Skip Navigation.

December 2004 Vol. 9 No. 12

 “He Who Accuses The Whole World Convicts Only One”
Edmund Burke

 

 

Table of Contents:

 

  • Lack of Sleep Strongly Linked to Obesity
  • Could You be Suffering from an Aspartame Related Illness
  • Unlocking the Alzheimer’s Conundrum; Alzheimer’s Fighting Antioxidant in Apples
  • Aspartame Can Harm Your Health
  • Obesity Compounds Leukemia Risk
  • Processed Meats, Foods Greatly Increase Diabetes Risk
  • CoQ10 and Statin Drugs
  • Good Carbs Great for Weight Loss

 

 

Lack of Sleep Strongly Linked to Obesity 

 

 The inability to sleep at night weighs heavy on one’s health, as it may increase the risk of developing obesity.  The recommended amount of sleep per night is seven to nine hours; however, most Americans average somewhere around six. Researchers found that the further away one is from getting the recommended hours of sleep, the higher their risk of obesity is.

Lack of Sleep and the Obesity Connection

  • Less than four hours: 73 percent risk
  • Five hours of sleep: 50 percent risk
  • Six hours of sleep: 23 percent risk

A question that plagued researchers: How could more sleep lower someone’s chances of obesity if fewer calories are burned while one is resting? The answer can be found in the concept of chronic sleep deprivation, which is the recurring inability to sleep. This condition often results in serious medical illnesses such obesity, heart attack and stoke. Thus, a link was discovered between sleep and neural pathways that regulate food intake.

If one is lacking the optimal amount of sleep, their Leptin levels drop. Leptin is a blood protein that suppresses appetite and affects how the brain senses when the body is full. Also, sleep deprivation raises levels of Grehlin, which is a substance that increases One’s urge to eat. Thus, the less sleepy one is the less hungry they are.
Yahoo News November 16, 2004

Could You Be Suffering From An Aspartame Related Illness — Watch This and Find Out   

Get a riveting look beyond the smokescreen of corporate medicine, and discover the horrors of aspartame toxicity and how this sweetener is still allowed to endanger millions of lives for profit. A must-see for anyone who has, or is still consuming artificial sweeteners, one woman’s battle with aspartame exposes a disturbing mountain of convincing evidence linking it to many of today’s ravaging health problems. https://store.mercola.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Store.woa/wa/buy?item=sweetmisery

Unlocking the Alzheimer’s Conundrum; Alzheimer’s Fighting Antioxidant in Apples  

Many people believe there is nothing worse than to look at your own family and not recognize who they are. This is an effect of Alzheimer’s disease, a chronic form of dementia, which results in severe memory loss and eventually death.

During the course of this disease, there is an overproduction of the protein beta-amyloid, which accumulates in the brain. This protein produces free radicals, known as oxidants, which can cause cumulative damage to brain cells.

There is no cure for this disease and no one is sure of its causes; however, researchers may have discovered a way to ward it off: Eating fish. According to a number of scientific studies, those who frequently eat fish may be able to prevent Alzheimer’s from attacking, or at least hold it off for a number of years.

The brain-saving protection of fish can be accredited to certain fats called omega-3 fatty acids. Moreover, unless one is eating fish every day, they are not getting enough of these fatty acids. The fish that contain high amounts of beneficial fats include:

  • Salmon
  • Sardines
  • Herring
  • Tuna
  • Mackerel

These findings have altered the way Americans shop and eat. Seafood consumption levels have increased from 15.6 pounds consumed per person in 2002, to 16.3 pounds in 2003.  Experts blame the high-fat American diet for the widespread occurrence of Alzheimer’s.

In Japan, where people traditionally eat low-fat foods and fish on a regular basis, the Alzheimer rates are significantly lower. Consequently, researchers found that those who eat fish at least once a week are at a 60 percent reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s. Researchers warn that there are certain species of fish that are not good to eat, as they are likely contaminated with mercury.

These species include:

  • Shark
  • Swordfish
  • King mackerel

USA Today November 17, 2004
EurekAlert November 16, 2004

Aspartame Can Harm Your Health  

Aspartame, an artificial sweetener containing two amino acids, aspartic acid and Phenylanine, can be found in products such as NutraSweet and Canderel. Many health disasters, which are highlighted by horrific personal accounts found on websites against aspartame, can be attributed to its use. Disasters that result from aspartame use include:

  • Cancer
  • Hair loss
  • Depression
  • Dementia
  • Behavioral disturbances

Public concern of the dangers related to aspartame is being taken seriously by health agencies. These concerns prompted a review of aspartame, which involved over 500 reports. It concluded that the allotted daily intake of aspartame was entirely safe, except for those people with Phenylketonuria, a metabolic disorder caused by an enzyme deficiency.

With around 10 percent of a person’s daily calorie intake provided by sugar, the notion has been raised whether replacing sugar with a non-nutritive, non-caloric sweetener like aspartame could eliminate obesity.  Marketing strategies for aspartame claim that it aids in embracing a healthy way of life and prevents obesity. This evidence however remains inconclusive.

Aspartame is 180-200 times sweeter than sucrose or sugar. By displacing saturated fat the risk of heart disease may be reduced. Further, large amounts of sucrose will increase triglycerides, a main component of the metabolic syndrome, and lead toward promoting heart disease. Marketing for aspartame focuses on the idea that it may aid in the elimination of dental decay, due to sugars forming bacteria in the mouth.

The problem with this theory is that sugar is not the main culprit behind decay; rather it is caused by fluoride deficiency and prolonged exposure to sugar between meals.  In order to eliminate the concern of aspartame, manufacturers are encouraged to use cocktails of sweeteners, making it difficult for anyone to reach the allotted daily intake.
British Medical Journal October 3, 2004

Obesity Compounds Leukemia Risk  

It is no surprise that excess weight increases one’s chances of developing cancer. A new study suggests overweight women 55 and older may be doubling their risk of developing acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). Further, older women with a body mass index of 30 or more (obese) have a 140 percent higher risk of developing the disease.

Claiming the lives of about one-third of the 33,000 leukemia cases in the United States a year, AML is one of the deadliest kinds of leukemia. This is due in part to its aggressive and rapidly developing nature. Researchers determined it was important to assess the risk factors associated with developing AML, as the five-year survival rate is as low as 3 percent.

Thus far, the risk factors include:

  • Old age
  • Excessive weight]
  • Hormones or genetics

Although excess weight is considered a risk factor, it has not been discovered whether or not losing or normalizing weight can reduce the risk of AML; however, it remains a possibility.
EurekAlert November 5, 2004

To learn more about cancer, visit the University of Minnesota Cancer Center Web site at http://www.cancer.umn.edu

To calculate body mass index, visit the National Institutes of Health at http://nhlbisupport.com/bmi/bmicalc.htm

Processed Meats, Foods Greatly Increase Diabetes Risk  

 Many don’t see the harm in eating a couple of hot dogs, French fries and big slice of chocolate cream pie. However, researchers discovered that eating these kinds of Western-style foods might increase one’s risk of stroke, colon cancer, and heart disease.

Moreover, they found such foods might also increase one’s chances of developing type 2 diabetes, the most common form of this disease that usually occurs in adulthood.  According to a study, those who frequently ate Western-style foods were 50 percent more likely to develop diabetes than those who didn’t.

The study lasted 14 years and involved nearly 70,000 diabetes-free women. At the end of the study, 2,699 women developed type 2 diabetes; both a Western diet and eating red and processed meats raised their risk. It was also concluded that women who ate a rich prudent diet decreased their risk.

A prudent diet consists of:

  • Fish
  • Fruits
  • Vegetables
  • Whole grains

After further dissecting the data, researchers found that the more red and processed meats people consumed, the higher their risk of diabetes rose. For example, any additional daily serving of red meat increased one’s risk of diabetes by 26 percent, while another serving of processed meat raised the risk by 40 percent.

The reason behind these risk-rates can be linked to how these meats are cooked. Researchers discovered that when red meats and other foods high in fat are cooked at high temperatures, a dangerous substance is formed, triggering the development of diabetes.
Archives of Internal Medicine November 8, 2004;164(20.

CoQ10 and Statin Drugs  

Statin drugs have become very popular and are being widely prescribed in recent years to lower high blood cholesterol and thus reduce the risk for heart disease. These drugs block cholesterol production in the body by inhibiting the enzyme called HMG-CoA reductase in the early steps of its synthesis in the Mevalonate pathway. CoQ10 also shares this same biosynthetic pathway. Therefore, one unfortunate consequence of statin drugs is the unintentional inhibition of CoQ10 synthesis.

An Excellent Book by Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper, MD, Controlling Cholesterol the Natural Way [Bantam (August 3, 1999) ISBN: 0553582100]
Dr Cooper explains the importance of supplementing with co-enzyme Q10 between 50-100 mgs daily to offset the drain from this drug on the body.

Good Carbs Great for Weight Loss  

After 12 weeks on a higher carbohydrate-eating plan [65 percent of total calories], both men and women lost more weight and body fat than a control group consuming a similar number of calories from high fat foods.  Research published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, documented that participants lost an average of 7 pounds of fat consuming low-fat, higher carbohydrate foods for 12 weeks with no restrictions on portion sizes.  Adding moderate exercise increased the fat loss to an average of 11 pounds.

This research follows similar past studies that have demonstrated that lower-fat, complex carbohydrate-rich foods are excellent for facilitating fat loss.
Arch Intern Med 2004; 164: 210-7

Selected segments are reproduced from Dr. Mercola’s excellent website: http://www.mercola.com/index.htm
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine http://www.pcrm.org