* Obesity
* Diet and Weight Loss
* Cholesterol

Plants & Animals

* Mice
* Genetically Modified
* Rodents

Reference

* South Beach diet
* Saturated fat
* Zone diet
* Detox diet

“They process fat differently,” said Randall Johnson, professor of biology at the University of California, San Diego, who directed the research, which is published in the April 15 issue of the journal Cell Metabolism. While their normal littermates gain weight, develop fatty livers and become resistant to insulin on a high fat diet, just like overweight humans do, the mutant mice suffered none of these ill effects.

The protein, an enzyme called FIH, plays a key role in the physiological response to low levels of oxygen and could be a new target for drugs to help people who struggle with weight gain. “The enzyme is easily inhibited by drugs,” Johnson said.

Because the protein influences a wide range of genes involved in development, the scientists were surprised that its deletion improved health.

“We expected them to die as embryos,” said Na Zhang, a graduate student in Johnson’s lab and lead author of the study. “Then we saw they can survive for a long time.”

“From the beginning I noticed that these mice are smaller, but not sick. These mice seem to be healthy,” Zhang said. The lean mice have a high metabolism, and a common check for insulin resistance, a symptom of diabetes, revealed a super sensitivity to insulin.

“We fed the mice with a very high fat diet — 60 percent fat — just to see how they would respond,” Zhang said. “Mutants can eat a lot, but they didn’t gain a lot of weight. They are less fatty around their middles compared with their littermates.”

Obese people develop a “fatty liver,” and so did the wild type littermates. The fat mice also developed high blood cholesterol with elevated levels of the “bad” type, LDL. In lean mutants, LDL increased much less.

“All of these observations support that the modified mice have better metabolic profiles,” Zhang said.

The genetic manipulations disabled the FIH gene entirely. “In every tissue, in every cell, the protein is gone,” Zhang said. But the scientists wanted to know what part of the mouse physiology was responsible for the changes, so they created new mice in which the FIH protein was deleted only in specific tissues: the nervous system or the liver.

Mice that were missing FIH only from their nervous system showed most of the same effects. “But if it was only deleted in the liver, then no.” Zhang said.

Though smaller, the mutant mice eat and drink 30 to 40 percent more than wild-type mice.

“Where do those calories go? To heat generation and an increased heart rate.” Johnson said. They also breathe heavily compared with normal mice, taking in 20 to 40% more air. “This deep breathing is like exercise for them.”

The FIH protein is part of a wide system that responds to low levels of oxygen. The mice behave as if they are breathing thin air. When people travel to higher altitudes, they breathe heavily for a few days, then adjust by producing more oxygen-carrying blood cells. “These mice never adjust to the apparent low oxygen,” Johnson said. “They stay in this acute phase of hypoxic response their whole lives.”

The program provides a personalized diet plan for each client, using weight loss manuals and other materials proven to vanish those unwanted pounds. Aside from the personalized diet plan, the Jenny Craig diet also has the Jenny Direct Community where clients can find their own weight loss buddies to help them achieve their weight loss goals.

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The Jenny Craig diet program consists of three levels which focus on one’s food, mind and body. It aims to help clients lose weight and keep it off.

The first level teaches clients to eat in small portions. The second level focuses on increasing one’s energy levels in doing simple activities. The third level is all about creating balance in one’s life in order to maintain their weight loss activities and stay healthy.

There are many options on how to join the Jenny Craig programs. One can simply go to the numerous Jenny Craig centers in the country and have a one-on-one consultation with the center’s diet consultants. Another option is to avail of the Jenny Craig Direct-at-Home program, where one can participate in the program in the comforts of his home. The consultant will schedule a weekly phone meeting to monitor the progress and to help clients order their food supply as well. There are no exorbitant phone fees for the consultations because they are toll-free. The menus for the diet and other materials will be delivered personally to the client’s home.

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The diet prohibits an individual from eating foods with too much carbohydrate. Some foods can be eaten in limited amounts, such as rice, although this is strictly monitored since the total carbohydrate intake of an individual is counted. The food items that should be avoided at all times are sugar and refined grains.

Going through the Atkins Diet requires lots of patience and willpower, since it deprives an individual of foods that are usually encountered and eaten everyday. One has to go through the four phases of the program:

• Induction
• Ongoing Weight Loss
• Pre-maintenance
• Maintenance

The Induction is the hardest part of the program, where lots of restrictions are placed on a person’s food intake. A lot of people have been known to quit in this stage of the diet program, because they couldn’t take the huge impact of not being able to eat the foods that you regularly enjoy everyday. They also find it hard to monitor their carb intake for each and every food that they put in their mouths.

It should be noted that the amount of restrictions are different for each individual, especially after the induction phase. The level of restriction will be tailor-made to the person concerned, which will depend in his reaction to the initial phase of the diet.

The Atkins Diet works because it helps people determine their own carbohydrate tolerance levels. The diet can be quite tedious to maintain because it requires one to learn the amount of grams of carbohydrate in the food that they eat, but this is essential for the program to work and lose the unwanted pounds.

Of course, just like all diet programs, the Atkins program has its own set of pros and cons.

Pros – Being able to eat the so-called “forbidden foods” such as steak, cream and butter even on a diet, although it is advised to eat different kinds of fats, and to always include Omega-3’s and olive oil in their food intake.

The diet’s popularity is also a big advantage. Information about the program can be easily found in books, TV and online, and there are lots of websites dedicated solely to providing information about the diet.

Cons – Counting the carbs in every food item can turn off some people. Also, some of those who went through the diet responded negatively to the induction phase; their bodies reacted in a not-so-good way 3-5 days into the diet. Also, some find it hard to get all the nutrients that they need on a low-carb diet such as the Atkins. Vitamin supplements do help, but they fear the long-term impact of depriving the body of vitamins that one gets naturally from food loaded with carbohydrates.