Health
In Poorer Countries, Obesity Can Signal Financial Security
In the world’s wealthiest countries, the richer people are, the thinner they tend to be.
But in Uganda, one of the poorest nations, where nearly half the population eats fewer calories than they need each day, excess fat is often a sign of wealth and can help get a bank loan, according to a forthcoming article in The American Economic Review.
It’s not surprising that in places where food is scarce, obesity serves as a significant marker of wealth.
But what the new study points out is that in poor countries, information is also scarce. And in those situations, loan officers use whatever bits of evidence they can find to help make critical economic decisions.
“Given the scarcity of readily available hard information in poor countries, wealth signals, including obesity, play a crucial role in economic interactions where individuals seek to evaluate someone’s wealth,” said Elisa Macchi, an assistant professor of economics at Brown University.
As part of her research, Ms. Macchi conducted tests with 238 loan officers at 146 financial institutions in the capital city of Kampala. She asked them to review applications from fictionalized potential borrowers whose accompanying photographs were manipulated so they appeared thin or fat.
It is not uncommon in Uganda for people to include a photo of themselves when submitting a loan application, and it can be one nugget of information that a loan officer uses to decide whether to even grant an applicant a first interview, Ms. Macchi said.
What she discovered was that loan officers were more likely to rate the applicants as more creditworthy and more financially sound when the obese version of the photograph was attached.
“The obesity premium is large, equivalent to the effect of a 60 percent increase in borrower self-reported income in the experiment,” or an additional asset like ownership of a car, the study concluded.
Historically, corpulence was prized in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Mauritania was once notorious for the custom of brutally force-feeding young girls to make them more marriageable — a practice referred to as gavage, taken from the French term for force-feeding geese to produce foie gras. Fat was a considered both a sign of family wealth and a cultural ideal.
Lately, obesity has become an increasingly worrisome health risk on the continent, a development that follows the trend in the richest nations where obesity is often correlated with poverty. The easy availability of cheap, highly processed foods that have little nutritional value allows people to satisfy hunger pangs without promoting overall health.
In developing countries, changes in diets, a lack of physical activity and the use of varying modes of transportation particularly in cities are helping to drive the weight gain.
“Africa is facing a growing problem of obesity and overweight, and the trends are rising,” Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization’s regional director for Africa, said last year in a statement. “If unchecked, millions of people, including children, risk living shorter lives under the burden of poor health.”
Research has found that obesity has been associated with severe disease, and hospitalization of Covid-19 patients.
The World Health Organization and other international organizations have started to work with Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda to develop programs and standards to promote healthy diets and physical activity.
Cultural associations and stereotypes, though, often persist despite science-based recommendations, such as the perception that fat signals an abundance of money.
But at least in the case of loan officers in Uganda, facts ultimately trumped perception. When more solid information was provided — like the loan applicant’s income, collateral and occupation — lenders used it, and the so-called obesity premium fell.
“The good thing is that it’s not that entrenched,” Ms. Macchi said about preconceived notions about wealth and weight. “The moment when we give them the information, then they respond to it.”
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What happens when you pair honeybees and halitosis? Potentially a life-saving new method to screen for cancer, according to one study.
Researchers at Michigan State University have learned that honeybees can detect chemicals associated with lung cancer in human breath. The insects were able to sniff out human lung cancer biomarkers with a remarkable 82% success rate, according to a study published in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics.
“These results indicate that the honeybee olfactory system can be used as a sensitive biological gas sensor to detect human lung cancer,” the study authors wrote.
“Insects have an amazing sense of smell the same way dogs do,” said MSU professor Debajit Saha, according to an MSU news release.
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A honeybee drinking nectar from a flower in Markham, Ontario, Canada. (Creative Touch Imaging Ltd./NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Saha, an assistant professor in the College of Engineering and MSU’s Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering, sought to determine whether honeybees could distinguish chemicals in a healthy person’s breath from that of someone sick with lung cancer.
His team developed a “recipe” for a synthetic breath mixture that contained six compounds present in the breath of someone with cancer and a synthetic “healthy” breath mixture.
“It took a steady hand to create the recipe,” said Elyssa Cox, Saha’s former lab manager. “We tested the synthetic lung cancer versus healthy human breath mixtures on approximately 20 bees.”
The researchers placed each live bee in a custom 3D-printed harness and attached a tiny electrode to its brain to measure activity.
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Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death worldwide. An estimated 235,580 people will be diagnosed with lung cancer in 2024 in the U.S., according to the Lung Cancer Research Foundation. (Mohammed Haneefa Nizamudeen/iStock)
“We pass those odors on to the antenna of the honeybees and recorded the neural signals from their brain,” said Saha. “We see a change in the honeybee’s neural firing response.”
The researchers found that the bees were able to detect the cancer-indicating compounds even in small amounts.
“The honeybees detected very small concentrations; it was a very strong result,” said Saha. “Bees can differentiate between minute changes in the chemical concentrations of the breath mixture, which is in the parts per 1 billion range.”
The bees also could tell the difference between the synthetic lung cancer breath and healthy breath.
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A honey bee visits a blooming catmint plant growing in Santa Fe, New Mexico. (Robert Alexander/Getty Images)
Scientists hope this research will lead to the development of a sensor based on a honeybee brain that can be used to test human breath for the presence of lung cancer.
“What’s amazing is the honeybees’ ability to not only detect cancer cells, but also distinguish between cell lines of various types of lung cancer,” said Autumn McLane-Svoboda, a graduate student on Saha’s team. “The future implications for this are huge, as our sensor could allow for patients to receive specific cancer diagnoses quickly, which is imperative for correct treatment routes.”
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death worldwide. An estimated 235,580 people will be diagnosed with lung cancer in 2024 in the U.S., according to the Lung Cancer Research Foundation.
Smoking is the leading risk factor for lung cancer and is responsible for 80% of lung cancer deaths.
Early detection of high-risk lung cancer can reduce the chance of death by up to 20%.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recommended that COVID vaccine manufacturers update their formulas for fall doses, in an attempt to target the KP.2 strain of the JN.1 variant.
The Thursday announcement came just a week after the agency’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) voted to recommend a “monovalent JN.1-lineage vaccine” at its June 5 meeting.
As of the end of March 2024, the KP.2 variant was responsible for just 4% of infections in the U.S., according to the COVID Data Tracker from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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Meanwhile, over 50% of infections at that time were attributed to its parental strain, JN.1.
Just a few weeks later, KP.2 is now the cause of around 28% of infections, while the JN.1 variants have largely dropped in prevalence, the tracker shows.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has recommended that COVID vaccine manufacturers update their formulas for fall doses, in an attempt to target the KP.2 strain of the JN.1 variant. (iStock)
Dr. Marc Siegel, clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center and a Fox News medical contributor, recently spoke with Dr. Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) at the Food and Drug Administration, about the new vaccine formulations.
“It makes sense to target the KP.2 strain because it is becoming the predominant strain — it is surging in California and will spread across the country,” Siegel told Fox News Digital.
KP.2 is now the cause of around 28% of infections, while the JN.1 variants have largely dropped in prevalence, CDC Tracker data shows. (iStock)
The KP.2 strain is “highly immunoevasive,” the doctor warned — which means that immunity from previous variants and subvariants don’t offer much protection.
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“On the other hand, the vaccine will cause a production of immune cells and antibodies that will continue to protect you against previous variants and subvariants,” Siegel added.
The updated vaccine is especially important for high-risk groups, those who have chronic illnesses, the elderly and anyone who comes in contact with them, according to doctors. (iStock)
It is especially important for high-risk groups, those who have chronic illnesses, the elderly and anyone who comes in contact with them, according to the doctor.
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In a statement to Fox News Digital, vaccine maker Novavax — which makes protein-based vaccines — said the company “just filed” its application for a JN.1 COVID vaccine.
A vial of the Phase 3 Novavax coronavirus vaccine is seen ready for use in the trial at St. George’s University hospital in London, on Oct. 7, 2020. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)
“Novavax’s updated JN.1 COVID-19 vaccine is active against current circulating strains, including KP.2 and KP.3,” the company said in a press release.
“The submission is in line with guidance from the U.S. FDA, European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to target the JN.1 lineage this fall.”
For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews/health.
Fox News Digital reached out to Pfizer and Moderna — both of which produce mRNA-based vaccines — requesting comment on their plans for fall formulations.
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