Press Association
Friday August 25, 2006 5:58 PM

Millions more adults and children will be obese by 2010 unless dramatic action is taken to halt the trend, figures showed.

A third of adults and a fifth of all children will be obese, leading to greater suffering from cancer, heart disease and type 2 diabetes. More than 12 million adults and one million children are expected to be obese, with millions more overweight.

The Government said it was working to tackle the issue, but the Tories branded Labour’s track record “woeful”.

The figures, published in the Department of Health’s Forecasting Obesity to 2010 report, showed that 22% of girls and 19% of boys aged between two and 15 will be obese by 2010. Those figures are up on the 16% of girls and 17% of boys recorded as obese in 2003.

A third (33%) of all men will be obese – rising from 4.3 million in 2003 to 6.66 million in 2010. And 28% of women will be obese – rising from 4.75 million in 2003 to 5.98 million in 2010.

As a result of the figures, the Government looks set to miss its target to halt the year-on-year rise in obesity among under 11s by 2010.

Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt said the Government was taking action, but urged people to look after themselves.

“We’ve already stepped in to try and slow this worrying trend, but there’s only so much the Government can do.

“People need to want to change their lifestyles and take responsibility for their health – before they face problems in later life such as coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes or cancer.

“Government and the NHS will support people in leading healthier lives, but ultimately it is each individual’s choice that counts.”

© Copyright Press Association Ltd 2006, All Rights Reserved.

Announcement opens door to new food labels

WASHINGTON – The monounsaturated fat in olive oil may reduce the chances of suffering coronary heart disease, the Food and Drug Administration said Monday, opening the door to revised food labels.

As long as people don’t increase the number of calories they consume daily, the FDA found “limited but not conclusive evidence” suggesting reduced risk of coronary heart disease when people replace foods high in saturated fat with the monounsaturated fat in olive oil.

According to the American Heart Association, coronary heart disease accounted for 502,189 deaths ‘or one in five deaths’ in 2001, the most current statistic available. Another 13.2 million Americans that year survived the heart attacks, chest pains and other ailments caused by coronary heart disease.

Along with lowering cholesterol, cutting out cigarettes and exercising, the group says Americans can boost heart health by eating foods low in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium. An American Heart Association spokeswoman declined comment on the FDA’s action until it reviews the health claim.

“Since CHD is the No. 1 killer of both men and women in the United States, it is a public health priority to make sure that consumers have accurate and useful information on reducing their risk,” Lester M. Crawford, acting FDA commissioner said in a prepared statement.

It’s the third time the FDA granted a qualified health claim for conventional food.

Olive oil and certain food containing olive oil can now indicate that “limited and not conclusive scientific evidence suggests that eating about two tablespoons (23 grams) of olive oil daily may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease due to the monounsaturated fat in olive oil,” the agency said.

During the last 50 years we have seen increased terrorism, global warming, worldwide glacial melting, overpopulation, dwindling natural resources, medication consumed like candy, ADHD, AIDS, Hepatitis C, Prozac, an epidemic called welfare, morbid obesity, world hunger, and the list goes on. Why have all of these things occurred? Lack of responsibility.

RESPONSIBILITY

The dictionary has many definitions for the word responsible. The first one fits what I feel I do as a doctor: “legally or ethically accountable for the welfare of another.” When I graduated from Chiropractic College, I swore an oath to be responsible for anyone who seeks my care, and I feel I have never violated that oath.

There are two other definitions that fit how I act in my personal life and how others, if responsible, should act. 1) Involving personal accountability or ability to act without guidance or superior authority. 2) Capable of making moral or rational decisions on one’s own, therefore answerable for one’s behavior.

The reason I’m bringing this up now is because the word responsible has been, I feel, losing its meaning over the past ten or more years. I have been noticing the effects of this in my practice and in my surroundings for some time now.

Today, I feel, most people who are experiencing health related problems are either doing nothing (no responsibility) or are placing total responsibility on the doctor, whether it’s getting their health back or maintaining it at a certain level.

Examples: If you have high this or low that, take a pill. If it’s clogged, send in Roto Rooter. If it’s too fast or too slow, take another pill. If you think there may be a problem now or in the future but aren’t sure yet, take a pill just to be on the safe side.

This complacent attitude our culture has developed is extremely dangerous and has accounted for hundreds of thousands of needless deaths, hospitalizations, and billions of dollars a year spent on medications. Medications only treat symptoms, while masking the underlying condition or disease state.

Geneticists (doctors who study and research our genetic makeup, DNA, etc…) state that we reach our genetic potential around 30-35 years of age. This means that we are as good as we are ever going to be at that age. After that, our bodies start to deteriorate.

Some of us go through this process very slowly; others quite rapidly. The rate of this deterioration depends slightly on genetics, predominately on RESPONSIBILITY! It’s not the responsibility of doctors, family, friends, Richard Simons or Jenny Craig. IT’S YOUR RESPONSIBILITY.

Responsibility or the taking of responsibility for your health has four components: first, there is EDUCATION. Educate yourself on diet, anatomy, exercise, health or anything that may benefit you in living longer and healthier. Second is NUTRITION. Eat to support every cell in your body, not just for the taste or because it’s a good deal. Third is EXERCISE. If you don’t move it or use it, you will lose it! Nothing can be truer. The surest way to get osteoporosis, arthritis, sore joints, weak muscles and tendons or a slow metabolism is don’t exercise. Fourth is CHANGING YOUR ENVIRONMENT. If you’re some place that you don’t want to be because it’s not aesthetically pleasing, the people are negative toward you or unethical behavior is occurring, etc., get out!

These four components when not actively followed have been proven to weaken our immune system by placing undo negative stress on us.

The four components for taking responsibility of your health may seem obvious to some, and to others may seem as foreign as learning Chinese. For those of you who are acting responsibly toward your health, I validate your effort. For those of you who believe your body will run forever without any needed adjustment to your present condition or believe that all those aches and pains, stiffness, inability to eat the foods you did when you were younger, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and increased weight are just signs of getting older and that it’s inevitable, you are wrong or just misinformed.

Poor health = irresponsibility. You, yourself, have personally created this condition by lack of following the above four components to health.

It’s not to late too change your present condition. Recognizing that a problem exists, and also recognizing that a positive change needs to occur is all that is required.

P.S. RESPONSIBLE and RESPONSIBILITY are two words, I feel, need to have some serious attention paid to them. Our culture has lost personal accountability for everything – IT’S NOT MY FAULT! These four words are destroying our civilization, morally, ethically, spiritually and physically. If each one of us would take responsibility for our own little universe, the impact this would have on the bigger picture would be more significant than can be imagined. Don’t just think about this, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Thank you for reading my commentary.

Sincerely,

Dr. Marcus S. Ettinger DC, BSc.

Synergy – the Essence of Health!

Marcus Stewart Ettinger DC, BSc.
Chief Science Officer (CSO)
California Academy of Health

Copyright © May 23, 2006, By Dr. Marcus Ettinger and California Academy of Health, Inc.

A 100% pure, nothing added, nutritional juice or nutritional supplement sounds great when advertised and looks good on paper but the plain truth is, it’s not as impressive as it looks or sounds. For one thing it lacks synergy.

Synergy or synergism (from the Greek synergos meaning working together) refers to the phenomenon in which two or more discrete influences or components acting together create an effect greater than the sum of the effects each is able to create independently. Synergy can also mean: A mutually advantageous partnership where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Synergy is one of the most powerful forces in the universe.

I am asked on a daily basis, “is a 100% juice or supplement better than a blend?” Here is the long answer: in relation to a nutritional juice, such as a mixture of say Goji and/or Mangosteen or a vitamin supplement such a B-Complex, all of the component parts aid and enhance the overall benefits of the complete product. A 50/50 Goji and Mangosteen mixture for example, is synergistic and thus more beneficial than a 100% Goji or Mangosteen product is alone. A B-Complex supplement is more synergistic than say B-1 or B-2 is alone, thus it is better utilized and ultimately more beneficial.

Our bodies can’t thrive and flourish with the consumption of a single vitamin any better than it will on a single mineral, amino acid or antioxidant. Our complex organism known as the human body requires vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and essential fatty acids – A through Z. That’s synergy!

It would be close to malpractice for me as a doctor to say that an individual would only require or need one of the above to stay healthy and disease free.

As far as antioxidants go; xanthones are great, flavonoids are fantastic, phenols are terrific and polysaccharides are phenomenal. So are Vitamins A, C, E, sulfur containing amino acids and thousands of other natural substances. They are all amazing in their own right and only with synergy will they produce their truest benefits.

Most experts agree that consuming a variety of fruits and vegetables everyday is the best way to insure that we are getting a full spectrum of vitamins, minerals and antioxidant-phyto-nutrients (xanthones, flavonoids, phenols and polysaccharides). If an individual consumed a salad made of just celery or apple, it would leave his or her body wanting for more life sustaining nutrients.

Markers of nutritional juices and supplements would love for us to believe that purchasing their highly touted and advertised 100% nothing added products are the only way to go and the most advantageous for us, the consumer, to buy. It is totally false and at best it’s only this way for a small percentage of consumers: the rich and those seeking only that one specific product and not interested in the concept of synergy.

For the rest of us who are truly interested in staying healthy and getting the biggest bang for our buck, it’s all about synergy. As an example: a fruit salad made with 10 different fruits will yield more health benefits than a salad made with just one, that’s synergy! Or a freshly juiced vegetable blend made with 5 fresh vegetables will yield more health benefits than a juice made from just one, again that’s synergy!

It is disingenuous for any producer of a nutritional product or products to advertise or claim their 100% nothing added product as a panacea, (A remedy for all diseases, evils, or difficulties; a cure-all). No one product has ever been or will ever be such a thing. Only through synergy can we ever come close.

Ultimately, it is the educated consumer who will reap the benefits from the products that possess synergy and it will be the easily led or the rich who will spend their hard earned dollars on many unique 100% pure, nothing added products that could have been gotten with fewer products utilizing synergy.

Authors note: I am not saying that a 100% pure, nothing added product is bad or has no health benefit. There is a time and place for everything. What I am saying is that if I had the choice of a 100% pure, nothing added product or a blend, I would choose the blend.