Two new studies regarding weight and health introduce new concepts to think about.
First, the Food and Drug Administration has approved a new device to add in weight loss.
The Maestro Rechargeable System is a device that is implanted above the stomach and has a regulator inserted under the skin near the rib cage. The device manipulates and suppresses appetite signals passed between the stomach and the brain to help with weight loss.
The device is manufactured by EnteroMedics, a Minnesota-based company, and it is the first weight loss device to be approved since 2007, according to the FDA. In a 12-month trial, the average weight loss by those who had an active device was 8.5 times greater than those who had an inactive device.
The other piece of new research comes from a team that evaluated data from 47 previous studies to show that sitting for a long time increases the risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and early death.
You might be thinking “well, duh, I knew that,” but what you might not know is that working out doesn’t counteract being sedentary. The Los Angeles Times reports that study showed that even if you work out for 90 minutes a day, as recommended, your health will still decline if you sit for long periods of time, though the impact of sitting is less severe for those who do exercise.
The specifics show that while working out reduces the likelihood that you’ll die by 30 percent even if you do sit for long periods of time, that your risk of dying is increased by 16 percent compared to those who don’t sit for long periods of time and also work out.
Important to note is that the semantics of what constitutes high levels of activity and long periods of sitting were different among the 47 studies, leaving room for a larger margin of error.
