Obesity may be tougher on male immune systems than females, suggests a study led by an Indian-American researcher.
Kanakadurga Singer, assistant professor in pediatrics at the University of Michigan, found that high-fat diets reprogram blood stem cells in male mice, promoting metabolic disease.
This data is released as research indicates that Saudi Arabia is facing a weight problem of overweight proportions. Almost one in two people are obese. The cost to the exchequer in caring for the medical ripple effect of their condition could be better used to build hospitals for real ailments, start schools and improve educational facilities, add to prosperity and good living instead of paying bills for self-indulgence.
Obesity is unfortunately linked to being a success. What is the point of being a success if you are shortening your life and putting your family into jeopardy? Despite so much written to the contrary warning people to slim down they won’t.
According to one official survey, obesity remains strongly associated with diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, and hypertension in the KSA, although the epidemic’s characteristics differ between men and women.
Unless a proper campaign is conducted on a long-term basis this self affliction will carry on.
“Men and women have very different cardiovascular and diabetes risk. Male mice are often studied because their risk for developing these diseases is higher,” Singer explained.
To confirm that men have to pay a higher price, researchers compared how mice from each sex reacted to high-fat diets.
They found that in young reproductive-age female mice who were fed a high-fat diet which made them obese, the body produced only a mild inflammatory white blood cell response.
In male mice, however, diet-induced obesity made more active inflammatory white blood cells and enhanced their progenitors.
This, in turn, made the male mice more prone to higher blood glucose and insulin levels. That made diabetes the automatic next step to being overweight.
“We found that obesity did not trigger inflammation in female mice the way it did in males,” Singer added.
The research helps in providing the foundation for future clinical studies exploring how these differences impact diseases such as diabetes.
In Saudi Arabia there are two fallacies that add to the problem. People, especially youngsters believe that smoking cuts weight so they begin to puff away the kilos. Not only does it fail to help in any way but adds to harming the body. You lose both ways.
The other factor is that while there is an increase in fruits and vegetables there is the general misconception that they being good foods, they do not impact on weight. They also have calories and this is overlooked.
The aim in the Kingdom would now be to live longer and also to live healthier.
While a downturn has been on the cards over the past eight years this was not borne out by a report recently that placed obesity at 70 percent in men and 37 percent in women. The cost of looking after the post-obesity medical problems is SR500 million and counting.
One of the possibilities that might fast-track a loss in poundage is the need to have obesity classified as a disease and covered by insurance in case of surgical procedures like stomach binding, liposuction etc. Before it was expensive and not covered, so many people don’t take that step and find dieting tediously long and not result oriented.
