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Obesity/Diabetes Epidemic: Rise of the Obesogens
The global obesity/diabetes epidemic is receiving wide spread attention like the June 26, article in the Washington Post by David Brown. One fourth of our national health care bill of $2.3 trillion is linked to the treatment of diabetes and its complications. Average American life expectancy is now dropping because of this disease complex. Even children are being recommended for gastric bypass.
Fingers everywhere are pointing at the usual suspects: too much junk food and lack of exercise. But there is much more to the story than a recent, contagious lack of discipline among the masses. Standing next to us in the room, some very large corporate elephants are being ignored.
A growing body of evidence in animals and humans suggests that many man-made chemicals contaminating our environment mimic some of the body’s own hormones like testosterone and estrogen. Researchers have called these chemicals endocrine disruptors because they wreak havoc with endocrine organs like the thyroid, pancreas, testes and ovaries that depend on hormones to develop and function properly. But a new, more relevant term for these chemicals has emerged. They are now also called obesogens.
Exposure to tiny amounts of obesogens during embryonic development has startling effects on animals, resulting in obesity, infertility, feminization of male species, ambiguous sexual characteristics and high death rates.
Wishful thinking by the EPA and FDA and outright propaganda from chemical manufacturers have upheld the notion that the doses of human exposure to such chemicals have been too small to matter. Medical science now clearly repudiates such a position and environmental contamination is emerging as a significant contributor to the obesity/diabetes epidemic.
In a remarkable study of 2,000 Americans those people with the highest blood levels of PCBs, dioxins and pesticides had a rate of diabetes 38 times higher than those with the lowest levels. Just as startling, in the group with the lowest levels of chemical pollutants there was no correlation between diabetes and obesity.
The air, water and soil of even the most wild and remote places on earth are now contaminated with obesogens from agribusiness food production, growth hormones, pesticides, residues from pharmaceuticals and personal care products and the rest of the 83,000 chemicals manufactured and emitted by modern industrial society that have penetrated every ecosystem on the planet.
In another study newborn babies’ blood was analyzed for HCB (hexachlorobenzene), a ubiquitous contaminant byproduct of chemical manufacturing processes that use chlorine. Six years later, those same children with the highest blood levels of HCB had a rate of obesity two to three times higher than other children.
Even though DDT hasn’t been used in this country for 35 years, one of its metabolites, DDE, is still measurable in virtually all of us. People who have higher blood levels of DDE have higher rates of diabetes.
Recently the lead article in the Journal of the American Medical Association demonstrated increased rates of heart disease and diabetes in people with higher levels of the additive in plastic drinking bottles and food can lining, Bisphenol A (BPA). But these studies merely confirm hundreds of previous studies regarding the far-reaching health impacts of endocrine-disrupting/obesogen chemicals at blood levels most of us and our children live with right now. Many obesogens appear to increase levels of cholesterol and trigger cancer as well. For the first time in 200 years, children now have a shorter life expectancy than their parents, primarily due to obesity and diabetes.
Perhaps most startling of all, it's not just people that are getting fatter. A statistical analysis of more than 20,000 animals, from eight different species suggests that the obesity epidemic involves family pets, wild animals living in close proximity to humans, and animals housed in research centres. Last time I wandered the forest I did not see wild animals sitting around watching NASCAR, eating Cheetos and drinking Mountain Dew.
But like humans they live in an environment contaminated with endocrine disrupting/obesogen chemicals. The air, water and soil of even the most wild and remote places on earth are now contaminated with obesogens from agribusiness food production, growth hormones, pesticides, residues from pharmaceuticals and personal care products and the rest of the 83,000 chemicals manufactured and emitted by modern industrial society that have penetrated every ecosystem on the planet. In the second half of the twentieth century synthetic chemical production has doubled every 7 to 8 years with a 100 fold increase over the last 2 generations. Every year the world produces six billion pounds of BPA alone and it is detectable in 93% of Americans.
Our regulatory agencies and even the courts are still playing by a rule book written by the tobacco industry which states that we must always wait for unequivocal proof of damage before we can regulate. Of course there is never unequivocal proof, more study is always needed. But that is not an excuse to not act on the evidence that we already have.
Take a look in the mirror and at your glucometer. If you don't like what you see, you may want to reconsider whether you support the anti-regulation/personal accountability fever sweeping over the country with the new Congress. Whether you can ever be thin again or get over your diabetes may be more a matter of what happens in Congress than what happens in your gym.
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39 Comments so far
Show AllSort of a delayed birth control feature of modern life.
If Dr. Moench submitted this article to the Wall Street Journal they would call him a conspriacy theorist.
If a corporate executive told the Wall Street Journal that his company profitted from products that cause diabetes and also profitted from products that treat diabetics, he would be praised as a savvy businessman.
Like so many things, diabetes has become a big business with many vested interests who will fight to maintain the status quo.
YES! Have you ever noticed that no CURE for AIDS, no CURE for cancer and no CURE for diabetes has ever been found. Just TREATMENTS. Billions upon billions of $s for TREATMENTS. That's because we insist on giving research money for cures to pharmaceutical companies. That's like giving a wig company money to find a cure for baldness.
Very apt.
So where starts line for the special KOOL-AIDE! time to meet the mothership or what? >^^<
I worked in the medical field for years in IT. You cannot imagine the effort that is put into finding which treatments produce the most revenue and which doctors prescribe them. Doctors who counsel or fail to intervene with profitable procedures are punished by various means. For instance, an obstetrician with a high percentage of C sections gets the best offices and positions in a hospital, while one who supports vaginal deliveries or has too many poor patients is marginalized. Prescribing electro-shock for depression gets the doctor a higher rating than talk therapy. For the hospital, the rationale is survival.
The drug companies are all about profit. They analyze the population demographics and launch marketing campaigns based on that. For instance, as the population aged, estrogen therapy was being pushed until it was found to be dangerous. Viagra sales were swelled by aggressive marketing. Children's behavior is another target for ongoing medication.
Doctors are assaulted by hordes of well-dressed and attractive drug company reps who leave literature and free samples and pay for seminars and health fairs that promote their products.
They do not promote simple or unprofitable approaches to medicine. Do you really expect a drug company sponsored forum would promote more farmers' markets or exercise programs in schools?
"...many vested interests who will fight to maintain the status quo." Man that can be said about so many things. This is one of the things that is killing this country.
it is population control better termed as eugenics - the rockefellers have been obsessing on this for 100 years
check this out:
"MSG was in everything! The Campbell's soups, the Hostess Doritos, the Lays flavored potato chips, Top Ramen, Betty Crocker Hamburger Helper, Heinz canned gravy, Swanson frozen prepared meals, Kraft salad dressings, especially the 'healthy low fat' ones. The items that didn't have MSG had something called Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein, which is just another name for Monosodium Glutamate. It was shocking to see just how many of the foods we feed our children everyday are filled with this stuff. They hide MSG under many different names in order to fool those who catch on."
http://www.rense.com/general52/msg.htm
"Aspartame is, by far, the most dangerous substance on the market that is added to foods."
http://aspartame.mercola.com/
"An open letter to McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner
As health professionals engaged directly in the largest preventable health crisis facing this country, we ask that you stop marketing junk food to children.
The rates of sick children are staggering. Ballooning health care costs and an overburdened health care system make treatment more difficult than ever. And we know that reducing junk food marketing can significantly improve the health of kids.
Our community is devoted to caring for sick children and preventing illness through public education. But our efforts cannot compete with the hundreds of millions of dollars you spend each year directly marketing to kids."
http://www.lettertomcdonalds.org/
"Declining Sperm Rates And The Chemical Extinction Of Mankind
Human Beings are on the path to extinction. Sperm rates are in free-fall, fertility rates are collapsing, more females are being born than males, and males of all species are disappearing."
http://theplebrevolt.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/declining-sperm-rates-and-the-chemical-extinction-of-mankind/
let's not forget fluoride
"Is the water your drinking killing you? It is if it's fluoridated!"
http://www.lovethetruth.com/truth_about_fluoride.htm
we are being poisoned as part of the nwo plan folks
maybe its time to - gee i don't know - wake up
or something
perhaps..............
Check chemicals that are in our bodies at "Is it in us? :
http://www.isitinus.org/
Great article Brian - a million thanks !!
Weston Price wrote "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" in 1936, and the Price-Pottinger foundation continues to make the link between food and health.
Then there are the studies by Busby and Gofman and Yaklobov re radiation effects, which are ubiquitous.
And now this.
If Chief Seattle didn't actually talk about 'fouling our nest', we can now confirm that we have, and the results are everywhere.
One wonders what effect all of this 'fouling' is having on our higher functions??
Manysummits in Calgary
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I am a caregiver for an elderly person that I take to dialysis 3-times each week; I sit with them there for the 4-hour procedure. While not all of the patients are there due to kidney failure associated with diabetes, most are. Along the way, these people have had the opportunity to make lifestyle and dietary changes that could have kept them out of dialysis and chose not to do so. Many of them have watched other family members go through treatment and still did not make changes in their lives. Dialysis treatment is expensive, time consuming and life altering and not a place that any sane person would chose to be. I thank the author for sheding more light on other major aspects contributing to our ill health from environmental causes.
Add pancreatic cancer to the spectrum of disease that these obesogens are suspected of causing.
Thank you for an important article.
Supposedly, statistics don't show increases in pancreatic cancer in my area, but anecdotally, it has been the singular killer (invariably fatal) of several aquaintances and co-workiers over the past 10 years of so. It seen anymore if you hear of someone (especially male) dying after a relatively illness in their 50's or 60's you can guess pancreatic cancer and be correct most of the time.
It's long been know that cancer cought early can be treated effectivly, perhaps that's why the make it so dammed hard to access quality medical care!?! >^^<
This would explain treatment resistant diabetes in those clients we know to be "medically compliant" because we control every aspect of their environment. We aren't looking at that environment holistically (yet again) and we're letting them down.
I can just hear some of the arrogant sonsaguns that argue with the patients and their caretakers that they KNOW we couldn't possibly be following insulin, medication,diet and exercise regimes, as well as adequate sleep in good sleep environments because if we did, then it would be under control. If we show those skeptics this article, they'll just say we're excuse making, trying to let clients off the hook to kill themselves with our "soft love". Did I mention our healthcare system needs an overhaul, as well?.
Netminnow...good point. Considerable research shows that lack of sleep leads to pre-diabetic conditions and weight gain. How many people in this economy are working two or more 'part time' jobs to keep afloat?
When my father came back from WWII, he used to say that 'those people' in other countries did not value life. For a long while now I have felt we have that exact problem here.
I didn't remember seeing so many FAT PEOPLE in those depression era photos, or am I missing something??? >^^<
P.S. and no America doesnot value life,,, only money!
Well, while I have no doubt that there is a strong basis for the assertions made in this article, I would certainly like to see more study aimed at some of the most likely problem chemicals. That study of 2,000 people is not overly large, and when it is stated that those at the high end of chemical absorption are compared to those at the low end, how many actual people are we talking about? 10? 100? The animal study did not say exactly how much fatter the animals were. Were they one % fatter? 10%? None of the wild animals around my farm appear to be heavier than normal. Personally, I think advertisements are at least partly responsible for growing obesity. We are and have been increasingly bombarded by ads for sugary, fat-filled garbage. Why not treat yourself to something delicious! No need to work up an appetite. Enjoy now! Why is your mouth empty when it could contain something utterly wonderful? Life is a bowl of cherries! Go to a parade this weekend and bring home a couple of bags of assorted candies that are thrown willy-nilly from every Tom, Dick, and Harriet taking part in the festivities.
How about some references or links to the studies referenced? I like to look at source material.
My gods man! you really expect Facts and Source Material from some one who makes words like "OBESOGENS"??? GO talk to a real expert like Oprah! >^^<
(sarcasim) Please don't take any of Oprah's advice on anything!!!
Ahh...the results of not abiding by the Precautionary Principle and instead allowing Profit Over People--a very predictible result since the petrochemical industry's success in getting lead aded to gasoline with the same gameplan being used by such corporate murderers ever since. I still insist folks read "Our Stolen Future" to learn about these "obesogens" and the massive numbers of tests they've been subjetced to--GregR--and associated literature the book's website updates, http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/
As with carcinogens, the easiest way to rid our environemt and ourselves of these agents is AT THE SOURCE--don't allow ANY to be manufactured--NONE.
I would say there's a world of difference between something occuring naturally and something manufactured, the latter being the term used.
"...don't allow ANY..." Oh, please. Pie-in-the-sky silly statements like this get us nowhere. There is risk everywhere, with everything. The trick is to balance the risk/reward situation into what is best for society as a whole.
Thanks for making the petrochemical industry's argument for them. It clearly shows us where you stand and what you are.
Maybe we're both a bit 'touchy' today. Thanks for your continued bs.
I think Karlof has brought much more to the table then you. In short, I think you are the one who is full of BS. A farmer who spends half of his day on CD writing apologia for Monsanto and the chemical industries .. ya right!
My cousin is a farmer in central MN and believes in GMO seeds and chemicals too. He has to because he doesn't have the time or the money to think otherwise. He is too busy running a farm, raising a family and trying to protect his livelihood. And he most definitely doesn't have the time to write comments on CD every day for hours at a time.
Okay so your a real left-winger! shown by a total inability to compromise! or could by a confirmed right-winger! but based on his inate hatred of industry I'd say he the left-side of the endless arguemwent! THAT GETS US NOWHERE!
Thak you for playing >^^<
nothing points to the universal guilt of the chemical industry like the utter lack of information made available, and the utter lack of citizen recourse regarding...
a CD publication last year suggested there are some 65,000 chemicals in play within our environment that no one, with the possible exception of the company producing, documents or monitors...
why anyone is surprised by mental or physical degradation in humans, or any other biological entity, only speaks to how little thinking is done on a daily basis...
of course, everything is dying...of course, our industry is the cause...
of course...
Of course, anything born is already on its way to death.
these days, death begins before birth...
Mama tries to maintain homeostasis in a myriad of ways, and she neither negotiates nor shows mercy.
If we cannot feed the current population by healthy means (and we can't), then we feed them by unhealthy means, and the death toll goes up and the population down.
Except that we are increasing the population far faster than "benign" deaths can match, so presently Mama is going to resort to something worse, and on a large scale.
Either we bite the bullet and do the job evenhandedly and with a minimum of pain, or Mama will simply do the job on the poorest and most vulnerable of us all.
if i understand the Dr's argument, he notest that people with high levels of pollutants have high levels of obesity and diabetes.
but people with high levels of pollutants probably are poor, so the pollutants might have nothing to do with diabetes...
That is not true. The people with the highest levels of pollutants are those who buy and consume "corporate food." To believe that "probably" only the poor suffer from this is hiding you head up your---in the sand. People who eat only organic and locally grown food are the most healthy. Avoid all pop-top cans. They are all lined with BPA. Even the sales receipts you get at markets have BPA on them. Do yourself a favor and study this topic. Not only does organic food taste better, it will not kill you. Try it--you'll be glad you did.
Your comment overlooks a great deal. For instance, if one has a new home you are subject to more cancer causing formaldehyde, and the same is true of poorer folk living in a trailer home or those who purchase cheap particle board furniture. Do you live in an area downwind from a factory spewing pollutants? Was a polluting factory operating in the area a century ago and possibly left carcinogens in the dirt, stirred up into the air with every gust of wind? ...and the list goes on and on...
Good lords. People have been railing about this for 40 + years and studies all along have suggested that Plastics and other such Chemicals are the root cause of these health issues.
This is a very important article. The chemical and plastics industry markets all kinds of "miracle" products. From my limited knowledge of organic chemistry, I have always insisted on glass rather than plastic containers and bottles, cast iron, steel or ceramic cookware rather than non-stick. I use plain soap rather than mixtures with unknown chemicals. I never buy flame retardant clothing. (Just buy cotton and watch the children, dammit.) I try to limit my spouse's obsession with salmon.
I read somewhere that human breast milk in the US has 40 times more endocrine disrupters than that of European women. My best guess is that Europe has banned more of these substances than we have.
Still - wild animals are being affected. I wonder what the vectors are.
There is yet a deeper problem in this obesity mess, a philosophical one. Our culture takes it for granted, you almost certainly take it for granted, despite our modernity pretenses, that we have what is popularly called free will. Our legal system is based on this mirage, doctors believe this rubbish, corporate leaders certainly believe it, certainly including those that sell cigarettes AND those that sell junk foods. When you take these fools to court, their last and usually effective defense is, that people have a "choice." The issue is blurred by the age of a child. When if fact, do we grow this exotic power? Does it suddenly pop in, from a benevolent God, at age 6? Doctors relieve themselves of their ultimate responsibility, by telling their patients such nonsense, as "you need to lose weight, you need to exercise, blah, blah, blah." If it's the patient's responsibility to lose weight, or cure his cancer or heart disease, why do we need doctors? Doctors either "feel" the responsibility to relieve human suffering, by whatever means are available to them, or they don't.
I'm sure that you'll find effective ways of dismissing such remote, philosophical, notions as are revealed in the free will/determinsm argument. But, you can't escape the consequences of this age-old madness so easily. The suffering that the universal belief in free will has caused humanity, is equalled only be the belief in God.
Free will is the last refuge of souls mired in pre-scientific nonsense. But giving up this belief "is harder" than is losing weight, for a pathetic, desperate, junk-food addicted 300 lb human.
best wishes
Don't worry - the Free Market will fix all that.