In a recent post by Candada’s CTV news, the obesity rates per province were addressed. Overall, the report was not good. Individual maps of changes in obesity rates showed that the country is more obese than ever before.
Not only does this show bad news for those that are obese, but indicates a strain on a health care system that is not designed to support the growing health issues that arise from such a rapid increase in obesity. How does such a rapid downturn in health occur in a part of the world with such state of the art healthcare as ours?
The diet humans are genetically designed to eat is not the diet we typically eat today. With the advent of farming (wheat, dairy, genetically modified food) we slowly introduced new types of food that our bodies struggle to digest. As industry developed over the last 100 years, our pace and quality of life changed as well. Food is converted into a signal that every cell in our bodies responds to. If we are not able to effectively digest and process food cleanly to our cells, we respond to the food in a way that resembles an inflammatory response by our immune system in a similar way that an infection does. This triggers a cascade of mechanisms that instruct the body to increase fat content in our fat cells. Eating whole foods and staying away from processed foods that the body sees as foreign will help.
Dr. Lena Edwards explains that there is now research that shows a link between the development of diabetes and work stress, distressed sleep, anger/hostility, traumatic events, and general emotional stress.(1) Stress increases cortisol and cortisol tells the body to stop storing energy by ignoring insulin’s effects. This is fine if the stress is temporary but not if it is chronic (like it normally is). Fat gets dumped into the blood, glucose gets released by the liver, muscles get broken down for more energy, and insulin resistance develops due to the chronic signal to ignore insulin.(2) Metabolic syndrome, which includes high blood pressure, high triglycerides, low HDL, and insulin resistance is a precursor to diabetes and is shown to be completely caused by these lifestyle and diet changes. She explains that 1/4 of the world’s population has metabolic syndrome. This not only makes them five times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, but also but they are twice as likely to die from a stroke or heart attack. 80% of these diabetics will die from heart disease. Weight gain occurs due to high levels of catabolic cortisol and low levels of anabolic testosterone, DHEA and growth hormone in the body. Overall, this increases abdominal fat and makes you consume more calories. The fat cells cause inflammation on their own and the cycle continues.
If you are concerned about developing metabolic syndrome and need to lose weight, contact us at Stone’s Pharmasave. Visit our website www.stonespharmasave.com and follow the Ideal Protein tab. We have seen several weight loss programs over the years and believe in this one because it gears the body towards burning fat when energy is needed.
1.Lena D. Edwards, MD, FAARM. Adrenalogic - Outsmart Stress. TheUltimate Publishing House, 2001. pp 100-103
2. Shawn Talbott, Ph.D. The Cortisol Connection. Hunter House Inc. , 2007, pp 82-84