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March 10th, 2010 - Barbara Feiner
As noted yesterday in When Costs Rise, Sales of Unhealthful Foods Drop, so-called sin taxes on unhealthful foods may help stem America’s obesity and diabetes epidemics.
Facing critical budget deficits, some city and state legislators are embracing the idea. Earlier this month, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter proposed a tax on soda purchases, while Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter last month signed a bill to tax candy and soda.
“State-level taxes exist on soda sold in grocery stores and vending machines in 34 and 39 states, respectively, and the mean taxes, currently applied for revenue generation, range from 3% to 4%,” write San Francisco Department of Public Health officials Mitchell H. Katz, MD, and Rajiv Bhatia, MD, in an editorial published in Monday’s edition of Archives of Internal Medicine.
But there’s not much evidence to support a link between such modest surcharges and changes in consumer behavior, they note.
“More substantial surcharges may decrease the consumption of sweetened beverages and, equally important, increase the consumption of more healthful alternatives,” write Drs. Katz and Bhatia.
The revenues cities and states collect “could be used to increase awareness about the harm of sugar-sweetened beverages and fund structural interventions, such as creating water stations in schools,” they add. “Copying a successful tactic of anti-tobacco crusaders, the funds also could be used to counter the lavish advertising of soda and junk food or for ‘marketing’ ordinary tap water.
“In the end,” they conclude, “putting our money where our mouth is means aligning our economic incentives so that we always serve up the healthful choice.”
For Your Organic Bookshelf: Suicide by Sugar: A Startling Look at Our #1 National Addiction
Tags: candy, diabetes, Health, legislation, obesity, sin tax, soda
Posted in Health | 1 Comment »
December 14th, 2009 - Barbara Feiner
People who drink more coffee (regular or decaffeinated) or tea appear to have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to a rigorous analysis of previous medical studies.
Each cup of regular coffee consumed in a day was associated with a 7% reduction in risk, according to researchers at the University of Sydney, Australia. Those who drank 3 to 4 cups per day had roughly a 25% lower risk than those who drank 0 to 2 cups per day.
People who drank more than 3 to 4 cups of decaffeinated coffee per day had about a 33% lower risk of developing diabetes than those who drank no decaf. And those who drank more than 3 to 4 cups of tea had a 20% lower risk than those who drank no tea.
“That the apparent protective effect of tea and coffee consumption appears to be independent of a number of potential confounding variables raises the possibility of direct biological effects,” the authors write in a paper published in the Dec. 14/28 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine.
Because decaf seems to offer protective benefits, caffeine is unlikely to be responsible for the reduced risk. Other compounds in coffee and tea—including magnesium and antioxidants known as lignans or chlorogenic acids—may be involved, the authors note.
Future studies will be required to determine whether therapeutic coffee and tea “doses” can help prevent type 2 diabetes—a disease that will affect 380 million people by 2025.
If such studies confirm these beverages’ interventional effects, the authors envision a time when “we advise our patients most at risk for [type 2] diabetes to increase their consumption of tea and coffee in addition to increasing their levels of physical activity and weight loss.”
We, of course, recommend organic coffee and tea to reduce your exposure to pesticides and toxic chemicals.
Tags: coffee, diabetes, Health, Organic Food, tea
Posted in Health, Organic Food | 4 Comments »
September 9th, 2009 - Barbara Feiner
Between 2003 and 2006, almost 40% of Mexican-American adolescents (12 to 19) were overweight or likely to become so, according to researchers at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine.
They found that teens who reduced their daily sugar intake by 47 grams (equal to one can of soda), while increasing their daily fiber intake by 5 grams (equal to one-half cup of beans), lowered their risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Emily Ventura, MPH, and her colleagues in the Department of Preventive Medicine published their results in the April edition of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
Teens who decreased their sugar intake secreted 33% less insulin, while those who increased their fiber intake lost 10% of fat around vital organs. Insulin resistance and obesity are two major risk factors for diabetes.
“Our results suggest that intensive interventions may not be necessary to achieve modifications in sugar and fiber intake,” the authors write. “Accordingly, nutritional guidance given in the primary-care or community setting may be sufficient to promote the suggested dietary changes in some individuals. In addition, policies that promote reduced intake of added sugar and increased intake of fiber could be effective public-health strategies for the prevention of type 2 diabetes in this high-risk population.”
For Your Organic Bookshelf: “I’m, Like, So Fat!”: Helping Your Teen Make Healthy Choices About Eating and Exercise in a Weight-Obsessed World
Tags: diabetes, fiber, Health, obesity, Parenting, sugar, teens
Posted in Health, Parenting | 1 Comment »
August 31st, 2009 - Barbara Feiner
Ninety percent of Americans fail to meet the recommended daily guidelines for whole-grain consumption, which vary by gender and age.
Whole grains include oatmeal, brown or wild rice, buckwheat, bulgur, whole-wheat cereal, whole-wheat pasta and quinoa. (Click here for a full list. Be sure to differentiate them from refined grains, and make organic choices.)
“Start the day right with a bowl of whole-grain cereal, fat-free milk and fruit,” says Jackie Newgent, a registered dietitian and culinary consultant in New York City.
“Americans need to close the whole-grains gap,” says Newgent, author of Big Green Cookbook: Hundreds of Planet-Pleasing Recipes and Tips for a Luscious, Low-Carbon Lifestyle. “Whole grains are rich in vitamins and minerals and are also loaded with fiber—a great tool for weight management because it fills you up and keeps you satisfied.”
Whole-grain cereals are “familiar, satisfying, taste great and offer the utmost in convenience for busy consumers,” she adds.
“What you add to your cereal can elevate it to a real taste sensation and nutritional powerhouse.” (Saturday’s recipe for Mandarin Orange Cereal Bowl is a perfect example.)
Whole grains help prevent obesity, diabetes, heart disease and some forms of cancer, Newgent says, and studies show consumption is associated with lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
Also by Jackie Newgent: The All-Natural Diabetes Cookbook
Tags: breakfast, cereal, diabetes, fiber, Health, Organic Food, weight-loss, whole grains
Posted in Health, Organic Food | 6 Comments »
March 19th, 2009 - Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
 Studies show minorities in America eat way too much junk food, resulting in higher rates of diabetes and heart disease, but yet many McDonald’s commercials seemed aimed to inner city youth.
Where’s the social responsibility? What about compassion for the consumer? Clearly profits win out.
Agribusiness is no different. The market for organic foods is growing. So big corporations like Monsanto rig the game, influencing food regulations and making it impossible for small independent farmers to operate:
And how will those who contaminate our country’s food with pesticides, hormones, antibiotics and more, do that? Why, by setting standards for “food safety” that are so grotesquely and inappropriately and even cruelly applied to a local, independent farmers and ranchers that there is no way they can manage. Imagine your being faced with a 100 page IRS form and facing a million dollar a day penalty for screwing up. That would be in the ball park of the impossible complexity mixed with threat facing our farmers. Imagine having the government and corporations deciding every single thing you can do and must do in your kitchen and backing that up with the threat of 10 years in prison for screwing up – though you have never made anyone sick, and those corporations have. Imagine being surveilled 24 hours a day by GPS tracking devices that feed into…a corporate data bank, one they have now moved out of the country so no one here can have legal access to see what is in it.
Imagine the devil himself – or a whole boardrooms of them, dressed in suits – defining the only safe and healthy food in this country as dangerous and burdening hard working farmers with more work then anyone could bear, while his own, their own, food is so dangerous at this point that in the last 10 years alone, diabetes has gone up 90%.
And how did they get this far with such a scheme to apply insane industrial standards to every farm in the country? Through fear of diseases and of outbreaks of food borne illnesses, both of which they cause themselves.
Via OpEdNews.com.
Tags: agribusiness, antibiotics, diabetes, fast food, heart disease, hormones, Monsanto, pesticides
Posted in Health, Organic, Organic Food, Political Action | 2 Comments »
November 6th, 2006 - Barbara Feiner
 Approximately 54 million Americans (one in six of us) have pre-diabetes, and most don’t even realize it.
It’s a sobering statistic, and Dr. Mark Schutta, medical director of the Penn Rodebaugh Diabetes Center at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, wants to spread the word during American Diabetes Month. He is urging at-risk adults to be proactive and visit their healthcare providers to request a simple blood test to determine whether blood glucose levels are higher than normal.
Diabetes affects the body’s ability to produce or respond properly to insulin, and it must be managed on a daily basis once diagnosed.
“If you have pre-diabetes, there’s a 75% probability that you will develop diabetes within 30 years,” Dr. Schutta says. “Our country is in the middle of a type-2 diabetes epidemic. Right now, if you’re born in the U.S., your risk of developing diabetes is one in three.”
Diabetes is a “silent killer.” In the disease’s early stages, people often have no symptoms. Risk factors include the following:
- You have a known family history of diabetes.
- You are African-American, Latino, Native American, Asian-American or Pacific Islander.
- While pregnant, you developed gestational diabetes.
- You delivered a baby who weighed more than 9 lbs.
- You have high blood pressure, high cholesterol or are overweight.
According to Dr. Schutta, those with pre-diabetes can prevent the onset of diabetes through dietary changes and exercise. Eating a diet rich in organic whole grains, fiber, fruits and vegetables, while limiting consumption of refined sugar and flour, is the first step.
“There are many health benefits to knowing you have pre-diabetes and heading it off,” Dr. Schutta says. “If you wait until you have diabetes, the vascular damage to your body may already be done.”
World Diabetes Day is Nov. 14. Click here to take the American Diabetes Association’s Risk Test.
Tags: diabetes, Health, pre-diabetes, world diabetes day
Posted in Health | No Comments »
July 25th, 2006 - Barbara Feiner
 I received more feedback than usual on my recent blog entry, A Mountain of Meat and Cheese, with readers defending their right to have their patties stacked at Burger King. Odd comments, considering this is a website dedicated to organic living, but that’s the peculiar nature of the Internet.
Those who relish fast food may want to check out a study published in today’s Journal of the American Medical Association, which reveals that a large group of American Indians who developed type 2 diabetes (diabetes mellitus) before age 20 had a substantially increased risk for end-stage kidney disease and death between ages 25 and 55. While this study involved a specific population, it’s important to note that the rise in obesity among all U.S. children and adolescents, regardless of race or ethnicity, has led to an increasing prevalence of type 2 diabetes.
Dr. Meda E. Pavkov and colleagues at the National Institutes of Health wanted to see if there was an association between a person’s age at the onset of type 2 diabetes and the risk of end-stage kidney disease and death. Among the study participants, the incidence of end-stage kidney disease in those who developed type 2 diabetes before age 20 was 840% higher than the rate for those who developed the disease between ages 25 to 34, 500% higher than the rate for those 35 to 44, and 400% higher than the rate for those 45 to 54.
The death rate in participants who developed diabetes before age 20 was 300% higher than in nondiabetic participants and 210% higher than in individuals with older-onset type 2 diabetes.
“Because youth-onset diabetes mellitus leads to substantially increased complication rates and mortality in middle age, efforts should focus on preventing or delaying the onset of diabetes, delaying the onset of diabetic nephropathy [kidney disease] or both,” the researchers conclude.
Tags: diabetes, health risks, obesity, type 2 diabetes
Posted in Health | No Comments »
June 27th, 2006 - Barbara Feiner
 Here’s another reason to add coffee to your cart when you visit your local natural or organic food store: Drinking coffee—especially decaf—may be associated with a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, according to a report in the June 26 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.
Previous U.S. and European studies have linked coffee to a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes. In fact, most research has found that the more coffee you drink, the lower your risk for diabetes. But it remains unclear whether it’s the caffeine or another ingredient that offers protection.
Mark A. Pereira, PhD, and his colleagues at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, studied coffee intake and diabetes risk in 28,812 postmenopausal women over an 11-year period. At the beginning of the study (1986), the women answered questions about their risk factors for diabetes, including age, body mass index, physical activity, alcohol consumption and smoking history. They also reported how often they consumed a variety of foods and beverages over the previous year, including regular and decaffeinated coffee.
Based on information reported in the initial questionnaire, about half of the women (14,224) drank one to three cups of coffee per day; 2,875 drank more than six cups; 5,554 four to five cups; 3,231 less than one cup; and 2,928 none. Over the following 11 years, 1,418 of the women reported they had been newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. After researchers adjusted the data for other diabetes risk factors, they found women who drank more than six cups of any type of coffee per day were 22% less likely than those who drank no coffee to be diagnosed with diabetes. Those who drank more than six cups of decaffeinated coffee per day had a 33% reduction in risk compared with those who drank none.
Overall caffeine intake did not appear to be related to diabetes risk, further suggesting that some other ingredient in coffee was responsible.
“Magnesium, for which coffee is a good source, could explain some of the inverse association between coffee intake and risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus through known beneficial effects on carbohydrate metabolism,” the authors write. But the study found no association between this mineral and diabetes risk. Other minerals and nutrients found in the coffee bean—including compounds called “polyphenols” that help the body process carbohydrates and antioxidants—may contribute to its beneficial effects and should be examined in future studies.
“Although the first line of prevention for diabetes is exercise and diet, in light of the popularity of coffee consumption and high rates of type 2 diabetes mellitus in older adults, these findings may carry high public health significance,” the authors conclude.
Tags: coffee, diabetes, Health
Posted in Health | 2 Comments »
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