Toxic Environment and obesity

August 1, 2014

Toxic Environment and obesity – Are we justified to blame environmental toxins

Toxic environment is associated with the prevalence of obesity. All that we feed on appears to be contaminated by the toxic environment

The world around us is not the way it was some four or five decades ago thanks to technology that has made industrialization to take root of each economy in the world over. One of the measures used to establish the economy of any given nation is how well she is able to add value to her natural resources like agricultural produce and mineral deposits. The process of adding value to this natural produce has been one of the most sources of pollution of the environment in all dimensions. The air, the water and the land are all victims of pollution ingredients emanating from the various industries processing different products we consume today. It is on this background that we want to discuss the effects of toxic environment to obesity as a health condition.

Toxic Environment and obesity – We are surrounded by toxins

I will begin by asking a question “What is in that fat when you lose it? Interesting indeed we are rapidly being exposed to internal and external toxins.

External toxins – these are those elements derived from the environment and may enter the body due to the body being subjected to a overwhelming array of chemicals, pesticides, and herbicides that contaminate practically everything we come into contact with like the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat.

Internal toxins – these arises from the gut as breakdown products of our own metabolism.

Under normal circumstances in the past our ancestors were able to stay healthy by detoxifying their bodies using the endogenous detoxification mechanisms something we find very difficult doing today. What we would call our endogenous detoxification mechanisms are so much overloaded that the excess toxins are stored in our fat depots.

When a person loses weight (fat) these stored toxins (e.g. bisphenol, DDT etc.) are released back into the body where further interfering with normal metabolism. It has even been suggested that the release of toxins during fat loss may be responsible for slowing down weight loss and even stopping it altogether in some cases. Looking at the increase of toxins we often released into our body systems when losing weight it is necessary that our mothers and ladies in general should embrace weight loss before the can plan having children i.e. getting pregnant. This will prevent the possible damage to the unborn child’s brain.

Toxic Environment and obesity – Effects of toxins

The presence of toxins in our may change metabolism in many ways like:

Disrupt the function of hormones
Damage the mitochondria in our cells
Increase inflammation and oxidative stress
Lower the levels of the thyroid hormones we produce
Change our circadian rhythms and the autonomic nervous system

All of these changes can eventually hamper the most important weight control mechanisms in the human body. According to researchers, writing in the Italian Journal of Pediatrics, recent accumulating evidence indicates that obesity may present an adverse health consequence of exposure during the critical developmental window to environmental chemicals disrupting endocrine function. The critical developmental window is the period from conception through fetal development in the mother’s womb until the end of the first two years of life. Infants and young children are probably the most vulnerable group when it comes to exposure to harmful chemicals and endocrine disrupters.

Bisphenol A is one of the environmental pollutants which have been implicated in the development of obesity and hyperlipidemia (raised blood fat levels which are associated with heart disease). It also appears to affect the transport of glucose in fat cells and inhibits the release of an important adipokine (a compound which prevents development of the metabolic syndrome).

Toxic Environment and obesity – Organotins

Some experts describe the many potentially obesogenic actions of a variety of chemicals that contaminate our environment. For example, the most important environmental sources of so-called organotins which interfere with normal fat metabolism can be found in marine paints, wood catalysts and plasticizers, slime-preventing chemicals in industrial water systems and fungicides in foods. It is believed that the major environmental sources of organotins are contaminated seafood, agricultural products, drinking water and leaching from plastics.

Toxic Environment and obesity – Solutions

At the moment there are no general solutions to this problem. Faced with ever increasing contamination of our water supplies, foods and the atmosphere, many nations and the entire global population seem to be helpless to stop this attack on our fat-regulation systems. Until more research is done to pinpoint the most dangerous chemicals and ways are found to reduce their presence in our water, food and air, the human race appears to be defenseless but to continue gaining weight under these circumstances.

For example, if we had to remove the hundreds of chemicals found in the water supply, water would become so expensive that most of us could not afford it. Many years ago I attended a congress dedicated to water purification. As delegates we were taken on a visit to a local water purification plant. The engineer in charge showed us the various processes that were then used to remove undesirable solid waste from the water and to disinfect it against the majority of pathogens. He then smilingly presented us with a glass of clear recycled water and asked who would like a drink! No one volunteered, so he downed the glass of water himself.

When I asked this same engineer what processes were available to remove chemicals and contaminants such as estrogens derivatives from the water before it was recycled, he said that although such processes existed, they were prohibitively expensive as they required the water to be passed through resin columns. Such processes (reverse osmosis filtration, Nano filtration or granular activated carbon filtration), are probably even more expensive nowadays, so most people will continue to be exposed to organotins and other obesogenic compounds.

Let’s support actions to keep our precious water supply as clean as we can because once a nation’s water supply becomes toxic, the food supply also becomes contaminated and toxic. With acid drainage from the mines, millions of women using hormones and collapsing waste purification systems in many municipalities across nations we appear to be helpless to avoid the effects of obesogens in our environment. It is painful to know that in some nations and majority for that matter things are coming to the point of helplessness. What then can you do on your part? If you know of any of your friends or family members struggling with obesity irrespective of how they became obese you can talk to doctor Akoury the founder of AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center who is an experience medical professional of over two decades and she will help you in the most natural way possible while focusing on Neuroendocrine Restoration (NER) to reinstate normality through realization of the oneness of Spirit, Mind, and Body, Unifying the threesome into ONE.

Toxic Environment and obesity – Are we justified to blame environmental toxins

Childhood Obesity and the Environment

April 15, 2014

Childhood Obesity and the Environment-Determinant factors

Remove all the obesity incentives within the environment for children. Research findings associate childhood obesity to the environment.

We are living in a very unpredictable world when it comes to physical health of the entire humanity. Every parent wish is to raise a healthy family and most importantly the good health of the children. The health complications among children is a serious concern to parents and this is going to form the basis of our discussion in this article focusing on obesity among children and the effects of their environment as a determinant factor.

New evidence is confirming that the environment children live in has a greater impact than factors such as genetics, insufficient physical activity or other elements in efforts to control child obesity. Three new studies, published in the April 8 Pediatrics, land on the import of the ‘nurture’ side of the equation and focus on specific circumstances in children’s or teen’s lives that potentially contribute to unhealthy bulk.

Studies revealed that in the past three decades child and adolescent obesity has more than tripled in the U.S and the world at large, estimates from 2010 classify that more than a third of children and teens as overweight or obese. Obesity puts these children at higher risk for type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, sleep apnea, and bone or joint problems. The variables responsible are thought to range from too little or no exercise to too many soft drinks. Now it seems that blaming Pepsi or too little PE might neglect the bigger picture.

Experts express fears that we are raising our children in a world that is vastly different than it was several decades ago this is because Childhood obesity is a disease of the environment. It’s a natural consequence of normal children with normal genes being raised in unhealthy, abnormal environments. The environmental factors in these studies range from the seemingly minor, such as kids’ plate sizes, to bigger challenges, such as school schedules that may keep teens from getting sufficient sleep. But they are part of an even longer list: the ubiquity of fast food, changes in technology, fewer home-cooked meals, more food advertising, an explosion of low-cost processed foods and increasing sugary drink serving sizes as well as easy access to unhealthy snacks in vending machines, at sports games and in nearly every setting children inhabit—these are just a handful of environmental factors research has linked to increasing obesity, and researchers are starting to pick apart which among them play bigger or lesser roles in making children obese.

Childhood Obesity and the Environment-Size matters in “obesogenic environments”
In one of the three new studies dishware size made a big difference. Researchers studied 42 second-graders in which the children alternately used child-size 18.4-centimeter (7.25-inch) diameter plates with 237-milliliter (8-ounce) bowls or adult-size 26-centimeter (10.25-inch) diameter plates with 473-milliliter (16-ounce) bowls. Doubling the size of the dishware, the researchers found, increased the amount of food kids served themselves in a buffet-style lunch line by an average of 90 calories. They ate about 43 percent of those extra calories, on average.

Although children can typically adjust their energy intake by regulating their food, their surroundings and options may change that equation for kids in the same way that it does in adults. This notion that children are immune to the environment is somewhat misguided, to promote self-regulation, you have to constrain the environment in a way that makes the healthy choice the easy choice.

Childhood Obesity and the Environment-Link between obesity and screen time
Overconsumption might be a key component in the link between obesity and screen time, too, according to another of the new studies. Although past research already had linked increased TV time to widening waistlines, this study dug deeper. Ninety one children between ages 13 and 15 year olds filled out diaries for TV, video games and computer use during a one-week period. About four to seven times a day the teens were paged to record what they were paying the most attention to at that particular moment, followed by activities receiving their second- and third-most attention.

Kids live in a multitasking world and in trying to assess their technology use when they’re using different forms of technology at once. Three theories have been floated for the link between screen time and obesity: food advertising, unconscious eating and displacement—that is, the idea that the media use replaces physical activity. The findings lent more support to the first two variables and less to the third. They found video games and computer use had no impact on BMI (body mass index). Television did, but only if it was the main event. Background TV, for example, didn’t matter.

Childhood Obesity and the Environment-Less physical activity is not the problem
Screen-time study did find that kids engaged in more physical activity had lower BMIs, but that does not mean that more exercise is keeping those teens lighter. “What we’ve seen for so many years is research looking at physical activity as the preventative or the curative solution for childhood obesity, but the data on physical activity as a means to set children’s weight is abysmal. What the study confirmed is that screen time increases obesity consequent to calorie intake, not to a lack of physical activity. That’s a crucial message that people don’t understand obesity is not a disease of inactivity.

Childhood Obesity and the Environment-Modifying children’s environment

To help our children from being obese, we need to reorganize their environment to try as much as we can to eliminate elements that facilitate occurrences of obesity. These are some of the elements to be put aside:

Sugary drinks from vending machines
Snack food serving sizes
Removed deep fryers from school cafeterias and replaced whole milk options with 1 percent and skim
Ensure new healthy nutrition standards both in schools and daycare centers for the children.
Encourage corner stores around the schools to stock their shelves with healthier snacks.

Finally controlling the happenings in our environment may be an uphill task for you and me, yet we all need to keep our children safe from obesity. If for whatever reason this problem is already affecting you or your child directly or indirectly you can get help at AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center under Doctor Akoury. Hear all your worries will be sorted out humanely in the most natural and efficient way. Doctor Akoury and her team are professionals who care for you and will focus on Neuroendocrine Restoration (NER) to reinstate normality through realization of the oneness of Spirit, Mind, and Body, Unifying the threesome into ONE. Giving this a try will be one of the most precious gift you can give to your children, friends and even yourself.

Childhood Obesity and the Environment-Determinant factors

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