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The REAL Cause of the Global Obesity Epidemic
World Wide Obesity Epidemic
Some 68% of all Americans are overweight, and obesity has almost doubled in the last couple of decades worldwide. As International Business Tribune reports:
Studies conducted jointly by researchers at Imperial College London and Harvard University, published in the medical journal The Lancet, show that obesity worldwide almost doubled in the decades between 1980 and 2008.
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68 per cent of Americans were found to be overweight while close to 34 percent were obese.
Sure, people are eating too much and exercising too little. The processed foods and refined flours and sugars don’t help. And additives like high fructose corn syrup – which are added to many processed foods – are stuffing us with empty calories.
But given that there is an epidemic of obesity even in 6 month old infants (see below), there is clearly something else going on as well.
Are Toxic Chemicals Making Us Fat?
The toxins all around us might be making us fat.
As the Washington Post reported in 2007:
Several recent animal studies suggest that environmental exposure to widely used chemicals may also help make people fat.
The evidence is preliminary, but a number of researchers are pursuing indications that the chemicals, which have been shown to cause abnormal changes in animals’ sexual development, can also trigger fat-cell activity — a process scientists call adipogenesis.
The chemicals under scrutiny are used in products from marine paints and pesticides to food and beverage containers. A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found one chemical, bisphenol A, in 95 percent of the people tested, at levels at or above those that affected development in animals.
These findings were presented at last month’s annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. A spokesman for the chemical industry later dismissed the concerns, but Jerry Heindel, a top official of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), who chaired the AAAS session, said the suspected link between obesity and exposure to “endocrine disrupters,” as the chemicals are called because of their hormone-like effects, is “plausible and possible.”
Bruce Blumberg, a developmental and cell biologist at the University of California at Irvine, one of those presenting research at the meeting, called them “obesogens” — chemicals that promote obesity.
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Exposed mice became obese adults and remained obese even on reduced calorie and increased exercise regimes. Like tributyltin, DES appeared to permanently disrupt the hormonal mechanisms regulating body weight.
“Once these genetic changes happen in utero, they are irreversible and with the individual for life,” Newbold said.
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“Exposure to bisphenol A is continuous,” said Frederick vom Saal, professor of biological sciences at the University of Missouri at Columbia. Bisphenol A is an ingredient in polycarbonate plastics used in many products, including refillable water containers and baby bottles, and in epoxy resins that line the inside of food cans and are used as dental sealants. [It is also added to store receipts.] In 2003, U.S. industry consumed about 2 billion pounds of bisphenol A.
Researchers have studied bisphenol A’s effects on estrogen function for more than a decade. Vom Saal’s research indicates that developmental exposure to low doses of bisphenol A activates genetic mechanisms that promote fat-cell activity. “These in-utero effects are lifetime effects, and they occur at phenomenally small levels” of exposure, vom Saal said.
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Research into the impact of endocrine-disrupting chemicals on obesity has been done only in laboratory animals, but the genetic receptors that control fat cell activity are functionally identical across species. “They work virtually the same way in fish as they do in rodents and humans,” Blumberg said. “Fat cells are an endocrine organ.”
Ongoing studies are monitoring human levels of bisphenol A, but none have been done of tributyltin, which has been used since the 1960s and is persistent in the marine food web. “Tributyltin is the only endocrine disrupting chemical that has been shown without substantial argument to have an effect at levels at which it’s found in the environment,” Blumberg said.
Concern over tributyltin’s reproductive effects on marine animals has resulted in an international agreement discontinuing its use in anti-fouling paints used on ships. The EPA has said it plans next year to assess its other applications, including as an antimicrobial agent in livestock operations, fish hatcheries and hospitals.
Bisphenol A is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in consumer products, and the agency says the amount of bisphenol A or tributyltin that might leach from products is too low to be of concern. But the National Toxicology Program, part of the National Institutes of Health, is reviewing bisphenol A, and concerns about its estrogenic effects prompted California legislators to propose banning it from certain products sold in-state, a move industry has fought vigorously.
Similarly, the Daily Beast noted in 2010:
{Bad habits] cannot explain the ballooning of one particular segment of the population, a segment that doesn’t go to movies, can’t chew, and was never that much into exercise: babies. In 2006 scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health reported that the prevalence of obesity in infants under 6 months had risen 73 percent since 1980. “This epidemic of obese 6-month-olds,” as endocrinologist Robert Lustig of the University of California, San Francisco, calls it, poses a problem for conventional explanations of the fattening of America. “Since they’re eating only formula or breast milk, and never exactly got a lot of exercise, the obvious explanations for obesity don’t work for babies,” he points out. “You have to look beyond the obvious.”
The search for the non-obvious has led to a familiar villain: early-life exposure to traces of chemicals in the environment. Evidence has been steadily accumulating that certain hormone-mimicking pollutants, ubiquitous in the food chain, have two previously unsuspected effects. They act on genes in the developing fetus and newborn to turn more precursor cells into fat cells, which stay with you for life. And they may alter metabolic rate, so that the body hoards calories rather than burning them, like a physiological Scrooge. “The evidence now emerging says that being overweight is not just the result of personal choices about what you eat, combined with inactivity,” says Retha Newbold of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) in North Carolina, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). “Exposure to environmental chemicals during development may be contributing to the obesity epidemic.” They are not the cause of extra pounds in every person who is overweight—for older adults, who were less likely to be exposed to so many of the compounds before birth, the standard explanations of genetics and lifestyle probably suffice—but environmental chemicals may well account for a good part of the current epidemic, especially in those under 50. And at the individual level, exposure to the compounds during a critical period of development may explain one of the most frustrating aspects of weight gain: you eat no more than your slim friends, and exercise no less, yet are still unable to shed pounds.
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Newbold gave low doses (equivalent to what people are exposed to in the environment) of hormone-mimicking compounds to newborn mice. In six months, the mice were 20 percent heavier and had 36 percent more body fat than unexposed mice. Strangely, these results seemed to contradict the first law of thermodynamics, which implies that weight gain equals calories consumed minus calories burned. “What was so odd was that the overweight mice were not eating more or moving less than the normal mice,” Newbold says. “We measured that very carefully, and there was no statistical difference.”
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`Programming the fetus to make more fat cells leaves an enduring physiological legacy. “The more [fat cells], the fatter you are,” says UCSF’s Lustig. But [fat cells] are more than passive storage sites. They also fine-tune appetite, producing hormones that act on the brain to make us feel hungry or sated. With more [fat cells], an animal is doubly cursed: it is hungrier more often, and the extra food it eats has more places to go—and remain.
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In 2005 scientists in Spain reported that the more pesticides children were exposed to as fetuses, the greater their risk of being overweight as toddlers. And last January scientists in Belgium found that children exposed to higher levels of PCBs and DDE (the breakdown product of the pesticide DDT) before birth were fatter than those exposed to lower levels. Neither study proves causation, but they “support the findings in experimental animals,” says Newbold. They “show a link between exposure to environmental chemicals … and the development of obesity.” [See this for more information on the potential link between pesticides and obesity.]
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This fall, scientists from NIH, the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and academia will discuss obesogens at the largest-ever government-sponsored meeting on the topic. “The main message is that obesogens are a factor that we hadn’t thought about at all before this,” says Blumberg. But they’re one that could clear up at least some of the mystery of why so many of us put on pounds that refuse to come off.
Pthalates – commonly used in many plastics – have been linked to obesity. See this and this. So has a chemical used to make Teflon and other products.
Most of the meat we eat these days contains estrogen, antibiotics and powerful chemicals which change hormone levels. Modern corn-fed beef also contains much higher levels of saturated fat than grass-fed beef. So the meat we are eating is also making us fat.
Antibiotics also used to be handed out like candy by doctors. However, ingesting too many antibiotics has also been linked to obesity, as it kills helpful intestinal bacteria. See this and this.
Arsenic may also be linked with obesity, via it’s effect on the thyroid gland. Arsenic is often fed to chickens and pigs to fatten them up, and we end up ingesting it on our dinner plate. It’s ending up in other foods as well.
The National Research Council has also found:
The effects of fluoride on various aspects of endocrine function should be examined further, particularly with respect to a possible role in the development of several diseases or mental states in the United States.
Some hypothesize that too much fluoride affects the thyroid gland, which may in turn lead to weight gain.
No, Everything Won‘t Kill You
In response to information about toxic chemicals in our food, water and air, many people change the subject by saying “well, everything will kill you”. In other words, they try to change the topic by assuming that we would have to go back to the stone age to avoid exposure to toxic chemicals.
But this is missing the point entirely. In fact, companies add nasty chemicals to their products and use fattening food-producing strategies to cut corners and make more money.
In the same way that the financial crisis, BP oil spill and Fukushima nuclear disaster were caused by fraud and greed, we are daily exposed to obesity-causing chemicals because companies make an extra buck by lying about what is in their product, cutting every corner in the book, and escaping any consequences for their health-damaging actions.
In fattening their bottom line, the fat cats are creating an epidemic of obesity for the little guy.
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The article is bullshit! people in our country eat too much and exercise too little. There are hundreds of diets out there...all based on one principle....use more calories than you take in and you will lose weight! Simple. Get rid of some of the toys you buy up on credit and get outside and take a walk.
Your comment is bullshit. If all it took to lose weight was diet and exercise there would be no fat people. 90% of fatties are on a diet, looking for a new diet, or just finished a diet. Same with exercise. Ask your fat friends if they have ever tried dieting and how it worked for them? Then ask yourself, if diets work then how come they never seem to work for anyone you know?
This article is the worst kind of pleading. It excuses those who make poor dietary and lifestyle choices in order to blame boogeymen. Japanese have almost no problem with obesity (greatly affecting their health costs by the way). And guess what? Their diet is less fattym less volume, more veggies and fish, less dairy, pasta and most important, sugar.
When one travels it's obvious that obesity usually accompanies prosperity. For the first time people can afford to buy lots of food. The prime example are Asians who balloon when they get to the states. Obesity is a result of what we eat and do - not a nefarious group spiking the food for unknown reasons. Although processed food is one of mankind's great inventions, you can bypass it if you want. I weigh exactly what I did when I graduated from high school 42 years ago and attribute it to no snacks, three meals and emphasis on veggies, fruits and lean meats.
The Japanese are beginning to grapple with a new ailment (for them) that they call "metabolic syndrome." This meets many of the criteria GW is describing because the rather alarmed sufferers swear they are not eating more or differently than their coworkers and not exercising any less. This phenomenon has also been noted in animals and has attracted some attention as zoo animals have been mysteriously ballooning in the past 10 years. I would urge you to read this a little more closely and not just repeat bland stereotypes of the Japanese physique. Also note that I am not one of GW's biggest cheerleaders but this article is really saying something.
There is a difference that younger people might not understand that the older ones do. The kind of garbage called food today was non existent when many of us were young. McTurd didn't put crap in their food so that it would sit on a shelf without refrigeration for 16 years and still look much like it did the day you bought it. The products we got at the store were real, we put them together and call it dinner. The first sign of prepackaged crap was the TV Dinner. It was a joke. But, it served a purpose. It stopped a percentage of the population from knowing how to cook, and becoming reliant on frozen food called dinner. A TV dinner started as mostly real food. How do we know? Because it had to be frozen so it wouldn't go bad.
There have been dozens or hundreds of foods and things to cook them and store them removed when it was found that they were harmful. There used to be. Now, Congress is paid to not only look the other way, but legalize the use of chemicals no one has ever studied for side effects. There are no controls a bribe doesn't eliminate.
For those of you bitches that don't dig science, get smart. For those of you that still eat fast food, enjoy your death by corporation.
My dogs won't eat fast food, but what's your point? :)
Actually, the use of DES as a growth enhancer goes back to the 1940s. This kind of stuff has been happening for many decades, but the problems with food have been getting progressively worse over time.
the problem may have gotten worse because of chemicals,
but de real cause stays the same.
people get fat because they take in more calories than they use.
when you want to lose weight; the solutions is burning more calories than you take in.
that's all.
and all the theories about chemicals and outher shit, are the same as all the stories about losing weight without eating less or exercise more.
all marketing.
If you read the article you'd see that's not true. Obesity is happening with the same caloric intake and amount of exercise.
Please don't confuse the issue with facts /s
I guess the overweight babies need more treadmill time.
You can't measure nutrients by calories. A calorie is no different than a BTU, just an energy index.
100 calories of pure fat is different nutrient wise than 100 calorie of Broccoli.
The majpr problem with our food is that it is "hollow". It lacks nutrients, especially
trace minerals. Corporate farms pump the soil with isolated N,P,K and do not rotate the crops.
Over a few short yrs, the soil is depleted of trace minerals. (compare a garden tomatoe to
store bought).
If your food is hollow, your still hungry after a meal, and over indulge.
Another issue is our eating habits. We eat too fast, (the French have it right) slow and with a glass of wine.
Food is disolved in your stomach with HCL acid. If you throw a ton of stuff in there, you overwhelm the
acid (raising Ph) and it sits there bloated until the stomach gets the Ph down.
The standard of measure is part of the problem! At 6'1", my BMI ((weight * 703/73)/73)) states that 140 pounds is considered healthy but 180 lbs. is overweight!
6/1- 180 is within the normal range. BMI doesn't take into account bone size, nor fitness.
i'm not fat, i got big bones.
And you sure got a lot of meat on those bones.
Now that's funny no matter which way you slice it. +1
Are you sure you got the right formula???
I believe he has the correct formula. BMI is a faulty concept, as it fails to distinguish between muscle and fat, which have considerably different mass per volume ratios. I once read that using BMI, 80% of NBA players would be considered overweight, and I mean Kevin Garnett-types and not just Charles Barkleys. I also happen to be "overweight" on a BMI measurement, despite having very low body fat and a complete inability to float in a swimming pool. I sink to the bottom faster than a Greek bond or Herman Cain poll numbers.
On a side note, I enjoy your posts and the contrary view you bring to certain topics in which I am far from being an expert. They provide food for thought and opportunities for research.
Thanks for the kind words....
So I got a dog a few years back. Wasn't sure how much to feed him. I pick up some high-end dog food (whatever that means) and there it is. Right there. On the side of the bag. You would not believe. It said: "Does you dog look like this? (shows a skinny dog). Then feed him more. Does your dog looks like this? (Shows a picture of a fat dog) Then feed him less.
And there you go. Worlds shortest diet book.
hey gdogus, did you also look at the ingredients list on your dog's food?
because there is an epidemic of pet diabetes lately too - no really, people shooting up their pets with insulin, daily - ever since they started using the "pet food" (mechanically reclaimed meat) in the pink slime for human food (re-classified for consumption) AND padding it all out with GMO corn, and other grains, but CORN is in everything now.
there are pet foods that are responding to pet owner's concerns, and leaving the grains out, or at least limiting them - but finding non GMO-grains in pet food is very difficult.
Jesus fucking christ, because we are a successful species we have MORE LEISURE TIME THAT DOES NOT FORCE US TO BURN CALORIES TO SURVIVE!
Fat is stored during times of secure survival and later burnt when needed. We don't need to do that anymore.
That's why third world people are emaciated, they burn nearly every calorie to survive.
The above applies to the dog as well. less work to burn calories more fat is stored.
Never before in history has the abundance of leisure time existed, we have ZERO FUCKING IDEA IF OBESITY IS A NATURALLY OCCURING SIDE EFFECT!
But then it is so much simpler to blame anything but our present relaxed lifestyle.
The problem is modern s medical science is still very young and still evolving.
I've tossed out some articles which at the very least should make everyone question just what the REAL problems are.
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=15294655
Twinkie Diet: Man loses weight while eating junk food
Teacher loses weight on 'Super Size Me' dietDr. Mark Haub, nicknamed the Twinkie Diet Doctor, is an associate professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University. He lost more than 20 pounds while including snack foods in his diet.
As an experiment meant to promote discussion among his students about nutrition and weight loss, Haub limited his calories to 1,800 a day, kept physical exercise about the same, and ate a diet that included junk food. About two-thirds of his total intake came from junk food. He also took a multivitamin pill, drank a protein shake daily and ate some vegetables.
"I wanted to show that it's not necessarily the individual foods, the specific foods, but it's about how much, how many of those foods we eat. It goes back to the old adage, a calorie is a calorie," he said.
He acknowledges weight is not the only health factor. Other things like cholesterol and glucose need to be considered as well. He said when he measured them, they all went in the healthy direction during his experiment.
Haub's "bad" cholesterol, or LDL, dropped 20 percent and his "good" cholesterol, or HDL, increased by 20 percent. He reduced the level of triglycerides, which are a form of fat, by 39 percent.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2005/03/01/diet-mcdonalds050301.html
While Spurlock got as much exercise as an average American, Sayer pumped iron while on the diet and did one-hour cardio workouts six days a week.
He also varied his menu choices, choosing small and medium fries, coleslaw and diet Coke. "My key message really is as long as you don't overeat and as long as you exercise regularly, you can lose weight and be healthy," said Sayer.
Sayer started the exercise regimen two years ago, lost weight and then plateaued on what he called a "lousy diet."
After 28 days of McDonald's, Sayer has lost 17 pounds and his blood pressure has improved.
http://www.laleva.org/eng/2012/03/world_renown_heart_surgeon_speaks_out_...
World Renown Heart Surgeon Speaks Out On What Really Causes Heart DiseaseThe only accepted therapy was prescribing medications to lower cholesterol and a diet that severely restricted fat intake. The latter of course we insisted would lower cholesterol and heart disease. Deviations from these recommendations were considered heresy and could quite possibly result in malpractice.
It Is Not Working!
These recommendations are no longer scientifically or morally defensible. The discovery a few years ago that inflammation in the artery wall is the real cause of heart disease is slowly leading to a paradigm shift in how heart disease and other chronic ailments will be treated.
The long-established dietary recommendations have created epidemics of obesity and diabetes, the consequences of which dwarf any historical plague in terms of mortality, human suffering and dire economic consequences.
Despite the fact that 25% of the population takes expensive statin medications and despite the fact we have reduced the fat content of our diets, more Americans will die this year of heart disease than ever before.
Statistics from the American Heart Association show that 75 million Americans currently suffer from heart disease, 20 million have diabetes and 57 million have pre-diabetes. These disorders are affecting younger and younger people in greater numbers every year.
Simply stated, without inflammation being present in the body, there is no way that cholesterol would accumulate in the wall of the blood vessel and cause heart disease and strokes. Without inflammation, cholesterol would move freely throughout the body as nature intended. It is inflammation that causes cholesterol to become trapped.
Inflammation is not complicated -- it is quite simply your body's natural defence to a foreign invader such as a bacteria, toxin or virus. The cycle of inflammation is perfect in how it protects your body from these bacterial and viral invaders. However, if we chronically expose the body to injury by toxins or foods the human body was never designed to process,a condition occurs called chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation is just as harmful as acute inflammation is beneficial.
What thoughtful person would willfully expose himself repeatedly to foods or other substances that are known to cause injury to the body? Well,smokers perhaps, but at least they made that choice willfully.
The rest of us have simply followed the recommended mainstream dietthat is low in fat and high in polyunsaturated fats and carbohydrates, not knowing we were causing repeated injury to our blood vessels. This repeated injury creates chronic inflammation leading to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and obesity.
Let me repeat that: The injury and inflammation in our blood vessels is caused by the low fat diet recommended for years by mainstream medicine.
What are the biggest culprits of chronic inflammation? Quite simply, they are the overload of simple, highly processed carbohydrates (sugar, flour and all the products made from them) and the excess consumption of omega-6 vegetable oils like soybean, corn and sunflower that are found in many processed foods.
http://chriskresser.com/cholesterol-doesnt-cause-heart-disease
Cholesterol doesn't cause heart diseaseYou might be surprised to learn that neither of these statements is true. The first one is relatively easy to dispatch. In the Framingham Heart Study, which is the longest-running and perhaps most significant study on heart disease done to date, it was demonstrated that intake of cholesterol in the diet had absolutely no correlation with heart disease. If you look at the graph below, you’ll see that both men and women with above average intake of cholesterol had nearly identical rates of heart disease as men and women with below average intake of cholesterol.
In fact, the “diet-heart hypothesis”, which is the scientific name for the idea that eating cholesterol causes heart disease, has even been discounted by the researchers who were responsible for its genesis. Ancel Keys, who in many ways can be considered the “father” of the cholesterol-heart disease hypothesis, had this to say in 1997:
“There’s no connection whatsoever between the cholesterol in food and cholesterol in the blood. And we’ve known that all along. Cholesterol in the diet doesn’t matter at all unless you happen to be a chicken or a rabbit.”
This is a reference to early studies performed on chickens and rabbits where they force-fed these animals high-levels of cholesterol. Since rabbits and chickens are mostly vegetarian, their physiology is not adapted for processing such large amounts of dietary cholesterol, so it’s no surprise they developed atherosclerosis. The mistake was assuming that the results of this experiment could be extrapolated to humans, who are omnivores with significant differences in physiology.
The second tenet of the cholesterol-heart disease hypothesis, the notion that high cholesterol levels in the blood cause heart disease, is referred to as the “lipid hypothesis” in the scientific community. Though it still accepted as gospel truth by the general public and many medical professionals, most researchers now believe the primary causes of heart disease are inflammation and oxidative stress. Unfortunately, the rest of us haven’t gotten the memo, so to speak, that cholesterol isn’t the cause of heart disease.
It would take several articles to explain this in complete detail, but I’d like to give at least a brief summary here.
If cholesterol caused heart disease, it should be a risk factor in 1) all ages, 2) both sexes and 3) all populations around the world (barring any protective factor, of course). Also, if cholesterol caused heart disease we would expect that lowering cholesterol would reduce heart disease. But none of these assumptions turn out to be true.
The rate of heart disease in 65-year old men is ten times that of 45-year old men. Yet a recent study in the Journal of American Medical Association indicated that high LDL cholesterol is not a risk factor for from coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality or total mortality (death from any cause). It is extremely unlikely that a risk factor for a disease would stop being a risk factor at a time when that disease kills the greatest number of people. That is akin to suggesting that smoking causes lung cancer in young men, but somehow stops doing so in older men!
Another consistent thorn in the side of supporters of the “lipid hypothesis” is that women suffer 300% less heart disease than men, in spite of having higher average cholesterol levels. At the recent Conference on Low Blood Cholesterol, which reviewed 11 major studies including 125,000 women, it was determined that there was absolutely no relationship between total cholesterol levels and mortality from cardiovascular or any other causes.
...
Or how about Frederick Stare, a long-time American Heart Association member and (former) proponent of the lipid hypothesis:
“The cholesterol factor is of minor importance as a risk factor in CVD. Of far more importance are smoking, hypertension, obesity, diabetes, insufficient physical activity, and stress.”
So there you have it. Contrary to popular belief, cholesterol is not a dangerous poison that causes heart disease. Rather, it is an essential nutrient present in the cell membranes of all tissues of all mammals, and has some very important functions in the body. In fact, in many studies low cholesterol has been associated with an increase in total mortality!
Again, the Framingham Study which followed 15,000 participants over three generations:
“There is a direct association between falling cholesterol levels over the first 14 years and mortality over the following 18 years.”
In other words, as cholesterol fell death rates went up.
The Honolulu Heart Program study, with 8,000 participants, published in 2001:
“Long-term persistence of low cholesterol concentration actually increases the risk of death. Thus, the earlier the patients start to have lower cholesterol concentrations, the greater the risk of death.”
And finally, the huge Japanese Lipid Intervention Trial with over 47,000 participants:
“The highest death rate observed was among those with lowest cholesterol (under 160mg/dl); lowest death rate observed was with those whose cholesterol was between 200-259mg/dl”
In other words, those with the lowest cholesterol had the highest death rate, and those with cholesterol levels that would today be called “dangerous” had the lowest death rate.
As you can see, not only does high cholesterol not cause heart disease, low cholesterol can actually be dangerous to your health. So toss out your vegetable oil and start eating butter and eggs again! But more on that next week…
Dr. Melik: This morning for breakfast he requested something called "wheat germ, organic honey and tiger's milk."
Dr. Aragon: [chuckling] Oh, yes. Those are the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to contain life-preserving properties.
Dr. Melik: You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or... hot fudge?
Dr. Aragon: Those were thought to be unhealthy... precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true.
Dr. Melik: Incredible.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/human-biology/obesit...
How the Obesity Paradox WorksHowever, recent studies have shown that obese people with chronic diseases have a better chance of survival than normal-weight individuals do. This finding has been called the obesity paradox.
http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20090518/obese-heart-patients-ma...
Obese Heart Patients May Live LongerStudy after study has shown that obese heart patients have better survival and have fewer strokes and heart attacks than normal-weight or underweight heart patients with the same severity of disease, says cardiologist Carl J. Lavie, MD, of the Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans.
"Even now a lot of cardiologists haven't heard of this or don't believe it," he tells WebMD. "But it is clear that as a population, obese patients with heart disease respond well to treatment and have paradoxically better outcomes than thinner patients."
http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20110816/study-obese-people-live-as-long-...
Study: Obese People Live as Long as Slimmer PeopleAug. 16, 2011 -- Obese people who are otherwise healthy live as long as normal-weight people, new research from Canada suggests.
Some obese but healthy people actually are less likely to die of heart problems than normal-weight people who have some medical conditions, the researchers found.
"You shouldn't just look at body weight alone," says researcher Jennifer Kuk, PhD, assistant professor of kinesiology and health science at York University in Toronto.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/24/overweight_live_longer/
'Overweight' people live longer than those of 'ideal' weightCheerful news for those whose Body Mass Index (BMI) falls into the "overweight" range today - you will probably live longer than a person whose BMI is "ideal". Boffins in Canada and America revealed the new findings following a study of over 11,000 Canadians covering the last 12 years.
Unsurprisingly, people whose BMI showed them to be "underweight" or "extremely obese" died sooner than those in the more middle-of the-road brackets. But the medical community's consensus that anyone with a BMI from 25-30 is "overweight", whereas 18.5-25 is "ideal" has been undermined by the fact that survey subjects in the former, heftier band actually lived longer than the lightweights.
"It's not surprising that extreme underweight and extreme obesity increase the risk of dying, but it is surprising that carrying a little extra weight may give people a longevity advantage," said David Feeny, PhD, one of the study's authors.
Among the individuals tracked during the survey, the most dangerous BMI band to be in was "underweight"; next worst was "extremely obese". Both of these groups had significantly increased risks of dying, 70 and 36 per cent above the norm respectively. Those who were merely "obese" and those with an "ideal" BMI ran very similar risks of death. But the "overweight" were actually 17 per cent less likely than normal to die as time went by.
Good news for the moderately swingbellied swivel chair artist up and down the land, then. If you are "overweight" you're actually somewhat less likely to pop your clogs soon than your fellows, and if you've slipped over the line into "obese" you're seemingly no worse off than the smug "ideal" body types.
http://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/fat-acceptance
Doctors have long used BMI to measure whether a patient is at a healthy weight. Anyone scoring above "normal" has been regarded as potentially unwell. But compelling new research shows otherwise, says Paul Campos, author of The Obesity Myth: Why America's Obsession with Weight Is Hazardous to Your Health. "The correlation between weight and health is greatly exaggerated," he says, pointing to studies that found people with an "overweight" BMI have lower incidence of lung cancer, chronic bronchitis, anemia, and osteoporosis than their thinner peers. (Being heavier helps fend off osteoporosis, for example, because a little extra mass helps strengthen bones.)
What's more, a long-term study published in the journal Obesity found that people with "overweight" BMI scores have a lower risk of mortality than any other weight group.
http://www.canada.com/globaltv/national/health/story.html?id=a25290a9-e3...
Obese people have an advantage when it comes to surviving illness Fat people have a survival edge over skinnier people in the face of critical illness, new research shows.http://www.insure.com/car-insurance/fat-guys-survive-car-crashes-better....
Fat guys survive car crashes betterHow fat do you have to be?
The study, by Dr. Michael Sivak and Dr. Jonathan Rupp, found that belted drivers with a body mass index (BMI) of 35 to 50 have a 22 percent lower probability of being killed in a crash than belted drivers with a BMI between 15 and 18.4.
BMI is a calculation based on weight and height, and the CDC uses it because, for most people, it correlates with their amount of body fat. Anyone with a BMI of 30 or more is considered obese. At 30 BMI, we're talking about someone who is 5-foot-9 and tips the scale in excess of 203. If your BMI is 45, you're hauling around more than 300 pounds at that height.
Ladies: This does not apply to you. Although rotund fellows fare better in serious accidents in which they are wearing a seatbelt, the same is not true for heavy women. Belted females with a BMI between 35 to 50 have a 10 percent higher probability of being killed in a crash than women with a normal BMI between 18.5 and 24.9, the study found.
Obese folk are at a disadvantage if they forego the seatbelt, the study found. Unbelted fat men had a 10 percent higher probably of dying than skinny guys who weren't belted. There was no statistically significant difference among BMI categories for unbelted women, although for belted females, those with a normal BMI had the lowest risk of being killed.
Gully,
Who the fuck are you to make a post that is larger than the featured article? Further, maybe next time use your own words instead of copy pasting the whole of the fucking internet.
Bárðarbunga
How insightful of you to comment on the length of the points made and NOT THE FUCKING CONTENT!
Asshole!
I'm with bunga boy, you're ridiculously fucking long post was full of off topic shit. Fat boys, seat belts and accidents? Are you fucking kidding me? Are you retarded or sumthin?
Suggest David Gillespie's recent book Big Fat Lies ..how the diet industry is making you sick,fat & poor. I picked this up on a recent visit to Sydney and I must say it makes a lot of sense. It contadicts most of the curent held views also expressed in the above post. Condensed ...If your grandmother did not eat it you should not eat it.
Just a thought. Since our oceans are now (since when?) rich in plastic particles that contain Bisphenol A, fish and sea food should also be associated with the "toxic diet" that is described here.
Is anybody aware of obesity stats in the fish-eating nations such as Norway and Japan?
Is there a correlation between the increase in microscopic ocean plastics and obesity in children there?
Tompooz
BPA causes sexual issues. I'm surprised no one has linked it to the rise in Homosexuality.
In Japan, childhood obesity has been skyrocketing the last 10 years. That doesn't mesh with their low calorie diets and the fact that they've been continuously "First World" since the end of WWII and have had KFC and McDs for most of that time.
GMO corn has been in the food supply since the 1990's. . .
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/06/dangerous-...
when you add that to the plastics contamination, things start to make more sense. . .
way too long.
forrestdweller
Moron!
Dude, seriously. Either convince Tyler to give you your own blog or just link it. I've never felt the need to go longer than 20 lines and I think any reasonably educated person could get a basic point across in that space, sans encyclopedia. A wise man once said "The more the word, the less the meaning, and how does this profit anyone." At least I'll know who the red arrow is from though...
Vlad Tepid
Dude, you are a fucking idiot.
I intended to insult you more, but you just have not earned it.
Hey retard, I printed your post out so I could use it to wipe my ass with. Got enough left for two more dumps.
Everywhere I travel, Americans are known as the Fat Selfish Yanks! Facebook now gives them all the assumption they are Fat Selfish Celebrities in their own delusional minds!
Friend of mine told me recently that Facebook is overtaking adultry as the #1 cause for divorce in the US. I know not where he heard that but i dont doubt it one bit. Shit is evil. Keeping up with the Jones' just got easier when all the clothing and makeup adds on the side are feeding on (mostly womens) insecurities about looks, wealth, clothes they wear blahblahblah. gotta keep up with what all my other friends are buying!
Meanwhile, Tachyons are put back on hold...
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2012/03/new-detector-weighs-in-neutrinos-dont-exceed-light-speed.ars
Good article here
America's obesity and diabetes epidemic: Junk food killsLearn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/035164_obesity_diabetes_junk_food.html#ixzz1pUaL5yTJ
Not plugging or flogging but the P90X diet (a variation on Atkins) where you only consume minimal carbs (e.g. the only bread would be in your sandwich at lunch) and lots of meat protein and greens, for fibre, will help you shed pounds very fast. A sample here:
http://mysymfitness.com/nutrition/p90x_nutrition/
I heard a quote awhile back from a foreigner that went "I want to go to America because even the poor people there are fat". That pretty much sums it up. I worked healthcare for some time, and I can tell you, withouth reservation, that the main reasons for weight gain are well known and intuitive: sedentary lifestyles combined with a med that masks the symptoms for being fat, such as insuin, cholesterol pills, etc. Ask anyone that works in say, cardiology, how many patients are non-compiant, and want a Big Mac as soon as they are off the table getting a stent put in. 99% of type 2 diabetics (the ones that ate themselves into disease) are non-compliant. It is truly disgusting. Look around....even rotund young chicks today wear mid-rif shirts with BELLY RINGS drawing atention to their flab hanging out.
lol, "mid-rif shirts" - I believe you when you say you "worked healthcare for some time."
while I agree that many people are "non-compliant" when involved in the pharma-merry-go-round of ill-health providers, your last lines really give your game away dude.
This post and 99% of the comments are pure rubbish. God help us if these same writers and readers are applying to the nations economics the same thinking they are applying to this topic. There are very likely effects of various posions in our modern processed foods, however most of those effects at this point are unproven. To say they are the cause of a national obesity epidemic is at best an unproven hypothesis and at worst pure guesswork and stupidity. It is certainly not science. I do though try to avoid modern process and chemically altered foods when as much as I can. Why take chances? But this is not the cause of the obesity epidemic. I would suggest applying oscam's razor to this problem and reading award winning science writer and harvard trained physicist Gary Taube's book Why We Get Fat for your answer. It explains the obesity epidemic in rational easy to understand way explained by misguided national food policy (which by the way had a big change at the beginning of the obesity epidemic) and long established and proven metabolic science. It also explains the lack of science behind lots of popular myths on the subject. The most prevalent myths being is that you can exercise your way to long term weight loss or that you can sustain simple calorie reduction. It also explains how to do it. It does not require hard to achieve sacrifices . You don't need to experience hunger, semi starvation and can eat all you want every day of your life. You do have to change the type of food you eat. for me it is extremely easy because I prefer the kind of food I am supposed to eat. I did not eat it for 30 years while I was fat though because everyone including the government and the medical profession told me it was unhealthy. Every single person I know including myself who has tried it says it works. I have not had and will not have any more relapses.
For a more detailed longer version there is this: GCBC by the same author. I highly recommend the longer one if you can do it. There are a number of other good and important books on the same subject that go into further depth and refinement, but I really suggest reading these two first to get a good grounding on the history and the evidence of the subject.
Don't take my word for it. Start by reading some of the very intelligent reveiws and comments at the links. If you are interested in this subject and belive in truth and well done science you will not be sorry you did.
You seem to agree with the author that additives are part of the problem, but don't make leap that they can be pseudo food or just plain chemical.
G.W.
You are a day late and an imaginary dollar short...
The true cause of obesity is in fact CO2.
http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/315140/20120316/high-co2-levels-cause-obe...
Dontcha know?
Scientist have proven it fer' christ sake!
Yeah, he had a sample size of 6 ... that is so small it can't even be called a scientific study ...
Hey, it may be correct, but without access to the real paper, i.e. the details, it is foolish to draw conclusions one way or the other...
And a cursory glance of the spin reveals only inflammatory nonsense...I did not see any details of the study...
Perfect, we're gonna be ready for the next ice age.
Alias "George Washington" wrote:
Perhaps. But the hyperinflation will solve that problem soon enough. In a few years, the price of food will be such that very few Americans will be able to afford to buy anything more than a subsistence diet, causing Americans' caloric intake to plumment. Check out, for example, the price of beef in recent years. IIRC, as of March 2012, beef's price has more than doubled in recent years. That increase is but a foreshadowing of the food hyperinflation to come. Yep, the hyperinflation will force all Americans to lose weight, even if they do not want to do so.
-- Paul D. Bain
paulbain@pobox.com
Holy cow!! Someone "junked" me for giving an accurate prediction regarding the hyperinflation! For ZH.com, that must be a first. Most ZH participants regard the impending hyperinflation as being inevitable. But not all participants, apparently.
-- Paul D. Bain
paulbain@PObox.com
I did not junk you but you are being junked for weird self promotion.