By Sarah A LoBisco, ND
What’s a WHAMs? You’ll have to check out my homepage to find out…but it’s definitely related to individualized medicine-the functional medicine way!
Below are some articles that support and give evidence to how the environment we bath our cells in, via food and lifestyle choices, affect how our genes and cells express themselves-either in health or dis-ease. This is the concept of epigenetics, a field in medicine that is giving people power beyond their genetic destiny.
Fat and Pepper!
Cool! A study on using pepper to burn fat! Eat to burn!
Moreover, a luciferase reporter assay indicated that pipierine significantly represses the rosiglitazone-induced PPARy transcriptional activity. Finally, GST-pull down assays demonstrated that piperine disrupts the rosiglitazone-dependent interaction between PPAR? and coactivator CBP. Genome-wide analysis using microarray further supports the role of piperine in regulating genes associated with lipid metabolism. Overall, these results suggest that piperine, a major component of black pepper, attenuates fat cell differentiation by down-regulating PPARy activity as well as suppressing PPARy expression, thus leading to potential treatment for obesity-related diseases.
– Ui-Hyun Park, Hong-Suk Jeong, Eun-Young Jo, Taesun Park, Seung Kew Yoon, Eun-Joo Kim, Ji-Cheon Jeong, and Soo-Jong Um. Piperine, a Component of Black Pepper, Inhibits Adipogenesis by Antagonizing PPAR? Activity in 3T3-L1 Cells. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. 201260 (15), 3853-3860
Obesity and Fish Oil
How what you put in your mouth affects your body’s biochemistry. Specifically, eating certain foods trigger brain chemicals that make you crave more or feel good!
Unfortunately, it appears that America’s excessive intake of omega-6 fatty acids also stimulates appetite, thanks to the fact that they body uses them to make the appetite-driving endocannabinoids. As we said, the body makes appetite-enhancing endocannabinoids from omega-6 AA, which abounds in beef, pork, and poultry. But the body also makes omega-6 AA from the short-chain omega-6 fat called linoleic acid (LA), which predominates in the most commonly consumed vegetable oils (corn, soy, safflower, sunflower, cottonseed). This sets the stage for the exciting results of Dr. Hibbeln’s animal study, which affirms the idea that America’s “omega imbalance” promotes overeating and obesity.
-Craig Weatherby . Omega-6 Fats Drive Obesity; Omega-3s Help: Mouse study reported at a conference we attended affirms the idea that America’s omega-imbalance promotes obesity and alcohol abuse. Vitalchoice Newsletter. 6/5/12. http://newsletter.vitalchoice.com/e_article002446647.cfm?x=blbcR6f,b1h0JlRD
Individualized Medicine and Racial/Ethnic Differences (Medscape)
Most studies focus on the white male population, but it doesn’t account for ethnicity or sex differences. This study did!
Women with GDM are at increased risk for type 2 diabetes in later life. However, results from several
randomized trials have demonstrated that increased physical activity and weight loss can reduce the risk for type 2 diabetes among women with a history of GDM;[29] little is known about the effectiveness of such prevention interventions among Asian/Pacific Islander women with a history of GDM, particularly among those with a BMI in the normal range. Some evidence suggests that Asians in general may be more prone to insulin resistance than non-Hispanic blacks or non-Hispanic whites, which may be due to the difference in the distribution of fat stores between the groups and Asians’ higher body fat percentages at given BMI levels.[30] Therefore, traditional strategies for decreasing insulin resistance, such as high fiber consumption and increased physical activity, may be especially effective in this population.[31]
To our knowledge, our study provides the first population-based race/ethnicity-specific estimates of the contribution of overweight and obesity to GDM prevalence. Using linked birth certificate and hospital discharge datasets is the best available approach to examine racial/ethnic disparities in the contribution of BMI to GDM risk at the population level.
Our study has limitations. Prepregnancy weight and height were obtained from birth certificates and may not be based on measurements obtained in clinical settings. Estimates of obesity prevalence based on self-reported height and weight tend to be lower than those based on measured height and weight.
-Shin Y. Kim, MPH; Lucinda England, MD, MSPH; William Sappenfield, MD, MPH; Hoyt G. Wilson, PhD; Connie L. Bish, PhD, MPH; Hamisu M. Salihu, MD, PhD; Andrea J. Sharma, PhD, MPH.Racial/Ethnic Differences in the Percentage of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus Cases Attributable to Overweight and Obesity. Florida, 2004-2007. Posted: 05/24/2012; Prev Chronic Dis. 2012;9 © 2012 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/763156
