Overweight and Disease

Often overweight people feel guilty and sometimes angry. There is an argument in favor of boosting self-esteem, a good idea for sure. The argument goes something like, “It is OK to be fat. I am still a worthwhile, loveable, productive person, so who cares? “ While it is true that extra fat does not prevent you from being a productive, wonderful and loveable person, being overweight usually reduces your opportunity to feel well and live a long and healthy life. You can keep all of your personal merit and all your self-esteem but you still have to lose weight if you want to feel good and remain healthy. The issue of excess weight is not just cosmetic as some people claim, but it is a key health issue for the 21st century.

The American Surgeon General's report on Nutrition and Health asserted in 1987 that at least half of all deaths in the USA are related to faulty diet and described: "... the convergence of similar dietary recommendations that apply to prevention of multiple chronic diseases. Five of the ten leading causes of death in the USA are clearly related to wrong food choices. Diseases of nutritional deficiencies have declined and have been replaced by diseases of dietary excesses and imbalances-problems that now rank among the leading causes of illness and death, touch the lives of most Americans, and generate substantial health care costs."

Years later, the same concerns are voiced and the problems identified years ago are more prevalent and more threatening than ever before. These problems include diseases generally acknowledged diet-related, such as heart disease, alcoholism, obesity, diabetes, and some cancers as well as other common disorders not generally acknowledged to be diet-related.

Kaplan, for example, compared obesity in adults to a cholera epidemic that requires community action.  (Katan MB. Weight-loss diets for the prevention and treatment of obesity. N Engl J Med 2009 Feb 26; 360:923.)

In a huge US study spanning 20 years the influence of excess body weight on the risk of death from cancer was  revealed.   The Authors stated: “In a prospectively studied population of more than 900,000 U.S. adults (404,576 men and 495,477 women) who were free of cancer at enrollment in 1982, there were 57,145 deaths from cancer during 16 years of follow-up… The heaviest members of this cohort (those with a body-mass index  of at least 40) had death rates from all cancers combined that were 52 percent higher (for men) and 62 percent higher (for women) than the rates in men and women of normal weight. For men, the relative risk of death was 1.52 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.13 to 2.05); for women, the relative risk was 1.62 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.40 to 1.87). In both men and women, body-mass index was also significantly associated with higher rates of death due to cancer of the esophagus, colon and rectum, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, and kidney; the same was true for death due to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and multiple myeloma. Significant trends of increasing risk with higher body-mass-index values were observed for death from cancers of the stomach and prostate in men and for death from cancers of the breast, uterus, cervix, and ovary in women.

Diabetes, The Sitting Disease

High caloric intake, lack of exercise and weight gain appears to be the inter-related causes of diabetes 2. Physical work is good for the human body. Lack of exertion is bad. Energy metabolism requires daily exertions to work well. The combination of sitting, eating too much of the wrong foods and weight gain causes diabetes 2. About 80 percent of people with Diabetes 2 are overweight. Most overweight diabetics have adequate or excessive amounts of insulin in the early stages of the disease rather than a deficiency, but the insulin does not work properly and blood sugar regulation is impaired. Blood sugar levels rise too high after eating and stay high longer than they should.

The first stage of diabetes 2 is sometimes called "glucose intolerance" when blood sugar levels rise too high after eating food.  Fasting blood sugars remain normal and other signs of diabetes have not yet appeared. As glucose intolerance progresses, high sugar levels become more persistent and other problems appear. Paradoxically, overweight people with glucose intolerance may also experience episodes of low blood sugar. You feel dopey and want to sleep when your sugar is high. You feel irritable, anxious, weak and tremulous when your blood sugar is low. The low sugar episodes tend to occur three or more hours after your last meal.

The pancreas produces enough insulin but may not respond promptly to rising blood sugars. When insulin is released, the body cannot use the insulin effectively. The result is the buildup of glucose in the blood and an inability of the body to make efficient use of glucose, its main source of energy. While elevated levels of sugar are the leading edge of the emerging disaster, changes in fat metabolism, liver and kidney function and circulation impairment add to a cascade of dysfunction. 75% of the early deaths in diabetics are related to coronary artery disease.

While you can blame many of the problems on high blood sugar, there may be hidden, underlying causes of the complex of disasters that routinely haunt the lives of people with diabetes 2.  We have a hunch that there are pervasive problems in the food supply. Eating sugar does not cause diabetes, but once you have diabetes, eating sugar is a problem because blood sugar levels are unstable.  This does not mean you should avoid carbohydrates because all the foods that are going to make you healthy, especially plant foods, contain carbohydrates. Clearly, heroic efforts are more that justified changing life-style determinants of the disease early on so that the terrible consequences of neglected diabetes are avoided.

Weight and disease management with the Alpha Nutrition Program. You can start by  studying our books or ordering a Rescue Starter Pack that includes two books, the Alpha Nutrition Program plus Eating and Weight Management,  plus one 500 Gram jar of Alpha ENF

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Eating and Weight Management

Alpha Nutrition Program

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