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“Liquid candy” leads to weighty problems

04 Sep 2011 - Preaching the News for Sunday

Loving one another fulfills Jewish law because love “does no evil,” explains Saint Paul in this Sunday’s selection from the Letter to the Romans. But not all “loves” are benign. A new study has shed light on America’s increasing love affair with sugary beverages, which in part explains the growing problem of obesity, especially among the young. Over half the people in the U.S. drink a sugary beverage a day, said the new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Males ages 12 to 19 guzzle the most sugary drinks, about 273 calories' worth per day on average. And 70 percent of boys ages 2 to 19 consume sugary drinks on any given day. Sugary beverages have been implicated as contributors to obesity, especially among the young, and that in part explains why the world is becoming a heavier place. Obesity rates worldwide have doubled in the last three decades, according to three new studies being published in the British medical journal The Lancet. People in the Pacific Islands, such as American Samoa, are the heaviest, one of the studies found. In developed countries, Americans are the most obese and Japanese are the slimmest. In 1980 about 5 percent of men and 8 percent of women worldwide were obese. By 2008 the rates were nearly 10 percent for men and 14 percent for women. An additional 1.5 billion adults worldwide were overweight. On the heels of the CDC study on sweetened drinks, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) announced it's taking part in the “Life’s Sweeter With Fewer Sugar Drinks” campaign, whose mission is to get people to drink fewer sugary beverages. The campaign's goal is to broaden the battle against sugary drinks from health experts to civic organizations, youth groups, civil rights groups, and others, said CSPI Executive Director Michael Jacobson. "The enormous health and economic benefits that would result from drinking less 'liquid candy' will be supported by a broad cross section of America. Not since the anti-tobacco campaigns has there been a product so worthy of a national health campaign," Jacobson said. Sources: Articles by Jeannine Stein for the Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press

young people obesity centers for disease control and prevention center for science in the public interest sugary drinks life’s sweeter with fewer sugar drinks michael jacobson

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“Liquid candy” leads to weighty problems

04 Sep 2011 - Preaching the News for Sunday

Loving one another fulfills Jewish law because love “does no evil,” explains Saint Paul in this Sunday’s selection from the Letter to the Romans. But not all “loves” are benign. A new study has shed light on America’s increasing love affair with sugary beverages, which in part explains the growing problem of obesity, especially among the young. Over half the people in the U.S. drink a sugary beverage a day, said the new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Males ages 12 to 19 guzzle the most sugary drinks, about 273 calories' worth per day on average. And 70 percent of boys ages 2 to 19 consume sugary drinks on any given day. Sugary beverages have been implicated as contributors to obesity, especially among the young, and that in part explains why the world is becoming a heavier place. Obesity rates worldwide have doubled in the last three decades, according to three new studies being published in the British medical journal The Lancet. People in the Pacific Islands, such as American Samoa, are the heaviest, one of the studies found. In developed countries, Americans are the most obese and Japanese are the slimmest. In 1980 about 5 percent of men and 8 percent of women worldwide were obese. By 2008 the rates were nearly 10 percent for men and 14 percent for women. An additional 1.5 billion adults worldwide were overweight. On the heels of the CDC study on sweetened drinks, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) announced it's taking part in the “Life’s Sweeter With Fewer Sugar Drinks” campaign, whose mission is to get people to drink fewer sugary beverages. The campaign's goal is to broaden the battle against sugary drinks from health experts to civic organizations, youth groups, civil rights groups, and others, said CSPI Executive Director Michael Jacobson. "The enormous health and economic benefits that would result from drinking less 'liquid candy' will be supported by a broad cross section of America. Not since the anti-tobacco campaigns has there been a product so worthy of a national health campaign," Jacobson said. Sources: Articles by Jeannine Stein for the Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press

young people obesity centers for disease control and prevention center for science in the public interest sugary drinks life’s sweeter with fewer sugar drinks michael jacobson

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Mediterranean food is good for what ails you

03 Mar 2013 - Preaching the News for Sunday

"The Lord is kind and merciful," the psalmist assures us this Sunday, and “heals all your ills.” When it comes to healing diet-related ills, two new studies suggest that cutting sugar intake and increasing the use of olive oil and nuts may be good for what ails you.A study published in the Feb. 27 issue of the journal PLoS One, published by the Public Library of Science, strongly linked increased consumption of sugar with increased rates of diabetes by examining the data on sugar availability and the rates of diabetes in 175 countries over the past decade. After accounting for many other factors, the researchers found that increased sugar in a population’s food supply was linked to higher diabetes rates independent of rates of obesity. In other words, according to this study, obesity doesn’t cause diabetes: Sugar does.The study demonstrated this link with the same level of confidence that linked cigarettes and lung cancer in the 1960s. According to Rob Lustig, one of the study’s authors and a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California, San Francisco, “You could not enact a real-world study that would be more conclusive than this one.”At the same time, a Mediterranean diet rich in olive oil and nuts beats a low-fat diet hands down in preventing strokes and heart attacks in healthy older people at high risk for cardiovascular disease, according to research released Monday.Spanish researchers found that the consumption of extra-virgin olive oil and nuts “were probably responsible for most of the observed benefits” attained by those in the two study groups on a Mediterranean diet. The findings, released by the New England Journal of Medicine, also add to mounting evidence contradicting a long-held tenet of dieting to improve health: That all calories are equal. Most of the calories in a Mediterranean diet come from fatty fish, fruits, vegetables, and fatty acids and almost none from red meat.The superiority of the Mediterranean diet was substantial: Those who followed one were 30 percent less likely than others to suffer a heart attack, stroke, or death attributed to cardiovascular disease during the study. And Mediterranean dieters were almost 40 percent less likely than low-fat dieters to have a stroke during the follow-up period, which lasted nearly five years.Homily hint: Obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular ailments are at nearly epidemic proportions in the U.S. population. Perhaps your faith community could partner with a nearby healthcare institution to provide information on these conditions. Offer the ounce of prevention that could help loved ones avoid the pound of cure. Sources: Articles by Mark Bittman for the New YorkTimes and Melissa Healy for the Los Angeles Times

health calories new england journal of medicine nuts olive oil university of california san francisco rob lustig diabetes sugar public library of science mediterranean food diet stroke heart attack cardiovascular disease

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