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Mexico's fattest man dies of heart attack
One of the world's fattest men - who weighed an estimated 450 kilos - has died of a heart attack in Mexico.
Morbidly obese Jose Luis Garza Ramirez († 47) complained of pain yesterday morning and was taken to hospital, according to the ‘El Universal’ newspaper, but doctors were unable to save him.
Emergency workers in the city of Juarezin Nuevo Leon had to knock down a bedroom wall to remove Garza, because his huge body could no longer fit through the door.
A net and a sturdy rope were needed to move the almost-half ton man onto the back of a pick-up truck. One of the world's fattest men - who weighed an estimated 450 kilos - has died of a heart attack in Mexico. ... more -
990lb man Jose Luis Garza dies after bedroom rescue drama
A vastly overweight Mexican man was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital after emergency workers were forced to demolish his bedroom wall to take him for treatment.
Jose Luis Garza, 47, weighed 992lb (450kg) and had been bedridden for four months. His condition deteriorated at the weekend as he struggled to breathe and eat, and he lost his battle for life as he was driven to hospital on the back of a friend's lorry
Mr Garza lived in Juarez in northern Mexico and was a friend of Manuel Uribe, the world's fattest man and a fellow Mexican who lived about one hour away in Monterrey.
Mr Garza had said that his overeating became out of control after the deaths of both his parents within two weeks of each other at the start of this year. He was inspired by Mr Uribe — whose record weight of 1,235lb earned him a place in the 2007 Guinness World Records — to follow his lead in going on television to plead for help in tackling his weight problem.
Mr Uribe reportedly tried to help Mr Garza by sending him kiwis, grapefruit, pears and a protein supplement.
Family members blamed healthworkers for failing to take Mr Garza to hospital before he became critically ill. "if he had received support at the time he asked for it, he would still be with us," said his brother, Pedro Garza.
Healthworkers said that there was little they could do. "The attention he would have received at a hospital would have been the same he received at home," said Julio Cesar Cano, spokesman for the Nuevo Leon state health department. "Moving a patient of that magnitude is very difficult."
About 150 friends and family waited for more than four hours at a cemetery in the Monterrey suburb of Guadalupe while carpenters built a special coffin for Mr Garza's burial.
"The family wanted to cremate him but there wasn't an adequate oven for someone his size," Maribel Cantu, a funeral home worker, said. "He is the biggest man we have buried."
Mr Uribe announced last week that he was to marry his long-term girlfriend Claudia Solis in a civil ceremony this month, after slimming down to around 41stone (571lb) from his peak weight in 2006, when he tipped the scales at 94 stone.
A former car spares dealer, Mr Uribe has been bedridden since 2001. He drew worldwide attention when he pleaded for help on television in January 2006. Afterwards, Italian and Spanish doctors visited and offered him gastric bypass surgery, but Mr Uribe chose instead to accept help from Mexican nutritionists working with the Zone diet. He said he would stick to that diet until he reached his goal weight of 18st.
The television programme, World's Heaviest Man, detailed his battles to lose weight and his housebound life.
He has said that he plans to launch the Manuel Uribe Foundation to educate Mexican people about nutrition, to combat obesity problems. He has asked Guinness World Records to certify in July 2008, his second title: "The world's greatest loser of weight." A vastly overweight Mexican man was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital after emergency workers were forced to demolish his bedroom... more -
Obesity boom will cost tax payers
Rising obesity levels are set to drain local health and public service budgets, which will mean higher taxes for all.
Obesity could cost NHS in England £6.3bn by 2015 if no effective action is taken says the Department of Health. Local councils in England and Wales are already shelling out tens of thousands of pounds on "fat-friendly" services, like widening crematoria furnaces.
The Local Government Association warns that Britain is fast becoming the "obesity capital of the world" and even more must be done to stop the nation's waistline continuing to expand. David Rogers, LGA spokesperson on public health, said: "It's a massive issue for public health but it also risks placing an unprecedented amount of pressure on council services. Obesity is increasingly costing the council taxpayer dear. It falls to social services to care for the house-bound obese adults, to invest money in encouraging people to be active and to replace school furniture that is just too small for larger pupils. Council equipment and infrastructure is having to be modified to deal with a population that is getting larger and larger." Rising obesity levels are set to drain local health and public service budgets, which will mean higher taxes for all. ... more -
New twist in brain obesity riddle
The discovery of another way in which the body appears to control how much it eats could shed fresh light on obesity.
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Fat couple 'too heavy for plane to take off'
A pair of holidaymakers were hungry to discover that they would not be allowed to board their plane, because their combined bulk would be too great for the plane to take off! A pair of holidaymakers were hungry to discover that they would not be allowed to board their plane, because their combined bulk would... more
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Fattest man to get married
The world's fattest man, Manuel Uribe, has announced he will get married this month, after losing nearly half his original weight.
Uribe, 43, who holds the record for the world's fattest man in the 2007 Guinness Book of Records, is to marry a widow named Claudia, to whom he has been engaged for two years. "It will be a hefty wedding, on a large scale, but with a low-calorie banquet", he said.
The Mexican reached his record weight of 1,235 pounds - 88 stone - in 2007 after years of unhealthy living, including a diet of pizza and tacos. He has since dropped to 570lb (41 stone) from 1,300lb (93 stone) since February, by following the so-called "Zone Diet", a high-protein regime pioneered by Boston biochemist Dr Barry Sears.
Following the wedding announcement, Mr Uribe has been inundated with offers of sponsorship from international magazines, television stations. Local mayors who have offered to supply a cake for the 400 guests.
Mr Uribe thanked God for the "miracles he gave to a man who was on the edge of suicide and who today knows love." The world's fattest man, Manuel Uribe, has announced he will get married this month, after losing nearly half his original weight... more -
Fat dolphins go on diet
Dolphins at a marine park in Japan have to go on a new diet and exercise regime after developing pot bellies and failing to hit jumping targets.
Staff at Kinosaki Marine World in western Japan became concerned last month when they noticed the aquatic performances of the plumper dolphins were beginning to suffer. Keepers were confused by their apparent sluggishness and noticed the animals were having problems keeping upright while treading water.
The dolphins were weighed and keepers realised that all 19 had become heavier. Some had put on up to 10kg (22bl) over the summer. But keepers could not work out why, as their diets had not changed. The creatures were all fed from the same menu – 15kg (31bl) of mackerel mixed with white fish. Then they discovered that the mackerel the dolphins had been eating had become fattier, hence the weight gain.
The dolphins have since been put on a low-fat diet and weight loss programme, including a new exercise regime. Dolphins at a marine park in Japan have to go on a new diet and exercise regime after developing pot bellies and failing to hit jumpin... more -
Too Good to Be True?: Fat That Keeps You Thin
Scientists have stumbled on a chemical in the body that could one day prevent or reverse diseases linked to obesity.
Researchers at Harvard University's School of Public Health (H.S.P.H.) report in Cell that palmitoleate, a newly discovered hormone produced by fat cells, is also a fatty acid. (Most hormones are proteins.) They believe that if they can increase its production, they may be able to stave off metabolic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease (caused by hardening of the arteries) and so-called fatty liver, an often asymptomatic disease that can lead to damage of the organ as well as cancer. They speculate that it may also aid in weight loss.
But how could fats help trim the portly—or at least avoid accompanying diseases?
"The homemade meal is always the healthiest and best tasting meal," says study co-author Gökhan Hotamisligil, a professor of genetics and metabolism at H.S.P.H. "Similarly, the best kind of fat is the kind that you produce on your own from your fat tissue."
He says researchers discovered palmitoleate's potential thinning power by engineering mice that did not have proteins responsible for shuttling dietary fat to storage fat cells (often found around the abdomen, thighs and other places familiar to cellulite hosts). The animals ate like pigs, so to speak, but remained lean, free of metabolic disease, and showed no sign of fat deposits on their livers or insulin resistance. (Resistance to insulin—a hormone produced in the pancreas—causes sugar to accumulate in the blood instead of being taken up the muscle, which can result in type 2 diabetes.)
Hotamisligil says the team traced the hormone to fat cells when they were trying to figure out why these mice had so many fat molecules in their blood. Normally, excess of fatty acids in the bloodstream end up in the muscle and liver—and eventually affect insulin-sensing cells, causing diabetes.
"Fat is a huge soup of many many chemical entities," Hotamisligil says. "You can't treat fat like one kind of thing. It's a combination of many different kinds of molecules—the composition of [the] soup is important."
Palmitoleate is involved in a process known as de novo lipogenesis, the production of fat molecules by fat cells. The naturally made fat, he explains, appears to have the opposite effect of fat from food: It actually keeps fat from accumulating on the liver and thwarts insulin resistance. He noted that whereas the healthy rats had lots of palmitoleate in their fat reserves, diabetic mice do not. The mechanism by which palmitoleate works, however, has yet to be figured out.
"If you can replenish that source [of palmitoleate] or find a way to activate fat cells to produce more of their own fat, this could end up helping people with obesity, diabetes and fatty liver disease," says Hotamisligil.
He warns that high palmitoleate levels may only guard against metabolic illness and not obesity itself. Although he cannot be certain that the hormone has the same effect on humans, he does note that the pathways involved in mice and humans are almost identical.
In an editorial accompanying the Cell article, endocrinologist Jerrold Olefsky of the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine points out: "Earlier studies have indicated that the capacity of human [fat cells] for de novo biosynthesis of fatty acids is considerably less than in rodent models." More work has to be done, he says, to determine if higher palmitoleate levels coincide with less metabolic disease in humans, as well. Scientists have stumbled on a chemical in the body that could one day prevent or reverse diseases linked to obesity. ... more -
Obesity 'raises miscarriage risk'
Women who have had a miscarriage could be at greater risk of miscarrying again if they are obese, research suggests.
A team from London's St Mary's Hospital followed the progress of 696 women whose miscarriages were classed as "unexplained" by a specialist clinic.
The team told a conference in Canada the risk of a further miscarriage was raised by 73% if the woman was obese.
However, an obesity specialist said it was potentially dangerous to try to lose weight when already pregnant.
Although the links between being obese and having problems conceiving and complications during pregnancy are well known, this study claims to be the first to look specifically at "recurrent" miscarriage, for which there is often no obvious cause.
Of the 696 women whose cases were followed, more than half were of "normal" weight, 30% were overweight, and 15% were obese, meaning they had a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or above.
The older the woman, the higher chance she had of having another miscarriage, but, when the figures were adjusted to account for this, obesity emerged as another possible factor.
While there was no difference in the miscarriage rates for overweight, normal and underweight women, the risk of further miscarriage increased sharply for obese women.
Foetal malformation
Winnie Lo, a clinical nurse specialist at St Mary's, who presented the research at the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology's international meeting in Montreal, said: "This is the first study to look directly at the link between BMI and recurrent miscarriage.
"It shows that obese women who experience recurrent miscarriage are at greater risk of subsequent pregnancy loss.
"All women with recurrent miscarriage should be weighed at their first consultation.
"Those who are found to be obese should be counselled regarding the benefits of weight loss."
Dr Nick Finer, an endocrinologist with an interest in obesity from Addenbrooke's Hospital near Cambridge, said that the findings were "unsurprising".
"We already know that the chances of fertility are less with increasing BMI, the risks of foetal malformation increase, alongside the risks of other adverse pregnancy outcomes."
He said that, while the reason why obesity might cause such problems was not clear, it was possible that it increased inflammation, harming the chances of a successful pregnancy.
However, he warned that crash diets during pregnancy would never be recommended as a means of increasing the chances of success.
"There are good reasons to try to lose weight before getting pregnant, but it is recommended that women do not try to do this once pregnancy is established, as it could cause problems." Women who have had a miscarriage could be at greater risk of miscarrying again if they are obese, research suggests. ... more -
Fat man stops bullet.
Yes, the article said "rotund" but he's fat and there's nothing we can do to change that.
Good to see obesity doing some good for a change. Yes, the article said "rotund" but he's fat and there's nothing we can do to change that. ... more -
Obesity crisis: is surgery the solution?
Controversial surgery for treating obesity should be more widely available on the NHS, researchers claim. They say a lack of resources and prejudice from some doctors is preventing many morbidly obese patients from receiving a life-saving surgery that involves reducing the patient's stomach to the size of a thumb.
Dr Carel Le Roux at Imperial College London and his colleague Dr Rachel Batterham are calling for 10 times the number of operations currently performed. At present around 6,000 people receive the surgery each year but guidelines from the National Institute of Clinical Excellence say the number should be 60,000.
Currently only patients with a BMI of 35 or over are eligible, but the scientists say more research is needed to work out whether this criterion should be extended. A BMI of 25 or higher is considered overweight. Thirty or more is obese.
Around two-thirds of the UK population is overweight or obese. "What we need to know is which patients would benefit from this operation and I think that evidence is lacking," Le Roux told the British Association festival.
In the long term Le Roux and Batterham hope to recreate the changes brought about by surgery by using drugs, but in the meantime they say the £9,000 operation can make a huge difference to patients. "The holy grail of understanding how this works is that it will potentially lead to a cure for obesity and type two diabetes," said Batterham, who works at the centre for diabetes and endocrinology at University College London. Controversial surgery for treating obesity should be more widely available on the NHS, researchers claim. They say a lack of resources... more -
Double Dangers of High Fructose Corn Syrup
Farmers receive subsidies to grow corn - much of this corn is sold to cola and other junk-food companies at a reduced rate. These companies then make high fructose corn syrup to sweeten their products. It is much cheaper to use than beet or cane sugar and can have serious negative effects on our bodies - especially the bodies of children. It's in just about any processed food you can name. As well as sweets and colas it is in bread, beer, fruit juices, frozen treats - read your labels. High fructose corn syrup is not processed by the body like sugars from fruits and vegetables - it's something we all should learn about if we value our health. Farmers receive subsidies to grow corn - much of this corn is sold to cola and other junk-food companies at a reduced rate. These com... more
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United Kingdom Talk Saturday 6th September 2008
Saturday's edition of my three times a week talk show. Watch the show here on CURRENT TV on Tues, Thurs & Sats.
In today's show :
Car trouble.
Are you missing out on something ?
More cat news.
Cooking for your pets.
Sat Navs.
Mull of Kintyre cheese.
Alternative routes.
An economical driver.
What's your number ?
How is your brain wired ?
Ear spray.
A bargain at $250
Like a duck to water.
Feeling lumpy.
Southfork or not ?
"A bit of a paunch" ?
That gorgeous bloke.
A jacket that lights up.
You try and be friendly.
Atlases.
My new mobile phone.
My nieces dog is being operated on.
Collecting a number.
"Ping".
A bowl of Tomato soup.
No more leaking.
Vet people are nice.
Rope.
chris@unitedkingdomtalk.co.uk
WWW.UNITEDKINGDOMTALK.CO.UK Saturday's edition of my three times a week talk show. Watch the show here on CURRENT TV on Tues, Thurs & Sats. ... more -
Trans fats linked to pre-cancerous colon growths
A high intake of trans fats could increase colon cancer risk, according to new research published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
People who ate the most trans fatty acids were more likely to have pre-cancerous growths or polyps in their colons than those who consumed the least, Dr. Lisa C. Vinikoor of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and colleagues found. "These results provide further support for recommendations to limit consumption of trans-fatty acids," they conclude.
Trans fats are formed by processing vegetable oils to increase their shelf-life, and are found in many baked goods, crackers, snacks and other packaged foods. Eating them increases levels of "bad" LDL-cholesterol, and hence heart disease risk. US food producers are now required to list the amount of trans fat contained in their products, and health authorities recommend people avoid eating trans fats entirely.
While there has been little research on whether trans fats boost colorectal cancer risk, there are many possible ways that they could do so, for example by changing the normal balance of fatty or bile acids in the colon, Vinikoor and her colleagues say.
Among the 38.5 percent of study participants found to have colon polyps, average trans fatty acid intake was 4.97 g, while most consumed 4.12 g. Average intakes for people who were free of the colon growths was 4.42 g, while the median was 3.61 g.
These results suggest that consumption of high amounts of trans-fatty acid may increase the risk of colorectal polyps, the researchers write, adding that the findings also back current recommendations to limit trans fat intake. A high intake of trans fats could increase colon cancer risk, according to new research published in the American Journal of Epidemiol... more -
Could we lose weight by injecting fat into our bellies?
"What if the best way to conquer obesity is to have fat injected into your stomach?
According to two studies in Nature, that may be the future of weight loss treatments—provided you use the right kind of fat.
When we think of the stuff, we usually call to mind white fat, which stores calories and migrates to our waistlines. But fat isn't all bad. So-called brown fat releases the energy it captures and promotes calorie burning—and thus weight loss.
The two Nature studies describe two different proteins that control the creation of brown fat cells from immature muscle and fat cells in mice. The findings offer new hope in the fight against obesity—a condition, which, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, grips two thirds of American adults and 17 percent of young people aged 19 and under.
Conceivably, drugs that make more of these proteins could jump-start a conversion of white fat cells to brown fat cells. Alternatively, according to Bruce Spiegelman, co-author of one of the new studies and a biologist at Boston's Dana–Farber Cancer Institute, brown fat cells could one day be transplanted into an obese person's abdomen—where their white fat stores live—to fuel the calorie-burning processes.
"The white fat is the main energy storage in our body," says Yu-Hua Tseng, a biologist at Joslin Diabetes Center at Harvard University and co-author of the other Nature study. "The white cells can release free fatty acids, and they are moved over to the brown fat to be burned," resulting in weight loss."
More at link. Would you do it if it was approved for the public? "What if the best way to conquer obesity is to have fat injected into your stomach? ... more -
Alabama hits obese workers with fee "Alabama Fat Tax"
The state of Alabama has given its 37,527 employees until 2010 to start getting fit -- or they'll pay $25 a month for insurance that otherwise is free.
Alabama will be the first state to charge its overweight workers who don't try to slim down, while a handful of other states reward employees who adopt healthful behaviors.
Alabama already charges workers who smoke -- and has seen some success in getting them to quit -- but now has turned its attention to a problem that plagues many people in the Deep South: obesity. The state of Alabama has given its 37,527 employees until 2010 to start getting fit -- or they'll pay $25 a month for insurance t... more -
Too Fat for Justice?
A grand jury indicted Mayra Lizbeth Rosales, 27, a half ton (453.592 kg) woman of one acount of first degree murder, and one acount of injury to a child. She struck the 2 year old child, Eliseo Gonzalez Jr., twice, crushing his head and killing him.
The problem is that she can't get out of her home or fit into the courtroom because of her weight problem. Officials are now trying to figure out how to take the woman to jail! A grand jury indicted Mayra Lizbeth Rosales, 27, a half ton (453.592 kg) woman of one acount of first degree murder, and one acount of... more -
Half-ton murder suspect 'too fat for jail'
Texas prosecutors are trying to work out how to take into custody an obese murder suspect too fat to fit through her front door.
The bedridden woman, who weighs nearly half a ton - 1,000 pounds or over 71 stone - is accused of killing her two-year-old nephew.
A grand jury indicted Mayra Lizbeth Rosales, 27, on a charge of first degree murder on Thursday and ordered her bail be set at $150,000.
Hidalgo County District Attorney Rene Guerra Rosales told local television news he hoped to take the woman into custody as early as Friday but did not go into detail as to how this would be done.
Lupe Trevino, Hidalgo County Sheriff, said holding Rosales at the county jail for the duration of her trial would be impossible because she needs extensive medical care.
"She would die," said Mr Trevino.
Rosales, who was previously charged with capital murder, was indicted on additional charges of first degree murder and injury to a child after a post mortem report showed the toddler, Eliseo Gonzalez Jr, died because he had been struck.
Prosecutors believe the child was hit at least twice while in Rosales' care in March, crushing his head and causing severe head trauma and brain haemorrhaging.
The woman told investigators at the time she had accidentally crushed the boy under her own weight while trying to pick him up.
In March, shortly after the boy died, Rosales was formally charged with capital murder while lying in bed at home in La Joya, close to the Mexican border.
She faces life in prison or even the death penalty if convicted.
The boy's mother, Jaime Rosales, was charged earlier with injury to a child because she allegedly left her son alone with his aunt, breaking an agreement with social services not to do so.
Image: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5958919.html Texas prosecutors are trying to work out how to take into custody an obese murder suspect too fat to fit through her front door. ... more -
"Good" fat may be new weapon in obesity fight
A new understanding of the origins of brown fat cells, the "good" kind of fat that burns energy and keeps us warm, may lead to new treatments for obesity.
Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston said they used a single molecular switch to turn immature muscle cells into brown fat cells in the lab, suggesting that brown fat may be more akin to muscle cells than conventional white fat cells. A second team from the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, found a protein important for bone growth helped promote the development of brown fat tissue in mice.
Both teams, reporting in the journal Nature, said their new findings lend understanding about the origins of brown fat, which releases energy, in contrast to conventional white fat, which stores energy.
A person who is obese has large stores of white fat, and researchers think if they can coax the body into making more calorie-burning brown fat, this might help people obese people lose weight. A new understanding of the origins of brown fat cells, the "good" kind of fat that burns energy and keeps us warm, may lead ... more -
Scientists Make a Fat-Burning Fat
Image: Green depicts cells with inactivated PRDM16; red, a muscle protein is expressed; all nuclei, including those of brown fat cells, are blue.
What if fat could make you lose weight?
So suggests research into a little-known type of adipose tissue called brown fat.
Though it's commonly thought that fat -- beyond the bit necessary for insulation and spare energy -- is unequivocally bad, there are actually two types: white and brown.
White fat is the traditional bane of struggling dieters and would-be beach bunnies. Brown fat is quite different. It's full of mitochondria -- the body's energy-producing cellular machines -- and burns calories to produce heat.
Abundant in babies, whom it helps keep warm, brown fat is found only in traces in adults. But with a flick of two genetic switches, scientists showed that cells destined to become muscle have the potential to become brown fat.
If the findings -- presently observed in mice -- apply to humans, it could give people a new way to stay slim and prevent diabetes.
"In theory, you'd affect the whole energy metabolism of the organism," said Harvard Medical School cell biologist Bruce Spiegelman, co-author of one of two brown fat papers published today in Nature.
Spiegelman's team observed that some so-called muscle precursor cells developed into brown fat. This stopped when they inactivated the PRDM16 gene, suggesting the gene's critical role in brown fat formation. When another team of researchers, led by Harvard Medical School researchers Yu-Hua Tseng and C. Ronald Kahn, inactivated the BMP7 gene, mice again failed to develop brown fat.
Earlier research by Spiegelman showed that adding PRDM16 to white fat made it go brown. Adding genetic triggers to fat removed during liposuction or to precursor muscle cells could provide a brown fat supply that -- once re-implanted in the body -- would rapidly burn excess calories.
The findings "take us a step closer to the ultimate goal of promoting the brown fat lineage as a potential way of counteracting obesity,” writes University of Stockholm fat cell specialist Barbara Cannon in an analysis accompanying the papers. Cannon was not involved in either study.
Asked whether his technique could deprive the body of muscle, Spiegelman said that precursor muscle cells are self-replenishing: Redirect a few into brown fat, and they'll be quickly replaced.
But Spiegelman, who is now looking for gene-triggering pharmaceuticals, still advised caution.
"Would this work with a spoonful of brown fat, or a truckload? That's not clear at this point," he said. "It's not ready for human beings. But we're excited." Image: Green depicts cells with inactivated PRDM16; red, a muscle protein is expressed; all nuclei, including those of brown fat cells... more
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