Varying brain energy expenditure in childhood associated with weight gain

It is well known that we tend to put on weight when we consume more calories than we spend. It is, however, less known that our brain uses half of the body's energy during early childhood.

Research says that variation in the energy needs of brain development across kids- in terms of the timing, intensity, and duration of energy use- can influence patterns of energy expenditure and weight gain.

We all know that how much energy out bodies burn is an important influence on weight gain. When kids are 5, their brains use almost half of their bodies' energy. And yet, we have no idea how much the brain's energy expenditure varies between kids. This is a huge hole in our understanding of energy expenditure, said the co-author of the study.

A major aim of our paper is to bring attention to this gap in understanding and to encourage researchers to measure the brain's energy use in future studies of child development especially those focused on understanding weight gain and obesity risk.

We believe it is plausible that increased energy expenditure by the brain could be an unanticipated benefit to early child development programme, which of course, have many other demonstrated benefits. That would be a great win-win, he said.

This new hypothesis was inspired by the team showing that the brain consumes a lifetime peak of two-thirds of the body's resting energy expenditure, and almost half of total expenditure when kids are 5 years old.

The study also shows that ages, when the brain's energy needs increase during early childhood, are also ages of declining weight gain. As the energy needed for brain development declines in older children and adolescents, the rate of weight gain increases in parallel.

This finding helped confirm a long-standing hypothesis in anthropology that human children evolved a much slower rate of childhood growth compared to other mammals and primates, he said.

 

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Oats, nuts can help reduce cholesterol

Worried about your cholesterol? Make sure you eat plenty of oats and nuts rather than just avoiding fatty foods, scientists say.

Researchers at the University of Toronto in Canada found that a diet rich in foods, such as oats and nuts, was more effective in lowering cholesterol levels than by cutting out saturated fats alone.

The diet that worked best in the study also included soy products such as milk, tofu and meat substitutes, while eating more peas, beans and lentils was encouraged, the Daily Mail reported.

The researchers discovered that a six-month change to the diet could result in a “meaningful” 13 per cent reduction in blood levels of LDL cholesterol, also called bad cholesterol.

Following the diet for longer would give a predicted reduction of almost 11 per cent in heart disease risk over a ten-year period, the researchers claimed.

For the study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the researchers looked at 345 patients suffering from high cholesterol. They were split into three groups, one of which was merely recommended to adopt a low-fat diet that included fruit and vegetables, while the other two were advised on a dietary “portfolio” consisting of specific foods known to lower LDL cholesterol such as nuts, oats, soy products and lentils.

One group was counselled during two clinic visits while the other underwent an “intensive” course of seven visits. After six months the low-fat group had experienced a drop in LDL cholesterol levels of three per cent.

Are allergies associated with heart disease?

Common allergies that bring on wheezing, sneezing and watery eyes could be next to join the list of factors linked to heart disease, suggests a large new study.

The researchers, however, stress that the findings do not prove that allergies actually cause heart disease, the leading cause of death in the US.

To look for ties between common allergic symptoms and heart disease, Dr Jongoh Kim of Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and colleagues analysed data on more than 8,600 adults aged 20 or older who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted between 1988 and 1994.

They found that common allergies and heart disease frequently paired up.

Eighteen per cent of the adults reported wheezing and 46 percent suffered bouts of a stuffy nose or itchy and watery eyes — a combination of allergic symptoms known as rhinoconjunctivitis.

Heart disease was present in 6 per cent of the adults overall. It was found in 13 per cent of wheezing cases, 5 per cent of rhinoconjunctivitis cases and 4 per cent of people without any allergic symptoms.

After adjusting for other related factors, such as age and asthma, there was a 2.6-fold increased risk of heart disease with wheezing and a 40 per cent increased risk with rhinoconjunctivitis, compared to no allergies. The association was mainly seen in women younger than age of 50.

Kim suggests that the intermittent inflammation that comes with allergies may lead to the thickening of artery walls, and eventually heart disease. It could also be that some people simply carry genes that are linked to the development of both allergies and heart disease, Kim added.


But given the nature of the study, the researchers are not yet able to say if allergies truly have a role to play in the development of heart disease. Much more study is needed to “clearly see” whether there is a cause and effect relationship, Kim said. “And even if there is a cause and effect, it is not clear whether treating allergic disease can reduce the risk,” Kim noted.

Dr Carlos Iribarren, a research scientist at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California, who was not involved in the study, said: “Because common allergic symptoms are highly prevalent in asthma, these findings are consistent with prior research conducted at Kaiser Permanente showing a significant association between self-report of asthma and future risk of coronary disease, particularly among women.”

But he cautioned against jumping to any “premature conclusion, consumer-level advice or public health recommendation based on these findings.” Iribarren also noted that study subjects with allergy (particularly wheezing) had a greater burden of heart disease risk factors (for example, smoking, obesity, high blood pressure), compared with allergy-free subjects. Therefore, “allergists, internists and cardiologists should be made aware of this link and intensify cardiovascular risk profile assessment and modification among patients presenting with allergy.”

Dr Viola Vaccarino, of the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, told Reuters Health that the current findings also fit with studies she and her colleagues have done, “finding of an association of chronic inflammatory conditions such as asthma and other allergy with coronary disease in women but not in men”.

“Young women may have a stronger inflammatory response due to allergic conditions, perhaps due to estrogens,” explained Vaccarino, who was also not involved in the current study. It’s also possible, she said, that “people with history of coronary disease are sicker with respiratory symptoms because they have coronary heart disease and not vice-versa.”

“I really wouldn’t draw any strong message from this study,” said Vaccarino. “I would not alarm the public with the news that common allergic symptoms increase the risk of coronary heart disease in women.”