The 76 Dangers of Sugar

Death by sugar may not be an overstatement—evidence is mounting that sugar is THE MAJOR FACTOR causing obesity and chronic disease.

Is sugar a sweet old friend that is secretly plotting your demise?

There is a vast sea of research suggesting that it is. Science has now shown us, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that sugar in your food, in all its myriad of forms, is taking a devastating toll on your health.

The single largest source of calories for Americans comes from sugar—specifically high fructose corn syrup. Just take a look at the sugar consumption trends of the past 300 years:[1]

• In 1700, the average person consumed about 4 pounds of sugar per year.
• In 1800, the average person consumed about 18 pounds of sugar per year.
• In 1900, individual consumption had risen to 90 pounds of sugar per year.
• In 2009, more than 50 percent of all Americans consume one-half pound of sugar PER DAY—translating to a whopping 180 pounds of sugar per year!

Sugar is loaded into your soft drinks, fruit juices, sports drinks, and hidden in almost all processed foods—from bologna to pretzels to Worcestershire sauce to cheese spread. And now most infant formula has the sugar equivalent of one can of Coca-Cola, so babies are being metabolically poisoned from day one if taking formula.

No wonder there is an obesity epidemic in this country.

Today, 32 percent of Americans are obese and an additional one-third are overweight. Compare that to 1890, when a survey of white males in their fifties revealed an obesity rate of just 3.4 percent. In 1975, the obesity rate in America had reached 15 percent, and since then it has doubled.

Carrying excess weight increases your risk for deadly conditions such as heart disease, kidney disease and diabetes.

In 1893, there were fewer than three cases of diabetes per 100,000 people in the United States. Today, diabetes strikes almost 8,000 out of every 100,000 people.[1]

You don’t have to be a physician or a scientist to notice America’s expanding waistline. All you have to do is stroll through a shopping mall or a schoolyard, or perhaps glance in the mirror.

Sugars 101 -- Basics of How to Avoid Confusion on this Important Topic

It is easy to become confused by the various sugars and sweeteners. So here is a basic overview:

• Dextrose, fructose and glucose are all monosaccharides, known as simple sugars. The primary difference between them is how your body metabolizes them. Glucose and dextrose are essentially the same sugar. However, food manufacturers usually use the term “dextrose” in their ingredient list.
• The simple sugars can combine to form more complex sugars, like the disaccharide sucrose (table sugar), which is half glucose and half fructose.
• High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose.
• Ethanol (drinking alcohol) is not a sugar, although beer and wine contain residual sugars and starches, in addition to alcohol.
• Sugar alcohols like xylitol, glycerol, sorbitol, maltitol, mannitol, and erythritol are neither sugars nor alcohols but are becoming increasingly popular as sweeteners. They are incompletely absorbed from your small intestine, for the most part, so they provide fewer calories than sugar but often cause problems with bloating, diarrhea and flatulence.
• Sucralose (Splenda) is NOT a sugar, despite its sugar-like name and deceptive marketing slogan, “made from sugar.” It’s a chlorinated artificial sweetener in line with aspartame and saccharin, with detrimental health effects to match.
• Agave syrup, falsely advertised as “natural,” is typically HIGHLY processed and is usually 80 percent fructose. The end product does not even remotely resemble the original agave plant.
• Honey is about 53 percent fructose[2], but is completely natural in its raw form and has many health benefits when used in moderation, including as many antioxidants as spinach.
• Stevia is a highly sweet herb derived from the leaf of the South American stevia plant, which is completely safe (in its natural form). Lo han (or luohanguo) is another natural sweetener, but derived from a fruit.

All Sugars are Not Equal

Glucose is the form of energy you were designed to run on. Every cell in your body, every bacterium—and in fact, every living thing on the Earth—uses glucose for energy.

But as a country, sucrose is no longer the sugar of choice. It’s now fructose.

If your diet was like that of people a century ago, you’d consume about 15 grams per day—a far cry from the 73 grams per day the typical person gets from sweetened drinks. In vegetables and fruits, it’s mixed in with vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and beneficial phytonutrients, all which moderate the negative metabolic effects. Amazingly, 25 percent of people actually consume more than 130 grams of fructose per day.

Making matters worse, all of the fiber has been removed from processed foods, so there is essentially no nutritive value at all. And the very products most people rely on to lose weight—the low-fat diet foods—are often the ones highest in fructose.

It isn’t that fructose itself is bad—it is the MASSIVE DOSES you’re exposed to that make it dangerous.

There are two overall reasons fructose is so damaging:

1. Your body metabolizes fructose in a much different way than glucose. The entire burden of metabolizing fructose falls on your liver.
2. People are consuming fructose in enormous quantities, which has made the negative effects much more profound.

The explosion of soda consumption is the major cause of this.

Today, 55 percent of sweeteners used in food and beverage manufacturing are made from corn, and the number one source of calories in America is soda, in the form of high fructose corn syrup.

Food and beverage manufacturers began switching their sweeteners from sucrose to corn syrup in the 1970s when they discovered that HFCS was not only far cheaper to make, it’s about 20 percent sweeter than conventional table sugar that has sucrose.

HFCS contains the same two sugars as sucrose but is more metabolically risky to you, due to its chemical form.

The fructose and the glucose are not bound together in HFCS, as they are in table sugar, so your body doesn’t have to break it down. Therefore, the fructose is absorbed immediately, going straight to your liver.

Too Much Fructose Creates a Metabolic Disaster in Your Body

Dr. Robert Lustig, Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco, has been a pioneer in decoding sugar metabolism. His work has highlighted some major differences in how different sugars are broken down and used by the human body.

I highly recommend watching Lustig’s lecture in its entirety if you want to learn how fructose is ruining your health biochemically.

As I mentioned earlier, after eating fructose, most of the metabolic burden rests on your liver. This is NOT the case with glucose, of which your liver breaks down only 20 percent. Nearly every cell in your body utilizes glucose, so it’s normally “burned up” immediately after consumption.

So where does all of this fructose go, once you consume it?

Onto your thighs. It is turned into FAT (VLDL and triglycerides), which means more fat deposits throughout your body.

Eating Fructose is Far Worse than Eating Fat

However, the physiological problems of fructose metabolism extend well beyond a couple of pant sizes:

• Fructose elevates uric acid, which decreases nitric oxide, raises angiotensin, and causes your smooth muscle cells to contract, thereby raising your blood pressure and potentially damaging your kidneys.[1]
  
  Increased uric acid also leads to chronic, low-level inflammation, which has far-reaching consequences for your health. For example, chronically inflamed blood vessels lead to heart attacks and strokes; also, a good deal of evidence exists that some cancers are caused by chronic inflammation. (See the next section for more about uric acid.)
• Fructose tricks your body into gaining weight by fooling your metabolism—it turns off your body’s appetite-control system. Fructose does not appropriately stimulate insulin, which in turn does not suppress ghrelin (the “hunger hormone”) and doesn’t stimulate leptin (the “satiety hormone”), which together result in your eating more and developing insulin resistance.[3] [4]
• Fructose rapidly leads to weight gain and abdominal obesity (“beer belly”), decreased HDL, increased LDL, elevated triglycerides, elevated blood sugar, and high blood pressure—i.e., classic metabolic syndrome.
• Fructose metabolism is very similar to ethanol metabolism, which has a multitude of toxic effects, including NAFLD (non-alcoholic fatty liver disease). It’s alcohol without the buzz.

These changes are not seen when humans or animals eat starch (or glucose), suggesting that fructose is a “bad carbohydrate” when consumed in excess of 25 grams per day. It is probably the one factor responsible for the partial success of many “low-carb” diets.

One of the more recent findings that surprised researchers is that glucose actually accelerates fructose absorption, making the potential health risks from HFCS even more profound.[1]

You can now see why fructose is the number one contributing factor to the current obesity epidemic.

Is Uric Acid the New Cholesterol?

By now you are probably aware of the childhood obesity epidemic in America—but did you know about childhood hypertension?

Until recently, children were rarely diagnosed with high blood pressure, and when they were, it was usually due to a tumor or a vascular kidney disease.

In 2004, a study showed hypertension among children is four times higher than predicted: 4.5 percent of American children have high blood pressure. Among overweight children, the rate is 10 percent. It is thought that obesity is to blame for about 50 percent of hypertension cases in adolescents today.[1]

Even more startling is that 90 percent of adolescents who have high blood pressure have elevated uric acid levels.

This has led researchers to ask, what does uric acid have to do with obesity and high blood pressure?

In his groundbreaking book, The Sugar Fix: The High-Fructose Fallout That is Making You Fat and Sick, Dr. Robert J. Johnson makes a compelling argument for a previously unrecognized connection between excess sugar consumption and high uric acid levels.

There are more than 3,500 articles to date showing a strong relationship between uric acid and obesity, heart disease, hypertension, stroke, kidney disease, and other conditions. In fact, a number of studies have confirmed that people with elevated serum uric acid are at risk for high blood pressure, even if they otherwise appear to be perfectly healthy.

Uric acid levels among Americans have risen significantly since the early half of the 20^th Century. In the 1920s, average uric acid levels were about 3.5 ml/dl. By 1980, average uric acid levels had climbed into the range of 6.0 to 6.5 ml/dl and are probably much higher now.

How Does Your Body Produce Uric Acid?

It’s a byproduct of cellular breakdown. As cells die off, DNA and RNA degrade into chemicals called purines. Purines are further broken down into uric acid.

Fructose increases uric acid through a complex process that causes cells to burn up their ATP rapidly, leading to “cell shock” and increased cell death. After eating excessive amounts of fructose, cells become starved of energy and enter a state of shock, just as if they have lost their blood supply. Massive cellular die-off leads to increased uric acid levels.

And cells that are depleted of energy become inflamed and more susceptible to damage from oxidative stress. Fat cells actually become “sickly,” bloating up with excessive amounts of fat.

There is a simple, inexpensive blood test for determining your uric acid level, which I recommend you have done as part of your routine health checkups. Your level should be between 3.0 and 5.5 mg/dl, optimally.

There is little doubt in my mind that your uric acid level is a more potent predictor of cardiovascular and overall health than your total cholesterol level is. Yet virtually no one is screening for this.

Now that you know the truth you don’t have to be left out in the cold, as this is a simple and relatively inexpensive test that you can get at any doctor’s office. Odds are very good your doctor is clueless about the significance of elevated uric acid levels, so it will not likely be productive to engage in a discussion with him unless he is truly an open-minded truth seeker.

Merely get your uric acid level, and if it is over 5 then eliminate as much fructose as you can (also eliminate all beer), and retest your level in a few weeks.

Sugar Sensitization Makes the Problem Even WORSE!

There is yet another problem with sugar—a self-perpetuating one.

According to Dr. Johnson¹, sugar activates its own pathways in your body—those metabolic pathways become “upregulated.” In other words, the more sugar you eat, the more effective your body is in absorbing it; and the more you absorb, the more damage you’ll do.

You become “sensitized” to sugar as time goes by, and more sensitive to its toxic effects as well.

The flip side is, when people are given even a brief sugar holiday, sugar sensitization rapidly decreases and those metabolic pathways become “downregulated.” Research tells us that even two weeks without consuming sugar will cause your body to be less reactive to it.

Try it for yourself! Take a two-week sugar sabbatical and see how different you feel.

Are Fruits Good or Bad for You?

Keep in mind that fruits also contain fructose, although an ameliorating factor is that whole fruits also contain vitamins and other antioxidants that reduce the hazardous effects of fructose.

Juices, on the other hand, are nearly as detrimental as soda, because a glass of juice is loaded with fructose, and a lot of the antioxidants are lost.

It is important to remember that fructose alone isn’t evil as fruits are certainly beneficial. But when you consume high levels of fructose it will absolutely devastate your biochemistry and physiology. Remember the AVERAGE fructose dose is 70 grams per day which exceeds the recommend limit by 300 percent.

So please BE CAREFUL with your fruit consumption. You simply MUST understand that because HFCS is so darn cheap, it is added to virtually every processed food. Even if you consumed no soda or fruit, it is very easy to exceed 25 grams of hidden fructose in your diet.

If you are a raw food advocate, have a pristine diet, and exercise very well, then you could be the exception that could exceed this limit and stay healthy.

Dr. Johnson has a handy chart, included below, which you can use to estimate how much fructose you’re getting in your diet. Remember, you are also likely getting additional fructose if you consume any packaged foods at all, since it is hidden in nearly all of them.

Fruit Serving Size Grams of Fructose Limes 1 medium 0 Lemons 1 medium 0.6 Cranberries 1 cup 0.7 Passion fruit 1 medium 0.9 Prune 1 medium 1.2 Apricot 1 medium 1.3 Guava 2 medium 2.2 Date (Deglet Noor style) 1 medium 2.6 Cantaloupe 1/8 of med. melon 2.8 Raspberries 1 cup 3.0 Clementine 1 medium 3.4 Kiwifruit 1 medium 3.4 Blackberries 1 cup 3.5 Star fruit 1 medium 3.6 Cherries, sweet 10 3.8 Strawberries 1 cup 3.8 Cherries, sour 1 cup 4.0 Pineapple 1 slice (3.5" x .75") 4.0 Grapefruit, pink or red 1/2 medium 4.3

Fruit Serving Size Grams of Fructose Boysenberries 1 cup 4.6 Tangerine/mandarin orange 1 medium 4.8 Nectarine 1 medium 5.4 Peach 1 medium 5.9 Orange (navel) 1 medium 6.1 Papaya 1/2 medium 6.3 Honeydew 1/8 of med. melon 6.7 Banana 1 medium 7.1 Blueberries 1 cup 7.4 Date (Medjool) 1 medium 7.7 Apple (composite) 1 medium 9.5 Persimmon 1 medium 10.6 Watermelon 1/16 med. melon 11.3 Pear 1 medium 11.8 Raisins 1/4 cup 12.3 Grapes, seedless (green or red) 1 cup 12.4 Mango 1/2 medium 16.2 Apricots, dried 1 cup 16.4 Figs, dried 1 cup 23.0

In addition to limiting your intake of fructose, you should eliminate all sweetened beverages and fruit juices (including all artificial sweeteners) and drink only pure water and raw milk.

You can buy pure glucose (dextrose) as a sweetener for about $1 a pound. It is only 70% as sweet as sucrose, so you’ll end up using a bit more of it for the same amount of sweetness, making it slightly more expensive than sucrose—but still well worth it for your health as it has ZERO grams of fructose.

Remember that glucose can be used directly by every cell in your body and as such is far safer than the metabolic poison fructose.

Beer is also a good beverage to AVOID since it increases uric acid levels, just like fructose does, resulting in many of the same toxic effects.

All alcoholic beverages cause you to produce excess uric acid (and block your kidneys from excreting it), but beer seems to have a more pronounced effect on uric acid levels because it’s a rich source of guanosine, the type of purine that is most readily absorbed by the body.¹

76 Additional Ways Sugar Can Ruin Your Health

In addition to throwing off your body's homeostasis and wreaking havoc on your metabolic processes, excess sugar has a number of other significant consequences.

Nancy Appleton, PhD, author of the book Lick the Sugar Habit[5], contributed an extensive list of the many ways sugar can ruin your health from a vast number of medical journals and other scientific publications.

1. Sugar can suppress your immune system and impair your defenses against infectious disease.[6] [7]
2. Sugar upsets the mineral relationships in your body: causes chromium and copper deficiencies and interferes with absorption of calcium and magnesium.[8] [9] [10] [11]
3. Sugar can cause a rapid rise of adrenaline, hyperactivity, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, and crankiness in children.[12] [13]
4. Sugar can produce a significant rise in total cholesterol, triglycerides and bad cholesterol and a decrease in good cholesterol.[14][15] [16] [17]
5. Sugar causes a loss of tissue elasticity and function.[18]
6. Sugar feeds cancer cells and has been connected with the development of cancer of the breast, ovaries, prostate, rectum, pancreas, biliary tract, lung, gallbladder and stomach.[19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25]
7. Sugar can increase fasting levels of glucose and can cause reactive hypoglycemia.[26] [27]
8. Sugar can weaken eyesight.[28] 1
9. Sugar can cause many problems with the gastrointestinal tract including: an acidic digestive tract, indigestion, malabsorption in patients with functional bowel disease, increased risk of Crohn's disease, and ulcerative colitis.[29] [30] [31] [32] [33]
10. Sugar can cause premature aging.[34] In fact, the single most important factor that accelerates aging is insulin, which is triggered by sugar. 1
11. Sugar can lead to alcoholism.[35]
12. Sugar can cause your saliva to become acidic, tooth decay, and periodontal disease.[36] [37] [38]
13. Sugar contributes to obesity. [39] 1
14. Sugar can cause autoimmune diseases such as: arthritis, asthma, and multiple sclerosis.[40] [41] [42]
15. Sugar greatly assists the uncontrolled growth of Candida Albicans (yeast infections) [43]
16. Sugar can cause gallstones.[44]
17. Sugar can cause appendicitis.[45]
18. Sugar can cause hemorrhoids.[46]
19. Sugar can cause varicose veins.[47]
20. Sugar can elevate glucose and insulin responses in oral contraceptive users.[48]
21. Sugar can contribute to osteoporosis.[49]
22. Sugar can cause a decrease in your insulin sensitivity thereby causing an abnormally high insulin levels and eventually diabetes.[50] [51] [52]
23. Sugar can lower your Vitamin E levels.[53]
24. Sugar can increase your systolic blood pressure.[54]
25. Sugar can cause drowsiness and decreased activity in children.[55]
26. High sugar intake increases advanced glycation end products (AGEs),which are sugar molecules that attach to and damage proteins in your body. AGEs speed up the aging of cells, which may contribute to a variety of chronic and fatal diseases. [56] 1
27. Sugar can interfere with your absorption of protein.[57]
28. Sugar causes food allergies.[58]
29. Sugar can cause toxemia during pregnancy.[59]
30. Sugar can contribute to eczema in children.[60]
31. Sugar can cause atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease.[61] [62]
32. Sugar can impair the structure of your DNA.[63]
33. Sugar can change the structure of protein and cause a permanent alteration of the way the proteins act in your body.[64] [65]
34. Sugar can make your skin age by changing the structure of collagen.[66]
35. Sugar can cause cataracts and nearsightedness.[67] [68]
36. Sugar can cause emphysema.[69]
37. High sugar intake can impair the physiological homeostasis of many systems in your body.[70]
38. Sugar lowers the ability of enzymes to function.[71]
39. Sugar intake is higher in people with Parkinson's disease.[72]
40. Sugar can increase the size of your liver by making your liver cells divide, and it can increase the amount of fat in your liver, leading to fatty liver disease.[73] [74]
41. Sugar can increase kidney size and produce pathological changes in the kidney such as the formation of kidney stones.[75] [76]Fructose is helping to drive up rates of kidney disease. 1
42. Sugar can damage your pancreas.[77]
43. Sugar can increase your body's fluid retention.[78]
44. Sugar is enemy #1 of your bowel movement.[79]
45. Sugar can compromise the lining of your capillaries.[80]
46. Sugar can make your tendons more brittle.[81]
47. Sugar can cause headaches, including migraines.[82]
48. Sugar can reduce the learning capacity, adversely affect your children's grades and cause learning disorders.[83] [84]
49. Sugar can cause an increase in delta, alpha, and theta brain waves, which can alter your ability to think clearly.[85]
50. Sugar can cause depression.[86]
51. Sugar can increase your risk of gout.[87]
52. Sugar can increase your risk of Alzheimer's disease.[88] MRI studies show that adults 60 and older who have high uric acid are four to five times more likely to have vascular dementia, the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer’s.1
53. Sugar can cause hormonal imbalances such as: increasing estrogen in men, exacerbating PMS, and decreasing growth hormone.[89] [90] [91] [92]
54. Sugar can lead to dizziness.[93]
55. Diets high in sugar will increase free radicals and oxidative stress.[94]
56. A high sucrose diet of subjects with peripheral vascular disease significantly increases platelet adhesion.[95]
57. High sugar consumption by pregnant adolescents can lead to a substantial decrease in gestation duration and is associated with a twofold-increased risk for delivering a small-for-gestational-age (SGA) infant.[96] [97]
58. Sugar is an addictive substance.[98]
59. Sugar can be intoxicating, similar to alcohol.[99]
60. Sugar given to premature babies can affect the amount of carbon dioxide they produce.[100]
61. Decrease in sugar intake can increase emotional stability.[101]
62. Your body changes sugar into 2 to 5 times more fat in the bloodstream than it does starch.[102]
63. The rapid absorption of sugar promotes excessive food intake in obese subjects.[103]
64. Sugar can worsen the symptoms of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).[104]
65. Sugar adversely affects urinary electrolyte composition.[105]
66. Sugar can impair the function of your adrenal glands.[106]
67. Sugar has the potential of inducing abnormal metabolic processes in normal, healthy individuals, thereby promoting chronic degenerative diseases.[107]
68. Intravenous feedings (IVs) of sugar water can cut off oxygen to your brain.[108]
69. Sugar increases your risk of polio.[109]
70. High sugar intake can cause epileptic seizures.[110]
71. Sugar causes high blood pressure in obese people.[111]
72. In intensive care units, limiting sugar saves lives.[112]
73. Sugar may induce cell death.[113]
74. In juvenile rehabilitation centers, when children were put on low sugar diets, there was a 44 percent drop in antisocial behavior.[114]
75. Sugar dehydrates newborns.[115]
76. Sugar can cause gum disease.[116]

It should now be crystal clear just how damaging sugar is. You simply cannot achieve your highest degree of health and vitality if you are consuming a significant amount of it.

Fortunately, your body has an amazing ability to heal itself when given the basic nutrition it needs, and your liver has an incredible ability to regenerate. If you start making changes today, your health WILL begin to improve, returning you to the state of vitality that nature intended.

Source: Dr. Mercola

Related: Agave: A Triumph of Marketing over Truth

Proctor and Gamble (P&G) faces growing backlash over updated Pampers

(Reuters) - Procter & Gamble's (PG.N) biggest bet on a new diaper in 25 years has run afoul of some parents who say their babies suffered rashes and burns after using them.

And while the company insists its new product launch is off to a blockbuster start, it is also the target of hundreds of public complaints that pose a threat to an $8 billion brand built on trust.

Cathy Valentine, for one, says she may never buy a P&G product ever again.

Her four-month old daughter had been in Pampers Swaddlers diapers since the day she was born. Earlier this month the Michigan mom started to use a box of the newest P&G diapers with "Dry Max" technology that is touted as thinner and more absorbent. Soon, her daughter's skin in the diaper area turned pink. By the next day, blisters had formed.

Nothing in baby Alexis's routine had changed except that the family started using the new Pampers Swaddlers, Valentine said. A pediatrician diagnosed it as a chemical burn and one week later the area was still bleeding when touched, she said.

Valentine's story of rashes and burns after using the new Pampers is one of several quickly making the rounds on social networking sites such as Facebook, where a group calling on the company to reinstate the old diapers had grown to 1,053 members as of Monday.

The world's largest marketer has tried to tap into positive viral buzz online, including rave reviews from bloggers provided with free samples of the new diapers. Nearly 225,469 people are part of a Pampers' Facebook "fan" group, but even there, some parents voice opposition to the new products.

"P&G's really got their hands full on this one," said Tim Calkins, clinical professor of marketing at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Ill. "If a product like this develops a negative reputation it can really become a big issue."

PAMPERS SAYS TESTS PROVED SAFETY

P&G began introducing the new diapers with "Dry Max" during the first half of 2009, gradually replacing older versions of Pampers Swaddlers and Cruisers. As of last month, only the new version is available to shoppers.

The diapers have been heavily promoted by P&G, including giveaways tied to the Winter Olympics. Chairman and Chief Executive Bob McDonald has called the new diapers Pampers "biggest breakthrough" in at least 25 years.

Pampers tested the products on more than 20,000 babies before they were launched, with "more than 300,000 diaper changes as part of these studies that really confirmed that it's safe," said Bryan McCleary, a spokesman for P&G's baby care division.

"There's absolutely nothing in our testing that would say that there should be any difference between previous Pampers products and this Pampers product," he said in response to questions posed by Reuters. He added that if a complaint was serious, it would be reviewed by the company's health and safety group.

P&G has seen "great" consumer demand for the new diapers and feels they are "off to a blockbuster start," he added. Parenting magazine, among others, gave the new diapers a ringing endorsement.

But dozens of parents on Pampers websites, forums such as Facebook and online retailers including Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) and Diapers.com, say that even though the diapers are supposed to be more absorbent, they leak more and feel stiff.

And while P&G says it is not receiving an unusual amount of complaints given the introduction of a new product, the negative discussion can take on a life of its own.

"Reality and perception are two different things and if people think the new diaper has a problem, well, then, that becomes a big issue," said Calkins. "The world of social media gives consumers the ability to find each other and to really champion these causes."

PERCEPTION PROBLEM

Some of the consumer anger stems from surprise over P&G's formulaic response to complaints. Many parents learn to trust the brand just after their babies are born, as more than 95 percent of U.S. hospitals swaddle newborns in Pampers.

The company also reaches out to expectant mothers and new parents via websites, advertising and coupons. But when the latest complaints arose, some say Pampers replied with form-letter types of responses.

After Louisiana resident Rosana Shah unknowingly put new Pampers Cruisers on her daughter, she started the Facebook group "Pampers bring back the OLD CRUISERS/SWADDLERS" in late 2009.

Shah bought Cruisers in November, as she had for some time, only to find the new version tucked inside with no wording on the box or even an insert to say the product was different.

"The moment I started to use these diapers I noticed her skin get really, really hot and red and she would actually pull away from me when it was time for a diaper change," Shah said.

P&G confirmed that some new diapers were shipped in the old boxes months before updated packaging hit stores in March. McCleary said it was a fairly standard practice when there is a big product change and production lines need to be switched.

Valentine was surprised that Pampers responded to her story of severe rash by giving her coupons for more diapers with Dry Max. Pampers' reputation is "damaged so much I will never trust them again," she said. "If I could realistically boycott every Procter & Gamble product, I would."

She has sworn off using any other P&G baby products, such as lower-priced Luvs diapers. Her daughter now wears Huggies Pure & Natural diapers, made by Kimberly-Clark Corp (KMB.N).

For now, Shah's daughter wears Target Corp's (TGT.N) up & up diapers during the day and Fisher-Price diapers at night.

Shah would use the old Pampers if they came back, but that is not in P&G's plans. The company did not say whether Dry Max would be added to Pampers Baby Dry or Luvs, but it does want more consumers to be able to experience what it calls "game changer" technology, McCleary said.

Finding a box of the old version of Cruisers "is like finding treasure, honestly it is," Shah said.

(Reporting by Jessica Wohl; Editing by Michele Gershberg, Bernard Orr)

ANH-USA Victory! Supplements Are Exempted From Codex Language in Food Safety Bill

April 13, 2010

The FDA Food Modernization Act (S. 510), also referred to as the “Food Safety” bill, has been modified to exempt dietary supplements from language that otherwise creates a slippery slope toward U.S. harmonization with Codex Alimentarius. ANH-USA worked to protect the natural health community from this dangerous provision that threatened access to high quality, therapeutic supplement doses by working with key senators to modify the language, now for the second time.

The most worrisome provision of the bill initially required the Food and Drug Agency (FDA) to recommend that U.S. foreign

trading partners harmonize with Codex. This odd language was no doubt very intentional. How could we recommend harmonization to other countries if we rejected it for the U.S.? So in effect we were committing ourselves to a much more restrictive regulatory regime for supplements.

As the Senate moved forward with the Food Safety bill, Senator Harkin (D-IA), committee chair, working closely with Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), promised to see what could be done to make absolutely clear this legislation was not intended to impact our access to dietary supplements. At that time, Senator Harkin modified the Codex provision, asking the FDA to consider “whether and how” to recommend U.S. foreign trading partners harmonize. This was a very important change and a tremendous show of support from both Senators, but we were still concerned that the inclusion of Codex language in the bill could be used to support future U.S. harmonization with Codex standards on dietary supplements.

ANH-USA worked with our allies in the Senate over the past several months to include additional language providing stronger protection for supplements. New language has now been added specifically stating, “Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect the regulation of dietary supplements.”

The Codex Alimentarius was initially developed to establish international food safety standards and regulate ingredients of food products. However, there is great concern that if the U.S. harmonizes with Codex standards, which are expected to follow Europe’s increasing ban on supplements, our access to supplements will be lost and even our food standards may be compromised. Although ANH-USA considers the new exemption a huge victory, it only applies to dietary supplements. The U.S. is still at risk of harmonization with other Codex food standards.

ANH-USA is especially grateful to Senators Harkin and Hatch for their leadership, continued dedication to the natural health community, and most recently, their show of support protecting our supplements from Codex harmonization. The Senate is expected to take up the Food Safety bill any day now. As the legislative process moves forward we will keep our members up to date on our efforts and where appropriate, we’ll ask for your help to protect supplements from increased government intrusion. The House version of the Food Safety bill, already passed, is especially worrisome. We will continue to make every effort, with your help, to ensure that the House version does not become law.

Related: 

Tell FDA That Cherries – And Now Walnuts – Are Not Illegal Drugs

60 doctor-owned hospitals canceled due to new health law

In this March 16, 2010 photo, emergency room patient Anthony Barbuto waits for surgery for an aneurysm at St.Vincent's Hospital, where he was born, in New York. The facility, which has fought to save lives for 160 years, treating survivors of the Titanic and New Yorkers fleeing the World Trade Center attacks, is threatened with closing because of a financial crisis. It is the only hospital with a trauma center on the west side of Lower Manhattan. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

The new health care overhaul law – that promised increased access and efficiency in health care – will prevent doctor-owned hospitals from adding more rooms and more beds.

These hospitals are advertised as less bureaucratic and more focused on doctor-patient decision making. However, larger corporate hospitals say doctor-owned facilities discriminate in favor of high-income patients and refer business to themselves.

The new rules single out physician-owned hospitals, making new physician-owned projects ineligible to receive payments for Medicare and Medicaid patients.

Existing doctor-owned hospitals will be grandfathered in to get government funds for patients but must seek permission from the Department of Health and Human Services to expand.

Full story: 60 hospitals cancelled due to new health law

Posted:  True Health Is True Wealth

Seems Stupak Planned to Betray Pro-Lifers Over A Year Ago – Now Group Getting $3.4B in Earmarks

Video: Stupak Speaking in Cheboygan, MI – Very Telling

Pro-Life Democrats Who Switched Vote for Health Bill Request Billions in Earmarks

FOXNews.com

The 11 House Democrats led by Rep. Bart Stupak who dropped their opposition to health care reform mere hours before the final vote have requested $3.4 billion in earmarks -- and one watchdog group wants to know whether the money represents business as usual, or a political payoff.

Rep. Bart Stupak announces he will vote to pass the health care reform bill at the U.S. Capitol in Washington March 21. (AP Photo)

The 11 House Democrats led by Rep. Bart Stupak who dropped their opposition to health care reform legislation mere hours before the final vote have requested $3.4 billion in earmarks -- and one watchdog group wants to know whether the money represents business as usual or political payoffs.

The Sunlight Foundation says it plans to track the earmark requests, which were put in one day after health care reform cleared Congress, to see whether they're approved and whether it appears lawmakers are being rewarded for their vote.

"We know that in Congress one of the ways that leadership tries to influence members is through earmarks," said Bill Allison, editorial director at the nonpartisan organization. "So this seemed to us something good to follow."

Stupak and the 10 other Democrats were critical to the success of the health care bill. They were holding out over concerns about funding for abortion coverage but announced the president had assuaged their worries -- with an executive order restricting abortion funding -- the morning of the big vote.

Stupak's office said there's absolutely no link between the earmarks and the health care bill's passage.

"The congressman's vote for health care has no connection to annual appropriations requests," spokeswoman Michelle Benoche said. "Appropriations requests were submitted on Monday, March 22, because that is the deadline of the Appropriations Committee."

She also said his earmark requests this year are in line with prior years, in number and in total amount.

But watchdogs want to know whether there's more to the story.

Since the health care reform push hit its final stretch, numerous sweeteners for lawmakers' districts and states have been found inside the package. Earmark requests are made outside of the health care bill, making them a bit more difficult to link to any vote-trading. But it is precisely that kind of tricky-to-catch deal-making that Republican Sen. Tom Coburn said he and other GOP senators would be monitoring for months to come.

"If you think you can cut a deal now and it not come out until after the election, I want to tell you that isn't going to happen," Coburn said a few days before the bill passed.

Lawmakers like Stupak have since been heavily scrutinized. Allison said the lawmakers who stood with him will find out if those earmarks are approved when the Appropriations Committee's bills come out in June or July.

The individual earmarks requests from each of those lawmakers range from $20 million to $1.4 billion. Of the eight lawmakers whose 2010 requests were available for comparison, five requested more money than they did a year ago. Stupak requested $579 million.

Here are the earmark amounts requested by the 11 House Democrats in the 2011 bill:

Rep. Jerry Costello of Illinois.: $1,418.7 million ($256.4 million in 2010)

Rep. Solomon Ortiz of Texas: $618 million ($726.1 million in 2010)

Stupak of Michigan: $578.9 million

Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio: $294 million ($305.7 million in 2010)

Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania: $236.8 million ($54 million in 2010)

Rep. James Oberstar of Minnesota.: $207 million ($226 million in 2010)

Rep. Brad Ellsworth of Indiana.: $115.4 million ($82.3 million in 2010)

Rep. Charles Wilson of Ohio: $84 million ($62.3 million in 2010)

Rep. Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania.: $67.1 million

Rep. Steve Driehaus of Ohio: $33.2 million

Rep. Joseph Donnelly of Indiana: $19.8 million ($11.65 million in 2010)

The Sunlight Foundation also says it is going to look at Republican earmarks. House Republicans say they are not requesting any earmarks for the next fiscal year, but Allison said the Sunlight Foundation will watch GOP senators to see if they appear to be putting in earmark requests for their House colleagues.

Fox News' Molly Henneberg contributed to this report.

Vote the Bums out in November… or start a recall or impeachment movement now!! And fight to overturn ObamaCare!!

Related:

Excellent ObamaCare Article by Mark Steyn

Obama’s Medicare pick urges ‘radical transfer of power’