Obese mum loses 10 stone by using her house as an assault course

A mother of three lost a staggering 10 stone after using aspects of her home as an assault course to do exercises each day.

Gemma Howden, 28, was desperate to slim down after seeing her weight spiral to 19 stone, with a dress size of 26.

However, Gemma couldn’t afford an expensive gym membership so decided to be creative in her quest to shed the pounds and used the only means she had – her house, and the objects inside it!

She used an old baby gate placed at the foot of her stairs as a hurdle and jumped back and forth over the gate hundreds of times each day. Gemma also used her stairs as a stepping course and even did star jumps in front of the TV in her living room.

Not owning any weights or dumbbells, Gemma simply utilised tins of baked beans and spaghetti hoops as weights and lifted them during her tough daily exercise regime.

This would be have effective as it is important to incorporate strength exercises into cardio to more efficiently lose weight and tone up as well, and Gemma looks incredible after her impressive efforts.
Reminiscing to her heavier days, Gemma says: “I was absolutely enormous, I couldn’t bare to look in the mirror or have my photos taken. I hated the sight of myself so much I wouldn’t pose for pictures with my kids. To curb my unhappiness I’d stuff myself with a Chinese takeaway for four and then tuck into a giant slab of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk.”

Gemma got the motivation to kick-start a weight loss plan and turn her life around after looking through old photo albums and realising she wasn’t actually in many of the pictures with her children.
She says: “I felt so sad and I realised I was too ashamed to be in pictures because I was such a fat blob. I am 28 and I felt 65. I was puffing and panting everywhere.”

Gemma did her punishing exercise regime literally hundreds and hundreds of times to lose weight, beginning by running up and down the stairs. Whilst her children were watching TV in the living she would be jogging on the spot and after putting them to bed she would do hundreds of reps with large tins of beans and spaghetti.

Gemma’s weight loss story should be an inspiration to anyone looking to lose weight and is a shining example that results can be attained with the willpower and motivation to succeed. Weighing at a healthy 9 stone, she has binned her baggy t-shirts and now wears tight fitting dresses.

She added: “I’d pull the curtains to stop the neighbours seeing me in action – it would have been so embarrassing. But the results have paid off and now I’m ten stone lighter. Now I’m no longer the fat mother at the school gates and my kids’ friends don’t make fun of me. I feel absolutely amazing. When I tell people I lost 10 stone after turning my house into a boot camp they don’t believe it. But it’s absolutely true. I’m living proof that you don’t need a gym to shed the weight. A few cans of baked beans and a baby gate will do just the same job.”

If you are motivated by Gemma’s incredible story and want to lose weight, this can be achieved through weight loss aids in addition to adopting a healthy lifestyle. The prescription medication Xenical is suitable for those with a BMI over 27, whereas there are other medications that do not require a prescription such as Alli and XLS-Medical Fat Binder. To be suitable for Alli or XLS-Medical Fat Binder you must have a BMI of over 25. To find out more information on how to obtain them, visit the ‘Obesity’ area of the Medical Specialists Pharmacy website.

96 stone man airlifted to hospital on the orders of a Saudi Arabian king

A man with the weight of two baby elephants was flown to hospital in a specially-equipped plane on the orders of a Saudi Arabian king.

Khalid Mohsin Shaeri, from Saudi Arabia, who officials say weighs an incredible 1,345 lbs (96 stone), had to be evacuated from the second floor of his apartment complex via a forklift truck. Once this was accomplished, the charitable King Abdullah covered the costs of the plane journey to hospital for Mr Shaeri for emergency treatment due to a variety of obesity-related health problems.

Due to his heavy weight, 20-year-old Mr Shaeri has been unable to leave his bedroom for two and a half years, within his apartment on the second floor of a building in the southern Saudi city of Jarzan.
King Abdullah had initially Mr Shaeri to be transported to hospital back in February of this year, however treatment was postponed for six months until a specially made bed could be constructed for him in the United States.

After the king’s orders, Saudi Arabia’s health ministry worked together with the civil defence and the Saudi Red Cross to begin the evacuation process. This resulted in a section of Mr Shaeri’s building being demolished to get him out.

If the reports in Saudia Arabia are correct, Mr Shaeri’s 1,345 lb weight will make him the second heaviest man on record.

Images released from the operation show Mr Shaeri sitting in bed whilst civil defence employees are lifting the bed up onto a forklift truck. One person even holds an umbrella to shield the sun’s rays from Mr Shaeri. Following this, he was taken to the local airport by ambulance and then flown on the specially-equipped plane to the King Fahd Medical City in the Saudi capital of Riyad.

Mr Shaeri’s cousin Naser Makke spoke of the relief that Khalid has finally been able to receive the treatment he required, and thanked the king for his generosity.

He said: “We have been waiting for this moment for a long time, the King, may God protect him and give him the long life, had given his instructions to the ministry of health to do all the arrangements to transfer the patient for treatment in a safe way.”

Saudi health minister Dr Abdullah al Rebeeah commented that King Abdullah had demanded the rescue operation take place as a “humanitarian gesture”, adding: “It is one of the King’s traits that he always demonstrates whenever someone is in need. Once the ministry received the royal order it formed a medical team specialized in intensive care to work out the best plan to transfer the case to Riyadh and handle it as best as possible medically.”

Mr Shaeri’s future and indeed lifespan, now depends on his willingness to begin the long road to recovery and a successful weight loss plan. However, this story highlights how obesity can dramatically affect a person’s life if left untreated and able to spiral out of control, regardless of where in the world they are. This man was left a prisoner in his own home because of his weight and without urgent weight loss will no doubt be a ticking time bomb for a whole range of obesity-related conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, cancer, skin infections and gallstones.

Weight loss can be achieved through weight loss aids in addition to adopting a healthy lifestyle. The prescription medication Xenical is suitable for those with a BMI over 27, whereas there are other medications that do not require a prescription such as Alli and XLS-Medical Fat Binder. To be suitable for Alli or XLS-Medical Fat Binder you must have a BMI of over 25. To find out more information on how to obtain them, visit the ‘Obesity’ area of the Medical Specialists Pharmacy website.

Almost 80% of adults don’t do enough exercise

Nearly eight out of every 10 adults in England may not be getting enough exercise each week and putting their health at risk.

This worrying statistic comes from a study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and conducted by the University of Bristol, where researchers looked at data from over one million adults in England from the Active People Surveys (APS).  It was discovered that 80% were not adhering to governmental targets of engaging in moderate exercise at least 12 times in a four-week time period.
The APS analyses an individual’s socioeconomic position in addition to factors such as the weather and availability of sports facilities to them.

According to the researchers, the study demonstrates a clear association between a person’s education, household income and local area deprivation in accordance with the amount of physical activity they engage in.

It was found that better educated and wealthier individuals were more likely to exercise, whilst the poorer and less educated were more likely to not bother with much exercise. However on the whole, the majority of adults are seemingly way under the recommended levels of activity required to keep healthy.

Those with a degree apparently only had a 12% chance of being inactive but those without any qualifications were in fact three times more likely to not exercise.

Other findings from the study were the fact 8% of people physically capable of walking had not done this for even a mere five minutes continuously in the previous four weeks. Involvement in the most common activities was found to be ‘very low’.

In addition, researchers said nearly half (46%) had walked for less than 30 minutes continuously during leisure time, whilst 88% had not been swimming and a staggering 90% had not even been to a gym in the last four weeks.

Unsurprisingly, the study findings suggested that warm weather provided people with more motivation to exercise and rain decreased the amount of physical activity.

Carol Propper, professor of economics at the university’s Centre for Market and Public Organisation, said: “Physical inactivity is the most important modifiable health behaviour for chronic disease, so knowing who is physically inactive is important for designing cost-effective policy interventions.”

Tam Fry, spokesman for the National Obesity Forum and honorary chairman of the Child Growth Foundation, hit out at the figures and said: “No-one should be at all surprised by these woeful statistics,” and blamed the government for not  doing enough to use the London 2012 Olympics as a springboard for more participation in grassroots sport.

To stay healthy, NHS guidelines state that adults aged 19-64 should try to be active daily and get at least 150 minutes (2 hours and 30 minutes) of moderate-intensity aerobic activity each week. This can include fast walking, hiking, volleyball, rollerblading or basketball. However, on top of this the NHS recommends to engage in muscle-strengthening exercises on 2 or more days each week. This can include heavy gardening (such as digging and shovelling), lifting weights, yoga and exercises that use your body weight for resistance (such as push-ups and sit-ups).

It is apparent that many of the population are simply not doing enough to stay active and this in conjunction with poor diets are causing more and more people to become overweight or obese. The good news for those overweight or obese is that it is never too late to make positive changes and a healthy, balanced diet in conjunction with exercise and a weight loss aid such as Xenical, Alli, or XLS-Medical will provide you with the tools to live a much healthier life.

Could obesity and type 2 diabetes be treated with gut bacteria?

A particular type of gut bacteria has been found to help reverse obesity and type 2 diabetes in animal studies; perhaps paving the way for new treatments for both health problems. Type 2 diabetes is most commonly connected to obesity and maintaining a healthy weight is one of the most effective ways of reducing the risk of developing the disease.

The Research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrates how mice were given a broth that contained a single species of bacteria, and there were subsequently huge benefits to their health.

The bacteria studied and which was administered to the mice, was the Akkermansia muciniphila – usually comprising of around 3-5% of gut bacteria. However, these levels are found to decrease in obese individuals.

Professor Patrice Cani and his team at the Catholic University of Louvain, in Belgium, wanted to focus firstly on mice that were eating a lot of fat and were obese and/or had type 2 diabetes. Researchers noted that the mice quickly gained two to three times extra fat compared to the leaner mice that were eating a more ‘normal’ diet.

However, giving the unhealthier mice oligofructose prebiotics – a dietary supplement that boosts the number of beneficial bacteria – this helped restore the Akkermansia muciniphila back to healthy levels.

These mice then gained a quicker metabolism and the rodents found themselves losing excess weight, reduced inflammation and lowered their insulin resistance; a symptom associated with type 2 diabetes.

The bacteria had worked at thickening the gut’s mucus barrier. This prevents some material from being transferred into the blood from the gut. In addition, the Akkermansia muciniphila had managed to alter chemical signals emanating from the digestive system, leading to changes in the processing of fat in other areas of the body.

Interestingly, similar findings were also achieved when researchers included a certain type of fibre in the diet of the mice and levels of Akkermansia muciniphila then increased.

Prof Cani commented on the study findings, saying: “Of course it is an improvement, we did not completely reverse the obesity, but it is a very strong decrease in the fat mass. I don’t think it’s feasible that you can eat cream cakes and chips and sausages all day long and then eat bacteria to reverse all that. It is the first demonstration that there is a direct link between one specific species and improving metabolism.”

Prof Cani said it was ‘surprising’ how merely one species of gut bacteria has such a positive impact when there are actually thousands within the gut, adding that the bacteria-based therapy may hopefully be utilised as a prevention method or as a treatment option for obesity and type 2 diabetes in the near future.

Being happily married could make you pile on the pounds

We probably all know people who have blamed weight gain on ‘being in love’ or because they are now in a happy relationship when previously single, but the findings of a new study could indeed show this theory has some weight behind it! In particularly, it seems happily married couples are the ones most at risk of expanding waistlines as they will have a much lesser desire or need to attract a new partner.

U.S. researchers recruited 169 newly-wed couples and documented their marital bliss (or lack of) over a period of four years.

The researchers, based at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, say the study findings question the long-standing view that quality relationships were a positive thing for health and weight.
Psychologist Andrea L Meltzer, who led the study, said: “On average, spouses who were more satisfied with their marriage were less likely to consider leaving their marriage, and they gained more weight over time. In contrast, couples who were less satisfied in their relationship tended to gain less weight over time.”

Meltzer states that previous psychological research had linked marriage and weight gain and that weight loss was commonly attributed to going through a divorce and the after-effects. She adds that exactly how marital satisfaction impacts our weight is still undetermined.

“For example, studies have found that satisfied couples are more likely to take medications on time and schedule annual physicals,” Ms Meltzer said. “Yet the role of marital satisfaction and actual health is less clear.”

For the four-year duration that the married couples were monitored, they were regularly asked to rate their marital satisfaction on a scale, while their weight and height was measured to determine their Body Mass Index (BMI).

Meltzer and her team discovered that for each unit increase in satisfaction, on average, men and women gained around one tenth of a BMI unit every six months. This equates to a weight gain of one pound each year for a woman who is 5ft 4 in height and with a weight of 8½ stone.

Those unhappy in their marriage were more likely to leave their partner, Meltzer says, and on average did not put on as much weight. She added: “So these findings suggest that people perhaps are thinking about their weight in terms of appearance rather than health”, and stressed that young couples should be educated to fully understand that weight is a key factor of maintaining their health.

She concluded: “We know that weight gain can be associated with a variety of negative health consequences, for example diabetes and cardiovascular disease. By focusing more on weight in terms of health implications as opposed to appearance implications, satisfied couples may be able to avoid potentially unhealthy weight gain over time in their marriages.”

Channel 4’s Secret Eaters shows how ‘dieters’ pile on the weight

Have you ever begun a ‘diet’ and after a while found you are still not losing the extra weight. More often than not, this failure is blamed on an apparent ‘slow metabolism’ – a mythical logic that has previously been dissected by Medical Specialists Pharmacy.

However, a new Channel 4 show to be aired later this month called ‘Secret Eaters’ has decided to explore the day-to-day eating habits of people complaining of slow or non-existent weight loss in order to find possible reasons why. The results seem to be far more transparent than first thought.
The main problem appears to be when people snack during the course of the day – sometimes even unaware or oblivious to it, often eating a lot more than they think.

Secret Eaters, presented by Anna Richardson, documents every single bite of food taken by the show’s participants via secretly concealed video cameras in their homes. If this wasn’t interesting enough for viewers, when the participants decide to venture out from their house, two private detectives trail them and take photographs of them eating any ‘bad’ calorific food such as takeaways, crisps and fizzy drinks.

After five days of the hidden video cameras recording them and the private detective’s espionage trying to catch them in the act, Anna Richardson leads the dieters into the ‘Incident Room’ in which all their food intake – however good or bad – is laid out before their eyes and demonstrates the damning evidence explaining their lack of successful weight loss.

The Secret Eater’s dietician Lynne Garton explains: “You can see the look of astonishment on their faces when they see the food they’ve actually consumed. They have no idea. Snacks can add up to more than 500 calories a day but too often people get distracted by their busy lives and forget the chocolate bar or biscuit they ate earlier and it soon mounts up. Cutting out those calories can lead to a 1lb loss per week.”

The first episode of the series show Stephanie and Lauren Spearman, sisters who are both struggling to lose weight. Stephanie, 23, lives on a diet of junk food, while Lauren, 28, is in training for the London Marathon despite still consuming alcohol and chocolate.

After cameras had recorded their snacking habits, the sisters realised the shocking reality of their situation that if they had carried on as they were, each would have gained over 2st within just six months.

Stephanie, a sales manager for High Street chain Matalan, tipped the scales at 12st 6lb when she first contacted the show. The hours she worked meant she regularly skipped eating breakfast but would snack on biscuits or cakes prior to lunch.

The work vending machine meant she had easy access to high calorie snacks and fizzy drink. This all added to the calories from takeaways Stephanie often ate, meaning that on some days her daily intake was around 4,000 – incredibly this is double the recommended calorie intake for women.

Dietician Lynne comments: “Millions turn to the latest fad for a quick fix but to lose weight long-term requires a change in eating habits. Eating three meals a day and snacking only on healthy foods such as fruit can be all that’s needed to lose weight.”

Between them the sisters have lost 21lbs since the programme reinvigorated their dietary choices and Stephanie says: “We feel so much better since we’ve replaced sugary drinks with fizzy water, swapped crisps for fruit, and burgers for healthy sandwiches. I’ve managed to save £100 a month by not buying ready-meals and sugary snacks. We’re losing weight and we’re not even on a diet.”

‘Weight Loss Ward’ to be featured in ITV1 documentary

One of Britain’s first dedicated obesity hospital units will be shown tomorrow night in an ITV1 documentary fittingly titled ‘Weight Loss Ward’. The hospital featured in the documentary is Sunderland Royal Hospital – in an area where shockingly more than 40% of the adults are overweight and such a ward is needed.

In fact as the national obesity epidemic continues to get worse and the NHS feels the impact of the £500 million it is losing from such problems, it will be no surprise to see more of these ‘weight loss wards’ appearing up and down the country.

Everything on these wards is super-sized. The doors have to be twice their usual width, every wheelchair has been reinforced with extra strength and could even fit two people with a normal ranged body mass index (BMI) and the beds are monstrous in their size.

Staff members at the hospital have been forced to use 50 stone max weight industrial strength scales to determine how much one patient weighed – 29-year-old Terry Gardner who was eventually found to tip the scales at 47 stone after previously being housebound for a year before being admitted to the hospital.

Terry is one of the largest patients ever treated at the Sunderland weight loss unit; too big to fit through his own bathroom door and his weight means he cannot use one of the reinforced ward beds, forcing staff to draft an even stronger one in from elsewhere and costing them £150 each day.

Terry’s story along with that of several others on the ward, will be featured tomorrow in the documentary. Viewers will see Terry pictured in his wedding photo just ten years prior, cutting a more drastically slender figure. He and many other patients are at their last resort at hospital and hoping for surgical intervention to basically save their lives. The documentary will show possible reasons why they have reached the size they are, the harsh truths about gastric surgery and what the weight loss surgery means to them – as well as the massive demands places on the shoulders of all the staff working at the unit.

One of these demands is keeping Terry to adhere to his strict 1,500 calorie per-day diet. They have decided this low calorie intake is essential for him to lose weight initially as he is too unhealthy to go in for a weight loss operation.

Tragically, Terry’s father passed away when just eight years old and he found himself put into care at 12. Now the father of two young children himself, he finds himself too big to wash his own body. He explains: “I feel like my weight is eating my life. There are times I say to my wife, why are you here? I am trapped in my own body.”

In the programme, consultant surgeon Peter Small does not hold back in his honesty of Terry’s situation and initial slow progress in shifting any weight. He says: “There is no medical problem that is causing people to be obese. The vast majority of people are obese because their calorie intake over time has not matched their calorie burn. The usual patient we get has been trying all the diets under the sun and all the medicines under the sun and they’ve failed. And they’re just crying for their life back.”

Regarding Terry, Mr Small explains: “We want him to confront his behaviour. He is almost pathologically obese, but why? Often complex psychological factors cause people to overeat.”
After being admitted on to the ward, Terry is provided with some basic exercises to carry out on his Zimmer frame. Mr Small says: “I have had younger and lighter people than him die on me while they are still on the list. But if we can get a balloon into him, it will help.”

However, in the documentary, Terry’s progress is shown to be minimal at best following three weeks on his 1,500 calorie-a-day diet. In fact, after three weeks he has lost just a single pound and staff suspect he has been allowed to buy crisps and fizzy drinks from the hospital trolley. “He is not cheating me… he is cheating himself. But it costs £100 a day to keep someone here”, says Mr Small, who is also irritated by Terry’s claim of an under-active thyroid being the cause for his weight gain. “Until he’s honest, we can’t help him. If he wants to bite the hand trying to not feed him…”
After a month though, the realisation of his grim situation has finally hit home with Terry and remarkably he has managed to lose a stone. “I think he realised if he didn’t help himself, we wouldn’t,” says Mr Small. Due to Terry’s shift in attitude and continued weight loss, he will soon be able to have a gastric balloon op.

With Gastric surgery costing an incredible £8,000, those who are obese could try clinically proven weight loss medication such as Xenical or XLS-Medical Fat Binder. Adopting a healthy lifestyle and diet in conjunction with one of these scientifically proven weight loss aids can help you lose weight and avoid ever ending up inside a weight loss ward such as the one at Sunderland Royal Hospital. Both Xenical and XLS-Medical are available today from Medical Specialists Pharmacy at incredibly low prices.

Supermarkets ordered to include more fruit and veg in ready meals

Hearing the words ‘ready meal’ or ‘microwave meal’ would not typically invoke thoughts of healthy eating and have long been associated with a quick option for students. As more and more people are developing hectic, busy lives though, they are worryingly becoming a common choice for meals for those who feel like they don’t have the time to prepare a healthy meal.

Health concerns arise because the freezing process in these ready-made meals usually affects the taste of the food and manufacturers try to compensate for this by using heavily processed production methods and loading the food with extra salt and fat. They are usually always a lot less nutritious than fresh food and the partially hydrogenated vegetable oils that are used by manufacturers to stabilise the food, have been linked to numerous cardiovascular problems.

With obesity levels predicted to surge in the next 18 years, clearly the government believe they need to act quickly and they have decided to target ready meals in their latest attempt to get the nation to eat more healthily.

Estimates show that around 70% of the UK is failing to eat their ‘five-a-day’ recommended intake of fruit and vegetables. Furthermore it has recently been revealed that only one in ten children and a third of adults are hitting the five-a-day target and now the Department of Health (DOH) are calling for food manufacturers to include more fruit and vegetables to their ready meals as part of government’s ‘Responsibility Deal’. This is an initiative in which the DOH works in cooperation with large businesses to try and reform Britain’s public health.

There are currently 16 supermarkets, food manufacturers and trade bodies that have signed up to the pledge of creating healthier ready meals. They are: Aldi, Co-operative Food, Iceland, Lidl, Morrisons, M&S, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose, General Mills, Mars, caterers 3663, Brakes, CH & Co Catering, Subway and the British Frozen Food Federation.

Action could not have come as a better time after a recent survey showed that almost a quarter (25%) of Brits are under the impression that chips count as part of a vegetable intake and nearly half think the same thing regarding roast potatoes. For those unaware, they do not count because they contribute mainly starch to your diet.

Why five-a-day some may ask. Well, as well as being low in calories and fat, fruit and vegetables are the pinnacle of a healthy, balanced diet. Eating plenty of fruit and veg can help you maintain a healthy weight, prevent obesity, in addition to helping to reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke and some cancers. Because of their high fibre content, fruit and veg can also help with digestive problems, keeping your gut healthy, preventing constipation and even reducing your risk of developing bowel cancer.

Public Health Minister Anna Soubry spoke on the plans to increase fruit and veg in ready meals, saying: “It’s vital that we focus particular attention on encouraging those who currently consume very little to boost their intake.  Research shows that fruit and veg intake ‘tracks’ through childhood and adolescence, so healthy school lunches with at least two portions of fruit or vegetables are really important to give children the opportunity to experience fruit and vegetables from an early age, and to see other children and adults around them enjoying these foods.”

Medical Specialists Pharmacy advise that everybody should at least hit their five-a-day target for fruit and vegetables as there are countless major health benefits from doing so. However, be warned that this does not mean a high intake of sugar and saturated fats can also be maintained. If you are overweight, we would advise adopting a healthy lifestyle and diet in conjunction with a scientifically proven weight loss aid such as XLS-Medical or the prescription medication Xenical. Both are available today from Medical Specialists at incredibly low prices.

New food labelling system planned to tackle rising obesity

A brand new universal food labelling system will be implemented in the near future on all food items across supermarkets in the UK. Although the exact date of introduction and final design has yet to be chosen, it is hoped that the new widely accepted system will finally banish any confusion for consumers regarding how healthy a particular product is.

Health minister Anna Soubry confirmed that that the new labels will include information on guideline daily amounts (GDA), in addition to the colour-coded traffic light system which also depicts levels of fat, saturated fat, salt, sugar and calories in terms of ‘high’, ‘medium’ or ‘low’.

Ms Soubry spoke out on the need for a nationwide food labelling system, saying: “The UK already has the largest number of products with front of pack labels in Europe but research has shown that consumers get confused by the wide variety of labels used. By having a consistent system we will all be able to see at a glance what is in our food. This will help us all choose healthier options and control our calorie intake. Obesity and poor diet cost the NHS billions of pounds every year. Making small changes to our diet can have a big impact on our health and could stop us getting serious illnesses, such as heart disease, later in life.”

The traffic light system works by having a postage-stamp sized sticker that states the percentage of a person’s recommended daily allowance contained in each product – red for high, amber for medium and green for low.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) first considered this approach back in 2006 after feedback from consumers suggested that they preferred this method of food labelling. Major supermarkets however such as Tesco, Morrison’s and Kellogg’s fiercely objected to this. They were angered at being told what to put on their food products as well as realising that a damaging red sticker on food products could look bad and effect sales and revenue.

Despite this negativity from those three companies, traffic lights were voluntarily implemented by certain big players in the food industry such as Sainsbury’s, Co-op and Waitrose. Judith Batchelar, director of Sainsbury’s brand, recalls the time when the company embraced the scheme, saying: “It was back in 2004 and I think it is fair to say that Sainsbury’s had lost a little bit of its sparkle. We were really up for driving change within the organisation. What we found with traffic lights was exactly that.”

The new kind of food label is estimated to be in use by summer 2013, with work now being done to create a certain design that will satisfy everybody.

Peter Hollins, chief executive at the British Heart Foundation, spoke of his excitement regarding the latest announcement, raving it was a ‘quantum leap’ forward for public health. He said: “It’s now down to each and every retailer and manufacturer to step up and introduce these consistent front of pack food labels, including traffic light colours, so shoppers can make healthy food choices at a glance.”

The announcement for clearer food labels is fantastic news and they cannot come quick enough after Medical Specialists reported one week ago about rising obesity across Europe. In the meantime, we have weight loss treatments such as Xenical and the recently introduced XLS-Medical Fat Binder, which can help you drop the additional pounds that poor food labelling may have contributed to! XLS-Medical can even be purchased today without the need for a prescription. You can read more about both treatments from the obesity section of the Medical Specialists website.

Obesity on the rise in France as Brits continue to get fatter

A high-fat junk food diet and increasingly sedentary lifestyle is being blamed for a rising obesity problem in France. Statistics show that since 1997 the average French person has piled on an extra 3.6kg in weight, with a typical person now weighing 11 stone 6lbs. In addition, the French have also grown 0.7cm in height as well as adding an extra 1.3cm to their waists.

It has also been revealed that a massive 7 million adults in France are now classified as ‘obese’ – nearly double that of the number from fifteen years ago. This equates to 15% of the population of France and works out at roughly one in seven men and nearly one in six women.

In the report, a government sponsored survey by pharmacists Obepi-Roche, it was revealed that the age group that had seen the largest weight increase was the 18 to 24 year olds. The blame is being connected to an increasing addiction to fast food. In particularly, those who are less wealthy and living in industrial regions of northern and eastern France are apparently more likely to be carrying extra baggage than wealthier counterparts living in Paris, Brittany and the French Rivieria.

Guillaume Garot, a member of the National Assembly of France and France’s food minister, was alarmed by the report and has called for traffic light colour coding on all food labels. This style of food labelling was finally brought into play in August this year by Tesco in the UK, after giving in to demands by shoppers. The system works by using the colours of traffic lights; red, amber or green, depending on how nutritious it is. Red is the unhealthiest so therefore, if a food product has red lights for sugar, salt and fat content, then it is probably a food product best avoided. Since 2005 Tesco had instead adopted a ‘guideline daily amounts’ (GDA) system. This showed the percentage of sugar, salt and fat in a product but did not incorporate any colours.

Guillaume Garot was also incensed at food manufacturers for masquerading high-calorie food products as supposed healthy food options for consumers. He blasted, “These days you virtually need a degree in chemistry to understand the nutritional information on food labels. We need a simpler system that simply says in three colours if a food will make you fat, if it’s neutral or if it’s healthy. This is a health problem that affects the whole of our society and the government will tackle it as a matter of priority.”

However, France is still classified as being Europe’s second thinnest nation and the obesity crisis stretches far and wide to many other European countries. Greece holds the unwanted title of being the fattest nation in Europe, where an astonishing 70% of people are ‘overweight’. According to NHS definitions, you are overweight if you have a body mass index (BMI) that is between 25 and 29. A BMI of between 30 and 40, results in an ‘obese’ classification.

The statistics are certainly eyebrow-raising a little closer to home though. Britain’s women are the second biggest in Europe, with 62% overweight and 22% being obese. British men fair slightly better than the females, and come in at number five across Europe, behind Germany, Greece, Finland and Ireland.

The dangers of obesity may be underestimated by many, but are certainly life-threatening in the long-term. Diabetes, cancer, chronic heart disease and high blood pressure are just a few of the conditions that obesity can cause, as well as erectile dysfunction for men in many cases. By adopting a healthy lifestyle and diet in conjunction with a scientifically proven weight loss aid such as XLS-Medical or the prescription medication Xenical, you can begin to lose weight and dramatically cut your chances of developing a fatal health problem in the future. Both XLS-Medical and Xenical are available today from Medical Specialists at incredibly low prices.

Obesity is linked to thousands of cancer cases each year

Last week Medical Specialists Pharmacy delivered the fantastic news to everybody around the World that we now have XLS-Medical Fat Binder in stock, available to buy at just £38.99 at this incredibly low introductory price. The news it seems has come at the perfect time as the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) has warned that there are over 22,000 cases of cancer in the UK each year that are directly the result of people either being overweight or obese, and they can be avoidable if people remained at a healthy weight.

The WCRF’s information was amassed via a report from the charities own ‘Continuous Update Project’ (CUP), which investigates all the latest cancer prevention research studies. The researchers involved in the project say that 63% of all Brits are either overweight, meaning they have a body mass index (BMI) that is higher than 25 or obese, with a BMI over 30. The BMI reading is an estimate of a person’s body fat based on both their height and weight.

However, according to the WCRF, this extra body weight is massively increasing the risk of a whole host of deadly cancers including: bowel, breast, gall bladder, kidney, oesophagus, pancreatic and womb cancer. Added to the risks of different cancers, there are also numerous other chronic diseases that are connected to excess body weight. Possibilities of coronary disease, heart attack, joint problems and kidney failure are just a few of the serious health risks those overweight or obese people may find themselves experiencing.

According to CUP, around one in five (18%) of the 123,000 weight-related cancer cases in the UK can be avoided with necessary action such as adopting simple healthy lifestyle changes, saving a staggering 22,000 lives each year.

The figure of 22,000 includes 7,752 cases of breast cancer, 5,753 incidents of bowel cancer and 2,978 womb-related cancers. In addition, it is estimated that 1,257 cases of pancreatic cancer may be caused by being overweight.  To give a better insight into the severity of the issue, according to figures from Cancer Research UK, in 2011 there were in excess of 320,400 people diagnosed with cancer. Clearly something needs to be done to halt the trend, and fast.

Professor Alan Jackson, professor of human nutrition at the University of Southampton and chairman of the CUP panel, spoke on the latest report and said, “A significant number of cancer cases could be prevented by people maintaining a healthy body weight. Through keeping levels of body fat low, a lot of people will avoid getting cancer in the first place – forestalling the pain and anguish associated with the disease.”

Last year academics from Oxford University estimated that 134,000 instances of cancer could have been prevented through lifestyle changes. Smoking still seems to be the biggest killer, accounting for a huge 61,000 of the cases, followed by obesity at 17,000. The academics stressed although their calculations were ‘conservative’, there is a good chance that obesity contributes to a number of different cancers.

After the estimates were published by the academics, Dr Rachel Thompson, of the WCRF, said: “We hope this helps to raise awareness that cancer is not simply a question of fate and that people can make changes today that can reduce their risk. Thousands of cases of cancer in the UK could be prevented by maintaining a healthy weight, being regularly physically active and eating a plant-based diet without too much salt, alcohol or red and processed meat.”

Before their latest findings were published, WCRF previously warned that the number of Brits who get any form of cancer is likely to double by the year 2050 unless something is done to stop the problem.

As you saw earlier this year, weight loss surgery such as having a gastric band fitted, is probably not the best option for those carrying a little extra baggage due to the dangerous health risks. Also, many people who go under the knife actually end up piling all the lost weight back on eventually anyway. Perhaps the way forward is by adopting a healthy lifestyle and diet in conjunction with a scientifically proven weight loss aid such as XLS-Medical or the prescription medication Xenical. Both are available today from Medical Specialists at incredibly low prices.