screening. After all this was taken into account, the team found that the number of cancers that could be tied to extra body weight jumped to 124,000 for the year 2008.

In men, 3.2% of new cancers were weight related, in women the number climbs to 8.6%. In terms of geography, France and Denmark have less of a problem with weight related cancers, while central European countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Latvia and Slovenia) have the greatest number of cancers tied to too much weight.

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Being overweight Linked To 124,000 Cancers Continued…

Breast, colorectal and endometrial cancers were the most common ones tied to carrying extra body weight.

Experts have long suspected that obesity raises the risk of cancer, probably due to hormones (heavier people produce more estrogen which helps tumors grow). Also, larger waistlines mean larger stomachs and more stomach acid – a likely culprit in some cancers.

Renehan points out that these numbers are “very conservative estimates”. Still, other experts don’t expect carrying extra weight to match smoking for cancer risk.

As for the good old U.S.A., some studies have found overweight and obesity might be responsible for as many as 20% of cancers.

The research suggests that new ways may be needed to help us all get control over the problems of being overweight. Telling everyone to lose weight, or pointing out the dangers of carrying those extra pounds hasn’t worked so far, and isn’t likely to do any better in the future.

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American researchers have found that being fat in middle age cuts a woman’s chances of reaching a ripe old age in good physical and mental shape by almost 80%.

The study appears online in the medical journal BMJ, and was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the Boston Obesity Nutrition Research Center.

With average life spans increasing due to advances in both detecting and treating illness, it’s those extra pounds so many of us carry that might just undo these hard won gains.

And since fat is known to act the same way in both men and women, it’s likely these results linking extra weight at midlife with a reduced chance of a healthy old age hold for men as well as women.

The team of researchers observed over 17,000 female nurses, part of the U.S. Nurses’ Health Study, who were an average age of 50 years and healthy, when the study began in 1976.

The subjects weight and health changes such as occurrence of chronic diseases, information on cognitive function, physical function and mental health were taken every 2 years by questionnaires until 2000. In terms of weight we know that a Body Mass Index (BMI) between 19-25 is considered more healthy, numbers from 25-29.9 designate a person thought to be overweight, and a value over 30 is categorized as obese.

Researchers Qi Sun and colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston found that for every one point increase in BMI women had a 12% lower chance of making it to age 70 in good health compared to those with lower BMI.

Good health was defined as being free of 11 different chronic conditions while also having enough physical and mental ability to do everyday things like shopping, cleaning or climbing stairs.

What’s more, for every 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) a woman gained after age 18, her odds of living past 70 dropped by 5%. Subjects who were already overweight at 18 and then gained more than 10 kilograms later in life had about a 20% chance of making it to age 70 in good health.

You can see how those extra pounds early on can bring some real troubles as you get older. The diseases often plaguing these overweight women were major, life changing ones – like diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

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Overweight In Middle Age Can Reduce Life Continued…

“People may think they can safely gain weight through their 20s, 30s and 40s, but there is no evidence that gaining weight is natural,” points out Aviva Must, professor and chair of the public health and community medicine department at Tufts University School of Medicine, but not part of the study. “These results suggest that small weight gains are not innocuous.”

Medical experts agree that our population is aging, and that obesity is more common than ever before. In fact, in 2003-4, a record 66.3% of American adults were overweight or obese – this compared to just 14.5% in 1976 when the Nurses’ Health Study began.

Adding to the need to get rid of those extra pounds is the work by British researchers published earlier this year that found those with a BMI from 30-35 die almost 3 years earlier than those with BMI’s in the normal range.

Anyone with a BMI over 40 is considered morbidly obese and likely to die almost 10 years before they should.

All the more reason for getting up – getting active now, so average age expectancy is increased

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Well, new research appearing in the September 2009 issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation may have uncovered the answer.

It appears that molecules of certain kinds of fat can actually travel to your brain, which tells your body to ignore built in “stop eating” signals and just keep right on eating.

“Normally, our body is primed to say when we’ve had enough to eat, but that doesn’t always happen when we’re eating something good,” explains study senior author Deborah Clegg, an assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern.

Recognizing that the brain might be involved since it incorporates some of the fat (good and bad) that we eat into its structure, the team wanted to isolate the effects of fat on signals in the brain that might be related to how much we eat.

The fatty acid that appeared to cause the most trouble was palmitic acid, one of the most common saturated fatty acids, found in both dairy (butter, cheese, milk) and beef products. The fats in olive oil were given a clean bill of health by the study.

Researchers tested their idea by exposing subject rats and mice to fats in different ways – injecting some types of fat into the brain, infusing fat through the carotid artery or feeding the animals through a stomach tube.

All the animals got the same amount of calories and fat – only the type of fat (palmitic acid, monounsaturated fatty acid and oleic acid) was different.

The work reveals that brain chemistry can be changed in a very short period of time. What happens when you indulge in a fat-laden but delicious treat is that your brain gets hit with the fatty acids, making your body resistant to both insulin and leptin (chemicals that tell you to stop eating) and encouraging you to continue to indulge.

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Tasty Foods Tell The Brain To Keep On Eating Continued…

This mechanism can even be triggered in the brains of those without any current sign of obesity. What’s more, the effect appeared to last a full three days after the subjects ate the fatty food.

Bad news if you’re trying to get back on track with a healthy eating plan after slipping up a bit. These findings might also explain why those who overeat on a Friday or Saturday night out are still feeling hungrier (and likely taking in more calories) on Monday.

Even though the research was conducted using rodents, the results reinforce what nutritionists have been saying for some time – limit the number of saturated fats you consume. Dr Clegg points out, “The action was very specific to palmitic acid, which is very high in foods that are rich in saturated fat.”

The findings of this first-of-its-kind research might also have implications for diabetes patients. While science has known for a long time that a high-fat diet can cause insulin resistance, until now no one has understood the precise mechanism at work, or whether some types of fats are more dangerous than others.

Follow up studies by this team will likely investigate how long it takes to reverse the effects of exposure to all those bad-for-you-fats.

And with obesity rates rising steadily, and the selection of saturated fat laden foods more plentiful than ever before, work like this can’t come soon enough to educate people in their dietary choices and reduce the amount of compulsive over eating.

To your good health,

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Drinking at least 80 grams of alcohol at one time, at least once a month, shows up in a half-inch bigger waistline than those who drink that same amount over a week according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology.

It seems that your waist size isn’t linked so much to how much alcohol your drink, but how much you drink at one time, often referred to as binge drinking

You get 80 grams of alcohol from…

- A bottle of wine, about 70 grams

- A six pack of beer, 84 grams

- Six 1.5-ounce shots of 80-proof hard liquor, 84 grams

The research, involving 28,594 middle-aged men and women and led by Martin Bobak of the University College London, didn’t find a link between drinking and a man’s body weight, though there was a small effect on a woman’s weight.

What’s more, binge drinkers didn’t weigh more than those who didn’t binge, they just had more fat in the belly area.

Surprisingly, it’s not just college students who binge drink – 70% of binge drinking happens in those over 25 years old. Binge drinking is defined as heavy consumption of alcohol over a short time.

Think binge eating only with alcohol in place of the junk food. A man drinking 5 of more drinks in a row; or a woman drinking 4 or more drinks in a row within a two hour period at any time in the last 2 weeks is considered to be binge drinking. Heavy binge drinking includes three or more such episodes in a 14-day period.

Men are twice as likely to be binge drinkers as women.

If beer is your thing, you might check out online sources that give you the percent of alcohol and calories in over 200 well-known beers. There are similar sites for wine and spirits as well.

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Binge Drinking Leads To Bigger Belly Continued…

If you’re wondering about your own waist size, taking a simple measurement can tell you where you stand (if your eyes and belt size can’t). Put a tape measure around your bare belly, just above the hipbone and position the tape measure until it fits snugly bout your waist without pushing into the skin. Make sure the tape measure is level all around and relax as you take the measurement. Remember no sucking in!

Fat in the belly is worrisome to doctors and a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and diabetes, not to mention making you look and feel bad. What can you do?

This type of fat is harder to lose, but it can be done. Forget the quick fixes, stick to a diet that’s full of unprocessed, natural foods and get enough regular exercise.

It’s important to remember that what causes a beer belly for you may be simply bought under control by paying more attention to the alcohol content in what you’re drinking and stop drinking after a few, not a few too many.

To your good health,

Daily Health Bulletin Editor
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