Well, its official, obesity is a disease. So declared the doctor delegates at the American Medical Association’s annual meeting this past June. Americans are the second fattest people in the world (second only to Mexico, and only by 1 percent, according to Scripps Media Inc.). According to Dr. Patrice Harris, a member of the association’s board, considering corpulence as a doctor issue is good thing. “Recognizing obesity as a disease will help change the way the medical community tackles this complex issue that affects approximately one in three Americans, in the words of Dr. Harris.
How exactly these changes will show up remains to be seen. AMA doctors say reclassifying it as a disease will reduce the stigma that can result from the silly idea that obesity is simply the result the result of too much food and too little exercise. Apparently, our medical saviors feel that their patients do not have control over their weight and physiology.
One of the most under-appreciated aspects of skincare involves its relationship to the mind, emotions and the skin. Technically called “psychodermatology” this aspect of cutaneous health is being recognized more and more as a fundamental, if under-appreciated cause of dermatological diseases. Psychodermatology recognizes that the skin, the brain and the body’s defense (immune) system that deals with survival threats, real or imagined, are in reality three parts of one system. That means that if you are dealing with acne, psoriasis, eczema, vitiligo or any other skin heath issue, you should consider looking at it as the result of a real or imagined survival threat. By far the most important sources of these threats are not actual. They are mental and emotional. In other words, in the majority of threatening situations, our survival is not actually at risk, we simply “believe” it is! However, while these threats may only exist as thoughts and feelings they can and do manifest themselves as real physical effects such as itching and rashes (eczema), inflammation (psoriasis), oiliness (acne) and changes in pigmentation (melasma).
If you go to a doctor, his management options according to the medical journal “American Family Physician” include “…psychotropic medication, stress management courses and referral to a psychiatrist.” No surprise there. As always, the medical model focuses on symptoms and not the causes.
Sugar is pretty interesting stuff. It’s also misunderstood. For one thing, we all love how “sugar” tastes, but we don’t necessarily love its effects. That presents a problem. Despite it’s well-documented health hazards, just because we love the stuff, no matter how much we try to abstain, when it comes right down to it, turning down that apple pie a la mode or peach gelato, as much as we’d like to, can be pretty difficult and at times impossible. That’s because our brainy cells which are fueled by the sweet and sticky substance, are hardwired to love sugar! On the other hand, the downside of sugar ingestion includes weight gain, diabetes, eye disease, hypertension, jittery-ness and anxiety. Well, those we would rather do without. Thus the love-hate relationship we have with what is generally referred to as “sugar”.
However, unbeknownst to many, there’s a whole other side to the subject of sugar! The chemical that most of us know as “sugar” and the substance that is so problematic is actually a special type of sugar called “glucose”. As it turns out, glucose is just one version of 8 different sugars that are collectively, if not entirely accurately, referred to as “essential”. These 7 other essential sugars aren’t very tasty or sweet but, importantly, they provide lots of health benefits.
Lol, despite the provocative and somewhat incendiary headlines plastered all over the media, even a cursory reading of the actual article originally published the Annals of Internal Medicine (AIM), reveals scant evidence that taking a multi-vitamin is indeed a waste of money.
The breathless headlines and catchy captions refer to the conclusions of an AIM editorial that was based on the result of two studies. The first one looked at 1700 North American adults aged 50 and older who had a myocardial infarction at least 6 weeks prior to the beginning of the study and who randomly received EITHER a high dose 28 component vitamin mineral formulation or a placebo. The second study was done on 6000 male physicians, aged 65 or older, who randomly received a daily multi-vitamin or a placebo. In the first study, after 4.5 years follow-up, mortality was no different between the vitamin group and the placebo group. In the second, after 6.5 years follow-up, vitamin-popping medical men showed no significant improvements in global cognition or verbal memory over their placebo taking colleagues.
If you’re a label reader, you’ve probably run across the terms inulin and oligofructose (also known as fructooligosaccharides or FOS) on various processed food ingredient decks including those on soups, yogurt, cereals, breads, snack and energy bars, cookies and cakes. Although naturally found in various plants and veggies, like onions and grains and bananas, asparagus and Jerusalem artichoke, and chicory root, inulin and oligofructose are also industrially prized for their ability to provide a non-caloric sweetening benefit and are most often found in the standard American diet in the form of processed food additives. In addition to their inclusion in processed foods, these ingredients can be found as stand-alone products marketed as diabetic friendly sweeteners, with names like Fruta-Fit, Frutalose or simply Inulin/FOS.
Technically inulins and FOS are “fructans”, which are long molecular chains of the fruit sugar known as fructose. By linking many fructose molecules together, the characteristic sweetness of the fruit sugar is dampened and its spiking effects on blood sugar are mitigated. From a chemical structure standpoint, the only difference between inulin and FOS involves the sizes (lengths) of FOS molecules, basically being little inulin chunks or short chains of fructose that are formed by the breakdown of the parent inulin element.
