SHR

Diet quality matters In the lead article of the latest issue of Nutrition Reviews, Karina Fischer et al. from the University of Bonn, Germany set out to systematically review the results of observational and controlled intervention studies evaluating the relations between qualitative aspects of diet and measures of visceral (VAT) and subcutaneous (SAAT) adipose tissue in healthy adults or adolescents. Overall, 20 observational and 23 intervention studies were reviewed, and it was determined that a 7-22% change in VAT and 2-14% change in SAAT could be expected with controlled changes in the qualitative aspects of an individual’s diet. However, SAAT may be mainly affected by the energy component associated with a particular qualitative aspect of diet. You can’t blame genetics for a beer-belly Tyler Bosch et al. had previously published research of twins indicating that the sex-specific thresholds for body fat at which visceral fat (VAT) begins to accumulate rapidly were...

The International Diabetes Federation estimated that over 8.3% of the adult population had type-2 diabetes (T2D) in 2013, with nearly half of them being undiagnosed. Moreover, they estimated that T2D was responsible for 5.1 million deaths, or 8.4% of the global all-cause mortality. In Europe the percentage of all deaths that were attributable to T2D was even higher at 10.2%, and in North America it rose further still to 13.5%. Clearly T2D is taking its toll on our Western population. One potential reason for the increased mortality is poor lifestyle management of the condition. Of the many complications related to T2D, excessive visceral fat (VAT) and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) are two of the worst. Given the etiology of T2D is commonly related to excessive caloric intake coupled with inactivity, it should come as no surprise that the most effective treatment for T2D is weight loss through diet and exercise....

The sad truth is that even our young – our children – can and do develop atherosclerosis. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk may be related to the degree of overweight-obesity, and cross-sectional research has provided preliminary insights into the links between blood lipid concentrations, physical activity (PA), cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), and adiposity. However, cross-sectional data is also intrinsically limited by the fact that it is a snapshot of a single point in time comparing multiple groups on whatever the variable of interest is. Conversely, longitudinal data is collected over a period of time from the same cohort of subjects so as to detect changes in variables of interest.