International Journal of Obesity

If Your Doctor Is Healthy, You Probably Are Too.

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Story at-a-glance

  • When a physician was perceived to be overweight or obese, patients viewed him or her as less credible and trustworthy, and they were less inclined to follow the given medical advice.
  • Patients whose physicians were compliant with certain preventative health practices were more likely to have undergone these procedures themselves.
  • Research has also shown that physicians with healthy lifestyles are more likely to discuss healthful personal habits to motivate you to do the same
  • Choosing a physician shouldn’t only be about credentials and educational background, but also about their personal lifestyle choices
  • If your physician leads a healthy lifestyle there’s a good chance these positive habits will get passed on to you.
  • healthy-doctor

If your physician is overweight or obese, does it make him or her less able to give you sound medical advice?

Logically you would say no, yet a new study published in the International Journal of Obesity1 found that excess body weight impacts patients’ views of their physician.

When a physician was perceived to be overweight or obese, patients viewed him or her as less credible and trustworthy, and they were less inclined to follow the given medical advice.

This bias may not be fair; as mentioned, body weight obviously has little bearing on a physician’s ability to practice medicine. However, are such reservations justifiable?

It is most unfortunate that the vast majority of physicians who finish medical school are not highly motivated to follow truly healthy lifestyles, but more or less succumb to the powerful brainwashing influence of Big Pharma in their curriculum.

Research Shows Healthier Doctors Have Healthier Patients

You probably wouldn’t knowingly take driving lessons from an instructor who had carelessly totaled his car. Likewise, you may be less inclined to accept health advice from someone you perceive to be unhealthy.

An overweight physician may still be healthy but is likely to be perceived as less so than a physician who is fit. According to the recent study, overweight physicians were less trusted by both normal weight and overweight patients alike. The study’s lead author told the New York Times:2

“The bias against overweight people is so socially accepted that despite all the doctor’s training and expertise, it can jeopardize the doctor’s ability to have a conversation about health care with the patient.”

It’s a harsh finding, but there may be some reason to seek out the healthiest physicians. Separate research has shown, in fact, that healthier physicians tend to have healthier patients.3

Unfortunately, that particular study used practices like mammography and annualvaccinations, which are poor measures of true health as the markers, finding that patients whose physicians were compliant with these practices were more likely to have undergone these procedures themselves.

This suggests that other preventive measures practiced by physicians, such as healthful eating and exercise, may also transfer over to patients as well.

So the secret to finding the best health care provider for you may lie in seeking someone who is like-minded, more inclined to use natural therapies and lifestyle strategies before medicine, if that is important to you, as well as someone who practices what they preach. The study’s author noted:4

“It’s human nature. People usually preach what they practice. Personal adoption of a practice suggests that the doctors are sufficiently convinced of the importance of the intervention that they are motivated enough to even do it themselves, and perhaps they’ve figured out how to overcome access barriers that can enable patients, as well.”

Healthy Personal Behaviors Improve Physicians’ Credibility

Research has shown not only that physicians with healthy lifestyles are more likely to discuss such practices with their patients, but also that talking about these healthful personal habits improves their credibility and ability to motivate their patients to do the same.5 The correlation was so strong that researchers concluded:

“Educational institutions should consider encouraging health professionals-in-training to practice and demonstrate healthy personal lifestyles.”

Another study similarly found that healthy physicians can help motivate positive change for entire communities, noting:6

“Physician-directed interventions that advance these [health] principles are most effective when directed by clinicians who regularly participate in such healthy behaviors themselves.”

What does this mean for you? Choosing a physician shouldn’t only be about credentials and educational background but also about their personal lifestyle choices. Does your physician exercise? Does he or she embrace healthy eating habits and stress-reduction techniques? If so there’s a good chance these positive habits will get passed on to you.

You Don’t Need a Doctor to Learn How to Take Control of Your Health

It may be especially motivating to have your physician tell you to eat more vegetables or get more exercise, but you don’t need a physician to learn some of the most important variables to reaching optimal health.

The vast majority of deaths in wealthier countries like our own are due to chronic, not acute, disease. And most chronic diseases, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity, are largely preventable with simple lifestyle changes. Even infectious diseases like the flu can often be warded off by a healthy way of life.

The added bonus to this is that the healthier you are, the less you will need to rely on conventional medical care, which is aleading cause of death. So while it’s a good idea to choose a doctor who leads a healthy lifestyle, it’s even better to lead one yourself! So what does a “healthy lifestyle” entail?

  • Proper Food Choices

For a comprehensive guide on which foods to eat and which to avoid, see my nutrition plan. It’s available for free, and is perhaps one of the most comprehensive and all-inclusive guides on a healthy lifestyle out there. Generally speaking, you should be looking to focus your diet on whole, ideally organic, unprocessed foods that come from healthy, sustainable, ideally local, sources.

For the best nutrition and health benefits, you will want to eat the majority of your food raw. Nearly as important as knowing which foods to eat more of is knowing which foods to avoid, and topping the list is fructose. Sugar, and fructose in particular, can have a multitude of toxic effects when consumed in excess, not the least of which is insulin resistance, a major cause of accelerated aging and a crucial factor in driving virtually all chronic disease.

For most people (although there are clearly individual differences), a diet high in healthful fats (as high as 50-70 percent of the calories you eat), moderate amounts of high-quality protein, which is far less than the average amount most people eat, with the bulk of carbohydrates coming from high-nutrient, low-carbohydrate vegetables and very little carbohydrates from grains and sugars, will set you on the right track toward health.

  • Comprehensive Exercise Program, including High-Intensity Exercise

Even if you’re eating the healthiest diet in the world, you still need to exercise to reach the highest levels of health, and you need to be exercising effectively, which means including not only core-strengthening exercises, strength training, and stretching but also high-intensity activities into your rotation. High-intensity interval-type training like Peak Fitness boosts human growth hormone (HGH) production, which is essential for optimal health, strength and vigor.

  • Stress Reduction and Positive Thinking

You cannot be optimally healthy if you avoid addressing the emotional component of your health and longevity, as your emotional state plays a role in nearly every physical disease — from heart disease and depression to arthritis and cancer. Effective coping mechanisms are a major longevity-promoting factor in part because stress has a direct impact on inflammation, which in turn underlies many of the chronic diseases that kill people prematurely every day. Meditation, prayer, energy psychology tools such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), social support and exercise are all viable options that can help you maintain emotional and mental equilibrium.

  • Optimize Vitamin D with Proper Sun Exposure

We have long known that it is best to get your vitamin D from appropriate sun exposure during times when UVB rays are present. Vitamin D plays an important role in preventing numerous illnesses ranging from cancer to the flu. The important factor when it comes to vitamin D is your serum level, which should ideally be between 50-70 ng/ml year-round.

Sun exposure, or failing that, a safe tanning bed is the preferred method for optimizing vitamin D levels, but a vitamin D3 supplement can be used when necessary. Most adults need about 8,000 IU’s of vitamin D a day to achieve serum levels above 40 ng/ml, which is still just below the minimum recommended serum level of 50 ng/ml. Be aware that if you take supplemental vitamin D, you also need to make sure you’re getting enough vitamin K2, as these two nutrients work in tandem to ensure calcium is distributed into the proper areas in your body.

  • High Quality Animal-Based Omega-3 Fats

Animal-based omega-3 fat like krill oil is a strong factor in helping people live longer, and some experts believe that it may be one reason why the Japanese are the longest lived race on the planet.

  • Avoid as Many Chemicals, Toxins, and Pollutants as Possible

This includes tossing out your toxic household cleaners, soaps, personal hygiene products, air fresheners, bug sprays, lawn pesticides, and insecticides, just to name a few, and replacing them with non-toxic alternatives.

Source: mercola.com

 

 

 

Obesity Epidemic Not Due to High Fructose Corn Syrup?

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A staggering two-thirds of Americans are overweight, and about one-quarter to one-third of adults fall into the obese category and it is projected to go to FIFTY percent by 2030.

Obesity is now so common that it leads to more doctor visits than smoking1 – and rates have been on the rise for decades now.

The fact that obesity is now an epidemic is not up for debate. What’s causing it, however, is.

One of the forerunning theories is that dramatic changes in our dietary patterns such as the extensive use of sugar, primarily in the form of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which is added to virtually all processed foods, is prompting metabolic dysfunction that is making people gain weight.

Now a new study has come out claiming it has “proof” that HFCS is not to blame… but wouldn’t you know it, the study’s authors were funded by, or have links to, the corn industry.

No Link Between High Fructose Corn Syrup and Obesity?

The new report, published in the International Journal of Obesity, says there is no evidence to suggest that the U.S. obesity epidemic can be blamed on HFCS consumption.2 The authors reviewed existing HFCS research and concluded that there are no short-term health differences (such as weight gain, appetite, insulin or glucose levels) between the use of HFCS and sugar (sucrose), noting that both are similar in composition and absorbed identically in the GI tract.

This is the most common argument used by the corn industry to support their agenda that HFCS is safe. Sucrose (table sugar) is 50 percent glucose and 50 percent fructose. High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is anywhere from 42 to 55 percent fructose depending on which type is used.

While it’s true that they are similar in composition – their parts are metabolized very differently in your body. Because high-fructose corn syrup contains free-form monosaccharides of fructose and glucose, it cannot be considered biologically equivalent to sucrose, which has a glycosidic bond that links the fructose and glucose together, and which slows its break down in the body.

Even if this obvious metabolic difference were not present, it is important to point out that glucose is the form of energy your body is designed to run on. Every cell in your body uses glucose for energy, and it’s metabolized in every organ of your body; about 20 percent of glucose is metabolized in your liver. Fructose, on the other hand, can only be metabolized by your liver, because your liver is the only organ that has the transporter for it.

Fructose is the Real Culprit

Since all fructose gets shuttled to your liver, and, if you eat a typical Western-style diet, you consume high amounts of it, fructose ends up taxing and damaging your liver in the same way alcohol and other toxins do. And just like alcohol, fructose is metabolized directly into fat – not cellular energy, like glucose.

While in times of complete glycogen depletion (i.e. post work-out or true hunger), fructose can be used to replenish these stores, any excess will mostly be converted to fat. So, eating fructose in excess of the very small amount our body can handle is really like eating fat – it just gets stored in your fat cells, which leads to mitochondrial malfunction, obesity and obesity-related diseases.

So both sugar and HFCS play a role in the obesity epidemic, but it’s important to understand that the claim you hear on TV, that “sugar is sugar” no matter what form it’s in, is a misstatement that can, quite literally, kill you – albeit slowly.

The more fructose a food contains, and the more total fructose you consume, the worse it is for your health.

It’s important to note that both sugar and HFCS are problematic, as they both contain similar amounts of fructose, the true culprit. But the reason why HFCS may, in fact, be even worse than table sugar, despite having similar fructose content, is both due to the aforementioned difference in metabolizing it (sucrose’s glycosidic bond) and due to its liquid form. When you consume fructose in liquid form, such as drinking a soda, it places an even more intense burden on your liver. The effect on your liver is not only sped up but also magnified.

Cost Is King

Even if one were to ignore the evidence reviewed above and accept the corn industry’s argument that there is no significant biochemical difference between the fructose in HFCS and regular table sugar, one can’t escape the quantity argument. There is simply no defense against it. In the mid ’70s, Japanese scientists discovered how to manufacture HFCS cheaply from corn. Because it is so cheap it is used in massive quantities.

Fructose in small quantities is relatively harmless. Our ancestors would typically consume some on a regular basis, typically in the form of fruits, but they would rarely consume it in quantities greater than 15 grams (one tablespoon) a day. Now the average intake is FIVE times that at 75 grams and some people consume more than 10 times that amount. At those levels fructose becomes a pernicious liver and metabolic toxin.

Another Case of Industry-Funded Propaganda?

But here is where it gets really interesting. There are actually clever forces at work behind the scenes that have carefully orchestrated this information to deceive you and the rest of the public. So why does this new study make it sound like HFCS has been nothing more than an unfortunate scapegoat in this whole scenario?

As I have explained in a previous video, it is usually helpful to examine who authored the study, and where their funding and true loyalties lie. And in this case, doing so proved to be very revealing. Research shows that industry funding of nutrition-related scientific articles may bias conclusions in favor of sponsors’ products, with potentially significant implications for public health.3

This is now becoming widely accepted, so much so that still more research found physicians are less likely to believe and act on research findings when they are industry-sponsored.4 If that’s the case, many may have a hard time believing the featured HFCS/obesity study. There are four authors to the featured study: lead author James M. Rippe and co-authors David M. Klurfeld, John Foreyt, and Theodore J. Angelopoulos. Each one has his own ties to industry, making for a very concerning conflict of interest:

  1. Rippe: Disclosed in the journal that he and his Rippe Lifestyle Institute had received research grants and consulting fees from a variety of companies and organizations including ConAgra, Kraft Foods, PepsiCo, Weight Watchers and the Corn Refiners Association. He also disclosed in other research completed in 2012 that he has received funding from the Corn Refiners Association.5

Rippe also is an advisor to the food and beverage industry. On his health website he lists ConAgra and PepsiCo as two of several “partners.” He also disclosed in a press release on this most recent study that he is an advisor to the food and beverage industry including the Corn Refiners Association, “which funded this research with an unrestricted educational grant.”

  1. Foreyt: Disclosed in the study that he is a member of the scientific advisory panel of the Corn Refiners Association.6
  2. Klurfeld: Is a scientific and policy advisor on the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH),7 which has published material criticizing the “demonizing of high fructose corn syrup.”8
  3. Angelopoulos: Is the author of at least one other study vindicating HFCS – which was funded by PepsiCo.9 Plus he got a $200,500 research grant from Rippe Health and Lifestyle Institute for “consulting services.”10

How Sensitive are You to Fructose?

Some people may be able to process fructose more efficiently than others, and the key to assess this susceptibility to fructose-induced damage lies in evaluating your uric acid levels. The higher your uric acid, the more sensitive you are to the effects of fructose. The safest range of uric acid appears to be between 3 and 5.5 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl), and there appears to be a steady relationship between uric acid levels and blood pressure and cardiovascular risk, even down to the range of 3 to 4 mg/dl.

Dr. Richard Johnson suggests that the ideal uric acid level is probably around 4 mg/dl for men and 3.5 mg/dl for women. I would strongly encourage everyone to have their uric acid level checked to find out how sensitive you are to fructose.

Many people who are overweight likely have uric acid levels well above 5.5. Some may even be closer to 10 or above. Measuring your uric acid levels is a very practical way to determine just how strict you need to be when it comes to your fructose consumption.

The major problem with fructose lies in the excessive amounts so many people consume. And fructose has actually been linked to over 70 health conditions in the biomedical literature, indicating that this is far bigger than just a “weight problem.”11

It’s no secret that we are eating more sugar than at any other time in history. In 1700, the average person ate four pounds of sugar a year. Today, about 25 percent of all Americans consume over 134 grams of fructose a day, according to Dr. Johnson’s research.

For most people, including if you’re overweight or obese, it would actually be wise to limit your fruit fructose to 15 grams or less, as you’re virtually guaranteed to get “hidden” fructose from just about any processed food you might eat, including condiments you might never have suspected would contain sugar.

Keep in mind that fruits also contain fructose, although an ameliorating factor is that whole fruits also contain vitamins and other antioxidants that reduce the hazardous effects of fructose. Again, one way to determine just how strict you need to be in regard to fruit consumption is to check your uric acid levels. If your levels are outside the healthy ranges listed above, then I strongly suggest you listen to your body’s biochemical feedback and reduce your fructose consumption, including that from fruit, until your uric acid levels normalize.

Bonus Weight Loss Tips You Might Not Have Heard of

For the majority of people, severely restricting non-vegetable carbohydrates such as sugars, fructose, and grains in your diet will be the key to weight loss. Refined Carbohydrates like breakfast cereals, bagels, waffles, pretzels, and most other processed foods quickly break down to sugar, increase your insulin levels, and cause insulin resistance, which is the number one underlying factor of nearly every chronic disease and condition known to man, including weight gain.

As you cut these dietary villains from your meals, you need to replace them with healthy substitutes like vegetables and healthy fats (including natural saturated fats!). You will probably need to radically increase the amount of high-nutrient, low-carbohydrate vegetables you eat, as well as make sure you are also consuming protein and healthy fats regularly.

I’ve detailed a step-by-step guide to this type of healthy eating program in my comprehensive nutrition plan, and I urge you to consult this guide if you are trying to lose weight.

Next, you’ll want to add in proper exercise. The key to boosting weight loss and getting the most out of your exercise routine is to make sure to incorporate high-intensity, short-burst-type exercises, such as my Peak Fitness Program, two to three times per week. Several studies have confirmed that exercising in shorter bursts with rest periods in between burns more fat than exercising continuously for an entire session.

Now here’s the bonus: A growing body of research suggests that intermittent fasting may in fact be a key weight loss tool. It appears particularly powerful when combined with exercise – i.e. working out while in a fasted state. Intermittent fasting is not the same thing as starving yourself; it can be as simple as skipping breakfast. You can find more details on intermittent fasting here.

Sourc: Dr. Mercola