“”Research to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB), the foremost society for research into all aspects of eating and drinking behavior, finds that the hormone leptin reduces food intake, in part, by activating the hippocampus, an area of the brain that controls learning and memory function. Leptin is a hormone released from fat cells that acts on the brain to inhibit feeding.

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania found that when leptin was delivered directly to the hippocampus in rats, the animals consumed less food and lost body weight. Leptin delivered to this region of the brain also impaired the ability of the animals to learn about the spatial location of food.

These findings highlight the need for future research aimed at identifying the role of cognitive processes in food intake and body weight control. “Feeding is a complex behavior that is not always driven by hunger or need. An element of our research program is focused on understanding how learning and memory contribute to excessive food intake, and ultimately obesity,” says Dr. Scott Kanoski, lead author. When fat stores are plentiful, humans and animals may be less focused on learning about cues that provide information about food location and availability.

According to Kanoski, “these findings suggest that the brain receives and responds to signals about body energy status, specifically the amount of body fat reserves, and in turn these signals influence what type of environmental cues we learn about. When leptin signaling is impaired, which is common in obesity, cognitive processes that normally would help inhibit or decrease food intake may also be compromised.”"

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Why? Well, let’s look into some factors that are being described as the cause for this. Two of the major factors are 1) the increase of obesity at a younger age and 2) exposure to chemicals in our foods, and exposure to a number of artificially produced chemicals such as bisphenol A, a plastic found in the lining of tin cans and babies’ feeding bottles.

Early puberty can also put our young girls at a greater risk of breast cancer long-term. Because of this, the development of a young girl’s breast starts at around 9½ years old. And this seems to be a world-wide phenomenon.

On June 13, 2010, an article in “The Times” said:
“Scientists warn that such young girls are ill-equipped to cope with sexual development when they are still at primary school … Hitting puberty early can mean longer exposure to estrogen, which is a factor in breast cancer. There is also a greater risk of heart disease.”

These young girls are in primary school and are certainly not equipped to cope with sexual development this young.

It’s not only our young girls being affected, this is also affecting our young boys with their sexual development as well.

“If girls mature early, they run into teenage problems at an early age and they’re more prone to diseases later on. We should be worried about this regardless of what we think the underlying reasons might be. It’s a clear sign that something is affecting our children, whether it’s junk food, environmental chemicals or lack of physical activity.”

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Preliminary findings suggest a relationship between obesity and dementia that could lead to promising prevention strategies in the future. Results of this study are published early online in Annals of Neurology, a journal of the American Neurological Association.
Individuals with dementia exhibit a decline in short-term and long-term memory, language processing, problem solving capabilities, and other cognitive function. Clinical diagnosis of dementia is made when two or more brain functions are significantly impaired. Symptoms of dementia can be attributed to irreversible causes such Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, and Huntington’s disease, or caused by treatable conditions such as brain tumor, medication reaction, or metabolic issues.

More about Abdominal fat at middle age associated with greater risk of dementia at: NewsRx.com

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Reports indicated that residents who lived in neighborhoods with the highest number of fast-food restaurants had a 13 percent higher risk of experiencing a stroke than those in neighborhoods with the fewest such restaurants.

This particular study, presented at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference, “does not prove living near fast-food restaurants raises the risk of stroke, but it does suggest the two are linked in some way.”

For more on this subject, click here.

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Fatty liver occurs most often in people who meet any one of several often-overlapping risk factors: diabetes, obesity, very high blood triglyceride levels, or excessive alcohol intake.

Gradual buildup of excess fat in liver cells leads to inflammation of the liver, which damages the organ and can lead to liver failure.

Fatty liver can even occur in children who eat high-calorie diets dominated by junky foods low in polyunsaturated fats (such as omega-3s) and high in saturated fats and sugars.

Earlier this year, Scottish researchers linked higher omega-3 intakes to reduced risk of NAFLD, while an Israeli team associated sweet soda with increased liver risk.

Now it looks like the antioxidants in berries may join fish-derived omega-3s as potential liver-protectors.

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Certain dietary and lifestyle factors have been known to play a role in increasing or reducing the risk of getting type 2 diabetes. It is uncertain even though obesity and physical inactivity have consistently been reported to raise the risk of diabetes.

Now there is much more evidence that drinking coffee or tea may be linked with reducing the risk. Studies have found that each additional cup of coffee consumed in a day was associated with a 7 percent reduction in the excess risk of diabetes. Individuals who drank three to four cups per day had an approximately 25 percent lower risk than those who drank between zero and two cups per day.

In the studies that assessed decaffeinated coffee consumption, those who drank more than three to four cups per day had about a one-third lower risk of diabetes than those who drank none. Those who drank more than three to four cups of tea had a one-fifth lower risk than those who drank no tea.

“The apparent protective effect of tea and coffee consumption appears to be independent of a number of potential confounding variables and raises the possibility of direct biological effects. Because of the association between decaffeinated coffee and diabetes risk, the association is unlikely to be solely related to caffeine. Other compounds in coffee and tea including magnesium, antioxidants known as lignans or chlorogenic acids may be involved.

If such beneficial effects of coffee and tea are really real, the implications for the millions of individuals who have diabetes mellitus, or who are at future risk of developing it, would be substantial. For example, the identification of the active components of these beverages could open up new therapeutic options for the primary prevention of diabetes mellitus. The findings also pose the question of whether patients most at risk for diabetes mellitus may in the future be advised to increase their consumption of tea and coffee in addition to increasing their levels of physical activity.”

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We’re spending $147 billion to treat obesity, $116 billion to treat diabetes, and hundreds of billions more to treat cardiovascular disease and the many types of cancer that have been linked to the so-called Western diet. One recent study estimated that 30 percent of the increase in health care spending over the past 20 years could be attributed to the soaring rate of obesity, a condition that now accounts for nearly a tenth of all spending on health care.

The American way of eating has become the elephant in the room in the debate over health care. The president has made a few notable allusions to it, and, by planting her vegetable garden on the South Lawn, Michelle Obama has tried to focus our attention on it. Just last month, Mr. Obama talked about putting a farmers’ market in front of the White House, and building new distribution networks to connect local farmers to public schools so that student lunches might offer more fresh produce and fewer Tater Tots. He’s even floated the idea of taxing soda.

But so far, food system reform has not figured in the national conversation about health care reform. And so the government is poised to go on encouraging America’s fast-food diet with its farm policies even as it takes on added responsibilities for covering the medical costs of that diet. To put it more bluntly, the government is putting itself in the uncomfortable position of subsidizing both the costs of treating Type 2 diabetes and the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup.

Why the disconnect? Probably because reforming the food system is politically even more difficult than reforming the health care system. At least in the health care battle, the administration can count some powerful corporate interests on its side — like the large segment of the Fortune 500 that has concluded the current system is unsustainable.

That is hardly the case when it comes to challenging agribusiness. Cheap food is going to be popular as long as the social and environmental costs of that food are charged to the future. There’s lots of money to be made selling fast food and then treating the diseases that fast food causes. One of the leading products of the American food industry has become patients for the American health care industry.

The market for prescription drugs and medical devices to manage Type 2 diabetes, which the Centers for Disease Control estimates will afflict one in three Americans born after 2000, is one of the brighter spots in the American economy. As things stand, the health care industry finds it more profitable to treat chronic diseases than to prevent them. There’s more money in amputating the limbs of diabetics than in counseling them on diet and exercise.

As for the insurers, you would think preventing chronic diseases would be good business, but, at least under the current rules, it’s much better business simply to keep patients at risk for chronic disease out of your pool of customers, whether through lifetime caps on coverage or rules against pre-existing conditions or by figuring out ways to toss patients overboard when they become ill..

But these rules may well be about to change — and, when it comes to reforming the American diet and food system, that step alone could be a game changer. Even under the weaker versions of health care reform now on offer, health insurers would be required to take everyone at the same rates, provide a standard level of coverage and keep people on their rolls regardless of their health. Terms like “pre-existing conditions” and “underwriting” would vanish from the health insurance rulebook — and, when they do, the relationship between the health insurance industry and the food industry will undergo a sea change.

The moment these new rules take effect, health insurance companies will promptly discover they have a powerful interest in reducing rates of obesity and chronic diseases linked to diet. A patient with Type 2 diabetes incurs additional health care costs of more than $6,600 a year; over a lifetime, that can come to more than $400,000. Insurers will quickly figure out that every case of Type 2 diabetes they can prevent adds $400,000 to their bottom line. Suddenly, every can of soda or Happy Meal or chicken nugget on a school lunch menu will look like a threat to future profits.

While the undertaking to make such large cultural shifts will require comprehensive government policy, you can start making healthy food choices today. At its best the policy makers will eventually reflect the trends of its constituents, so when you choose healthy foods you are doing something good not only for your health but also the future health of your kids and loved ones.”

Key Source:
Michael Pollan
The New York Times

http://www.michaelpollan.com/

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Well, last I heard, researchers are saying, “stay away” from these kinds of food and eat lots of vegetables, fruits and nuts instead. Down the road as you age, you’ll be glad you did. Why? Fruits, vegetables and nuts actually help to prevent or reverse harmful metabolic processes in your body. That translated means they help to guard the human body from diseases.

Plant-based foods have an ingredient called phytochemicals which are what provide the better health for our physical bodies, including helping to keep us thinner. That in itself is good news and reason to change our diet from our old way of eating.

Someone once told me they eat junk food because it’s cheaper. Well, guess what…no way, that’s just an excuse so he/she can remain a child. They will pay down the road and it will be much more expensive for their medical bills!

As a matter of fact, overweight and obese people tend to eat fewer vegetables, fruit and nuts and instead consume far more saturated fats. They don’t give their bodies the advantages of protective trace minerals and phytochemicals found in natural foods to aid in warding off physical diseases and other problems.

Eating less plant-based foods causes higher levels of oxidative stress and inflammation in the body. This on top of being obese or overweight can and will produce physical problems in due time.
Research has found that oxidative stress and inflammation in our bodies are definitely associated with the onset of obesity, heart disease, diabetes and joint disease.

“Diets low in plant-based foods affect health over the course of a long period of time,” Dr. Vincent, a researcher in FL. explained in a statement to the press. “This is related to annual weight gain, inflammation and oxidative stress. Those are the onset processes of disease that debilitate people later in life.”

“People who are obese need more fruits, vegetables, legumes and wholesome unrefined grains,” Vincent said. “In comparison to a normal-weight person, an obese person is always going to be behind the eight ball because there are so many adverse metabolic processes going on.”

In order to get enough protective phytochemicals daily, the UF researchers concluded that people should try to consume plant-based foods such as leafy greens, fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes at the start of each meal.

Vincent suggests, “Fill your plate with colorful, low-calorie, varied-texture foods derived from plants first. By slowly eating phytochemical-rich foods such as salads with olive oil or fresh-cut fruits before the actual meal, you will likely reduce the overall portion size, fat content and energy intake. In this way, you’re ensuring that you get the variety of protective, disease-fighting phytochemicals you need and controlling caloric intake.”

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Just plain old ‘fat’ stored in strategic areas of our bodies can affect our overall health. Thus the “whereabouts” of fat in our human body is an important issue for our over-all health. And fat stored around the waistline, even in a slim person, can be dangerous.

I think most of us already know that even in people with a normal, healthy weight level, but are carrying lots of stored fat around their abdomen are also more likely to develop heart disease and some forms of cancer than those individuals with a slimmer waist line.

Studying over 100,000 women of all shapes and sizes, researchers found that the obese were twice as likely to develop asthma as their slimmer counterparts.

They also found that the women who had a large waistline even though they were of normal weight, were 37 per cent more likely to develop the disease.

And what is the reason for this? Well, research suggests that too much fat accumulated around the belly causes chemical reactions in the body which can adversely affect health.

Julie Von Behren, from the Northern California Cancer Centre, one of the co-authors of the study, warned that “abdominal obesity” was rising faster than the traditional measurements.

She added: “All measures of obesity were strongly associated with increased asthma prevalence. Even being modestly overweight was associated with higher asthma prevalence in this population.”

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And, now we have more bad news. The following are excerpts from a recent article that came to my attention:

It was revealed in a recently study that obese people had 8 percent less brain tissue than people with normal weight, and that overweight people had 4 percent less tissue. According to Thompson, who is also a member of UCLA’s Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, this is the first time anyone has established a link between being overweight and having what he describes as “severe brain degeneration.”

“That’s a big loss of tissue and it depletes your cognitive reserves, putting you at much greater risk of Alzheimer’s and other diseases that attack the brain,” said Thompson. “But you can greatly reduce your risk for Alzheimer’s, if you can eat healthily and keep your weight under control.”

“The brains of obese people looked 16 years older than the brains of those who were lean, and in overweight people looked eight years older,” says Thompson.

“It seems that along with increased risk for health problems such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease, obesity is bad for your brain: we have linked it to shrinkage of brain areas that are also targeted by Alzheimer’s,” said Pittsburgh’s Raji. “But that could mean exercising, eating right and keeping weight under control can maintain brain health with aging and potentially lower the risk for Alzheimer’s and other dementias.”

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