AICR: 100,500 New Cases Of Cancer Caused By Obesity Yearly

Joanna Dolgoff M.D.--

Many parents view their children’s excess weight as an aesthetic issue.  They worry their kids won’t be liked in school, won’t be picked in gym, and won’t be pursued by members of the opposite sex.  According to the American Institute of Cancer Research, parents have a lot more than looks to be concerned about.  New research shows that about 100,500 new cases of cancer are caused by obesity each year.

Obesity is known to cause many deleterious health effects but this study is one of the first to conclusively link specific cancers to excess body fat.  And as the number of obese people increases in the population, so does the number of cancer patients!  According to the study, 49% of endometrial cancer (about 20,700 cases per year), 35% of esophageal cancer (5,800 cases per year), 28% of pancreatic cancer (11,900 cases per year), 24% of kidney cancer (13,900 cases per year), 21% of gallbladder cancer (2,000) cases per year, 17% of breast cancer (33,000 cases per year), and 9% of colorectal cancer (13,200 cases per year) are due to obesity.

How does being overweight increase your risk of cancer?  That depends on the type cancer.  Experts believe that the increased estrogen found in overweight women leads to endometrial and breast cancer.  Post-menopausal obese women have 1.5 times the risk of breast cancer than normal weight post-menopausal women.  Before menopause, the ovaries are the primary source of estrogen.  Fat tissue, however, also makes estrogen.  Post-menopausal women, whose ovaries no longer make estrogen, tend to have lower estrogen levels.  Obese women have estrogen levels that are 50-100% higher than normal weight women.  It is believed that this increased level of estrogen causes rapid growth of estrogen-responsive breast tumors.

Obese women are not only more likely to get breast cancer, but they are more likely to die from it.  Breast cancer is harder to detect in an obese woman and is usually diagnosed at a much later stage, leading to lower survival rates.  Weight gain during adulthood is the most consistent and strongest predictor of breast cancer risk.

It is not clear why obese people have a higher risk of colon cancer than normal weight people.  It may be that the high levels of insulin or insulin-related growth factors in the obese promote tumor development.

Gastro-esophageal acid disease (GERD), common in the obese, is the likely cause of the increased risk of esophageal cancer.

The reason for the link between other cancers and obesity is not known.  The obese tend to have higher levels of many different hormones and growth factors that likely increase the risk of cancer.

What should we take from this study?  The importance of preventing weight gain in the first place!  Parents need to teach their children proper eating habits from the very beginning.  Half of overweight school-age children and three quarters of overweight teens will become obese adults.  So start promoting a healthy lifestyle now!

Teach your children the value of eating a healthy diet and maintaining an active lifestyle and you need not worry about the increasingly-evident link between obesity and cancer.

Joanna Dolgoff, M.D. is a pediatrician whose practice solely deals with child and adolescent weight management. A graduate of Princeton University, she completed her education at NYU School of Medicine and finished her Pediatric Residency training at Columbia Presbyterian's Children's Hospital of New York. She has previously worked as a private practice pediatrician, helping children reach their weight loss goals. A Board Certified Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr. Dolgoff is also the proud mother of two children. Click here to learn more about Dr. Dolgoff's Weigh Child and Adolescent Weight Management Program.

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Copyright © 2006-2010, Basil & Spice. All rights reserved.

Al Roker Greets The Biggest Loser's Nutritionist For A Simple Swap

Cheryl Forberg--

The Today Show gave a warm welcome to our new book in a segment with Al Roker.

Perfect timing since today marks the release of Simple Swaps.

As the subtitle says, the book shares 100+ easy ways to make small changes that can make a big difference in your weight, your health, and the way you feel. The simple swaps will help you cut calories, save money, and provide better nutrition as well as recipes that put these swaps into action.

Here are a few sample swaps from the new book:

Swap mayo for avocado - Instead of slathering your next sandwich with a tablespoon of mayo, try spreading on a few thin slices of avocado. You’ll still get the satisfaction of rich flavor and creamy texture, but with fewer calories and the benefit of good fats.

Swap lasagna noodles for veggies. Pasta used to be a guilty pleasure for many Biggest Losers—until they learned to make a healthy version. Try replacing lasagna noodles in your favorite recipe with slices of grilled zucchini or eggplant. Better yet, try the Veggie Lasagna recipe in Chapter 4!

Swap traditional yogurt for Greek-style yogurt. Greek-style fat-free yogurt contains the same number of calories as regular fat-free yogurt but has twice the protein and half the carbs. It’s a creamy choice for smoothies, dips and is used in recipes throughout the book.

Swap sugar for sweet spices. It’s a good idea to start eating sugar-free yogurt and cereals, but you may miss the flavor of your old favorites. Try adding sweet spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves to your favorite smoothies, cereal, yogurt, and even coffee or tea drinks. Not only do they add a delicious, sweet-spicy flavor, but they also contain antioxidants. Try stirring in a sprinkle of the Pumpkin Pie Spice Blend (recipe on page 116).

Swap other people’s needs for your own. This is one of the hardest changes for many
Biggest Loser contestants to make, and why their time at the ranch—away from relatives, colleagues, friends, and others who place demands on their time—is so valuable. It’s important to understand that putting your needs first is not selfish. Your health and happiness are more valuable than any PTA meeting or dinner party. Allow yourself to focus on you.

Throughout the book, you’ll also find advice and tips from The Biggest Loser experts, trainers, and the contestants themselves, who understand the challenges of fitting lifestyle changes into a busy schedule. These simple, budget-friendly swaps can make a major difference in your health and weight loss efforts. Start swapping—and losing—today!

The Biggest Loser Simple Swaps: 100 Easy Changes to Start Living a Healthier Lifestyle (Rodale/ Sep 2009) by Cheryl Forberg, RD with Melissa Roberson

A registered dietitian and professional chef, Cheryl Forberg is the nutritionist for the NBC reality series The Biggest Loser and an advisor for Prevention magazine. She has written or contributed to several books, including Simple Swaps (Stop the Clock! Cooking, The New Mayo Clinic Cookbook, and The Biggest Loser: The Weight Loss Program, and the recently published Positively Ageless. She is also a recipient of the prestigious James Beard award for healthy recipe development. To learn more about Cheryl and her work, visit her Web site at www.cherylforberg.com.

Biggest Loser Helen Phillips: Before and AFTER

Copyright © 2006-2010, Basil & Spice. All rights reserved.

Obese Teens Twice As Likely To Die By Age 60

Joanna Dolgoff, M.D.--

Our worst fears have finally come true. Overweight teens are dying from heart disease. Pediatricians have long feared that the rising number of severely obese children and teens would soon start to suffer from adult complications of obesity, like heart attacks, strokes, and death. And now it is happening.

According to the St. Louis County medical examiner, a 13-year old football player who collapsed during football practice died as a direct result of “hypertensive cardiovascular disease,” also known as high blood pressure. This young man, Anthony Troupe Jr. died last August but the results of his autopsy were just released this Wednesday. The cause of death was hypertensive heart disease, which is known to be caused by obesity. Young Anthony was 6-foot-2 and weighed 383 pounds.

Unfortunately, this comes as no surprise to those of us in the child obesity specialty. In fact, a study published in the British Medical Journal and reviewed in the New York Times earlier this year found that obese teens were twice as likely to die by age 60 as non-obese, non-smoking teens. But it is one thing to think of somebody dying at age 60 and quite another to think of a child dying at age 13. It is just so sad.

Other studies have found similar results. A Harvard study followed teens over 50 years and found that obese boys were twice as likely to die from heart disease as normal-weight boys. In fact, they learned that obesity that starts in childhood or adolescence causes a greater risk of early death than obesity that starts in adulthood.

It is clear that heart disease starts at a very young age. As parents, we must protect our children from the deadly effects of obesity. Many look at obesity as an aesthetic issue. It is not. It is a disease. A disease that can kill. And we must treat it that way.

I urge any reader with an overweight or obese child at home to get help before it is too late. Children must work with physicians when starting a weight loss program. So call your pediatrician and get a referral for a child weight loss specialist. Do not wait.

Joanna Dolgoff, M.D. is a pediatrician whose practice solely deals with child and adolescent weight management. A graduate of Princeton University, she completed her education at NYU School of Medicine and finished her Pediatric Residency training at Columbia Presbyterian's Children's Hospital of New York. She has previously worked as a private practice pediatrician, helping children reach their weight loss goals. A Board Certified Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr. Dolgoff is also the proud mother of two children. Click here to learn more about Dr. Dolgoff's Weigh Child and Adolescent Weight Management Program.

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The Truth About High Fructose Corn Syrup

Copyright © 2006-2010, Basil & Spice. All rights reserved.

The Brain Is 60% Fat, It Needs Good Fats

Ann Louise Gittleman--

Want to live a long and healthy life? Increasingly, research points to healthy weight—or healthy weight loss—between the ages 20 and 50.

Fat loss, particularly fat around the waistline, helps prevent cancer, diabetes, heart attack, stroke, kidney failure, depression, and other devastating kinds of chronic disease including Parkinson’s, MS, and Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS). Because women tend to live longer, they’re more likely to suffer chronic disease or mental health problems. That’s no way to enjoy longevity!

“The best way to maximize the probability of healthy survival is to maintain at least moderate levels of physical activity and healthy body weight throughout adulthood,” says researcher Qi Sun, MD, in the nutrition department at Harvard School of Public Health.

Reaching epidemic proportions in the U.S., obesity has also been linked to lower cognitive function (loss of memory, attention, and other thinking skills). In fact, new Canadian research finds age less important to brain function than weight.

Right from the start, healthy weight loss has been central to both my nutrition practice and my books. Unfortunately, the medical community wasted years making Americans fear healthy fat. Instead, they promoted margarine (a prime source of dangerous trans fat) and sugary, high-glycemic foods as “fat free.”

Fans of The Fat Flush Plan, one of my New York Times best-selling books, know that certain essential and healthy fats not only promote health and longevity but also healthy weight loss. By following this plan, millions of people have lost water weight and abdominal fat.

Whether you’re trying to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight, good fat:

· Transports fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K, critical to longevity and health (vitamin D is also linked to increased survival rates for women)
· Slows the absorption of high-glycemic foods, balancing blood sugar levels and supporting cognitive function
· Is essential for serotonin, a brain chemical that fights depression and controls food cravings
· Helps conserve muscle-building protein, essential for physical activity that promotes longevity and helps maintain a healthy weight.

Every single cell in your body is protected by a membrane composed mostly of fat. Shouldn’t it be good fat if you want to prevent chronic disease—and remember exactly where you parked the car?

Your brain is 60 percent fat. Is it any wonder that good fat supports mental health, helping to fight depression and focus attention at any age? Or that your body craves fat—any fat—when you eat a high-glycemic, low-fat diet?

A little fat goes a long way. All you need is a couple of daily tablespoons of oil from fish, flaxseed, olive, macadamia nuts, sesame seeds, or even coconut. Although it’s a saturated fat, a little coconut oil doesn’t cause obesity because it’s easily converted into energy rather than being deposited as abdominal fat.

Also include some lean protein from omega-3-rich fish and seafood, grass-fed meats, and free-range poultry in your diet. Snack on low-sugar fruits (apples, berries, cherries, pears, plums). And indulge in all the low-glycemic vegetables—raw or steamed—you can eat. Arugula, asparagus, green beans, broccoli, Chinese cabbage, daikon (great fat burner), jicama, kale, mushrooms, radicchio, and sprouts are great choices for healthy weight and longevity.

Sources:
http://women.webmd.com/news/20090929/womens-weight-tied-to-healthy-aging
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/339/sep29_1/b3796
http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/v17/n10/abs/oby2009161a.html

Visionary, health guru, diet/detox expert, and natural foods icon Ann Louise Gittleman is the award-winning author of 30 books on health and healing including the New York Times bestsellers The Fat Flush Plan and Before The Change. Her most recent release is The Gut Flush Plan. For the past two decades she has been considered one of the foremost nutritionist in the United States. A regular contributor to national television and radio, visit her at www.annlouise.com. You can also follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

More Than 25% of Americans React Negatively To MSG, Causes Weight Gain

U.S.: 5 Million Suffering With Alzheimer's

Copyright © 2006-2010, Basil & Spice. All rights reserved.

Americans Consume A Whopping 300 Grams Of Carbs Daily

Jonny Bowden--

Having just finished the revised and expanded edition of my 2004 best-seller Living Low Carb (Sterling Pub/ Jan 2010), I've been thinking a lot recently about low-carb diets.

Specifically, I've been thinking about definitions.

How exactly do we define low-carb, anyway?

For years, low-carb suffered from bad publicity. Atkins- a superb nutritionist and very smart guy- couldn't shake the stigma of recommending "pork rinds" (a recommendation that was taken out of context) and people who didn't know any better thought his diet forbade all carbohydrates (it most certainly doesn't).

Then there was the ketosis confusion. Ketosis- a harmless metabolic state that the body goes into when carbohydrate intake is very low- became identified with low-carb diets largely because early editions of Atkins' books stressed ketosis as a desirable goal for the first stage of the Atkins diet (which limited carbs to 20 grams a day).

But very few low-carb diets put the body into ketosis.

Then there was the American Dietetic Association and its spokes people, who frequently have a questionable relationship with the truth. These folks even characterized Barry Sears' The Zone as a low-carb diet (even though the majority of calories on the Zone Diet come from carbs!)

So what exactly is a low-carb diet?

The American Dietetic Association designates "low carbohydrate diets" as less than 130 grams a day (or 26% of calories from a 2000 calorie diet). Though I hardly think this is "low," it seems to be a decent working definition, given that most Americans consume a whopping 300 grams of carbs a day! (Just for the record, carbohydrate consumption before the epidemic of obesity averaged 43%, just about what is recommended by Dr. Sears in The Zone.)

According to Richard Feinman, PhD, Professor of Biochemistry at SUNY Downstate Medical Center and head of the Nutrition and Metabolism Society (of which I am a proud member), 26%-45% of calories from carbs is a good range for what we might call "moderate" or "controlled" carbohydrate eating. According to Feinman, less than 30 grams a day should be referred to as a "very low carbohydrate ketogenic diet;" the term "ketogenic diet" should be reserved for the therapeutic approach to epilepsy, for which it works quite well.

Some low-carb diets for weight loss limit carbs strictly (20-30 grams) for the first couple of weeks (the Atkins Induction Phase), then add them back gradually. Many health professionals and weight loss experts believe that you can get most of the benefits of "controlled carb eating" with anywhere up to 100 grams a day. In a recent blog, I talked about a study in which they used a vegan version of Atkins that contained 130 grams of carbs a day and everyone still lost weight and had improvements in their risk factors for heart disease to boot.

Remember- hard as it is to believe- your body has no physiological requirement for carbohydrate. That's not to say you shouldn't eat carbs- you should!

But if you're looking to lose weight and improve your health, you should get the vast majority of them from vegetables and fruits.

Carbs from fruits and vegetables are loaded with vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, fiber and other good stuff that your body thrives on. And you can eat more vegetables and berries than you can imagine and still stay in the range of 100-130 grams of carbs a day! Add to that about 100-120 grams of protein and about 60 grams of fat, and you've got a blueprint for health and weight management that will work for just about anyone.

 Jonny Bowden is the author of The Most Effective Natural Cures on Earth: What Treatments Work and Why, the Amazon best-seller The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth, The Healthiest Meals on Earth, and 150 Most Effective Ways to Boost Your Energy. For more information about products, services and coaching as well as a free newsletter and audio courses, please visit him at www.jonnybowden.com

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Copyright © 2006-2010, Basil & Spice. All rights reserved.