Exercise changes fat storage
Rigorous exercise is known as the best way to burn off some excess calories, but it may also bring another advantage — it helps to change the way fat is stored in the first place.
Scientists found that six months of regular exercise changed the action of genes involved in the storage of fat and the development of obesity. The exercise added and removed chemical groups to the DNA in a process known as epigenetic imprinting, or methylation, causing the genes to be switched on or off. The researchers found more than 7,000 genes were affected in this way as a result of exercise in overweight volunteers. Also, key genes involved in storing sugar from blood stream inside fat cells have their activity reduced.
fertility
treatment and autism
A common form of fertility treatment increases the risk of children developing autism and mental disabilities in later life, a new study has found. Researchers have reported that children born following an IVF treatments for male infertility are 51 per cent more at risk of developing intellectual impairments than those born by normal conception.
Around half of the 48,000 IVF treatments carried out annually in Britain use this form of fertility treatment, known as intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). It is used where the men are deemed to be almost completely infertile and involves injecting the sperm directly into their partner’s egg. The study also found that in the most severe cases of male infertility, where men require surgery as part of the treatment, children were more than four times more likely to develop autism.
Modern diet
leads to wartime illness
Wartime diseases such as scurvy and rickets are on the rise among British children because their junk food diets are worse than during rationing, doctors have warned.
Health chiefs said the resurgence of such a disease is being caused by parents’ reliance on takeaways and microwave meals to feed their children. Dr Mark Temple, chairman of the British Medical Association’s public health medicine committee, warned: “Food standards in the UK are worse now that they were during the rationing during the war.” Dr Temple said it was a “great tragedy” that children’s diets today are as unhealthy as the wartime diet. He added: “That’s a strong indictment on the food industry. Obesity is a major health threat and we ought to be doing something about it.”