No shortcuts to losing weight

The Hindu Visitors have a look at the posters during a campaign on "Prevention of Childhood Obesity and Diabetes" in Chennai. Children should be taught to eat healthy and exercise, says Dr. Reddy.

Sheela (name changed) was 40, rather short, and stout. Since she delivered nearly two decades ago, she began putting on weight until the weighing scales groaned at 145 kg.

With a Body Mass Index of 49, she was ‘morbidly obese'. She also had the attendant problems – diabetes, high blood pressure, and thyroid abnormalities. However, she ignored her problem until doctors said it could cost her, her life. At a BMI of 49, exercise and dieting was not going to help her.

“Sheela is a classic case – her meals were fat and carbohydrate-rich, and she had literally no exercise. In fact, she would not move out of home. When she came to us, she was morbidly obese, but we still set her on a diet and exercise pattern,” says Deepak Subramanian, consultant laparoscopic and bariatric surgeon, Fortis Malar Hospital. Predictably, it did not help her at all.

“The problem was that she did not bother about gaining weight until her BP hit the roof. As she came to us, the only option we could provide her was bariatric surgery,” Dr. Subramanian explains. For anyone with a BMI of over 35, and with obesity-related medical conditions, the chances of getting back to normal weight are low.

By reducing the size of the stomach through bariatric surgery, the patient's ability to consume large volumes is curtailed, explains Prasanna Kumar Reddy, senior consultant laparoscopic surgeon, Apollo Hospitals. The weight loss is over a period of time. However, he makes it clear that the process is not automatic.

“After surgery, the patient has to follow lifestyle modifications that we recommend. They have to drop habits that tend to lead to weight gain. In order that they follow the protocols, especially diet, we ask them to report to the dietician once every three months,” he adds. Even after surgery, the stomach pouch can expand, leading to weight gain.

J.S.Rajkumar, bariatric surgeon, and chairman, Lifeline Hospitals, says, “The human being has a natural tendency to fall back on starchy and sweet food. Aerated drinks are a strict no-no. They can cause havoc in a patient who has had bariatric surgery.” While the procedure itself can turn out to be the only help for the morbidly obese, Dr. Rajkumar makes it clear that ‘we do not yet have a procedure that can circumvent the need to follow a diet and exercise pattern'.

Dr. Subramanian cautions again that bariatric surgery is not for every one. “We get a lot of enquiries from people, specially from north India and abroad, who want to get rid of abdominal fat. But we turn them down. If you can lose fat by other means, it must be done. “There is no lazy way to lose weight. Ideally, do not get obese,” he adds.

According to Dr. Reddy, one needs to start with the young. Children should be taught to eat healthy and exercise. Parents and schools should be involved in these activities for them to be effective.

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What is Aspartame?

Views and News: Aspartame and the pharmaceutical industry

Aspartame promises the taste of sweetness without adding calories and is being used as a sugar substitute more than 4,000 products, including chewing gum and diet carbonated beverages.

After 15 years studying the negative affects of aspartme I've decided to share my findings with others. The following is from the world's No. 1 free Natural Health Newsletter. "Aspartame is highly addictive and accounts for more than 75 percent of the adverse reactions to food additives reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

"A few of the 90 different documented symptoms caused by aspartame include weight gain, seizures, depression, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, mental retardation, birth defects, fibromyalgia and diabetes.

"Aspartame degrades into several lethal substances when in aqueous solution at temperatures hotter than 86 degrees Fahrenheit, including highly toxic formaldehyde, a deadly poisonous wood alcohol called methanol, a known tumor agent called diketopiperazine (DKP), which is formed in liquid aspartame during prolonged storage or sitting on shipping docks during a hot day."

Dr. Russell L. Blaylock, Professor of neurosurgery at the Medical University of Mississippi in his book "Health and Nutrition Secrets," published in 2002, states: "The neural cell damage caused by excessive aspartate and MSG is why they're called excitotoxins. They excite the neural cells to death. More than 75 percent of neural cells in the brain are killed before any clinical symptoms of a chronic illness are noticed."

"Aspartame was originally approved for dry goods in 1981 and for carbonated beverages in 1983. In 1971, neuroscience researcher Dr. John Olney, a professor in the department of psychiatry, School of Medicine, Washington University, a neuroscientist and researcher, and one of the world's foremost authorities on excitotoxins one of the world's foremost authorities on excitotoxins, had informed G.D. Searle and Co., the maker of Aspartame, that aspartic acid caused holes in the brains of mice. Aspartame had originally been approved July 1974, but Dr. Olney filed for objections in August 1974 and sought investigations of Searle's research practice caused the FDA to put approval of aspartame on hold."

According to Dr. Betty Martini, writer for Rense online, "Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president January 21, 1981. Donald H. Rumsfeld, while still CEO at Searle, was part of Reagan's transition team. This team handpicked Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes, Jr., to be the new FDA commissioner. One of Hayes', first official acts as FDA chief was to approve the use of aspartame as an artificial sweetener in dry goods July 18, 1981. Hayes', left his post at the FDA in November, 1983. Just before leaving office in scandal, Hayes approved the use of aspartame in beverages. According to The Post, Hayes, next job was in the private sector where he served as a high-paid senior medical advisor for Searle's public relations firm.

According to Joseph Mercola of Global Research an online magazine, Oct. 2005, "Donald Rumsfeld was named Chairman of the Board of Gilead Sciences, the developer of the Tamiflu vaccine." And later, Mercola continues, "President George W. Bush spent $2 billion on the worthless Tamiflu vaccine that only decreases the amount of days one is sick." Coincidently, "while serving as Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld purchased additional Gilead stock worth $18 million, making him the largest Gilead stockholder today."

Both Searle and Gilead profit in the billions of dollars annual. The biggest profit gain isn't in curing an ailment but prolonging it. Consider the billions of dollars made daily if everyone on the planet was taking a pill a day. Consider the drugs being advertised daily and their life-threatening side-effects ranging from headaches to heart attacks. If I sold a billion pills at $1 each paying out $500 million for a class action lawsuit would merely a cost of doing business.

Pharmaceutical companies rank among the largest contributors of tax-exempt donations and grants to universities, hospitals, medical, scientific and civic organizations to support programs and activities under health education and scientific research. This type of tokenism generates a bias influence. It's obvious to me there's a revolving door between large corporations and top government agencies such as our FDA.

There's also an enormous campaign by drug companies to discredit the competitive edge of alternative medicine since the typical costs of the drug used in chemotherapy runs between $20,000 and $30,000 while alternative therapies are generally inexpensive. And with a pill for every ailment, the pharmaceutical representative becomes the local physician's main source of indoctrination on the latest drugs. The fox is in the henhouse and the chickens are being fattened for the slaughter.

Al Duncan is a author, businessman and Record-Bee columnist. He can be contacted at alduncan@pacific.net

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