Obesity, body fat distribution and eye diseases.

Background: The prevalence of obesity, a chronic disease, is increasing, and obesity is now considered a global epidemic. Eye diseases are also increasing worldwide and have serious repercussions on quality of life as well as increasingly high costs for the community. The relationships between obesity and ocular pathologies are not yet well clarified and are not pathologically homogeneous: they seem to be somehow linked to excess body fat, especially to the distribution of adipose tissue and its ectopic deposits.

Obesity paradox and heart failure.

Background: There is scientific consensus that obesity increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases (CVD), including heart failure (HF). However, in CVD, many studies observed greater survival in overweight or class 1 obesity individuals. This counterintuitive observation was termed "obesity paradox" (OP).

Obesity paradox and aging.

Background: In association with the rapid lengthening of life expectancy and the ever-rising prevalence of obesity, many studies explored in the elderly the phenomenon usually defined as the obesity paradox.

Objective And Methods: This article is a narrative overview of seventy-two papers (1999-2019) that investigated the obesity paradox during the aging process. Twenty-nine documents are examined more in detail.

Obesity or obesities? Controversies on the association between body mass index and premature mortality.

Obesity is still defined on the basis of body mass index (BMI) and BMI in itself is generally accepted as a strong predictor of overall early mortality. However, an inverse association between BMI and mortality has been reported in patients with many disease states and in several clinical settings: hemodialysis, cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, stroke, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, surgery, etc. This unexpected phenomenon is usually called obesity-survival paradox (OP).

A Panel of Oxidative Stress Markers in Parkinson's Disease.

Background: Oxidative stress may be the cause or effect of several pathogenetic processes such as neurodegenerative diseases. The aim of this paper was to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy in Parkinson's disease (PKD) of a panel of oxidative stress markers selected from the many proposed by the most recent literature.

Methods: 23 molecules including both plasma and urinary oxidative markers such total radical oxygen species, homocysteine, biological antioxidant potential, glutathione, superoxide dismutase, uric acid, total bilirubin, iron, ferritin, coenzyme Q10, 3-nitrotyrosine, total lipoperoxides, 4-hydroxy-nonenal, and 8-hydroxy-deoxy-guanosine were determined both in PKD and aged control subjects.

Personality features of obese women in relation to binge eating and night eating.

Personality traits can affect eating behaviors, the development of obesity, and obesity treatment failure. We investigated the personality characteristics and their relation with disordered eating in 586 obese women consecutively seeking treatment at eight Italian medical centers (age, 47.7±9.

[Obesity and Eating Disorders. Indications for the different levels of care. An Italian Expert Consensus Document].

This paper is an Italian Expert Consensus Document on multidimensional treatment of obesity and eating disorders. The Document is based on a wide survey of expert opinion. It presents, in particular, considerations regarding how clinicians go about choosing the most appropriate site of treatment for a given patient suffering from obesity and/or eating disorders: outpatient, partial hospitalization, residential rehabilitation centre, inpatient hospitalization.

Comparison of physical and psychological status in younger and older overweight-obese women.

Background And Aim: Obesity prevalence is noticeably growing, even in the elderly. Most of the studies concerning the impact of obesity in the elderly evaluated physical co-morbidities, whilst very few data are available on psychological co-morbidities in people ≥ 60 years of age. The present study aimed to compare anthropometrical measures, physical co-morbidities and psychosocial factors correlated with overweight and obesity in younger and elderly people.

The quantity of meal fat influences the profile of postprandial hormones as well as hunger sensation in healthy elderly people.

Background: In healthy elderly people, reduced appetite and the consequent decrease in food intake has been defined as the "anorexia of aging"; this condition may lead to malnutrition. The aim of this study was to investigate how different compositions of macronutrients affect satiety and hunger signals as well as subjective sensations after meals in healthy elderly subjects.

Methods: Experimental controlled study.

Prevalence of overweight and obesity in Italy (2001-2008): is there a rising obesity epidemic?

Purpose: To provide national, population-based estimates of the prevalence of overweight and obesity in the Italian population.

Methods: Prevalence estimates of overweight and obesity were calculated in seven waves (2001-2008) of the cross-sectional Multipurpose Household Survey organized by the Italian National Institute of Statistics, which are representative of the general adult Italian population. Sampling weights were used to estimate prevalence figures as well as their standard errors.

Abdominal obesity and subclinical vascular damage in the elderly.

Objective: The aim of the present study was to assess the relationships between metabolic syndrome, its components and arterial stiffness as well as evaluate the waist measurement that would accurately identify subclinical vascular damage.

Methods: Ninety-one participants (16 men) free of cardiovascular diseases with mean age 68.5 +/- 5.

Adipose tissue infiltration in skeletal muscle of healthy elderly men: relationships with body composition, insulin resistance, and inflammation at the systemic and tissue level.

Background: Association between inflammatory markers and intermuscular adipose tissue (IMAT) has been reported. We hypothesized that subclinical inflammation of adipose tissue surrounding and infiltrating muscle could be related to the metabolic and functional abnormalities of the "aging muscle."

Methods: In 20 healthy elderly men undergoing elective vertebral surgery, IMAT within erector spinae was evaluated by magnetic resonance imaging and body composition by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry.

In vitro aging of 3T3-L1 mouse adipocytes leads to altered metabolism and response to inflammation.

We used an in vitro model to evaluate the effects of cellular aging and inflammation on the gene expression and protein secretion profiles of adipocytes. 3T3-L1 mouse preadipocytes were cultured according to standard conditions and analyzed at different time points both at the basal state and after an acute stimulation with LPS. The mRNA levels of CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein (C/EBP)alpha, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)gamma and S100A1 were maximal during adipocyte differentiation and then significantly decreased.

Body composition and pulmonary function in the elderly: a 7-year longitudinal study.

Objective: To evaluate over a 7-year follow-up period the relationships between changes in body composition, fat distribution and pulmonary function in a sample of elderly men and women.

Design: Longitudinal clinical study.

Subjects: A total of 47 women and 30 men aged 71.

Relation between adiponectin and bone mineral density in elderly post-menopausal women: role of body composition, leptin, insulin resistance, and dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate.

Introduction: Adipocytokines have been proposed as new mediators of the protective effects of fat mass on the skeleton. The aim of this study was to test the relationship between adiponectin, leptin, and bone mineral density (BMD), independently of body composition, insulin resistance, and other factors known to affect bone metabolism.

Methods: Thirty-six post-menopausal non-diabetic elderly women, with ages ranging from 66 to 77 yr took part in the study.

Individual versus group therapy for obesity: comparison of dropout rate and treatment outcome.

Aims: To compare outcome and dropout rates of an individual nutritional counselling (IT) and a cognitive behavioural group therapy (GT) after 6 months of treatment.

Methods: One hundred and twenty-nine women (72 in the IT and 57 in the GT group) aged 18-65 years, with body mass index (BMI) > or =25 kg/m(2). Body weight, height and waist circumference were measured.

Longitudinal body composition changes in old men and women: interrelationships with worsening disability.

Background: Few studies have evaluated prospectively age-related body composition changes and their relationships with worsening disability in the elderly population.

Methods: Ninety-seven women and 62 men aged 71.4+/-2.

The anorexia of aging.

Malnutrition in the elderly is one of the greatest threats to health, well-being and autonomy, it is therefore crucial to understand and to contrast the causal factors of inadequate energy intake. This review focuses on the mechanisms of the so-called 'anorexia of aging'. In recent years, it has been shown that elderly subjects have abnormal peripheral signal patterns and alterations in central hypothalamic control relays.

High baseline values of fat mass, independently of appendicular skeletal mass, predict 2-year onset of disability in elderly subjects at the high end of the functional spectrum.

Background And Aims: To evaluate the relation between baseline body composition and 2- year onset of functional limitation in elderly subjects at the high end of the functional spectrum.

Methods: Anthropometric measurements, physical functioning as measured by a modified version of the Activities of Daily Living Scale, and baseline albumin, were evaluated in 145 men and women aged 66-78 years, free of functional limitations, selected from the general population of Verona. In each subject, total body fat mass (FM) and appendicular FFM (ASMM) were measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry; the FM (FMI) and ASMM indexes (ASMMI) were also calculated by dividing each body composition variable by height squared.

Weight loss and quality of life improvement in obese subjects treated with sibutramine: a double-blind randomized multicenter study.

Background And Aim: Obesity affects cardiovascular risk and also quality of life (QoL). The aim of this study was to test weight loss and impact on QoL after sibutramine treatment in obese subjects.

Methods: Double-blind randomized trial on 309 outpatients (51 males, 258 females; age 41.