Red Wine Weight Loss Results....in a Pill?

Here's an interesting story I found at the daily mail that talks about the benefits of red wine, in a pill. They fed the ingredient to mice and found that fatty food did not cause weight gain. I don't know what kind of health side effects it had, but the weight gain didn't occur.

For dedicated couch potatoes, it sounds almost too good to be true. A drug inspired by red wine could allow them to eat as much junk food as they like without putting on a pound.

It could also provide the benefits of exercise without moving a muscle. And if that were not enough, the pill - which mimics the action of resveratrol, the 'wonder ingredient' in red wine - may also prevent diabetes.

The man-made drug, which is known only as SRT1720, fools the body into thinking food is scarce and it has to burn off fat to survive. The brainchild of scientists at US firm Sirtris, the drug exploits the healthy qualities of resveratrol, a chemical found in grape skins. Previous studies have endowed resveratrol with the ability to ward off a host of ills, from old age to heart disease, cancer, obesity and Alzheimer's disease.

Sirtris has already developed a concentrated form of resveratrol in a pill. However, the new drug could be even more powerful and have fewer side-effects.

David Sinclair, co-founder of Sirtris, which is now owned by Glaxo-SmithKline, said recently: 'The excitement here is that we are not talking about red wine any more. We are talking about real drugs.' In experiments, mice given SRT1720 didn't gain an ounce, despite being fed fatty foods. Blood tests suggested they were also protected
against diabetes. The treated animals also had more stamina and were able to run twice as far. However, they had to be forced to exercise.

Left to their own devices, they would move around less than normal, the journal Cell Metabolism reports. The drug is made up of chemicals that affect the body in a similar way to resveratrol. Both resveratrol and the new drug trigger a protein called SIRT1 that plays a key role in regulating the body's supply of energy. The result is that the body burns off its fat stores, even when food is plentiful. Researcher Professor Johan Auwerx, of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in
Switzerland, said: 'These results show that new synthetic SIRT1 activators can
reproduce the positive metabolic effects that were previously demonstrated using resveratrol.

'But unlike resveratrol, these new chemical entities target only the SIRT1 pathway, making them more selective and potent for achieving these metabolic benefits.'
He added that the drug, which is around seven years from the market, is likely to be used to treat obesity and diabetes. Prof Ian Broom, an obesity expert from Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, said any drug that burnt off fat while protecting against diabetes would be welcomed. But he cautioned that much more research - including studies into side-effects - would be needed before SRT1720 became accepted as a treatment for obesity.

High Fructose Corn Syrup

Can High Fructose Corn Syrup make you gain weight? You find a lot of processed foods contain high fructose corn syrup. And there are definitely some things about high fructose corn syrup that will cause more weight gain than other types of sugar. Can we blame this one ingredient on the rise of obesity in the United States, and more specifically in Katy, TX? No. If you go to any restaurant in Katy, you will find the portion sizes of meals are way too big for us.

Learn more about High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Overweight Kids are at a Higher Risk of Developing Heart Disease

This may or may not seem like common sense, but it's important none the less. If a child is overweight they are automatically at a higher risk of developing heart disease.

Did you know that the children that are born today have a lower life expectancy than their parents?

I'll let that sink in. You can read more of this story when you get a chance.

Heart Disease is Increasing for Those Under 45

America, we need to wakeup! Do we not see the signs of an increase in deaths due to heart disease? It's amazing how we think we are "fixing" the problem of cardiovascular disease and diabetes by medicating people, but it doesn't seem to be working for some reason. It's very simple why it doesn't work. It's putting a band-aid on something that needs to be completely redone. We have to take personal responsibility for ourselves and start doing things that we know reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease. Why aren't we promoting being physically active and eating proper foods? Genetics, obesity, and high cholesterol are the main reasons they say that 700,000 people die from heart disease in America every year. I'm sorry, but I feel that genetics are used as an excuse way too often for people. I know that genetics play a role, but most of the people that use genetics as an excuse, really have bad lifestyle habits that people that they learned from their parents. Heart disease is preventable. Heart disease is preventable. Did I mention that heart disease is preventable? It's not about overmedicating. It's about taking personal responsibility for our health and doing what we need to do to reverse our risk of developing the often fatal, heart disease.

I'm sorry, but there's no reason for me to sugar-coat the truth. If you care about your health, it is truly your responsibility to make sure you take care of it. I can tell you that if you take care of yourself, you can lower your chance of developing heart disease. I can even tell you what to do to take care of your health. The question is, what responsibility are you willing to take for your health?