How Fast Food is Designed For Addiction and Obesity
Source: Uploaded by psychetruth on Dec 21, 2011 to YouTube Food is being processed and manufactured to create addiction. The food industry in this country does this by design. Source: Published on Apr 20, 2012 by psychetruth to YouTube This video explains everything what high fructose corn syrup and answers the following questions. Is high fructose corn syrup really natural? How do they make high fructose corn syrup? Is table sugar better than HFCS? Is HFCS unhealthy? Is there a link to HFCS and obesity? How much HFCS does the average American consume? How much sugar does average American consume. Related Videos: How Fast Food is Designed For Addiction & Obesity, Nutrition, Corrina Why is Junk Food Junk & Superfoods Super? Nutrition, Diet & Weight Loss Don’t Eat This High Calorie Food, How Many Calories In…? Nutrition Information Documentary exploring why some parents resort to junk food feeding their babies and follows three families as they desperately try and get back on the right nutritional track. (Part 1) Source: Uploaded by stonerbarbiie on Jun 4, 2011 to YouTube Our junk food addiction is dropping alarmingly down the age ladder, and we are now rearing a generation of fast food babies. This arresting documentary reveals babies and toddlers eating a diet of chips, burgers and kebabs, all washed down with bottles of fizzy cola. It explores the deep-seated reasons why parents resort to junk food feeding and follows three families as they desperately try and get back on the right nutritional track. From gentle food play to dramatic shocks, the parents team up with real experts who mentor them through the latest techniques as they try to wean their children off fast food. (Part 2) Source: Uploaded by stonerbarbiie on Jun 7, 2011 to YouTube (Part 3) Source: Uploaded by stonerbarbiie on Jun 7, 2011 to YouTube (Part 4) Source:Uploaded by ErmmTV on May 19,2011 to YouTube Feb 2,2012 Nature, the prestigious science magazine from Great Britain, has just published a commentary with a provocative title–The toxic truth about sugar—and an even more provocative subtitle: Added sweeteners pose dangers to health that justify controlling them like alcohol. The authors, Robert Lustig, Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis, are researchers at the University of California medical center in San Francisco (UCSF). They argue that although tobacco, alcohol and diet are critically important behavioral risk factors in chronic disease, only two of them—tobacco and alcohol—are regulated by governments to protect public health. Now, they say, it’s time to regulate sugar. By sugar, they mean sugars plural: sucrose as well as high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Both are about half fructose. Their rationale? Therefore, they argue, societies should intervene and consider the kinds of policies that have proven effective for control of tobacco and alcohol: In a statement that greatly underestimates the situation, they say: We recognize that societal intervention to reduce the supply and demand for sugar faces an uphill political battle against a powerful sugar lobby, and will require active engagement from all stakeholders. But, they conclude: These simple measures — which have all been on the battleground of American politics — are now taken for granted as essential tools for our public health and well-being. It’s time to turn our attention to sugar. What is one to make of this? Sugar is a delight, nobody is worried about the fructose in fruit or carrots, and diets can be plenty healthy with a little sugar sprinkled here and there. The issue is quantity. Sugars are not a problem, or not nearly as much of a problem, for people who balance calorie intake with expenditure. Scientists can argue endlessly about whether obesity is a cause or an effect of metabolic dysfunction, but most people would be healthier if they ate less sugar. The bottom line? As Corinna Hawkes, the author of numerous reports on worldwide food marketing, wrote me this morning, “there are plenty of reasons for people to consume less sugar without having to worry about whether it’s toxic or not!” Type 2 diabetic guilt and shame seem to be expected of someone who has been diagnosed with this chronic disease in the U.S. The message has never been more clear than it was when the famous TV chef Paula Deen revealed that she had been diagnosed a type 2 diabetic. Whatever her motives for what she does, many media persons have been extremely hateful in their attacks, using emotional words that are meant to wound. The problem is that it is not Paula Deen who is reading the poison they are pouring out. And what if she is cooking with butter and passing along recipes for fried food on her very popular cooking show? Has someone actually proven that using butter causes obesity and diabetes? I’ve looked at a lot of research, and the facts are saying something different. Type 2 Diabetic Guilt, the Damage The damage done by attacking someone who is diabetic shows when you read the blogs on diabetic websites. Type 1′s are separating themselves from type 2′s because they don’t want to be lumped in with the “fat slobs” who let themselves get a preventable disease. And the type 2 diabetic guilt comes out in the voices of people who write that they are too ashamed of their diagnosis to tell anyone about it. What good does it do to tell them the facts? Type 1 and type 2 diabetics are highly influenced by peer opinion, and that is especially true of younger ones. Diabulimia and other eating disorders are shortening the lives of diabetics just when research is coming up with better ways to handle the disease. No one knows why one obese person slips into type 2 diabetes while another does not. And normal weight type 2 diabetics exist too. Genetics has a lot to do with it, but how much? Experts are not sure. Meanwhile type 2 diabetic guilt has been turned up several notches. And most of us have plenty of things already to feel bad about. We’ve made choices that could have been better. But haven’t the people who point a loud accusing finger at Paula Deen made some bad choices too? Type 2 Diabetic Guilt and Shame, the Danger I am a type 2 diabetic. I know what guilt and shame are, and I know what they do. Shame will never help anyone to change. Books have been written by psychologists who observe the damage. Teachers who use shame on their students get fired when they are caught. Shame gives the message “I am a bad person.” There is no cure for that, if you believe it. And it is a small step from guilt to shame for many. Those who judge others for diabetes and obesity take no account of the causes, and the ones who suffer the most are young people, who are more easily affected by what others say. That is why attacking someone for their disease is so dangerous. A lot of type 2 diabetics are listening, and some of us have a hard time with not only the words but the spirit of hatred behind the attack. Eating disorders, depression and chronic stress will make diabetes worse. Not only that, but they undermine the desire to change. Shame heaps more fuel on these problems. It does not help, never has, never will. Guilt is saying “I made a mistake,” and it is a needed step in making changes, but it is not a place to live. We have to admit our mistakes without trying to lay blame on someone else. Then the door is open to endless possible roads we can take. The danger with type 2 diabetic guilt lies in the strong desire to lay blame. Most people who enjoy pointing fingers at others have fallen into the blame trap because they have not faced their own guilt. But blaming others will never help you feel less guilty for your own mistakes. What To Do About Type 2 Diabetic Guilt Becoming pre-diabetic came from my genetic make-up. The mistakes I made came from ignoring that fact. And when I was diagnosed type 2 diabetic guilt and shame dragged me into depression that I lived in for years. Now that I have faced my mistakes, learned about this condition and begun to change, I feel a future open with choices. I already know some will be good and some will not. But wallowing in shame and trying to blame someone else are two things I won’t waste time doing. If you are a type 1 diabetic, a healthy diet and exercise will help you live a long and healthy life. And the same holds true for a type 2 diabetic. Because you are more vulnerable to complications and viruses like hepatitis B and flu, it becomes important to keep your immune system strong. Staying away from AGEs and SOFAs will do that for you, simply by avoiding fast food and eating whole foods that don’t have all the good things processed out. Add the superfoods with antioxidants to your diet, and make exercise a daily goal. Take care of your diabetic chores – blood sugar testing, glucose monitor maintenance, regular visits to your doctor for kidney, liver and other blood tests, and inspecting your feet every day – those will increase your chances of dodging many of the complications. Don’t waste a minute regretting the past or letting someone’s words pull you down into shame. Loving family and good friends will help you keep your perspective, and keeping your eyes on the needs of others will do the same. I wish you well. Martha Zimmer invites you to visit her website and learn more about type 2 diabetes, its complications and how you can deal with them, as well as great tips for eating healthy that will make living with diabetes less painful. Go to http://www.a-diabetic-life.com and find out what you can do to avoid many of the pitfalls of this life-changing condition, like paying for cures that don’t work and spending money for things you could have gotten free. Martha has made the mistakes and done the research so you don’t have to. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Martha_J_Zimmer Source: Uploaded by REAPFood on Nov 2, 2009 to YouTube Michael Pollan was the keynote speaker for the 11th annual Food for Thought Festival held on September 26, 2009 in Madison, Wisconsin. Mr. Pollan is introduced by Claire Strader, who was elected to serve as the “White House Farmer” in a popular online poll. The annual Food for Thought Festival is a fun, festive forum that explores and celebrates our many opportunities to eat more pleasurably, healthfully and sustainably. Past festival speakers include Alice Waters, Mollie Katzen, José Bové, Frances Moore Lappé and several other accomplished cooks, writers and advocates for a sustainable food system. Marion Nestle / Food Politics Dec. 16, 2011 Just in time for the holidays, we get some good news. The New York City Health Department reports that rates of childhood obesity are falling. If the rates were staying constant, I’d consider it a step forward. But these results show rates going down, even if only by a few percentage points. The Bloomberg administration says the numbers are a result of its anti-obesity initiatives, some focused especially on children. Health Commissioner Dr. Tom Farley told the New York Times that he attributes the progress partly to the city’s aggressive advertising campaign against sugary sodas, which he said may have altered what parents were providing to their children. The city has also tried to add healthier options to school lunch menus, enacted strict rules on the calorie and sugar content of snacks and drinks in school vending machines, and even put limits on bake sales, a move that caused some grumbling. As I explained to Bloomberg News, if this trend continues, it will represent the first truly positive development in years. It also suggests that the health department’s unusually aggressive efforts to address obesity may be paying off. If so, they should inspire other communities to do the same kinds of things. If nothing else, they raise awareness of the problem and help create an environment more conducive to healthy eating. On the national level, Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign also has raised awareness. Could it be that we are getting to a tipping point? It’s pretty clear by now what works. A Cochrane meta-analysis of 55 studies finds strong evidence to support beneficial effects of child obesity prevention programs on BMI, particularly for kids age 6 to 12. The interventions showing the most promise are just like those in New York City: These are showing measurable benefits. Shouldn’t every city start doing them. Source: Marion Nestle / Food Politics You are here: Home>Manage Your Health>Preventive Services>Diabetes Screening Medicare covers up to two Fasting Blood Glucose tests each year. Medicare covers these tests for people who have any of the following risk factors: high blood pressure (hypertension), history of abnormal cholesterol and triglyceride levels (dyslipidemia), obesity, or a history of high blood sugar (glucose). Medicare also covers these tests if you answer yes to two or more of the following questions: You pay nothing for the test if your doctor accepts assignment. Medicare covers blood sugar testing monitors, blood sugar test strips, lancet devices and lancets, blood sugar control solutions, and therapeutic shoes (in some cases). Insulin is only covered if used with an external insulin pump. Note: Insulin and certain medical supplies used to inject insulin, such as syringes, and some oral diabetic drugs may be covered by Medicare prescription drug coverage (Part D). All people with Medicare who have diabetes. You pay 20% of the Medicare-approved amount after the yearly Part B deductible. Medicare covers diabetes self-management training. This training is for certain people with Medicare who are at risk for complications from diabetes. You must have a written order from a doctor or other health care provider. You pay 20% of the Medicare-approved amount after the yearly Part B deductible. Part 1 Source: Uploaded by HealthNewsUpdate on Nov 13, 2011 to YouYube First hour guest, Dr. Betty Martini shared updates on health problems associated with the artificial sweetener aspartame. She reported that aspartame consumption is linked to diabetes, and can exacerbate the problem. “Doctors have no idea that they’re not dealing with an additive,” she said of aspartame– “they’re dealing with an addictive, excitoneurotoxic, carcinogenic, genetically engineered drug. Part 2 Part 3 Bio: Dr. Betty Martini Dr. Betty Martini is the founder of the global volunteer force, Mission Possible International, which is committed to removing the deadly chemical aspartame from our food. She has been doing this for 14 years with operations in most states and over 30 countries of the world. She works with the world experts who write the reports you will find on their web pages. She spent 22 years in the medical field before this, and created the first health delivery system in the US. She can be seen in the aspartame documentary, Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World. Source: Uploaded by ProtectSouthOssetia on Oct. 24, 2010 to YouTube American food policy has resulted in increasing rates of obesity, particularly among lower-class and minority populations. "My father swears by this, he said back in the day, poor people were skinny, now poor people are obese," said Dr. Rani Whitfield of Family Practice and Sports Medicine. In of one of the very few black neighborhoods in the suburbs of Northern Virginia, nearly everything on the shelves is made with genetically modified products. You can literally pick up anything and see the same genetically modified ingredients like "high fructose corn syrup." In a higher income neighborhood, outside Whole Foods Market, customers balked at the thought of buying genetically modified products. "It doesn’t look healthy," said one shopper. "I can’t read half the ingredients on that thing and if I can’t read it, I won’t eat it," said another. At the introduction of her Let’s Move campaign to reduce obesity, First Lady Michelle Obama said: "Between what’s in our food and how much we eat, Americans now consume more calories, fat and sugar today than ever before." Obama has made childhood obesity her main issue to tackle during her time as First Lady. With one in every three kids obese in the US, childhood obesity is becoming more serious than adult obesity. She is encouraging Americans to plant gardens and eat healthy foods. "It’s ironic that on the one hand, Michelle Obama is planting an organic garden, on the other hand President Obama has put Michael Taylor in charge as the US Food Safety czar. Under Michael Taylor’s watch, the FDA said no testing necessary at all, no labeling on GMOs. He later went on to become the vice president for Monsanto and now he is in charge of the safety of the US food supply. In addition, Obama has placed many key pro Monsanto or key GMO people in key positions in the USDA and elsewhere," said biotech analyst Jeffrey Smith. These former Monsanto executives are the people making key decisions, not only for the American food supply but also for the American products exported to the world. "They are supposed to be protecting the people, but what it seems to me is the Department of Agriculture is protecting and promoting Monsanto," said Phil Geertson. What’s left of America’s organic farming industry is familiar with Monsanto’s stranglehold on the US market. Phil Geertson of Geertson Seeds in Idaho took Monsanto to the Supreme Court because of claims its Roundup Ready Alfalfa seeds were contaminating his farm lands. David Snively, the general counsel for Monsanto, said: "This product will be out there, so farmers need to coexist." Geertson lost the case and Monsanto won. Winning means losing to the world market, especially when the European Union and other Western nations like New Zealand refuse American food products because of their ingredients and the lack of labeling. "It’s incredible what is going on," said Geerton. Obesity, corporate takeover and the future of America’s health…these are all looming concerns as Americans continue to bite into genetically altered foods. It’s a lot to swallow for a country where there’s an abundance of food and an increasing waistband stretching from high echelons of the government to your dinner table. Why obesity is a national security threat. "An army travels on its stomach," said Napoleon Bonaparte. But what happens if the stomach gets too big to drag? Congress is passionately debating whether open homosexuality is compatible with military service. But even as this particular culture war seems headed to resolution, a new emerging cultural divide is tearing at military efficiency: obesity and overweight. In 2008, some 634 military personnel were discharged for transgressing "don’t ask, don’t tell." That same year, 4,555 were discharged for failing to meet military weight standards. Young adults "too fat to fight" Military weight standards are not especially demanding. Male recruits younger than 27 must have a body-fat percentage below 26%. That’s twice the fat you’d expect in a young man in peak physical condition.Yet even the relaxed 26% standard is too stringent for modern America. More than 9 million young Americans — about one in four — are too overweight to enlist, a recent report found. Serving personnel who exceed military limits are offered counseling, nutritional programs and other weight-control assistance. Discharge is very much a last and unwelcome resort. By the military’s own numbers, some 61% of active-duty personnel were above ideal weight in 2007, up from 50% in 1995. The U.S. military reflects the society of which it is a part. Americans are gaining weight, and the gain is steepest among the young. By Dr. Mercola Soda, which is loaded with sugar primarily in the form of high fructose corn syrup, is a leading contributor to the rising rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other chronic diseases facing Americans. So when I say that drinking a can of soda is just as bad for you as smoking a cigarette (and maybe even worse) it is not an exaggeration. Drinking soda is in many ways worse for you than smoking, and it is only because of massive marketing campaigns from the industry that these sugary beverages are deemed acceptable for our most vulnerable members of society – our kids. In the 21st century there would indeed be an uproar if tobacco companies attempted to target our kids, but the soda companies do it everyday. It’s time to wake up and face the facts: the soda industry is out for your children, and the message they send is every bit as damaging (and manipulative) as the one spewed by Big Tobacco. If I asked you to quickly recall a commercial or slogan from leading soda companies, like Coca-Cola or Pepsi, could you do it? Chances are you’d have no trouble recalling the friendly polar bear commercials or “the real thing” logo, and if you asked your kids, they’d probably come up with a few too. This is just the tip of the iceberg for how beverage big-wigs have gotten their products firmly embedded into the homes of millions of Americans and others worldwide. Coca-Cola, for instance, spends close to $3 billion a year on advertising. With that amount of money it’s no wonder the company has managed to hold on to its wholesome reputation. They, and other beverage giants, are also in the habit of forming strategic alliances with health organizations that make it appear as though they are looking out for your health, which is about as laughable as Big Tobacco sponsoring a marathon. And like Big Tobacco, they also create front groups to fight anti-soda legislation and science. For instance, as Time magazine reported: “The name of the group implies a patriotic, grass roots movement, not a highly financed entity initiated and organized by industry.” “The tobacco industry paid scientists who did research disputing links between smoking and lung cancer, the addictive nature of nicotine, and the dangers of second-hand smoke. The soda industry funds scientists who reliably produce research showing no link between SSB [sugar-sweetened beverage] consumption and health. The tobacco industry bought favor from community and national organizations by giving large donations. In an ironic twist, Coca Cola and PepsiCo are corporate sponsors of the American Dietetic Association.” The Coca-Cola Company Beverage Institute for Health and Wellness (isn’t that name an oxymoron?) even creates continuing education courses for registered dietitians! Some of you reading this are undoubtedly thinking, how bad could soda really be? From my perspective, there is absolutely NO REASON you or your kids should ever drink soda. If you were stranded in the middle of a desert with no other fluid available, then maybe, but other than that … none, nada, zip, zero. No excuses. From a health perspective, drinking Coke or any soft drink is a disaster. Just one extra can of soda per day can add as much as 15 pounds to your weight over the course of a single year, not to mention increase your risk of diabetes by 85 percent. The primary reason why soda is so dangerous to your health? Fructose. The fructose content of the high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) used in many popular soda brands has been sorely underestimated. Around 100 years ago the average American consumed a mere 15 grams of fructose a day, primarily in the form of fruit. One hundred years later, one fourth of Americans are consuming more than 135 grams per day, largely in the form of soda. Fructose at 15 grams a day is harmless (unless you suffer from high uric acid levels). However, at nearly 10 times that amount it becomes a major cause of obesity and nearly all chronic degenerative diseases. Instead of consisting of 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose, many soda brands, including Coke, Pepsi and Sprite, contain as much as 65 percent fructose, nearly 20 percent higher than originally believed. According to one study, the mean fructose content of all 23 sodas tested was 59 percent — higher than claimed by the industry. When you consider that Americans drink an average of 53 to 57 gallons of soda per year (depending on the source of your statistics), this difference in actual fructose content could make a huge difference in your health. The American Beverage Association and other front groups will try to persuade you that fructose in high fructose corn syrup is no worse for you than sugar, but this is not true. ABA also claims there is “no association between high fructose corn syrup and obesity,” but a long lineup of scientific studies suggest otherwise. For example: Fructose is also a likely culprit behind the millions of U.S. children struggling with non-alcoholic liver disease, which is caused by a build-up of fat within liver cells. Fructose is very hard on your liver, in much the same way as drinking alcohol. Fructose metabolism is very similar to the way alcohol is metabolized, which has a multitude of toxic metabolites that, if consumed in excess, can lead to non-alcoholic liver disease. For a complete discussion of fructose metabolism, see my comprehensive article about this. If you think you’re better off drinking diet soda, think again. In fact, if I had to choose between the two, I’d take regular soda over diet. Instead of fructose, diet soda contains artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame or sucralose (Splenda). With all the research now available on aspartame and its various ingredients, it’s hard to believe such a chemical would even be allowed into the food supply, but it is, and it’s been silently wreaking havoc with people’s health for the past 30 years. Just to refresh your memory, aspartame has been linked to the following health concerns, and Splenda is associated with many similar problems: Lymphomas, leukemias, and brain cancer Neurological symptoms including headaches, depressed and anxious mood, seizures, memory loss, hallucinations, and dizziness Weakness and fatigue Sleep disorders Abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea It’s a well-known fact that poor diet, particularly one high in sugar, exacts a toll on your emotional health. For example, one recent study published in the journal Psychology Today found a strong link between high sugar consumption and the risk of both depression and schizophrenia. It’s also a well-known fact that chronic inflammation plays a major role in heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and cancer. So consuming excessive amounts of sugary beverages can truly set off an avalanche of negative health events — both mental and physical. A diet high in sugar, fructose and sweetened beverages like soda also causes excessive insulin release, which can lead to falling blood sugar levels, or hypoglycemia. Hypoglycemia, in turn, causes your brain to secrete glutamate in levels that can cause agitation, depression, anger, anxiety and panic attacks. One 1985 study published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology found that reducing sugar intake had a positive impact on emotions. And another, the Los Angeles Probation Department Diet-Behavior Program: An Empirical Analysis of Six Institutional Settings, published in 1983, documented the results when juvenile delinquents were given a reduced-sugar diet. They saw a 44 percent reduction in the incidence of antisocial behavior during the subsequent 3 months, after the implementation of the revised diet. So can drinking soda affect your child’s behavior? Yes, it can. A new study further supported this point, and revealed that frequent soft drink consumption was associated with a 9-15% point increase in the probability of engaging in aggressive actions, even after controlling for gender, age, race, body mass index, typical sleep patterns, tobacco use, alcohol use and having family dinners. “There was a significant and strong association between soft drinks and violence. There may be a direct cause-and-effect relationship, perhaps due to the sugar or caffeine content of soft drinks, or there may be other factors, unaccounted for in our analyses, that cause both high soft drink consumption and aggression.” The effect is not a new finding, as in 1979 the now notorious “Twinkie Defense” was used in a murder trial for the first time. “In a notorious 1979 San Francisco murder trial, lawyers blamed the killer’s actions on his recent switch from a health-food diet to one filled with Coca-Cola and other junk food. Their argument worked. Instead of a homicide ruling, the defendant was convicted of a lesser offense of voluntary manslaughter. The legal strategy became known as the “Twinkie Defense,” and the precedent raised a number of questions that persist, despite years of research on the subject.” Soda manufacturers are not the only ones scheming for a permanent share of your child’s diet. In an article published on La Vida Locavore, Ed Bruske revealed, possibly for the first time, that manufacturers of sugar-laden processed foods pay “rebates” (aka “kickbacks”) to food service companies that serve school districts across the United States. Bruske obtained documents under the Freedom of Information Act that revealed more than 100 companies paid rebates to Chartwells, a food service management company hired by D.C. Public Schools. As you might suspect, the “rebates” present a conflict of interest that could prompt Chartwells to order food for your children based on the amount of rebate it will receive, versus the food’s nutritional value. The end result? School lunches that contain heavily processed foods like muffins, pizza, tator tots and flavored milk in lieu of fresh produce. According to Bruske: “Manufacturers pay rebates based on large volume purchases — literally, cash for placing an order. Rebates are said to be worth billions of dollars to the nation’s food industry, although manufacturers as well as the food service companies who feed millions of the nation’s school children every day — Chartwells, Sodexo and Aramark — treat them as a closely-guarded secret. The U.S. Department of Agriculture requires that food service companies engaged in “cost reimbursable” contracts with schools credit any rebates they receive to their school clients. For more than a year, attorneys for D.C. Public Schools refused to make public an itemized list of rebates collected by Chartwells, claiming the information constituted “trade secrets.” The schools were overruled by Mayor Vincent Gray’s legal counsel after I filed an administrative appeal. John Carroll, an assistant New York State attorney general investigating rebating practices there, has said rebates pose “an inherent conflict of interest” in school feeding programs because they favor highly processed industrial foods. In cases where schools pay a food service company a flat rate to provide meals, the companies are not required to disclose the rebates they collect. In those cases, Carroll recently told a U.S. Senate Panel, rebates tend to drive up the cost of food, cheating children out of nutrition they might otherwise have on their lunch trays. Carroll also described cases where rebates discouraged the use of local farm products in school meals. Produce vendors can’t afford to pay a rebate for local apples. But in at least one case, a produce distributor raised the prices of his goods so that he could pay a rebate to a food service company. A Homeland Security sub-committee in the U.S. Senate is investigating possible rebate fraud in contracts across the entire federal government.” The top contributors to Chatwells’ rebate dollars included Performance Food Group, which paid more than $400,000 over the last three years, followed by General Mills, Kraft Foods, Country Pure Foods and Jenny-O Turkey. Other companies who made the list include: ConAgra Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper, 7-Up Nestle Food and beverage companies spend $2 billion a year promoting unhealthy foods to kids, and while ultimately it’s the parents’ responsibility to feed their children healthy foods, junk food ads make this much more difficult than it should be. As a result, the state of most kids’ diets in the United States is not easy to swallow. As The Interagency Working Group on Foods Marketed to Children (IWG) reported: This is a veritable recipe for disease, and is a primary reason why today’s kids are arguably less healthy than many prior generations. Obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure — these are diseases that once appeared only in middle-age and beyond, but are now impacting children. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that by 2050, one in three U.S. adults will have diabetes — one of them could be your child if you do not take steps to cancel out the messages junk-food marketers are sending and instead teach them healthy eating habits. Make no mistake, the advertisers are doing all they can to lure your child in, just as Big Tobacco did generations ago. So you need to first educate yourself about proper nutrition and the dangers of junk food and processed foods in order to change the food culture of your entire family. To give your child the best start at life, and help instill healthy habits that will last a lifetime, you must lead by example. Children will simply not know which foods are healthy unless you, as a parent, teach it to them first. My nutrition plan offers a step-by-step guide to feed your family right, and I encourage you to read through it now to learn how to make healthy eating decisions for you and your children. If you want to get involved on a larger scale, the Prevention Institute’s “We’re Not Buying It” campaign is petitioning President Obama to put voluntary, science-based nutrition guidelines into place for companies that market foods to kids. You can sign this petition now. I also urge you to go a step further and stop supporting the companies that are marketing junk foods and beverages to your children today. Ideally, you and your family will want to vote with your pocketbook and avoid processed food and sugary sodas while instead choosing unprocessed raw, organic and/or locally grown foods as much as possible. These are the foods your child will thrive on, and it’s important they learn what real, healthy food is right from the get-go. This way, when they become tweens and teenagers, they may eat junk food here and there at a friend’s house, but they will return to real food as the foundation of their diet — and that habit will continue on with them for a lifetime. Source: Dr. Mercola, Organic Consumers Association (OCA) Source: Uploaded by KatieCouric on Feb 16, 2010 to YouTube What we eat, why we eat so much of it, and what it means for our health. Katie Couric talks food with with former FDA Commissioner Dr. David Kessler and "Fast Food Nation" author Eric Schlosser By Amy Westervelt, Contributor to Forbes These arguments center largely around the idea that current air pollution regulation is good enough as-is, and that any further restrictions are aimed at tackling environmental issues and climate change, both typically seen as luxuries in a down economy. But research is continuing to pile up in support of the claim that not only are current air pollution regulations inadequate, but that air pollution is very much a public health issue. When viewed through the public health lens, the economic arguments against regulation of air pollution begin to unravel, particularly in the face of rising healthcare costs. Consider, for example, a spate of new studies that have found a rather convincing correlation between the presence of small particulate matter (PM2.5, the ultrafine particles blown into the air by road traffic, coal-fired power plants, industrial manufacturing, and residential wood fuel combustion) and both obesity and diabetes. Medical research has long supported the fact that exposure to ultrafine particulate matter increases the risk of various respiratory, cardiovascular, and pulmonary illnesses. Incidences of asthma, heart attacks, and chronic bronchitis are all higher in areas where the concentration of ultrafine particulate matter is higher. The correlation between particulate matter and these health issues is particularly pronounced in children, as well as low-income communities, which are often located closer to the sources of particulate matter (highways, factories, power plants) than their higher income neighbors. Over the past decade, new studies have emerged that link air pollution to two of this country’s most pressing (and expensive) health epidemics: obesity and type II diabetes. Both are not only on the rise in terms of diagnoses, but also in terms of the costs associated with treatment. According to a January 2011 study by the Society of Actuaries, the current cost of the obesity epidemic in the United States is $270 billion a year. The American Diabetes Association puts the current cost of dealing with diabetes (over 90 percent of U.S. diabetes cases are type II) at $174 billion. According to the Center for Disease Control, asthma is a leading cause of school absenteeism in the United States, and the cost of treating asthma in children 18 and under alone is $3.2 billion per year. Meanwhile, financial analysts estimate the cost of tightened air pollution regulations at $130 billion. Granted, these are not budget line items that are easily swapped in for each other, but a tie-in to obesity and diabetes may just make tackling air pollution more economically viable. Of course, no one is saying, “hey, forget about diet and exercise, just take care of air pollution!” Nonetheless, even after controlling for factors such as genetics, income levels, weight, diet and exercise, Harvard researchers found a “consistent and significant” relationship between Type II diabetes prevalence and exposure to ultrafine particulate matter in a recent study. We actually expected there to be only a loose relationship there [between type II diabetes and air pollution], so we expected it to begin to fall apart as we looked at other risk factors,” says Harvard researcher John F. Pearson. “It was surprising to find that it held up the more we drilled into it. Results of an animal study published by Ohio State University researcher Qinghua Sun in late 2010 revealed that early exposure to ultrafine particulates led to the accumulation of abdominal fat and insulin resistance in mice even if they ate a normal diet. Exposure levels for animals in the study were similar to those found in U.S. cities. It’s important to note that the EPA does already regulate ultrafine particulate matter, but recent studies are finding that the levels currently deemed “acceptable” remain a threat to health on various levels. This is one of the first, if not the first, study to show that these fine particulates directly cause inflammation and changes in fat cells, both of which increase the risk for Type 2 diabetes,” said Sun, an associate professor of environmental health sciences at Ohio State University, in an announcement of the study’s results. The study compared mice fed a high-fat diet with those fed a normal, healthy diet, and exposed some members of both groups daily to ultrafine particulate matter, controlling for all other factors. In the end, all of the mice exposed to air pollution, including those fed a normal diet, had increased abdominal and subcutaneous (under the skin) fat. These findings suggest that fine particulate pollution exposure alone, in the presence of a normal diet, may lead to an increase in fat cell size and number, and also have a proinflammatory effect,” said Sanjay Rajagopalan, senior author of the study and the John W. Wolfe Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at Ohio State. Last year, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs decided that the link between air-borne dioxin (an ingredient in Agent Orange, and also a common air-borne pollutant emitted by waste incineration, some chemical manufacturing processes, cars and trucks, and other industrial sources that burn fuel) and diabetes was so strong, it compensated 270,000 veterans for diabetes linked to dioxin exposure. Increasingly, health research seems to be pointing to a need for stricter regulation of air pollution. PM2.5 [ultrafine particulate matter] is regulated specifically because of its health impacts, so it’s already recognized as a risk factor for heart attack, stroke, and lung disease,” says John S. Brownstein, PHD, co-author of the Harvard study. ”What was surprising is that even with EPA regulation there was still this gradient from the areas that were less polluted to those that were within the EPA limits, but at the higher end of the limit. Source: Amy Westervelt in Organic Consumers Association (OCA)/Forbes Source: Uploaded by UCtelevision on Oct 30, 2009 Dr. Kristine Madsen explores the relationship between children’s activity and the development of obesity and how to improve the nutrition and physical activity environments for children. Here she comes walking down the street. That beautiful, dark, shapely black woman. Shapely has become a term that describes the African American woman. However, statistics state that the highest percentage of overweight groups of people are African American women. Nearly 66 percent of Americans are overweight or obese, and of that 78 percent are African American women. We have to face that fact that America is getting fatter each year. The dieting has caused a very pronounced dependency on their products that if aren’t used the individual regains the weight lost. Americans are on an overweight rollercoaster that pauses when it reaches the top and down she goes again. What Makes the African American Woman Overweight? African American women are becoming overweight for the same reason most Americans are. African American women are eating fast food, unhealthy cooking, with little or no exercise routine. These lifestyle habits have created a large problem literally. Women tend to have more body fat on them than men. She is still beautiful as she walks down the street but she pauses every few feet to catch her breath. Being overweight can cause many different health issues such as; diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, asthmatic issues, and heart disease. These health induced illnesses can be crippling and even lead to untimely deaths. Taking care of the body through better nutrition adds vitality to a person’s health and life. Illnesses like diabetes is on the rise amongst overweight and obese individuals. These individuals are primarily African American women as they are the leading population that is overweight. Nutrition Tips Many times the home cooked meal is the most unhealthy meal of the day. Here are some tips to gradually change the eating habits and still enjoy the food you cook. Start each morning with a healthy breakfast. Eat healthy multi grain breakfast bars, oatmeal with a little brown sugar, low fat yogurt, a multi grain cereal with little milk (non dairy is the best). Eat lots of fruits and vegetables throughout the day. Consume more whole grains such as; oatmeal, brown rice, and whole grain breads. Try ordering the healthier options such as; grilled chicken instead of crispy chicken, plain hamburger with veggies only (no sauce), and ask for the salad on the side instead of the french fries. Make it light when using mayonnaise, butter and other condiment products. Eliminate sweets in the house. If sweets aren’t in the house it makes it harder to consume them. Change cooking styles; bake chicken instead fried, use more herbs and less butter, and less salt always. Adding Fitness to the Routine Fitness is just as important as nutrition. Do little things to get fitness into your daily schedule. Park further away from the door when going to the store or from the entrance to work. Go window shopping at the mall and walk the entire mall. Take the stairs when optional. Begin to schedule in exercise into daily schedule. Walk around a local school track. To look at alternative weight loss methods, take the time to visithttp://www.weightlosstriumph.com/does-medifast-work-find-out-what-medifast-customers-say.html Even though African American women have been the most overweight population with lifestyle changes that can change. Taking the time to find small things to eliminate and others to add will increase your overall health. Here she comes through the door and she is still beautiful, dark, shapely, and two sizes smaller and all she did was change her lifestyle one day at a time. Ilana began her career as a public speaker and motivational speaker in communities and schools. She has continued to educate and inspire those around her and in her community. Ilana is a professional freelance writer whom has been writing for 15 years. Source: GoArticles.com © 2011, All Rights Reserved PART 1 Source: Uploaded by herbspecialists on Jan 26, 2010 to YouTube Terrific Peter Jennings video exploring how billions of dollars are spent to sabotage your health. PART 2 PART 3 Part 4 Source: Uploaded by herbspecialists on Jan 26, 2010 to YouTube Terrific Peter Jennings video exploring how billions of dollars are spent to PART 5 (Last) This OnEarth column was written by Laura Fraser. We all know that Americans — leading the way for the rest of the developed world — are getting fatter. We hear about the “obesity epidemic” on the TV news, with footage of people depicted from the waist down shuffling around in XXL sweatpants and carrying supersized sodas. The majority of us are overweight, complaining about how our jeans are getting tighter and wondering why, despite all our efforts to diet and go to the gym, the number on the scale keeps edging higher. For years, the explanation for weight gain was straightforward: it was all about energy balance, or calories-in versus calories-out. This Gluttony and Sloth theory held that obesity simply came from overeating and under-exercising, and the only debate was about dieting — whether it was better to join the low-fat or the low-carb camp. Some scientists explored genetic differences associated with fat, but others said genes couldn’t possibly explain the rate at which Americans were gaining weight: “We just aren’t evolving that fast,” one obesity expert noted. Environmental scientists have long suggested that there were likely external factors at work, but until recently, the traditional obesity-research community rejected such claims. Now it seems thatthe tide is turning: This month’s issue of Obesity Reviews features an extensive look at the accumulating body of research linking the environment with obesity. The idea of our surroundings contributing to weight gain is nothing new, of course. But past discussions about the role of the “environment” focused mostly on the fast-food culture that we live in, where highly processed, highly caloric foods are constantly available, eating times are chaotic, kids run around drinking sugar-saturated sodas all day, no one has time to cook, fruits and vegetables are scarce in low-income urban areas, a venti frappuccino has 760 calories, and muffins are the size of melons. Add to that our changing physical environment — the fact that everyone sits in front of computers every day, instead of working out or working on the farm — and the “calories in” excess of the weight equation seems obvious, and obesity over-determined. But even allowing for such influences, something wasn’t adding up. There are plenty of people out there who eat well and exercise like Gwyneth Paltrow and still feel like their weight is out of control. Then there are those annoying people who eat everything they desire, never work out, and stay thin. There had to be more to it than calories. We know that hormones — the chemical messengers produced by our endocrine system to control things like blood pressure and insulin production — can fatten up animals for slaughter; that some drugs increase your weight; and that a change in hormones at midlife shifts where your fat is distributed. Researchers began to recognize that obesity is much more complicated than calories in and out, and that a lot of other mechanisms involving the hormonal regulatory system are involved in our bodies’ delicate weight balance. Paula Baillie-Hamilton, an expert on metabolism and environmental toxins at Stirling University in Scotland, was among the first to make the link between the obesity epidemic and the increase in the chemicals in our lives. “Overlooked in the obesity debate,” she wrote in 2002 in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, “is that the earth’s environment has changed significantly during the last few decades because of the exponential production and usage of synthetic organic and inorganic chemicals.” Exposure to those chemicals, said Baillie-Hamilton, can damage the body’s natural weight-control mechanisms. She calls toxic chemicals that act as endocrine disruptors — mimicking hormones, and blocking or exaggerating our natural hormonal responses — “chemical calories,” and those in question include Bisphenol A, phthalates, PCBs, persistent organic pollutants such as DDE, a breakdown product of the insecticide DDT, and pesticides containing tin compounds called organotins. Many studies have shown that endocrine disruptors have been linked to early puberty, impaired immune function, different types of cancer, birth deformities, and other diseases. Now obesity and metabolism are on that list. Environmental researchers call these chemical calories “obesogens.” Bruce Blumberg, a University of California at Irvine professor of developmental and cell biology, studies the effects of endocrine disruptors on obesity in mice and sees clear differences between those who are exposed to them and those who aren’t. “Pretty much anyone who observes people knows that obesity is way more than eating and exercise,” says Blumberg. Instead, metabolism, appetite, and the number and size of fat cells you have come into play, all of which are affected by hormones, and therefore by hormone disruptors. Blumberg has shown that the organic pollutants tributyltin and triphenyltin derail the hormonal mechanisms that control the weight of mice. He’s found that when pregnant mice are fed a dose of organotins that is equivalent to normal human exposure to those chemicals, their offspring have 10 percent more fat cells than normal mice, the fat cells grow bigger than normal, and they end up, overall, 10 percent fatter than your average mouse. Other compelling research that fat is not just about eating and exercise comes from studies that show that animals that live in human environments get fatter just by virtue of being around people. Researchers at the University of Alabama recently found that chimpanzees, macaques, mice, rats, dogs, cats, and other species that lived in proximity to humans got fatter than animals that didn’t live in an industrialized environment — even when their lab chow and exercise was highly controlled. The authors suggested that endocrine disruptors were one likely culprit in this cross-species obesity epidemic. For her article in the new Obesity Reviews, Jeanett Tang-Peronard, of the Institute of Preventive Medicine in Copenhagen, looked at some 450 studies on endocrine disruptors and obesity and found that nearly all of them showed a correlation between exposure to those chemicals — particularly in utero and in early childhood, when hormonal mechanisms are vulnerable — and an increase in body size. She says that in early life, chemicals seem to alter the epigenetic regulation of certain genes, disrupting the programming of hormonal signaling pathways that affect fat storage, fat distribution, and appetite. (The epigenome governs patterns of gene expression.) This reprogramming could explain how we are indeed evolving so fast. Tang-Peronard says that it is impossible, now, to tease out how much of obesity is caused by chemicals, and how much by energy balance. They’re intertwined, anyway, with imbalances in appetite-regulating hormones like leptin and ghrelin causing us to want to eat more of the available food. “Endocrine disruptors may play a significant role in obesity,” she says. But the research is in its infancy. She also points out that only a few of the tens of thousands of known environmental chemicals have been tested for their association with obesity. “We are only scratching the surface,” she says. What to do about the problem of endocrine disruptors and obesity? It’s hard to say, given that virtually all humans have been exposed. Pediatrician Maida Galvez is involved in the Mt. Sinai “Growing Up Healthy“ study of 330 children in East Harlem, monitoring their exposure to endocrine disruptors and their body weight. “Even if these chemicals play a small role in obesity, it’s a preventable exposure,” she says, explaining that if certain substances can be determined to have deleterious effects, we can avoid them at critical stages of development and ultimately replace them with safer alternatives. For now, Galvez recommends that parents steer clear of Bisphenol-A — present in many plastic water and baby bottles, and in microwavable and dishwasher-safe food containers. (If you find a printed “7″ on the bottom, get rid of it.) She also suggests avoiding shampoos, cosmetics, and soaps containing phthalates — up to 70 percent of “top-selling products,” according to a 2002 report by the Environmental Working Group. (Look for fragrance-free products, which are less likely to contain phthalates, or for anything from the Illumina Organics range or The Body Shop. And, she says, eat fresh fruits and vegetables, instead of foods that are processed and/or packaged in plastic. That’s one point on which traditional obesity researchers and environmental scientists agree: Eat plenty of fresh, organic vegetables. And while you’re at it, get out into the fresh air and get some exercise. Featuring great stories and great solutions, OnEarth magazine is a survival guide for the planet. Source: Organic Consumers Association (OCA)/ OnEarth Magazine July 7th, 2011 Obesity is getting bigger in the United States Two-thirds of all adults and about a third of all children and teenagers in the United States are overweight or obese according to a report release Thursday by the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). According to “F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America’s Future 2011,” adult obesity increased in 16 states during the past year and rates soared to 30% or more in these 12 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia. Four years ago, only one state – Mississippi – had an adult obesity rate of more than 30%. No state showed a decrease in it obesity rate in Thursday’s report. Nine of the 10 states with the highest adult obesity numbers are in the South. Mississippi, for the seventh year in a row, had the highest adult obesity rate at 34.4%. Colorado, at 19.8%, had the lowest, and in fact is the only state in the country with an adult obesity rate under 20%. Twenty years ago no rate was above 15%. The report found rates grew fastest in Alabama, Tennessee and Oklahoma and slowest in Colorado, Connecticut and the District of Columbia. “There was a clear tipping point in our national weight gain over the last twenty years,” said Jeff Levi, Executive director of TFAH. “And we can’t afford to ignore the impact obesity has on our health and corresponding health care spending.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the medical costs associated with obesity are staggering– totaling about $147 billion in 2008. More than 80% of people in this country with type-2 diabetes are overweight and new diagnoses doubled in 10 years, according to Thursday’s report. Overweight and obese people are at risk of developing high blood pressure and high cholesterol, risk factors for cardiovascular disease and stroke. They may also be at greater risk of colon, kidney and esophageal cancer. African Americans, Latinos, those with low incomes and less education had the highest overall rates, topping 30 to 40% in many states. The report found about 33% of adults who made less than $15,000 a year or did not graduate from high school were obese. The researchers found that a lack of access to fresh fruits, vegetables and other healthful foods in some neighborhoods and a dearth of safe community areas for families to walk and for children to play all factor into the obesity epidemic. But there’s more to it. “Portion sizes in restaurants are much larger than they have been, soft drinks at convenience stores are much larger than they have been,” said Dr. James Marks, senior vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “When people have a larger size they will eat more. Snacking has gone up more and more. All of these things contribute.” “We’ve built inactivity into our lifestyles. We’ve designed communities around cars,” said Levi. “Kids are watching TV and sitting around computers. We’ve found plenty of ways to entertain ourselves that don’t include activity.” “The information in this report should spur us all – individuals and policymakers alike – to redouble our efforts to reverse this debilitating and costly epidemic,” said Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “Changing policies is an important way to provide children and families with vital resources and opportunities to make healthier choices easier in their day-to day-lives.” Recommendations include making sure all food and drinks sold in schools meet the most recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans, increasing access to quality and affordable foods, expanding the amount and intensity of physical activity in schools and in out-of-school programs, increasing physical activity by providing communities safe places to walk, bike and play, introducing pricing incentives to help people buy healthier foods and regulating how and where unhealthy foods are marketed to children. Marks says what’s particularly tragic is the increase in type 2 diabetes among younger adults and kids. “Since the 1970s, the rate of obesity has tripled or quadrupled in children,” said Marks. “We’ve got an even larger problem coming in our children.” Source: Saundra Young – CNN Medical Senior Producer By Rachael Moeller Gorman, “Addicted to Food?,”March/April 2011 in Eating Well Every morning, Nora Volkow walks past a vending machine on her way to her office. She barely notices it. One day, however, she’s hungry, so she stops and peers in. A chocolate bar grabs her eye. She inserts her money, takes the chocolate, munches, and moves on. The next day, Volkow walks to her office as usual, but this time as she rounds the corner, she has a sudden, intense craving for chocolate. She hadn’t thought about it since her last bite the day before. She isn’t hungry. “But my brain responded in this automatic way,” she explains in her melodic Spanish accent as she sits in her office at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), where she serves as director. Because the chocolate had given her so much enjoyment, just the sight of the machine made her want to eat more. Volkow, a lithe woman with short blonde curls, provides example after example of instances in which she has succumbed to the food’s lure. Chocolate-covered raisins. Godiva at a bookstore. Chocolate-chip cookies. The woman really, really likes chocolate. But is she an addict? People talk about being “addicted to sugar,” “addicted to potato chips” and, probably most commonly, “addicted to chocolate.” Volkow has been attempting to figure out whether we truly can be addicted to food by peering into people’s minds with high-tech scanners. She has already shown that obese people’s brains look similar to the brains of those addicted to drugs. She’s finding that food, especially the highly palatable fatty, sugary kinds that pack the inner aisles of American supermarkets, fast-food joints and, yes, vending machines, can enslave anyone and change their behaviors. The more she can understand how “rewarding” substances, like drugs and yummy foods, can activate parts of our brains associated with addiction, the more she can help us learn how to take back control of our actions—or never lose our free will in the first place. The Makings of a Pioneer If you were to imagine a person whose pedigree and character destines her for a key leadership role, an NIH director, say, you might picture someone quite like Nora Volkow. Volkow’s great-grandfather was Leon Trotsky, the famous Russian revolutionary who defied Stalin, only to later be murdered in exile in Volkow’s childhood home in Mexico City. Her mother, a Spanish fashion designer, died several years ago, and her father is a chemist who still lives in Mexico. Nora Volkow herself graduated first in her class at the National University of Mexico medical school and received the Premio Robins award for best medical student of her generation. She speaks four languages fluently. She runs seven miles before work every day. She works an average of 80 hours every week. Yet for the sake of science, she perpetually brings up her own weaknesses. Like chocolate. Which we keep coming back to. “The other day someone gave me chocolate-covered raisins,” she says, swinging her ID chain with both hands, a twinkle in her eye. “They gave me two boxes, so I say, OK, I’ll eat half a box. Well, I ate one-and-a-half boxes!” This sort of compulsive eating, she says, is one reason that obesity has become an epidemic. Many people blame obese people for their condition, saying they simply eat too much. But it’s not that obese people lack willpower, says Volkow; there is something physical happening in their brains that prevents them from stopping. “Obesity is highly, horrifically stigmatized,” says Volkow. “It erodes your self-esteem, it interferes with social interactions, it affects your mobility. And yet so often people cannot stop it.” The Dopamine Made Me Do It Volkow’s interest in the chemistry and mechanisms of the brain began in Mexico City in 1981. She had just graduated from medical school and read an article in Scientific American about exciting new clinical applications of a technology called positron emission tomography (PET). PET allows scientists to see a three-dimensional image of the brain as it thinks, feels and works (previously, scientists could not watch the brain in action very well). Volkow was awestruck, and applied for a psychiatric residency at New York University to have a chance to work with nearby PET pioneers at the Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island. She was particularly interested in the brains of people who lose the ability to control their actions rationally; people who, in essence, lose free will. At first, she studied schizophrenics. By the late 1980s, she started looking at the brains of alcoholics and drug addicts as well. She soon saw that the addicted brains looked decidedly different from brains of people without drug or alcohol addictions. The most marked difference was in the dopamine cells of the reward circuit, a group of brain cells that communicate using the chemical dopamine. The circuit connects several regions in the brain involved in the feeling of reward, which has evolved to motivate us to do more of the things that make us feel good and are important for survival, like eating, having sex and taking care of children. Drugs like cocaine and amphetamines highjack this circuit, causing a flood of dopamine into the area between brain cells where messages are transmitted. And this dopamine surge produces a high. Take the drugs often enough and dopamine receptors can decrease in number or become less sensitive to dopamine. When this happens, a person needs more and more of the drug to get the same effect (this is called tolerance). As a psychiatrist, Volkow noted a similarity between drug abusers and compulsive overeaters: they both seemed to lose their rational ability to control their behaviors (around drugs and food, respectively). She wanted to know how to intervene to help those who couldn’t stop themselves. She knew that antipsychotic drugs, which block the reward-registering dopamine system, often make people eat and gain weight (as a side effect), while drugs that increase dopamine in the brain cause weight loss. In 2001, Volkow and her colleagues began exploring whether dopamine played a key role in overeating and obesity in people not on drugs. To find out, Volkow and her crew gave a radioactive chemical that binds to dopamine receptors to 20 people—10 obese, 10 normal weight—and then scanned their brains using PET, to see whether there were any associations between their dopamine systems and their body weights. Turns out, there were. The obese people had significantly fewer dopamine receptors in a part of the brain called the striatum. Volkow and her team surmised that with fewer receptors, the people who were obese had to eat far more food than a normal-weight person to experience the same high. Liking and Wanting In 2002, Volkow published a study that investigated the link between dopamine and “wanting.” When people were presented with—but not allowed to eat—warm, tasty plates of their favorite food, dopamine increased in the striatum area of their brains. The subjects said they were hungry and desired the food. This is the “wanting,” or craving; it is not the pleasure (i.e., “liking”) they likely would have experienced if they had been allowed to consume it. The people’s responses in this study were quite similar to the experiences of drug abusers watching a video showing people using cocaine: the abusers experience a dopamine surge through the parts of the brain involved in habit. In other words, really liking chocolate or potato chips, the pleasure that occurs when your reward systems fire, isn’t the whole story of dopamine and addiction. An intense want—the desire to eat, to do everything you can to get your hands on a food and put it into your mouth—is equally important. You taste creamy milk chocolate or a salty French fry. You really, really like it. So much so that you’re conditioned to the setting in which you ate the yummy food and the next time you’re in that environment, a shot of dopamine squirts into your brain and you want that food. You crave it. You’re motivated to eat it—and to keep eating it. This idea is central to the obesity epidemic. “There is a certain reinforcement, almost like an arousal of wanting more,” says Volkow. “A person eats a gallon of ice cream. He is not even realizing the taste of the food anymore, he’s not enjoying the pleasure of the palatability and experience; it has become automatic. The drive to have more and more [fueled by dopamine] is what maintains that behavior, independent at that point of the pleasurable response that you get. “It’s almost like they become a robot.” You’ve Been Conditioned No one would become a food-devouring robot, however, if they lived in a desert or on the moon or in the year 1850, according to David Kessler, M.D., former FDA commissioner and author of The End of Overeating (Rodale, 2009). We eat, he says, because we have constant, crippling access to rich, delicious foods packed with fat and sugars, both of which activate our dopamine systems. And those conditioned cues are everywhere—commercials, fast-food restaurants that we pass on our commutes, grocery stores. Kessler postulates that fat and sugar, plus salt, have triggered mass overconsumption in the United States. “We took fat, sugar and salt and put it on every corner, made it available 24/7, made it socially acceptable to eat anytime. We’re living in a food carnival,” he says. Volkow’s Bethesda offices are a perfect microcosm of this American food environment: Within one-third of a mile, a visitor can find a frozen yogurt place, a greasy-spoon diner, a Mexican restaurant and at least 10 other eateries. On the first floor of the NIDA offices is a cafeteria with a hot buffet and snacks. Vending machines, like the one Volkow has a hard time resisting, live on the office floors themselves. Bowls of candy lurk on desktops and in drawers. The scent of microwave popcorn pervades the office air. The continual need to say “NO!” to these tempting foods requires the strongest will, and some people’s wiring seems to be working against them. In a 2008 study, Volkow found that having fewer dopamine receptors (as obese people do) was associated with less activity in parts of the brain responsible for self-control. In other words, these people not only have to eat more to achieve the same “reward,” they also have a harder time stopping themselves from eating once they start. Drug addicts similarly have fewer dopamine receptors, also associated with less activity in the self-control parts of the brain. In the brain of a compulsive, “addicted” eater, inhibition is like a picket fence trying to hold back an avalanche of reward and conditioning. “Joanne,” 39, from San Francisco, a member of Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous, agrees, and says that sugar and flour are her drugs. Since she was a teenager, Joanne would compulsively eat for hours at a time; in high school she learned how to make herself sick, which “led to 15 years of insanity,” she says. “There was something in my brain that would light up, and it would turn into this massive craving that I could not control.” Joanne’s food addiction manifested as bulimia, but others in the group became obese. When she wasn’t purging, she was “white-knuckling it” through the day. “If there was food somewhere in the vicinity, the constant conversation in my head was, ‘Should I eat that? No, don’t eat that.’ Back and forth, over and over, while trying to maintain a conversation, which was almost fruitless because I wasn’t really listening, I was focused on the food.” Studies have estimated that about 10 percent of the population is addicted to food like this, and many more of us probably fall elsewhere on the food-addiction spectrum. “Everyone understands how critical taste is [to overeating], but what Nora has shown is the role not just of taste, but of the brain and brain circuits,” says Kessler. “We now know that the learning, memory, habit and motivational circuits of the brain are what drive eating, and Nora deserves a lot of credit for pulling back the curtain and showing us what’s really at the core of this [obesity] epidemic.” Breaking the Cycle But even though we are inundated with hyper-palatable food, not everyone becomes an addict. “At least 50 percent of that vulnerability is related to genetics,” Volkow says. And your ability to put on the brakes is a crucial factor. “Some people are [naturally] much better at controlling their desires than others.” After genetics, Volkow says the rest is environment—if you only have access to high-calorie, cheap junk foods, that’s all you can eat. Not everyone in the field agrees that people can be addicted to food and they object to the excuse it provides. “Interest in obesity as a brain disease should not detract from a public health focus on the ‘toxic food environment’ that is arguably responsible for the obesity epidemic,” writes psychologist Terry Wilson, Ph.D., of Rutgers University in a 2010 paper. But those who study food addiction say it does bear striking similarity to drug and alcohol addition: Ashley Gearhardt, Kelly Brownell and William Corbin at Yale have created the Yale Food Addiction Scale to determine whether a person is truly addicted to food. They adapted it from the scale for substance dependence in the DSM-IV (the “Bible” of psychiatry), and it includes criteria like whether the subject has been unsuccessful in trying to quit, whether he or she spends a lot of time trying to obtain the food, whether he or she has given up other recreational activities for the food, whether there are adverse consequences of eating the food, whether the subject becomes tolerant to the food and whether they have withdrawal symptoms. When they surveyed 233 people, these three leading researchers found that 11.6 percent of them could be diagnosed with food dependence (consuming large amounts of food despite significant issues—obesity, health problems—associated with it and the desire to stop, as well as withdrawal or tolerance). The scale could be useful in determining treatment for addicts versus those who simply experience the occasional craving. Back in her office, surrounded by sculptures and paintings, some from her own hand (yes, she’s an artist too!), Volkow talks about how addiction steals our free will and makes us a slave to the salient substance. So is Nora Volkow a chocolate addict? “No, I’m not. We use the word way too much.” The distinction, she says, is when eating the food impairs your life, when you lose control, like when a person consistently eats so much they only eat in private out of embarrassment and spend much of their time thinking about food. “Most people [who] take drugs are not addicted to drugs, like most people who eat chocolate, even if they eat more than they should, are not addicted to chocolate. “I may have that vulnerability, perhaps, for compulsiveness, but I am lucky enough to also have the control that leads me to plan ahead and say, I’m not going to do these things.” In other words, you can extend a hand from a present moment of strength to a future instance of weakness and wrestle your free will back from the dopamine master within. Source: Rachael Moeller Gorman, an award-winning science writer, is a contributing editor for EatingWell. About the Author: An award-winning journalist, Rachael Moeller Gorman is a contributing editor at EatingWell and has written for such publications as Scientific American, Good Housekeeping, Discover, Proto, Cooking Light and The Boston Globe Health/Science section, among others. She loves learning about all things science, from the environment to anthropology to medicine, and enjoys translating dense jargon into elegant prose for a variety of audiences. Profiles are her favorite, and traveling to a research site for a story is always ideal. Rachael has her bachelor’s degree in biology and neuroscience from Williams College and a master’s degree in environmental studies from Brown University. She has also conducted research in various genetics and neuroscience laboratories and is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the National Association of Science Writers. Please see the Articles section for a selection of her work.Truth About High Fructose Corn Syrup vs. Sugar
Truth About Carbohydrates & Sugar | Nutrition, Weight Loss, Glycemic Index, Psychetruth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zyqyXTQhiw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL_CmsPZ7Qk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLFWiL-phT4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2aHAq_uGL0
Fast Food Babies: Parts 1, 2, 3 & 4
Are Sugars Toxic? Should They be Regulated?
by Marion Nestle from her blog “Food Politics”
src=”http://pagead2.googlesyndiType 2 Diabetic Guilt, Blaming and Shaming
By Martha J Zimmer
Michael Pollan’s – Food for Thought Festival – Keynote Address
Good News! Childhood Obesity Rates Declining in NYC
Diabetes Screenings, Supplies, and Self – Management Training – Medicare.gov
Preventive Services
Diabetes Screenings, Supplies, and
Self-Management TrainingHow often is it covered?
Who’s eligible?
Your costs in Original Medicare
Diabetes Glucose Monitors, Test Strips, and Lancets
How often is it covered?
Who’s eligible?
Your costs in Original Medicare
Diabetes Self-Management Training
How often is it covered?
Who’s eligible?
Your costs in Original Medicare
Diabetes Resources
Related Links
Aspartame & Diabetes – Dr. Betty Martini – Parts 1, 2 & 3 (Radio) 31:22 min.
U.S. food policy turned Americans to fattest people in developed world
Drinking This “Popular Poison” is Worse than Smoking
Posted By Dr. Mercola | November 21 2011 | 206,111views |
Disponible en Español
Story at-a-glance
Striking Similarities Between the Soda Industry and Big Tobacco
The Top Reason to Give Soda the Boot …
The Down and Dirty About Fructose
Diet Soda is NOT a Safe Alternative to Regular Soda
Asthma
Visual changes
Joint pain
Weight gain and diabetes
Rashes and hivesDoes Soda Actually Cause Violence?
Processed Food “Rebates” Dominate School Cafeterias
Otis Spunkmeyer
Kellog’s
FritoLay
Tyson
Cargill Meat Solutions
Campbell’s FoodserviceRaising a Life-Long Healthy Eater
@katiecouric: Americans and Food
Two New Reasons to Worry About Air Pollution: Obesity and Diabetes
The debate over air pollution and, more specifically, the regulation of air pollution, raged on this week as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) watered down its cross-state pollution rule and House Republicans moved to delay new rules on toxic air pollution from cement plants, solid waste incinerators, and industrial boilers. These latest debates come on the heels of President Obama’s move last month to renege on promises to tighten up smog standards, a decision that angered environmentalists and led to speculation that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson might be ready to walk. In all cases, the argument against regulation goes something like this: The last thing a down economy needs is new regulation, and the EPA is overstepping its boundaries.Pediatric Obesity: More Than Just The Calories
African American Women and Weight
by Ilana Diallo
About the Author
How The Food Industry is Deceiving You: Parts 1, 2 & 3 of 5 – With Peter Jennings
How The Food Industry is Deceiving You: Parts 4 & 5 of 5 – With Peter Jennings
sabotage your health. Is Your Shampoo Making You Fat?
Obesity is Getting Bigger in the United States
Are You Addicted To Food?
Food can enslave the brain just like drugs can. Dr. Nora Volkow’s research may help you take back control.
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