Junk Food "as Addictive as Cocaine"?

A recent study in the journal Nature Neuroscience seems to indicate that junk food may not simply be bad for us, but may also be highly addictive - producing brain chemistry changes that are similar to those observed in people addicted to nicotine, cocaine and other drugs. The study by Paul Kenny and Paul M Johnson of of Scripps Research Institute, offered rats a choice between healthy, nutritious food and a selection of salty, high calorie snack-foods including bacon, sausage, chocolate and even cheesecake. The rodents quickly developed a preference for the snacks and became obese and "dependent" on ever increasing amounts of junk foods.

"Most people who are overweight would say, 'I would like to control my weight and my eating,' but they find it very hard to control their feeding behavior," says Kenny. But eating can trigger the release of dopamine, a feel-good neurotransmitter in the brain. This internal chemical reward, in turn, increases the likelihood that the associated action (eating junk food, in this case) will eventually become habitual through positive reinforcement conditioning. If allowed to continue (and lets face it, we are all encouraged to continue by non-stop, 360 marketing), stopping can be every bit as difficult as ending a drug habit. "Counseling techniques, therapy and even pharmaceutical treatments that have shown success for substance abuse might show promise for those who struggle with overeating," Kenny notes.

If the original study seems a bit technical, here is a more accessible summary from Scientific American. The bottom line? Its likely that overeating and eating too much of the wrong things can be an addictive cycle, and that many people simply will not be able to break the cycled by willpower alone.

United Nations to Focus on "Lifestyle" Diseases

Noting that nearly 2/3 of all deaths worldwide are now caused by "lifestyle" diseases such as cancer, diabetes, heart and lung disease, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon announced a UN-sponsored summit in September to bring focus to the need to combat these diseases. The "big four" non-communicable diseases "have emerged relatively unnoticed in the developing world and are now becoming a global epidemic," Moon said.

Thirty six million people died from these diseases in 2008, according to a UN report, representing 63% of the 57 million deaths globally that year. Almost 80% of these deaths were in the developing world, and 9 million of them were men or women under 60 years old. Ban went on to say that the rapidly increasing magnitude of non-communicable diseases is fueled by rising risk factors including tobacco use, unhealthy diet, lack of physical activity, obesity and harmful alcohol use — and is driven in part by an aging population, the negative impact of urbanization, and the globalization of trade and marketing.

Professor David Bloom of the Harvard School of Public Health is leading a project to estimate the global economic burden of non-communicable diseases. His preliminary results indicate that the economic burden is substantial and ""will evolve into a staggering economic burden over the next two decades" that could have a huge impact on economic development and fighting poverty. Bloom said his researchers estimate a loss of economic output amounting to $35 trillion during the 25-year period from 2005 to 2030 due to a key group of non-communicable diseases — diabetes, ischemic heart disease including strokes, cerebral vascular disease, chronic destructive pulmonary disease, and breast cancer. To put this number in perspective, $35 trillion is seven times the current level of global health spending, and 15 times the 2011 value of all the overseas development assistance in the world over the past quarter century.

What does this mean to you? It means that the things that are most likely to shorten your life, kill you and take you away from your friends and loved ones are all things that are, largely if not completely, under your control. Tobacco use, an unhealthy diet, a lack of physical activity, chronic obesity and harmful alcohol use are all things you can do something about. Any time you choose. Just go and do it.

"Natural" vs. "Synthetic": Does It Really Matter?

Its not unusual for the makers of natural vitamins to tout their superiority over synthetic alternatives. There are undoubted advantages to organic, "naturally" grown produce and animal products. But do the same considerations apply to vitamins and nutritional supplements? Are "natural" vitamins worth paying a price premium for?

In reality, the question of what is "natural" and what is not can be complex. For example, Vitamin C that is extracted from starch in a laboratory can be called "natural", since the starch is a "natural" plant product. Most biochemists agree that the Vitamin C extracted from starch is identical to the Vitamin C in your glass of orange juice. Drs. Linus Pauling, Ewan Cameron, Robert Cathcart and others have established that very high doses of factory-made ascorbic acid vitamin C work just fine against viral and bacterial illness. And laboratory-made "synthetic" vitamins have several significant advantages, including:

• Chemical purity. Laboratory-produced nutrients are "USP grade," meaning that they come from licensed production laboratories and meet the rigid standards of the United States Pharmacopeia.
• Dose consistency. In nature, one orange may contain 40 mg of vitamin C and another may contain only 10 mg. It depends on where it was grown, when it was harvested and under what conditions it was transported and stored. The laboratory-produced product will be the same every time.
  
• The ability to vary the concentration of the vitamin to match the needs of a particular individual.

On the other hand, not all synthetic nutrients are chemically identical to their "in the wild" counterparts. The best example of this is probably Vitamin E. Vitamin E derived from vegetable oils and other natural sources is chemically different from the synthetic form. Because of this difference, with the synthetic form of vitamin E, you obtain an effective dose of about half the vitamin E dosage reported on the label. Aside from this precaution, most synthetically made vitamins and many other nutrients are either identical to their "wild-type" counterparts or easily converted to the wild-type in the human body. Also, most synthetic vitamins and nutrients are both cheaper and purer, with less potential for contamination.

Another often cited advantage of the natural form is the presence of nutritional "co-factors". To oversimplify, a co-factor is a substance that increases the absorption or effectiveness of the primary nutrient by its simultaneous presence. The Vitamin D added to milk to enhance the absorption of calcium is a familiar example. When Vitamin C was first isolated and produced in a supplement form, nutrition scientists did not know about bioflavonoids. It was found that in nature bioflavonoids always accompany Vitamin C. In fact, the bioflavonoids are essential for better absorption and can increase bioavailability by as much as 30%. However, this advantage is lost when the Vitamin C is extracted and reprocessed into a supplement.

Quality in vitamins and nutrients is extremely hard to quantify. One should not rely on claims of "better quality" unless some definition of that term is given, together with some measurement data. Similarly "all natural" may be good marketing, but it is not necessarily always good science.

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AICR Cites Weight as Major Cancer Risk

As if heart disease, diabetes and arthritis were not reason enough to watch your weight, an American Institute for Cancer Research research study concludes that more than 100,000 new cancers per year in the USA can be attributed to excess body fat and obesity.

“The most striking finding in the report is that excess body fat increases risk for numerous cancers. That is why body weight is the focus of our first recommendation,” expert panel member W. Phillip T. James, M.D., D.Sc. The five year five year study offers 10 specific cancer prevention recommendations, but losing weight tops the list. If you are so inclined, you can read the entire 517-page report here. It contains a wealth of information about using diet and lifestyle to combat this far too common killer.

But the bottom line is this. Get up off your ass. And do it today.