Obesity not always tied to higher heart risk: Study NEW YORK: A new UK study has found that an obese person isnt inevitably at increased risk of cardiovascular disease and death. The people really at risk are the ones who have obesity in combination with other metabolic health risk factors, said Mark Hamer,a principal research associate at University College London who worked on the study. The results are in line with most previous research that defined metabolic health as having normal levels of markers like blood pressure,blood sugar,HDL,or good cholesterol,and C-reactive protein,which is a measure of inflammation in the body. People with good metabolic health are not at risk of future heart disease even if they are obese, Hamer told Reuters. On the flip side,the non-obese in poor metabolic shape face as much risk as the unhealthy obese. How exercise may boost brainpower NEW YORK: Upending the cliché of muscleheads,scientists at the Laboratory of Neuroscience at the National Institute on Aging recently set out to examine whether changes in muscles prompted by exercise might subsequently affect and improve the brains ability to think. Muscles are greatly influenced by exercise. Muscle cells respond to exercise by pumping out a variety of substances that result in larger,stronger muscles. Some of those compounds might be entering the bloodstream and travelling to the brain, says Dr Henriette van Praag,the investigator at the National Institute on Aging who led the study. As it turned out,muscles did affect the mind. After a week of receiving two drugs,which induced effects of exercising,the mice performed significantly better on tests of memory and learning than control animals who remained sedentary. The study showed that drugged animals brains also contained more new neurons. Moms excess pounds key in newborn weight NEW YORK: For at least some moms-to-be,its extra body fat and not blood sugar levels - that may be key to their risk of having a big baby,a study published Tuesday suggests. Researchers found that among 472 pregnant women they followed,those who were heavy before pregnancy or gained too many pregnancy pounds were more likely to have a large-for-gestational-age baby.
