Top Health Threats from Food and Diet

Improve Diet

Comprehensive analyses of a region's food and dietary trends, together with their respective effects on human health, can help maximize the public health effects of government campaigns and research programs, a report published by the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) says.
For example, "much greater health gains are to be made through encouraging a healthy diet than through improving food safety,' the report's authors conclude after extensive research into the effects of current food trends in The Netherlands.
Also, after reviewing the full spectrum of dietary habits and potential government measures, they state that "substantial health gains can be made through dietary interventions which are considered feasible."
Of all dietary factors insufficient consumption of fish, fruit and vegetables currently causes the most cases of serious illness and death in The Netherlands. About 50 percent of those can be avoided through interventions which appear feasible from small-scale experiments. In particular, attempts at reducing saturated and trans fatty acid uptake and increasing fish, fruit and vegetables consumption could save many lives, the authors say.
Leading document
"This report will be a leading document in Europe and probably beyond when it comes to making risk-benefit analyses of our food and diets," said Herman Ko� '� � ter, Acting Executive Director of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and chair of the organisation's Advisory Forum. "Research like this again clearly demonstrates high-quality science can lay the groundwork for informed food policy making," he added. Ko� '� � ter was presented with a copy of the report at the Advisory Forum meeting on 19 May 2006 in Vienna (Austria).
The report "Our Food, Our Health: Healthy diet and safe food in The Netherlands" was originally published in Dutch and is largely based on research by RIVM. Data from long-term studies into popular food habits, together with health risk assessments derived from epidemiological research, were fed into the institute's Chronic Diseases Model to predict the impact of trends and interventions on public health.
The research produced a comprehensive overview of our food's health effects, enabling policy makers with clear choices on the importance of various issues. Among the report's main conclusions:

• Unhealthy diet composition currently reduces the average life expectancy of Dutch 40-year-olds by 1.2 years, while obesity claims 0.8 years.

• Taking into account not just deaths but also years spent living with serious disability, unhealthy dietary habits together cause as much health loss as does smoking.

• Current positive trends are the decreasing intake of trans and saturated fatty acids and the increasing consumption of fish.

• Current negative trends are the ever decreasing intakes of fruit, vegetables and dietary fibre, already below recommended levels for 75 percent of the population.

• Each year in The Netherlands, inadequate diet composition causes about 13,000 deaths due to diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. Obesity claims 7,000 lives due to cardiovascular disease and cancer. By comparison, foodborne infections claim somewhere between 20 and 200 lives each year.

• About 25 percent of deaths and serious illness caused by overweight and obesity would be avoided if all adults would shed three kilograms of their body weight.

Health Canada Advises Not To Use Certain Weight Loss Pills

Health Canada is advising consumers not to use Natural (Xin Yi Dai) and Lasmi due to concerns about possible side-effects.
Natural (Xin Yi Dai) and Lasmi are both promoted for weight loss.
Reason for Warning
The Hong Kong Department of Health warned against the use of Natural (Xin Yi Dai) and Lasmi because they were both found to contain undeclared pharmaceutical ingredients.
Natural (Xin Yi Dai) was found to contain sibutramine and phenolphthalein, and Lasmi was found to contain sibutramine and spironolactone.
Sibutramine is used in the treatment of obesity and spironolactone is used in the treatment of fluid retention. Both are prescription drugs that should only be used under the supervision of a health care professional.
Phenolphthalein was previously used in over-the-counter laxative preparations but is currently prohibited in Canada as it may cause cancer. Individuals who may have been exposed to phenolphthalein should consult with their health care professional.
Possible Side-Effects
Use of sibutramine may cause headaches, increased heart rate and blood pressure, chest pain and stroke.
Abuse of phenolphthalein-containing laxatives has been associated with stomach and intestinal bleeding, anemia, acute pancreatitis and, in cases of massive overdose, multiple organ damage (including liver failure).
Side-effects associated with spironolactone include electrolyte imbalance, breast enlargement in males, gastrointestinal irritation, fatigue, dizziness and reproductive disorders.

Valerie Bertinelli Asks Jenny Craig To Help Her Lose Weight One Pound At A Time

Jenny Craig Weight Loss

In a television commercial premiering today, Jenny Craig introduces its latest celebrity client, Valerie Bertinelli.
The commercial, which features Bertinelli and Jenny Craig's highly successful current celebrity client, Kirstie Alley, will launch an integrated marketing campaign through 2007 in which Alley's 75-lb. weight loss and her successful maintenance of her weight loss will be the inspiration for Bertinelli to join the Jenny Craig program and reach her 30-lb. weight loss goal.
"Now that Kirstie has reached her goal weight - and looks and feels terrific - her goal is to motivate others to achieve and maintain a more healthful lifestyle," stated Jenny Craig CEO, Patti Larchet. "We are confident and excited that Valerie's interaction with Kirstie in our new campaign not only demonstrates Kirstie's new role as a mentor, but also gives people another opportunity to see a busy mom lose weight on national television."
According to Bertinelli, "I was a huge Cheers fan and have always admired Kirstie Alley's sense of humor, poise and tenacity. Watching her lose weight and maintain her weight loss publicly definitely inspired me to 'call Jenny' and accept the challenge to be a healthier, happier me."
In the new campaign, Bertinelli will lose weight "in real time" - as did Alley - with more frequent updates on her progress and through more hands-on venues. In addition to a series of monthly television and print advertisements, Bertinelli will post regular video and written blogs on the Jenny Craig Web site (http://www.jennycraig.com) to tell the story of her weight-loss journey and to provide tips on how to achieve weight loss success. She will also record video e-mail messages for new and returning Jenny Craig clients.
"It's definitely frightening to know that all of America will be following my progress to see if I actually lose weight," added Bertinelli. "But after researching the Jenny Craig program and what it has to offer in terms of providing the support and education I need, I'm confident that, by the end of the year, I will have lost the weight and learned how to keep it off."
The commercials, which were produced by JWT, New York, will feature interaction between the two actresses and will air nationally on both cable and network television.

Diet Pill To Replace Stomach Surgery

Newly developing diet pill will offer a brand new weight loss technique by reducing the size of stomach, which is currently being done by bypass surgery.
‘Gastric banding’ and ‘stomach stapling’ are surgeries reducing stomach size. These are the most effective weight loss treatments, but they have adverse side effects and are complicated. For example, 1 out of 100 bypass patients die within 12 months after surgery. Most of patients have difficulties with dense food, they need to chew it properly and eat slowly to avoid stomach discomfort.
The new pills will have the same efficiency in stomach size reduction as surgeries, but it will be much safer, easy to implement and with less side effects.
While eating, stomach relaxes muscular wall and expands to digest food. Muscular wall is found to have P2Y1 and P2Y11 receptor proteins, they get signals from nerve cells and control gut wall size. The new pill will block receptor cells to prevent gut expanding. This means that one may eat very little and take a pill to feel full.
Dr Brian King from University College London said: "This would be a brand new approach to weight control. At present, the most successful way to help obese patients lose weight is gastric banding or stomach stapling, both of which reduce the maximum volume of the stomach. But these are also tricky surgical procedures, not without attendant risks. A pill that could replace this surgery, yet have the same effect, might be a useful alternative."
Scientists from University College London are currently working on the pill that introduces a brand new approach to weight loss.

Optimum Nutrition: Cooked or Raw?

Which is better: cooked food or raw? Taking nothing for granted or gospel, I set out to find out for myself the answer to this important question.
First, I asked, what is meant by "raw food" and what is meant by "cooked food?" One cannot simply say that raw is uncooked, for there are raw food "cookbooks." Nor is cooking simply the application of heat through boiling, baking, or frying, as I soon discovered. Ripening itself is one form of natural cooking; others are described later. Second, I wondered, what did my ancestors eat? And was it raw or cooked? Third, I questioned, how do enzymes in foods affect digestion and health? Fourth, I attempted to sum it up, is there an advantage to cooking?
The answers weren't as simple as one might suspect, however. The answers to these questions combine in interesting ways, and open up other questions in their answering.
To begin with the second question: Our most primitive ancestors, those who lived several million years ago, most likely ate raw food. The majority of what they ate was animal protein: muscle meats, organ meats, eggs, and insects.
Present day examples of peoples who primarily eat raw animal protein include the Inuit of the far North and the Masai of Africa. Both groups are known for their health and freedom from disease, although in fairness there are many other lifestyle differences between these cultures and our own.
Research done by Dr. Pottenger in the mid-twentieth century revealed that raw meat and milk contained enzymes necessary for digestion. He showed that heat deactivated their enzymes (www.westonaprice.org). His conclusion was that raw meat, fish, milk and eggs provide more nutrients and are more easily digested.
This is not true of plant foods, however. Vegetables and fruits do contain enzymes -- if picked fully ripe -- but their enzymes have no function in their own digestion, although papaya, pineapple, and kiwi fruit contain enzymes that digest meat (An interesting aside � � � � � � � �" these fruits are tropical fruits that help digest and destroy, in the digestive systems of people and animals, the parasites that are found in those regions, and only incidentally digest other kinds of meat). Many plant enzymes interfere with digestion, so our bodies destroy them.
Cooked food was the preference of most of our ancestors. Archaeologists have found evidence of fire in sites occupied by hominids as far back as a million years ago, but cannot say exactly when we began to use fire to cook food.
Certainly by about ten thousand years ago, when cultivation of grains and beans -- hard foods which absolutely require cooking -- became widespread, our ancestors were regularly and routinely cooking their food.
Most current aboriginal people also cook their food; in New Zealand, for instance, I found the Maori jealously guarding natural hot pools used to cook their food.
Is there an advantage to cooking? It depends on how we cook � � � � � � � �" or, more basically, how we define cooking � � � � � � � �" and whether we are eating animals or plants. Animal cells are surrounded by a membrane. This thin membrane is easily dissolved by digestive juices, releasing the nutrients stored in the cell. Fast, high-heat cooking will toughen these membranes, thus slowing digestion and impairing nutrient uptake.