Cholesterol Solutions Today:The Good & The Bad

Sorting through the diet craze maze is a challenge for most people. Which popular weight loss program works best - low carb/high fat, low fat/high carb, the soup diet, the grapefruit diet - there’s no scarcity of choice! Dietitians of Canada sheds light on current evidence related to the effectiveness of weight loss programs in a recent publication titled Weighing the evidence on weight loss approaches in adults. Achieving and maintaining healthy weight is a lifelong affair.

In their research on eating disorders, Oregon Research Institute (ORI) scientists help young women reduce the influence of the “thin ideal,” which is described as associating success and happiness with being thin.ORI scientist Eric Stice, Ph.D. and his colleagues have found that their obesity prevention program reduced the risk for onset of eating disorders by 61% and obesity by 55% in young women. These effects continued for as long as 3 years after the program ended.

At a late breaking presentation made on April 29th during the Annual meeting of the European Atherosclerosis Society held in Istanbul, the investigators of ADAGIO-LIPIDS presented the key findings of a one year trial aiming at further studying the effects of rimonabant on several features of HDL and on a comprehensive set of cardiometabolic markers.

Merck & Co., Inc. received a Not Approvable action letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the Company’s New Drug Application (NDA) for MK-0524A (ER niacin/laropiprant) for the treatment of primary hypercholesterolemia or mixed dyslipidemia. “We plan to meet with the FDA and to submit additional information to enable the agency to further evaluate the benefit/risk profile of MK-0524A,” said Peter S. Kim, Ph. D.

Californians face an added challenge as they battle expanding waistlines and obesity-related diseases - their address. A landmark study released shows the state’s first direct correlation between where you live and your risk for obesity or diabetes.

The prevalence of both obesity and back pain in developing nations has reached alarming levels. According to recent statistics, more than one-third of U.S. adults over 72 million people were obese in 2005-2006. Of these, 33.3 percent were men and 35.3 percent were women. Especially alarming is that obesity has not decreased among teenagers the rates remain essentially unchanged in 2005-2006 from the 2003-2004 estimates, at 17 percent.

With risk factors for heart disease and stroke steadily increasing, youth advocates, heart and stroke survivors and researchers from across the country urged Congress to make a commitment to save lives. They met with their representatives for the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Congressional Lobby Day, You’re the Cure on the Hill 2008, to boost funding for research and prevention programs to fight cardiovascular diseases, the nation’s No. 1 killer.

HealthDay - Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments,
compiled by editors of HealthDay:

AP - Regulators ended last week and started this one by rejecting two potential blockbuster cholesterol drugs, leaving three drugmakers reeling and Wall Street wondering if tougher approval standards are here.

The key focus of the Diogenes study is to identify the most effective diet to help adults stop regaining weight after initial successful weight loss.To participate in the Diogenes study, adult family members were required to lose at least 8% of their body weight, before the whole family was admitted to the ‘dietary intervention’ part of the study and randomised to one of five diets.