15-Year-Old Invents New Test for Early, Reliable Detection of Pancreatic Cancer

Story at-a-glance

• Pancreatic cancer is a devastatingly fatal form of cancer, and is typically regarded as the most deadly and universally rapid-killing form of cancer
• A 15-year-old freshman high school student, Jack Andraka, invented a dipstick-type sensor to detect pancreatic, ovarian, and lung cancer that is 168 times faster, 26,000 times less expensive, and 400 times more sensitive than the current standard of detection. The test costs three cents, takes five minutes, and has a 90 percent accuracy rate
• His primary research tools were Google, Wikipedia, and freely available research studies—online resources available to virtually anyone on the planet with an internet connection
• Three lifestyle issues known to contribute to pancreatic cancer are sugar/fructose consumption, lack of exercise, and vitamin D deficiency

By Dr. Mercola

Pancreatic cancer is a devastatingly fatal form of cancer, and is typically regarded as the most deadly and universally rapid-killing form of cancer. According to the U.S. National Cancer Institute,¹ an estimated 45,220 Americans will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer this year, of which 38,460 are expected to die.

Part of the problem is that this cancer is usually diagnosed quite late, contributing to the abysmal five-year survival rate. It also shows you just how ineffective conventional detection methods and treatments are.

All of that may soon change however — all due to the persistence and dedication of a high school kid who decided there must be a better way to detect this lethal cancer sooner...

Yes, a 15-year-old boy named Jack Andraka has done what scientists with millions of dollars-worth of research grants at their disposal have failed to do. He invented a dipstick-type sensor to detect pancreatic, ovarian, and lung cancer that is:

• 168 times faster
• 26,000 times less expensive, and
• 400 times more sensitive than the current standard of detection

And he did it using Google and Wikipedia as his primary research tools — online resources that are available to virtually anyone on the planet with an internet connection. What’s more, the test costs three cents, takes five minutes, and has a 90 percent accuracy rate. Compare that to the current standard, which employs 60-year-old technology, costs about $800, and misses 30 percent of all pancreatic cancers.

How Could a High School Kid Make Such an Amazing Discovery?

You are in for a real treat. Please find the time to watch this awesomely inspiring video of a high school freshman who accomplished a major feat that most of us will never surpass in our lifetime. It is clearly one of the most inspiring videos I have ever seen. You are left with the impression if this high school freshman can do this, why can’t I achieve my goals?

Last year, Jack was awarded first place in the Intel International Science & Engineering Fair for his invention.² To me the most impressive part of his story are the thousands of failures he went through that did not deter him in the pursuit of his goal. Absolutely magnificent story.

When Jack first began his research, he didn’t even know he had a pancreas, but when pancreatic cancer suddenly claimed the life of a close family friend who was like “an uncle” to him he got to thinking... and researching, using readily available online tools and freely available studies, he determined that the reason we haven’t done a better job at detecting pancreatic cancer is because we’re looking for a particular protein present in the blood, called mesothelin.

This protein is always present, but in ovarian, pancreatic, or lung cancer patients, this protein is elevated. The problem is, detecting elevated levels is like “finding a needle in a stack of identical needles.”

After determining the parameters for an ideal detection sensor — noninvasive, rapid, inexpensive, simple, sensitive, and selective — he set to work trying to figure out how to detect elevated levels of mesothelin. The idea for his dipstick sensor came during a high school biology class on the subject of antibodies, during which he was secretly reviewing a paper on analytical methods using the 21st century technology of carbon nanotubes. (His approach would be absolutely impossible when I was in high school as carbon nanotubes would not be discovered for many decades.)

Antibodies fit like a lock and key into an antigen binding site. In this case, that would be the mesothelin protein. His idea involved lacing the nanotubes with the antibody, which would subsequently only attract the mesothelin protein. The nanotube strip would then generate an electrical response large enough to detect with a simple ohm meter.

Once he had locked down his theory, he needed a lab space. He applied to 200 laboratories working with pancreatic cancer and promptly received 199 rejections. But there was one “maybe.” He “hunted down” the professor and eventually landed a meeting. And a place to work. Seven months later, after countless trials and errors, he had created his first paper sensor. The sensor has now been tested in blind studies on humans, and has been found to have a 90 percent accuracy rate. Another key is that this protein becomes elevated during the earliest stages of cancer, allowing for a greatly increased survival rate.

“Through the internet anything is possible,” Jack says.

I couldn’t agree more. Not only is this story amazing because of his youth, it’s also an incredible testament to the power of the internet. Anyone can now, quite literally, change the world by putting the available information to good use! That is really the primary reason why I am able to provide all these news stories for you in the newsletter. Virtually all of them are carefully researched on the internet. We supplement these stories with my 20-plus years of clinical experience treating 25,000 patients and interviews with some of the leading health experts in the world.

What Causes Pancreatic Cancer?

Three lifestyle issues keep popping up on the radar when you look at what’s contributing to pancreatic cancer:

• Sugar/fructose consumption
• Lack of physical exercise
• Vitamin D deficiency

Obesity and physical inactivity makes your body less sensitive to the glucose-lowering effects of insulin. Diminished sensitivity to insulin leads to higher blood levels of insulin, which in turn can increase your risk of pancreatic cancer. One previous study found that men and women with high Body Mass Index (BMI) faced a pancreatic cancer risk 1.5 to 2 times higher than those with low BMI. And for women who are both overweight and sedentary, your risk is 2.5 times higher. When they reduced their weight and exercised, they lowered their risk. In fact, the men who exercised strenuously at least 8 hours a month were found to have only 59% of the pancreatic cancer risk of men who exercised less. Insulin seems to be one of the main drivers for cancer in general, and for pancreatic cancer in particular.

Why?

Because insulin production is one of your pancreas' main functions, used by your body to process blood sugar, and, in the laboratory, insulin actually promotes the growth of pancreatic cancer cells. Researchers suspect that if your body maintains high levels of insulin, you increase the pancreatic cancer's ability to survive and grow. In fact, researchers now believe that up to a third of all cancers may be caused by diet and lifestyle. So if you want to prevent cancer, or want to treat cancer, it is imperative that you keep your insulin levels as low as possible. Furthermore, pancreatic tumor cells have been found to use fructose, specifically, to divide and proliferate — again attesting to the fact that there are significant metabolic differences between fructose and other sugars.

According to the authors:³

"Importantly, fructose and glucose metabolism are quite different... These findings show that cancer cells can readily metabolize fructose to increase proliferation."

The study confirms the old adage that sugar feeds cancer because they found that tumor cells do thrive on sugar (glucose). However, the cells used fructose for cell division, speeding up the growth and spread of the cancer. If this difference isn't of major consequence, then I don't know what is, especially when you consider how quickly pancreatic cancer can kill you. As Jack stated in his talk, his friend was asymptomatic, and went from “healthy” to “a walking skeleton” in just three months.

It may surprise you, but the theory that sugar feeds cancer was born nearly 80 years ago. In 1931 the Nobel Prize was awarded to German researcher Dr. Otto Warburg, who first discovered that cancer cells have a fundamentally different energy metabolism compared to healthy cells. Yet most conventional cancer programs STILL do not adequately address diet and the need to avoid sugars.

Additionally, carbohydrates from glucose and sucrose significantly decreases the capacity of neutrophils to do their job. Neutrophils are a type of white blood cell that help cells to envelop and destroy invaders, such as cancer. In a nutshell, ALL forms of sugar are detrimental to health in general and promote cancer, but in slightly different ways, and to a different extent. Fructose, however, clearly seems to be one of the overall most harmful.

Fructose — Uric Acid — Cancer

The study above also mentions that fructose metabolism leads to increased uric acid production along with cancer cell proliferation. This is another gigantic clue that fructose is directly associated with cancer.

In my first interview with Dr. Johnson back in 2010 (the same year that study was published), he explained the detrimental impact fructose has on your uric acid level. Interestingly, ONLY fructose, NOT glucose, drives up uric acid as part of its normal metabolic pathways. The connection between fructose, uric acid, hypertension, insulin resistance/diabetes and kidney disease is so clear that your uric acid level can actually be used as a marker for toxicity from fructose -- meaning that if your levels are high, you're at increased risk of all the health hazards associated with fructose consumption and you really need to reduce your fructose intake.

Dr. Richard Johnson has authored two of the best books on the market on the health dangers of fructose. The first one, The Sugar Fix, explains how fructose causes high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, diabetes and kidney disease. The second, The Fat Switch, explains how fructose triggers a specific 'switch' located in the powerhouse of each of your cells — the mitochondria — causing your body to activate enzymes that tell your cells to accumulate fat. This is an ancient adaptive mechanism found in a variety of animals that need to gain fat in anticipation of food scarcity or hibernation.

Now it's safe to say that cancer, at least pancreatic cancer, is also definitely on the list of diseases that are directly linked to excessive fructose consumption.

Reducing (or preferably eliminating) fructose and other added sugars, as well as limiting grain carbohydrates from your diet should be part of any comprehensive cancer treatment plan. By doing so, you’ll help stave off any potential cancer growth, and "starve" any tumors you currently have. It also bolsters your overall immune function, because sugar decreases the function of your immune system almost immediately.

Unfortunately, few cancer patients undergoing conventional cancer care in the US are offered any scientifically guided nutrition therapy beyond being told to "just eat healthy foods." I believe many cancer patients would see major improvement in their outcome if they controlled the supply of cancer's preferred fuel, glucose, and stayed clear of fructose to significantly reduce tumor proliferation.

The following video features Dr. Dominic D'Agostino who, along with a team of researchers at the University of South Florida studies metabolic therapy. They found that when lab animals were fed a carb-free diet, they survived highly aggressive metastatic cancer better than those treated with chemotherapy. CBN reports:⁴

“'We have dramatically increased survival with metabolic therapy,' [Dr. D’Agostino] said. 'So we think it's important to get this information out.' It's not just lab mice. Dr. D'Agostino has also seen similar success in people - lots of them. 'I've been in correspondence with a number of people,' he said. 'At least a dozen over the last year-and-a-half to two years, and all of them are still alive, despite the odds. So this is very encouraging.'"

This is a Flash-based video and may not be viewable on mobile devices.

Top 13 Tips to Prevent Cancer

There’s a lot you can do to lower your chances of getting cancer -- you and your family CAN take control of your health. Don’t wait for diagnosis, take the reins and be a proactive participant in your own health care, before you end up in need for disease management. I believe you can virtually eliminate your risk of cancer and chronic disease, and radically improve your chances of recovering from cancer if you currently have it, by following these relatively simple risk reduction strategies.

1. Reduce or eliminate your processed food, sugar/fructose and grain carbohydrate intake. This applies to whole unprocessed organic grains as well, as they tend to rapidly break down and drive your insulin and leptin levels up, which is the last thing you need to have happening if you are seeking to resolve or prevent cancer.
2. Consider seriously reducing your protein levels. I believe most people consume twice as much protein as they need. I personally have reduced my protein to one gram per kilogram of lean body weight. I believe it would be unusual for most adults to need more than 100 grams of protein and most likely close to half that. Excess protein is one of the primary drivers of the mTOR pathway, which is an ancient and profoundly important recently discovered cancer pathway and emerging evidence suggests limiting protein may even be more important than limiting sugar to prevent cancer.
3. Control your fasting insulin and leptin levels. This is the end result you’ll get when you remove sugars and grains from your diet and start to exercise regularly. Your levels can be easily monitored with the use of simple and relatively inexpensive blood tests.
4. Normalize your ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats by taking a high-quality krill oil and reducing your intake of most processed vegetable oils.
5. Get regular exercise. One of the primary reasons exercise works is that it drives your insulin levels down. Controlling insulin levels is one of the most powerful ways to reduce your cancer risks.

   The trick about exercise, though, is understanding how to use it as a precise tool. This ensures you are getting enough to achieve the benefit, not too much to cause injury, and the right variety to balance your entire physical structure and maintain strength and flexibility, and aerobic and anaerobic fitness levels. If you have limited time Peak Fitness exercises are your best bet but ideally you should have a good strength training program as well.

6. Normalize your vitamin D levels by getting appropriate sun exposure, and consider careful supplementation when this is not possible. However, if you’re taking oral vitamin D, you also need to make sure you’re taking vitamin K2 as well, as K2 deficiency is actually what produces the symptoms of vitamin D toxicity, which includes inappropriate calcification that can lead to hardening of your arteries. To learn more, please see my previous article: What You Need to Know About Vitamin K2, D and Calcium. If you take oral vitamin D and have a cancer, it would be very prudent to monitor your vitamin D blood levels regularly.
7. Get regular, high quality sleep. Using a Zeo will help you objectively determine if your current sleeping strategy is providing you with the amount of deep and REM sleep that you need to heal and repair properly.
8. Reduce your exposure to environmental toxins like pesticides, household chemical cleaners, synthetic air fresheners and air pollution.
9. Limit your exposure and provide protection for yourself from radiation produced by cell phones, towers, base stations, and WiFi stations.
10. Avoid frying or charbroiling your food. Boil, poach or steam your foods instead.
11. Have a tool to permanently reprogram the neurological short-circuiting that can activate cancer genes. Even the CDC states that 85 percent of disease is caused by emotions. It is likely that this factor may be more important than all the other physical ones listed here, so make sure this is addressed. My particular favorite tool for resolving emotional challenges, as you may know, is the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT).
12. Eat at least one-third of your food raw.
13. Consider adding cancer-fighting whole foods, herbs, spices and supplements to your diet, such as broccoli, curcumin and resveratrol. To learn more about how these anti-angiogenetic foods, and many others, work to fight cancer, please see my previous article: Dramatically Effective New Natural Way to Starve Cancer and Obesity.

Knowledge is Power

While most of us may lack the genius to invent a paradigm-breaking medical device while browsing the internet, all of us have the power to research matters relating to our own health, and more. Like Jack, I urge you to take full advantage of the internet, and even if your findings won’t change the world, rest assured it can change yours.

Jack’s story is an absolutely incredible testament to the power of applying yourself using common tools that are available to each and every one of us. He also reminds us of the importance of not letting failure and rejection deter you from your passion and purpose.

When it comes to your health, conventional medicine has precious little to offer. But that does not mean you have no options! On the contrary, there are many alternatives available, no matter what your health condition might be. Unfortunately, with pharmaceutical companies ruling the roost over medicine, you won’t get that information from your doctor. You have to find it on your own. My website can help you get started. I have literally tens of thousands of free articles available, covering countless health issues. Just use the search engine at the top of every page and enter a topic you would like to learn more about. You will typically find dozens if not hundreds of articles on any given subject.

Remember, good health rests on just a few basic principles, and if you get those right, the rest will be much easier. Your diet accounts for about 80 percent of all the health benefits you’ll reap from a healthy lifestyle, so start there. My free optimized nutrition plan can get you off on the right foot.

Technorati Tags: Cancer. Pancreatic Cancer,knowledge is power,Dr. Mercola,Cancer Prevention,fructose,corn syrup,mesothelin,obesity,healthy diet

World Wide Obesity Epidemic

Global Research, March 19, 2012

Washington's Blog

World Wide Obesity Epidemic

Some 68% of all Americans are overweight, and obesity has almost doubled in the last couple of decades worldwide. As International Business Tribune reports:

Studies conducted jointly by researchers at Imperial College London and Harvard University, published in the medical journal The Lancet, show that obesity worldwide almost doubled in the decades between 1980 and 2008.

***

68 per cent of Americans were found to be overweight while close to 34 percent were obese.

Sure, people are eating too much and exercising too little (this post is not meant as an excuse for lack of discipline and poor choices). The processed foods and refined flours and sugars don’t help. And additives like high fructose corn syrup – which are added to many processed foods – are stuffing us with empty calories.

But given that there is an epidemic of obesity even in 6 month old infants (see below), there is clearly something else going on as well.

Are Toxic Chemicals Making Us Fat?

The toxins all around us might be making us fat.

As the Washington Post reported in 2007:

Several recent animal studies suggest that environmental exposure to widely used chemicals may also help make people fat.

The evidence is preliminary, but a number of researchers are pursuing indications that the chemicals, which have been shown to cause abnormal changes in animals’ sexual development, can also trigger fat-cell activity — a process scientists call adipogenesis.

The chemicals under scrutiny are used in products from marine paints and pesticides to food and beverage containers. A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found one chemical, bisphenol A, in 95 percent of the people tested, at levels at or above those that affected development in animals.

These findings were presented at last month’s annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. A spokesman for the chemical industry later dismissed the concerns, but Jerry Heindel, a top official of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), who chaired the AAAS session, said the suspected link between obesity and exposure to “endocrine disrupters,” as the chemicals are called because of their hormone-like effects, is “plausible and possible.”

Bruce Blumberg, a developmental and cell biologist at the University of California at Irvine, one of those presenting research at the meeting, called them “obesogens” — chemicals that promote obesity.

***

Exposed mice became obese adults and remained obese even on reduced calorie and increased exercise regimes. Like tributyltin, DES [which for decades was added to animal feed and routinely given to pregnant women] appeared to permanently disrupt the hormonal mechanisms regulating body weight.

“Once these genetic changes happen in utero, they are irreversible and with the individual for life,” Newbold said.

***

“Exposure to bisphenol A is continuous,” said Frederick vom Saal, professor of biological sciences at the University of Missouri at Columbia. Bisphenol A is an ingredient in polycarbonate plastics used in many products, including refillable water containers and baby bottles, and in epoxy resins that line the inside of food cans and are used as dental sealants. [It is also added to store receipts.] In 2003, U.S. industry consumed about 2 billion pounds of bisphenol A.

Researchers have studied bisphenol A’s effects on estrogen function for more than a decade. Vom Saal’s research indicates that developmental exposure to low doses of bisphenol A activates genetic mechanisms that promote fat-cell activity. “These in-utero effects are lifetime effects, and they occur at phenomenally small levels” of exposure, vom Saal said.

***

Research into the impact of endocrine-disrupting chemicals on obesity has been done only in laboratory animals, but the genetic receptors that control fat cell activity are functionally identical across species. “They work virtually the same way in fish as they do in rodents and humans,” Blumberg said. “Fat cells are an endocrine organ.”

Ongoing studies are monitoring human levels of bisphenol A, but none have been done of tributyltin, which has been used since the 1960s and is persistent in the marine food web. “Tributyltin is the only endocrine disrupting chemical that has been shown without substantial argument to have an effect at levels at which it’s found in the environment,” Blumberg said.

Concern over tributyltin’s reproductive effects on marine animals has resulted in an international agreement discontinuing its use in anti-fouling paints used on ships. The EPA has said it plans next year to assess its other applications, including as an antimicrobial agent in livestock operations, fish hatcheries and hospitals.

Bisphenol A is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in consumer products, and the agency says the amount of bisphenol A or tributyltin that might leach from products is too low to be of concern. But the National Toxicology Program, part of the National Institutes of Health, is reviewing bisphenol A, and concerns about its estrogenic effects prompted California legislators to propose banning it from certain products sold in-state, a move industry has fought vigorously.

Similarly, the Daily Beast noted in 2010:

[Bad habits] cannot explain the ballooning of one particular segment of the population, a segment that doesn’t go to movies, can’t chew, and was never that much into exercise: babies. In 2006 scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health reported that the prevalence of obesity in infants under 6 months had risen 73 percent since 1980. “This epidemic of obese 6-month-olds,” as endocrinologist Robert Lustig of the University of California, San Francisco, calls it, poses a problem for conventional explanations of the fattening of America. “Since they’re eating only formula or breast milk, and never exactly got a lot of exercise, the obvious explanations for obesity don’t work for babies,” he points out. “You have to look beyond the obvious.”

The search for the non-obvious has led to a familiar villain: early-life exposure to traces of chemicals in the environment. Evidence has been steadily accumulating that certain hormone-mimicking pollutants, ubiquitous in the food chain, have two previously unsuspected effects. They act on genes in the developing fetus and newborn to turn more precursor cells into fat cells, which stay with you for life. And they may alter metabolic rate, so that the body hoards calories rather than burning them, like a physiological Scrooge. “The evidence now emerging says that being overweight is not just the result of personal choices about what you eat, combined with inactivity,” says Retha Newbold of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) in North Carolina, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). “Exposure to environmental chemicals during development may be contributing to the obesity epidemic.” They are not the cause of extra pounds in every person who is overweight—for older adults, who were less likely to be exposed to so many of the compounds before birth, the standard explanations of genetics and lifestyle probably suffice—but environmental chemicals may well account for a good part of the current epidemic, especially in those under 50. And at the individual level, exposure to the compounds during a critical period of development may explain one of the most frustrating aspects of weight gain: you eat no more than your slim friends, and exercise no less, yet are still unable to shed pounds.

***

Newbold gave low doses (equivalent to what people are exposed to in the environment) of hormone-mimicking compounds to newborn mice. In six months, the mice were 20 percent heavier and had 36 percent more body fat than unexposed mice. Strangely, these results seemed to contradict the first law of thermodynamics, which implies that weight gain equals calories consumed minus calories burned. “What was so odd was that the overweight mice were not eating more or moving less than the normal mice,” Newbold says. “We measured that very carefully, and there was no statistical difference.”

***

`Programming the fetus to make more fat cells leaves an enduring physiological legacy. “The more [fat cells], the fatter you are,” says UCSF’s Lustig. But [fat cells] are more than passive storage sites. They also fine-tune appetite, producing hormones that act on the brain to make us feel hungry or sated. With more [fat cells], an animal is doubly cursed: it is hungrier more often, and the extra food it eats has more places to go—and remain.

***

In 2005 scientists in Spain reported that the more pesticides children were exposed to as fetuses, the greater their risk of being overweight as toddlers. And last January scientists in Belgium found that children exposed to higher levels of PCBs and DDE (the breakdown product of the pesticide DDT) before birth were fatter than those exposed to lower levels. Neither study proves causation, but they “support the findings in experimental animals,” says Newbold. They “show a link between exposure to environmental chemicals … and the development of obesity.” [See this for more information on the potential link between pesticides and obesity.]

***

This fall, scientists from NIH, the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and academia will discuss obesogens at the largest-ever government-sponsored meeting on the topic. “The main message is that obesogens are a factor that we hadn’t thought about at all before this,” says Blumberg. But they’re one that could clear up at least some of the mystery of why so many of us put on pounds that refuse to come off.

Consumption of the widely used food additive monosodium glutamate (MSG) has been linked to obesity.

Pthalates – commonly used in many plastics – have been linked to obesity. See this and this. So has a chemical used to make Teflon, stain-resistant carpets and other products.

Most of the meat we eat these days contains estrogen, antibiotics and powerful chemicals which change hormone levels. Modern corn-fed beef also contains much higher levels of saturated fat than grass-fed beef. So the meat we are eating is also making us fat.

Arsenic may also be linked with obesity, via it’s effect on the thyroid gland. Arsenic is often fed to chickens and pigs to fatten them up, and we end up ingesting it on our dinner plate. It’s ending up in other foods as well.

A lot of endocrine-disrupting pharmaceuticals and medications are also ending up in tap water.

Moreover, the National Research Council has found:

The effects of fluoride on various aspects of endocrine function should be examined further, particularly with respect to a possible role in the development of several diseases or mental states in the United States.

Some hypothesize that too much fluoride affects the thyroid gland, which may in turn lead to weight gain.

Antibiotics also used to be handed out like candy by doctors. However, ingesting too many antibiotics has also been linked to obesity, as it kills helpful intestinal bacteria. See this and this.

Moreover, many crops in the U.S. are now genetically modified. For example, 93 percent of soybeans grown in the US are genetically engineered, as are:

• 86% of all corn
• 93% of canola
• 93% of cottonseed oil
• Between 2008 and 2009, 95% of all sugarbeets planted were genetically engineered to be able to tolerate high doses of the pesticide Roundup

Some allege that Roundup kills healthy gut bacteria, and that genetically modified crops cause other health problems.

And Cornell University’s newspaper – the Cornell Sun – reports that our intestinal bacteria also substantially affect our ability to eliminate toxins instead of letting them make us fat:

Cornell scientists researching the effects of environmental toxins to the onset of obesity and Type II Diabetes, discovered that—unlike other factors such as eating too many unhealthy foods—the extent of damage caused by pollutants depends not on what a person puts into her mouth, but on what is already living within her gut.

Prof. Suzanne Snedeker, food science, and Prof. Anthony Hay, microbiology, researched the contribution that microorganisms in the gut and environmental toxins known as “obesogens” have on ever rising obesity levels. Their work, which was published last October in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, reported a link between composition of gut microbiota, exposure to environmental chemicals and the development of obesity and diabetes. The review, “Do Interactions Between Gut Ecology and Environmental Chemicals Contribute to Obesity and Diabetes?” combined three main ideas: predisposed gut microbe composition can increase an individual’s risk of obesity and Type II Diabetes, gut microbe activity can determine an individual’s metabolic reaction to persistent pollutants such as DDT and PCB and certain pharmaceuticals can also be metabolized differently depending on the community of microbes in the gut.

The microbe community influences many metabolic pathways within the gut, Snedeker said. Our bodies metabolize chemicals, but how they are metabolized, and how much fat is stored, depends on gut ecology. Microbes are responsible not only for collecting usable energy from digested food, but also for monitoring insulin levels, storage of fat and appetite. Gut microbes also play an integral role in dealing with any chemicals that enter the body. According to Snedeker, differences in gut microbiota can cause drugs like acetaminophen to act as a toxin in some people while providing no problems for others. While pharmaceutical and microbe interactions are well understood, there is little information in the area of microbe response to environmental toxins.

She said, there are more than three dozen chemicals called obesogenic compounds, that can cause weight gain by altering the body’s normal metabolic responses and lipid production.

“It seems probable that gut microbes are affecting how our bodies handle these environmental chemicals,” Snedeker said. According to Snedeker, enzymes that are influenced by interactions of gut microbes break down approximately two-thirds of the known environmental toxins. Therefore, differences in the gut microbe community strongly affect our bodies’ ability to get rid of environmental pollutants. Obesogens can alter normal metabolic behavior by changing the levels of fat that our bodies store. Snedeker and Hay suggested that the microbes in the gut of humans determine the way in which these chemicals are metabolized and thus could contribute to obesity.

Snedeker and Hay concluded that although high levels of obesogenic chemicals are bound to cause some kind of disruption in the gut microbe community responsible for breaking these chemicals down, the degree of the disturbance is dependent upon gut microbial composition. In other words, the amount of weight an individual is likely to gain when exposed to environmental toxins, or her risk of acquiring Type II Diabetes, could depend on the microorganism community in their gut.

No, Everything Won‘t Kill You

In response to information about toxic chemicals in our food, water and air, many people change the subject by saying “well, everything will kill you”. In other words, they try to change the topic by assuming that we would have to go back to the stone age to avoid exposure to toxic chemicals.

But this is missing the point entirely. In fact, companies add nasty chemicals to their products and use fattening food-producing strategies to cut corners and make more money.

In the same way that the financial crisis, BP oil spill and Fukushima nuclear disaster were caused by fraud and greed, we are daily exposed to obesity-causing chemicals because companies make an extra buck by lying about what is in their product, cutting every corner in the book, and escaping any consequences for their health-damaging actions.

In fattening their bottom line, the fat cats are creating an epidemic of obesity for the little guy.

What Can We Do To Fight Back?

Eating grass-fed meat instead of industrially-produced corn fed beef will reduce your exposure to obesity-causing chemicals.

Use glass instead of plastic whenever you can, to reduce exposure to pthalates and other hormone-altering plastics.

Try to avoid canned food, or at least look for cans that are free of bisphenol A. (For example, the Eden company sells food in bpa-free cans.) Buy and store food in glass jars whenever possible. And wash your hands after handling store receipts (they still contain bpa).

Eat yogurt or other food containing good bacteria to help restore your healthy intestinal flora. If you don’t like yogurt, you can take “probiotic” (i.e. good bacteria) supplements from your local health food store.

And don’t forget to tell your grocery store that you demand real food that doesn’t contain bpa, pthalates, hormones, antibiotics or other junk. If we vote with our pocketbooks, the big food companies will get the message.

Washington's Blog is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Washington's Blog

Related:

Global Elite Using Obesity Vaccines to Alter Minds and Curb Consumption

More Fruit, Fewer Fries: Michelle Obama Might Have Taken the ‘Happy’ Out of McDonald’s Happy Meals

The 76 Dangers of Sugar

Technorati Tags: grass-fed meat,organic foods,home grown produce,non-GMO foods,obesity,obesity epidemic,obesity epidemic lies,obesity study,fructose corn syrup,bisphenol A,bpa,hormone-altering plastics,use glass

Global Elite Using Obesity Vaccines to Alter Minds and Curb Consumption

Susanne Posel - Occupy Corporatism - July 12, 2012 – h/t to MJ

The attack on the overweight has kicked into high gear, as the pharmaceutical corporations seek out an immunization to answer the American weight problem.

Last month the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) announced that because of over-population and over-consumptive cultures, Americans have become overweight . . . and that is a problem.

Working with WHO, researchers at the BMC Public Health have published a study regarding the increasing levels of “fatness” worldwide and the impact such weight gain has on global resources. They contend that over-weight people are likening to an extra billion humans born on the planet.

The target of these researchers is North America, specifically the American population. Although Americans only account for 6% of the global population, more than a third of them are considered obese. They contend a new social meme concerning consumption, weight and population growth called “globesity” must be introduced to combat this new problem.

Prof Charles Godray from the Martin School at the University of Oxford, who chaired the process of writing the declaration , says “The overall message is that we need a renewed focus on both population and consumption – it’s not enough to look at one or the other. We need to look at both, because together they determine the footprint on the world.”

The UN blames “rapid unplanned urbanization” and the “globalization of unhealthy lifestyles” as the culprits of the obesity epidemic. The UN also declares that the cost of overweight and obese individuals in a drain on our global economy; and a burden indicative of large, affluent societies, like America.

A new propaganda study published in the Journal of Animal Science and Biotechnology, claims that vaccines are the answer to the chemical and psychological issues that surround obesity. The co-author of the study was also the president and chief scientific officer of a company called Braasch Biotech LLC. Braasch Biotech LLC, which specializes in the development of human and animal vaccines. Essentially, by inhibiting natural hormones, researchers hope to stop people from eating.

Big Pharma have created one-in-all vaccines before, i.e. the universal flu shot that was meant to entice the public back into a regular immunization schedule. However, this is not just about poisoning the public through vaccinations; the drug corporations see the obesity market as an untapped monetary resource – as one executive explained: “Can you imagine the potential for vaccines?”

Scientists assert that somatostatin, a peptide hormone, inhibits the action of growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor, both of which increase metabolism and result in weight loss. The vaccine would modify somatostatin by engineering so that the chemical inhabitation is removed and antibodies are created against somatostatin.

Because somatostatin is secreted in the digestive system, the hormone would eventually be carried to the brain where it would have a great likelihood of interacting with the chemical makeup of the brain and thereby have an encompassing psychological reaction.

When studied in mice , somatostatin:

• Mice who were given the vaccines experienced an initial drastic loss of weight but then gained weight over the course of six weeks – just not as quickly as the mice in the control group.
• The weight loss after the first dose of vaccine was so drastic that the dose used in the second injection in the study was reduced out of concern for the mice’s health.
• If the volume of vaccine given to the mice was scaled up it would be equivalent to over a litre for an average sized adult – a much greater volume than is usually used in a vaccination.

The reduction of the body’s production of ghrelin decreases hunger thereby reduces caloric intake and increases stored calories being used. This finding was presented at The Endocrine Society’s 93rd Annual Meeting in Boston.

Mariana Monteiro, MD, PhD, an associate professor at the University of Porto in Portugal and lead researcher in the study said: “An anti-ghrelin vaccine may become an alternate treatment for obesity, to be used in combination with diet and exercise.”

By reducing the effects of neuropeptides that control appetite, researchers show that obesity can be controlled. Simply put, scientists are advocating altering the mental states of humans to control their consumptive tendencies.

The effects of such a chemical alteration on humans have not been completely studied prior to the praise of this new finding. “This study demonstrates the possibility of treating obesity with vaccination”, says one of the authors of the study. “Although further studies are necessary to discover the long term implications of these vaccines, treatment of human obesity with vaccination would provide physicians with a drug- and surgical- free option against the weight epidemic.”

Doctors have been admonished by the government panel, entitled the US Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF), to become Natazi and coerce their patients into controlling their body mass index (BMI); while even suggesting pharmacological answers to obesity issues.

Arena Pharmaceuticals have developed lorcaserin, which works against serotonin receptors that correlate with appetite signals in the brain and cause the patient to become less hungry. Touted as a medical enhancement to type 2 diabetes treatments, it reduced the weight of participants in clinical trials by 5 – 10%.

The American Medical Association (AMA) announced this week that high school children will be required to attend classes that will discuss the causes, consequences and prevention methods of obesity. Taxes derived from purchases of sodas may be used to pay for these programs, suggests the AMA. However, the AMA still says they do not support taxing the public.

Since the global Elite see 90% of the world’s population expendable eaters that need to be reduced, this attack on food makes complete sense. Of course we should be conscious of our caloric intake, however considering that this assault comes from the Elite’s science-based answer by altering the bio-chemical makeup of the general public there is an obvious ulterior motive being played out.

Related:

Bill Gates Confirms Population Reduction Through Vaccination on CNN

Vaccination Nanotechnology

Eugenics: Effective by Incrementalism

What is the Real Purpose of Birth Control? Why is it So Important to Progressives?

Bill Gates: Register Every Birth by Cellphone To Ensure Vaccination, Control Population Growth

Hillary Clinton: Population Control Will Now Become the Centerpiece of U.S. Foreign Policy

UN Ordered Depopulation of 3 Billion People by Food Malnutrition has Started – PBSpecial Report

Vaccines ARE (In Many Cases) Germ Warfare

Sterilization of Children… - See links at bottom of article as well

Eugenics and Other Evils

Technorati Tags: depopulation,eugenics,globalists,new world order,propaganda,United Nations,obsesity,immunizations,vaccines,Big Pharma,Big Brother,WHO

Americans Eat the Cheapest Food in the World, But What is It Really Costing?

Story at-a-glance

• In 2010, Americans spent just over 9 percent of their disposable income on food (5.5 percent at home and 3.9 percent eating out); this is less than half or more of most any other country on the planet
• The “faster, bigger, cheaper” approach to food production that the United States has mastered is unsustainable and is contributing to the destruction of our planet and your health
• Easy access to cheap, poor-quality food is contributing to the rising rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and other chronic disease
• Nearly all cheap processed foods in the United States contain genetically modified (GM) ingredients and come from confined animal feeding operations, which contribute to environmental destruction, animal cruelty and the spread of antibiotic-resistant super-germs
• To protect your health and the environment, strive to make 90 percent of your diet non-processed, whole organic foods; it may cost more to eat this way initially, but the amount it will save you in the long run is immeasurable

By Dr. Mercola

In 2010, Americans spent just over 9 percent of their disposable income on food (5.5 percent at home and 3.9 percent eating out).ⁱ

This is a dramatically lower percentage spent just decades ago in the early 1960s, when over 17 percent was spent on food, and even more of a “bargain” compared to 1930, when Americans spent over 24 percent of their disposable income to feed their families.

When you compare what Americans spend to what people in other countries spend, you’ll also notice some great disparities.

On the surface, having cheaper food may seem like an advantage, but in reality while Americans may be saving a few dollars on their meals, they’re paying big time in terms of their health, and the health of the planet.

No Place on the Planet Has Cheaper Food Than the United States

As reported in TreeHugger, professor Mark J. Perry stated on his Carpe Diem blog:ⁱⁱ

“... compared to other countries, there's no other place on the planet that has cheaper food than the U.S. The 5.5% of disposable income that Americans spend on food at home is less than half the amount of income spent by Germans (11.4%), the French (13.6%), the Italians (14.4%), and less than one-third the amount of income spent by consumers in South Africa (20.1%), Mexico (24.1%), and Turkey (24.5%), which is about what Americans spent DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION, and far below what consumers spend in Kenya (45.9%) and Pakistan (45.6%).”

Unfortunately, the “faster, bigger, cheaper” approach to food production that the United States has mastered is unsustainable and contributing to the destruction of our planet and your health. Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and a number of other bestsellers, said it best:

"Cheap food is an illusion. There is no such thing as cheap food. The real cost of the food is paid somewhere. And if it isn't paid at the cash register, it's charged to the environment or to the public purse in the form of subsidies. And it's charged to your health."

In other words, pay now or pay later. American food may be cheap, but that’s about the only “compliment” it deserves, because when you rely on cheap food, you typically get what you pay for.

Why are So Many Americans Fat and Sick?

In many cases, easily the majority, it is due to dietary factors! Millions of Americans live in "food deserts" where fresh produce is hard to find but processed food and fast food is available everywhere. If your meals consist of $1 burgers and super-size drinks, your diet may be cheap, but it is also excessively high in grains, sugars, and factory-farmed meats. This is a recipe for obesity, diabetes and heart disease, just to name a few calamitous conditions that befall those who consume the standard American diet!

You have the U.S. government to thank for this cheap food, as farm subsidies bring you high-fructose corn syrup, fast food, animal factories, monoculture, and a host of other contributors to our unhealthful contemporary diet. A report comparing federal subsidies of fresh produce and junk food, prepared by U.S. PIRG, a non-profit organization that takes on special interests on behalf of the public, revealed where your tax dollars are really going, and it's quite shocking.

If you were to receive an annual federal subsidy directly, you would receive $7.36 to spend on junk food and just 11 cents to buy apples. In other words, every year, your tax dollars pay for enough corn syrup and other junk food additives to buy 19 Twinkies, but only enough fresh fruit to buy less than a quarter of one red delicious apple.

Heart disease is a direct reflection of poor dietary choices. Heart disease costs us $189.4 billion per year. However, statistics show that by 2030, these costs will triple, resulting in a mind-bending $818 billion!ⁱⁱⁱ Meanwhile, as TreeHugger reported:

“If Americans continue to pack on pounds, obesity will cost us about $344 billion in medical-related expenses by 2018, eating up about 21 percent of healthcare spending, according to an article in USA Today.^iv Not to mention the unseen health issues associated with a genetically modified and pesticide-bathed food system.”

What's the "Cost" of a Food System Based on Genetically Modified Foods?

The damage is quite simply immeasurable. Nearly all processed foods in the United States contain genetically modified (GM) ingredients, particularly Bt corn and Roundup Ready soy. These crops and other GM varieties are now planted on nearly 4 billion acres of land throughout 29 countries, as their makers (primarily Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta) continue to praise their worth. These companies, which have created patents and intellectual property rights so that they now control close to 70 percent of global seed sales, extol the virtues of GM crops as though they are a panacea for ending world hunger and solving the food crisis.

But in fact, as a report coordinated by Navdanya and Navdanya International, the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture, The Center for Food Safety (CFS) and others, has stated, GM crops are surrounded by false promises and failed yields, to the extent that they are now destroying the food system with superweeds, superpests and more.

Scientists have discovered a number of health problems -- like changes in reproductive hormones, testicular changes and damage to the pituitary gland -- related to genetically modified foods, however these studies have been repeatedly ignored by both the European Food Safety Authority and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). GM foods are typically regarded as equivalent to their conventional counterparts. This, however, is flawed logic because GM foods contain foreign genes that have never before been introduced into the food supply, and are universally contaminated with toxic GMO-specific herbicide residues.

Behind Virtually Every Cheap Burger is a CAFO

It cannot be ignored that the animals raised on confined animal feed operations (CAFOs) pay one of the highest prices for Americans’ cheap food. The typical CAFO can house tens of thousands of animals (and in the case of chickens, 100,000) under one roof, in nightmarish, unsanitary, disease-ridden conditions.

Animals raised at CAFOs are treated like objects, not animals -- stuck in cages, overcrowded, often covered in feces -- which is not only hard to watch, but also hard to stomach. It is not at all unusual for animals to be abused in these circumstances; the very conditions in which they live are abuse in their own right. For those who aren't aware, about 80 percent of all the antibiotics produced are used in agriculture -- not only to fight infection, but to promote unhealthy (though profitable) weight gain in animals. Unfortunately, this practice is also contributing to the alarming spread of antibiotic-resistant disease -- a serious problem that is costing tens of thousands of Americans their lives.

CAFOs have been highly promoted as the best way to produce food for the masses, but the only reason CAFOs are able to remain so "efficient," bringing in massive profits while selling their food for bottom-barrel prices, is because they substitute subsidized crops for pasture grazing.

Factory farms use massive quantities of corn, soy and grain in their animal feed, all crops that they are often able to purchase at below cost because of government subsidies. Because of these subsidies, U.S. farmers produce massive amounts of soy, corn, wheat, etc. -- rather than vegetables -- leading to a monoculture of foods that contribute to a fast food diet. As written in "CAFO: The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories":^v

"Thanks to U.S. government subsidies, between 1997 and 2005, factory farms saved an estimated $3.9 billion per year because they were able to purchase corn and soybeans at prices below what it cost to grow the crops. Without these feed discounts, amounting to a 5 to 15 percent reduction in operating costs, it is unlikely that many of these industrial factory farms could remain profitable.

By contrast, many small farms that produce much of their own forage receive no government money. Yet they are expected somehow to match the efficiency claims of the large, subsidized megafactory farms. On this uneven playing field, CAFOs may falsely appear to "outcompete" their smaller, diversified counterparts."

As it stands, the book notes that "grazing and growing feed for livestock now occupy 70 percent of all agricultural land and 30 percent of the ice-free terrestrial surface of the planet. If present trends continue, meat production is predicted to double between the turn of the 21st century and 2050." Does this sound like a good deal to you?

Allocating More Money to Your Food is Investing in Your Most Valuable Asset...

You... and your family (including those who are yet to be born)! If you want to optimize your health, you simply must return to the basics of healthy food choices. And, as more and more people begin to grasp this concept and demand healthy, unadulterated foods, the more must be produced, one way or another. There is just no way around it -- if you want your family to be healthy, someone in your household, or someone you pay, must invest some time in the kitchen preparing your food from scratch, using fresh, whole ingredients.

Avoiding processed food requires a change in mindset, which is not always an easy task. It CAN be done, however. Rather than looking at processed foods as a convenience that tastes good or saves money, try thinking of it as:

• Extra calories that will harm your body
• A toxic concoction of foreign chemicals and artificial flavors that will lead to disease
• A waste of your money
• Likely to lead to increased health care bills for you and your family
• Not something to give to children, whose bodies are still developing and in great need of nutrients

Your goal should be to strive for 90 percent non-processed, whole food. Not only will you enjoy the health benefits—especially if you buy mostly organic—but you’ll also get the satisfaction of knowing exactly what you’re putting into your body, and that in and of itself can be a great feeling. It may cost more to eat this way, but then again it might not. (And in the long run the amount it will save you in the long run is immeasurable.)

You may be surprised to find out that by going directly to the source you can get amazingly healthy, locally grown, organic food for less than you can find at your supermarket. This gives you the best of both worlds: food that is grown near to you and sold with minimal packaging, cutting down on its carbon footprint and giving you optimal freshness, as well as grown without chemicals, genetically modified (GM) seeds, and other potential toxins.

Restaurants are able to keep their costs down by getting food directly from a supplier. You, too, can take advantage of a direct farm-to-consumer relationship, either on an individual basis by visiting a small local farm or by joining a food coop in your area. To find these types of real foods, grown by real farmers who are eager to serve their communities, visit LocalHarvest.org.

Simple Strategies to Eat Well Without Spending More

There are many strategies available to stretch your food dollars while feeding your family healthy foods. Rather than wasting money on expensive cereal boxes and bags of chips, put your money toward foods that will serve your health well, such as raw organic dairy, cage-free organic eggs, fresh vegetables and fermented foods you make at home (fermented foods are incredibly economical because you can use a portion of one batch to start the next).

The following strategies will also make it easier to eat well on a tight budget:

• Identify someone to prepare meals. Someone has to invest time in the kitchen to prepare your meals, or else you will succumb to costly and unhealthy fast food and convenience foods. So it will be necessary for either you, your spouse, another family member or someone you pay to prepare your family's meals from locally grown healthful foods.
• Become resourceful: This is an area where your grandmother can be a wealth of information, as how to use up every morsel of food and stretch out a good meal was common knowledge to generations past. Seek to get back to the basics of cooking -- using the bones from a roast chicken to make stock for a pot of soup, extending a Sunday roast to use for weekday dinners, learning how to make hearty stews from inexpensive cuts of meat, using up leftovers and so on.
• Plan your meals: If you fail to plan you are planning to fail. This is essential, as you will need to be prepared for mealtimes in advance to be successful. Ideally this will involve scouting out your local farmer's markets for in-season produce that is priced to sell, and planning your meals accordingly. But, you can also use this same premise with supermarket sales or, even better, produce from your own vegetable garden.

  You can generally plan a week of meals at a time, make sure you have all ingredients necessary on hand, and then do any prep work you can ahead of time so that dinner is easy to prepare if you're short on time in the evening.

  It is no mystery that you will be eating lunch around noon every day so rather than rely on fast food at work, before you go to bed make a plan as to what you are going to take to work for lunch the next day. This is a simple strategy that will let you eat healthier and save money, especially it you take healthy food from home in with you to work.

• Avoid food waste: According to a study published in the journal PloS One, Americans waste an estimated 1,400 calories of food per person, each and every day.^vi The two steps above will help you to mitigate food waste in your home, and you may also have seen my article titled 14 Ways to Save Money on Groceries. Among those tips are suggestions for keeping your groceries fresher, longer, and I suggest reviewing those tips now.
• Buy organic animal foods. The most important foods to buy organic are animal, not vegetable, products (meat, eggs, butter, etc.), because animal foods tend to concentrate pesticides in higher amounts. If you cannot afford to buy all of your food organic, opt for organic animal foods first.

References:

---

• ⁱ USDA Economic Research Service, Food CPI and Expenditures
• ⁱⁱ Carpe Diem July 3, 2010
• ⁱⁱⁱ Huffington Post April 21, 2011
• ^iv USA Today November 17, 2009
• ^v CAFO - The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories
• ^vi PLoS ONE 4(11): e7940

Source: Treehugger March 24, 2012

Related Links:

How to Save Up to 89% on Your Organic Food

Why is it Suddenly Cheaper to Eat Out?

The Drug Industry May Be Bad, But THIS Industry May Be Even Worse for Your Health

The 50 Fattiest Foods in the States

The 50 Fattiest Foods in the States

By Sarah Klein

Traditional American fare — just like the American waistline — is looking more than a little pudgy these days.

Even though some states enjoy healthier reputations than others (Yes, Colorado, we mean you), no state is completely guilt-free when it comes to dishes with huge portion sizes, super-high calorie counts, or sky-high fat content.

So if you want to sample some of these regional favorites on your next road trip, your best bet may be to minimize your portion size.

• Alabama: Bacon-wrapped meatloaf
• Alaska: Eskimo Ice Cream
• Arizona: Quadruple Bypass Burger
• Arkansas: Catfish
• California: In-N-Out Burger Double Double
• Colorado: Jack-N-Grill’s 7-pound breakfast burritos
• Connecticut: 2-foot-long hot dog
• Delaware: Deep-fried pastry
• Florida: Empanadas
• Georgia: Luther Burger
• Hawaii: Loco Moco
• Idaho: Bacon Bleu Cheese dressing
• Illinois: Deep-dish pizza
• Indiana: Fried-brain sandwich
• Iowa: Hot beef sundae
• Kansas: Charred ends
• Kentucky: KFC's Double Down
• Louisiana: Beignet
• Maine: Lobster roll
• Maryland: Smith Island Cake
• Massachusetts: Chocolate chip cookies
• Michigan: BLT
• Minnesota: Dairy Queen's FlameThrower GrillBurger
• Mississippi: Mud Pie
• Missouri: Hardee's 2/3 Lb. Monster Thickburger
• Montana: Rocky Mountain Oysters
• Nebraska: Eskimo Pie
• Nevada: Buffets
• New Hampshire: New England Clam Chowder
• New Jersey: Fat Darrell
• New Mexico: Frito Pie
• New York: Garbage plate
• North Carolina: Livermush
• North Dakota: Fleischkuechle
• Ohio: Bob Evans' Sausage Biscuit Bowl
• Oklahoma: Chicken fried steak
• Oregon: Brunchbox's Redonkadonk
• Pennsylvania: Philly cheesesteak
• Rhode Island: New York System Hot Wieners
• South Carolina: Turducken
• South Dakota: Frybread
• Tennessee: Ruby Tuesday's Triple Prime Bacon Cheddar Burger
• Texas: Corn dog
• Utah: Scone
• Vermont: Ben & Jerry's Vermonster
• Virginia: Ham
• Washington: Crab Louis Salad
• West Virginia: Hillbilly Hotdogs' 10-pound burger
• Wisconsin: Deep-fried cheese curds
• Wyoming: Lamb

Is eating like this once in awhile okay?… Of course it is!  But eating like this too often is adding to the American obesity epidemic.  And we need to make the right  choices before Big Brother government does it for us!

Check out: Eat This Not That! Restaurant Survival Guide: The No-Diet Weight Loss Solution  and Death by Supermarket