Sugar Laden Ddrinks Kill 25,000 Each Year?

I have a sister-in-law who drinks 12 or more regular Pepsi's a day.  No kidding. This article off the web is for her: 

In a study that's sure to shake up the soda ban debate, Harvard researchers have linked the sugary drinks to 180,000 deaths a year worldwide, 25,000 in the United States alone.

"We know that sugar-sweetened beverages are linked to obesity, and that a large number of deaths are caused by obesity-related diseases. But until now, nobody had really put these pieces together," said Gitanjali Singh, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and lead author of the study presented today at the American Heart Association's annual meeting in New Orleans.

Singh and colleagues spent five years putting the pieces together. Using data from national health surveys around the world, the team tied sugar-sweetened beverages to 133,000 deaths from diabetes, 44,000 deaths from cardiovascular diseases and 6,000 deaths from cancer in 2010.

The study adds to mounting evidence that sugar-sweetened beverages, loaded with calories that carry little nutritional value, are a public health hazard.

"I think our findings should really impel policymakers to make effective policies to reduce sugary beverage consumption since it causes a significant number of deaths," said Singh, adding that she thinks "cause" is an appropriate word despite the limitations of the association study.

The American Beverage Association criticized the study, which has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, calling it "more about sensationalism than science."

"It does not show that consuming sugar-sweetened beverages causes chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease or cancer - the real causes of death among the studied subjects," the industry group said in a statement. "The researchers make a huge leap when they take beverage intake calculations from around the globe and allege that those beverages are the cause of deaths which the authors themselves acknowledge are due to chronic disease."

The study comes one week after a judge blocked New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposed ban on supersized sodas, and one day after Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant signed a bill preventing municipalities from setting limits on soda and salt content.

"It is simply not the role of government to micro-regulate citizens' dietary decisions," Bryant said in a statement. "The responsibility for one's personal health depends on individual choices about a proper diet and appropriate exercise."

But some experts say evidence-based policies could curb soda consumption and save lives. Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, senior author of the new study, said he now plans to study the effects of sugary drink regulation and taxation on health and health care costs.

"I think that's the kind of information that policymakers need," said Mozaffarian, who is an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health.

In the meantime, Americans can take steps on their own to cut sugary drinks and shed pounds.

"It may not be easy at first, but your body will thank you," said ABC News' chief health and medical editor Dr. Richard Besser. "Study after study links intake of sugary drinks to poor health effects."

"It is quite frightening to see the rise in chronic diseases as people around the world consume more and more sugary drinks," Besser added. "It reminds me of the way lung cancer is on the rise around the world as more and more people smoke cigarettes."



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Do Health Insurance Penalties for Smokers and the Obese Make Sense?

It is a pretty well accepted fact that people with health problems, whether they are largely self inflicted or not, drive up health care costs. However, I am still undecided about if and how these higher costs should be passed to those in those higher risk groups, primarily the obese and smoker groups.

This article written by Mike Stobbe of the Associated Press brings some valid points. One of these points about whether or not to let obese people and smokers die prematurely certainly goes against our value on life in my mind. Anyway, everyone will decide for themselves.

NEW YORK (AP) — Faced with the high cost of caring for smokers and overeaters, experts say society must grapple with a blunt question: Instead of trying to penalize them and change their ways, why not just let these health sinners die prematurely from their unhealthy habits?

Annual health care costs are roughly $96 billion for smokers and $147 billion for the obese, the government says. These costs accompany sometimes heroic attempts to prolong lives, including surgery, chemotherapy and other measures.

But despite these rescue attempts, smokers tend to die 10 years earlier on average, and the obese die five to 12 years prematurely, according to various researchers' estimates.

And attempts to curb smoking and unhealthy eating frequently lead to backlash: Witness the current legal tussle over New York City's first-of-its-kind limits on the size of sugary beverages and the vicious fight last year in California over a ballot proposal to add a $1-per-pack cigarette tax, which was ultimately defeated.

"This is my life. I should be able to do what I want," said Sebastian Lopez, a college student from Queens, speaking last September when the New York City Board of Health approved the soda size rules.

Critics also contend that tobacco- and calorie-control measures place a disproportionately heavy burden on poor people. That's because they:

—Smoke more than the rich, and have higher obesity rates.

—Have less money so sales taxes hit them harder. One study last year found poor, nicotine-dependent smokers in New York — a state with very high cigarette taxes — spent as much as a quarter of their entire income on smokes.

—Are less likely to have a car to shop elsewhere if the corner bodega or convenience store stops stocking their vices.

Critics call these approaches unfair, and believe they have only a marginal effect. "Ultimately these things are weak tea," said Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a physician and fellow at the right-of-center think tank, the American Enterprise Institute.

Gottlieb's view is debatable. There are plenty of public health researchers that can show smoking control measures have brought down smoking rates and who will argue that smoking taxes are not regressive so long as money is earmarked for programs that help poor people quit smoking.

And debate they will. There always seems to be a fight whenever this kind of public health legislation comes up. And it's a fight that can go in all sorts of directions. For example, some studies even suggest that because smokers and obese people die sooner, they may actually cost society less than healthy people who live much longer and develop chronic conditions like Alzheimer's disease.

So let's return to the original question: Why provoke a backlash? If 1 in 5 U.S. adults smoke, and 1 in 3 are obese, why not just get off their backs and let them go on with their (probably shortened) lives?

Because it's not just about them, say some health economists, bioethicists and public health researchers.

"Your freedom is likely to be someone else's harm," said Daniel Callahan, senior research scholar at a bioethics think-tank, the Hastings Center.

Smoking has the most obvious impact. Studies have increasingly shown harm to nonsmokers who are unlucky enough to work or live around heavy smokers. And several studies have shown heart attacks and asthma attack rates fell in counties or cities that adopted big smoking bans.

"When you ban smoking in public places, you're protecting everyone's health, including and especially the nonsmoker," said S. Jay Olshansky, a professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago's School of Public Health.

It can be harder to make the same argument about soda-size restrictions or other legislative attempts to discourage excessive calorie consumption, Olshansky added.

"When you eat yourself to death, you're pretty much just harming yourself," he said.

But that viewpoint doesn't factor in the burden to everyone else of paying for the diabetes care, heart surgeries and other medical expenses incurred by obese people, noted John Cawley, a health economist at Cornell University.

"If I'm obese, the health care costs are not totally borne by me. They're borne by other people in my health insurance plan and — when I'm older — by Medicare," Cawley said.

From an economist's perspective, there would be less reason to grouse about unhealthy behaviors by smokers, obese people, motorcycle riders who eschew helmets and other health sinners if they agreed to pay the financial price for their choices.

That's the rationale for a provision in the Affordable Care Act — "Obamacare" to its detractors — that starting next year allows health insurers to charge smokers buying individual policies up to 50 percent higher premiums. A 60-year-old could wind up paying nearly $5,100 on top of premiums.

The new law doesn't allow insurers to charge more for people who are overweight, however.

It's tricky to play the insurance game with overweight people, because science is still sorting things out. While obesity is clearly linked with serious health problems and early death, the evidence is not as clear about people who are just overweight.

That said, public health officials shouldn't shy away from tough anti-obesity efforts, said Callahan, the bioethicist. Callahan caused a public stir this week with a paper that called for a more aggressive public health campaign that tries to shame and stigmatize overeaters the way past public health campaigns have shamed and stigmatized smokers.

National obesity rates are essentially static, and public health campaigns that gently try to educate people about the benefits of exercise and healthy eating just aren't working, Callahan argued. We need to get obese people to change their behavior. If they are angry or hurt by it, so be it, he said.

"Emotions are what really count in this world," he said.


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Obesity- An American Epidemic

From an article titled "Obesity: A Big Fat Problem For America’s Future" by Siemond Chan of The Exchange. The full article with more graphs and information can be found here.

On average an obese person pays $1,429 more in health care costs than normal weight people:

Medicare pays $1,723 more for obese beneficiaries than normal weight people.

Medicaid pays $1,021 more for obese beneficiaries than normal weight people.

Private insureres pay $1,140 for obese beneficiaries than normal weight people

In 2003, as much as $75 billion of the nation's public health costs, half of which are publically funded (read by tax payer dollars), was attributable to obesity. If obesity continues at it's epidemic pace, the projected health care costs will soar to $343 billion by 2018.




Comments from the article on Yahoo are interesting:

Laurie Foster · Ithaca College Americans are obese because we are sold and consume products that are not real food! Look at this country in the 70's before slick marketing execs and fat cat CEO's developed ways to sell you butter "flavored", cheese "food", and hydrogenated oils... no obese people! Look at your peanut butter! It contains no peanut oil! They take it out and sell it at profit and replace with less healthy and less expensive oils. Chains restaurants are poisoning you for $9.95 a meal! Anything in sealed plastic that does not expire until 2016 is poison. It just makes the companies who paid a CHEMIST to make the "food" rich! We are being poisoned day and night by plastics, fragrances, and fake food but our government does nothing because they are slave to super wealthy companies who can hire super expensive lobbyists. Did you know that the cost to make a Pringles package tube costs more than the Pringles inside? Wake up! Fight back! We need do something!

David Kinsey · Account Executive at Kinsey and Kinsey
You are all dummies. Businesses sell these things because the market dictates their sale. You can stop eating manufactured food products really easily, BY NOT BUYING THEM. Quit wasting your efforts on blaming the government and look at what you have in the cabinets and in your refrigerator. The longer Americans continue to purchase over processed food the more of it we are going to get. You can't demand the cheapest goods, then complain because you got fat, and whine about the ingredients in those goods. Who cares how much it costs to make Pringles, don't buy them! Spend a dollar more on healthy options and a thousand less in healthcare expenditures.



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Best Foods for the Winter

This is from an article titled "The 6 Best Foods for Winter" by David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding on Yahoo! Health

It’s the first snow of the season, and it’s so heavy and wet that it clogs your snowblower. You have two choices. Option 1: Shove your arm between the augers and remove the blockage. The downside: You’ll lose your arm in the process, and having it reattached will probably bankrupt you. Option 2: Turn off the machine, grab a broom stick, and chip at the blockage until it crumbles.

You might be thinking, “What kind of lunatic would choose option 1?” Well, lunatics like the American people. The U.S. spends more than $2 trillion on health care each year, with much of that cash going toward the treatment of obesity-related complications like heart disease and diabetes. We’re fixing our health problems retroactively, with medication and surgery, even though we could prevent most of them by making smarter choices about what we eat.

There’s no better time to put this notion to the test than the winter months. Winter is not necessarily conducive to good health; the season conjures up images of calorie-loaded comfort foods, fireside naps, and runny noses. Read on for six everyday foods that will keep you healthy and strong from December to March and beyond, compliments of the all-new Eat This, Not That! Supermarket Survival Guide, which includes thousands of smart swaps that can help you shave 20 pounds or more in just 6 weeks.

Best Winter Food #1: Oatmeal

What it does: Helps you avoid the winter blues

Why it works: Sunlight signals your body to produce the feel-good hormone serotonin, so winter’s short, dark days may leave you in a less-than-cheery mood. If the doldrums persist, you may even find yourself suffering a serious form of depression known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). But don’t let Jack Frost get you down: Whole grain carbs like oatmeal can give your winter mood a much-needed boost. In a MIT study, researchers found that eating plenty of carbohydrates keeps serotonin levels up and can even prevent cravings for sweets. Refined carbs like doughnuts and white bread can be tempting winter comforts, but these foods will cause your blood sugar to quickly spike then plummet, leaving you in worse spirits than you were before. To stay happy and healthy, opt for whole grains instead.

Best Winter Food #2: Walnuts

What it does: Keeps your skin from drying out

Why it works: The winter months bring drier air (blame frigid winds and indoor heating), which can suck the moisture out of your skin, leaving it dull, tight, and itchy. Applying moisturizer can help, but the omega-3 fatty acids found in foods like walnuts will combat your dry-skin problem from the inside. Omega-3s help maintain healthy cell membranes, including those found in your skin. When your skin cells are strong they are better able to retain moisture, helping your skin avoid a reptilian fate.

MyAchingKnees tip: Try Walnuts in Steel Cut Oats. You can sweeten with lite Brown Sugar or Honey.

Best Winter Food #3: Garlic

What it does: Wards off cold and flu viruses (and vampires)

Why it works: British researchers recently discovered that garlic may prevent you from getting sick. In the 12-week study of 164 healthy adults, the group of participants that received a garlic supplement reported only 24 colds, while the group that received a placebo reported 64 colds. One explanation is a chemical in garlic called allicin, which may stimulate the production of infection-fighting white blood cells. Whatever the reason, adding garlic to your meals may help you stay above the weather. Just don’t eat too much—you want to keep disease at bay, not your friends and family.

MyAchingKnees tip: Garlic is a natural fly and mosquito repellent as well.

Best Winter Food #4: Winter squash

What it does: Prevents weight gain

Why it works: A 2006 Bastyr University study found that participants who routinely ate more fiber than the national average of about 14 grams per day were less likely to be overweight than those who consumed less than 14 grams. Fiber-rich foods, like squash, contain relatively low calories, and they’re digested more slowly, keeping you full long after you eat them—an important defense against the season of overindulgence otherwise known as winter. With about 9 grams of fiber per one-cup serving, eating winter squash (like acorn and butternut varieties) is a great way to load up on fiber and prevent post-holiday eaters remorse. Winter squash is also loaded with carotenes, which have been shown to reduce the risk of a variety of diseases from cancer to heart disease. Most winter squash is available year-round, but its peak season is early fall through late winter.

MyAchingKnees tip: A great way to cook squash is to slice it up, lightly coat in virgin olive oil, toss with your favorite seasoning mix, then cook on the grill in a deep dish pan.

Best Winter Food #5: Chicken Sandwich

What it does: Keeps your energy up

Why it works: Darkness signals your body to produce melatonin, the hormone responsible for making you sleepy, so the shorter days that come along with winter can cause you to feel like hitting the sack instead of the gym. But eating complex carbohydrates—most abundant in whole grains, starchy vegetables, and legumes—along with some protein can help you stay awake and energized. This combination, found in foods like a chicken sandwich on wheat bread, boosts energy in two ways: Your body digests the complex carbs slowly, keeping your blood sugar stable, and the protein helps you stay fuller, longer.

MyAchingKnees tip: Not a big Chicken fan, but I recently found thing chicken breasts at my grocery store. Easy and quick to grill and make a sandwich of. A Chipotle glaze adds a great deal of flavor. You can cut up the chicken and use in a salad as well.

Best Winter Food #6: Chicken Soup

What it does: Helps you breathe easy

Why it works: Chicken soup has long been touted at the best home remedy for cold and flu season, and it really can help. Hot liquids temporarily clear your sinuses, and a University of Nebraska study found that chicken soup may even reduce inflammation in your nose and throat. Plus, most chicken soups are low in calories and saturated fat, and high in fiber. For the healthiest version, try making the soup yourself with plenty of veggies and whole wheat noodles. If homemade isn’t an option, try Campbell ’s Healthy request Condensed Chicken Noodle soup, which has only 60 calories per cup. And remember, chicken soup may keep the doctor away, but some chicken-based meals could send you straight into the waiting room.

MyAchingKnees comment: I really like this article since it starts off warning us about that "The U.S. spends more than $2 trillion on health care each year, with much of that cash going toward the treatment of obesity-related complications like heart disease and diabetes". Obesity and heart related problems are symptoms of poor nutrition. Other indicators that the resulting inflammation is causing other problems for you too, are joint pain, lethargy, high cholesterol, back pain and a host of other problems.

Eat Better and Change your Life.


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Leaness Laws from Yahoo -

I pulled the below of the Yahoo News site. I am not posting it because I agree with everything. I posted it because many of you have read the same thing and this is a topic to dicuss, as well as the issue of being overweight complicates chronic joint pain, particularily in the knees.

On May 11, the White House announced it was targeting a new threat to America ’s health and security. It wasn’t some rogue nation or terrorist organization, or a newfound disease or environmental threat. It was a class of chemicals that are making Americans fat. They’re called endocrine disrupting chemicals, or EDCs. And chances are you’re eating or drinking them right now.

The White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity released a report called "Solving the Problem of Childhood Obesity Within a Generation." In the report they list endocrine-disrupting chemicals as a possible reason for increased obesity in the country and describe how scientists have coined a new term for these chemicals — "obesogens" — because they "may promote weight gain and obesity."

MyAchingKnees Comment: Childhood, teenage hood and adult hood obesity IS a problem in the United States. The more likely culprit is the terrible education in nutrition we provide our children and the highly processed, low nutrition foods we market and consume.

What does this mean for you? It means that weight gain is not just about calories-in versus calories-out.

No, America ’s obesity crisis can’t entirely be blamed on too much fast food and too little exercise. We have to consider a third factor: the obesogens. They’re natural and synthetic compounds, and many of these chemicals work by mimicking estrogen — the very hormone that doctors DON’T want women taking anymore (as a large clinical trial linked hormone therapy to increased risk of heart disease, breast cancer, stroke, blood clots and abnormal mammograms).

MyAchingKnees Comment: What my concern is that this gives another excuse for people to rationalize why they are fat,...why their knees ache,..etc.
Why traditional diets don’t work anymore

Because high school biology was likely a while back, here’s a quick refresher: The endocrine system is made up of all the glands and cells that produce the hormones that regulate our bodies. Growth and development, sexual function, reproductive processes, mood, sleep, hunger, stress, metabolism and the way our bodies use food — it’s all controlled by hormones. So whether you’re tall or short, lean or heavy — that’s all determined in a big way by your endocrine system.

But your endocrine system is a finely tuned instrument that can easily be thrown off-kilter. "Obesogens are thought to act by hijacking the regulatory systems that control body weight," says Frederick vom Saal, Ph.D., curators’ professor of biological sciences at the University of Missouri . That’s why endocrine disruptors are so good at making us fat — and that’s why diet advice doesn’t always work — because even strictly following the smartest traditional advice won’t lower your obesogen exposure. See, an apple a day may have kept the doctor away 250 years ago when Benjamin Franklin included the phrase in his almanac. But if that apple comes loaded with obesity-promoting chemicals — nine of the ten most commonly used pesticides are obesogens, and apples are one of the most pesticide-laden foods out there — then Ben’s advice is way out of date.

The obesogen effect is the reason why traditional diet advice — choose chicken over beef, eat more fish, load up on fruits and vegetables — may not work anymore. This is why we’re calling for a New American Diet.

MyAchingKnees Comment: Here's why diets don't often work: We starve ourselves through a period of time and our bodies are not getting the nutrients it needs. When you come off the diet you eat and eat to make up for the lack of nutrients. When you are on a diet of reduced caloric intake it is even more important to supplement with the highest quality nutritional supplements you can get.

See, while digging up all of this research on obesogens we’ve discovered some good news: There’s no reason why all of our favorite foods — from steak to burgers, from pasta to ice cream — can’t be part of a reasonable weight-loss program. We just need to get rid of old thinking. We can reverse the obesogen effect if we simply adopt these four simple laws of leanness:

Leanness Law No. 1: Know When to Go Organic
The average American is exposed to 10 to 13 different pesticides through food, beverages and drinking water every day and nine of the ten most common pesticides are EDCs. But according to a recent study in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, eating an organic diet for just five days can reduce circulating pesticide EDCs to non-detectable or near non-detectable levels.

Of course, organic foods can be expensive. But not all organics are created equal—many foods have such low levels of pesticides that buying organic just isn’t worth it. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) calculated that you can reduce your pesticide exposure nearly 80 percent simply by choosing organic for the 12 fruits and vegetables shown in their tests to contain the highest levels of pesticides. They call them "The Dirty Dozen," and (starting with the worst) they are celery, peaches, strawberries, apples, blueberries (domestic), nectarines, sweet bell peppers, spinach, kale/collard greens, cherries, potatoes and grapes (imported). And you can feel good about buying the following 15 conventionally grown fruits and vegetables that the EWG dubbed "The Clean Fifteen," because they were shown to have little pesticide residue: onions, avocado, sweet corn (frozen), pineapples, mango, sweet peas (frozen), asparagus, kiwi fruit, cabbage, eggplant, cantaloupe (domestic), watermelon, grapefruit, sweet potatoes and honeydew melon.

MyAchingKnees Comment: The same lack of quality in "food grade" supplements, exists in foods. With non-pharmaceutical grade nutritional supplements you face the same exposures to toxins like you do foods.

Leanness Law No. 2: Don’t Eat Plastic
This ought to be a no-brainer. Indeed, you’re probably already thinking, Well, I don’t generally eat plastic. Ah, but you do. Chances are that you’re among the 93 percent of Americans with detectable levels of bisphenol-A (BPA) in their bodies, and that you’re also among the 75 percent of Americans with detectable levels of phthalates. Both are synthetic chemicals found in plastics that mimic estrogen — essentially, artificial female hormones. And like pesticides, these plastic-based chemicals trick our bodies into storing fat and not building or retaining muscle. Decreasing your exposure to plastic-based obesogens will maximize your chances both of losing unwanted flab and of building lean muscle mass. Here’s how: 1) Never heat food in plastic containers or put plastic items in the dishwasher, which can damage them and increase leaching. BPA leaches from polycarbonate sports bottles 55 times faster when exposed to boiling liquids as opposed to cold ones, according to a study in the journal Toxicology Letters. 2) Avoid buying fatty foods like meats that are packaged in plastic wrap because EDCs are stored in fatty tissue. The plastic wrap used at the supermarket is mostly PVC, whereas the plastic wrap you buy to wrap things at home is increasingly made from polyethylene. 3) Cut down on canned goods by choosing tuna in a pouch over canned tuna. And get any canned and jarred foods from Eden Organic, one of the only companies that doesn’t have BPA in its cans.

Leanness Law No. 3: Go Lean
Always choose pasture-raised meats, which, studies show, have less fat than their confined, grain-fed counterparts and none of the weight-promoting hormones. Plus, grass-fed beef contains 60 percent more omega-3s, 200 percent more vitamin E and two to three times more conjugated linoleic acid (CLA, a near-magic nutrient that helps ward off heart disease, cancer and diabetes, and can help you lose weight, according to a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition) than conventional beef. If you must choose a conventional cut of beef, choose lean cuts top sirloin, 95 percent lean ground beef, bottom round roast, eye round roast, top round roast or sirloin tip steak. Bison burgers and veggie burgers are also great substitutes when grass-fed beef isn’t available. And select sustainable lean fish with low toxic loads (meaning low levels of toxins like mercury and PCBs). A study in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine found that even though the pesticide DDT was banned in 1973, the chemical and its breakdown product DDE can still be found today in fatty fish. Bigger fish eat smaller fish, and so carry a much higher toxic load.

Avoid ahi or bigeye tuna, tilefish, swordfish, shark, king mackerel, marlin and orange roughy — and focus on smaller fish like anchovies, Atlantic herring and mackerel, and wild-caught Alaskan salmon. Choose farmed rainbow trout, farmed mussels, anchovies, scallops (bay, farmed), Pacific cod, Pacific Halibut, Tuna (canned light) and mahimahi. Also, when you cook the fish, broil, poach, grill, boil or bake instead of pan-frying — this will allow contaminants from the fatty portions of fish to drain out.

Leanness Law No. 4: Filter Your Water
The best way to eliminate EDCs from your tap water is an activated carbon water filter. Available for faucets and pitchers, and as under-the-sink units, these filters remove most pesticides and industrial pollutants. Check the label to make sure the filter meets the NSF/American National Standards Institute’s standard 53, indicating that it treats water for both health and aesthetic concerns. Try The Brita Aqualux ($28, brita.com), Pur Horizontal faucet filter ($49, purwaterfilter.com) and Kenmore ’s under-sink system ($60, kenmore.com). However, if you have perchlorate (a component of rocket fuel!) in your water (you can find out by asking your municipal water supplier for a copy of its most recent water-quality report) you’ll need a reverse osmosis filter. But for every five gallons of treated water they create per day, they discharge 40 to 90 gallons of wastewater, so make sure it’s necessary before purchasing one.

MyAchingKnees Comment: The bottom line is that the consumer needs to be responsible, and, do their own research when it comes to diets, foods, potential toxins and nutritional supplements. A successful diet, where unnecessary weight is dropped, will work wonders on chronic knee pain, especially if you have an active lifstyle where that excess weight is magnified onto your joints and knees during physical activity.