. People who eat too many sweet foods increase their obesity risk, a new study found. Eating too much fructose – a sugar found in foods ranging from cookies to candies and soda – can block the appetite-controlling hormone leptin from doing its job and increase the risk of obesity, a University of Florida study of rats suggests. Leptin resistance has long been linked to obesity, and a number of studies have shown that eating too many sugary foods laced with the corn-based sweetener may be an important factor in the United States’ obesity epidemic. This new study is the first to link fructose and leptin resistance, reports HealthDay.

The gap is growing between Black and White Chicago women dying from breast cancer.  Since 1980, when Black and White women in Chicago with breast cancer were equally likely to die, the death rates for White breast cancer patients have dramatically improved. But Black women have seen no such improvements, and in fact are dying at 116 percent higher rates than Whites in Chicago, according to new numbers released Wednesday by the Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force. In fact, the gap has widened, the report says. Last year, the group analyzed data through 2003 and found a 68 percent higher death rate for Black women over those of Whites. Experts say genetics or biology alone cannot explain the difference. The racial gap in Chicago was twice that of the United States and sevenfold that of New York City, according to the researchers, who were from Sinai Urban Health Institute and who looked at vital records through 2005, obtained from the Illinois Department of Public Health. “It was as if no screening or treatment was going on for black women, which we knew was not true,” said Dr. David Ansell, chairman of the task force, made up of 74 health-care groups and more than 100 breast cancer physicians, researchers and advocates. Black women are less likely to get mammograms, the task force says. When they do, the mammograms are more likely to be of inferior quality. Those diagnosed with cancer also are less likely to have access to quality treatment. For more on Black women and breast cancer go to BET.com/Body & Soul.

TAGS: breast cancer, chicago, gap, obesity, Sugary foods, women

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