What has the phlogiston theory to do with the belief that the only cause of becoming overweight is eating too many calories and taking too little exercise?

What has the phlogiston theory to do with the belief that the only cause of becoming overweight is eating too many calories and taking too little exercise? - Well both theories are out of date.

In the 18th century the phlogiston theory of explaining combustion and breathing held sway until the 1780s when Lavoisier discovered oxygen and explained its role in burning and rusting, etc. The calories in/calories out theory for excess weight presently held by most of the orthodox medical world is an oversimplistic explanation for the excess weight. Essentially it says that overweight people eat too many calories and take too little exercise, ie they are greedy and lazy. The glaring omission is the fact that a great deal of excess weight has nothing to do with calories at all! - That is because it is water - and there are no calories in water!

Professor Sir Richard Doll wrote in a personal letter to me in August 2001, "I was interested to hear about your experience of being overweight and losing so much weight when you reduced the amount of salt in your food. That a high salt diet combined with certain drugs (of which steroids are an example) will lead to water retention is - or ought to be - well known and, of course, the contrary follows that reducing the salt will lead to the loss of water."

There are so many prescription drugs and classes of prescription drugs, and doctors are constantly being exhorted to prescribe more and more drugs, especially antidepressants, many of which cause water retention and its attendant health problems, notably stroke, high blood pressure and heart conditions, that I would contend that the ever-increasing numbers of prescription drugs being taken must certainly be the cause of a high proportion of obese people being overweight. An additional danger is that so many prescribed drugs are addictive, especially painkillers. So I hope that the theory that the only cause of becoming overweight is eating too many calories and taking too little exercise will soon, like the phlogiston theory of combustion, be consigned to the dustbin of history, and people can be saved from all the ill-health that so many prescribed drugs cause.

Many restaurant meals contain too much salt

BBC News reports that a "survey of nearly 700 popular meals served in celebrity chef and High Street restaurants found half were high in salt - equivalent to a red traffic light label on a supermarket product. From their research, Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) discovered that the 13 saltiest main meals contained more than the maximum recommended daily intake of 6g of salt."

To give Consensus Action on Salt and Health its due, it keeps on checking salt levels in various food products and in various establishments that serve meals, and it keeps on bringing out reports which draw attention to the continued high levels of salt that are potentially harmful to consumers. Professor Graham  MacGregor reminds us that "Salt puts up our blood pressure, and as a result, thousands of people die unnecessarily each year from strokes, heart attacks and heart failure. Whilst efforts have been made by foods in supermarkets to use less salt, chefs' preference for saltier foods is preventing further progress. It's clear from our survey that some chefs are not listening to their customers."

I just wish that, as well as drawing attention to high salt intake increasing blood pressure and causing premature deaths from strokes, heart attacks and heart failure, health experts would inform people that salt intake is a major factor in problems of obesity, child obesity and morbid obesity. This is especially the case for people who take or have taken prescribed steroids, HRT, antidepressants, some contraceptive medications, anti-convulsant/anti-epileptic drugs, anti-psychotics, and some other prescription drugs.

Read about how to lose weight by eating less salt and salty food.

I've been watching BBC2's The Men Who Made Us Fat

I watched Part 1 of The Men Who Made Us Fat on BBC2 last week. I must say it's a refreshing change to have some evidence-supported information about important causes of the dramatic rise in the incidence and severity of obesity and obesity-related ill-health instead of the usual incorrect propaganda.

In Part 1 it was explained how sugar is a major contributor to obesity and how since the second world war the USA's food industry has been ladling sugar, sugar and more sugar, into its processed junk food products, be they sweet or savoury. And another even more-dangerously obesogenic sugar, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is also added to their food junk and their ghastly soft drinks. This corn product use is massively profitable for America's corn farmers and massively damaging to the health and weight of American citizens. - Especially when it is coupled with the ill-conceived (blame Ancel Keys) misinformation that low-fat food is a good way to lose weight (it isn't and it doesn't work) and that low fat intake is good for our health (it isn't).

So those of us who were paying attention learned that although America purports to be a democracy and proclaims, "Government of the people, by the people, for the people," these days it's more like, "Government of the people, by the farm industry's political stooges, for the farm industry's profits, and to Hell with the well-being of the 'American people'".

On Thursday night I watched Part 2, in which it was explained that not content with changing America's food to obesogenic mass-manufactured highly-addictive crap, Big Business perverted civilised eating to a fast feeding process, with fast food outlets serving food fast to customers, who ate it fast (it didn't take too much chewing), sloshing it down with over-sweetened soft drinks, having queued for 'counter-service', so much speedier than table service. And furthermore, they increased portion sizes to ludicrous levels. - I found the gargantuan size of the drinks especially horrifying! 

Well America's citizens are now mostly pretty huge - well huge, certainly, but not so pretty... And they are so big that they almost look like another species. - And what does the food industry suggest as a remedy for this gross obesity problem caused in large part by the food industry itself? - Well, blame it on the victims of course! Like rapists used to do. - The victims need to eat less fat and take more exercise! (NOT)

But it is not lack of exercise that causes obesity, so taking more exercise does not and will not reduce obesity. Obesity causes inactivity, not the other way round, as I explain in my Mensa article. And as Professor Terry Wilkin of the Peninsula College of Medicine & Dentistry. explained in Thursday's programme. 

Professor Wilkin led a pioneering study into childhood weight gain and found that children do not gain weight because of inactivity and do not lose weight by taking exercise. The study had been commissioned by the government of the time, but the findings were unwelcome, so they were buried and funding stopped, and successive governments, few among them scientists, chose to heed the falsehoods of the food industry, i.e. cut down on fat, especially saturated fat, and take more exercise! - Oh dear! - Do you think it's too much like America's plight? - Government of the people, by Big Business interests, for the profits of the Food Industry and its mates? - What do you reckon? - We've got the Dept of Health being advised about how to tackle obesity by the food and drinks businesses who promote obesity. - Looks like we're gonna be getting more and more obese with all this crap food and crap advice, doesn't it?

And when are they going to get on to SALT? and anti-depressants? and other prescription drugs that cause weight gain?

When Obese People Get Swine Flu There Is a Risk of Severe Complications

Google News today has a number of reports about obesity resulting in severe complications and even death for people who catch H1N1 swine flu. My advice to anyone who is obese is to cut down your intake of salt and salty food as much as you can. - This is the way to lose weight safely and it will boost your immunity to infection.

People who are overweight/fat/obese are sensitive to salt, which for them can result in sodium and water retention and therefore, obviously, weight gain. This in turn can result in calcium deficiency, which causes fat retention. Reducing salt intake reduces both the fluid retention and the fat retention. - Reducing calories does not address the fluid retention problem at all and that is the explanation for the fact that diets don't work.

Prescription drugs including many steroids, many antidepressants, anti-psychotics and epilepsy drugs as well as other pharmaceuticals, are a major cause of fluid retention/obesity/salt sensitivity and especially of morbid obesity. - Avoid taking prescription drugs unless they are absolutely necessary.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver damage and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Government launches a campaign aimed at reducing incidence of obesity. Sadly it will fail because they are still not giving the right information.

Government targets obesity rates
from BBC News website. - The webpage includes an audio extract from the BBC Radio 4 Today programme in which Health Minister Ben Bradshaw and Tam Fry of the National Obesity Forum discuss ways to tackle obesity. Tam Fry does briefly mention salt. I've never heard him mention it before today. He mentioned it on Radio 5 today as well - in relation to lower salt crisps. - Maybe he read my blogpost the other day...(o: - http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-does-national-obesity-forum-give.html If so, that's a little progress...(o: - Ben Bradshaw seems as ill-informed about the causes of obesity as all the other Government ministers are...)o:

Extract:

"The government has launched a healthy living campaign in a bid to stem rising obesity rates in England.

It includes television adverts warning too much body fat leads to cancer, type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Ministers warned that, if left alone, obese and overweight people would cost the taxpayer in England £50bn by 2050.

Tesco, Kellogg's and Unilever are among the companies who will be promoting the "eat well, move more, live longer" message in the "Change4Life" strategy.

The three-year initiative follows a Foresight report, published last year, which warned the government must act to stop Britain "sleepwalking" into a crisis.

The report, which was the largest UK study into obesity, backed by the government and compiled by 250 experts, said excess weight had become the norm in our "obesogenic" society.

By 2050 90% of today's children will be overweight or obese, it predicted."

I don't understand how the Foresight report can be claimed to be a 'study', since it is not backed by scientific research. - Nowhere does all the welter of words give the vital information that excess weight is caused by sensitivity to salt and NOT by overeating. - Sensitivity to salt leads to fluid retention and this sometimes leads on to fat retention. - Fluid retention (i.e. excess weight) is easily reduced by cutting down on intake of salt and salty food. Eating plenty of fruit and unsalted vegetables makes the fluid loss even speedier. These measures also reduce fat retention. In addition fat retention can be reduced by increasing intake of calcium, magnesium and potassium.

Exercise has many potential benefits but those benefits do not include weight loss. Exercise does not reduce excess weight, no matter how many health ministers and medics tell you that it does!

And WHEN is someone in Government going to inform people that the most extreme cases of obesity - morbid obesity - are the result of taking prescription drugs incautiously prescribed, often in high dose, by doctors inadequately informed about their side-effects? - If we could have a Government initiative to curb the massive over-prescribing by doctors that would reduce obesity very effectively indeed!

So another load of money, time and effort is going to be wasted in yet again dinning into people that they are eating too much and that they should cut down on fat...)o:

Here is the correct information:

Lose weight safely, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Why does the National Obesity Forum give such poor advice? - Is it connected with the fact that the main sponsors of its website are drug companies?

"Sinister, isn't it? - Prescription drugs are a major cause of obesity, especially morbid obesity. - You're unlikely to learn that from anyone working for the NOF...

Here's what it said on their website on 23 Dec 2008 (but it seems to have disappeared since then! - I wonder if they have been visiting my website...(o:) about what causes child obesity:

"Cause of child obesity
When an individual is in energy balance (energy intake = energy expenditure) body weight remains constant. However an increase/decrease on either side of the equation can result in changes in body weight. Obesity occurs as a result of a long term positive energy balance, that is, energy intake has consistently exceeded energy expenditure. It is however important to remember that the causes of this energy imbalance can result from a multitude of genetic, biological, psychological, sociocultural, and environmental factors that affect both sides of the energy balance equation and the interrelationships among these factors."
(written by Siobhan Ahearne-Smith, and dated 18th March 2008)

It can, as I write, be viewed as part of this page http://www.childgrowthfoundation.org/pdf_files/primary_prevention_of_obesity.pdf - Better catch it while you can, in case it gets removed or modified...

The cause of obesity in children, as in adults, is fluid retention/salt sensitivity, and the way to reduce obesity is to reduce intake of salt and salty food. If children are protected from eating salty food from when they are babies they will not become overweight. They should also be protected from dieting (another major cause of weight gain because it increases fluid retention). They do not need to restrict fat intake or energy intake. They do not need to step up energy expenditure (i.e. take more exercise). Research shows that exercise has no effect on child obesity.

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

National Obesity Forum Website sponsored by educational grants from
Abbott Laboratories
Canderel
Roche
Sanofi-Aventis Ltd.
MeatandHealth.com

and their Conference sponsors:
Abbott
Roche
Sanofi-aventis UK
GlaxoSmithKilne
MEND
National Association of British and Irish Millers (NABIM)
Slimfast
Tanita
The Improvement Foundation

Further foolish claims made about genes as causes of obesity.

Six new obesity genes discovered
article in the Sunday Telegraph

Extract:

"Scientists looked at the genes of more than 90,000 people and uncovered six genetic variants associated with an increased Body Mass Index (BMI), the standard measurement of obesity.

Of the six, five are active in the brain, and could affect behaviour around food, rather than how the body breaks down fat or uses up energy, according to the findings, published in the journal Nature Genetics.

"It might seem remarkable that it is the brain that is most commonly influenced by genetic variation in obesity, rather than fat tissue or digestive processes," says Dr Ines Barroso, a senior author on the study, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. "Until 2007, no genetic associations had been found for 'common obesity', but today almost all those we have uncovered are likely to influence brain function."

Scientists hope that by analysing the genes they can better understand how they work and develop ways to tackle the problem."

This is pernicious nonsense. Genetic changes in brain function are not what cause obesity.

Obesity is caused by fluid retention, often accompanied by fat retention.

Fluid retention is caused by salt sensitivity/weakened veins, often caused by prescription drugs.

Fluid retention tends to lead to deficiency in calcium, magnesium and potassium. Deficiency in these minerals, especially calcium, and in vitamin D, causes fat retention.

Reducing salt intake reduces fluid retention AND fat retention. Increasing intake of calcium and vitamin D, magnesium and potassium, further reduces fat retention.

Read the following webpages for fuller information.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods and

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

Couch potatoes are costing NHS £1bn a year, claim Oxford University researchers, but they are mistaken.

Couch potatoes costing NHS £1bn a year, say researchers

Extract:

"Britain's couch potato tendency is costing the NHS £1bn a year as diseases linked to physical inactivity rise, according to research published today.

Our sluggishness causes both disease and death, says the report by experts at Oxford University's department of public health. They estimate that in 2003-04 more than 35,000 deaths could have been avoided if Britons had enjoyed a more active lifestyle.

The study takes into account only the direct costs to the NHS of lack of exercise, focusing on the treatment of heart disease, stroke, breast and bowel cancers, and diabetes. There are also high indirect costs associated with days lost to sickness absence and premature death, private healthcare costs and home care."

These researchers are making the same mistake as those I wrote about in this blog entry http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/2007/03/15-minutes-of-football-can-halve.html They are confusing cause with effect. Exercise does not reduce obesity and there is no evidence that it does.

See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html for the political and politically-related causes of obesity.

Calorie counting and advice about increasing exercise and reducing fat and carbohydrate intake to reduce obesity are ineffective, counter-productive and often damaging. - See the article in the British Medical Journal of November 2003 BMJ article for actual research on what happens when this advice is followed! - Over 800 obese adults were put on energy deficit diets, given diet sheets and plenty of instruction and help from trained staff, and apparently, visited fortnightly for a year, at the end of which they had GAINED weight! This mirrors the real experience of obese people, viz. - dieting makes you fat.

It is commonly accepted now, except by the 'experts', that less than 5% of dieters actually lose weight, and most gain weight as a result of dieting.

Obesity is not caused by overeating. It is caused by fluid retention, which in turn is usually caused by sensitivity to salt and excess weight is easily lost by cutting down on salt and salty food.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)