• A bad month for the makers of sweet drinks • Who can sleep at night?
A bad month for the makers of sweet drinks
September 2012 is not only the 20th anniversary of ‘Iniki, “the piercing wind” that blew through our island. I believe it will also be the month that the manufacturers of sugar-ladened soda and juice look back on as the month their world began to fall apart.
In September, three studies were published in the very reputable medical journal, The New England Journal of Medicine. Since these articles were published, there have been editorials around the world about the conclusions of these studies.
It is well known that we have an epidemic of obesity everywhere that “modern” food is found. America has become a nation of the fattest people in the history of the world. Fully two-thirds of Americans are overweight and one-third of Americans are obese.
The question has been: Why did our population get so heavy in the space of just 40 years?
These three studies were performed by reputable scientists and their conclusions are quite convincing.
The first study was performed by Harvard researchers. They looked at the intake of sweetened drinks such as soda, fruit drinks, and sweetened coffees and teas and studied the records of 33,000 people over a 20-year period. They found that the genes that make a person more susceptible to becoming fat were present 235 percent more in those that drank one sweet drink per day over those that drank one sweet drink per month. Their working conclusion is that either sweet drinks increased your genetic chances of becoming obese and/or that people with a genetic tendency to become fat, drink more sweet drinks. Either way the connection was very strong: Drink more sweet drinks and your chances of being obese increase dramatically!
The second study was done at the University of Amsterdam. The study divided 641 children of mostly average weight into two groups. The only difference between the two groups was one group drank 8 oz per day of a sweet drink and the other drank 8 oz per day of a non-sweet drink. In the course of 18 months the children drinking just the one extra serving of a sweet drink gained two pounds more than the the other group. An extra two more pounds every 18 months for a child adds up quickly and the point made by investigators is that average child in America is drinking far more than 8 oz of sweet beverages per day. Using our average intake per child, that weight gain would be more like a 5.5-pound increase every 18 months.
The third study, also done at Harvard, involved overweight children in Boston. For one year the researchers delivered either sweet drinks or non-sweet drinks to 224 children. In one year, the children on the sweet-drink diet gained 4 pounds more than the other group, and Hispanic children gained 14 pounds more. It has long been known that certain populations are more at risk for weight gain from “modern” diets; and Hispanic people, American Indians and those with Polynesian roots seem to be particularly susceptible to sugar.
On islands further out in the Pacific, they say, “Eat white man’s food and you end up in white man’s hospital.” The proof keeps pouring in that they are right.
Bottom line: Sweet drinks like juice and soda and sugar-ladened foods like pastry and candies are playing a large role in making us fat and are contributing greatly to the ill health that follows obesity.
The answer is actually easy: Stop drinking liquid sugar and cut way back on processed foods which are full of sugar. If you have not decreased these foods already, start today.
Lee A. Evslin, M.D.
Kapa‘a
Who can sleep at night?
I can no longer tolerate the ignorance of the people in power who refuse to acknowledge the consequences of climate change.
If nothing is accomplished other than clearing my own conscious by speaking out, then at least I know I can eventually pass on with a clear conscious.
I’m not an alarmist or any other label lobbed in my direction by the fools suppressing the truth out of greed, denial, ignorance, fear, stupidity, conformism or any combination of the previously mentioned. I’m just a weather enthusiast that has reached a level of awareness and feel obligated to share my heightened level of concern.
The ice on the planet is melting at a rate much faster than previously thought by even those climatologists with the warmest potential forecasts.
This change in the climate is going to dramatically decrease the ability to produce enough food to support a planetary population of 7 billion people. This is real!
Anybody who thinks this isn’t their problem is a weak link, in my opinion, to the perpetuation of humanity.
I personally believe those in positions of power and responsibility who refuse to acknowledge this crisis as the most important issue facing us as people should be openly shamed, ridiculed and forcibly removed if necessary.
It’s way past the point of reasonable discussion. It’s time for drastic, radical action now. There are literally billions, billions of lives at stake.
I don’t know how some people sleep at night.
Jason Nichols
Koloa
