Rushed Discharge After Weight-Loss Surgery May Raise Risks (HealthDay)

WEDNESDAY, June 15 (HealthDay News) -- Weight loss surgery patients who are discharged from the hospital too soon after undergoing gastric bypass have an increased risk of complications and death, a new study has found.

After analyzing data from nearly 52,000 gastric bypass patients, researchers found that those released from the hospital the day of surgery were 12 times more likely to have serious complications (1.9 percent versus 0.16 percent) and 13 times more likely to die than patients who left the hospital after the U.S. average of a two-day stay.

The death rate within 30 days of discharge was 0.1 percent for those who stayed in the hospital for two or more days, versus 0.8 percent for those who left the day of surgery.

Patients who were discharged from the hospital less than 24 hours after an overnight stay were two times more likely to die within 30 days than those who remained in hospital for two days after their surgery, the investigators found.

Like all surgeries, bariatric surgery carries surgical risks, including serious infections, internal bleeding, blood clots, and death, according to the American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery (ASMBA).

Length of stay appeared to be a greater risk factor than age, gender, race, body mass index and obesity-related conditions, the researchers noted.

The study was scheduled for presentation Wednesday at the annual meeting of the American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery, in Orlando, Fla. Because this study was presented at a medical meeting, the data and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

"This study shows what a difference a day makes," co-author Dr. John Morton, an associate professor of surgery and director of bariatric surgery at Stanford Hospital & Clinics at Stanford University, said in an ASMBS news release.

"A two-day length of stay appears reasonable for most people and results in a safety profile that rivals gallbladder or hip replacement surgery. To reduce it further may put patients at an increased chance of unnecessary risk," said Morton, who is chair of the ASMBS Access to Care Committee. "A patient should be discharged based on his or her individual risk profile. We counsel our patients to avoid drive-thru fast food, and also advise against drive-thru gastric bypass."

"Bariatric surgery is safer than ever, but discharging patients too soon after surgery may be pushing the envelope too far and may have serious consequences," he added.

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about gastric bypass surgery.

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Weight-Loss Surgery May Not Lower Death Risk: Study (HealthDay)

SUNDAY, June 12 (HealthDay News) -- Weight-loss surgery doesn't decrease the risk of death among severely obese middle-aged adults, a new study says.

U.S. researchers looked at 850 male patients at Veterans Affairs medical centers who had weight-loss (bariatric) surgery between January 2000 and December 2006. Their average age was 49.5 and their average body mass index was 47.4 (a body mass index, or BMI, over 40 is considered severely obese).

The death rate in this group of patients was compared to that of a control group of about 41,000 VA patients (average age 54.7, average BMI 42) who didn't have surgery.

Eleven of the 850 bariatric surgery patients (1.29 percent) died within one month after surgery. Unadjusted analysis of the death rates over a six-year period showed that the bariatric surgery patients had lower death rates than those in the control group, but further analysis showed that bariatric surgery was not significantly associated with reduced risk of death, said Matthew L. Maciejewski, of the Durham VA Medical Center in Durham, N.C., and colleagues.

The study, published online and in the June 15 print issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, was to be presented Sunday at an AcademyHealth research meeting in Seattle.

Even though bariatric surgery doesn't reduce the risk of death among middle-aged male patients, many of them still decide to undergo the procedure because there's strong evidence that it reduces body weight and obesity-related health problems, and improves quality of life, the researchers said.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases has more about bariatric surgery.

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Weight-Loss Surgery May Not Lower Death Risk: Study (HealthDay)

SUNDAY, June 12 (HealthDay News) -- Weight-loss surgery doesn't decrease the risk of death among severely obese middle-aged adults, a new study says.

U.S. researchers looked at 850 male patients at Veterans Affairs medical centers who had weight-loss (bariatric) surgery between January 2000 and December 2006. Their average age was 49.5 and their average body mass index was 47.4 (a body mass index, or BMI, over 40 is considered severely obese).

The death rate in this group of patients was compared to that of a control group of about 41,000 VA patients (average age 54.7, average BMI 42) who didn't have surgery.

Eleven of the 850 bariatric surgery patients (1.29 percent) died within one month after surgery. Unadjusted analysis of the death rates over a six-year period showed that the bariatric surgery patients had lower death rates than those in the control group, but further analysis showed that bariatric surgery was not significantly associated with reduced risk of death, said Matthew L. Maciejewski, of the Durham VA Medical Center in Durham, N.C., and colleagues.

The study, published online and in the June 15 print issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, was to be presented Sunday at an AcademyHealth research meeting in Seattle.

Even though bariatric surgery doesn't reduce the risk of death among middle-aged male patients, many of them still decide to undergo the procedure because there's strong evidence that it reduces body weight and obesity-related health problems, and improves quality of life, the researchers said.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases has more about bariatric surgery.

View the original article here

Obese People at Higher Risk of Infection After Colon Surgery (HealthDay)

TUESDAY, May 17 (HealthDay News) -- Obese patients are at a significantly increased risk for surgical site infections after undergoing partial or full removal of the colon, a new study finds.

It included 7,020 patients, aged 18 to 64, who had either partial or total colectomy for colon cancer, diverticulitis or inflammatory bowel disease between 2002 and 2008. Of those patients, 1,243 were obese.

The overall rate of surgical site infections was 10.3 percent, but the rate was higher in obese patients (14.5 percent) than in non-obese patients (9.5 percent). After adjusting for a number of factors, the researchers calculated that obese patients were 60 percent more likely to develop surgical site infections than non-obese patients.

The average cost of colectomy for all the patients was $16,399, but the average cost for obese patients was about $295 more than for non-obese patients.

The researchers also found that surgical site infections greatly increased the cost of the procedure. The average total cost for patients who developed surgical site infections was $31,933, compared to $14,608 for patients without infection.

Patients with surgical site infections also had longer average hospital stays (9.5 days vs. 8.1 days) and a much higher rate of hospital readmission (27.8 percent vs. 6.8 percent).

"We conclude that patients undergoing colorectal surgery who develop SSIs [surgical site infections], many of whom are obese, tax the health-care system," wrote Dr. Elizabeth C. Wick, of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, and colleagues.

Incentive programs that reward surgeons for keeping costs down and improving patient outcomes should take into account that obese people are at higher risk of infection, according to the authors.

The study appears in the May issue of the Archives of Surgery.

More information

The University of Chicago Medical Center has more about colectomy.

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Dieters More Likely to Trust Food Packaging (HealthDay)

WEDNESDAY, June 8 (HealthDay News) -- Dieters are more likely than non-dieters to be misled by food names, a new study says.

For example, dieters rated food items with names such as "salad" as being healthier than identical products with names such as "pasta," while non-dieters made no such distinctions.

Dieters also believed that candy labeled "fruit chew" was healthier than the same candy when it was labeled "candy chew," and ate more of the candy when it was called fruit chews, said the University of South Carolina researchers.

"The fact that people's perceptions of healthfulness vary with the name of the food item isn't surprising. What is interesting is that dieters, who try to eat healthy and care about what they eat, fell into these 'naming traps' more than non-dieters who really don't care about healthy eating," study author Caglar Irmak, an assistant professor of marketing, said in a university news release.

The findings from the study of more than 520 people suggest that dieters rely on food names to identify supposedly healthy foods, Irmak explained. Instead, dieters need to focus on reading nutritional information on food products and restaurant menus.

"These results should give dieters pause. The study shows that dieters base their food decisions on the name of the food item instead of the ingredients of the item. As a result, they may eat more than what their dieting goals prescribe," Irmak said.

The study appears in the August issue of the Journal of Consumer Research.

More information

The American Heart Association offers no-fad diet tips.

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Sedentary Jobs Helping to Drive Obesity Epidemic (HealthDay)

By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter by Amanda Gardner
healthday Reporter – Thu?May?26, 11:47?pm?ET

THURSDAY, May 26 (HealthDay News) -- As Americans sit -- literally -- in more sedentary jobs, they're packing on the pounds, and it's this inertia that's a major contributor to the obesity epidemic, new research suggests.

Staring at the computer for hours rather than hoeing the fields means Americans are burning 120 to 140 fewer calories a day than they did 50 years ago.

So promoting any kind of physical activity needs to have an even greater emphasis in this war on weight, according to a study in the May 25 online edition of the journal PLoS ONE.

"It's all about calories in and calories out, and we're putting more calories in than we're taking out," said Dr. Robert Graham, a primary care physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

A tilt towards calories in has resulted in two-thirds of U.S. adults now being overweight or obese.

Although both eating habits and exercise have been studied in relation to the obesity epidemic, these researchers, from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., said much of the blame for the extra poundage has been placed on calorie intake.

That's because the amount of leisure-time physical activity hasn't really changed over the years.

But what about the physical demands of work, where so many people spend most of their waking hours?

These researchers cross-referenced U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on the prevalence of different jobs with a large national database that includes information on body weight.

Fifty years ago, about half of private-industry jobs in the United States involved some kind of physical activity, things such as farming, mining, construction and manufacturing. Today, that number is less than 20 percent, thanks to the dominance of jobs in retail, education and business.

The authors estimated that 100 fewer calories going out every day would result in a weight gain in line with what the U.S. population has seen since 1960.

Yet, if Americans were following federal guidelines for physical activity (150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity exercise or 75 minutes of more vigorous activity), those extra calories would have been evened out.

Only one in four Americans is doing the recommended level of exercise, the authors stated.

"We need to encourage physical activity even more, especially given that we sit more during the day than we did 100 years ago," said Keri Gans, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association and author of The Small Change Diet.

"The demands of everyday life are competing with exercise," Graham added. "We just have to make time for it."

Gans recommends that people move at work even if they have what amounts to a desk job. That could mean taking the stairs when you can, walking over to a co-worker's desk when you can and going for a walk at lunchtime. And if your company happens to have a gym or exercise program, by all means, partake.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on how to get moving.

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Weight Loss in Heavy, Obese Women Boosts Vitamin D Levels (HealthDay)

FRIDAY, May 27 (HealthDay News) -- Older women who are overweight or obese and lose more than 15 percent of their body weight could significantly boost their levels of vitamin D, new research suggests.

The study, conducted by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, also indicates that the surge in vitamin D could help scientists explore new avenues for the prevention of chronic diseases such as cancer and diabetes.

"Since vitamin D is generally lower in persons with obesity, it is possible that low vitamin D could account, in part, for the link between obesity and diseases such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes," study author Caitlin Mason, a postdoctoral research fellow, said in a Hutchinson news release.

Vitamin D is fat-soluble nutrient that plays many important roles in the body, including promoting calcium absorption, reducing inflammation and influencing cell health and the immune system. It's found in certain foods, such as fatty fish, and produced naturally in the body through exposure to sunlight.

The study, published in the May 25 online issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, assigned 439 overweight or obese postmenopausal women to one of four regimens: exercise only, diet only, exercise plus diet and no intervention.

Although women who lost up to 10 percent of their body weight (10 to 20 pounds) through diet and exercise saw modest increases in vitamin D, those levels were roughly three times higher in women who dropped more than 15 percent of their body weight, regardless of what they ate.

"We were surprised at the effect of weight loss greater than 15 percent on blood vitamin D levels," study senior author Dr. Anne McTiernan, director of the Hutchinson Center's Prevention Center, said in the news release. "It appears that the relationship between weight loss and blood vitamin D is not linear but goes up dramatically with more weight loss."

McTiernan concluded the findings suggest the greater the weight loss, the more meaningful the surge in vitamin D levels.

The researchers noted, however, the degree to which vitamin D is available to the body during and after weight loss remains unclear. They also cautioned that more targeted research is needed to understand any link between vitamin D deficiency and chronic disease.

More information

The National Institutes of Health offers more information on the functions and sources of vitamin D.

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Weight-Loss Surgery Linked to Rise in Fracture Risk (HealthDay)

SATURDAY, June 4 (HealthDay News) -- The risk of fractures after weight-loss surgery may be even higher than previously thought, a new study suggests.

Prior research has shown that people who undergo surgery to lose weight, such as gastric bypass, have an increased risk for bone fractures. One study, for example, showed a 1.8-fold increased risk of fracture compared to the general population.

But further analysis showed the risk was actually closer to 2.3 times greater, according to the study to be presented Saturday at the Endocrine's Society's annual meeting in Boston.

Researchers noted the odds of breaking the feet or hands are even higher -- about three times higher than normal.

"A negative effect on bone health that may increase the risk of fractures is an important consideration for people considering bariatric surgery and those who have undergone bariatric surgery," said study author Kelly Nakamura, medical student at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, Minn., in a news release.

In following 258 patients who had bariatric surgery, researchers found that 79 of them had 132 fractures over the course of nine years. On average, the first break happened about six years after surgery. The study noted patients who got more physical activity before surgery had a lower risk of fracture than those who were more sedentary.

The study's authors pointed out the increased risk of bone fracture does not necessarily coincide with a greater risk for developing osteoporosis, the age-related bone-thinning disease.

As a result, they said, drugs used to treat osteoporosis may not be appropriate for these patients. The researchers concluded additional studies are needed to not only explain the link between weight loss surgery and fractures but also to determine the best way to prevent these breaks from happening in the first place.

"Clinicians may need to consider measures to optimize bone health and reduce fracture risk after bariatric surgery, such as fall prevention and optimizing calcium and vitamin D nutrition," said the study's principal investigator, Dr. Kurt Kennel, assistant professor of medicine in the endocrinology division at Mayo Clinic, in the news release.

Because this study was presented at a medical meeting, the data and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery has more information on the benefits of bariatric surgery.

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Weight-Loss Surgery May Lower Risk of Alzheimer's in Diabetics (HealthDay)

SUNDAY, June 5 (HealthDay News) -- While the finding isn't conclusive, a new study suggests that weight-loss surgery in obese diabetics could lower their risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.

Researchers found that gastric bypass patients, when tested six months after their weight-loss surgeries, had less expression of genes that are thought to be precursors of the debris that clogs the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease.

"Our study shows for the first time that weight loss resulting from bariatric surgery leads to a reduction in the expression of genes related to Alzheimer's disease," study author Dr. Paresh Dandona, a professor at State University of New York at Buffalo, said in a news release from the Endocrine Society.

The study was scheduled to be presented Sunday at the society's annual meeting in Boston. Research presented at meetings should be viewed as preliminary because it has not been subjected to the same level of scrutiny as studies published in most medical journals.

In the study, the researchers analyzed the blood of 15 patients with type 2 diabetes who underwent weight-loss surgery and lost an average of about 86 pounds over six months. Compared to before the surgery, the patients' expression of amyloid precursor protein fell by 22 percent, and the researchers also noticed less expression of other genes that appear to be connected to Alzheimer's disease.

However, the study didn't examine the patients for signs of the disease, so there's no way to know if their risk actually went down.

Scientists think there's a link between obesity and diabetes, which appears to boost the risk of Alzheimer's disease, said Greg Cole, associate director of the Alzheimer's Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. He said obesity may boost inflammation in both the body and the brain.

"Weight loss is likely to improve health, but one caveat is that the epidemiology of weight loss is complicated," he added. "Weight loss in elderly people can be a harbinger of incipient dementia. Further, according to a National Institute on Aging study, there may be significant differences in the way in which changes in mid-life weight impact the risk for Alzheimer's: women who lose weight between 30 and 45 actually appear to be at increased risk."

More information

For more about Alzheimer's disease, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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Weight Loss May Help Sleep Apnea Symptoms (HealthDay)

MONDAY, June 6 (HealthDay News) -- Many people who suffer from obstructive sleep apnea could eliminate the condition by losing a significant amount of weight, a new study suggests.

Without realizing it, people with sleep apnea wake up multiple times throughout the night as they struggle to breathe. The condition can cause severe daytime tiredness and other symptoms. In many cases, patients are treated with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), a treatment that uses a machine to keep their airways open during sleep.

According to Dr. Virend Somers, a professor of medicine and cardiovascular diseases at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., there seems to be a connection between sleep apnea and extra pounds. But exactly how they're related is not exactly clear, he said. "Although the majority of patients are obese, not everyone with sleep apnea is obese," said Somers, who was not involved with the new study.

Physicians do know that "as you gain weight, sleep apnea gets worse, and as you lose, it improves," Somers noted. Obesity may affect the airway's ability to stay open during sleep, or extra fat cells could affect the brain's control of the airway, he suggested.

In the new study, published online June 1 in BMJ, researchers led by Kari Johansson of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm tracked 63 male sleep apnea patients, aged 30 to 65, who were overweight. Of those, 58 completed a version of the Cambridge Weight Plan, which started with a very low-calorie diet for nine weeks, followed by a year-long program of weight-maintenance counseling. The Cambridge Weight Plan provided partial funding for the study.

After a year, about half of the patients who lost weight and kept it off no longer needed a CPAP machine to keep their airways open during sleep, and sleep apnea went away in 10 percent of them.

Somers noted that it's unlikely that the specific diet approach itself was important. "I'm not aware of any interaction between what you eat and sleep apnea," he said. Instead, it's likely that simply losing weight did the trick, he explained.

More information

For more about sleep apnea, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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Brown Fat Cells May One Day Help Combat Obesity (HealthDay)

SUNDAY, June 5 (HealthDay News) -- The human body has two kinds of fat: the "bad" white kind that stores calories and the "good" brown kind that burns them. Now, researchers say that it is actually possible to make more brown fat to help people lose weight.

"We are now even more optimistic that brown fat could be used for treating obesity and diabetes," study lead author Dr. Aaron Cypess, assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, said in a news release from the Endocrine Society.

In 2009, Cypess showed that although adults tend to have a lot more white fat than they do brown, most have some brown fat in an area extending from the front of their neck to their chest.

Now, in a follow-up study, scheduled for presentation Sunday at the Endocrine's Society's annual meeting in Boston, Cypess found more good brown fat cells also exist in deeper fat. In fact, some of them were actually mixed in with white fat cells.

"It's a marbling at the cellular level," Cypess said in the news release. "We wondered: Wouldn't it be nice if you could grow more brown fat? The answer is yes."

The researchers grew mature human brown fat cells from pre-adipocytes, or pre-fat cells, taken from a fresh sample of brown fat. Cypess noted that the process, which took about two weeks in a lab, would probably happen more quickly in the body.

By measuring the oxygen consumption rate of fat cells, the researchers also demonstrated that brown fat does in fact burn a significant number of calories. Although the study concluded that stimulating the growth of additional brown fat may be a promising treatment for obesity, the researchers stressed that making more good fat would not be a substitute for proper diet and exercise.

"As powerful as brown fat could be at burning calories, we can easily out-eat the benefit," Cypess warned.

Because this study was presented at a medical meeting, the findings should be viewed as preliminary until they are published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides more information on the causes and consequences of obesity.

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Obesity Greater Risk for Fatty Liver Than Alcohol, Study Finds (HealthDay)

THURSDAY, June 2 (HealthDay News) -- Obesity and insulin resistance constitute a greater risk for fatty liver disease than moderate alcohol consumption, according to a new study that found drinking modest amounts of red wine posed no greater risk for developing the condition.

For their study, published online May 23 in Annals of Medicine, Swedish researchers instructed 44 people to either abstain from alcohol or drink one (women) or two (men) glasses of red wine a day for three months. At the beginning and end of the three months, the investigators collected blood samples and conducted MRIs to measure the fatty content of participants' livers.

"It turned out that the amount of fat in the liver was linked with obesity and insulin resistance and was almost not at all affected by the red wine. Specifically, after three months, none of the wine drinkers had developed fatty liver or elevated liver transaminases," Dr. Stergios Kechagias, a liver specialist at Linkoping University, said in a news release from the Swedish Research Council.

Moreover, the study found a 16 percent decrease in levels of harmful LDL cholesterol among those who drank the red wine. "There is a strong correlation between moderate intake of alcohol and decreased risk of cardiovascular disease, and our data provides a mechanism for this since LDL cholesterol was lowered to such a large extent," Dr. Fredrik Nystrom, a professor at Linkoping, concluded in the news release.

Because it's known that large amounts of alcohol contribute to liver disease, it was long thought that even moderate consumption might have a harmful effect.

Fatty liver, which is associated with diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease, can lead to cirrhosis of the liver, the researchers noted.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases has more information on fatty liver disease.

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Hula-Hoop Might Help Shed Unwanted Pounds (HealthDay)

FRIDAY, June 3 (HealthDay News) -- The Hula-Hoop, a large ring that can be gyrated around the waist, gained intense popularity in the 1950s and now it seems to be re-emerging as a hot trend in weight loss, a new study has found.

"Hooping" expends the same amount of energy as walking 4 to 4.5 miles per hour -- enough to help a person firm up and slim down, according to a news release from the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). And "it's becoming a popular form of choreographed group exercise," study author John Porcari, of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, said in the news release.

The study examined 16 women, ranging in age from 16 to 59, who regularly attended choreographed hooping classes. The researchers measured the women's oxygen consumption, heart rate and rate of physical exertion as they completed a 30-minute video-led hooping class.

The researchers set out "to determine the effect of hooping on physical fitness and whether or not the intensity falls within ACSM guidelines for improving cardiovascular fitness," Porcari said.

The study found that the average heart rate for the 30-minute class was 151 beats per minute, and the average caloric expenditure was equivalent to 210 calories for 30 minutes of hooping. The total energy cost, the researchers revealed, was enough to help people control their body weight.

The findings were to be presented this week at the American College of Sports Medicine annual meeting, held in conjunction with the World Congress on Exercise Is Medicine, in Denver. Experts note that research presented at meetings isn't subjected to the same type of scrutiny given to research published in peer-reviewed journals.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on physical activity and weight control.

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Study Sees Link Between Psoriasis, Obesity in Kids (HealthDay)

FRIDAY, May 20 (HealthDay News) -- The prevalence of psoriasis -- a chronic, inflammatory disease of the skin -- is significantly higher among overweight and obese kids, researchers have found.

The Kaiser Permanente study, published online in the Journal of Pediatrics, also found that teens with psoriasis (regardless of their body weight) have higher cholesterol levels, putting them at greater risk for heart disease.

"This study suggests a link between obesity and psoriasis in children," the study's lead author Corinna Koebnick, research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Southern California's Department of Research & Evaluation, said in a Kaiser Permanente news release.

"But our study findings also suggest that the higher heart disease risk for patients with psoriasis starts in childhood in the form of higher cholesterol levels. We may need to monitor youth with psoriasis more closely for cardiovascular risk factors, especially if they are obese," Koebnick added.

Using electronic health records to study 710,949 racially and ethnically diverse children, the investigators found obese children were almost 40 percent more likely to have psoriasis than normal weight children. At even greater risk, extremely obese children were nearly 80 percent more likely to have psoriasis than normal weight children. Moreover, it was four times more likely for psoriasis to be severe or more widespread in obese youth than in normal weight children.

The study also revealed that, compared with kids without psoriasis, teens with the skin condition had 4 to 16 percent higher cholesterol levels and liver enzymes, regardless of their weight.

Psoriasis, often viewed merely as a burdensome skin condition, may put children at risk for metabolic disease (such as diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and heart disease), as seen in adults, the study authors pointed out.

"It has been well described that adults with psoriasis have increased cardiovascular risk factors, but we have now examined these issues in children," the study's senior author, Dr. Jashin J. Wu, director of clinical research and the associate residency program, and director for the department of dermatology at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center, said in the news release.

"As we follow these patients over 30 to 40 years, we will be able to determine if these increased cardiovascular risk factors in turn increase the risk for major adverse cardiac events," said Wu.

The researchers acknowledged that the study had limitations due to its cross-sectional design, where both body weight and information on psoriasis were assessed at the same time, and stated that these issues would be addressed in future studies.

More information

The American Academy of Pediatrics provides details on childhood obesity.

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More Sleep May Cut Kids' Risk of Obesity (HealthDay)

FRIDAY, May 27 (HealthDay News) -- Youngsters who do not get enough sleep on a regular basis are more likely to be overweight, a new study has found.

Conversely, when children got more shut-eye, they had a reduction in body mass index (BMI) and a significant drop in their risk of being overweight, the researchers found. The investigators also found lower BMIs resulted from differences in fat mass (not any effect on fat-free mass, such as muscle), indicating that poor sleep has negative effects on body composition.

In conducting the study, Rachael Taylor, a research associate professor in the department of human nutrition at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, and colleagues followed 244 children from the age of 3 years to 7 years.

Every six months the children's weight, height, BMI and body composition were measured, and their sleep and dietary habits were recorded. The children also wore accelerometers (devices that monitor body movement) to assess their level of physical activity. Additional factors known to be associated with BMI in kids were also taken into account, such as the children's birth weight and their mother's level of education and income.

The study, published online May 26 in BMJ, revealed that the children got an average 11 hours of sleep per day. Those who consistently slept less, however, had an increased risk of having a higher BMI by the time they turned 7 years old. On the other hand, among 3- to 5-year-olds, each extra hour of sleep per night was linked to a reduction in BMI of 0.49 and a 61 percent drop in the risk of being overweight or obese by the age of 7.

Taylor and colleagues concluded that sleep plays a critical role in children's body composition. Prolonged lack of sleep, they found, may cause children to eat more and exercise less. Based on these findings, the study's authors suggested that good sleep habits should be encouraged in children as a matter of public health.

However, more research is needed to determine whether more sleep or better sleeping patterns contribute to healthier children, they noted in a journal news release.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides more information on childhood obesity.

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