Tuesday, July 23, 2002

It' the Carbs that make you Fat It's the Carbs that make you Fat! - Follow the Link for more Great Comment from K5 Fighting Conventional Wisdom in Nutrition (4.00 / 4) (#298) by allanone on Fri Jun 7th, 2002 at 03:05:16 AM EST Standard disclaimer: I'm not a nutritionist (thank God) and I take no responsibility for anyone doing something stupid and hurting themselves. The following information works for me, it stems from what I've read and tried, from years of intense interest in the subject, and by examining the available information from a standpoint of extreme skepticism. Americans are getting fatter each year. Adult-onset diabetes is epidemic. The diet industry is a multibillion-dollar monster and growing as fast Americans' bulging stomachs. There are good reasons for all this and much of it stems from misinformation and the inherent complexity of the problem. Most people can't handle multivariable problems and so they buy into gross simplifications and the diet and especially food industries prey on their beliefs. The USDA Food Pyramid is a complete joke and is partly to blame. For instance, bananas are almost all carbohydrate and are fattening. Chemically, potatoes don't belong with those green vegetables like broccoli at all. They need to be moved in with the bread and cereals. And look at the tip: "Fats, Oils and Sweets". Well, your body processes sweets as if they were in the Bread, Cereal, Rice and Pasta group. It's precisely this non-intuitive reality that screws people up, confuses them and destroys their health. The last time they overhauled the Food Pyramid it was changed radically from what came before, like, threw the whole thing out and completely replaced it. The bottom line is that it's ad-hoc guesswork. It reminds me of those maps from the Middle Ages that show the edge of the world where the sea dragons live. Obesity is unhealthy. It's not beautiful or natural. It's a symptom of illness. If you're obese, besides putting great stain on your cardiovascular system and joints, you're toting around large amounts of pesticides and other toxins in your fat cells that your body stored there instead of excreting. CONVENTIONAL WISDOM What is conventional wisdom in nutrition? It basically goes like this: eating fat makes you fat. Butter, salt, cholesterol, fatty foods, saturated fat will all kill you or at least make you fat. Diet and low-fat foods will help you lose weight. I think this is all crap and there is tons of evidence out there to support that claim. Conventional wisdom about nutrition and diet is either confused (in the easy case of carbohydrates where the ill-informed always go off about simple vs. complex) or just plain wrong (in the complex case of the many different types of fats and oils). The average person doesn't know beans about nutrition and I've felt for some years that neither does the typical nutritionist or doctor. Although I've found doctors have admitted it - they're simply not trained in that area - I can't imagine you'd find a nutritionist who would. If you want someone well-versed in the way mammal bodies react to food, you'll have to talk to a molecular biologist or a farm veterinarian. The nutritionists would have you believe the way to fatten up livestock would be to feed them fatty foods. The vet (or any livestock farmer) will tell you that the way to do it is to feed them grain. You know. The stuff they make bread and pasta out of: carbohydrate. First of all, most people don't know the following: All sugars are carbohydrate and all carbohydrates are sugar. They're two different words for the same thing. So get that straight. When somebody tells you they're on a high carbohydrate diet, it means they're on a high sugar diet. To your body, there is NO difference between simple and complex carbohydrates - it all ends up as glycogen in your bloodstream, so the minute you hear someone differentiate in the context of nutrition (and in the same breath NOT differentiate between types of fats), or start talking about "refined sugars," treat what they have to say with skepticism. 3:20:42 PM    comment []

Everything you may want to know about Obesity in the US - Trends, Data, Comments From K5 Here is the best one pager with links and some great comments that I have found so far on the US We need your support: buy an ad | premium membership Obesity in the U.S. (MLP) By Harpalus Wed Jun 5th, 2002 at 06:08:51 PM EST Recent studies have shown that obesity is an increasingly common problem amongst both children and adults in the United States. This trend is linked to changing food consumption patterns and increased time spent doing sedentary activities, like watching television and using computers.  The increase in obesity has also resulted in higher death rates from obesity-related diseases such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes. The rise of the "obesity epidemic" costs the American economy over $99 billion a year.   Key Points The number of obese individuals in the United States has reached almost 40 million. The prevalence of obesity has increased by 50 percent since 1960, because American adults on average have been increasing their caloric intake while decreasing their levels of physical activity. Obesity increases health risks such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoarthritis, and certain types of cancer. Obesity-related deaths account for approximately 280,000 deaths in the U.S. per year. Obesity is most commonly measured using the Body Mass Index (BMI), individuals who have a BMI of 25 or greater are considered at risk of premature death or disability. Obesity can be alleviated by combining dieting with moderate physical activity, which will reduce the health risks associated with the condition. Articles National Institutes of Health. "Understanding Adult Obesity." [http://www.niddk.nih.gov/health/nutrit/pubs/unders.htm] Defines obese individuals as men who have over 25 percent body fat and women who have over 30 percent body fat; describes methods for measuring obesity, like the most common method, the Body Mass Index (BMI); explains that obesity occurs when individuals consume more calories than they burn over prolonged periods of time; explores the roles of genetic, environmental and psychological factors in contributing to obesity; attributes approximately 280,000 adult deaths in the US per year to obesity-related health problems; specifies the importance of weight-loss to individuals with pre-existing medical conditions or family histories of chronic diseases. National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. "Obesity and Overweight: Basics about Overweight and Obesity." [http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/basics.htm] Defines obesity as an excessively high amount of adipose tissue; specifies that the distribution and size of adipose tissue deposits are also of concern; identifies methods of measuring obesity, including waist-to-hip circumference ratios, ultrasounds, computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI); explains differences between obesity and overweight; explores the formulation of desirable weight standards using statistics from medical or insurance sources, or mathematics such as the BMI; identifies individuals who have a BMI of 25 or greater as being at risk for premature death or disability; defines individuals with a waist-to-hip ratio of one or greater as also being at risk of premature death or disability. International Food Information Council Foundation. "Weight Management and Healthy Lifestyle Through Small Changes and Balance." [http://www.ific.org/proactive/newsroom/release.vtml?id=19941] Presents the fact that over 61 percent of Americans are considered to be either overweight or obese; reveals that 25 percent of children are similarly classified; explains the reasons for increases in obesity as a doubling in caloric intake in recent years compared with 20 years ago, and a decrease in physical activity as a result of long commutes, technology such as televisions and computers, and inadequate sidewalk systems; suggests that the best method for addressing the "obesity epidemic" is a series of small changes in physical activity and reduced caloric intake over time. National Institutes of Health. "Statistics related to Overweight and Obesity." [http://www.niddk.nih.gov/health/nutrit/pubs/statobes.htm] Defines obesity and discusses some of the health factors linked to obesity such as diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and certain types of cancers; presents a chart to be used for calculating BMI; identifies the number of overweight Americans (BMI>25) as 97.1 million and the number of obese individuals (BMI>30) as 39.8 million; explains that levels of obesity and overweight increased by more than 50 percent during the period 1960-1994; estimates that the total direct and indirect costs of obesity exceed $99 billion in the U.S.; explains that 25 percent of American adults claim that they do no physical activity at all during their leisure time. National Institutes of Health. "Do You Know the Health Risks of Being Overweight." [http://www.niddk.nih.gov/health/nutrit/pubs/health.htm] Explains that obesity can increase the risk of developing a number of health problems including stroke, gout and heart disease; reveals that overweight individuals are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure; states that overweight individuals are twice as likely to develop type 2 diabetes; emphasizes that the health risks associated with obesity are reversible through weight loss; specifies that losing 5-10 percent body weight can alleviate many health problems; defines a healthy rate of weight loss as one pound per week. 3:03:52 PM    comment []

What if we do not change our agricultural system? - An Article by the New Scientist Follow the link for the full article   How Might our Century Work Out - A Malthusian Retrospective by the New Scienist   Population scenario As the global population grew during the 20th century, scientists responded with new ways to feed extra mouths. People ignored the fact that these methods were largely unsustainable. But you can push the world's resources only so far... GOOD morning. I would like to start by saying how pleased I am to see so many of you at the Edinburgh Science Festival in this first year of the 22nd century. My role today is to discuss the Great Depopulation that took place last century, leaving us with today's global total of around two billion people - about what we had back in 1950. It was Thomas Malthus who, in the 18th century, first suggested that a growing population might outstrip its food supply. It didn't happen in Malthus's day, of course, or for the next two centuries. Even when the rate of growth of the world population hit its peak in the 1960s and 1970s, scientists kept crop yields ahead of demand, thanks to the "Green Revolution", which eventually introduced high-yielding crops, chemical fertilisers and mechanised agriculture to every region capable of using them. There were sporadic famines, but they were triggered by uneven distribution of wealth. By the 1990s it was apparent that population growth had slowed, and in 1994 demographers predicted that numbers would stabilise at 9 billion by 2050. Many people stopped worrying about a population crisis. As we all now know, the demographers were half right. The population did reach 9 billion. But it didn't stay there long. By the 2050s, food production was declining sharply, and in many places, high-yield agriculture collapsed completely. This led to the great famines. Meanwhile, population density triggered two other agents of decline: the great migrations and the plagues. World population plummeted. What happened to turn the sunny forecasts of the 1990s into the horror that followed? In retrospect, it seems obvious: the Earth could feed 9 billion people - but only for a short time. The environmental cost was too high to be sustainable. To put it simply, we ran out of soil and we ran out of water. 9:32:59 AM    comment []

The Future - Blogs in the workplace Blogging at Work More insight found on Rick Krau's page of how blogging could unleash the distributed intelligence of a work forece. This is a very well creafted article with good examples for those of you that are like me new to the field Blogs and Business Value. Information Week (John Foley):  Are you blogging yet.  Weblogs could have business value. [John Robb's Radio Weblog] More fodder for the business value of blogs - a good thread from last week with input from John, Terry and me. [tins ::: Rick Klau's weblog] 7:57:45 AM    comment []