overweight is not always harmful to health
the growth of obesity in Spain is stabilized. New sciences as the metagenomics, opens the door to new treatments.
Madrid, April 2012.- These are some of the conclusions of the first meeting of conferencias-debate organised among the Danone Institute and the RANM, taught by the teachers Manuel Serrano RÃos (President) and MÃ rius Foz (scientific advisor) of the Danone Institute at the Royal National Academy of medicine under the title new horizons in the impact of obesity on health ”.
The Conference offered the less good news: the epidemic of obesity in Spain tends to stabilize. Not so good is that is stabilized at levels very high, because 62% of the adult population in Spain passes the recommended weight (39.4% are overweight and the 22.9 is obese).
The news is good for the health of the Spaniards, because obesity is a risk factor for first order for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases and also for the health system, the costs arising from a continuous growth of the risk factors for disease among the population.
Intestinal bacterial imbalance is related to obesity.
Professor Serrano RÃos, Professor of medicine and academic of number of the RANM exhibited the important routes of inquiry that opens the science the study of the human microbioma, is the sum of the genes the bacteria residing in the body human (and we are talking about 1014 bacteria more than 1,000 different species in each individual) and those of the individual. The new science which is responsible for the interaction between microbes and the organisms in their natural environment is called metagenomics.
It’s a science very young, despite already at the beginning of the 20th century Prize Nobel Ilia Metchnikov argued that the consumption of non pathogenic bacteria, through the intake of yoghurt, helped maintain a balance between pathogenic and non-pathogenic bacteria in the intestinal flora, and that it was beneficial to life.
Humans come to the world sterilized ”, but from the moment of birth began to acquire bacteria in our bodies and in particular in the intestine (particularly in the colon) which play a very important role in three levels: metabolic level, allow let nutrients that would be indigestible (fiber), they facilitate the production of vitamin K or the absorption of ions; immunological defence and as a physical barrier against pathogenic bacteria and trophic level, they influence the permeability of the intestinal epithelium and regulate the immune system associated with the gastrointestinal tract. And they can also trigger fisiopatologicas alterations in the human host and animal (models in rodents) that favor the development of obesity, DM or other metabolic disorders.
Recent studies reveal, as stated by Professor Serrano rivers, there is a very direct relationship between the composition of bacteria in the intestine and obesity. So the intestinal microflora of obese individuals would have a clear reduction in the diversity of bacterial species which accrues to normal to lose weight, or by the calorie diet after bariatric surgery. In addition to the recovery of intestinal bacterial balance.
No doubt more research is needed in this fascinating field. However, experimental data (already some human) seem to indicate that the imbalance in the bacterial flora is very linked to obesity, diabetes type 2 and the metabolic syndrome with insulin resistance; What opens the hope of having the future of treatments based on Prebiotics and probiotics to act favourably flora intestinal and ontrolar so excess fat (and therefore weight) of the person with obesity.
Better off a bit of the weight they stayed short.
Professor Foz, Emeritus Professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and founder of the Spanish society for the study of obesity, warned of excessive use of the concept of overweight (BMI) body mass index-linked only. Now considered overweight, and therefore a health risk to a BMI greater than 25 kg/m2, 30 would be talking about obesity.
However, several recent studies show that the risk of overall mortality and cardiovascular disease is lower in individuals who come to a BMI of 30 (i.e., overweight). This claim is very strong for the over 65s, but it begins to detect this trend among the adult population, as they reveal recent studies conducted in the United States. And attention, the risk increases significantly in people with weight low (less than a BMI of 22). It seems that it is better to spend a little bit of weight they stayed short. This would be another good news for that almost 40 per cent of the population overweight.
Professor Foz clarified that the IMC if only may not be one sufficient indicator and that it would be necessary to take into account other factors such as where excess fat builds up. Thus, when the accumulation is abdominal (what we call belly ”) the risk of cardiovascular disease is higher than if is gluteofemoral (the cartridge ”).
In any case, and though slightly pass what is today considered a proper weight may not be a negative factor for the health in adulthood and old age, the Foz Professor warned that being overweight in childhood and youth must be combated vigorously, which is a risk factor for obesity in adulthoodbecause the natural tendency in humans is to increase its body weight over the years.
The Danone Institute
The Danone Institute, non-profit scientific institution, celebrates 19 years dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of fundamental and clinical research in the field of nutrition, food and health, through the granting of scholarships and prizes, the collaboration with universities and hospitals in greater prestige in Spain and other countries and editing of publications of reference for health professionals. In addition it conducts training initiatives in nutrition, food and health, as the course of the school of nutrition Francisco Grande Covián, perhaps of greater prestige in our country for the quality and rigour of the participating teachers, or this cycle of conferencias-debate in collaboration with the Royal National Academy of medicine which is repeated annually for the last three.
