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?

If your medication causes sodium retention you will gain weight and may become obese

There are many medications that cause sodium retention/fluid retention/water retention/weight gain/obesity/edema/swelling. Here are some of them: steroids and HRT, most antidepressants, antipsychotics, anti-epileptics, anticonvulsants, and more.

If you have become overweight/obese because of drug-induced sodium retention, you need to reduce your salt intake in order to lose weight. If you do not reduce your salt intake you will continue to gain weight, regardless of how many or how few calories you eat.

Fat and fed up of feeling hungry and tired but still not getting slimmer?

Fat and fed up of feeling hungry and tired but still not getting slimmer? It's not fair, is it? - It's definitely not fair!

Now what to do about it, you're wondering? - Well I've some suggestions to make which I truthfully think you will find helpful. - Give up the dieting! - Give up the strenuous exercise you've been (vainly) hoping would 'burn off' some fat! - In other words, give up the deliberate and unhelpful hunger and exhaustion, and instead try seriously cutting down on salt.

I think you'll find that by eating less salt and salty food you will lose weight easily, safely and quickly. I have a webpage that tells you about which foods are high and which are low in salt/sodium. And I promise you that however much or little weight you lose this way, you will certainly feel a lot better and will be in better health. It won't make you hungry and it won't make you tired, but it will give you a very good chance of becoming slimmer and fitter. - What's not to like? - Go on! - Give it a try!

What if it's not too much fat that you are carrying around? What if it's excess water weight?

What is it's not too much fat that you are carrying around? What if it's excess water weight? - That's right. - Have you considered that it could be fluid retention that is your problem? If it's fluid retention it is a simple matter to reduce it. You need to eat less salt and salty food.

Your excess weight is likely to be water weight/fluid retention if you are one of the people who are vulnerable to salt, also known as sensitive to salt. The vulnerable groups include people who take or have taken certain prescribed steroids, including prednisone and prednisolone, or certain other prescribed drugs, women who take or have taken HRT or other oestrogen-containing drugs such as some contraceptive medications, people who take or have taken amitriptyline or other tricyclic antidepressants, or SSRIs like Prozac, people who take or have taken some other psychotropic/psychoactive drugs, pregnant mothers, PMT sufferers and people who ate salt as children.

If you fall into one of the vulnerable groups I have listed or if you ate a high salt diet as a child you will be sensitive to salt. People without this problem can eat salty foods without doing a lot of harm to themselves, because their kidneys will excrete the sodium which is excess to their requirements. But for people sensitive to salt, some of the excess sodium, along with the water it attracts, will enter their blood stream and not be excreted. So they carry extra weight - as water - around with them all the time. They also lose more heat from their bodies because the surface area of their body has increased with the added water, and the rate at which a body loses heat is proportional to its surface area. - They therefore need extra calories to do the extra work and to provide the extra heat. - So their appetite increases in order to obtain these extra calories. - So they may very well eat more to satisfy their genuine need for calories. - If what they eat is salty, then the cycle will repeat itself and they are likely to become obese.

To break the cycle and put the process into reverse, all that is necessary for them to do is to eat less salt. And eating extra potassium by way of fresh fruit and vegetables will accelerate the excretion of the sodium and water and speed up the weight loss. If you want to lose weight, eat less salt!

I lost 50 pounds excess weight in 14 months by simply cutting down on salt and salty food

I lost 50 pounds excess weight in 14 months by simply cutting down on salt and salty food. I just lost it steadily during that time, without gaining weight at all except when I bought and ate a ready-made sandwich while I was out one day and that week gained a pound. (Bread is very fattening for overweight people because it contains a lot of added salt.)

If you are overweight/fat/obese, you too could lose weight easily and safely by eating less salt and salty food. There is no need to go hungry or to count calories and definitely no need to damage your health by taking weight loss drugs or appetite suppressants. Just eat less salt and salty food. - You will feel so much better!

International No Diet Day: that's today, May 6th

That's right: today is International No Diet Day. I hope all dieters are observing it...(o:

But seriously, I urge you to give up dieting, not just for today, but for ever. Dieting is not necessary to lose weight and, indeed, diets do not work. In fact dieting is harmful.

Why do you think people find that diets don't work? - It's because obesity is caused by fluid retention/salt sensitivity, not by eating too many calories. It's not the calories in junk food that make you gain weight; it's the SALT.

We all know people who eat like trenchermen but never get fat. - They are the lucky people who are not sensitive to salt. For them, eating salt doesn't lead to fluid retention because their strong veins can withstand the input of salt/sodium when they eat more of it than their body needs. - Their kidneys do not have a problem dealing with the salt/sodium and they excrete any excess salt/sodium in their urine, along with the water that salt always attracts to itself.

When excess fluid (i.e. excess salt and water) is held in the veins, the extra blood volume obviously adds to a person's weight: water weighs heavily in fact. - So if you are overweight and reduce your salt intake you will shed some of the excess fluid held in your body and will therefore lose weight - easily, safely and fast.

And do not despise the weight lost and think well, it's only water. - Excess WATER is what you need to lose in order to lose weight safely. - You don't want to lose lean muscle/firm flesh. You don't want your skin and bones to become thinner and more fragile. - You don't want to lose your hair.

Believe me: you want to lose excess fluid. - There is a great bonus to losing excess fluid. - If you have fat retention as well as fluid retention, then reducing salt intake also reduces fat retention.

There are no calories in salt - but if you cut down on salt you will easily lose excess weight. If you cut down on calories you will not lose excess weight.

See Sodium in foods

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Lose weight

vulnerable groups

FAT RETENTION

Antidepressants don't work and most of them make you fatter.

So why take them? - It's a no-brainer.

BEFORE you go to the doctor to ask for anti-depressants, consider this research finding, reported in February 2008 in the Telegraph: Anti-depressants 'no better than dummy pills' by a Hull University team led by Prof Irving Kirsch. - I hope this will save a lot of people having their lives/health damaged by harmful, useless drugs.

MIND, the mental health charity, recommends a walk in the country as being helpful in lifting depression.

Are you on a diet? - Dieting is an often overlooked, but significant cause of depression. Good nutrition is an excellent way to improve your health. Obviously when you are not eating enough for the needs of your body and your brain you will experience both physical and mental harm. - It is not necessary (or desirable, or effective or even safe) to diet to lose weight. The safe, natural way to lose excess weight is to cut down on salt and salty food. Avoid ready meals and takeaways because these are usually highly salted and offer poor nutrition. They are likely to worsen your feelings of depression.
See amitriptyline
And see Sodium in foods

BBC TV Programme: Who Made Me Fat?

I watched part of this a couple of evenings ago and the remainder on the iPlayer this evening. You could watch it on the iPlayer too - BBC TV Programme: Who Made Me Fat?

I can't say I favour the tabloidy style of either the programme or of the presenter, nor was I thrilled that yet again an opportunity was lost to tell the truth about what really causes obesity. There were transient references to salt here and there during the programme, but not the slightest effort to explain why salt gets mentioned at all in the anti-obesity advice/insults/lies that are currently being used against overweight/obese human beings in a doomed strategy to reduce obesity. And yet SALT is the ingredient that needs to be reduced/restricted/avoided in order to reduce obesity. (Just a reminder that they are human beings, by the way. The way fat people are usually shown on television is without heads. - Have you noticed? - Fat bodies walking along the street or fat bodies sitting on chairs? Heads chopped off to avoid identification or to avoid complaints or what? - To avoid thinking of fat people as fellow human beings with feelings and sensitivities like other people? The show's presenter came pretty close to presenting them as mere objects of derision, I'd say.)

Obesity is not caused by over-eating or by laziness or by a combination of the two.
Taking extra exercise does not reduce obesity.
Trying to 'shame' fat people into losing weight cannot succeed because they are being given the wrong information/advice about what causes obesity and how best to reduce it.

Since obesity seems to be regarded as inexorably on the increase despite the evermore strident and ubiquitous advice and the ever-increasing money poured into giving that advice, isn't it time that even the bird-brained among us realised that the advice being given is self-evidently wrong?

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!

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.

Diet drinks do not help you to lose weight. Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! Try it!

Who drinks diet drinks? - Well, mostly it's fat folk, and they mostly stay fat and get fatter, don't they? - Don't drink diet coke and other diet drinks if you want to lose weight. Drink water instead. - It's cheaper, healthier and safer and it doesn't contain iffy chemicals.

Here's what to do to lose weight fast and really easily, and it's perfectly safe:

LOSE WEIGHT

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Sodium in foods

Fat retention and fat excretion: the importance of getting enough calcium.

John Humphrys on Radio 4's Today programme has made his prejudices about obese people clear this morning

John Humphrys was interviewing someone this morning about the inconsistency of access to weight loss surgery provided by the NHS. Both interviewer and interviewee seemed to be confident that obesity is caused, or mainly caused, by eating too much and taking insufficient exercise. Humphrys even aired the idea that it should be thought of as a moral or ethical problem. But these two men are so wrong in their ill-informed opinions. (As to whether people should be offered weight loss surgery, with all the risks and pain that major surgery entails, my personal view is that this surgery should be avoided, unless at the same time the correct information is given about the paramount importance of avoiding salt and salty food.)

Salt sensitivity/fluid retention (which often leads to calcium deficiency and fat retention) is the problem, not gluttony or laziness.

Obesity is the main underlying cause of most chronic illness and a lot of frailty. It is therefore increasingly desirable to reduce the incidence and severity of obesity because this would reduce chronic illness, frailty and human suffering to a small fraction of what it is now. But this CANNOT be achieved by continuing to give the wrong information about the causes of obesity and about how best to reduce obesity.

The continuing increase in the incidence and severity of obesity is NOT caused by eating too many calories/too much fat and/or taking too little exercise. – No matter how many doctors and other ‘experts’ claim that it is, and that it can be reduced by eating fewer calories and taking more exercise, they are wrong and it is still NOT true. – The hypothesis has never been put to the test scientifically and there is certainly not a shred of valid evidence to back it up.

There is, however, a wealth of evidence to show that it is NOT true. – Millions upon millions of innocent overweight people have tried over decades to reduce their excess weight by eating fewer calories and taking more exercise. – Overwhelmingly they fail to lose weight this way. – They get tired; they feel cold and ill and hungry. – But they do not lose weight (or if they do it is only temporary). – The ‘experts’ then tell them that they have done it wrong; they haven’t tried hard enough or long enough; they are lying; they are mistaken, etc. – The ‘experts’ cannot get their heads around the fact that it is THEY who are wrong; THEY who are lying; THEY who are mistaken…

Obesity is caused by fluid retention in people who are sensitive to salt. – It is as simple, and as profoundly complex, as that.

Now – what really causes the fluid retention/salt sensitivity/obesity? – Here are the main causes:

1. Prescription drugs such as tricyclic antidepressants like amitriptyline.

Amitriptyline is also known as Elavil, Tryptanol, Endep, Elatrol, Tryptizol, Trepiline, Laroxyl, and is present in some combination drugs, e.g. Limbitrol is a drug which combines amitriptyline and chlordiazepoxide.

Weight gain is also widely reported by people taking Lexapro, Prozac, Fontex, Celexa and Paxil. These are not tricyclic antidepressants; they are SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors). As with the tricyclic antidepressants, the weight gain is because of sodium retention and fluid/water retention, and can be avoided/reduced by avoiding eating salt and salty food.

2. Other prescription drugs such as steroids including prednisolone (also sold as Pediapred®), prednisone (also sold as Deltasone®, Meticorten, Orasone and SK-Prednisone), cortisone, hydrocortisone, dexamethasone, betamethasone, beclomethasone, fludrocortisone, triamsinolone, desonide, fluprednidene, clobetasone, alclomethasone, momethasone, desoxymethasone, fluosinonide, budesonide, fluosinolone, triamcinolone (trade names Kenalog, Aristocort, Nasacort, Tri-Nasal, Triderm, Azmacort, Trilone, Volon A, Tristoject, Fougera, Tricortone, Triesence) and other corticosteroids, Advair – a combination drug that contains Fluticasone, a corticosteroid, HRT and other medications containing oestrogen – like some birth control medication (contraceptives) – some anti-psychotic drugs, including Zyprexa (aka olanzapine) and other psychotropic drugs, and some anti-epileptic/anticonvulsant drugs, notably valproate (trade name Epilim).

If you have been inappropriately prescribed or over-dosed with corticosteroids or HRT or the many other drugs that cause weight gain, then you may well have developed drug-induced Cushing’s Syndrome, a very serious illness, frequently far more serious than the health problem for which the drugs were prescribed. It is, to the best of my knowledge, an entirely preventable illness if doctors conform to the protocols for prescribing these drugs and if they monitor patients’ progress on the drugs, and if they warn patients about salt. It is VITALLY important that it be realised that weight gain resulting from these drugs is from sodium and water retention, so patients taking these drugs should be warned not to eat salt, or foods containing salt, while taking the medication. They should also be informed that any weight gained in this way can easily and swiftly be reduced by eating less salt/sodium, and they should be warned not to try to lose weight by eating less food or restricting calories because this will not help them to lose weight and is harmful.

If you gain weight suddenly and unexpectedly when you start to take prescribed medication that I have not mentioned on this page, it is highly likely that the weight gain is caused by the drug. You may like to consider whether you really need to take that drug, or whether the dose could be lowered. At any rate if you continue with the drug, try to reduce your salt intake in order to reduce the weight gain. Doctors seldom, if ever, warn about the drugs that cause salt sensitivity and the need very strictly to avoid salt and salty food while on the drugs, and many do not observe the drug protocols and very few properly monitor the patient’s progress on the drugs. Obviously if doctors did do all these things, there would be no steroid victims, no patients with drug-induced obesity, etc. whereas there are many millions of them worldwide, victims of medical negligence and ignorance.

3. If, as a baby or small child, you ate salt and salty food, you were highly likely to have developed sensitivity to salt and you therefore became fat or overweight.

4. Pregnancy can cause fluid retention/salt sensitivity because of hormonal changes during pregnancy. It is important to avoid salt and salty food during pregnancy.

These are the main causes of obesity. Dieting/calorie counting makes obesity worse and should be avoided.

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 and kidney problems, boost your lung function and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it!

See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Sodium in foods

Fat retention and fat excretion: the importance of getting enough calcium.

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

Do you wonder why it is that some people can eat whatever they like, and as much as they like, and not become fat?

Do you wonder why it is that some people can eat whatever they like, and as much as they like, and not become fat, while other people become fat despite not eating a lot and not being lazy? - The explanation is that the people who become fat are vulnerable to salt. For them, eating salt causes them to retain extra bodily fluid and this causes rhem to become fatter and to gain weight.

The groups of people vulnerable to salt are babies and children, people who take or who have taken certain prescribed steroids, including prednisone and prednisolone, or certain other prescribed drugs, women who take or have taken HRT or other oestrogen-containing drugs such as some contraceptive medications, people who take or have taken amitriptyline or other tricyclic antidepressants or some other psychotropic/psychoactive drugs, pregnant mothers, PMT sufferers and people who ate salt as children. These groups need to minimise their salt intake.

Salt Can Cause Obesity

If you fall into one of the vulnerable groups I have listed or if you ate a high salt diet as a child you will be sensitive to salt. People without this problem can eat salty foods without doing a lot of harm to themselves, because their kidneys will excrete the sodium which is excess to their requirements. But for people sensitive to salt, some of the excess sodium, along with the water it attracts, will enter their blood stream and not be excreted. So they carry extra weight - as water - around with them all the time. They also lose more heat from their bodies because the surface area of their body has increased with the added water, and the rate at which a body loses heat is proportional to its surface area. - They therefore need extra calories to do the extra work and to provide the extra heat. - So their appetite increases in order to obtain these extra calories. - So they may very well eat more to satisfy their genuine need for calories. - If what they eat is salty, then the cycle will repeat itself and they are likely to become obese.

To break the cycle and put the process into reverse, all that is necessary for them to do is to eat less salt. And eating extra potassium by way of fresh fruit and vegetables will accelerate the excretion of the sodium and water and speed up the weight loss.

In my opinion, people who remain slim are slim not because they have strong will-power to resist extra calories, but because they have strong-walled healthy veins which can resist the incursion of extra salt water.

See also my Fat Retention page.

If you want to lose weight, eat less salt!

Forget about calories! - Cut down on salt! - You'll lose weight fast - as if by magic!

Are you so fat that you can't reach your feet any more? - You are suffering from fluid retention and sensitivity to salt.

Are you so fat that you can't reach your feet any more? - You are suffering from fluid retention and sensitivity to salt. - It is easy to reduce fluid retention: you just need to cut down on salt and salty food. - This webpage Sodium in foods
gives you information about the salt/sodium content of various foods.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

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.

Vulnerable groups

FAT RETENTION

Salt can make you hungry and tired, as well as thirsty.

When overweight/obese people cut down on salt they lose weight, because for them, cutting down on salt reduces their thirst and excess fluid retention. Then, having less weight to carry round obviously means they become less tired. And in addition, because of having less weight to carry around, they need less food to provide them with the energy/calories to carry their lighter body around, so they feel less hungry.

There is no need to diet to lose weight! - Dieting makes you more tired, cold and hungry. It is not necessary, it does not make you less obese, and it is usually harmful.

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.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Vulnerable groups

Sodium in foods

Quick, safe weight loss without drugs or hunger

Quick, safe weight loss without drugs or hunger: most importantly you have to give up dieting and counting calories. Dieting is harmful and unnecessary.

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.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Vulnerable groups

And see Sodium in foods and

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

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

Fat? Overweight? You are sensitive/vulnerable to salt.

Fat? Overweight? Then you are sensitive/vulnerable to salt.

See Vulnerable groups

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.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods

FAT RETENTION

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

I watched Blood and Guts: a History of Surgery, last night on BBC2.

I watched Blood and Guts: a History of Surgery, last night on BBC2. It was the last part of a 5 part series and was very interesting. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00d4b70

Of particular interest to me was the historical information about Galen and Vesalius. Galen was a Greek doctor who lived in the 2nd century, and whose notes and drawings about human anatomy were for over a thousand years regarded by doctors as accurate and faultless. So for all those many hundreds of years no-one bothered to check out his (flawed) work! - Wikipedia has a couple of fascinating pages on the History of Anatomy - see http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=aa05 and includes the following:

Vesalius and the science of anatomy: AD 1533-1543

A young medical student, born in Brussels and known to history as Vesalius, attends anatomy lectures in the university of Paris. The lecturer explains human anatomy, as revealed by Galen more than 1000 years earlier, while an assistant points to the equivalent details in a dissected corpse. Often the assistant cannot find the organ as described, but invariably the corpse rather than Galen is held to be in error.

My compliments to the writer of that last sentence...(o:

Well, it's a jolly good job Vesalius came along!

Basically, then, in medicine and surgery, there are two sorts of truth/evidence:

1. beliefs assumed, and asserted to be facts by a medical or surgical authority, like Galen, i.e. not evidence-based
   
2. beliefs for which there is empirical evidence and scientific research that can be replicated, i.e. evidence-based
   

Unfortunately for people the world over, the medical profession still overwhelmingly favours authority over scientific research and evidence.

Thus we still have overweight/obese/fat people routinely insulted and told that they are obese because they are greedy and/or lazy, and they are exhorted to eat less and take more exercise. - This is the damaging advice of the 'authorities' on obesity. There's no evidence to support these theories and indeed no tests have ever been done to test their validity.

Eating less and exercising more does NOT reduce obesity and millions of overweight people know from experience that it doesn't. Sadly it's the only advice they get, usually, and if they take this advice they are further harmed. There doesn't seem to be a modern counterpart of Vesalius in the present medical profession, no-one to revolutionise that ignoble profession's thinking and practice on the subject of obesity that is damaging untold millions of people and steadily destroying national economies.

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.

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

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

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

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.

If you are overweight or obese, you may have noticed that your veins have swollen. Here's some information and advice:

When people whose blood vessels are weaker than the norm eat salt, the result is weight gain and obesity (because of excess sodium and water held in the blood vessels and elsewhere). This condition is also known as sodium retention, water retention, fluid retention, salt sensitivity or oedema. If these people reduce their salt intake they lose some of the excess sodium and water, and so lose weight, and if they eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables they lose weight faster, because the potassium in the fruit and vegetables displaces some of the excess sodium from the body.

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 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.

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

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.

The Fatter You Are, the More Important it is that You Cut Down on Salt.

Salt is more harmful to fat people than it is to slim or average-size people. - You will feel so much better and have more energy if you cut down on salt.

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 and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it!

See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Sodium in foods

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

New research based on flawed assumptions claims to explain why some people do not get flabby.

The research reported in this article in the Daily Telegraph Fat enzyme explains why some people don't get flabby is based on the usual false assumptions for which there is no supporting evidence, namely that obesity is caused by high calorie intake and that retention of excess fat is caused by excessive fat intake. These assumptions are not true so any conclusions based on them must be flawed and are likely to be irrelevant.

Obesity is caused by sodium retention/fluid retention/salt sensitivity, not by eating too much food. It can be easily reduced by cutting down on salt/sodium and salty food. The calorie explanation for obesity (eating too many calories and not taking much exercise – i.e. greed plus laziness) is clearly wrong because many – probably most – people can eat as much as they like and not become overweight, even if they take very little exercise. – They are what I call on my website ‘the lucky people’. – They are the slim people. – They are the people who have healthy veins and kidneys and are not sensitive to salt. They simply excrete in the urine any excess salt and its attendant water, so they do not gain weight by fluid retention.

The reason they do not put on excess weight when they overeat is that they simply excrete any excess fat/calories they eat. (Faeces tend to contain a lot of fat/calories, which is why animal dung is used as fuel in many countries.)

A few years ago BBC2 showed a series of programmes called “The Truth About Food” and I learnt about some Danish research which throws light on this. – See http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/humanbody/truthaboutfood/slim/calcium.shtml where you will read: "a high calcium intake increases the excretion of fat in the faeces". – There is the necessary information! – In fact, the researchers found that twice as much fat was excreted on a high calcium intake as on a low calcium intake – and this was independent of calorie intake. – They also found that dairy calcium (they suggest yoghurt) is a particularly good source for this extra calcium.

Even the frequent claim that fat deposits in the bodies of fat people are there to be drawn upon 'in leaner times' is a pure guess and is not correct. - The fat deposits are caused by the altered body chemistry (depletion of calcium and other essential minerals in the body) resulting from excess blood volume/fluid retention/salt sensitivity.

So to reduce fat retention, if it is present, the most important thing is to alter the diet to reduce the fluid retention which is the initiating cause of excess weight and the primary reason for fat people being short of calcium and for fat people ‘dieting’. That means reducing sodium intake and ensuring plenty of fruit and vegetables in the diet (because their high potassium content helps to displace sodium from the body).

And specifically it also means having a higher intake of calcium, especially, if possible, from dairy yoghurt. – It is also necessary to ensure sufficient vitamin D intake, as this is needed to metabolise the calcium. There is increasing research evidence that vitamin D deficiency is associated with being overweight - and insufficiency of vitamin D is quite common, as is widely reported, e.g. here - http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/vitamind.asp

In my personal opinion it is neither necessary nor desirable to adopt a low fat diet. Low fat intake can be harmful, especially for small children.

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 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.

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.