Some disturbing numbers: Two-thirds of the American population already meets the criteria for being overweight or obese, and one-third meets the criteria for obesity, with at least 2 percent considered to be morbidly obese.
The cost of this rising epidemic of obesity is enormous (no pun intended), both to obese patients themselves, and to a nation that is struggling to pay the skyrocketing healthcare tab for its citizens.
Obesity has been unquestionably linked to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, liver disease, gallstones, gastroesophageal reflux, arthritis, cancer, and multiple other serious illnesses. Despite these sobering realities, however, the incidence of obesity continues to rise.
In our high-calorie, low-effort modern world, it is very easy to pack on excess weight over the course of our lives. People, being people, are always looking for quick, easy solutions to their problems, including excess weight. Unfortunately, other than decreasing our intake of food and increasing the amount of exercise that we regularly perform, no other cures for obesity have yet been found.
However, a newly published study in the British Journal of Nutrition has identified an unlikely new dietary supplement, lactoferrin, that may be helpful in the battle of the bulge.
Lactoferrin, which is abundant in the colostrum (“first milk”) and milk of most mammals (including humans), is thought to function primarily as an antibacterial and antifungal agent, and may help to protect breast-fed babies from infection. In some countries, lactoferrin is routinely added to infant formula for this purpose.
Recent research has also suggested that lactoferrin may have a beneficial effect on the metabolism of fat. In particular, it may target the so-called “visceral fat” that accumulates within the abdominal area, which has been specifically linked to an increased risk of generalized inflammation, as well as cardiovascular disease and cancer.
In this small double-blind study, 26 overweight men and women with abdominal obesity received either daily lactoferrin supplements (300 milligrams per day) or an identical placebo pill. These patient volunteers were then followed for eight weeks. All underwent CT scans to measure the extent of their total body fat, superficial (subcutaneous) fat, and visceral (abdominal) fat.
At the end of the study, the group that received lactoferrin supplements experienced very significant decreases in visceral fat content when compared to the group who took the placebo. They also showed more improvement in body weight, BMI (body mass index, a measure of obesity that considers both body weight and height), and hip circumference.
Additionally, blood tests to evaluate the impact of daily lactoferrin supplements on metabolism did not reveal any apparent adverse side effects.
While this is a very small study, with only 26 participants and only eight weeks of monitoring, the strict controls make the results quite striking. Certainly, a larger study, with long-term follow-up, needs to be performed before daily lactoferrin supplements can be recommended as a safe and effective aid to weight loss.
Moreover, such a study would need to show that the reduction in visceral fat that was observed in this small Japanese clinical study is not only reproducible over the long term, but is also associated with a clinically significant improvement in the illnesses linked to abdominal obesity. Meanwhile, until such a study is performed, I find these results to be very interesting, indeed.
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