Posts Tagged ‘overeating’

Calories count on the path to longevity. Most of us know the phase you are what you eat. This says you are also what you don’t eat.

Calorie Restriction

Calorie restriction is more than a way of cutting calories. People who practice this also eat a nutrient dense diet. It has been found that in less complex organisms restricting calories can double or even triple lifespan. With the human population there are indications that this has a profound effect. These are not formal studies, but from interviews of people who have remained healthy and reached 100 years plus.

In a review article in Science, Nutrition, and Longevity researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, University College in London and the Andrus Gerontology Center at the University of Southern California, reports that calorie restriction influences the same handful of molecular pathways related to aging in all the animals studied.

The first author Luigi Fontana MD, PhD is interested in the ability of calorie restriction as a way to promote good health. “The focus of my research is not really to extend lifespan to 120 or 130 years,” said Fontana.

Calorie Counter

Instead of being up for the count, use a calorie counter. This isn’t about where is the beef; this is about where are the calories. The currency of health is in the amount and type of calories consumed.

Just putting the data out there such as in calorie counters isn’t going to save lives. People have been counting calories for a long time and look where they are. The strategic priority is to audit the type of foods that are consumed on a daily basis. Your body can’t run on 3 pieces of toast, only one candy bar, and a frozen low fat dinner.

A low calorie diet is not meant for those that keep eating the same poor diet. To see change the guiding principal should be the source of the calories. 

Calorie Poisoning

Calorie poisoning is a relatively new phase that is being used to describe the current health landscape. The growing rates of obesity, cancer, premature ageing, cardiovascular disease and cognitive problems are examples of this in action.

What happens is the desire becomes so strong for a fix that the option of both health and longevity are shoved to the sideline.

The first step in this new world of abundance is to be wary of processed foods.They are the ones that set up the cravings that lead to overeating.

Solution

The growing rates of obesity are a reason some scientist think calorie restriction is a mute cause. But, Fontana said if researches who study nutrition and aging can understand how calorie restriction lengthens life and makes people healthier, it may be possible to develop less drastic interventions of medicines that influence pathways affected by calorie restriction, and help keep people healthy

Real Solution      

The common sense solution is to eat more whole foods with lots of  fruits and vegetables. The idea is not to concentrate on calories, but nutrition. There are very few cultures that have a healthy population that counts calories. This is a phenomenon of Industrial nations. It isn’t about an abundant food supply; it is about a poor food supply.

Addiction is the new eating disorder of the 21^st century.

Eating Disorders

The list of eating disorders is reduced to either starving yourself, or stuffing yourself and purging. What if there are reasons to call our obsession with and binging on junk food one of the most dangerous trends. The shocking part it is a growing movement, making its way to the most vulnerable victims our children.

U.S. researchers working with rats have shown for the first time the compulsion to overeat has the same biological mechanism as the addiction to drugs such as cocaine and heroin. It affects the brain’s pleasure circuitry in a similar way.

The study was conducted by Scripps Research Associate Professor Paul J Kenny and graduate student Paul M Johnson. The Scripps Research Institute is in Jupiter, Florida. It was published in the online issue of Nature Neuroscience.

Addiction

According to a statement from the Scripps Research Institute the study confirms what many obesity patients have been saying for years binging on junk food is just about impossible to control.

Kenny and Johnson show that as pleasure centers in the brain become less responsive, rats quickly develop compulsive overeating habits. This is the same progressively deteriorating chemical balance in reward brain circuits seen in rats that over consume cocaine or heroin.

Kenny said the study confirms that junk food can become “addictive.” One of the tests of addictive behavior is to train lab animals to anticipate an electric shock. At first the animals receive the mild shocks at the same time as light coming on, eventually they learn to anticipate the shock when they see the light and avoid doing the thing that triggers the shock.

In rats that become “addicted’ to junk food ignored the light and continued to binge. The junk food consisted of what people eat: cheesecake, bacon, sausage, and Ding-Dongs a chocolate like cake.

Junk Food Wins

Junk food wins even with rats. Lab rats were divided into three groups. The first group got a balanced healthy diet, the second group had access to high-calorie “junk” food for one hour a day, and the third group was fed healthy food, but had unlimited access to the high-calorie “junk food.”

The third group quickly showed a preference for the junk food, eating it all day long and becoming obese.

“They always went for the worst type of food,” Kenny said. “As a result, they took in twice the calories as the control rats,” when they removed the junk food and left the healthy diet, they refused to eat.

“ The change in the diet preference was so great that they basically starved themselves for two weeks after they were cut off from junk food,” said Kenny.

Conclusion

It doesn’t take a genius to know what group we belong to. We are in the third group minus the healthy food. What will it do to us, just look around. The next eclipse will be because we block the view.

Understanding this should make us realize we are being left without the power, or ability to withstand the temptations.

Finding the overeating triggers and dangers in our culture is simple. All you have to do is follow the advertising and obesity rates. The food industry represents a threat that is as big as any to our society. The reason; there is no place to hide from either the advertisements, or the available supply. They know the pathway to desire. Their campaigns are hardcore. They build it and see that you use it. They know most people will surrender to desire.

Dangers 

It has been found that overeating in mice triggers a molecule that destroys metabolism. This also leads to resistance and sets the stage for type 2 diabetes.

This is a new study, by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) that links together the immune system and metabolism. These are paired together as suspect in increasing diseases from diabetes, heart disease, fatty liver, cancer and stroke.  

Science

“When mice eat a normal diet, this molecule called PKR is silent,” states senior author Gokhan Hotamisligil, chair of the HSPH department of Genetics and Complex Disease. “However, if a cell containing PKR is bombarded with too many nutrients, PKR grabs other immune system molecules that respond to this food attack and organizes a firing squad to shoot down normal processes, leading to insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction.”

“We know that nutrients can be detrimental in excess quantities or when they are in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Hotamisligil said. “But we don’t quite understand which paths they travel that result in harm and produce inflammation. PKU is a mechanism by which nutrients-necessary and beneficial under normal conditions-cause damage to cells and organs.”

PKR stands for Protein Knase R. Protein Knases have a profound effect on cells.

Protein Kinases are key regulators of cell function that constitute one of the largest and most functionally diverse gene families. They orchestrate the activity of almost all cellular processes.

The results provide compelling evidence that a process called “metaflammation” occurs in the body, stated Hotamisligil. Metaflammation is inflammation that occurs while the body processes food into energy. Hotamisligi had demonstrated inflammation role in metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, and heart disease in mice and humans.

Metaflammation describes ailments resulting from an unhealthy lifestyle.The two main causes are a lack of nutrition and a lack of exercise. Overeating is a way to use and deplete nutrients.

Reality

Researches are looking to understand how to regulate the PKR molecule through targeted drugs or nutrients. They think this could be the way diseases are prevented and treated in humans. We build, than battle what we build. Having build up a surreal supply of faux foods, we now have to subdue its effect on us.

We are not doomed to a roller coster existence. This is one where we produce new foods and then need drugs to modify the effect. We are at a crossroad in scientific thinking. We are spawning a dangerous trend; lifestyles that depend on technology may be in for some eye-opening surprise.

Conclusion

The causes of many of the diseases appear to lie in aspects of our modern technology driven environment. This is the red light district, where there is real danger of picking up a life threatening illness.

It’s Not Your Fault-Why you Overeat- Presented by Dr.David Kessler a former commissioner of The Food and Drug Administration (FDA).