Healthy Life Extension

News Flash Reveals US Government Responsible for Obesity Epidemic

posted on April 20, 2010

Only ten years ago, the average American woman’s waist was nearly two inches smaller than today’s.

The average 18-year-old today is 15 pounds heavier than an 18-year-old in the late 1970s. Adults have put on even more weight during that period. The average woman in her 60s is 20 pounds heavier than the average 60-something woman in the late 1970s. And the average man in his 60s is 25 pounds heavier.

Is it because we are getting lazier? Maybe prosperity is doing it to us?

 

No, This is why you're fat…         

Jeff Nield’s Treehugger.com article blows the lid off a massive government boondoggle.

 

You’d think a salad would cost much less than a Big Mac, right? After all, how expensive could it be to produce a salad? You plant a few seeds, let mother nature run her course, bend over in a couple of months to pick your ingredients, and there you have it.

Now for the Big Mac.

• You plant corn, let mother nature run her course, harvest the corn in a few months, and then you feed it to a cow. You keep doing this until the cow grows real big. (But first you have to buy the cow or at least own the cow’s parents)
• Then you slaughter the cow, throw away the stuff you don’t want and then grind up the meat.
• Meanwhile, you grow a bunch of wheat, harvest your crop, mill the wheat, make dough… and then you bake it until you have hamburger buns.
• During this process, you milk a dairy cow, go through a 21-step procedure, and you end up with cheese.

 

Wow, that’s a lot of work for a burger, Isn’t it? All those moving parts, all the labor, and all the resources and time. So obviously, the Big Mac cost more than the salad.

Not so fast Speedo. We didn’t factor in the insanity of government intervention.

When you look at federal subsidies for food production, here’s what you find:

1. Meat/Dairy                             73.8%
2. Grains                                     13.2%
3. Sugar/Oil/Starch/Alcohol        10.7%
4. Nuts/Legumes                           1.9%
5. Vegetables/Fruits                      0.4%

 

97.7% for foods that make you sick vs. 1.9% for nuts and legumes and a pathetic 0.4% for the healthiest foods.

So now you see that contrary to logic, a salad costs you more than a Big Mac.
It’s a classic case of contradictory government policy. The numbers clearly show the inverse relationship between federal government agriculture subsidies and federal nutrition recommendations.

The Farm Bill governs what children are fed in schools and what food assistance programs can distribute to recipients. The bill provides billions of dollars in subsidies, much of which goes to huge agribusinesses producing feed crops, such as corn and soy, which are then fed to animals. By funding these crops, the government supports the production of meat and dairy products--the same products that contribute to our growing rates of obesity and chronic disease. Fruit and vegetable farmers, on the other hand, receive less than one half of one percent of government subsidies.

The government also purchases surplus foods like cheese, milk, pork, and beef to distribute to food assistance programs--including school lunches. They are not required to purchase nutritious foods.
(Despite an early pledge to cut big ag subsidies, Obama caved in to the power of the agribusiness industry and reversed this plan.)

And then there's this: Adjusted for inflation, the price of fruits and vegetables has increased over 40% in the past 30 years. Meanwhile, everything else, including meat, beer, and especially soda has decreased.

Imagine how many more people would be alive and how much obesity and sickness we’d avoid if fruit and vegetable farms were subsidized at the same rates as meat and dairy operations.

Better yet, let’s just get the government out of subsidies altogether, and let the markets and your health find their natural levels.

Long Life,
David Kekich

P.S. Over 300,000 Americans die from obesity each year.
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LATEST HEALTHY LIFE EXTENSION HEADLINES

ON CALORIE RESTRICTION RESEARCH (April 16 2010) http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4684
This release via ScienceDaily summarizes the goals of present day calorie restriction research: "Organisms from yeast to rodents to humans all benefit from cutting calories. In less complex organisms, restricting calories can double or even triple lifespan. It's not yet clear just how much longer calorie restriction might help humans live, but those who practice the strict diet hope to survive past 100 years old. Calorie restriction influences the same handful of molecular pathways related to aging in all the animals that have been studied. Aware of the profound influence of calorie restriction on animals, some people have cut their calorie intake by 25 percent or more in hopes of lengthening lifespan. [Researcher Luigi Fontana] is less interested in calorie restriction for longer life than in its ability to promote good health throughout life.
Right now, the average lifespan in Western countries is about 80, but there are too many people who are only healthy until about age 50. We want to use the discoveries about calorie restriction and other related genetic or pharmacological interventions to close that 30-year gap between lifespan and 'healthspan.' However, by extending healthy lifespan, average lifespan also could increase up to 100 years of age."

IMMORTALITY ISN'T UNETHICAL (April 15 2010) http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4683
A general interest article on transhumanist visions of the future and immortality in the sense of the continued repair and reversal of aging through medical technology: "Immortality could be sneaking up faster than we can believe. Barely a month goes by without some new advance in organ replacement, and a recent operation to replace a boy's windpipe with one generated from his own stem cells was called 'embarrassingly simple' by the specialist in charge. Further breakthroughs could be made by the SENS Foundation, led by the radical immortalist Aubrey de Grey, with a brutally simple plan to give humans an unbeatable protection against cancer. This involves limiting human cells' ability to divide at cancerous levels, with regular top-ups from externally grown cells replacing worn-out tissue. If these technologies can hold to their promise, biological immortality, perhaps the most cherished goal of the transhumanists, may be with us in a few decades. A loose grouping of scientists, philosophers and sympathizers, with organizations such as the Oxford Future of Humanity Institute and Humanity+, transhumanists urge human progress through radical Humanity+technological enhancement. With regards to immortality, I'm certainly a sympathizer: if a dictator was murdering tens of millions of people right across the world, we'd gladly do anything to overthrow him. And yet aging, as eloquently put by the transhumanist philosopher Nick Bostrom, is a tyrant that kills us by the cartload - and what do we do to stop it?"

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It will be possible to replace the functions of some organs with machines in the near future, this advance accomplished on much the same timescale as the creation of tissue engineered replacement organs: "An artificial pancreas system that closely mimics the body's blood sugar control mechanism was able to maintain near-normal glucose levels without causing hypoglycemia in a small group of patients. The system, combining a blood glucose monitor and insulin pump technology with software that directs administration of insulin and the blood-sugar-raising hormone glucagon, was developed at Boston University (BU). The first clinical trial of the system was conducted at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and confirmed the feasibility of an approach utilizing doses of both hormones. Large doses of glucagon are used as a rescue drug for people with severely low blood sugar. Our system is designed to counteract moderate drops in blood sugar with minute doses of glucagon spread out throughout the day, just as the body does in people without diabetes." The future for this sort of technology is one of miniaturization, falling cost, and the possibility of incorporation into the body as an implanted device.

THE TITHONUS ERROR AS PROSPECTION ERROR (April 14 2010) http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4681
The Tithonus Error is the widespread and mistaken belief that extending the human life span will result in us being aged and decrepit for longer. This is not the case, however: engineered longevity can only be accomplished by repairing or reducing cellular and biochemical damage - which means you will be younger for longer. At In Search of Enlightenment, you'll find an examination of the roots of the Tithonus Error: "There is an irrational public predisposition to regard research on specific late-life diseases as marvelous but to regard research on aging, and thus all late-life diseases together, as a public menace bound to produce a world filled with nonproductive, chronically disabled, unhappy senior citizens consuming more resources than they produce. I am working on a new paper [that] examines how misperceptions about the present and future state of global health are themselves major obstacles to tackling aging. Because [imagined simulations of the future] are based on memories, medical research that proposes to eliminate a disease is much more likely to invoke hedonic experiences in our simulations then is a medical intervention that retards aging. Our inability to make accurate, sensible simulations of what a future of retarding human aging would entail (for both the developed and developing world) is itself one of the greatest obstacles to prioritizing aging research. And this problem needs to be redressed."

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TRIALING STEM CELLS TO HEAL HEART DAMAGE (April 12 2010) http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4676

Via EurekAlert!, another example of testing stem cells and heart regeneration: "Some patients with heart muscles seriously affected by coronary heart disease may soon be able to benefit from an innovative treatment. Researchers [are] evaluating the safety, feasibility and efficacy of injecting stem cells into the hearts of patients while they are undergoing coronary bypass surgery. These stem cells could improve healing of the heart and its function. The IMPACT-CABG (implantation of autologous CD133+ stem cells in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass CD133+ grafting) protocol evaluates this experimental procedure, which is destined for patients suffering from ischemic heart disease, in which the blood supply to the heart is decreased and associated with heart failure. These patients undergo open-heart coronary bypass surgery, performed by the medical team to improve perfusion of the heart muscle. A few weeks ago, the first patient received progenitor CD133+ stem cells isolated from his bone marrow and enriched, [and] has been doing very well ever since. Already, improvement has been noted in the contraction capacity of his heart, which has improved its ability to pump blood."

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