Unilever Says New Milkshake Helps Control Appetite

GENEVA (Reuters) - A new weight loss drink that tastes like a milkshake significantly reduces appetite and could soon join Unilever's $400 million Slim-Fast weight-loss brand, the company's researchers said on Wednesday.

A study showed that the drink, which works by trapping gas in foods to make people feel full, worked even better than the company's Slim-Fast weight-loss drink, they said.

The researchers, who presented their findings at the 2008 European Congress on Obesity, said the company has patented the technology.

"The technology is now available for the brand to use in future formats," said David Mela, a Unilever nutritionist who worked on the study. "The food maintains the bulk, much of which is air that helps you maintain that full feeling."

Obesity is a big problem and big business. About 400 million people are classified as obese, putting them at higher risk of diseases like type 2 diabetes and heart diseases, according to the World Health Organization.

This has in part spurred companies like Unilever, Kraft Foods, General Mills, Sara Lee and others to turn to healthier products with a whole range of so-called health and wellness foods.

"If you look at western populations, a (large number) of adults are overweight," said Gert Meijer, an executive at Unilever's research and development division. "In terms of the amount of people who might be interested in this product, it could be huge."

In the Unilever study, the researchers tested their milkshake on 24 volunteers who were given either the new drink or a serving of regular Slim-Fast at breakfast.

People who had the milkshake reported that they were significantly fuller when asked at different intervals over a four-hour time period. The researchers found that a half-sized serving of the milkshake also suppressed hunger.

"We are clearly talking about hours," said Sergei Melnikov, a physical chemist who helped develop the technology. "It is an effect that lasts for an hour or two or longer."

The milkshake is designed to trap gas in the food after consumption, preventing it from dissolving in the mouth as happens with foods like whipped cream, and cutting appetite.

To do this the team engineered the fats, proteins and fibers in the food until reaching the right mix to trap the gas -- a technology that might appear in other Unilever foods, the researchers said.

"I would say this is not limited to liquids," Melnikov said. "It could be used in other food forms."


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Fat Kids Found To Have Arteries of 45-Year-Olds

NEW ORLEANS – Obese children as young as 10 had the arteries of 45-year-olds and other heart abnormalities that greatly raise their risk of heart disease, say doctors who used ultrasound tests to take a peek inside.

"As the old saying goes, you're as old as your arteries are," said Dr. Geetha Raghuveer of Children's Hospital in Kansas City, who led one of the studies. "This is a wake-up call."

The studies were reported Tuesday at an American Heart Association conference.

About a third of American children are overweight and one-fifth are obese. Many parents think that "baby fat" will melt away as kids get older. But research increasingly shows that fat kids become fat adults, with higher risks for many health problems.

"Obesity is not benign in children and adolescents," said Dr. Robert Eckel, a former heart association president and cardiologist at the University of Colorado-Denver. It is why the American Academy of Pediatrics recently recommended cholesterol-lowering drugs for some kids, he noted.

Raghuveer wanted to see if early signs of damage could be documented. She and colleagues used painless ultrasound tests to measure the thickness of the wall of a major neck artery in 70 children, ages 10 to 16. Almost all had abnormal cholesterol and many were obese.

No one knows how thick a 10-year-old's artery should be, since they're not regularly checked for signs of heart disease, so researchers used tables for 45-year-olds, who often do get such exams.

The kids' "vascular age" was about 30 years older than their actual age, she found.

A separate study tied childhood obesity to abnormal enlargement of the left atrium, one of the chambers of the heart. Enlargement is a known risk factor for heart disease, stroke and heart rhythm problems.

Julian Ayer, a researcher at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Sydney Australia, did ultrasound exams on 991 seemingly healthy children ages 5 to 15. He saw a clear link between rising weight and size of the left atrium.

A third study by Dr. Walter Abhayaratna of Australian National University in Canberra, Australia, also used ultrasound tests and found impairment in the heart's ability to relax between beats in children who were overweight or obese.

The study involved the first 150 children participating in a larger community-based study.

Earlier research he helped conduct found more rigid arteries in such children — a possible sign of plaque deposits starting to form.

"Even at this young age of 10, you can have children who have got arterial stiffness who are comparable to 30- and 40-year-olds," he said.

Dr. Michael Schloss, a New York University heart disease prevention specialist, said the evidence shows obesity is more than a cosmetic issue for children.

"If you've seen what's on the menu for most school lunches, these findings are no surprise," he said. "The time has come to seriously deal with the issue of childhood obesity and physical inactivity on a governmental and parental level."