A recent study reported on in Diabetes Care stated that men whose diet was rich in hot dogs, bacon and luncheon meat had a 46 percent greater chance of getting diabetes than those who did not eat those foods.
Diabetes Care is a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Diabetes Association.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/HEALTH/diet.fitness/02/26/hotdogs.diabetes.ap/index.html
The data in the research came from the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, a project that began in 1986 by collecting dietary information from 42,504 men, aged 40 to 75, who were healthy, free of diabetes, heart disease or cancer.
The men in the study were followed for 12 years, and the researchers compared the dietary patterns of those who developed type 2 diabetes with eating habits of those who did not. Hu said the results were adjusted for known effects of activities such as smoking, obesity, fat intake and physical activity. After these adjustments, he said, it was clear that eating abundant hot dogs and other processed meats was an independent risk factor for diabetes.
We have found from personal experience that eating something high fat, especially one of the above mentioned foods, blows the sugar levels sky high in a type II diabetic (CVDS). The diabetic in question can maintain better blood sugar levels with having a dish of Dairy Queen ice cream than eating one of the Dairy Queen hamburgers.
McGinnis-Foege in 1993 found NOT that "300,000 people die each year of obesity" as is often misquoted by the press, but that "300,000 people die each year of diseases related to SEDENTARY LIFESTYLE and DIETARY FACTORS".
Confirming the influence environment has on related disease (and the symptom of obesity which in many cases is an outward sign of the 'sedentary lifestyle and dietary factors' which can cause disorders) was another article in yesterday's AP news.
The article lamenting that obesity is affecting the world, not only the USA, reported that:
>>>>>To see the effects of a Western diet at work, anthropologist Barry Bogin of the University of Michigan at Dearborn studied two groups of Mayan children, historically lean people. One group lived in Guatemala in traditional communities while the other lived in Indiantown, Fla., where they dined on American-style food. Bogin discovered that 42 percent of 296 Mayan children in Indiantown between the ages of 6 and 12 were obese, a rate without parallel in the homeland. There are ways to fight the epidemic, Bogin said, but they center on lifestyle changes many Americans already find difficult to embrace. ''It's all common-sense things that people don't want to do because vegetables and fruit don't taste as good as ice cream and hamburgers, and they're not as available,'' he said. <<<<<<<
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/057/science/The_weight_of_the_world+.shtml
"Paradoxes" such as the above i.e. where people are NOT obese in their native lifestyles but BECOME very obese when living a more modern lifestyle with labor saving devices like cars and a high fat diet, are common. The first of these to filter down to the public was the now famous "PIMA paradox" (REF:Colles, Lisa FAT - EXPLODING THE MYTHS - London, 1998) but this was soon followed by the Mexican paradox, the Philippine paradox and more.
Moreover in the last year it was discovered that exercise can make a great difference and may be, in fact why Europeans are less obese than Americans. The average European takes 10,000 steps a day as cars are not common and people often walk or bike to places they need to do. In comparison, the average American takes less than 1000 steps a day.
Looking through my High School yearbook, I realized that the few kids who were obese were 30-40 lbs overweight and there were NO kids in the 4000 kids who attended our High School who could be called 'Supersized' (over 350 lbs). Now, about 10 percent of kids in school are very large. This change in the 40 years since I graduated High School happens to coincide with the discontinuance of the daily Physical Education requirement on the High School level, most kids having cars to drive to school and the appearance of fast food concessions in the High Schools.
Truly the increase of obesity is somewhat genetic but then, the American PIMAs, who are the most obese population in the United States were described as recently as 100 years ago by those visiting the West. "The PIMA Indians are", wrote the visitors, "a lean sinewy people".
SueW
additional reference:
Pool, Robert: FAT - exploring the obesity epidemic (NY, 2001)
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