By Kathleen DohenyHealthDay Reporter
High protein, Atkins-type diets don't cause noticeable harm to the kidneys in healthy patients without kidney disease, a new study indicates.
"There has been concern for decades about possible damaging effects of high-protein diets on the kidney," said Dr. Allon Friedman, an associate professor of medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis. It was thought that excess protein "can rev up the filtering mechanism in the kidney,

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By Amanda GardnerHealthDay Reporter
In a scenario reminiscent of the film Fantastic Voyage, researchers have found a way to perform nearly surgery-free gastric bypass procedures in pigs using only a local anesthetic.
The procedure, done with moveable magnets, is completed in less than a half-hour, the researchers said, and reroutes the digestive tract without leaving behind any foreign material.
Although pigs may not seem to be "the best model for looking at resolution of obesity and

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People who shop at lower-cost supermarkets are more likely to be obese than those who shop at higher-priced stores, according to a new study.
The findings suggest that supermarket prices -- rather than proximity -- may be a key weapon in the United States' fight against obesity.
Using the Seattle Obesity Study and information collected from a 25-minute phone survey, researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle examined information on a group of residents in King County,

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Second Year After Weight Loss Surgery May Be Riskiest
By Kathleen DohenyWebMD Health News
Reviewed by Brunilda Nazario, MD
June 18, 2012 -- Two years after weight loss surgery, people may be particularly vulnerable to alcohol abuse problems.
That news comes from a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
"What we found was more gastric bypass patients reported symptoms of alcohol use disorder in the second year after surgery, compared to pre-surgery or the first

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By Alan MozesHealthDay Reporter
Women who have the popular plastic surgery procedure known as liposuction may be trading one form of fat for another, as a new study reveals that the sudden removal of abdominal fat seems to trigger a buildup of fat around the internal organs.
At issue, the Brazilian researchers said, is an apparent trade-off between two kinds of fat, with the removal of "subcutaneous fat" spurring the growth of "visceral fat."
Subcutaneous fat, located directly under the skin,

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Seven years after they underwent weight-loss surgery, patients as a whole fared better on several measurements of their risk of cardiac problems, a new study finds, and many returned to normal levels.
The findings don't prove that weight-loss surgery reduces the risk of events such as heart attack and stroke, although other research has suggested it does. And weight-loss surgery, which includes procedures such as gastric bypass, comes with major risks of its own and is only recommended

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One-third of homeless people in the United States are obese, about the same rate as the general population, a new study finds.
It might seem that hunger and lack of food would put homeless people at risk for weighing too little, according to the researchers at Harvard Medical School in Boston and the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.
But, the high rate of obesity among homeless people may be due to their reliance on cheap foods that contain high levels of fat and sugar. Another

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