Healthy Bytes

Belly fat -> inflammation -> disease: cardiovascular, diabetes

read time: 417 words, about two minutes

In an apple versus pear comparison, the pear is by far the healthier option.
I’m not referring to fruit here, but rather to physical shape. Apple shape being wide through the belly. Pear shaped being wider through the hips.

What researchers have found is that not all fat is created equal. They’ve shown that ab fat has a high association with poor insulin response and inflammation.

In a study done back in 2004 at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, liposuction was used to remove about 20% of people’s total body fat mass. While that gave them different wardrobe options, there weren’t the expected metabolic benefits found with weight loss by diet and exercise.

Liposuction removes subcutaneous fat… fat right under the skin.
It does not remove visceral fat… fat that surrounds the organs. Those fat cells are more difficult (and dangerous) to get to.
Diet and exercise doesn’t remove fat cells – it shrinks them, with no apparent preference for subcutaneous versus visceral.

Back to the results… in a second phase, researchers studied the blood to determine if visceral fat was the problem, or a symptom. In this study, they took blood from obese patients going through gastric bypass surgery.

They showed visceral fat was secreting interleukin-6 (IL-6) - an inflammatory molecule – into portal vein blood. Portal vein blood had levels of IL-6 50% greater than blood at the periphery.

Increased levels of IL-6 correlated with C-reactive protein (CRP) which is an inflammatory substance.

Chronic inflammation is associated with insulin resistance, hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis and other diseases.

So let’s look at a few things…
Sucking out the fat doesn’t remove the health consequences.
Manufacturers of statin drugs keep telling you to lower your cholesterol – by taking their drugs for the rest of your life. And yet, folks with low and “normal” cholesterol have heart attacks and congestive heart failure. Why – inflammation.

Assistant professor of medicine Luigi Fontana, M.D., Ph.D.:

“Many years ago, atherosclerosis was thought to be related to lipids and to the excessive deposit of cholesterol in the arteries. Nowadays, it’s clear that atherosclerosis is an inflammatory disease. There also is evidence that inflammation plays a role in cancer, and there is even evidence that it plays a role in aging. Someday we may learn that visceral fat is involved in those things, too.”

A lifetime of poor nutrition and lack of exercise isn’t going to be sucked away in a simple outpatient procedure or blasted away with a daily pharmaceutical regimen.

Drink soda, get diabetes

read time: 159 words, about a minute

Dr. Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, analyzed and reviewed 88 studies which explored the relationship between soda and poor nutrition, obesity and diabetes.

No surprise – at least to me – there is one.

Results of one particular study published in the American Journal of Public Health followed 91,000 women for 8 years.

The findings: women who drank one or more sodas per day (national average consumption is two, 12-ounces), were twice as likely to develop diabetes over the course of the study as compared to women who drank less than one soda per month.

So basically, if you’re an average or more soda drinker, you’re twice as likely to develop diabetes.

And as noted in the previous post… that means you’re also 65% more likely to develop Alzheimer.

Shouldn’t there be a Surgeon General’s warning on soda?!?

What has a greater health impact…
Cigarettes or soda?

Your brain on diabetes

New research shows that Diabetes also slows down your brain. Brain cells deteriorate, plaque forms.

In fact, folks with diabetes have a 65% greater chance of developing Alzheimers.

In the last 20 years, Diabetes has doubled. It now affects over 20 million people.

Need more reasons to avoid high sugar and highly processed food products?

The state of health in America according to Tommy Thompson

read time: 634 words, about 5 minutes

On CNN House Call this past weekend, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. interviewed former Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson.

I’m sure during his tenor he saw a lot of data and spoke with a vast number of authoritative folks.

Here’s some data:
~ 92% of all healthcare dollars are spent after people get sick. (7% spent for not sick services).
~ 75% of healthcare dollars are spent on chronic illness.

It’s funny that we even call it healthcare. Isn’t that a misnomer? Shouldn’t it be called sick care?
And if you went to your Doctor and wanted information on living a healthy life, what would you get?

In 2003 the Princeton Review surveyed every US accredited medical school (122) and accredited osteopathic school (19) about nutrition education in their curriculum.
40% of the schools had a nutrition requirement. The average amount of nutritional training at the schools that required any was 2.5 credit units – about 38 hours.

In their book “The Real Age Diet”, Drs. Michael F. Roizen and John La Puma revealed, “The two of us combined received fewer than eight hours of education on nutrition in more than six thousand lecture hours in medical schools”

Dr. Michael A. Klaper, Director of the Institute of Nutritional Education and Research:

“What’s really tragic about this is that we were so busy learning how to fix broken arms, deliver babies and do all of those ‘doctor’ things in medical school that we considered nutrition to be boring. But after we get into practice, we spend most of the day treating people with diseases that have huge nutritional components that have long been essentially ignored.”

I don’t want to bash Doctors. I’m questioning our focus. Clearly, nutrition isn’t a focus in medical school.

According to former Secretary Thompson, the top three health issues are:

Tobacco: 442,000 Americans deaths/year.

Diabetes: $1 out of $14 of the $2 trillion healthcare dollars goes to treat diabetes.
Last year 18 million folks were diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. This year that bumps up to 21 million – a 17% increase. On the path to Type 2 diabetes are 41 million pre-diabetic Americans.
Following the trend out 5 years projects 62 million Type 2 diabetic Americans.

Obesity. Obesity is a chronic condition, but it’s also a bit unique in that it is increasing at rates previously experienced only with infectious diseases. More that 10% of kids between 2 and 5 are already overweight or obese. 2/3rds of adults are overweight and nearly half of those (about 30% of the total population) are obese. 16% of children – obese.

As far as the ranking, I’ll have to disagree with Thompson.
I’d put obesity first, diabetes 2nd and tobacco 3rd. Here’s why:
We’ve dumped a lot of money and education into smoking prevention and quitting.

When you look at where education and prevention effort has been, it’s tobacco, alcohol and drugs. Additionally, over the past few years smoking has been, and continues to get banned from more and more public places.

So the awareness is there, it’s heavily taxed, and it’s harder and harder to smoke anywhere. People are more educated and their behaviour is penalized.

Looking at obesity and diabetes… we’re just starting to publicly look at these very frightening numbers. We need A LOT more education and awareness. We need much clearer blueprints on healthy eating and lifestyle. And we need much better access to quality, nutritious food.

Personally, I think you’ll get a better return with eating and lifestyle education and obesity prevention, then you will with more tobacco prevention.

And since Type 2 diabetes is mostly the result of diet and exercise, you can turn the current trend around by turning the obesity trend around… two for the price of one.

You can grab the transcript of the House Call show here: CNN House Call transcripts.

1 Billion served… TOO MUCH

read time: about three minutes

A couple weeks ago there was a four-day conference on the treatment and prevention of obesity. The shindig was put on by the North American Society for the Study of Obesity (NAASO).

Ponder this:
According to the World Health Organization - worldwide 1 billion people are overweight, 300 million are clinically obese.
Yup, for every four adults in the world who are malnourished, five more are overweight.

Not only are these number astonishingly frightening, but the rate of increase is dizzying. And those numbers and increases are even worse among kids.

The number of overweight kids (6-19 year olds) in the US tripled between 1980 and 2002.

Oh, of course the US racks up the big numbers, but don’t think we own the wide seat accolades alone…
Somoa - 75% in some urban zone are overweight;
China - 20% in some cities are overweight;
Across all of the EU - 45% are overweight.

So what - what’s a “few” extra pounds…
Well in the US according to a University of Pennsylvania researcher, it costs $90.7 billion extra health care dollars… 5.04% of all US health care costs.

Obesity isn’t a self contained issue either because it tends to lead to other conditions such as arthritis, asthma, breast cancer, colon cancer, diabetes and heart disease. These conditions in and of themselves create other complications and on and on it goes.

In fact 90% of folks with type-2 diabetes are either overweight or obese.

And for over 9,500 Americans surveyed, obesity was associated with more chronic health problems and a poorer quality of life than alcohol abuse, smoking or poverty.

A lot of folks may read these kinds of numbers and just be numbed by them or perhaps feel helpless in the face of them.

We’re hounded by “shoulds” in a life that some times has us holding our bladder too long because we don’t have enough time to “go”. True. But part of that is by choice… or lack of thoughful choice. And part is from lack of knowledge.

We’re here for the knowledge part - to dispense often times quick and practical strategies, actions and tidbits that you can absorb and apply in your life.

If it’s not obvious yet, our strongest belief is we need to eat food close to dirt rather than petroleum. i.e., eat the apple from the tree not the “Apple Jacks” highly processed, chemicals added and packaged for a long shelf life.

Read more about the NAASO conference.

Here we are, where are we going?

read time: 2 minutes

Did you ever talk about diabetes when you were a kid?

It used to be quite uncommon. Now, according to the trend, 1 in 3 folks born in 2,000 will develop Type 2 Diabetes (CDC).
Obesity has been declared an epidemic by the CDC. According to that trend, 100% of adults will be overweight by 2040. And the rates on childhood obesity are equally scary.
Asthma - New Yorker Magazine states 1 in 4 South Bronx school kids packs an inhaler.
Autism - up 2,812% from 1995 to 2005.
And of course the top 3: Heart disease, cancer, stroke.

If all these maladies are so much more common today then they were 20-30 years ago, it begs the simple question: what’s changed?

“You control more than 70% of how well and how long you live. By the time you reach fifty, your lifestyle dictates 80% of how you age; the rest is controlled by inherited genetics.”
- You The Owner’s Manual, Michael F. Roizen, M.D., Mehmet C. Oz, M.D.

What’s changed is diet and lifestyle. And based on the results, not for the better.

Everything you put in your body - whether it’s prescribed by a doctor or purchased off a grocery store shelf - affects your health. In fact, often in unforeseen ways.

You see, when you eat well, you feed and nourish your body tissue, bones, glands, organs, skin and hair. And you thrive.

When you eat poorly, you take from the reserve of nutrients stored in your body. And it shows in your skin, hair and mood. And you feel it with fatigue, aches and pains and lowered energy as well as more serious illnesses such as obesity, asthma, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

Join us regularly for our ongoing discussion about nutrition - what’s really good and what’s advertising spin. We’ll also talk about food products, food supply, diseases, supplements, drugs, lifestyle and whatever else is on our minds.

Jump into to the conversation by commenting on posts and sharing your own experiences.