The effects of green tea on lipid metabolism and its potential applications for obesity and related metabolic disorders - An existing update.

Obesity is one of the top global issues, which induces several serious health consequences both physically and mentally, such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, dyslipidemia, eating disorders, depression and stress. However, the effective therapy to prevent and treat obesity and overweight, up to now, cannot be found nowadays. Several methods/medicines namely diet control, energy balance, environmental changes, genetic and stem cell therapies, new drugs/chemicals have been extensively studied to enhance the ability to control bodyweight and prevent obesity. Of all the aforementioned methods, green tea, used as a daily beverage, has shown beneficial impacts for the health, especially its anti-obesity effects. Available evidence shows that green tea can interrupt lipid emulsification, reduce adipocyte differentiation, increase thermogenesis, and reduce food intake, thus green tea improves the systemic metabolism and decreases fat mass. Here, we highlight and sum up the update investigations of anti-obesity effect of green tea as well as discuss the potential application of them for preventing obesity and its related metabolic disorders.

The dental arch dimensions in Vietnamese children at 7 years of age, and their variation by gender and ethnicity.

PURPOSE: Dental arch dimensions are important not only in dentistry (e.g. orthodontists and prosthodontists, and forensic odontology), but also other medical fields, biology, biometrics, painting or sculpture. This study aimed to determine these dimensions in Vietnamese children and compare these measurements across four ethnic groups and genders. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 3204 Vietnamese children at 7 years of age from four major ethnic groups in Vietnam (Kinh, Tay, Thai and Muong). RESULTS: The means variables in study subjects were 33.72 ±â€¯2.16 mm for upper inter-canine width (UCW); 52.74 ±â€¯2.55 mm for upper inter-molar width (UMW); 8.69 ±â€¯1.79 mm for upper anterior length (UAL); 29.59 ±â€¯1.97 mm for upper posterior length (UPL); 26.94 ±â€¯2.49 mm for lower inter-canine width (LCW); 45.89 ±â€¯2.59 mm for lower inter-molar width (LMW); 5.04 ±â€¯1.53 mm for lower anterior length (LAL); and 26.22 ±â€¯2.07 mm for lower posterior length (LPL). The UCM, UMW, and LMW of Muong were significantly wider in males, but narrower in females compared with other ethnic groups. The Kinh, Tay and Thai groups had no significant differences between genders in all dimensions, but these sizes were significantly larger in males than females of Muong group. CONCLUSIONS: This study presents the means of dental arch dimensions in 7 year-old Vietnamese children, and there is no statistical differences in these dimensions between genders of almost studied groups, except Muong group. Ethnic differences are observed only in UCW, UMW and LMW of Muong vs other groups. Furthermore, Vietnamese children have dental arch width similar to the African and Caucasian.

An update on obesity: Mental consequences and psychological interventions.

Besides physical consequences, obesity has negative psychological effects, thereby lowering human life quality. Major psychological consequences of this disorder includes depression, impaired body image, low self-esteem, eating disorders, stress and poor quality of life, which are correlated with age and gender. Physical interventions, mainly diet control and energy balance, have been widely applied to treat obesity; and some psychological interventions including behavioral therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy and hypnotherapy have showed some effects on obesity treatment. Other psychological therapies, such as relaxation and psychodynamic therapies, are paid less attention. This review aims to update scientific evidence regarding the mental consequences and psychological interventions for obesity.

An update on physical health and economic consequences of overweight and obesity.

Overweight and obesity (OW and OB) have been on the increase globally and posed health risks to the world's population of all ages, including pre-born babies, children, adolescents, adults and elderly people, via their comorbid conditions. Excellent examples of comorbidities associated with obesity include cancer, cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). In this article, we aimed to review and update scientific evidence regarding the relationships between obesity and its common physical health consequences, including CVD, T2DM, hypertension, ischemic stroke, cancer, dyslipidemia and reproductive disorders. In addition, the economic burden of OW and OB will be discussed. Abundant evidence is found to support the associations between obesity and other diseases. In general, the odd ratios, risk ratios or hazard ratios are often higher in OW and OB people than in the normal-weight ones. However, the molecular mechanism of how OW and OB induce the development of other diseases has not been fully understood. Figures also showed that obesity and its-related disorders exert enormous pressure on the economy which is projected to increase. This review highlights the fact that obesity can lead to numerous lethal health problems; therefore, it requires a lot of economic resources to fight against this epidemic.