Metabolic Syndrome, a leading cause
of weight gain and obesity, occurs when the body loses
its ability to control insulin levels. Left untreated,
glucose and insulin levels can become chronically elevated,
resulting in obesity, diabetes and increasing the incidence
of heart attack, strokes, cataracts and cancer. According
to the Journal of the American Medical Association,
over 80 million adults in the United States suffer
from Metabolic Syndrome – and most don't even
know that such a condition exists – or that they
have it.
Obesity
and "Poisoned" Food Supply
In a paper recently published in Nature Clinical Practice:
Endocrinology and Metabolism, nationally renowned obesity
expert Dr. Robert Lustig observed that hyperinsulinemia – elevated
insulin – does not result from being obese, but
is the primary culprit in causing obesity. According
to Lustig, much of the problem can be linked to a “poisoned” food
supply that alters people’s biochemistry, causing
them to eat more and move less.
The processed foods
most readily available in America – potato chips,
cookies,
yogurt and white bread – are loaded with sugars that cause the body to
believe that it is hungry, which compels the body to consume more calories and
conserve energy. Additionally, sugar makes the body produce more insulin, which
then blocks hormones that would normally tell the brain to stop eating. This
insulin floods the brain, and in particular the hypothalamus, which regulates
energy use in the body. As a result, leptin, a hormone that tells the brain when
the body needs more or less energy, can’t get its signal to the hypothalamus
because the insulin is blocking the way.
A
New Approach to Healthy Weight Control
Angered by the simplistic argument
that obesity is caused by eating too much and exercising
too little, Lustig says it is unfair and unhelpful
to blame personal
behavior, especially lack of self-control for obesity.
Breaking the pattern of
sugar consumption – which Lustig compares to nicotine
addiction – is more than just a matter of willpower. “Everyone’s
assuming you have a choice, but when your brain is starving, you don’t
have a choice,” Lustig said. “Your body is telling you to eat more.
Our bodies don’t do well fighting biochemical drive. Try to not drink something
after you’ve eaten a pizza, when you’re thirsty.”
“… Lustig
says it is unfair and unhelpful to blame personal
behavior, especially lack of self-control for
obesity.”
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The result
is that the body is thrown into starvation mode – the brain
thinks it isn’t getting enough energy, so it needs more calories and it
needs to save energy, he said. People end up feeling the symptoms of starvation,
including malaise, depression, a lack of motivation and, of course, hunger.
As
a pediatric endocrinologist, Lustig believes that effective treatment comes
through examining genetics, biochemistry,
hormones and lifestyle. “There
are hormonal underpinnings to every behavior,” Lustig said, ticking off
the hormones affecting appetite – leptin, insulin, grehlin and PYY. “Insulin
is the bad guy; the more insulin you generate, the more weight you gain. Insulin
shunts sugar to fat.”
Four
Steps to Reducing Insulin Levels
The primary goal of Lustig's therapy is to get insulin
levels down. First, he tells patients to get rid of
all liquid sugar, which he calls “liquid poison.” When
meeting a new patient Lustig will pull out a calculator and listen to the list
of beverages consumed daily. Kids rarely drink water or milk and instead consume
considerable amounts of Coke, Gatorade and Kool-Aid. Coke has 150 calories per
can, he notes. Liquid sugar typically accounts for more than 500 unneeded calories
a day. “Multiply 500 calories times 365 days a year and you have 250,000
calories a year in liquid sugar,” Lustig said. “There are 3,500 calories
in a pound, so that's 60 pounds a year.”
Next, he goes after what he calls
the “white and fluffies,” the refined
carbohydrates without fiber. That includes bread, rice, pasta and potatoes. The
white and fluffies should be substituted with “brown and crunchies,” he
says, referring to beans, brown rice, lentils, nuts and other legumes.
When children
ask for second helpings, parents should implement a 20-minute waiting period.
That's how long it takes for the body to know it is full. The signal
is sent by the intestinal PYY hormone, Lustig says.
Finally, he looks at lifestyle.
Television too often goes hand in hand with obesity. “I
have kids tell me they watch 10 hours a day. I say, ‘OK, kid, here's the
deal. You watch as much TV as you want with one proviso – you watch it
while on a treadmill.’“
Source: Nat Clin Pract Endocrinol
Metab. 2006 Aug;2(8):447-58.
