Posted on 03/15/2011 2:38:17 PM PDT by Pining_4_TX
Exactly.
I did not realize I was ranting. Hmmm.
I did not say that aging was the single underlying pathology of obesity. What I said was that people tend to gain weight as they age (and have increasing blood pressure and blood glucose levels), and that most diseases (cancers, heart disease) affect those over 65 disproportionately. If obesity were as deadly as they claim, then we would not see the increasing longevity that we are enjoying.
Over the past decades, the health nannies have altered the numbers for what they consider to be normal for weight, blood pressure, and blood sugar. Since we have an aging population, if they keep lowering these values, we will all be labeled as overweight, etc.
All I am asking is that people keep an open mind and take the latest health pronouncements with a large grain of salt - assuming they will let us have salt.
If you would like, you might want to read the posts on the obesity paradox at http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/
Oh, I have taken biology, but, to be fair, it was many years ago.
Dear Pining 4 TX,
I share much of your world view. We are both here as freepers. I also agree with your general suspicion of the quality of mainstream media delivered health related tripe. Much of it is intended to obfuscate.
I live every day in the world of peer reviewed medical journal publications. The quality therein is extraordinary.
The most important reason for our life expectancies are:
good water and sewer management, antibiotics, plenty of food,and good trauma management.
The only reason obese people live as long as they do is because of the incredible interventions that we pay for to keep them alive. BTW: unfit and underweight people have even shorter lives than obese people
Yeah, the lowfat kick starting more than 20 years ago resulted in the substitution of high fructose corn syrup, which is the closest thing to pure poison that is generally available as food. But I hyperbolize.
I like to think of myself as a member of the cast of “A Michelin Man Family Christmas”.
You would be hard pressed to find a fat type I. Think of Mary Tyler Moore. Typy I is an autoimmune disease that usually occurs before they are 25 years old. They eventually make no insulin. Type II usually happens in the overweight after 40. It's characterized by insulin resistance, but they usually still make insulin. They just need more to drive the glucose into the cells.
Latent autoimmune diabetes in adults has recently been recognized in those older than 25. Some call it type 1.5 diabetes or diabetes type 1.5. Autoantibodies to enzymes have been identified, e.g. glutamic acid decarboxylase.
Beware of what you read on the internet.
Thanks. :-)
We were, too, but nowadays unsupervised children would be considered "child neglect" and 'forced labor' "child abuse".
We know where the problem has its roots. In the same people who are going to 'solve' it for us.
Government is truly the problem.
“The only reason obese people live as long as they do is because of the incredible interventions that we pay for to keep them alive. BTW: unfit and underweight people have even shorter lives than obese people”
Some observations on your comments here: I agree that the evidence seems to point to the risk of being unfit underweight is even greater than that of being obese. Isn’t it curious that no one is badgering the underweight to gain? My very real concern is that people who are obese are being bullied and shamed, which should not happen to anyone.
Second, when you say “we pay to keep them alive”, this is the problem with nationalized health care (which we already have to a certain extent). Government programs that redistribute wealth pit groups of people against one another. Social Security pits the young against the old, and socialized medicine pits everyone against everyone else. I find it curious that even though homosexuals suffer multiple, expensive ailments that result from their lifestyle, nobody is suggesting that they be denied access to health care. However, many are on the bandwagon to call for restrictions on treatment for fat folks.
Third, there is no objective definition of overweight and obese. The government keeps lowering the values for normal, overweight, and obese without any scientific basis for these values. How does one define overweight, and when does that become a meaningful measure of health? That is not as easy to answer as government charts would make it seem.
Also, I believe the reasons people weigh what they do are more complicated than what is currently accepted. If you read what many obesity researchers have written, you find that they now realize that weight is regulated by many different systems and organs including the brain, the liver, and even bones. The human body is designed to maintain homeostasis, and trying to overcome this is a constant battle.
Freegards,
Pining
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