By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor Mon Oct 22, 4:33 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People are getting fatter in all parts of the world, with the possible exception of east Asia, doctors found in a one-day global snapshot of obesity.

That puts the rest of the world close to par with the United States, long considered the country with the worst weight problem. An estimated two-thirds of Americans are overweight and a third of these are obese.

"The study results show that excess body weight is pandemic, with one-half to two-thirds of the overall study population being overweight or obese," said Beverley Balkau, director of research at the French National health research institute INSERM in Villejuif, who led the study published in the journal Circulation.

People who are overweight have a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes and some types of cancer.

Balkau and colleagues evaluated 168,159 adults who happened to be seeing their primary care doctors in 63 countries across five continents -- but not the United States --in 2006.

In all regions except southern and eastern Asia, 60 percent of men and 50 percent of women were either overweight or obese, they found.

This was measured using body mass index, or BMI, which calculates height to weight and is considered an accurate way of assessing overweight in most adults except highly muscled athletes.

THIN ASIANS

A BMI of 18-24 is considered healthy. People with BMIs of 25 to 30 are overweight and anyone with a BMI of 30 or more is obese.

Just 7 percent of people in eastern Asia fossilsbest were obese, compared to 36 percent of people seeing their doctors in Canada, 38 percent of women in Middle Eastern countries and 40 percent in South Africa.

Canada and South Africa led in the percentage of overweight people, with an average BMI of 29 among both men and women in Canada and 29 among South African women.

In Northern Europe men had an average BMI of 27 and women 26 -- just into the overweight category. In southern Europe, the average BMI was 28. In Australia BMI was 28 for men and 27.5 for women while in Latin America the average BMI was just under 28.

Other experts noted that the people studied were all seeing doctors at the time.

This clearly would affect the results, said Dr. Gerald Fletcher, a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida and a spokesman for the American Heart Association.

While the poorest people in industrialized countries tend to be among the most overweight, this is not the case in the developing world, where the poorest have little chance of ever seeing a doctor and are also often undernourished.

But the findings also mean doctors can do more to help patients, Fletcher said.

"Health care providers are not paying enough attention to people who are too fat," Fletcher said in a telephone interview.

"We don't look at prevention enough."

 LONDON (Reuters) - Keeping slim is one of the best ways of preventing cancer, as is avoiding excessive amounts of red meat and wine, a landmark study has revealed.

It found convincing evidence of a link to six types of cancer, five more than in its last report, 10 years ago.

Among the new types sortstop are colorectal (bowel) and post-menopausal breast cancer.

Professor Michael Marmot, chair of the panel of 21 eminent scientists who compiled the report, said: "We are recommending that people aim to be as lean as possible within the healthy range, and that they avoid weight gain throughout adulthood."

The report, which selected 7,000 studies from a worldwide pool of 500,000 written since records began in the 1960s, includes five key findings.

They are that processed meats, such as ham and bacon, increase the risk of colorectal cancer, and should be eaten sparingly.

Another is the link between red meat and colorectal cancer, for which the evidence is stronger than ever. People should not eat more than 500g of cooked red meat a week -- or between 700g and 750g for "blue" or uncooked meat.

A further finding was the strongest evidence yet that alcohol is a cause of cancer. If people must drink, the report said, they should limit their intake to two units a day for a man or one for a woman. A unit is a half pint of beer or a small glass of wine.

The report recommended mothers breastfeed exclusively for the first six months after birth followed by complementary breastfeeding, after evidence showed breastfeeding protects the mother against breast cancer.

It did not recommend dietary supplements as prevention.

"This report is a real milestone in the fight against cancer, because its recommendations represent the most definitive advice on preventing cancer that has ever been available anywhere in the world," said Professor Martin Wiseman, project director of the report.bestfishing

Scientists believe there are several reasons for the link between body fat and cancer.

One is the relationship between excess fat and the hormonal balance in the body.

Research has shown that fat cells release hormones such as estrogen, which increases the risk of breast cancer, while fat around the waist encourages the body to produce growth hormones, which can increase levels of risk.

Evidence of a link is most convincing for cancer of the esophagus, pancreas, colorectum, endometrium (womb), kidney and post-menopausal breast cancer.

The report makes 10 recommendations including 30 minutes of moderate activity a day, rising to 60 minutes; drinking water rather than sugary drinks; eating fruit, vegetables and fiber and limiting salt consumption.

The WCRF report can be found at: http://www.dietandcancerreport.org/

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Emotional eaters -- people who eat when they are lonely or blue -- tend to lose the least amount of weight and have the hardest time keeping it off, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

"We found that the more people report eating in response to thoughts and feelings, the less weight they lost," Heather Niemeier, an obesity researcher at The Miriam Hospital and The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, said in a statement.

"Amongst successful weight losers, those who report emotional eating are more likely to regain," said Niemeier, whose study appears in the journal Obesity.

The study included 286 overweight men and women who were participating in a behavioral weight loss program.

A second group consisted of more than 3,300 adults who have lost at least 30 pounds and kept it off for at least one year.

Niemeier and her team analyzed responses to an eating inventory questionnaire.

They focused on people who ate because of external influences, such as people who eat too much at parties, and people who ate farmsalebecause of internal influences, such as feeling lonely or as a reward.

What they found is that the more a person ate for internal reasons, the less weight they lost over time.

"Our results suggest that we need to pay more attention to eating triggered by emotions or thoughts as they clearly play a significant role in weight loss," Niemeier said.

The study was funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health

 By Julie Steenhuysen Thu Nov 8, 8:59 AM ET

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Being overweight may not kill you, but it could lead to obesity, U.S. health experts cautioned on Wednesday in response to research suggesting that being a bit heavy does not raise the risk of death.

It also was linked with a significantly decreased rate of death from non-cancer and non-heart related causes, such as accidents or diseases like Alzheimer's.

Experts noted that the research only looked at death rates, not overall health. It did find that obesity was associated with a significantly higher risk of death from heart disease.

"You should not take heart in the idea that if you are only overweight you are OK," said Dr. Robert Kushner, a professor of medicine at Northwestern University who specializes in nutrition and diet.

"Given time, there is a high likelihood you will be obese because people gain weight as they age in this country," Kushner said in a telephone interview.

He said many studies have shown Stock-Photography-Footagethat as one starts gaining weight, health risks develop. "We've done very well at medicating people to keep the medical complications at bay, which allows people to live longer," he said.

The study, conducted by Katherine Flegal of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, looked at specific causes of deaths in relation to body mass index, a ratio of height and weight.

A BMI of 25 to less than 30 is considered overweight, while a BMI of 30 or greater is considered obese.

The researchers found that people in the overweight category were no more likely than healthy-weight people to develop heart disease or cancer and had far fewer deaths from other causes, such as accidents or diseases such as Parkinson's or Alzheimer's.

"Among overweight people there were fewer deaths from those causes than expected," Flegal said in a telephone interview.

"There is some evidence that there might be something about nutritional reserves ... that makes you a better able to withstand an adverse situation," she said.

The study did find significant risks linked to obesity, including a higher risk of death from heart disease, diabetes and kidney disease, and several cancers that have been linked with obesity, such as breast, colon and pancreatic cancer.

Flegal said the study was not intended to alter any public health recommendations. "Everybody should eat right, be active and not smoke," she said.

Dr. Louis Aronne, an obesity expert at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, said it would be "dangerous as a society to assume it is OK to be overweight."

(Editing by Maggie Fox)

 CHICAGO (Reuters) - Emotional eaters -- people who eat when they are lonely or blue -- tend to lose the least amount of weight and have the hardest time keeping it off, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

"We found that the more people report eating in response to thoughts and feelings, the less weight they lost," Heather Niemeier, an obesity researcher at The Miriam Hospital and The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, said in a statement.

"Amongst successful weight losers, those who report emotional eating are more likely to regain," said Niemeier, whose study appears in the journal Obesity.

The study included 286 overweight men and women who were participating in a behavioral weight loss program.

A second group consisted of more than 3,300 adults who have lost at least 30 pounds and kept it off for at least one year.

Niemeier and her team analyzed responses to an eating inventory questionnaire.

They focused on people who ate because of external influences, such as people who eat too much at parties, and people who ate because of internal influences, Wholesale-Lots-Bulk-Foodssuch as feeling lonely or as a reward.

What they found is that the more a person ate for internal reasons, the less weight they lost over time.

"Our results suggest that we need to pay more attention to eating triggered by emotions or thoughts as they clearly play a significant role in weight loss," Niemeier said.

The study was funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health.

 By SETH SUTEL, AP Business Writer Thu Nov 8, 12:04 PM ET

NEW YORK - Cablevision Systems Corp. on Thursday reported a wider net loss for the third quarter, but operating income rose 59 percent as more cable TV customers signed up for high-speed Internet and digital phone services.

Cablevision, which also owns Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall and the New York Knicks, posted a loss of $79.3 million, or 27 cents per share, versus a loss of $59.2 million, or 21 cents per share, in the same period a year ago.

Revenues rose 9.4 percent to $1.51 billion.

Investors pushed Cablevision's shares lower following the forecast cuts. The shares touched a new 52-week low of $25.63 and were down 62 cents at $25.91 in late morning trading. The stock had traded as high as $39.75 over the last year.

Cablevision's shares have fallen in tandem with other cable companies over the last three months, partly over concerns about competitive threats from satellite TV providers and new offerings of video and high-speed Internet services from phone companies.

Several non-operating factors, including a higher tax benefit in the year-ago period as well as losses associated with retiring debt and from investments, affected the latest results.

Operating income jumped 59 percent to $202.1 million, driven by gains in its main business, cable TV.

dvdbuyCable earnings rose 22 percent to $208.1 million, as the company added 52,000 Internet service customers and 91,000 phone customers, but basic video customers declined 16,000. Cablevision has a total of about 3 million cable customers in the New York area.

Investors have been focused on efforts by Verizon Communications Inc. to offer video and data services over super-fast fiber optic lines in Cablevision's territory, largely in New York's Long Island.

Cablevision's chief operating officer Tom Rutledge said on a conference call that Verizon was now able to offer the services in about 800,000 homes, or about 25 percent of Cablevision's footprint. Analyst Craig Moffett of Sanford Bernstein said in a note to investors that Cablevision's customer losses in a seasonally weak quarter were "modest."

Profits from the AMC, IFC and WE cable channels jumped to $25 million from $6.8 million a year ago, driven by a 22 percent increase in advertising revenues on stronger results at AMC. Rainbow chief Josh Sapan said on the conference call that AMC had commissioned a second season of its hit show "Mad Men" which would air next summer.

Operating losses at Madison Square Garden narrowed to $6.2 million from $24.5 million a year ago.

Cablevision's investors voted on Oct. 24 to reject a bid from the Dolan family, which controls Cablevision through a special class of stock, to take the company private at $36.26 per share. The Dolans had been trying to take the company private for two years.

The Dolans gave notice in a regulatory filing Wednesday that they were formally terminating the offer.

 By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer Thu Nov 8, 5:04 PM ET

NEW YORK - Internet phone company Vonage Holdings Corp., which was the subject of bankruptcy speculation only a few months ago, took another step toward putting its troubles behind it on Thursday.

Vonage said it and AT&T are discussing settling the suit for $39 million, an amount to be paid over the next five years. In October, it settled with Sprint Nextel Corp. for $80 million, and with Verizon Communications Inc. for between $80 million and $120 million, depending on the outcome of a court hearing.

Vonage has been able to pay those settlements because it pulled in money from investors in an initial public offering last year at $17 a share. The stock has been a poor investment, however, hitting an all-time low of 89 cents in September. As it has settled suits, the stock has climbed. Thursday's news pushed it up 30 cents, or 13.7 percent, to $2.49 Thursday.

The company, meanwhile, lost $161.7 million, or $1.04 per share, in the third quarter, including $132 million in charges due to the settlements. In the same quarter last year, it lost $62.1 million, or 40 cents a share.

Excluding some charges, the third-quarter loss totaled $16 million, or 10 cents per share, compared with $62 million, or 40 cents per share in last year's third quarter.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial had expected a loss of 13 cents a share, excluding charges.

Revenue rose 30 percent to $210.5 million. Vonage ended the quarter with $154 million in free cash, down from $356 million.

The company managed to add 78,000 subscribers in the third quarter, despite cutting back on its heavy ad spending. Vonage subscribers connect their phones to their broadband Internet connections through an adapter, paying $25 a month for unlimited domestic calls.dvdbuy

Vonage paid $206 in advertising and other costs to acquire each new customer, down from above $300 in some recent quarters. At one point, Vonage was the largest buyer of advertising on the Internet, but it has pulled back on the blanket campaigns in favor of more targeted approaches.

It spent $62 million on marketing the quarter, down from $68 million in the previous quarter and $91 million in the same period a year ago.

In a worrisome sign, the number of customers leaving the company every month, also known as the "churn" rate, rose to 3 percent in the third quarter. Chairman Jeffrey Citron said 70 percent of customers leave because of a poor user experience, and the company was now focusing on improving it.

"We have to answer customer calls more effectively," Citron said. "Customers sometimes call several times before their problems are resolved, and this is unacceptable."

Until this year, Vonage was the largest competitor to traditional phone companies. As Vonage has been focused on its legal struggles, cable companies like Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable have surpassed it in the number of phone subscribers.

 By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology Writer Thu Nov 8, 5:50 PM ET

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Cisco Systems Inc. shares fell 9.5 percent Thursday amid worry that fluctuations in U.S. business orders are hampering its growth.

But its shares fell $3.12, or 9.5 percent, to $29.63 Thursday. Cisco stockholders have still benefited from a rapid run-up in the share price that has created more than $30 billion in shareholder wealth since the start of the year.

"Our business is across every major country in the world, and it's across all product lines, and it's really across all customer segments," Cisco Chief Executive John Chambers said in an interview.

He dismissed concern over orders from large U.S. corporations growing in the mid-single-digit range, down from 20 percent early last year, saying sales to U.S. enterprises make up "only 40 percent of our total U.S. business."

"The other two major U.S. customer segments — service provider and commercial — are very strong," Chambers said.

Routers and switches that direct Internet traffic accounted for more than half of Cisco's total sales in the first quarter, with both segments growing steadily over last year — 18 percent and 8 percent, respectively.

Its fastest growth came in its advanced technologies division, which includes online meeting company WebEx Communications, cable set-top box maker Scientific-Atlanta and the Linksys home networking unit, among other technologies. That division contributed $2.4 billion in sales, a quarter of Cisco's total revenues and 24 percent more than last year.

San Jose-based Cisco is expanding to reap more profits from booming demand for advanced networking gear and other technologies to handle voice, video and data traffic over the Internet.

Recent acquisitions include the $3 billion takeover of WebEx and $7.1 billion purchase of Scientific-Atlanta.burnershopping

The company reported first-quarter sales and profits Wednesday that surpassed Wall Street's predictions.

Cisco said its net income was $2.2 billion, or 35 cents per share, for the three months ended Oct. 27. That compares with $1.6 billion in profit, or 26 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

Stripping out one-time charges, Cisco earned 40 cents per share, 4 cents more than the average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Financial.

Cisco's sales in the first quarter were slightly higher than analysts' forecast — $9.55 billion compared with a prediction of $9.54 billion. Sales were up 17 percent over the $8.2 billion recorded in the same period last year.

 By ELLIOT SPAGAT, AP Business Writer Thu Nov 8, 8:38 PM ET

SAN DIEGO - Chipmaker Qualcomm Inc. reported Thursday that its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings nearly doubled, but heightened competition and legal troubles hurt profit forecasts — and that sent its shares tumbling.

The world's second-largest supplier of cell phone chips said it expected a profit of between $2.03 and $2.09 a share in the next fiscal year, excluding certain items. That's 4 percent to 7 percent below the average expectation of $2.18 from analysts polled by Thomson Financial.

Qualcomm said it expected its first-quarter profit in fiscal 2008 to land between 50 and 52 cents a share, excluding certain items, compared to an average analyst estimate of 52 cents.

The soft predictions highlight both Qualcomm's struggles to maintain its enormously lucrative business collecting licensing fees and the entry of newer competitors, such as Broadcom Corp., which has scored a number of legal victories against Qualcomm this year.

The San Diego-based company makes chips and it licenses its technology to other handset makers. It has reaped huge profits from the licensing fees for a technology called code division multiple access, or CDMA, which is popular in the United States and Asia. Carriers that use CDMA include Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp.

Qualcomm dominates CDMA but has more a tenuous foothold in the newer fields it is entering, such as wideband CDMA, or WCDMA, which is spreading in Europe.

"Their business model is becoming less profitable," said Edward Snyder, an analyst at Charter Equity Research in San Francisco. "It's a great company, still doing very well, but they're going from an area where they had 100 percent to an area where they don't."

Nokia Corp., the world's largest handset maker, and Qualcomm are locked in a high-stakes legal dispute over how much Qualcomm should get in licensing fees. Complaints from Nokia and other wireless industry heavyweights that Qualcomm's fees are too high have resulted in a slew of lawsuits and trade complaints that Qualcomm plays unfair.

The company said it would spend more than $200 million on legal fees in fiscal 2008, down from the previous year. Steve Altman, Qualcomm's president, said Wall Street's profit forecasts didn't take into account some anticipated payments to customers whose business may be disrupted by Qualcomm's legal battles.

Altman offered no hope of a breakthrough with Nokia on licensing fees.foodgood

"While we continue to speak with them on a fairly regular basis, there really has been no progress," he told analysts on a conference call. "We're pretty far apart."

The dour forecasts overshadowed a strong performance in the fourth quarter.

Qualcomm earned $1.13 billion, or 67 cents per share, during the three-month period ended Sept. 30, up from $614 million, or 36 cents per share, in the same period last year.

The fourth-quarter earnings include a per-share charge of 2 cents from investments, another of 5 cents for stock-based compensation and a gain of 20 cents per share on tax items carried over from previous years.

Excluding those items, Qualcomm earned 54 cents per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected 53 cents per share.

Revenue grew 15 percent to $2.31 billion from $2 billion, above analyst expectations of $2.26 billion.

For the entire fiscal year, Qualcomm earned $3.3 billion, or $1.95 a share, on revenue of $8.87 billion. That compares to a profit of 2.47 billion, or $1.44 a share, on revenue of $7.53 billion the previous year.

 HONG KONG (Reuters) - Scientists in Japan have created two synthetic versions of an ingredient in curry that is noted for its potential to fight cancer.

The scientists wrote in the latest issue of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics that they had synthesized two variations -- GO-Y030 and GO-Y031 -- which have proved more potent and lasting than natural curcumin.

They tested them in mice with colorectal cancer and found that they worked far better.

"Our new analogues (synthetic versions) have enhanced growth suppressive abilities against colorectal cancer cell lines, up to 30 times greater than natural curcumin," said Hiroyuki Shibata, associate professor at Tohoku University's Institute of Development, Ageing and Cancer.

"In a mouse model for colorectal cancer, mice fed with five milligrams of GO-Y030 or GO-Y031 fared 42 and 51 percent better, respectively, than did mice in the control group."

Like curcumin, the two synthetic versions may be able to fight other cancers, bookssuch as gastric cancer and cancer of the breast, pancreas and lung, they added.