New European Guidelines on Medical Management After Bariatric Surgery

The European Association for the Study of Obesity (EASO) had now released the new OMTF guidelines Practical Recommendations of the Obesity Management Task Force of the European Association for the Study of Obesity for Post-Bariatric Surgery Medical Management.

The guidelines provide the latest guidance on nutritional management, micronutrient supplementation, managing co-morbidities, pharmacotherapy, psychological management, and prevention and management of weight regain. The guidelines also address the issue of post-bariatric surgery pregnancy.

Not covered are issues related to dealing with excess skin and rehabilitation (e.g. return to work, reintegration in social activities, education, etc.), both of significant importance, especially in people with severe obesity.

As the authors note,

“Bariatric surgery is in general safe and effective, but it can cause new clinical problems and it is associated with specific diagnostic, preventive and therapeutic needs. Special knowledge and skills of the clinicians are required in order to deliver appropriate and effective care to the post-bariatric patient. A post-bariatric multidisciplinary follow-up programme should be an integral part of the clinical pathway at centres delivering bariatric surgery, and it should be offered to patients requiring it”

These guidelines are now available open access in Obesity Facts.

@DrSharma
Edmonton, AB

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Welcome To The International Congress on Obesity, Vancouver 2016

ICO2016This weekend sees the start of the XIII International Congress on Obesity (ICO), hosted by the World Obesity Federation in partnership with the Canadian Obesity Network (CON) in Vancouver, Canada.

As this year’s Congress President, together with World Obesity Federation President Dr. Walmir Coutinho, it will be our pleasure to welcome delegates from around the world to what I am certain will be a most exciting and memorable event in one of the world’s most beautiful and livable cities.

The program committee, under the excellent leadership of Dr. Paul Trayhurn, has assembled a broad and stimulating program featuring the latest in obesity research ranging from basic science to prevention and management.

I can also attest to the fact that the committed staff both at the World Obesity Federation and the Canadian Obesity Network have put in countless hours to ensure that delegates have a smooth and stimulating conference.

The scientific program is divided into six tracks:

Track 1: From genes to cells

  • For example: genetics, metagenomics, epigenetics, regulation of mRNA and non–coding RNA, inflammation, lipids, mitochondria and cellular organelles, stem cells, signal transduction, white, brite and brown adipocytes

Track 2: From cells to integrative biology

  • For example: neurobiology, appetite and feeding, energy balance, thermogenesis, inflammation and immunity, adipokines, hormones, circadian rhythms, crosstalk, nutrient sensing, signal transduction, tissue plasticity, fetal programming, metabolism, gut microbiome

Track 3: Determinants, assessments and consequences

  • For example: assessment and measurement issues, nutrition, physical activity, modifiable risk behaviours, sleep, DoHAD, gut microbiome, Healthy obese, gender differences, biomarkers, body composition, fat distribution, diabetes, cancer, NAFLD, OSA, cardiovascular disease, osteoarthritis, mental health, stigma

Track 4: Clinical management

  • For example: diet, exercise, behaviour therapies, psychology, sleep, VLEDs, pharmacotherapy, multidisciplinary therapy, bariatric surgery, new devices, e-technology, biomarkers, cost effectiveness, health services delivery, equity, personalised medicine

Track 5: Populations and population health

  • For example: equity, pre natal and early nutrition, epidemiology, inequalities, marketing, workplace, school, role of industry, social determinants, population assessments, regional and ethnic differences, built environment, food environment, economics

Track 6: Actions, interventions and policies

  • For example: health promotion, primary prevention, interventions in different settings, health systems and services, e-technology, marketing, economics (pricing, taxation, distribution, subsidy), environmental issues, government actions, stakeholder and industry issues, ethical issues

I look forward to welcoming my friends and colleagues from around the world to what will be a very busy couple of days.

For more information on the International Congress on Obesity click here

For more information on the World Obesity Federation click here

For more information on the Canadian Obesity Network click here

@DrSharma
Edmonton, AB

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Can Metformin Reduce Weight Gain In Pregnancy?

sharma-obesity-pregnancy5Excessive weight gain during pregnancy is a well-established risk factor for both mother and child.

Now a paper by Argyro Syngelaki and colleagues from the UK, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggests that the anti-diabetes drug metformin may limit weight gain in pregnant non-diabetic women with obesity and also reduce the incidence of pre-eclampsia.

The researchers randomised 450 pregnant women with a BMI greater than 35 and no diabetes to either metformin (3 g/day) or placebo from weeks 12-18 weeks of gestation till delivery in a double-blind fashion.

Among the 400 women who completed the study, those on metformin gained about 2 Kg less weight than the placebo group.

There was also an almost 75% decrease in the risk of developing preeclampsia.

Despite these effects, metformin did not significantly reduce the incidence of large-for-gestational-age babies or other adverse neonatal outcomes.

While these findings may be somewhat disappointing with regard to outcomes in the offspring, the reduction in pre-eclampsia is impressive and, if confirmed, could well be an interesting use of this compound in high-risk pregnancies.

@DrSharma
Kelowna, BC

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Workshop: Intergenerational Determinants of Childhood Obesity

sharma-obesity-fetusToday, attendees at the 4th Canadian Obesity Summit will face the tough task of choosing between a variety of workshops dealing with topics ranging from harnessing public-private partnership to promote healthy food in retail stores to patient centredness and ensuring the physical and mental well-being of individuals living with obesity (for a full list of workshops – click here)

A workshop that I particularly look forward to is one on the determinants of the intergenerational transmission of obesity.

As the organisers of this workshop tell us,

Studies in both animals and humans, including epidemiologic, clinical, and experimental data, have provided strong evidence implicating the intrauterine environment in downstream obesity. In recent years, significant advancements have been made regarding underlying molecular pathways and population level interventions and their effects on fetal programming of obesity.”

Thus, this workshop will provide an update on the topic and focus on the interplay between obesity, gestational weight gain (GWG), lifestyle behaviours, and early life factors (parenting) that exacerbate fetal/child growth and perpetuate the intergenerational obesity cycle.

Epigenetic and clinical evidence will be presented that demonstrates how perturbations during pregnancy affect fetal/infant phenotype and how early postpartum health (of mom and baby) predicts chronic disease risk later in life. The latest evidence from pregnancy and postpartum‐related intervention trials will be presented to identify avenues for clinical management and future research.

For more information on this workshop – click here.

@DrSharma
Toronto, ON

 

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Epigenetic Obesity In The Fruit Fly

sharma-obesity-drosophila1Regular readers are well aware of the considerable evidence now supporting the notion that inter-generational transmission of obesity risk through epigenetic modification may well be a key factor in the recent global rise in obesity rates (over the past 100 years or so).

Now a brief review article by Susan Ozanne from the University of Cambridge, UK, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, describes how researchers have now identified a clear and conserved epigenetic signature that is associated with obesity across species (from the fruit fly all the way to humans).

The article discusses how the transmission of susceptibility to obesity can occur as a consequence of “developmental programming,” whereby environmental factors (e.g. a high-fat diet) encountered at the point of conception and during fetal and neonatal life can permanently influences the structure, function, and metabolism of key organs in the offsprin, thus leading to an increased risk of diseases such as obesity later in life.

There is now evidence that such intergenerational transmission of disease can occur through environmental manipulation of both the maternal and paternal lines – thus, this is not something that is just a matter of maternal environment.

Thus, as Ozanne points out,

“Epigenetic mechanisms that influence gene expression have been proposed to mediate the effects of both maternal and paternal dietary manipulation on disease susceptibility in the offspring (these mechanisms include alterations in DNA methylation, histone modifications, and the expression of microRNAs).”

Work in the fruit fly has linked the effect of paternal sugar-feeding on the chromatin structure at a specific region of the X chromosome and transcriptome analysis of embryos generated from fathers fed a high-sugar diet, revealed dysregulation of transcripts encoding two proteins (one of them is called Su(var)) known to change chromatin structure and gene regulation.

Subsequent analyses of microarray data sets from humans and mice likewise revealed a depletion of the Su(var) proteins in three data sets from humans and in two data sets from mice.

Thus,

“This finding is consistent with the possibility that the depletion of the Su(var) pathway may be brought about by an environmental insult to the genome that is associated with obesity.”

Not only do these studies provide important insights into just how generational transmission of obesity may work but it may also lead to the development of early tests to determine the susceptibility of individuals to the future development of conditions like obesity or diabetes based on epigenetic signatures.

All of this may be far more relevant for clinical practice than most readers may think – indeed, a focus on maternal (and now paternal?) health as a target to reduce the risk of childhood (and adult) obesity is already underway.

This issue will certainly be a “hot topic” at the Canadian Obesity Summit in Toronto later this month.

@DrSharma
Edmonton, AB

 

 

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