The real cost of obesity may be much higher than the €1.13 billion highlighted in the Safefood study published yesterday, its health and nutrition director, Dr Cliodhna Foley-Nolan, said. Lead researcher Dr Anne Dee said lower back pain was a…
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Hospital oversubscribed for weight-loss surgery
More than 130 severely obese adults are on a waiting list for weight-loss surgery at a public hospital that can only do about 25 such procedures a year. Professor Donal O’Shea, consultant endocrinologist at St Columcille’s Hospital in Loughlinstown, Co…
Meal-replacement products just quick fix, warns doctor
PHARMACISTS WHO promote low-calorie meal-replacement products encourage a cycle of failure, a leading weight management consultant has said. Dr Donal O’Shea, who runs the weight management clinic at Loughlinstown Hospital and is chairman of the Irish Heart Foundation’s Nutrition Council,…
Dukan: Kate’s celebrity diet doctor faces ethics charge over radical plan for kids
PIERRE Dukan, whose controversial celebrity diet is said to have helped the Duchess of Cambridge squeeze into her wedding dress, could be struck off the medical register over proposals to award extra marks to schoolchildren who lose weight, it has…
Scientists discover obesity gene
A SINGLE gene’s effect on the brain can result in non-stop eating, research published online in Nature Medicine has shown. Scientists believe the “gluttony gene” may be responsible for cases of obesity caused by out-of-control appetite. The Bdnf gene variant…
Muiris Houston acknowledges obesity as a complex, sometimes organic body type
In other words it was like weight loss had put their bodies into a different metabolic state that set them apart from people who hadn’t tried to lose weight in the first place. The body was essentially defending itself with…
Avoiding ‘the curse’ of diabetes
ONE OF the main contributory factors to the epidemic of type 2 diabetes in Ireland is the increased weight of the population. An obese adult is three times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, compared with somebody who remains…
Obese people in denial over weight problem
IRISH PEOPLE are in denial about the extent to which they as individuals are overweight, according to the authors of Government-sponsored new research on obesity. Safefood’s director of human health and nutrition, Dr Cliodhna Foley-Nolan, said the research showed there…
Parents ‘not solely to blame for obesity’
“It’s a bit simplistic to blame parents, they have a role but they are products of their own environment,” she said, adding that higher levels of obesity in poorer neighbourhoods was also a factor. Ms Fitzgerald was speaking at an Irish…
A blanket fat tax won’t solve our health issues
Jacky Jones: “The problem is food processing and not greedy people. What Ireland needs is a tax on all ultra-processed foods and not a blanket fat tax. Such a fiscal measure will encourage us to eat real food with a…
‘Fat frail’ patients difficult to treat
Dr John E Morley, director of the division of geriatric medicine at St Louis University Medical Center in Missouri, US, will be speaking at the inaugural Irish Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (ISPEN) annual conference at the Royal College of…
National Children’s Research Centre on obesity
Obesity has risen sharply over the past few years with more and more children effected. And diabetes incidence often follows close behind as the children mature into young adults. For this reason the National Children’s Research Centre at Crumlin, Dublin,…
Tagged with: Obesity
Posted in Carlos Blanco, Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children, Public health, Research
Posted in Carlos Blanco, Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children, Public health, Research
Most overweight babies have fat fathers, hospital study reveals
Dr Nadine Farah, from the UCD Centre of Reproduction at the Coombe, said: “Approximately half the women attending our antenatal classes were either overweight or obese, which is quite alarming. “But then we did another study where we looked at…
Michael O’Shea on food companies’ part in obesity crisis
[Letter to Times >>>] Sir, – Dr Muireann Cullen’s piece (Opinion, August 15th) omits what is perhaps a significant element of the current obesity crisis – global food companies’ highly sophisticated and effective marketing and promotion of foods that are…
Expanding services for our expanding girths
While prevention of obesity is a key goal, consultant endocrinologist at St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin, Prof Donal O’Shea, points out that access to treatment for people with severe obesity is a basic entitlement. He heads up the State’s first…
Dr Muireann Cullen on obesity
Obesity is no longer a personal tragedy. It is a challenge that threatens our society and our economy, as well as our citizens. More than anything, we must resist the notion that it is normal and therefore acceptable. (Times) >>>
Dr Donal O’Shea on obesity
According to Dr Donal O’Shea, a consultant endocrinologist and the director of the weight management Clinic at St Columcille’s Hospital, 20% of Irish children are obese or overweight, which equates to 327,000 children. Dr O’Shea said the figure will be…
Muiris Houston on ‘fat stigmatisation’
Welcome to 21st century public health promotion. It appears many long-accepted principles of good medicine have been sacrificed to the “shock and awe tactics” of a military campaign. It’s now time to root out the greedy insurgents who spend their…
Times editorial on obesity
Two-thirds of Irish people are now either overweight or obese. The really frightening aspect is that a quarter of Irish children are now obese because of the excessive amounts of sugar, salt and fat in their diets and a lack of…
Tackle obesity, experts say
Women are 12lbs heavier on average than they were in 1990 and men are 18lbs heavier, said Safefood human health director Dr Cliodhna Foley-Nolan. Obesity expert Professor Donal O’Shea said it was vital that people took action when they were…
Children, 12, have eating disorder: specialist
Ten years ago, Mary Synott found it unusual to see a 15-year-old boy with an eating disorder. Nowadays, the psychiatric nurse/psychotherapist, sees children as young as 12 with some type of eating disorder. Ms Synott said there is a deficit…
75% of GPs have prescribed anti-obesity drugs
THREE-out-of-every-four GPs have referred a patient for obesity-battling medications, while almost all have patients who had invasive weight-related surgery with or without their doctor’s approval. A new study by Trinity College, Dublin’s (TCD’s) department of primary care and public health has…
A health problem that just keeps getting bigger
Dr Jacky Jones writes: “The National Obesity Taskforce Report (2005) was supposed to have sorted out Ireland’s obesity problem, but five years on very little has changed. Why is this? I was a member of this task force and, as…
William Reville on expanding waistlines’ threat to public health
William Reville: “Behaviour-counselling interventions have been shown to be effective in treating a wide variety of problem behaviours and disorders. For example, even brief behavioural-counselling interventions have been shown to reduce the number of drinks taken by problem drinkers by…
Soaring obesity ‘a risk to years of health gains’
A 30pc hike in adult obesity levels over the past decade could put in jeopardy many of the health gains made in the same period, an official report warned yesterday. Obesity levels in Irish adults have increased by one-third in…
We’re now the second-fattest nation in EU
The report pointed out that children who are obese or overweight are more likely to suffer from poor health later in life, with a greater risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, some forms of cancer, arthritis, asthma, reduced quality of…
Obesity leading to joint replacements in young
HIP AND knee replacements are required in more and more young people due to obesity, a conference on nutrition has heard. The comments were made by Dr Bernadette Carr, medical director of VHI, at the conference on obesity organised by…
Irish among fattest in Europe as our obesity levels soar
Franco Sassi, the OECD senior health economist who wrote the eport, told the Irish Independent “Although the data are not fully comparable, there are indications that obesity rates have increased by 40pc in Ireland in the last 10 years and…
