Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Fat as disease?

A recent article from Dr. Mercola poses a very vexed question. It’s one we might all well ask ... Cui bono? Who benefits? In categorizing obesity as a disease it opens the door for drug treatment and even, potentially, for vaccination - but as Mercola states so plainly - “obesity is no more a disease than smoking!”

The factors that have brought us to the worldwide obesity crisis are many in number, they may not yet be fully elucidated, but certainly include the following:

  • epigenetic changes (trans-generational fatties)
  • unhealthy gut microbiota courtesy of Caesarean sections
  • unhealthy gut microbiota courtesy of formula feeding
  • hormonal and neurotransmitter imbalance
  • processed food
  • refined food
  • food containing high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
  • over supply-under nutrition
  • inappropriate advertising of unhealthy foods
  • sedentary lifestyle
  • loss of muscle mass
  • chronic toxic burden
  • unresolved stress

and on and on the list goes. The issues are many and varied and each individual will be affected by a different combination of them, so clearly the solution can’t be found in a drug or a vaccine, yet that’s the way the medical profession (in the US at least) is headed. In the same way, the mental health issues, with a similar long list of 21st century contributing factors as their root cause, are now categorised, medicalised and treated with expensive pharmaceuticals.

But back to the fat burden ... having recently seen an acquaintance who has lost 50Kg thanks to lap-banding surgery, I can tell you that nothing at all in her life has been solved. She looks terrible, feels nauseous all the time, and has not changed a single solitary one of the factors that have contributed to her lifetime of obesity and now to her long list of co-morbidities.

When will common sense prevail and true health promotion measures be applied by those who take the Hippocratic Oath?




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