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cliffhanger
Trad climber
California
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The United States has one of the highest diabetes rates in the developed world—and the malady is spreading faster here than it is in most other rich nations, a recent Lancet study found.
I've always associated our diabetes problem with the steady rise in sweetener consumption since the early '80s, triggered by the gusher of cheap high-fructose corn syrup that opened up at that time. But another culprit may be contributing, too: exposure to certain pesticides and other toxic chemicals. A new peer-reviewed study published in the journal Diabetes Care found a strong link between diabetes onset and blood levels of a group of harsh industrial chemicals charmingly known as "persistent organic pollutants" (POPs), most of which have been banned in the United States for years but still end up in our food (hence the "persistent" bit—they degrade very slowly) .... The widespread practice of feeding "poultry litter"—chicken feces mixed with feathers, dead chickens, and feed remnants, including beef products—to confined cows is another way these toxins keep cycling though the food chain.
http://motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/07/are-pesticides-giving-you-diabetes
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Cliff, one has to be careful with cause-and-effect relationships.
For example, one could just as easily make the conclusion that diabetes is the result of widespread societal exposure to sticky rubber!
Simply because two things are found together does not mean that there is a causal relationship between the two. One has to do a LOT more work to demonstrate that!
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monolith
climber
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Ken, the B12 part of the Framingham study was to measure the levels of B12, not make a connection to symptoms. No single study can show everything, just open the pathway to more research. The point was proven, meat is not the answer to B12 levels since the vast majority of Americans eat lots of meat, yet 39% are in the low B12 range. And that's with our pathetic low cutoff value.
And a score near 258 is hardly a low A. It's more like C-.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Ken, the B12 part of the Framingham study was to measure the levels of B12, not make a connection to symptoms. No single study can show everything, just open the pathway to more research. The point was proven, meat is not the answer to B12 levels since the vast majority of Americans eat lots of meat, yet 39% are in the low B12 range. And that's with our pathetic low cutoff value.
And a score near 258 is hardly a low A. It's more like C-.
Uhhhh.....no
You don't get to redefine what normal is, to fit the definition of a made-up fake disease, after the fact. Sorry.
See, in your "summary", they called the 39% "low normal"....which means that they were actually normal. Now, YOU call them LOW! Look at how you have gradually redefined them, step by step, until normal people are abnormal people. THAT is what is pathetic!
Go back to the actual Framingham study and find that data and conclusion by the highly reputable researchers who devoted their lives to this, and sold NOTHING, instead of this whacko guy who seems like he is selling nutritional bullsh*t that people don't need!
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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"Your food is killing you"
Damnit, Life is killing you.
I think that what comes out of your mouth is more important than what goes into your mouth.
Jus sayin'
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starthere
climber
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If someone eat nothing, he will lose his life sooner.
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monolith
climber
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Perhaps you missed this from the summary, Ken:
Although these values are well above the currently accepted deficiency level of 148 pmol/L, it has been shown that even at this low normal level, people often exhibit deficiency symptoms, such as balance disturbances or confusion
Still think that's an A grade level, Ken?
If you think deficiency symptoms should be accepted as normal, fine, I'll set my standard to the Japanese level of 400.
BTW, Ken, you can get a more detailed summary with quotes from the lead researcher here:
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2000/000802.htm
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mucci
Trad climber
The pitch of Bagalaar above you
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Green Veggies and FIBER.
Keep the pipes clean....Ya dig?
Oh and most people are deficient in hydration.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Monolith, I'll take that up in my drum circle.....
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monolith
climber
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And the money quote directly from the lead researcher:
Oddly, the researchers found no association between plasma B12 levels and meat, poultry, and fish intake, even though these foods supply the bulk of B12 in the diet. “It’s not because people aren’t eating enough meat,” Tucker said. “The vitamin isn’t getting absorbed.”
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Steve L
Gym climber
SUR
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I ate at least 2 pounds of meat at the brazilian bbq last night. I washed it down with a couple of plates of veggies and half a bottle of malbec. Then I topped it all off with a couple of slices of cold stone chocolate/peanut butter ice cream cake.
I'm sure to be dead by noon.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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"Even Coloradans..." Say it ain't so!
"Two decades ago, not a single state had an obesity rate above 15%. Now all states do."
America just keeps getting fatter
A comprehensive state-by-state report titled 'F as in Fat' shows that obesity rates continue to climb, along with diabetes and high blood pressure.
By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times
July 7, 2011, 4:55 p.m.
America continues to get fatter, according to a comprehensive new report on the nation's weight crisis. Statistics for 2008-2010 show that 16 states are experiencing steep increases in adult obesity, and none has seen a notable downturn in the last four years.
Meanwhile, cases of Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure that health experts have long warned would result from the nation's broadening girth and sedentary ways are becoming increasingly widespread, according to the report, titled "F as in Fat," released Thursday.
Even Coloradans, long the nation's slimmest citizens, are gaining excess pounds. With an obese population of 19.8% — it is the only state with an adult obesity rate below 20% — Colorado remains the caboose on the nation's huffing, puffing train to fat land.
But in just the last four years, the ranks of the obese even in Colorado have grown 0.7%. Colorado's hypertension rates have risen significantly as well, to 21.2% of adults.
The report, prepared by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Trust for America's Health, is their sixth annual state-by-state accounting of obesity.
In the last 15 years, the report said, adult obesity rates have doubled or nearly doubled in 17 states. Two decades ago, not a single state had an obesity rate above 15%. Now all states do.
"When you look at it year by year, the changes are incremental," said Jeffrey Levi, executive director of the Trust for America's Health. But if you back up a generation and look at the slow but steady climb of Americans' weight, he said, "you see how we got into this problem."
Getting out of it will not be simple, Levi said. The report emphasized the need for a range of measures, including boosting physical activity in schools, encouraging adults to get out and exercise, broadening access to affordable healthy foods and using "pricing strategies" to encourage Americans to make better food choices.
"Until the government takes on the food industry, we'll continue to see the appalling numbers in this report," said Kelly D. Brownell, director of Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, who was not involved in the report. "These numbers signal an emergency, and we simply have to have the courage and resolve to do more than what we're doing.
"Government could start by changing agricultural subsidies, by not making it financially attractive for companies to market unhealthy foods, by placing serious restrictions on marketing to children, and with financial policies that make healthy foods cost less and unhealthy foods cost more."
The nation's roughly 4.5 billion excess pounds still skew heavily to the Southeast, with eight of the nation's 10 most obese states clustered near the Gulf and Atlantic coasts and along the southern Appalachian Mountains. Among the top 10, only Oklahoma and Michigan — which had a 1.2% increase in adult obesity in the last four years, the largest of any state — are outside the South.
Adult obesity in California, ranked 40th in the nation, held steady. Nearly 25% of adults fall in the obese category, meaning they have a body mass index, or BMI, of 30 or higher.
The state also was only one of two — the other was Texas — that saw an actual rise in levels of physical activity. About 21.9% of California adults surveyed told researchers they had not engaged in exercise or physical activity in the last 30 days — down from 22.8% in the last report, for the three-year period of 2007-2009.
That's a couch-potato rate far higher than those in active states such as Oregon, Colorado and Utah, but far lower than super-spud states such as Mississippi and West Virginia.
The increases in physical activity in California and Texas were the only bright spots in an otherwise grim reckoning. About 30 years after the United States started seeing a steep rise in the weight of children and adults, the illnesses most closely linked to obesity have begun a dramatic upturn. Diabetes rates in 12 states have jumped significantly, the report found, now affecting as many as 12.2% of adults in Alabama — the state with the highest obesity rates.
And in an alarming development, all but four of the nation's states saw rates of hypertension rise steeply enough that public health officials concluded the increase could not have been a statistical fluke. In Mississippi, the report found that 34.6% of adults have high blood pressure. In Alabama, the rate is 33.9%.
Obesity remains a condition disproportionately affecting those with poor education and income, and closely tied to minority status. Among African American adults, obesity topped 40% in 15 states. Among Latinos, it topped 30% in 23 states.
In contrast, among white adults, obesity rates were higher than 30% in only four states, and in no state topped 32.1%.
Nearly a third of high school dropouts are obese, compared with 21.5% of those who graduated from college or technical school.
For children, the picture from the report is slightly better, said Dr. Francine Kaufman, an obesity specialist at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. "Children are for the most part holding steady," she said.
Kaufman added that the report's clear message — that obesity takes its greatest toll in low-income and minority communities — underscores that "assistance programs are definitely required" to help those populations.
The report is based on surveys conducted annually to gauge how Americans' behavior affects their health. Carried out by the University of Michigan's School of Public Health, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System culls information from more than 1.2 million American adults. To gauge broad trends over time, the authors of "F as in Fat" have broken down those findings by state and calculated three-year averages, a technique that smoothes out yearly variations.
melissa.healy@latimes.com
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-obesity-report-20110708,0,3732059.story
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Port
Trad climber
San Diego
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More sickness from the food industry. And shouldn't we have the right to know where this Turkey was produced?
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/08/02/cdc-1-death-76-illnesses-linked-to-ground-turkey/#ixzz1TuRiPH00
The federal agency in charge of protecting America's food supply is keeping quiet on a deadly salmonella strain in ground turkey, which has killed one person and sickened 76 across 26 states.
“We are looking everywhere, and we are doing our best to work with the CDC,” Neil Gaffney, press officer with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), told FoxNews.com. “When it comes to illness, there’s a lot of work and it’s very complicated. We’re trying to pinpoint the product and get it out of the market as soon as possible.”
So far, one person has died and at least 76 people in 26 states have been sickened from the same strain of the disease, which the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said is resistant to many commonly prescribed antibiotics. The CDC did not say where the person who died became sick and released no details about the death.
The illnesses date back to March, and the CDC said Monday that cultures of ground turkey from four retail locations between March 7 and June 27 showed salmonella contamination. The agency said preliminary information showed that three of the samples have been linked to the same production establishment but did not name the retailers or the manufacturers.
The Agriculture Department oversees meat safety and would be the agency to announce a recall. The department sent out an alert about the illnesses late last week telling consumers to properly cook their meat, which can decrease the chances of salmonella poisoning. But the department has not given consumers any further warnings about the source of the tainted meat.
Click here to read more about the health alert.
"FSIS has not linked these illnesses to a particular brand, product, or establishment, and therefore has not issued a recall," Gaffney said. "We are continuing to investigate this situation."
Food safety advocate Bill Marler, an attorney who has represented victims of the nation's biggest food-borne illness outbreaks, said he believes the three positive samples should prompt a recall.
"Consumers have no idea what to do except not eat ground turkey," he said.
The illnesses are spread all over the country. The states with the highest number sickened were Michigan and Ohio, 10 illnesses each, while nine illnesses were reported in Texas. Illinois had seven, California six and Pennsylvania five.
The remaining states have between one and three reported illnesses linked to the outbreak, according to the CDC: Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wisconsin.
The CDC said 26 states were affected but only listed 25 states in which illnesses were reported in a news release issued Monday evening.
Is It Salmonella?
Salmonella is the most common bacterial form of food poisoning.
Symptoms of salmonella are typically severe and include diarrhea, abdominal cramps and fever within eight to 72 hours of eating a contaminated product. It can be life-threatening, especially to those with weakened immune systems.
Anyone suspecting they are infected with salmonella should call their doctor immediately.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/08/02/cdc-1-death-76-illnesses-linked-to-ground-turkey/#ixzz1TuRiPH00
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