Sugar warnings have not reduced consumption in England, figures show

Warnings about about the health risks posed by sugar have failed to curb consumption, with children aged four to 10 eating and drinking more than double the recommended amount, according to Public Health England (PHE) figures.

Britons are advised that sugar should account for no more than 5% of daily calories, but from 2012-14, the average was 13.4% for those aged between four and 10, 15.2% among 11- to 18-year-olds, 12.3% for adults under 65 and 11.1% for those aged 65 and over, the national diet and nutrition survey (NDNS) found.

Many believe sugar is the biggest contributor to the obesity epidemic crippling the NHS, and the results, published on Friday, reignited criticism of the failure by the government to take a stronger line in its childhood obesity strategy.

The Action on Sugar chairman, Graham MacGregor, a professor of cardiovascular medicine at Queen Mary University of London, said: “Today’s NDNS data shows that children are still consuming almost three times more sugar than the daily maximum recommendation. Theresa May must urgently rethink her pathetic childhood obesity plan that lacks restrictions on the marketing of, and promotions on, products high in saturated fat, sugar and salt.

“The strategy must include the implementation of the soft drinks industry levy and a mandatory reformulation programme, as the failed responsibility deal has already proven that a voluntary system does not work.”

The figures showed a drop in the consumption of soft drinks by children aged four to 10, from 130ml a day from 2008-10 to 100ml a day from 2012-14, which helped make the age group the only one in which sugar consumption declined, having stood at 14.4% from 2010-12.

But levels remain unacceptably high, despite attempts to raise awareness of the harmful effects of sugar and the proliferation of healthy eating content on blogs and social media. Last year, the UK’s official nutrition advisers slashed the recommended daily amount of sugar, which had been 11% of calorific intake, in response to rising concerns.

The Obesity Health Alliance and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPH) said the figures underlined the need to protect children from junk food marketing on television and online, one of the most heavily criticised omissions of the obesity strategy published last month.

The RCPH president, Prof Neena Modi, said: “At a time when one in three 10-year-old children are overweight or obese, and one in three five-year-olds has tooth decay, the health risks posed by failure to tackle sugar intake are serious.

“An overweight or obese child is highly likely to be an overweight or obese adult, increasing the risk of developing heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.”

An Obesity Health Alliance spokeswoman called for “an environment that makes it easier to make healthier choices”.

The survey painted a grim picture of the UK’s dietary habits. It found that people consume too much saturated fat and not enough fruit, vegetables, fibre and oily fish, with very few improvements since 2008-10. Additionally, men are eating too much red meat and processed meat, which was ranked alongside cigarettes as a major cause of cancer by the World Health Organisation last year.

Dr Alison Tedstone, the chief nutritionist at PHE, said: “This data provides compelling evidence that we all need to eat more fruit, veg, fibre and oily fish, and cut back on sugar, salt and saturated fat to improve our health.”

The survey was based on responses from 1,288 adults and 1,258 children, drawn from households selected at random.

Sugar warnings have not reduced consumption in England, figures show

Must the NHS reduced its gastric band surgical treatment threshold?

10% of the NHS budget is invested on dealing with diabetes, with type 2 – occasionally genetic but normally linked to a man or woman currently being overweight.

Proposals to decrease the threshold for bariatric surgery for folks with newly diagnosed variety two diabetes to a BMI of thirty – the point at which obese is classified as obesity – could see an extra 800,000 individuals referred for abdomen-reducing surgery.

Diabetes Uk believes that surgery need to be a last resort. Simon O’Neill, director of overall health intelligence and expert liaison, said: “Though studies have shown that bariatric surgery can assist with bodyweight reduction and have a optimistic effect on blood glucose levels, it have to be remembered that any surgical treatment carries serious risks.

“Bariatric surgical procedure can lead to dramatic bodyweight loss, which in turn may possibly end result in a reduction in people taking their variety two diabetes medication and even in some folks needing no medicine at all.

“This does not imply, however, that kind 2 diabetes has been cured. These individuals will even now want to eat a healthier balanced diet regime and be physically energetic to handle their diabetes.”

As properly as the risks of surgical procedure, there are presently extended wait lists to join evaluation clinics in which psychologists and other individuals assist individuals to comprehend the consequences of bariatric surgical treatment.

Guardian readers shared their ideas on minimizing the threshold – do you agree? Vote in our poll and share your remarks and experiences in the thread

I’m an hospital dietitian. The first thing you may not realise is a huge portion of my day is spent making an attempt to construct up frail elderly men and women, rather than acquiring obese people down.

You do get your share of folks who tell you all they’ve eaten for three days is a ryvita , and cannot account for the two stone they’ve place on because you final saw them.

The main issues sufferers mention to me are the cheapness and prevalence of low cost crappy meals – several in my spot are minimal cash flow. If they can invest £1 on a pizza that will feed their family members, they will do that rather than purchase a £1 bag of peppers which go rotten inside of a few days.

As for bariatric surgical treatment, the individuals have to go by means of rigorous ‘selection’. They should give up smoking, consuming in most cases and display a prolonged phrase dedication to fat loss – I am asked to supply a supporting letter/reference in numerous instances. The individuals truly have to have lost some bodyweight just before they’re considered and the entire method takes about a year from referral to surgical procedure – so its not exactly handed out with impunity. They’re underneath a psychologist to make confident they can take care of the truth they’re unlikely to consume a total portion once again. In addition – there is a large risk of dying on the table.

When I recognized I was practically getting to be crippled due to my fat I made a decision I would drop bodyweight at any value. Yes, I considered one particular of the gastric bypass surgeries, but in the end there had been a couple of items that stored me from it:

1. I just didn’t want to have surgical treatment.
two. I did not want the challenge of living with a stomach “pouch” that holds only a few ounces of food.
three. If a man or woman has to lose twenty lbs or so prior to the surgical treatment, then definitely that indicates a individual can lose much more. So which is what I established to do.

As I get closer to a typical bodyweight I am fearful about gaining it back.

The bottom line is that I am not on a diet regime. The way I eat now is the way I will always eat. I weigh every single single day, even though I hate to. If I never I worry I could effortlessly achieve it back and that would be a nightmare for me.

Oh, and I swim a great deal. And I will often need to do some kind of vigorous exercising if I expect not to acquire excess weight again.

Dropping this 70 lbs has modified my lifestyle in many approaches and there is no doubt that if I am able to keep it off, I will have saved myself and my society a good deal of funds in well being care expenses. (I’m in the U.S.). And my quality of existence now has some high quality to it.

This need to be signifies tested. These who can afford it need to shell out for it themselves. There are usually remarks on these threads about how it is just ‘poor’ folks that grow to be obese, but I know loads of very financially cozy, middle-class individuals who are obese, and who could well afford to pay out for this process.

As a medical professional I think this sends out totally the incorrect message. I’m afraid there is no magic to fat loss – it is hard, but it just quantities to calories in versus calories out.

We want to be empowering folks and encouraging private obligation, educating individuals correctly about wholesome residing, not selling them the lie that surgery – important, difficult surgical treatment – is the panacea.

Not everyone who is overweight due to overeating and laziness.
I had a routine op on my bladder eight years ago, and a never was broken in my groin. This has lead to me unable to walk quite far, and when I do walk I am quite slow – and any walking is incredibly agonizing.

In the 8 many years considering that that operation, I have put on just above five stone and have a BMI of 34.

I have been seeing a dietitian for last year and lost less than half a stone. Even the dietician agrees that I couldn’t consume any significantly less than I am and nevertheless be healthy.
No, I am not a secret eater. I when invested 3 weeks in hospital with each morsel measured and logged – 1000 calories a day -and I did not get rid of an ounce. I have substantial blood stress and now recently been diagnosed with diabetes two.

At the moment a BMI of 34 is as well low to qualify for gastric surgical treatment, but creating me wait until my BMI is substantial enough to qualify below current criteria, is only going to make the situation worse.

Need to the NHS lower its gastric band surgery threshold?

Must the NHS reduced its gastric band surgical treatment threshold?

Use Of Antipsychotic Medicine Linked To Reduced Fee Of Violent Crime

Antipsychotic prescription drugs and mood stabilizing drugs are prescribed to individuals to ameliorate signs, which ideally decreases the possible for a relapse and want for hospitalization. The medicines are very efficient when individuals are complaint, but no matter whether they can also lead to a reduction is violent crime is a query of a lot of mental overall health pros, households, but also people in law enforcement.

In accordance to benefits of a new study, patients prescribed antipsychotic drugs such as clozapine or risperidone to deal with mental sickness have been about half as most likely to commit a violent crime in contrast to when they are not making use of this kind of medication. The use of mood stabilizing medicines such as lithium or carbamazepine was also connected with a reduced price of violent crime—but significantly less pronounced and only noted in patients with bipolar disorder.

The study was published Might 8 in the Lancet.

English: Risperdal (United Kingdom packaging) (Photo credit score: Wikipedia)

Antipsychotic and mood stabilizing prescription drugs are often employed in the remedy of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other associated problems which take place in up to two% of the basic population.  While information infers that individuals taking these drugs have fewer exacerbations and hospitalizations, it has been unclear no matter whether these medicines actually have an effect on patients in the neighborhood to decrease violent conduct, though there has been a steady boost in prescriptions for these prescription drugs on a international scale.

Dr. Seena Fazel, of Oxford University, principal investigator for the study, along with her colleagues, evaluated nationwide health registries in Sweden examining psychiatric diagnoses, along with any criminal convictions, in more than 80,000 sufferers (forty,937 men and 41,710 females) who were prescribed antipsychotic or mood stabilizing medicine, from 2006 to 2009.

Over the three year review period, six.5% (2657) of the guys, and one.4% (604) of ladies were convicted of a violent crime. Violent crime decreased by practically 45% in sufferers obtaining antipsychotics, and by 24% in individuals taking mood stabilizers, compared with periods when patients have been not taking medicine.

Bu even though antipsychotics and mood stabilizers are often prescribed collectively, the investigators found no proof that patients taking each sorts of medicines committed fewer violent crimes.  And for individuals patients taking mood stabilizers, the medicine was linked to reductions in violent crime–but only in male individuals with bipolar disorder.

In addition, whilst mood stabilizing and antipsychotic medicines are typically prescribed for remedy of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, the investigators noted that a lot of sufferers in the examine have been prescribed these medications for other varieties of disorders, which includes depression or substance or alcohol dependency.

“Patients with psychiatric ailments are at chance of perpetrating violent acts, as properly as currently being victims,” explained Fazel. “Until now, we have not recognized no matter whether antipsychotics and mood stabilizers lessen hazards of violence.”

“By evaluating the very same individuals when they are on medicine in contrast to when they are not, our research offers evidence of potentially considerable reductions in risk of violence, and suggests that violence is to a large extent preventable in individuals with psychiatric issues,” added Fazel.

“Antipsychotic agents not only supply fast symptom relief, explained Dr. Scott Krakower, assistant unit chief of psychiatry at Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, New York,“but also have prolonged lasting rewards as nicely.”

“Clinically, the study tends to make sense, and reiterates the importance of remedy adherence in these problems, added Krakower, explaining that “Diagnostic challenges are usually evident in the investigation-practice gap, but should nonetheless signal the message that medicine might be helpful to sufferers who are prone to anger and aggression.”

In addition, Krakower emphasizes that “concerns about polypharmacy are actual and legitimate, emphasizing the want to constantly monitor patients for compounding pharmacy prescriptions, specifically with mood stabilizers.”

Last but not least, Krakower praised the operate of Fazel and her colleagues, “as they set the precedent for long term studies in this area, highlighting the significance of psychopharmacology in the therapy of aggression.”

In a related commentary, Professor Sheilagh Hodgins of Université de Montréal, Canada, and Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, concurred with the findings of the research.

Use Of Antipsychotic Medicine Linked To Reduced Fee Of Violent Crime

BPA Publicity Is "Too Reduced to Trigger Harm," In accordance To Regulators. But You"d In no way Know That From The Media Coverage.

Suppose a new authoritative evaluation revised the estimate of your lifetime odds of being struck by a meteorite — from, say, a single in a hundred billion to a single in 10 billion.  Should that tenfold boost in the probability make you any more concerned?  No– since both values are someplace between negligible and infinitesimal.

A similar and much more pertinent query of that kind was posed by an announcement earlier this month by the European Foods Security Authority of a new “tolerable daily intake” (TDI) of a typical industrial chemical called bisphenol-A (BPA).  (BPA has been utilised for the past half century to make shatterproof polycarbonate plastics and is an ingredient in the epoxy safety liners of foods and beverage cans that shield shoppers from meals poisoning.)

At the exact same time that regulators reduced the TDI for BPA, they emphasized that human exposure comes nowhere close to the new, stricter restrict – a essential point missed by a lot of journalists and commentators.

TDI is an assessment of a person’s highest everyday consumption of a substance that can happen each and every day for a lifetime with out appreciable risks.  It is based on studies of relevant animal species and is intentionally set extremely conservatively.  In 2010, EFSA assessed BPA and set a TDI of 50 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per day.  In the current announcement, EFSA up to date that evaluation, proposing a lowered TDI of five micrograms per kilogram of body bodyweight per day.

Chemical construction of bisphenol A. (Photo credit score: Wikipedia)

The updated, diminished TDI, which was proposed to reflect data from new studies that have become available given that 2010, represents a very conservative technique.

Taken at face worth, this TDI reduction might appear to be an indictment of BPA and to reflect a risk to human well being and, predictably, a lot of activists groups have touted the proposed modify as this kind of.  But EFSA’s most significant finding is buried deep in information reviews, if it is present at all: Even measured towards the proposed diminished TDI, “EFSA finds there is no overall health concern, as the highest estimates for mixed oral and non-oral publicity to BPA are three-five occasions lower than the proposed TDI, dependent on age group.”

Bolstering that conclusion is a related evaluation last 12 months by the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration, which concluded that “BPA is safe at the really reduced amounts that take place in some foods”–an evaluation “based on evaluation by FDA scientists of hundreds of scientific studies such as the most recent findings from new scientific studies initiated by the company.”

EFSA employed new data and details gleaned from more than 450 scientific research to propose the lower TDI, which is in essence a distinction without a difference: Even assuming the highest exposure estimates for any age group, from fetuses to the elderly, BPA consumption is well below the extremely conservative, up to date TDI.

Placing it another way, despite the fact that BPA’s TDI has been lowered, the sensible impact stays the exact same: No matter whether 50 or five micrograms per kilogram, the TDI is set at a degree to which people are not probably to be exposed.  Thus, reflecting a centuries-previous tenet of toxicology that “the dose tends to make the poison,” BPA is not harmful to human wellness simply because the dose is far as well lower.

One particular crucial takeaway from this revelation is the need to have to consider media reviews on chemical regulation with a big grain of sodium chloride.  The media like “if it bleeds, it leads” stories, specially if they involve particular activist-designated bogeymen, such as chemicals, nuclear electrical power and genetic engineering.  Often, the emphasis is on interest-grabbing headlines about shoddy research or created-up phenomena, this kind of as “BPA Exposure Linked to Prostate Cancer” or “Fukushima Radioactive Materials Washed Up on California Seashores.”  In this instance, even so, we have an exact, science-based mostly report that received uncritical, flawed media coverage.  One headline, for illustration, read, “EFSA Confirms the Hazards of BPA for Well being.”

EFSA’s tenfold decreasing of the TDI is analogous to  a tiny boost in thesa odds of being struck by a meteorite: There is no cause for heightened concern.  The actual story is that yet another mindful evaluation by a prominent regulatory agency has identified that BPA poses negligible danger to human well being.

BPA Publicity Is "Too Reduced to Trigger Harm," In accordance To Regulators. But You"d In no way Know That From The Media Coverage.

Heart assault injury can be reduced with a basic injection, say professionals

Australian scientists have stumbled upon a “simple” way to significantly decrease the damage brought on by a heart attack.

They say the new strategy could transform the treatment of heart attack sufferers, and could also aid folks with multiple sclerosis and inflammatory bowel illness.

The important to the treatment method is for medical doctors to inject synthetic microparticles into the patient’s bloodstream inside 24 hours of a heart attack.

This decreases tissue damage brought on by inflammatory white blood cells, in accordance to a report published in the journal Science Translational Medication.

The particles are produced from the exact same materials as dissolvable stitches.

The University of Sydney scientists have been making use of them in a various experiment when they found the anti-inflammatory result.

“It was accidental. A classical serendipitous discovery,” immunopathology professor Nicholas King mentioned.

He and his team believes the technique halves submit-heart attack injury and plans to perform human clinical trials in two many years.

“This is the first treatment that especially targets a key driver of the harm that takes place soon after a heart assault,” co-discoverer Dr Daniel Getts said. “There is no other treatment on the horizon that can do this. It has the potential to transform the way heart attacks and cardiovascular condition are handled.”

The treatment triggers a organic approach that destroys the inflammatory cells, King said.

“We’re quite fired up. This implies we can stop significant tissue damage,” he stated. “The inflammatory cells are diverted down a natural cell disposal pathway into the spleen.”

He factors out, however, the treatment method limits the tissue damage induced only soon after a heart attack. It are not able to repair tissue damaged in the course of the heart assault and has no impact on the disease that caused the heart assault.

“But we believe it will enhance the heart function considerably and the patient will finish up with a much better quality of existence,” King mentioned.

Early study demonstrates the microparticles lessen inflammatory injury and enhance tissue repair in a various assortment of situations, from several sclerosis to viral irritation of the brain and kidney transplant.

“The possible is very extraordinary,” King explained. “It really is wonderful that such a simple technique can limit major tissue injury in such a wide range of conditions.”

Professor James Tatoulis of the Heart Foundation described the discovery as “critical and fascinating”.

“It is really related as up to 20,000 Australians survive a heart attack yearly and might subsequently develop heart failure,” he explained.

He emphasised, however, that half the men and women who suffered a heart assault died prior to they got to hospital. “This will not prevent the heart assault taking place in the 1st area,” he mentioned.

Heart assault injury can be reduced with a basic injection, say professionals