Report by Geoffrey Lean in the Independent on Sunday
Extracts:
"Pollution can make children fat, startling new research shows. A groundbreaking Spanish study indicates that exposure to a range of common chemicals before birth sets up a baby to grow up stout, thus helping to drive the worldwide obesity epidemic.
The results of the study, just published – the first to link chemical contamination in the womb with one of the developing world's greatest and fastest-growing health crises – carry huge potential implications for public policy around the globe. They undermine recent strictures from the Conservative leader, David Cameron, that blame solely the obese for their own condition.
A quarter of all British adults and a fifth of children are obese – four times as many as 30 years ago. And so are at least 300 million people worldwide. The main explanation is that they are consuming more calories than they burn. But there is growing evidence that diet and lack of exercise, though critical, cannot alone explain the rapid growth of the epidemic."
"Experiments have shown that many chemicals fed to pregnant animals cause their offspring to grow up obese. These include organotins, long employed in antifouling paints on ships and now widely found in fish; bisphenol A (BPA), used in baby bottles and to line cans of food, among countless other applications; and phthalates, found in cosmetics, shampoos, plastics to wrap food, and in a host of other everyday products.
These pollutants – dubbed "obesogens" as a result of these findings – are so ubiquitous that almost everyone now has them in their bodies. Ninety-five per cent of Americans excrete BPA in their urine; 90 per cent of babies have been found to be exposed to phthalates in the womb; and every umbilical cord analysed in the new Spanish study was found to contain organchlorine pesticides such as HCB."
"Dr Pete Myers, one of the world's leading experts on obesogens, told The Independent on Sunday last night: "This is very important. It is the first good study of the effects on the foetus. Its conclusions are not surprising, given what we know from the animal experiments, but it firmly links such chemicals to the biggest challenge facing public health today.""
I think we can probably trust the actual findings of the study because it is unlikely that it was funded by the pharmaceutical industry. (It is wise never to trust research funded by Big Pharma.) - What we need always to be sceptical about are the conclusions drawn from research, because these conclusions are often based on false premises/assumptions/beliefs/prejudices/self-interest.
There are a number of false assumptions in this report, the main one being contained in this statement: "Everyone agrees that people gain weight by taking in more calories in their food than they burn off through everyday activities and exercise." - The truth is that the calorie explanation of weight gain is untrue. -
OBESITY IS CAUSED BY FLUID RETENTION/SODIUM RETENTION/SALT SENSITIVITY, NOT BY EXCESS CALORIES OR BY INSUFFICIENT EXERCISE. And fluid retention frequently leads to FAT RETENTION.
Fluid retention has a number of contributory causes, to which we should perhaps now add foetal exposure to pollutants. - The good news is that whatever the contributory causes of any individual's obesity, there is a fast, safe, sure way to reduce/prevent it, namely AVOID SALT AND SALTY FOOD AND AVOID PRESCRIPTION DRUGS UNLESS THEY ARE ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY AND TAKE THEM IN THE LOWEST EFFECTIVE DOSE AND FOR THE SHORTEST PERIOD OF TIME NECESSARY.
The main causes of salt sensitivity are
1) prescription drugs, mainly steroids, HRT or other oestrogen-containing drugs such as some contraceptive medications,
anti-psychotics and antidepressants,
but also including many painkillers
2) eating salt and salty food in childhood
3) dieting, i.e. eating insufficient food
4) high levels of oestrogen and eating salty food during pregnancy
5) high levels of oestrogen and other drug residues in our drinking water supply
6) depletion of the body's calcium, magnesium and potassium levels, and vitamin D deficiency
7) eating insufficent fruit and vegetables
The first three are the most important in terms of the numbers of people harmed and the severity of the harm.
Obesity is on the increase mainly because doctors are recklessly prescribing more and more drugs, often in recklessly high doses and constantly give obese people the catastrophically harmful advice to "just eat less and exercise more". - This advice does not reduce obesity; it usually increases obesity because it further weakens the walls of the blood vessels, thus leading to greater fluid retention and malnutrition.
There is further and fuller information on my website. If you need more explanation I can be contacted from my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)
Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
And see Sodium in foods and
Associated health conditions
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