Obesity

Here’s a guest blog by excellent writer Jonny Bowden. He’s not a Doc – but he probably should have been!! Have you ever wondered how your body actually burns fat? Years ago a popular health magazine decided to try to answer that same question with a novel approach. They looked at how people actually gain weight, reasoning that if we knew all the “tricks” to gaining weight, we could learn what not to do if we wanted to stay lean. So they followed around a bunch of Sumo wrestlers whose job requires them to maintain enormous stores of body fat. Whatever it is they were doing, that’s exactly what we shouldn’t do. Now Sumo wrestlers gain weight for a number of reasons, and genetics certainly plays a role, but what they did eating-wise is the thing we want to pay attention to, because it’s ultimately going to teach us something about how to burn fat. Here’s what the Sumo guys did … They worked out a bit. They lazed around. They worked out some more. They took a nap. And then, at the end of the day, they ate their one meal, a veritable Roman orgy of food that would make the buffet at the Bellagio in Vegas seem skimpy. Shortly after this multi-thousand calorie feast they’d go to bed for the night. Okay, folks, what can we learn from this?

Here’s a guest blog by excellent writer Jonny Bowden. He’s not a Doc – but he probably should have been!! Have you ever wondered how your body actually burns fat? Years ago a popular health magazine decided to try to answer that same question with a novel approach. They looked at how people actually gain weight, reasoning that if we knew all the “tricks” to gaining weight, we could learn what not to do if we wanted to stay lean. So they followed around a bunch of Sumo wrestlers whose job requires them to maintain enormous stores of body fat. Whatever it is they were doing, that’s exactly what we shouldn’t do. Now Sumo wrestlers gain weight for a number of reasons, and genetics certainly plays a role, but what they did eating-wise is the thing we want to pay attention to, because it’s ultimately going to teach us something about how to burn fat. Here’s what the Sumo guys did … They worked out a bit. They lazed around. They worked out some more. They took a nap. And then, at the end of the day, they ate their one meal, a veritable Roman orgy of food that would make the buffet at the Bellagio in Vegas seem skimpy. Shortly after this multi-thousand calorie feast they’d go to bed for the night. Okay, folks, what can we learn from this?

I want you to take a tape measure and measure your waist. Don’t cheat or breathe in! Let it hang out. Then measure the largest circumference of your hips and note down the two figures. Your waist should be LESS than your hips. Preferably a couple of inches less. The reason is that yet another study has suggested that waist-to-hip ratio is much more sensitive than body mass index (BMI) at predicting risk of subsequent coronary disease. Writing in an early online edition of Circulation, Dr Dexter Canoy (University of Cambridge, UK) and colleagues report that increased abdominal obesity — measured in terms of waist-to-hip ratio, was more “consistently and strongly” predictive of coronary heart disease (CHD) than BMI among men and women participating in the European Prospective Investigation Into Cancer and Nutrition in Norfolk (EPIC-NORFOLK) study. “In our study, in men who were obese and had lower waist-to-hip ratios, their rates of CHD tended to be slightly lower than if they had high waist-to-hip ratios.” Coney said. “But in women, at all levels of BMI, waist-to-hip ratios were strongly predictive of heart disease.” [my italics, KS-M] The study showed that even if we take into account habits like smoking, alcohol intake, or sedentary lifestyle, and we take into account what we already know are important predictors of CHD such as hypertension and dyslipidemia, you will still have an excess risk of a heart attack, if you have a higher than 1.0 waist-to-hip ratio. Waist circumference alone was also a fair predictor of CHD events, but not nearly as accurate as taking the ratio of waist and hips together. Other recent studies have also shown that this is the best predictive measure we have.

I want you to take a tape measure and measure your waist. Don’t cheat or breathe in! Let it hang out. Then measure the largest circumference of your hips and note down the two figures. Your waist should be LESS than your hips. Preferably a couple of inches less. The reason is that yet another study has suggested that waist-to-hip ratio is much more sensitive than body mass index (BMI) at predicting risk of subsequent coronary disease. Writing in an early online edition of Circulation, Dr Dexter Canoy (University of Cambridge, UK) and colleagues report that increased abdominal obesity — measured in terms of waist-to-hip ratio, was more “consistently and strongly” predictive of coronary heart disease (CHD) than BMI among men and women participating in the European Prospective Investigation Into Cancer and Nutrition in Norfolk (EPIC-NORFOLK) study. “In our study, in men who were obese and had lower waist-to-hip ratios, their rates of CHD tended to be slightly lower than if they had high waist-to-hip ratios.” Coney said. “But in women, at all levels of BMI, waist-to-hip ratios were strongly predictive of heart disease.” [my italics, KS-M] The study showed that even if we take into account habits like smoking, alcohol intake, or sedentary lifestyle, and we take into account what we already know are important predictors of CHD such as hypertension and dyslipidemia, you will still have an excess risk of a heart attack, if you have a higher than 1.0 waist-to-hip ratio. Waist circumference alone was also a fair predictor of CHD events, but not nearly as accurate as taking the ratio of waist and hips together. Other recent studies have also shown that this is the best predictive measure we have.

A recent trip to a doctor to have my ears syringed resulted in a routine weighing on a balance scale—you know, the kind where you are balanced against weights slid along a beam. These are accurate to within 0.5% or less. This is very different to the spring loaded bathroom scales. As metal springs age […]

A recent trip to a doctor to have my ears syringed resulted in a routine weighing on a balance scale—you know, the kind where you are balanced against weights slid along a beam. These are accurate to within 0.5% or less. This is very different to the spring loaded bathroom scales. As metal springs age […] The post Beware Those Bathroom Scales, They Lie! appeared first on Dr. Keith Scott-Mumby.

You had better hope they can, otherwise you and your loved ones are being killed by a grinding profit machine. Here is the US, business runs criminal and is totally uncontrolled. They can lie, cheat and swindle science as much as they want and they are protected by law. The food industry is just part of that; Big Pharma and the banks are probably the worst. Meanwhile, public officers go after little herb producers and whole food factories. The US, factually, is run on criminal corruption and bribes, not due process of law, and DEFINITELY not the much-vaunted Constitution. As in the old Wild West days, the “law” here is guns. The FDA thinks nothing of bursting into a doctor’s office or a mom and pop food store and throwing everybody against the wall at gunpoint. They have subsumed this power to themselves, which does not exist. It’s illegal. But they find it easier to carry out their perverted control mechanisms (on behalf of the people bribing them), without bothering to use troublesome court procedures, which they have found out they might lose. Now Mark Bittman of the NY Times is asking, could the food industry be persuaded to do it right and still make a profit? No Mark. It couldn’t.

You had better hope they can, otherwise you and your loved ones are being killed by a grinding profit machine. Here is the US, business runs criminal and is totally uncontrolled. They can lie, cheat and swindle science as much as they want and they are protected by law. The food industry is just part of that; Big Pharma and the banks are probably the worst. Meanwhile, public officers go after little herb producers and whole food factories. The US, factually, is run on criminal corruption and bribes, not due process of law, and DEFINITELY not the much-vaunted Constitution. As in the old Wild West days, the “law” here is guns. The FDA thinks nothing of bursting into a doctor’s office or a mom and pop food store and throwing everybody against the wall at gunpoint. They have subsumed this power to themselves, which does not exist. It’s illegal. But they find it easier to carry out their perverted control mechanisms (on behalf of the people bribing them), without bothering to use troublesome court procedures, which they have found out they might lose. Now Mark Bittman of the NY Times is asking, could the food industry be persuaded to do it right and still make a profit? No Mark. It couldn’t.

Is that a freedom or an entitlement? People who overeat and are obese should contribute to the inevitable extra healthcare costs, according to certain German politicians. Naturally, there is an outcry, mostly from the opposition who would attack anything on principle. But emotions run high and comparisons with Hitler’s Nazi socialist principles have been used. […]

Is that a freedom or an entitlement? People who overeat and are obese should contribute to the inevitable extra healthcare costs, according to certain German politicians. Naturally, there is an outcry, mostly from the opposition who would attack anything on principle. But emotions run high and comparisons with Hitler’s Nazi socialist principles have been used. […] The post Are People Free To Wreck Themselves And We Should Pay The Price? appeared first on Dr. Keith Scott-Mumby.