Photo Courtesy: Crush the Poodle
In the midst of news reports on the likelihood that U.S. healthcare spending will double by the year 2017, an alarming statement by legal and health experts was made at an international conference. The experts resolved that instead of focusing on terrorism, world governments need to start paying closer attention to the many “lifestyle diseases” that kill people on a far more regular basis than terrorism, many of which are sprung from obesity.
Terrorism vs. Obesity
While this assertion may not sound very newsworthy, the truth is that very few people even think of obesity as a threat that can contend with terrorism or other health conditions that garner larger awareness campaigns, such as cancer. Furthermore, awareness campaigns for conditions that are indeed related to obesity – diabetes, heart disease, and stroke being just a few examples — often do not focus on this aspect of the disease as thoroughly as experts are now recommending
Obesity is on the Rise — Wakeup!
Next time you go to your local shopping mall, take a surreptitious look at the people around you. You’ll be surprised, if not shocked, to see the number of people who need to lose some weight on an urgent basis.
The fact of the matter is, obesity and its related conditions cause approximately 1,000 deaths in the U.S. everyday, and the number of people afflicted with the condition continues to grow – the rate of obesity within the U.S. population today has increased by a staggering 75% in the last 20 years. And while the number of people dying from cancer each day is certainly not a small one (approximately 1500), there is one major distinction: obesity is entirely preventable. It’s hard not to wonder, why aren’t we as fervent in our efforts to raise funding and awareness when the condition is well within our reach to prevent?
Spreading Awareness of Obesity is a Must
With this in mind, experts are calling for national efforts to not only spread awareness about the dangers of obesity, but also to integrate preventative medicine into the lives of Americans, starting at an early age. The American College of Preventive Medicine (ACPM) suggests that a closer focus on dietary patterns – which should ideally represent approximately 55% carbohydrate calories, 25% fat calories, and 20% protein calories – and a stronger emphasis by physicians on getting the right ratio of nutrition, rather than following fad diets, is one key element that can help break the pattern of obesity in the U.S.
Soaring Healthcare Cost: This isn’t Right!
Medical treatment for obese people cost the U.S. $92.6 billion in 2002. With the ever-increasing number of individuals who fall into this category, it’s no wonder that healthcare costs are projected to soar in the next few years. There’s no doubt in my mind that until local and national governments, as well as individual physicians and patients themselves start taking responsibility for this epidemic, people will continue to die, live in poor physical health and pay a heavy price because of it.
Adrienne writes for special-interest magazines and has worked on the production of women’s lifestyle channels at AOL as well as at E! Entertainment Television. She graduated from CUNY Baruch, where she served as the editor-in-chief of the award-winning student newspaper The Ticker.
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Roger OBrian says
Toxins and Obesity
If you have a difficult time losing weight, it may be a result of the toxins that are constantly being introduced into your bloodstream. The more fat your body has, the more toxins it will retain, and as you lose weight those fat cells will release toxins into the bloodstream. Once the toxins are in the bloodstream, they can cause harm to the body.
Detoxification is the process of binding up these toxins and releasing them from the body.
Although the study of detoxification and its impact on obesity is relatively new, researchers do understand some of the mechanisms involved with how toxins impact weight gain. In particular, toxins can impact your ability to lose weight in three significant ways:
• Toxins slow your metabolism
• Toxins decrease your ability to burn fat
• Toxins slow down the satiety response time (the time it takes you to feel full)
Toxins Slow Your Metabolism
In the past it was thought that your resting metabolic rate (RMR) declined with weight loss primarily because of the decrease in caloric intake or changes in the ratio of muscle to fat. But clinical studies are now showing just how toxic internal toxins can be to our weight loss efforts.
One of the first things toxins do when released into the bloodstream is slow down your RMR. So, as you begin to lose weight, those surfacing toxins begin to inhibit your ability to lose weight. However, if you can eliminate those toxins from the body quickly enough during or before a period of weight loss, you may be able to reduce the decline in your metabolism.
Toxins Decrease Your Ability to Burn Fat
The last thing you want to hear is that something in your blood is preventing your body from burning fat, but that is just what toxins can do. In 1971, for example, a study at the University of Nevada Division of Biochemistry determined that chemical toxins weakened by 20 percent the co-enzyme necessary to burn fat in the body. In 2002, researchers concluded that toxins released during weight loss had the capacity to damage the fat-burning mitochondria.1
The damage was significant enough to negatively impact the body’s ability to burn calories and, in effect, fat.
I have dedicated my life to All Natural and Organic living. I’m trying to help educate others through my store, my facebook fan page and great blogs like this. You can click on my name and follow the link to my store, plus the links for my facebook fan page are located on my store’s website. I encourage everyone to post articles on my facebook fan page that help educate people and also take articles to post them on your websites. We can beat America’s Health problem by educating as many people as we can about the dangers of mass produced, genetically modified, un-natural and chemically enhanced food most people consume. Only when we can show big business that we’re incontrol because we demand better quality over their profits and quantity, can we really beat Obesity and other Health issues in the US.
Thank you and I hope to be posting more articles on this blog in the near future. I hope everyone will spread this information or their own on the subject.