Dr Arya Sharma recently spoke at the XII Congreso Internacional Avances en Medicina 2010 hosted by the Hospital Civil de Guadalajara.

There is indeed no denying that Mexico, as does everyone else in North America, has a substantial obesity problem.

As recently pointed out by Dudley Althaus, who writes for the Houston Chronicle:

“Though still afflicted by large pockets of the malnourished poor, Mexico is fat and quickly getting fatter, its children gaining weight faster than anyone else in the country.

About 70 percent of Mexican adults are now overweight, according to government estimates, more than triple the number of three decades ago. Also, about a third of the country’s schoolchildren and teenagers are overweight, making Mexicans the second-heaviest people on the planet, gaining quickly on their American neighbors.

With more people living in urban areas, and some with more money, Mexicans are eating more and exercising less. Forgoing the beans, tortillas, fruit and vegetables their grandparents ate, people flock to U.S.-style fast food.

Also, calorie-laden Mexican dishes once reserved for special occasions have become routine fare. Anything fried; packaged pastries, soft drinks and candy are widely available.”

Not surprisingly, last month, Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched a national campaign against obesity (beating the US Obama initiative by a few weeks) and called on parents, teachers and the food industry to guide people to more healthful living.

Whether or not this appeal will indeed have any noticeable impact on the obesity epidemic remains to be seen.  From Dr Sharma’s conversations with fellow delegates, at least the interest and concerns amongst health professionals seems considerable – but so does their sense of helplessness.

About the Author;

Dr Arya M, Sharma is Professor of Medicine & Chair in Obesity Research and Management at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. He is also the Scientific Director of the Canadian Obesity Network. He has published widely on the management of obesity and related health problems.

For more information on Obesity visit;

http://www.drsharma.ca/

Readers of these pages are by now probably quite familiar with the complexity of ingestive behavior and the importance of understanding brain function in relationship to food intake.

A study, published in this month’s issue of Obesity, illustrates how differences in brain function between obese and non-obese people can explain important differences in response to food.

In this study, Laura Martin and colleagues from the Kansas Medical Center used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine changes in brain activity in obese and normal weight adults while they viewed food and nonfood images in pre- meal and post-meal states.

Both in the pre-meal and post-meal state, obese participants showed increased activation in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the medial pre-frontal cortex (MPFC), regions of the brain responsible for the reward response and impulsiveness, respectively.

In addition, activation of the ACC was associated with decreased levels of self-reported dis-inhibition while MPFC activation was associated with increased self-reported hunger amongst obese participants.

These findings clearly suggest that brain function associated with food motivation differs in obese and non-obese adults and may well explain the different susceptibilities to weight gain and variability in response to diet interventions.

Given the emerging science on brain plasticity, it is certainly of interest whether or not these differences in brain function are acquired or are indeed innate. Whatever the case, we need to understand and acknowledge that our brains respond differently to the same food stimuli which easily explain why some people may find it much harder to resist overeating in our current obesogenic environment than others.

As I have said before, the obesity epidemic is simply the natural response to our unnatural environment.

About the Author;

Dr Arya M, Sharma is Professor of Medicine & Chair in Obesity Research and Management at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. He is also the Scientific Director of the Canadian Obesity Network. He has published widely on the management of obesity and related health problems.

For more information on Obesity visit;

http://www.drsharma.ca/

Dr Arya M, Sharma is Professor of Medicine & Chair in Obesity Research and Management at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. He is also the Scientific Director of the Canadian Obesity Network. He has published widely on the management of obesity and related health problems.

Besides being an expert in Obesity, Dr. Sharma also keeps the netizens updated with his informative blog posts related to Obesity. In one of the blog posts he talks about how childhood obesity may affect mortality.

The blog post reads as, “Despite the wide-spread concern about the health impact of the childhood obesity epidemic, there is actually not much data that directly shows how this excess weight may affect mortality.

Such data is now available at least for native American kids, from a study by Paul Franks (National Institutes of Health, Phoenix, AZ) and colleagues, just published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The researchers analysed data from a cohort of 4857 American Indian (Pima or Tohono O’odham Indian) children without diabetes (mean age, 11.3 years) born between 1945 and 1984.

During a median follow-up period of around 24 years, death rates from endogenous causes among children in the highest quartile of BMI were more than double those among children in the lowest BMI quartile.

Similarly, rates of death from endogenous causes among children in the highest quartile of glucose intolerance were 73% higher than those among children in the lowest quartile and childhood hypertension was significantly associated with a 60% increased risk of premature death from endogenous causes.

Thus, at least in native Americans, childhood obesity is a significant risk factor for premature death – certainly a warning for those who believe that early obesity is something you can simply grow out of.

Given the raging epidemic of childhood obesity amongst the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis populations in Canada, these data should certainly prompt decisive action to address obesity amongst its native peoples.”

About Dr. Sharma’s Obesity Notes;

Dr. Sharma has authored and co-authored more than 250 scientific articles and has lectured widely on the etiology and management of obesity and related cardiovascular disorders. He sends his informative messages through his blog Dr. Sharma’s Obesity Notes.

For more information on Obesity visit;

 http://www.drsharma.ca/