Obesity - The Real Cause
Obesity, the real cause of Obesity
Growth hormones! What do you expect! We give our livestock - beef, pork, veal, chicken, turkeys, asf. - growth hormones so they gain weight faster and can be sold sooner. And in the case of dairy cows, we also give them estrogen hormones, so they give more milk. It works, it works wonderfully well.
Both hormones result in rapid weight gain of the animals, and consequently, we too are now expressing these added hormones in our food - in rapidly growing bulk.
Worse, no one has even begun to consider the effect of dosing the body with growth hormones in the mature phase, when physical growth has stopped. As is long and well known since time immemorial people stop growing in their late teens or early twenties when they have matured physically. Our biologists now know that there is a sharp drop in growth hormones in our bodies, to next to nothing, at that time. However, and since we won't be growing any taller, as determined by our genes, the flood of growth hormones in our food leaves the body no choice but to grow sideways. Growth hormones in the mature phase can only have one effect - greater bulk.
And there is another most worrying aspect. What do growth hormones do to an incipient cancer? To a nascent cancer which may or may not grow? Since all cancers are the result of natural growth gone out of control, growth hormones can only stir up growth, and speed up growth catastrophically. As far as I know, no one has begun to consider this inevitable effect.
In addition, we also give anti-biotics to most, if not all, of our livestock (70% of all anti-biotics produced are sold to ranchers and farmers ). This has the most welcome side effect - at least to farmers - that their livestock also gain weight quicker, and thus, can be sold sooner (the live stock, that is; not the farmers).
And that's not all. We also give our crops N-P-K (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) - the fundamental and "major" nutrients of all of our crops. Here too, the intent is on rapid growth and greater productivity. This amounts to giving our crops "speed" - resulting in nutrient empty, overgrown bloat, since all of the other 13 known nutrients are replaced only when absolutely necessary, and the still unknown - but crucially vital - 64 trace elements not at all. The result is a massive drop in nutrients in our daily food (more below).
We haven't got a chance. We are fed growth hormones in our meat and dairy products, and bloated, nutrient-empty fodder in our grains, fruit and vegetables. And we are now beginning to reflect the nature and quality of our daily food - empty bloat - in an epidemic of obesity.
The key here is that this is an all but world wide phenomenon - in all the nations of the world using modern agricultural and livestock raising methods, and those countries which import such food - and consequently and most tellingly, that obesity haunts even undernourished people (more below).
And as if this is not enough, there is more. Lack of exercise, combined with overeating of carbohydrate-rich foods, are commonly seen as the fundamental causes of the current epidemic of run-away obesity. However, and while these are certainly major factors, there are worrying indications that this is not the whole or sole cause of the current massive rise in obesity. Here, we are going to bring together 4 recent and quite different medical discoveries to expose four other, and hitherto entirely unconsidered, aspects of the obesity explosion.
Finally, and on the next page, we are going to list what we can do to get rid of obesity. See OBESITY REMEDIES in these pages.
Suboxone Detox Therapy
Item No 1: A Massive Increase in Obesity Around the World
The first indication that there is something amiss is that the obesity epidemic is a global phenomenon, as described in the article "THE MARCH OF THE OVERBLOWN" by Sushil Kutty, in the June 22 issue of the 2004 Khaleej Times, the most prominent newspaper in the Near East. Here are some excerpts.
Unlike North American medical news media, the Khaleej Times reports on obesity around the world, as well as in the Middle Eastern countries. "Current obesity levels range from below five per cent in China, Japan and certain African countries to over 75 per cent in urban Samoa. Even in relatively low prevalence countries like China, rates are almost 20 per cent in some cities," says Dr Faruq Mohd.
The article goes on to state, "A recent comparative survey of overweight and obese women in the age group 15 to 49 years in developing countries and the US, shows that there are more overweight women in the Middle East than in the US. The picture is no different when it comes to the US and the CEE-CIS and Latin American countries (CEE is Central Eastern Europe and CIS is Commonwealth of Independent States). There are more overweight women in the Middle East than in the US, and the difference in the number of women with far too [much] excess adipose tissue in the ME and the US is only marginal."
"But what is more worrying is that the problem while global is increasingly extending into the developing world," says Dr. Faruq Mohd, specialist general surgeon, Welcare Hospital, Badiuddin. "In the UAE (United Arab Emirates), overweight and obese children are a common sight. In Thailand the prevalence of obesity in 5 - 12 year old's rose from 12.2 per cent to 15.6 per cent in just 5 years."
And, most curiously, "Worrying is the fact that obesity is co-existing in developing countries with under-nutrition."
Item No 2: The Feminisation of Humankind
Estrogen supplements in dairy products, and pseudo-estrogens in plastics, in food packaging, in shampoos, in the decay products of garden and household pesticides, and in the by-products of the contraceptive pill flowing back into the system, are causing a wide spread feminization of marine and terrestrial animals, as described in these recent, stunning discoveries [see BOYS WILL BE GIRLS in these pages].
Through thousands of sex change procedures we have come to know that a very small dose of estrogen given daily to a fully grown male will result in a fully developed set of breasts, female hips, and loss of facial and body hair. So, even fully grown males can be fully feminized, at least in outward appearance. This effect would be much stronger on the much smaller body mass of small and growing boys - and dramatically so, for embryos in the womb.
And while there appear to be no undue and obvious physical signs of feminized human males as yet, there are other, more subtle signs that we are being affected as well. Homosexual orientation, and a tendency towards obesity - as males with an extra X chromosome tend to be - would be direct consequences of an overabundance of pseudo-estrogens in our environment.
Moreover, females are not exempt either. In females the pseudo estrogens in our environment result in "super" females - exceedingly voluptuous, well rounded women, as those women who have an extra X chromosome.
[Storing lots of body fat was, and in some places still is, an ancient and crucial survival mechanism, assuring that a mother will be able to bring her offspring to term, and to nourish them through times of scarcity of food. Consequently, women's tendency to store fat has been highly preserved in her genes].
Plastic food containers, plastic dishes - particularly plastic baby bottles - and plastic utensils, cutting boards (the hollow in plastic cutting boards has gone into your food), as well as plastic toys, are major sources of pseudo estrogens.
In my view, these cheap plastic food containers and other plastic products may well be a major contribution factor of the epidemic of obesity in the developing countries where people get a lot more exercise than we do here (walking or bicycles instead of cars, and no TV's), and particularly so in the paradoxical situation of increasing obesity in countries where there is under-nutrition. In the latter case, and in the absence of imported western foods, there appears to be no other explanation than pseudo estrogens from plastics.
Meanwhile, the only thing we can do is to avoid all plastics and pesticides in our home environment. Banish all plastic dishes, glasses, implements, cutlery, cutting boards and plastic containers for food from your kitchen, and banish plastic baby bottles, pacifiers and toys from your home. Buy food in glass, metal or waxed paper containers, instead of plastic containers, whenever possible. Buy milk, for instance, in waxed cardboard containers, rather than plastic bags or jugs. Store food in saved glass jars - pickle, jam jars, etc. - rather than plastic containers. And avoid plastic wraps for food, and particularly so when heating food in a microwave.
Banishing plastics from your home environment is particularly important for pregnant women and mothers of infants and small children. What may be a very small dose for an adult human being is an immense dose for a small foetus, and a huge dose for an infant, toddler or young child.
So, avoid, at all costs, plastic baby bottles and pacifiers for your babies, as well as all plastic toys, and particularly those which a toddler or child can put in its mouth.
And banish all insecticides, fungicides and herbicides from your garden and households - not only for their pseudo-estrogen endocrine disrupters but also for the damage they do to our neural systems. Again, and as always, the smallest of us are the most severely affected.
Item No. 3: A Massive Decrease of Nutrients in Our Daily Food
A recent Canadian study (July 2002 - ) has confirmed what earlier English and American studies have found. In the last 50 years, our fruit and vegetables have undergone a massive decline in nutrients. Among many others, potatoes have lost 100 per cent of their vitamin A; 57 per cent of their vitamin C and iron, a key component of healthy blood; 28 per cent of their calcium, essential for building healthy bones and teeth; 50 per cent of their riboflavin; and 18 percent of their thiamine. Only niacin levels have increased. Oranges have lost so much of their vitamin C that one would have to eat 8 oranges now to equal the vitamin C in one orange 50 years ago. Essentially the same holds true for 80 per cent of all the fruit and vegetables which were tested. See A SHARP DECLINE OF NUTRIENTS IN OUR DAILY FOOD
Let's take oranges, for an example. To obtain same amount of vitamin C as was once provided by one orange, we now would need to eat 8 oranges instead of one. And since we cannot decrease the amount of vitamin C our bodies need - without dire consequences - this leaves us with 8 times as many carbohydrates and sugars as compared to the original oranges. Exactly the same holds true for the 25 fruit and vegetables tested, which all showed a massive drop in 6 vital nutrients, including vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, calcium, riboflavin and thiamine; and only niacin levels have increased.
And this does not include the severe deficiency of the 72 natural trace elements, of which our current health experts know nothing - other than the 8 long known trace elements. In its massive database of the nutrient content of common foods, for instance, the USDA only recognizes 5 trace elements - magnesium, zinc, copper manganese and selenium. That's it.
So, since our modern daily food is severely deficient in crucially vital nutrients as well as in over 60 equally vitally important trace elements, we get an overabundance of fats, including unnatural fats, carbohydrates and empty calories. No wonder we are getting obese and sick.
Item No. 4: Our Bodies Recognize Lack of Nutrients in Food
As it turns out, and not surprisingly, our bodies have mechanisms by which they recognize the lack of vital nutrients in our food, and then induce us to desire foods which contain these nutrients. Most of the time, these signals are subtle, somewhat instinctive, manifesting only as a desire for a specific food.
However, when the nutrient deficiency is severe, the desire for those nutrients reaches conscious awareness and we experience a consuming craving for a certain food. I often get a craving for citrus products - no doubt for vitamin C - and know better than to ignore this craving.
Another well known instance of irresistible cravings for certain foods is commonly - and famously - experienced by pregnant women - when the body demands a certain food for the specific nutrients in that particular food.
How the body knows which foods contain what nutrients remains a mystery. And although we do not know how it knows, a sudden irresistible and all but desperate craving for ice cream and horseradish, for instance - and well known to pregnant women - demonstrates that it does.
It is my contention that our bodies are aware of the severe lack of nutrients in our modern food and try to compensate by demanding more food - leaving us with a general feeling of being unsatisfied, of needing to eat something - of always wanting to munch on something.
The cure then for the explosion of obesity - 50 % of North American are overweight, and 40% of those are obese - lies not only in more physical activity, but also in the restitution of the natural levels of nutrients in our daily food, including the complete natural range of the 72 trace elements [ see SUPREME LIFE LONG HEALTH in these pages ].
{ Historically and until fairly recently, the food of North Americans was so redolent with fat - indeed, fat was prized by all - that it would kill a modern person in three weeks. I am jesting, a bit, but it's true. At the same time, heart and cardiovascular problems were so rare as to be of no concern [ SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN ARTICLE - ca. 1900 ], and many people lived well into their nineties - while "never having a sick day in their lives" }.
Unfortunately, and in my view, and due to deeply vested interests, this is not going to happen anytime soon. So, the only solution is to grow our own food, and to grow it with fish, kelp and seaweed fertilizers for the 72 natural trace elements, and to grow "heritage" varieties of vegetables and fruit for their much higher levels of the vitally important nutrients.
And if you don't have access to a bit of land, perhaps you can team up with people who do, and share the products, or encourage your local market gardeners to grow heritage varieties in a 72 trace element environment. This should not be as hard as it may appear, as the market gardeners will profit in many, many ways from growing such produce [ see A POISON FREE AGRICULTURE in these pages. See also a year's worth of poison free, 72 trace elements, gardening articles in POISON FREE GARDENING ].
Original Article
STUDY SHOWS HOW ANIMALS SENSE WHEN FOOD LACKS AMINO ACIDS
March 17, 2005 - UC Davis neurophysiologist Dorothy Gietzen studied the brain mechanism in rats that allows them to respond to nutritional stress. The biochemical mechanism that enables animals -- likely including humans -- to recognize when their diet is deficient in an essential amino acid has been identified for the first time by researchers at the University of California, Davis.
The findings by neurophysiologist Dorothy Gietzen and colleagues at UC Davis' School of Veterinary Medicine have implications for human health, particularly epilepsy, since some forms of epilepsy are influenced by amino acid deficiencies. That is because amino acids are the chemical units that the body uses to construct proteins for growth and development. The study has appeared in the March 18, 2005 issue of the journal Science [abstract below].
"This constitutes a basic, well conserved mechanism in the brain of mammals that allows them to respond to nutritional stress and seek out food that will improve their chances for survival," Gietzen said.
For more than five decades, scientists have known that animals have the ability to sense when their diet is not providing sufficient amino acids. Of the 20 amino acids found in animals, eight of them cannot be produced by or stored in the body and, therefore, must be obtained through the foods the animals eat. These eight are known as "indispensable amino acids."
Previous research has shown that animals can sense within a matter of minutes if their diet is deficient in an indispensable amino acid, making use of a subconscious sensing mechanism that does not depend on taste or smell. For example, if rats are offered more than one type of feed, and the first feed they try is deficient in an indispensable amino acid, they will soon switch to another feed that provides the necessary amino acids.
Gietzen noted that animals ranging from single-cell organisms such as yeast, to invertebrates to humans, appear to have conserved this mechanism through evolution. As a result, humans have developed cultural patterns that provide important dietary choices. For example, long before people even knew of amino acids, some cultures paired rice with beans or the soybean product tofu. These are protein-rich plant foods which, when eaten together, provide a full complement of all indispensable amino acids.
Earlier research had demonstrated that the deficiency-sensing mechanism is headquartered in an area of the brain known as the "anterior piriform cortex," which is essential for behavioral responses such as those demonstrated by rats that stop eating a meal deficient in indispensable amino acids.
Scientists also knew that living organisms have a system for using amino acids to build proteins. In this system, a molecule called transfer RNA carries the amino acids to the protein-synthesizing apparatus and may "interpret" the supply of amino acids for making proteins. When amino acids are available, the transfer RNA would be "charged" -- bound to an amino acid as well as to an important enzyme in order to start the protein-building process. When an amino acid is not present, the transfer RNA is "uncharged." Earlier research with yeast suggested that an accumulation of uncharged transfer RNA initiates a signaling pathway that interrupts general protein manufacture.
Building on those findings, Gietzen and colleagues hypothesized that if uncharged transfer RNA provided the signal for deprivation of indispensable amino acids, the RNA also could create the same signal by inhibiting the charging process. To test this, they injected rats with alcohol derivatives of amino acids to stall the charging process and then measured the animals' food intake. They found that following the injections, the rats stopped eating an amino-acid-complete feed as if it were deficient in an amino acid.
Gietzen and her colleagues also demonstrated that the effect of the injection could be reversed. After the injection-related tests were performed, they offered the rats a "corrected" diet that had high levels of the amino acid that had been targeted by the injected amino acid alcohol. They found that the corrected diet reversed the effects of the injection, and the rats resumed eating.
The researchers further determined that the uncharged transfer RNA triggers the recognition of amino acid-deficient diets by affecting two genes. The first gene, known as GCN2, in turn, activates p-elf2a, which is crucial in the initiation of protein synthesis.
In mammals, which cannot make their own essential amino acids, this signaling pathway alerts the neurons in the anterior piriform cortex area of the brain, so that the neurons can send a neurochemical signal to the animal's feeding circuitry in the brain. It is this signal that causes the rat to abandon a deficient feed and begin searching for something better.
"Results from this study define the signaling pathway that, in mammals, tells the animal to go and look for a better food," Gietzen said. "Such a well-conserved biochemical pathway underscores the basic importance in a multitude of biological systems of keeping a supply of the building blocks for proteins readily available."
Gietzen said the identification of this mechanism will likely have implications for research related to epilepsy, although that specific connection is not addressed in the Science paper. Earlier research in Gietzen's laboratory has shown that, in rats, dietary deficiencies in amino acids increase the severity of and susceptibility to seizures. Furthermore, the anterior piriform cortex is the area of the brain associated with neural "excitability" and the origin of seizures.
Co-authors on this study were Shuzhen Hao, James Sharp, Catherine Ross-Inta and John Rudell, from Gietzen's laboratory at UC Davis; Brent McDaniel, Tracy Anthony and Ronald Wek, from Indiana University School of Medicine; and Douglas Cavener and Barbara McGrath, from the University of Pittsburgh. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
[ Source: UC Davis News Service - Health -
http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/default.lasso?-Token.category=Health ]
Abstract of Original Article
Uncharged tRNA and Sensing of Amino Acid Deficiency in Mammalian Piriform Cortex
Recognizing a deficiency of indispensable amino acids (IAAs) for protein synthesis is vital for dietary selection in metazoans, including humans. Cells in the brain's anterior piriform cortex (APC) are sensitive to IAA deficiency, signaling diet rejection and foraging for complementary IAA sources, but the mechanism is unknown. Here we report that the mechanism for recognizing IAA-deficient foods follows the conserved general control (GC) system, wherein uncharged transfer RNA induces phosphorylation of eukaryotic initiation factor 2 (eIF2) via the GC nonderepressing 2 (GCN2) kinase. Thus, a basic mechanism of nutritional stress management functions in mammalian brain to guide food selection for survival.
Shuzhen Hao,1 James W. Sharp,1 Catherine M. Ross-Inta,1 Brent J. McDaniel,2 Tracy G. Anthony,2 Ronald C. Wek,3 Douglas R. Cavener,4 Barbara C. McGrath,4 John B. Rudell,1 Thomas J. Koehnle,5 Dorothy W. Gietzen1* 1 School of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Anatomy, Physiology and Cell Biology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
2 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Indiana University School of Medicine, Evansville, IN 47712, USA.
3 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA.
4 Department of Biology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
5 Department of Neuroscience, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
dwgietzen@ucdavis.edu
[ Source: Science, Vol 307, Issue 5716, 1776-1778 , 18 March 2005 ]
I guess you already have plans made for the place & manner in which you die.... most folks aren't that cognitive.
