Monday, August 27, 2007

USAToday: Obesity rates climb in most states, 8/27/07

* Trust for America's Health, a research group that focuses on disease prevention, released results of a study measuring obesity rates. They compared data, from 2003-2005 with 2004-2006, "from a survey of height and weight taken over the telephone. Because the information comes from a personal estimate, some believe it is conservative."

* "Obesity rates continued their climb in 31 states last year. No state showed a decline. Mississippi became the first state to crack the 30% barrier for adults considered to be obese. West Virginia and Alabama were just behind, according to the Trust for America's Health, a research group that focuses on disease prevention."

* "Colorado continued its reign as the leanest state in the nation with an obesity rate projected at 17.6%."

* "This year's report, for the first time, looked at rates of overweight children ages 10 to 17. The District of Columbia had the highest percentage — 22.8%. Utah had the lowest — 8.5%."

* "'Unfortunately, we're treating it like a mere inconvenience instead of the emergency that it is,' said Dr. James Marks, senior vice president at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a philanthropy devoted to improving health care. Officials at the Trust for America's Health want the government to play a larger role in preventing obesity."

* Jeffrey Levi, executive director of Trust for America's Health, said, 'If we want kids to eat healthier food, we have to invest the money for school nutrition programs so that school lunches are healthier. If we want people to be more physically active, then there have to be safe places to be active. That's not just a class issue. We've designed suburban communities where there are no sidewalks for anybody to go out and take a walk.'"

* "Poverty can lead to less safe neighborhoods, which deter children from playing. It can lead to fewer grocery stores offering fruits and vegetables, and it can lead to greater reliance on fast food, (CDC) officials said."

* "It seems the cheapest foods are the worst ones for you," Dr. Marks said.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-08-27-obesity-rates_N.htm

USAToday: Dunkin' Donuts dumping most trans fats, 8/27/07

* Dunkin' Donuts "has developed an alternative cooking oil (a new blend of palm, soybean and cottonseed oils) and reformulated more than 50 menu items — doughnuts included. The Canton, Mass.-based chain says its menu will be "zero grams trans fat" by Oct. 15 across its 5,400 U.S. restaurants in 34 states." ... "Dunkin's announcement follows about four years of research of more than 28 alternative cooking oils and proprietary blends."

*"The ice cream chain Baskin-Robbins, another unit of Dunkin' Brands, plans to be zero grams trans fat by Jan. 1."

* "Dunkin' isn't claiming it will become "trans fat free," but does say any trans fat in foods including doughnuts, croissants, muffins and cookies will fall below half a gram per serving. Federal regulations allow food labels to say they have zero grams of trans fat, provided levels fall below the half-gram threshold." ... "Mainstream doughnut makers' products can have around 5 grams of trans fat apiece."

*Jeff Cronin, spokesman for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based non-profit, "cautioned that when it comes to Dunkin's doughnuts, 'We're still talking about a food that's mostly white flour, sugar, and fat.'"

*"'The goal was not to make a healthy doughnut, it was really to create a doughnut that was better,' said Joe Scafido, Dunkin's chief creative and innovation officer. 'Certainly, we did not create a healthy doughnut.'"

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-08-27-dunkin-donuts_N.htm

Friday, August 24, 2007

utne reader: Beyond Organic, Jan/Feb 2006

Start Small, Start Today
* If you want to change 200 years of farm policy, devastating environmental damage, and ingrained food habits, start with today's lunch. Spend your food money on farmers, and you'll be making a big difference.
* The average annual food budget per U.S. household is $5,340, according to a recent report by the U.S. Dept of labor. Divide that by three squares a day, and a single meal costs a measly $4.88.
* If 225,000 people made a commitment to purchase one meal a week directly from local farmers, more than $57 million would shift out of corporate coffers into the pockets of real people.
* Not convinced? The U.S. Dept of Agriculture reports an average farm business income of $20,663 in 2004. At that price tag, the one-meal-a-week plan would support almost 3,000 farming households.

Busting the Food Bank
Americans pay less for groceries than nearly any other nation, but more for our food. That's because factory farming degrades our environment, burns up fossil fuels, devastates our rural economies, and harms our health. Who picks up the tab?
* Agricultural pollution accounts for 70 percent of all problems in U.S. rivers and streams, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
* Environmental damage casued by industrial farming costs the U.S. $34.7 billion a year (more than $300 per U.S. household)
* 17% of U.S. fossil fuel consumption is used in food production.
* Farm subsidies in 2004 totaled $12.5 billion, and 62% of the money went to 10% of the recipients.

Monday, August 13, 2007

utne reader: How Much (Soy) Is Too Much?, July/Aug 2007

http://www.utne.com/issues/2007_142/features/12608-1.html
Clinical nutritionist Kaayla Daniel on the Dos and Don'ts of soy consumption
—By Mary Vance, Terrain

This is a very good Q&A re soy. Go to the link to read more. Here is a snippet:

Q. How much soy does the average person consume in a day?
A. Someone on a junk-food diet is getting soy flour in the fast-food hamburger bun, soy protein in the burger itself, and soy oil in the fries; soy is in every one of these products because it's cheap and abundant. You'll find soy hidden in so many foods, and small quantities add up. People often start by drinking a lot of soy milk. If they are taking supplements, they can be getting really high doses. Even scientists working for the soy industry will say they support soy food but do not support use of soy supplements. It is so dangerous at such a high level, and it's harming many people.

Q. Which soy product is the worst?
A. The biggest problem is soy milk. Those with lactose intolerance think that soy milk is a great alternative, and they're drinking a lot and getting a huge dose of isoflavones. If you're drinking soy milk, you're going to have a problem, or most people will sooner or later. We're all different--some people will start having problems in a day, and some people will think they're fine and a year later things will start to go downhill. Drinking just one glass a day of soy milk will give someone the level of plant estrogens that has hurt the thyroids of healthy Japanese men and women. Most people are drinking several glasses, plus the soy protein energy bars and the bags of edamame.

utne reader: The Dark Side of Soy, July/Aug 2007

http://www.utne.com/issues/2007_142/features/12607-1.html
—By Mary Vance, Terrain
* Risks associated with eating soy: endocrine disruption; digestive problems; deleterious effects on thyroid, fertility, hormones, sex drive, digestion, and a potential to contribute to certain cancers. "For every study that proved a connection between soy and reduced disease risk another cropped up to challenge the claims. What was going on?"

* "Epidemiological studies have shown that Asians, particularly in Japan and China, have a lower incidence of breast and prostate cancer than people in the United States, and many of these studies credit a traditional diet that includes soy. But Asian diets include small amounts--about nine grams a day--of primarily fermented soy products, such as miso, natto, and tempeh, and some tofu. Fermenting soy creates health-promoting probiotics, the good bacteria our bodies need to maintain digestive and overall wellness. By contrast, in the United States, processed soy food snacks or shakes can contain over 20 grams of nonfermented soy protein in one serving."

* "These days the industry has discovered ways to use every part of the bean for profit. Soy oil has become the base for most vegetable oils; soy lecithin, the waste product left over after the soybean is processed, is used as an emulsifier; soy flour appears in baked and packaged goods; different forms of processed soy protein are added to everything from animal feed to muscle-building protein powders. 'Soy protein isolate was invented for use in cardboard,' says clinical nutritionist Kaayla Daniel, author of The Whole Soy Story (New Trends, 2005). 'It hasn't actually been approved as a food ingredient.'"

* "Soy is everywhere in our food supply, as the star in cereals and health-promoting foods and hidden in processed foods. Even if you read every label and avoid cardboard boxes, you are likely to find soy in your supplements and vitamins (look out for vitamin E derived from soy oil), in foods such as canned tuna, soups, sauces, breads, meats (injected under poultry skin), and chocolate, and in pet food and body-care products. It hides in tofu dogs under aliases such as textured vegetable protein, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, and lecithin--which is troubling, since the processing required to hydrolyze soy protein into vegetable protein produces excitotoxins such as glutamate (think MSG) and aspartate (a component of aspartame), which cause brain-cell death."

* Clinical nutritionist Ed Bauman, head of Bauman Clinic in Sebastopol, California, and director of Bauman College says, "Genetically modified (GM) soy is the most problematic, and that's probably what most people are eating if they're not paying attention. People can develop sensitivity to a food that has antigens or bacteria not originally in the food chain, as is the case with GM foods."

* "The highest risk is for infants who are fed soy formula. 'It's the only thing they're eating, they're very small, and they're at a key stage developmentally,' says Daniel. 'The estrogens in soy will affect the hormonal development of these children, and it will certainly affect their growing brains, reproductive systems, and thyroids.' Soy formula also contains large amounts of manganese, which has been linked to attention deficit disorder and neurotoxicity in infants. The Israeli health ministry recently issued an advisory stating that infants should avoid soy formula altogether."

* "Bauman believes processed soy foods are problematic but maintains that soy has beneficial hormone-mediating effects. ... Is soy the problem, or is it the handling and packaging and processing of the plant that's the problem?"

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

nytimes: Its Poor Reputation Aside, Our Fat Is Doing Us a Favor, by Natalie Angier, 8/7/07

* Fat in the human body is "is dynamic and mercantile, exchanging chemical signals with the brain, bones, gonads and immune system, and with every energy manager on the body's long alimentary train." 

* "'We used to think of an adipose cell (fat cell) as an inert storage depot,' Dr. Barbara Kahn, chief of the endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism division at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, at Harvard said. 'Now we appreciate that it is an endocrine organ,' in other words, an organ that like the thyroid or pancreas, secretes hormones to shape the behavior of other tissues far and wide. Squashed to the side a fat cell's cytoplasm may be, but it nevertheless spins out a steady supply of at least 20 different hormones. Key among them is leptin, an essential player in reproduction."

* "Fat also seems to know when it is getting out of hand, and it may resist new personal growth. Dr. Bruce M. Spiegelman (of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston) and others have shown that with the onset of obesity — defined as 25 or more pounds above one's ideal weight — the fat tissue starts releasing potent inflammatory hormones. That response is complex and harmful in the long run. But in the short term, said Dr. Spiegelman, 'inflammation clearly has an anti-obesity effect, and it may be the body's attempt to restrain further accumulation of adipose tissue.'"

Sunday, August 5, 2007

Reuters: 75 percent of Americans overweight by 2015, 7/19/07

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19845784/

* A team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore examined 20 studies published in journals and looked at national surveys of weight and behavior for their analysis. Their research, published in the journal Epidemiologic Reviews, suggests that fat will be the norm by 2015 if people keep gaining weight at the current rate - with 75% of U.S. adults overweight and 41 percent obese.

* "Studies show that 66% of U.S. adults were overweight or obese in 2003 and 2004. An alarming 80%of black women aged 40 or over are overweight and 50% are obese."

* "Sixteen percent of U.S. children and adolescents are overweight and 34% are at risk of becoming overweight, according to federal government figures.

* May Beydoun, who worked on the study, said, "Obesity is likely to continue to increase, and if nothing is done, it will soon become the leading preventable cause of death in the United States."

NYTimes: 'Study Says Obesity Can Be Contagious', 7/25/07

by Gina Kolata
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/25/health/25cnd-fat.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1185393658-dKjEuH1JGMxvxifjLHZ09Q

* A detailed analysis of a large social network of 12,067 people who had been closely followed for 32 years, from 1971 until 2003 was recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine. It suggests "obesity can spread from person to person, much like a virus, researchers are reporting today. When one person gained weight, their close friends tended to gain weight, too."

* "There was no effect when a neighbor gained or lost weight, however, and family members had less influence than friends."

* "Dr. Nicholas Christakis, a physician and professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School and a principal investigator in the new study, says one explanation is that friends affect each others' perception of fatness. When a close friend becomes obese, obesity may not look so bad."

* Of course, the investigators say, social networks are not the only factors that affect body weight. There is a strong genetic component at work as well."

nytimes: editorial 'In Praise of Tap Water', 8/1/07

* "This country has some of the best public water supplies in the world. Instead of consuming four billion gallons of water a year in individual-sized bottles, we need to start thinking about what all those bottles are doing to the planet's health."

* "If you choose to get your recommended eight glasses a day from bottled water, you could spend up to $1,400 annually. The same amount of tap water would cost about 49 cents."

* "Water bottles, like other containers, are made from natural gas and petroleum. The Earth Policy Institute in Washington has estimated that it takes about 1.5 million barrels of oil to make the water bottles Americans use each year. That could fuel 100,000 cars a year instead. And, only about 23 percent of those bottles are recycled"

nytimes: 'Want Some Trans Fats With Those Fries?', 8/2/07

blog posting by Sewell Chan

* "As of July 1, restaurants were required to make sure that all oils, shortening and margarine containing artificial trans fat used for frying or for spreads have less than 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving. (Oils and shortening used to deep fry yeast dough and cake batter are not included in the deadline.) By the second deadline — July 1, 2008 — all foods must have less than 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving if they have any artificial trans fat. (Packaged foods served in the manufacturer's original packaging are exempt.)"

* "The federal Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the American Heart Association, and other health authorities recommend that people consume no more than 2 grams of trans fat per day. 'That's about as much as occurs naturally in milk and meat, leaving virtually no room for artificial trans fat from partially hydrogenated vegetable oil,' the center said in a statement. Trans fats are said to raise levels of "bad" cholesterol, which promotes heart disease. Unlike saturated fats, trans fats also lower the 'good' cholesterol that helps guard against heart disease."

* "'French fries are fried twice, once in the factory and once in the restaurant,' said Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. 'If these chains want to claim they are switching to trans-fat-free frying oil, they need to switch it at the supplier as well as at the restaurant. Burger King and Wendy's are really deceiving consumers with the public statements they've made about trans fat, which don't tell the whole story. McDonald's, on the other hand, has proven that restaurants can truly eliminate artificial trans fat.'