According to a new study, roughly 86% of Americans age 18 and older may be overweight or obese by 2030 and related health care costs would double every decade and could reach $956.9 billion in 2030?1 of every 6 health care dollars spent. The study also estimates that by 2022, about 80% of adults may be overweight or obese, and 100% could be by 2048. But the prevalence will reach 100% a in black women a decade earlier?by 2034. Black girls and Mexican-American boys are especially vulnerable: four in 10 may become overweight or obese by 2030, and half by 2050.
Red wine to the rescue! Resveratrol, that magic substance in red wine which helps prevent heart disease, also reduces the number of fat cells, meaning it may one day be used as a diet drug. This new finding is consistent with the theory that the resveratrol in red wine explains the French paradox, the observation that French people eat a relatively high-fat diet but have a low death rate from heart disease and don’t gain as much weight as most Americans do on the same type of diet.
Why is everybody EATING so much? When we get depressed, lots of us turn to “comfort foods.” Now researchers have discovered the hormone that causes this. While levels of the ?hunger hormone? ghrelin are known to increase when a person doesn?t eat, scientists have think that the same hormone may help mitigate the symptoms of stress and anxiety. In other word, when we?re worried, we get HUNGRY.
Psychiatrist Michael Lutter says, “Our findings support the idea that these hunger hormones don’t do just one thing; rather, they coordinate an entire behavioral response to stress and probably affect mood, stress and energy levels.”
Dr. Jeffrey Zigman thinks their findings make sense when considered from an evolutionary standpoint because, until modern times, the one common human experience was securing enough food to prevent starvation. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors needed to be as calm and collected as possible when it was time to venture out in search of food, or risk becoming dinner themselves, so the anti-anxiety effects of the hunger-induced hormone may have provided a survival advantage.
Lutter says, “We’re very interested to see whether ghrelin treatment could help people with anorexia nervosa, with the idea being that in a certain population, calorie restriction and weight loss could have an antidepressant effect and could be reinforcing for this illness.”
The foods we crave when we’re depressed can make us fat, but at least some of them are a real cure for depression. A better solution? Have sex (it also uses up calories)!
Did you know that there’s a FREE diet book right here on our website, that includes a wonderfully comforting cocoa recipe? To read it, click here and scroll down to What I Learned From the Fat Years. Anne Strieber, who used to be a diabetic, devised this diet herself, using scientific principles, and lost 100 pounds by following it?and you can too. Click on unknowncountry.com every day to learn the key to eating right. The key to OUR being here for you tomorrow is YOU: so follow the right path and subscribe today!
Art credit: freeimages.co.uk
To learn more, click here, here and here.
NOTE: This news story, previously published on our old site, will have any links removed.
Subscribers, to watch the subscriber version of the video, first log in then click on Dreamland Subscriber-Only Video Podcast link.