Did You Know?

High cholesterol is the result of eating more carbohydrates and sugars than the body can use and is not related to dietary fat consumption.

If you eat more carbohydrates and sugars than your body needs for energy, the liver must convert the remaining sugars into cholesterol and triglycerides.

Diet, Drugs, Stress, and Inflammation

Americans are in the middle of a health care crisis unlike anything we have ever experienced before, and the statistics are horrendous. Diabetes has risen almost 50% since 1983, and there are now 798,000 new cases each and every year. It is the fourth leading cause of death in this country and 95% of the cases are the adult onset type, which is not hereditary and is caused by poor diet. An American Caucasian child born in 2000 has a 33% likelihood of being diabetic as a young adult; if that child is Hispanic or African American, the chances that they will become diabetic goes up to 50%.

Other stats:

Quite frankly, this is obscene, and it is the end result of the Standard American Diet (SAD) and our obsession with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), which include aspirin, ibuprofen, Motrin, Aleve, Celebrex, etc. A research article published by Stanford University in 1999 reports that at least 16,500 Americans die each year from NSAIDs prescribed by medical doctors; this is the same number of Americans who die annually from AIDS, and does not account for those who die from self-medicating with over-the-counter NSAIDs! Another research article published July 15, 2003 states, “Gastrointestinal toxicity induced by NSAIDs is one of the most serious adverse drug events in the industrialized world” and that, “there is insufficient evidence for the use of NSAIDs to help back pain.”

With regard to diet, 90% of the American food budget is spent on processed foods; on any given day ¼ of the American population has eaten in a fast food restaurant; and Americans spend more than $110 billion on fast food, which is more than they spend on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos, and recorded music combined.

The American diet is loaded with omega-6 oils and trans-fats as opposed to the anti-inflammatory omega-3 oils found in vegetables and cold water fish. Omega-6 oils result in inflammatory chemicals circulating around the body, and reduce the ability of our cells to function normally. This happens because the inflammatory chemicals deaden the cells’ sensitivity to the necessary chemicals and hormones they need to be able to perform their normal work. No wonder we are all getting so fat and have diabetes: our cells are no longer sensitive to the insulin that makes them able to use sugar normally.

This progressive increase in inflammatory chemicals in the body correlates with the increase in stress-related diseases because the body responds to these inflammatory chemicals by having the adrenal glands produce cortisol; and while cortisol is the anti-inflammatory hormone, it is also the hormone we produce for stress. And it’s a vicious cycle: the diet causes inflammation and the production of cortisol…cortisol causes elevated stress levels which results in a craving for sugar and salt…therefore more junk food…cortisol along with bad diet causes further inflammation in the intestinal tract…more inflammation, more cortisol—and on and on it goes.

The solution? A normal diet, for goodness’ sake! Try this: for one month do not, I repeat do not, buy or eat junk or fast food. Go perimeter shopping when you buy food, meaning that you only shop on the market’s outside area where they sell vegetables, fruits, fish, poultry, and other proteins; then take these foods home and eat them. Do not venture into the interior of the store where all of the packaged and canned foods are - the rows and rows of chemically enhanced garbage that will kill you. These foods are commonly known as ‘convenience’ foods, but I invite you to look over the above statistics and see if any of these diseases or disorders sound particularly convenient for you and your family.