Obesity Could Become Public Health Enemy #1

More than 2.1 billion people, or close to 30 percent of the global population, are overweight or obese, and obesity is responsible for about five percent of all deaths each year, worldwide. In the US, nearly one in five deaths is now associated with obesity. That obesity factors into your mortality risk isn't so surprising when you consider just how many chronic and serious disease it's associated with.

In the US, just eight obesity-related diseases account for 75 percent of all healthcare costs! Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), dementia, and cancer are among them, but there are many others as well. When you consider that two hallmarks of obesity are insulin/leptin resistance and chronic inflammation, you can begin to recognize that excess weight is fertile ground for a wide array of other ailments—many of which can cut your life significantly short.

When you’re insulin resistant, your cells have become seriously impaired in their ability to respond to the insulin your body makes. At the heart of this problem is a diet too high in sugar (especially processed fructose). While you can be insulin resistant and lean, obesity places far greater stress on your cells, which makes insulin resistance more probable. Insulin resistance is at the core of nearly every chronic degenerative disease and is typically what needs to be addressed first to turn around any disease.

Research shows that chronic overeating places stress on the endoplasmic reticulum (ER)—the membranous network found inside the mitochondria of your cells. And when the ER receives more nutrients than it can process, it signals the cell to dampen the sensitivity of the insulin receptors on the surface of the cell. Thus continuously eating more than your body really needs promotes insulin resistance by the mere fact that your cells are stressed by the work placed on them by the excess nutrients. Once your insulin resistance worsens, the concentration of glucose in your blood begins to rise, and elevated glucose contributes to the development of diabetes.

For decades, smoking was one of the leading causes of cancer, but that's about to change. Obesity will likely claim the lead spot as the principal cause of 10 different types of cancer within the next decade, according to cancer specialists who discussed the trend at the 2015 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) conference in Chicago. “Spiraling rates of obesity meant that cancer – once seen as a disease of old age – was now increasingly being diagnosed up to two decades earlier than in the past. Their figures suggest one in five cancer deaths in Britain is caused by excess weight," The Telegraph reports.

The links between obesity and cancer are quite clear, and excess weight can increase your risk of cancer rather significantly. For example, obese women increase their risk of womb cancer by 600 percent. Risks for breast, prostate, colon, and all the other gynecological cancers is also elevated, primarily due to the hormone imbalances associated with obesity, which tend to fuel tumor growth. Researchers have also found a correlation between obesity and increased risk for cancer relapse. Overweight survivors of prostate cancer treatment were found to have a three percent higher rate of relapse compared to their slimmer counterparts. They also had seven percent higher odds of the cancer spreading.

If you are struggling with weight issues and are concerned about the further ramifications that are outlined in this article, please contact our office so that we can schedule you a complimentary consultation and help increase your chances for a healthy future.

Eating A Late Dinner Not The Worst Offense

According to a study published recently in the British Journal of Nutrition, eating late suppers may not be a recipe for childhood obesity. Previous thinking had suggested that eating meals later in the evening, when activity levels tend to be lower, would make one more prone to gaining unwanted weight. Busy schedules of parents and multiple activities for children can sometimes tend to push dinner to later hours than what is commonly practiced. However, many other factors could also affect weight gain such as the particular food choices and the amount of calories consumed, but the study was only evaluating the one parameter of timing of the evening meal.

British researchers looked at data from more than 1,600 children, aged 4 to 18. They found that the risk of being overweight or obesity was no higher among those who had meals between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. than among those who ate between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Expectations were that there would be an association between eating later and being more likely to be overweight, but it was found that this was not the case. This may also have been due to the limited number of children consuming their evening meal after 8 p.m.

As always, food choices will have a direct impact on weight irrespective of calorie content or timing alone. Diets or meals that are heavy in carbohydrates, processed ingredients, sugars and unhealthy fats will always be detrimental regardless of timing of when they are consumed. Focusing on providing lean, healthy proteins, an abundance of vegetables, moderate amounts of carbohydrates and fruits and plenty of water will help ensure the children are getting the best nutrition to support their bodies without an excess of unneeded calories.

Activity levels of children will also have an impact. A child that is coming home from an hour or two of soccer practice will be more likely to better utilize the calories consumed than a child who has been sitting in front of the television or computer since they got home from school. Encouraging activity will also help stimulate metabolism and help build healthy habits to lead them away from the daily routines that promote a sedentary lifestyle. And if meals do need to be consumed later, it is advisable to try and have them at least 2-3 hours before bed time to allow the body to properly digest the food consumed so that sleep time can be devoted to healing, repair and relaxation for the body.

Hold The Salt!

Many of the health issues that people who come to our office struggle with do tend to have a common basis: obesity and being overweight. Whether it comes strictly from poor food choices or is a product of that plus hormone imbalances, food selection can almost always be a contributing factor. Especially when it comes to the types of foods eaten. Carbohydrates, for example, can come from healthy choices like fruits and vegetables, or they can come from poor choices like potato chips, desserts and soda. Food can even be addictive and drive overeating where not only the quality of food becomes an issue, but also the quantity. And certain foods, or components of foods, tend to be worse than others if one is trying to beat the battle of the bulge.

In its original intention centuries ago, salt was primarily used as a preservative before refrigeration was commonplace and it has always been used as a natural flavor enhancer. In our modern times though, salt has long been implicated in regards to blood pressure and heart disease, but research is now starting to show the correlation it has to obesity. A study published in the Journal of Nutrition suggests that salt is playing an even more powerful role than we thought in making us eat more.

The researchers from Deakin University gave test subjects four different lunches. The lunches looked pretty much the same—elbow macaroni with tomato sauce—but the researchers manipulated the amount of salt and fat in each pasta dish. The dishes were either low-fat/low-salt, low-fat/high-salt, high-fat/low-salt, or high-fat/high-salt. They measured how much they ate and also rated their reaction to the food on scales including pleasantness, hunger and fullness. Adding salt to the meals increased how pleasant people thought the food was. They also wanted to eat more of the high-salt meals than the low-salt meals (not surprisingly), but that didn’t hold true for the high-fat foods over those low in fat.

The higher salt content meals also made people eat 11% more food and calories, regardless of how much fat was in the meal. More interesting though was the fact that it made fat-sensitive people overeat as well. Normally the sensitivity to fat would help them limit the amount of food eaten with a higher fat content, but the addition of more salt appeared to override this control mechanism. Thus the combination of salt and fat, such as in fried foods and potato chips, seems to be one of the worst combinations to eat if one is trying to control their weight. Fat does provide twice as many calories per gram than protein and carbs, so while it has its own downfalls from a total calorie intake perspective, the addition of salt may only be making the compulsion to overeat even worse. Best defense: stick to foods in their natural forms and flavor and when someone asks you to pass the salt, just make sure it doesn’t make a stop on your plate.

In Health, 

Dr. Brad Niewierowski 

Is Your TV Killing You Prematurely?

We all know and have heard that being a “couch potato” is not conducive to leading an optimally healthy life. But there could be research that actually supports that now and tips into the notion that it could affect our mortality as well. Spending too much time in front of the television may contribute to a shorter, a new study suggests.

Researchers in Australia found that people who averaged six hours a day watching television (six hours! – who does that?) lived, on average, nearly five years less than people who watched no TV. For every hour of TV watched after the age of 25, lifespan fell by 22 minutes according to the research led by Dr. J. Lennert of the University of Queensland. Time to throw that remote in the trash and lock the tv in the closet?

Before you go to such drastic extremes, take a look at what the data tells you versus looking at it just cut and dry. The results did not prove that tv watching itself was the direct link to a shortened lifespan! It was that people who SPENT more time watching tv had the shorter lifespans based on the study data. This makes more sense after you think about all the ramifications of extended tv viewing.

For one, most people tend to be sedentary during this time (unless you’re on exercise equipment at the same time, which will likely negate some of the negative effects). If we’re not up and active, we’re not burning much calories and our metabolism slows down. Prolonged inactivity has been proven to be a risk factor for many cardiovascular, metabolic and structural health problems.

Second, how easy is it to sit down with a bag/box/bowl of “munchies” during your favorite shows only to realize later that you’ve eaten way too much while on auto pilot. Not only does this lead to excess calorie consumption (combined with the decreased expenditure just mentioned), but many snack choices tend to be of the less healthy variety. Poor quality foods, and too much of them, lead to obesity, heart issues, poor energy and diabetes.

Lastly, from a structural standpoint, our bodies weren’t meant to be in a sitting position for extended periods (or some of the other awkward positions I’ve seen people recline or sit in!) How many times have you felt more stiffness or soreness after getting up from a long sitting period? Or had that kink in the neck after lying on the couch too long (or worse, after falling asleep there watching tv)? Decreased blood flow and oxygenation to our tissues is one problem from this scenario, with shortened, tight muscles that contribute to stiffness as another. And if you want your muscles to be weak and unsupportive when you’re going through your day-to-day activities, running the risk of muscle strains and sprains and all the pain they entail, then by all means shoot for that six hours of vegetation.

As you can see, there is more to the picture than what was first implied, but you can garner a positive from the results. In moderation, tv viewing in and of itself is likely not that detrimental. Sitting or lying with proper posture will definitely help alleviate some physical stress to the body, as will getting up to stretch or move around every 15 – 30 minutes. Making healthier food choices while viewing can also decrease some of the metabolic risk factors (as well as drinking plenty of water so you have to get up for trips to the restroom!). Other than that, make sure you’re taking time to get up, get out and enjoy life firsthand! You could be missing out on life experiences that are even better than what you’re watching other people experience on tv.

In Health, 

Dr. Niewierowski

BPA Makes You Fat

In the U.S., about 75 percent of men and 67 percent of women are now either overweight or obese. This has risen significantly from figures gathered between 1988 and 1994, when "just" 63 percent of U.S. men and 55 percent of U.S. women were overweight or obese.

Complicating matters, research published in Obesity Research & Clinical Practice found that the same caloric intake and exercise program would result in a body mass index (BMI) that is about 5 pounds higher in 2006 than it would have been in 1988.

In other words, in order to maintain the same weight as in 1988, today you'd need to exercise more and eat fewer calories. The results suggest "factors other than diet and physical activity may be contributing to the increase in BMI over time," but what factors, exactly?

This remains to be seen, but increasing evidence suggests environmental chemicals, particularly endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are playing a role.

Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals Linked to Significant Disease and Dysfunction

Endocrine disruptors, a number of which are found in plastic products, electronics, cleaning products, and even food, are similar in structure to natural sex hormones such as estrogen, thereby interfering with their normal functions. As stated in a report by the Environmental Working Group (EWG):

"There is no end to the tricks that endocrine disruptors can play on our bodies: increasing production of certain hormones; decreasing production of others; imitating hormones; turning one hormone into another;

… [I]nterfering with hormone signaling; telling cells to die prematurely; competing with essential nutrients; binding to essential hormones; accumulating in organs that produce hormones."

Recent research published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism further revealed that exposure to EDCs in the European Union are likely to contribute substantially to disease and dysfunction and result in about $209 billion in health and economic costs.

Among the chemicals known to be EDCs are:

Diethylstilbestrol	Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)
Dioxins	Perfluoroalkyl compounds
Solvents	Phthalates
Bisphenol-A (BPA)	Dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE)
Organophosphate and organochlorine pesticides	Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs)

BPA: The 'Poster Child' of Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals

Bisphenol-A (BPA) was first created in 1891 by a Russian chemist. By the 1930s, it was found to mimic the effects of estrogen in the human body. Still, in the 1950s BPA found its way into industry, as a chemical that could produce strong, resilient and often transparent plastics.

BPA is also used to make BPA resins, which keep metal from corroding and breaking. As such, it now coats about 75 percent of cans in North America. The chemical is surrounded in controversy as research continues to build that it's detrimental to human health.

Yet, the BPA market was valued at over $13 billion in 2013, and sales are set to expand 5 percent annually. As of 2012, 10 billion pounds of BPA were produced worldwide, sales of which amount to tens of millions each day.

Most Americans have BPA in their blood, usually in the range of 1 part per billion (ppb).

This might seem like too miniscule an amount to cause problems — and that's just what regulators and chemical companies have long stated — but'endocrine disruptors like BPA, which act like hormones, don't 'play by the rules,' says Patricia Hunt, a geneticist at Washington State University."

According to Hunt, "exposure to low levels of BPA — levels that we think are in the realm of current human exposure — can profoundly affect both developing eggs and sperm."

BPA has been linked to a number of health concerns, particularly in pregnant women, fetuses and young children, but also in adults, including:

Structural damage to your brain	Changes in gender-specific behavior, and abnormal sexual behavior
Hyperactivity, increased aggressiveness, and impaired learning	Early puberty, stimulation of mammary gland development, disrupted reproductive cycles, ovarian dysfunction, and infertility
Increased fat formation and risk of obesity	Stimulation of prostate cancer cells
Altered immune function	Increased prostate size and decreased sperm production

Much of the research on BPA has involved animals, leading skeptics (usually those in the chemical industry) to say the effects may not necessarily be the same in humans. But research involving humans has shown similar risks.

For instance, BPA from cans or plastic bottles can raise your blood pressure within just a few hours of ingestion.13 And in the NHANES study, published in 2010, adults with the highest levels of BPA in their urine were more than twice as likely to develop coronary heart disease as those with the lowest levels.

In Health, 

Dr. Brad Niewierowski 

BPA Makes You Fat

January 13, 2016   Mercola.com

Conquer Chronic Inflammation with These 18 Foods and Beverages

One of your most basic health principles is to eat real food. This will radically reduce your exposure to the tens of thousands of chemicals added to processed foods, most of which are not even on the label. Many are still under the illusion that whole grains are good for you, but while this may have held true for your grandparent's generation, it's not true today. The thing that people tend to forget is that virtually all grain products you buy today have gone through industrial processing.

Grains have also been altered through time, and growing methods differ significantly from even a generation or two ago. We also prepare grains differently these days. Sprouted whole organic grains may be the lone exception to my recommendation to avoid grains, but all those whole grain loaves of bread, whole grain pastas, and whole grain cereals — they're actually processed foods, and are best replaced.

You can read more about these issues in Authority Nutrition's article,1 "Modern Wheat – Old Diet Staple Turned into a Modern Health Nightmare." That said, even among whole foods, some stand out as VIPs above others. Health.com recently published a list of 18 foods packed with health-promoting compounds like antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals known to play a role in longevity.

Healthy Fat Foods

Besides nuts, three other foods that rate among the highest in terms of healthy fats include salmon, avocado, and coconut oil.

·         Wild caught Alaskan salmon: Research suggests that eating oily fish once or twice a week may increase your lifespan by more than two years, and reduce your risk of dying from cardiovascular disease by 35 percent.

If you want to maximize health benefits from fish, avoid farmed fish, particularly farmed salmon, and even more specifically genetically engineered farmed salmon — especially if you're seeking to improve your omega-3 to omega-6 ratio.

Look for "Alaskan salmon," and "sockeye salmon," as Alaskan sockeye is not allowed to be farmed. Canned varieties are an inexpensive alternative to pricier salmon steaks.

·         Avocado: Avocados, which are actually classified as a fruit, are rich in monounsaturated fat that is easily burned for energy. They also provide close to 20 essential health-boosting nutrients, including potassium, vitamin E, B-vitamins, and folic acid.

Clinical research has revealed a number of health effects of avocado consumption, linking it to reduced risk for cardiovascular disease and diabetes, as well as appetite suppression and improved weight management. It also enhances your body's absorption of other nutrients.

Researchers have found it can help optimize cholesterol levels within as little as one week, and contains compounds that appear to inhibit and destroy oral cancer cells, along with others that protect against liver damage. Besides eating it "as is," you can increase your avocado consumption by using it as a fat replacement in baking; add it to soups, dessert whips, and countless other recipes.

·         Coconut oil: Half of the fat content in coconut oil is lauric acid that your body converts into monolaurin, which has anti-viral, anti-bacterial, and anti-protozoa properties. The medium-chain fatty acids in coconut oil also produce a whole host of health benefits, including stimulating your metabolism.

MCFAs are also immediately converted to energy — a function usually served in the diet by simple carbohydrates — so like avocados, coconut oil is an ideal replacement for unhealthy grain carbs. It can be added to smoothies, or used in virtually any dish calling for butter or oil. When it comes to cooking, coconut oil is ideal as it can tolerate high heat without oxidizing. 

For more healthy recommendations, keep reading the full article.

However, keep in mind that based on your particular physiology and health conditions, certain foods on the list such as the grains, broccoli, cabbage or, for example, may not be healthy choices for YOU. Consulting with one of our doctors to make sure you aren’t eating these generally healthy foods that can cause allergic reactions or interfere with hormone formation is the best bet to keeping your diet safe for you!

In Health, 

Dr. Brad Niewierowski

18 Foods That Promote Longevity

January 04, 2016  Mercola.com