How to Lose Pounds Fast

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Obese women who lose weight during pregnancy may have a lower risk of certain pregnancy complications, but — with the exception of extremely obese women — those benefits may be outweighed by negative effects on the baby’s birth size, a new study suggests.

The findings, published in the obstetrics journal BJOG, add to the fairly controversial idea that it can be healthy for obese pregnant women to maintain their pre-pregnancy weight, or even lose a few pounds.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – While the low-fat diet craze led some doctors to worry that Americans would instead start eating too many carbohydrates, a new study suggests that eating low-fat doesn’t have to increase carbohydrate-fueled health risks.

Instead, if extra carbohydrates are part of a diet plan that includes more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, the risk of diabetes – the biggest related health concern — could actually drop, at least in older women, according to the findings.

However, a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet could create problems in people who already have diabetes, researchers caution.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Women who are very obese may be able to safely lose some weight during pregnancy — and possibly reduce their risk of needing a cesarean section, a new study suggests.

The findings, reported in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, add to evidence that at least some obese women may be able to shed pounds during pregnancy without harming themselves or their baby.

But researchers still caution that women should not start a weight-loss diet during pregnancy, and should instead talk with their doctor about any healthy diet and lifestyle changes.

MONDAY, Nov. 22 (HealthDay News) — Almost one-quarter of young women who are overweight actually perceive themselves as being normal weight, while a sizable minority (16 percent) of women at normal body weight actually fret that they’re too fat, according to a new study.

The study found these misperceptions to be often correlated with race: Black and Hispanic women were much more likely to play down their overweight status compared with whites, who were more apt to worry that they weighed too much (even when they didn’t).

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Obese women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) may be half as likely as their normal-weight counterparts to have a baby, a study at one U.S. medical center suggests.

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston found that of 1,700 women who underwent IVF at their center, those who were obese were up to 50 percent less likely to become pregnant or give birth.

Obese women also generally had lower estrogen levels and produced fewer normally fertilized embryos — pointing to potential reasons that obese women are less likely to have a baby via IVF.

It may be surprising to learn that despite a ban on birth control, that the Catholic Church is losing the battle with its female followers. According to a new report from the Guttermacher Institute, a nonprofit sexual and reproductive health research organization, about 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women use contraceptives. This leaves a mere 2 percent among the most pious who rely on natural family planning, as mandated by the practice of Catholicism.

The findings support a decade-long trend tracked by Catholics for Choice, and the current numbers are almost identical to those from the 2002 NSFG, which found that 97 percent of Catholic women were using birth control.