Tag: Health & Science

Is obesity related to genetics?

Childhood obesity could be related to the absence of one particular hormone according to research presented this week during a conference in Huntington.

  Losing weight is as simple as having more self-control. At least that’s what some think. A new study though shows that maybe it’s not that simple, maybe obesity is tied to a hormone called Leptin. And when people don’t have enough of it in their system, their body tells them to eat more.

Dr. Jeffrey Friedman of Rockefeller University in New York, presented these findings at a Childhood Obesity Conference in Huntington hosted by the Marshall University School of Medicine. The focus was on fighting childhood obesity and its causes, including alternative ideas like Friedman’s.

Friedman said he along with other researchers want to look deeper into body weight than just saying people need more self-control.

“We study the genes and biological factors that regulate body weight and we now know that there are several genes that when defective can cause obesity in humans and this has led us to a deeper understanding of the neural circuitry in our brain that regulates appetite and weight,” Friedman said.

Scientists are studying genes related to the hormone Leptin, which plays a role in regulating the appetite. Leptin is a protein produced by fatty tissue and is believed to regulate the fat storage in the body. Scientists believe people with low or absent levels of Leptin tend to eat much more. Friedman said these are factors that people can’t control.

"This is not simply a matter of lack of will power or a toxic environment, that different people have different genetic endowments that lead some people to become obese and others not," Friedman said.

“I think the bottom line here is that this is not simply a matter of lack of will power or a toxic environment, that different people have different genetic endowments that lead some people to become obese and others not,” Friedman said.  

Friedman said these findings could lead to an entire new way of thinking for scientists.

He says it could take 10 to 20 years for those treatments to emerge. He also says only a small amount of people are lacking Leptin, but that it could lead to other research that might combine Leptin with other drugs to solve some obesity  cases. Friedman said obese individuals need a new mindset when trying to lose weight.

“It should focus our attention much more on health than weight per say. And the health benefits of weight loss can be achieve with pretty modest amounts of weight loss. And so I think it’s going to be important based on what we know about the biology to not focus on people normalizing their weight, but rather reducing their weight sufficiently to improve their healt,” Friedman said..

Athar Nawab is a first year medical school student at Marshall. He said Friedman presented an entirely new way of looking at obesity.

“I thought his ideas of obesity and the genes involved were pretty enlightening and it’s a different way of thinking about it as opposed to blaming the person that’s obese, there could be deeper issues,” Nawab said.

Michael Andryka is also in his first year of medical school.

“It’s not necessarily an issue of will power or environment, but there may be some hormonal control and some genetic role. And I think this is probably a pretty promising line of research or it seems to be,” Andryka said.

The students think it could open the doors for different treatments as they become doctors. 

Shutdown may affect upcoming marathon

The federal government shutdown could possibly impact the upcoming Freedom’s Run marathon in the Eastern Panhandle if the shutdown is still going on at the end of next week. But the Marathon will continue regardless of whether the government’s closed.

This is the fifth year for the marathon and one of its main attractions is the route it takes through four national parks. Those parks are closed because of the federal government shutdown. But there is a contingency plan.

“It’s something that when you plan for an event like this for a year you run through all your contingencies and think of things you can control and this one didn’t come into the radar until about 10 days ago,” Mark Cucuzzella, Freedom’s Run director, said. “So yes if there is a government shutdown we will not be able to use the parks.”

Cucuzzella is hoping for a quick resolution to the shutdown but said organizers have mapped out “a really nice alternate route” for runners to use if the federal government is still closed the day of the event, Oct. 12, 2013.

“So the show will go on and I think this will be a good stance of solidarity to health and fitness and community doesn’t stop when the government decides they can’t figure things out and come to agreement,” he said.

Freedom’s Run offers a one mile kids run, a 5K, 10K, half marathon and full marathon. The number of participants is capped at 25 hundred for the four races and Cucuzzella said close to that number is signed up.

The afternoon and evening before the race there are several events in Shepherdstown, W.Va. and at Shepherd University. A pre-race pasta dinner will feature a talk by West Virginian Jamie Summerlin.

“And Jamie ran across the country last year to raise money for military foundations and he just wrote a book called Freedom Run,” Cucuzzella said. “So he’s very generously offered to come here and speak at the pasta dinner, share his story. He’s going to run the race too.”

There will also be a free screening of the film In the High Country, which followed runner Anton Krupicka for a year as he lived and ran in the mountains. Krupicka and filmmaker Joel Wolpert will be there.

“I think what will be really cool is they’ll answer questions from the audience and talk about how to make a movie,” Cucuzzella said. “Meet Anton, he’s kind of an icon in the ultra-running world, one of the best ultra-marathoners in the world and people will be coming from all over just to meet Anton.”

Cucuzzella calls Krupicka “kind of a cult figure out there, (who) travels, sleeps in his truck and runs up and down mountains when the spirit hits him.”

“Probably a lot of us wish we had that kind of life where we don’t have to be at work at seven o’clock every day,” he said.

Freedom’s Run is featured in last month’s Running World Magazine and Cucuzzella said he’s excited that a little event he started five years ago to raise money for trails and gardens for schools is gaining national attention.

Annual marrow donor registry drive seeks ethnic diversity

WVU Healthcare and the Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center will host their annual marrow donor registry drive Friday, October 4th, from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Morgantown Mall in Monongalia County. Organizers say there’s an especially urgent need for African Americans to register.

 

Londia Goff is a bone marrow transplant coordinator and nurse clinician for the Osborn Hematopoietic Malignancy and Transplantation Program at the Cancer Center. She says this annual marrow drive where people register as potential marrow donors is critically important because patients with 73 different diseases, including leukemia and lymphoma, are dying for lack of matching donors.

 

Goff explains that a registry of willing donors was established in the 1980s and now contains some 14 million people. She says the likelihood of finding a match depends largely on ethnicity; those with European ancestry have an 80 percent chance, but that number drops dramatically for those with other backgrounds.

 

“It’s about a 7 percent chance for Hispanics; it drops down to a 3 percent chance for African Americans. So we desperately need people of ethnic backgrounds to join the registry,” Goff says. 

 

Joining the registry requires 18-44 years of age, a health screening, a couple mouth swabs, and maintaining up-to-date contact information. Goff says she hopes to register at least 200 people during the drive.

Need help navigating the health care exchange?

The number of uninsured West Virginians is expected to drop by 70 percent in the next three years. That’s according to numbers from the state Insurance Commissioners Office and presented by West Virginians for Affordable Health Care in the wake of open enrollment under the health care exchange.

The non-profit group is working with organizations around the state to help West Virginians navigate that new exchange and sign up for insurance.

WVAHC Executive Director Perry Bryant said so many Americans have become interested in signing up for coverage through the Affordable Care Act’s central facet that the federal website crashed Tuesday morning and there was a wait time of up to 15 minutes for the federal call center.

 He said in order to help with the influx, some West Virginia groups have created their own websites to assist consumers looking to buy health insurance or qualifiers sign up for Medicaid in the hopes that they can impact the state’s overall health in the future.

 “It is a new day. It is a new era and one in which we are going to take a significant step towards providing quality, affordable health care in West Virginia and I’m proud to be a part of that effort,” Perry said during a press conference Tuesday afternoon.

To enroll or find assistance in navigating the health care exchange, visit one of the following sites:
www.healthcare.gov
www.localhelp.healthcare.gov
www.goenrollWV.org

Or call:
Federal Call Center 1-800-318-2596
WV Primary Care Association 1-877-WVA-HLTH

To report any possible fraud or scams related to ACA, contact the Consumer Protection Division of the Attorney General’s Office at 1-800-363-8808.

Health care exchange begins enrollment in W.Va.

West Virginia’s Department of Health and Human Resources has been working for months to organize their federal-state partnered health insurance exchange beginning enrollment on October 1.

Likened to the travel website Expedia, the exchange will allow consumers to go online, compare plans from private insurance providers and choose the one that’s best for them, but the site will also determine your eligibility for coverage on state programs like Medicaid.
For the state of West Virginia, the passage of the federal Affordable Care Act meant new requirements, like establishing a health care exchange, but for consumers, Assistant Secretary for the state Department of Health and Human Resources Jeremiah Samples said the ACA means options. Options for insurance coverage and providers.

Those options, however, aren’t as abundant here as in many other states.  

As West Virginians begin to navigate the healthcare exchange looking for insurance to cover themselves and their families, the plans they have to choose from will all come from one provider: Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield.

“Private insurance companies made the decision to not proceed with offering coverage on the exchange and there’s a number of reasons for that. Our market is not very large so it’s not as attractive to many insurance companies, and there’s also challenges to the paradigm shift from the health insurance laws,” Samples said. 

“That exposes insurance companies to risks that they’ve never had to deal with before and so there are a lot of challenges there that many insurance companies felt they were not in a position to precede.”

Samples said even though there is only one private insurance provider, Blue Cross Blue Shield will still provide a variety of plan options at different cost levels.  

But some West Virginians will take a different path to coverage. Samples estimated more than 130,000 West Virginians will find through the exchange they are eligible for Medicaid. 

The DHHR sent out eligibility letters to more than 118,00 of those West Virginians to allow them to enroll by simply checking a box to agree to the program and then mailing the form back in to the state.

“We already have about 45,000 folks that have sent those letters in,” Samples said. “That’s 45,000 people that didn’t have insurance before, 45,000 people that will not be coming in to the county office bogging down the systems using our resources. It will also be the most streamlined process by which that consumer can go through to have their eligibility determined.”

Those individuals became eligible for coverage when Governor Tomblin announced Medicaid’s expansion in May, covering individuals earning between 17 and 138 percent of the federal poverty level. Many of those are SNAP, more commonly known as food stamp, participants and parents whose children were already covered through the state.

But if you’re still not sure where you fall, whether you are eligible for Medicaid, or want to find an insurance plan to fit your budget, Samples said the process starts online at healthcare.gov, with a phone call to the federal call center, through a private insurance agent, or at your local DHHR county office.

“Each DHHR office will have an in-person assistor embedded into it. An in-person assistor will be trained on how to provide consumers information about private health insurance,” Samples said. “So, for example, if a consumer wants to know, what is a co-pay? What is co-insurance? What do these terms mean to me? Than that in-person assistor will be able to provide them with some support as they go through the exchange.”

Open enrollment through the health care exchange begins October 1 and ends March 31. Health insurance bought through the exchange goes into effect January 1.  

The website to enroll is www.healthcare.gov.

Miners, know your rights

A mine safety law that’s been on the books since 1977 was intended to give miners the ability to report problems without retribution. This is a law that’s…

A mine safety law that’s been on the books since 1977 was intended to give miners the ability to report problems without retribution. This is a law that’s rarely been used and often when it has  managers and not working miners serve as the representatives.

A number of issues were uncovered during congressional hearings after the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster that killed 29 men. Statements from miners and family members of the miners who died indicated that mine employees had been reluctant to speak out about safety conditions in existence prior to the April 2010 explosion, fearing retaliation by management.

Former and current miners admitted they knew nothing about their right to elect a representative of miners either.

The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration is hoping to raise more awareness with a handbook and online resource page called The Miners’ Representative Guide.

A miners’ representative is any person, group or organization designated by two or more miners to represent their interest during health and safety enforcement processes at their mine.

This includes managers and supervisors.

Longtime safety advocate Tony Oppegard pointed out during an interview in April 2012  that managers already have the right to travel with inspectors. He says congress needs to take the next step and insist MSHA  make a policy managers can’t serve as miners’ reps.

“Because it defeats the entire purpose of the miners’ rep provision,” Oppegard said, “and frankly you don’t have management looking out for the safety of miners.”

Oppegard argues that electing managers as miner’s reps can prevent the law from working the way should.

Miners were given a right to elect a representative in 1977 when the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act was enacted.

The new MSHA guide provides detailed information about: reporting hazardous conditions and imminent dangers, accident investigations, understanding the elements of discrimination, health and safety training,  rights to information and records and more.  

In a news  release MSHA says in 2012 it filed more than double the requests for temporary re-instatement on behalf of miners who submitted complaints of discrimination after being fired, than any previous year.

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