Surprising facts about Weight gain

Dr. Kelum Pelpola

Plenty has been talked throughout the years about weight gain and how to counter it. It’s no mystery that a diet full of fried food, giant portions, scrumptious sweet desserts, alcohol, and sugary soft drinks will lead to weight gain.

And there’s little question why the pounds pile up when you take in more calories than you burn in physical activity. But how do you explain weight gain when your lifestyle includes regular exercise and a healthy diet that is controlled in calories? Gaining weight is absolutely maddening, especially when you really don’t understand why the needle on the scale keeps going up.

Several things should be considered if you are gaining weight while watching calories and being physically active. More than likely, it’s a variety of things working together that have resulted in the weight gain rather than a single factor.

Here are five factors that can cause the weight gain when you least expect it.

The body functions best when well rested. When you don’t get enough sleep, your body experiences physiological stress and, biochemically, you store fat more efficiently.

When you’re tired, you also don’t handle stress as well, so you may reach for food as a coping mechanism.

Further, you may be taking in extra calories from late-night snacking. Some people think eating might help them get back to sleep, but all it really does is add more calories to their daily total.

Symptoms that you may not be getting enough rest include fatigue, low energy levels, nodding off easily, and feeling irritable.

Strive to get seven to eight hours of sleep each night. Recent studies have found that if you sleep either more or less than this ideal amount, your productivity throughout the day as well as other health benefits of sleep would diminish. When you develop good sleeping rituals and get regular exercise, you sleep better.

Gone are the days of our fore fathers who had a relatively calm and peaceful lifestyle. We now live in a society that demands we do more, be more, and achieve more.

Almost everybody in our society have some kind of stress in their day- to-day work. Although a certain level of stress moves us forward and helps cope with life’s demands, in the long run, continuous levels of stress affects our mood and emotions in a negative way.

Stress response, whether it is ‘fight-or-flight,’ juggling too many responsibilities, or coping with financial pressures, triggers a biochemical process where our bodies go into survival mode. Our bodies store fuel, slow down metabolism, and dump out chemicals [cortisol, leptin and other hormones] which are more likely to cause obesity in the abdominal region.

Many people reach for food to help ease the stress. But, of course, this doesn’t work in the long run.

Food is a temporary fix because it does not deal with the real stressors that must be addressed in order to reduce the trigger for eating and fix the problem.

Stress eaters tend to prefer high-carbohydrate foods because these foods trigger an increase in the brain chemical serotonin, which has a calming effect. It is almost like self-medicating. Many people binge on starchy foods to make themselves feel better.

The next time you are stressed, take special efforts to curb you appetite and try to practice a relaxation technique as well as engage in exercise, which also burns calories and provides other health benefits.

Some prescription drugs used to treat depression, mood disorders, seizures, migraines, blood pressure, and diabetes can cause weight gain, from a modest amount to as much as 4-5 kilogrammes per month.

Some steroids, hormone replacement therapy, and even oral contraceptives may also cause gradual weight creep. Your medicine cabinet might be the cause of your weight gain if you’ve gained 5 or more pounds in a month without a change in your lifestyle.

Every drug works a little differently to cause weight gain, from increasing appetite, altering the way fat is stored, to how insulin levels change. It should also be remembered that, not all drugs have the same side effects on all people.

In the case of antidepressants, weight gain may not even be related to the action of the drug - feeling better can also result in a heartier appetite.

Some drugs can cause fluid retention that shows up on the scale as weight gain, but is not fat, and is usually easily corrected.

Experts say that some of the most common types of medications that may cause weight gain are:

Steroids
Antidepressants
Antipsychotics
Antiseizure medications
Diabetes medications
High blood pressure medications
Heartburn medications

It’s important to remember that a few extra pounds may be well worth the trade-off of what a particular medication does for your overall health, experts say. Further, even if your medications are the cause of your weight gain, you still need to be mindful of eating a healthy diet and getting regular exercise. Although medications can contribute, they rarely are the sole cause of the weight gain.

If you suspect your medication is causing weight gain, talk to your doctor to see about changing your prescription. But whatever you do, don’t go off your medication without seeking medical advice. There could be very serious consequences if you stop taking your medication without consulting your physician.

The most common medical condition that causes weight gain is hypothyroidism. A deficiency of thyroid hormone can decrease metabolism, causing appetite loss and weight gain.

If you are feeling fatigued, lethargic, swelling, hoarse voice, intolerance to cold, sleeping too much, or headaches, you should see your doctor for an easy test to determine if you have hypothyroidism.

Much rarer is a condition known as Cushing’s syndrome - a disorder caused by an excess of the hormone cortisol - that can also result in weight gain.

Women reach menopause at a range of ages, but most are in midlife and are often less physically active than when they were younger. Along with aging comes a natural slowing of metabolism.

At the same time, hormonal changes can trigger hunger, depression, and poor sleep.

It is multifactoral. When women go through menopause, they lose oestrogen, causing their shapes to change — usually a loss of hip and thigh weight. And they start to gain more in the middle. Oestrogen favours fat deposition in the lower body, and when you lose this hormone, fat is more likely to be deposited in the midsection (much like men).

The key to avoiding this extra belly fat is to maintain and increase the amount of lean body mass, which will, in turn, increase your metabolism or calorie burn rate.

Women need to understand how critically important weight lifting and strength training is to their health. And don’t worry, doing strength training won’t make women muscle-bound, experts say.

Exercise also helps offset bone loss that can come with menopause. A combination of exercise and a healthy, calorie-controlled diet rich in calcium and vitamin D is the answer to thwarting menopausal weight gain.

So, it is very important to keep an eye on these factors all the time, if you have a problem of weight gain. You may have been doing all the other right things but then, these factors may have gone unnoticed for years.

UK medical mission here in October for free plastic surgery on children

A plastic surgery team from UK is expected in Colombo by the end of October on a social service medical mission to carry out a series of cleft lip plastic surgery operations on poor children affected with this problem in the Embilipitiya area.

This annual health programme for the poor children affected with this problem in the Embilipitiya area.

This annual health programme for the poor children affected with this condition is being organised by the German Help Foundation NGO in Sri Lanka from 1995 in association with medical teams from UK and Germany.

The Foundation’s Secretary Francis Vedanayagam in an interview with the Healthwatch said from 1995 up to now 2800 poor children in the country affected with this conduction had been operated under this programme by foreign medical missions.

The Embilipitiya programme is being done in association with the Lions Club of Embilipitiya, in the Embilipitiya Hospital.

Children to be operated are to be selected by that Lions Club.

Vedanayagam said the medical team was planning to come in May but owing to the problems in the country it has been put off for October.

The President of the Foundation former Lions District Governor Fousal Khalid said that these operations if done in the private sector cost about Rs. 1.5 to 2 million each which no poor affected child could afford.

On account of this, these medical teams have to be credited and honoured for this meritorious service they are doing, because they bring with them all the drugs and other necessities for the operations thus there is no cost to the country at all.

In addition, the medical team trains our doctors in the hospital in the operation procedures in correcting the defect.

Tuberous Sclerosis (TS) Patients Association

Kumari Martenstyne of Commercial Bank has written to us requesting help to form a TS Patients Association.

She writes:

My son is suffering with a very rare genetic disorder called “Tuberous Sclerosis (TS)”. TS is a genetic condition commonly characterised by seizures and tumor growth in vital organs such as brain, kidneys, heart, lungs and skin with no cure and no predictable future.

My son used to get various forms of seizures till recent past. Now he gets one particular seizures almost daily, a couple of times.

Since we do not have TS specialists in Sri Lanka, I found it very difficult to handle his sickness with unknown and strange side effects. Sometimes I really got confused and panicked and assume I made a few mistakes due to lack of knowledge. I searched websites and read a lot of books to enhance my knowledge about the sickness but still I struggle a lot with his uncontrolled seizures.

I am a banker (Commercial Bank of Ceylon Ltd). Is it possible for me to put an article to gather the takecarers of these patients and form an association which might be very helpful to them. I really want them to know about the TS and how to tackle the situations for the benefit of the patients. In western countries, they have formed associations and do a wonderful job for the patients.

Cake may be the answer to kids’ egg allergy

To desensitise young children to their allergy to eggs, physicians from Greece say “let them eat cake.”

Heat modifies certain egg allergens and, in turn, allows some children with egg allergies to be “treated” by feeding them ever increasing amounts of egg baked in a cake, Dr. George N. Konstantinou and colleagues, at the University of Athens report.

They used this approach to accelerate the development of tolerance to hen’s eggs among 94 boys and girls referred to the food allergy department at the university.

After undergoing six months of desensitization, 90 percent of the children could tolerate egg baked in a cake, the researchers report in a preliminary, online posting by the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

“Parents should be aware that there are novel approaches for handling egg allergy,” said study co-investigator Dr. Nikolaos G. Papadopoulos. But he cautions not to try this at home. “Children with a known food allergen should be treated under the supervision of a specialized physician,” Papadopoulos told Reuters Health.

REUTERS

Compound in human saliva can speed wound healing:

Dutch researchers

Researchers from The Netherlands have identified a compound in human saliva that greatly speeds wound healing, according to their report published in The Journal of Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB).

The research team found that histatin, a small protein in saliva previously only believed to kill bacteria was responsible for wound healing.

This research may offer hope to people suffering from chronic wounds related to diabetes and other disorders, as well as traumatic injuries and burns. In addition, because the compounds can be mass produced, they have the potential to become as common as antibiotic creams and rubbing alcohol.

“We hope our finding is ultimately beneficial for people who suffer from non-healing wounds, such as foot ulcers and diabetic ulcers, as well as for treatment of trauma-induced wounds like burns,” said Menno Oudhoff, first author of the report.

“This study not only answers the biological question of why animals lick their wounds,” said Gerald Weissmann, editor-in-chief of The FASEB Journal, “it also explains why wounds in the mouth, like those of a tooth extraction, heal much faster than comparable wounds of the skin and bone. It also directs us to begin looking at saliva as a source for new drugs.”

Xinhua