About a year ago, Anchorage approved a smoking ban for all enclosed public spaces. Many business owners are unable to allow smoking patrons to light up within their establishment.
Some are outraged that certain freedoms have been revoked. A popular argument is that nonsmoking individuals can just as easily find another business to patronize if they don’t want to inhale smoke. But yet another freedom, the choice to vote, has been exercised by these individuals. They’ve helped to elect a government, whether it a municipal, state, or federal government. And this elected government is at the forefront of a great responsibility: to protect the lives of its citizens. As Americans, much of our freedom is still intact- despite a smoking ban. But our freedom of choice, while broad, cannot support an act that has the potential to harm another human being in public spaces.
Every human being has choices. Some choices command consequence while others do not. These two individuals are similar: the one driving under the influence of alcohol amongst sober individuals and the one who smokes around non-smokers. Each has the potential to alter another’s life with their behavior. The act in itself is their choice, and their consequence is not inherently autonomous if it affects others.
Almost every state in America prohibits an intoxicated individual from operating a vehicle on public streets. This legal limit for intoxication has been created to protect the lives of innocent people, but there are few limits for endangerment to another human being’s life by means of smoke carcinogen inhalation. According to the National Commission Against Drunk Driving, there are over 17,000 deaths per year caused by alcohol-related motor vehicle accidents. Yet, the third leading cause of preventable death (secondhand smoke) is only restricted in 9 states (CA, CT, DE, ME, MA, NY, RI, VT and WA) and causes 38,000 to 62,000 deaths per year.
It's not about the annoyance of inhaling smoke while consuming food in a restaurant, or even about the inconvenience of having to launder clothing after one visit to an establishment that allows smoking. It is indeed about choice- the right of smokers to inhale smoke and the right of nonsmokers to breathe clean air. It's a freedom to choose life for employees in the workplace. It’s a freedom for underage children to grow up healthy and strong. It’s a freedom for citizens who wish to protect their lungs or heart. Everyone should have a choice when it comes to life.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
Beauty and the Beast
Want to know what's really in your beauty products? Click the title link at www.cosmeticsdatabase.org (it is sponsored by a non-profit). You may be surprised at what you're "eating" via the largest organ in your body- your skin!
Many of the products we use every day are full of synthetic substances and chemicals. Don't be a victim of the industry, whose only agenda is to function as a business. Take ownership of your health! Here's another place to find some great information...read this book:
The Green Beauty Guide by Julie Gabriel
A quick excerpt: "What do aircraft deicing fluid & baby wipes have in common?" A main ingredient, glycol. "The FDA considers propylene glycol to be "generally recognized as safe" for use in food, cosmetics, and medicines. However, it banned this chemical from cat food in 2001." Are they afraid that pet owners might sue for poisoning?
I would like to provide more details about personal use products in future posts. Please send me some potential research items and I will glady check them out!
Many of the products we use every day are full of synthetic substances and chemicals. Don't be a victim of the industry, whose only agenda is to function as a business. Take ownership of your health! Here's another place to find some great information...read this book:
The Green Beauty Guide by Julie Gabriel
A quick excerpt: "What do aircraft deicing fluid & baby wipes have in common?" A main ingredient, glycol. "The FDA considers propylene glycol to be "generally recognized as safe" for use in food, cosmetics, and medicines. However, it banned this chemical from cat food in 2001." Are they afraid that pet owners might sue for poisoning?
I would like to provide more details about personal use products in future posts. Please send me some potential research items and I will glady check them out!
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
High Fructose Corn Syrup: not so sweet!
My first health post involves a common food additive. It's found in several grocery items that you might purchase on a regular basis: cereal, bread, yogurt, jam, canned fruits, barbecue sauce, frozen dinners, ice cream, chips or cookies. High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is a corn-derived sweetener created by a chemical process that uses cornstarch (often pesticide-laden) as a base, ending in a mix of fructose and glucose. This is not the fructose that you might find naturally ocurring in fruit, but rather one that is fully altered by the production process.
The most important connection I can make regarding the sweetener is this: there is a proportional correlation between rising obesity rates and the increase of HFCS use in food and beverages, especially soda pop. Research shows that our bodies metabolize HFCS differently, making it easier to store as fat. It also shuts down receptors in our bodies that tell us we are full. There are additional health risks associated with HFCS. Read the excerpt below from the San Francisco Chronicle (Kim Severson, Feb. 18, 2004.) It contains some of the best information I have found on the subject. Note that it was written in 2004- and also that in Alaska alone, almost one-quarter of are children are currently obese.
The bottom line? Limit your overall sugar intake. If you consume sweeteners, try to stick to naturally ocurring forms of sugar, such as those found in fruit. Raw sugar, organic honey, blackstrap molasses and brown rice syrup are good options, as is the the low-glycemic sweetener stevia.
The inexpensive sweetener flooded the American food supply in the early 1980s, just about the time the nation's obesity rate started its unprecedented climb. Loading high fructose corn syrup into increasingly larger portions of soda and processed food has packed more calories into us and more money into food processing companies, say nutritionists and food activists. But some health experts argue that the issue is bigger than mere calories. The theory goes like this: the body processes the fructose in high fructose corn syrup differently than it does old-fashioned cane or beet sugar, which in turn alters the way metabolic-regulating hormones function. It also forces the liver to kick more fat out into the bloodstream. The end result is that our bodies are essentially tricked into wanting to eat more and at the same time, we are storing more fat.
Because high fructose corn syrup mixes easily, extends shelf-life and is as much as 20 percent cheaper than other sources of sugar, large-scale food manufacturers love it. It can help prevent freezer burn, so you'll find it on the labels of many frozen foods. It helps breads brown and keeps them soft, which is why hot dog buns and even English muffins hold unexpected amounts.
Journalist Greg Critser lays out a compelling case against high fructose corn syrup in his 2003 book, "Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World." He argues that federal policies that aimed to stabilize food prices and support corn production in the 1970s led to a glut of corn and then to high fructose corn syrup. With a cheaper way to sweeten food, producers pumped up the size and amount of sweet snacks and drinks on the market and increased profits. Critser also writes that despite the food industry's arguments that sugar is sugar, whether fructose or sucrose, no group "has yet refuted the growing scientific concern that, when all is said and done, fructose ... is about the furthest thing from natural that one can imagine, let alone eat."
Although some researchers have long been suspicious that too much fructose can cause problems, the latest case against high fructose corn syrup began in earnest a few years ago. Dr. George Bray, principal investigator of the Diabetes Prevention Program at Louisiana State University Medical Center told the International Congress on Obesity that in 1980, just after high fructose corn syrup was introduced in mass quantities, relatively stable obesity rates began to climb. By 2000, they had doubled.
Further, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2002 published research that showed that teenagers' milk consumption between 1965 and 1996 decreased by 36 percent, while soda consumption increased by more than 200 percent. Bray argues that without calcium, which nutritionists agree can help the body regulate weight, kids got fatter. He says that he could find no other single combination of environmental or food changes that were as significant to the rise in obesity. Other studies by researchers at UC Davis and the University of Michigan have shown that consuming fructose, which is more readily converted to fat by the liver, increases the levels of fat in the bloodstream in the form of triglycerides. And unlike other types of carbohydrate made up of glucose, fructose does not stimulate the pancreas to produce insulin. Peter Havel, a nutrition researcher at UC Davis who studies the metabolic effects of fructose, has also shown that fructose fails to increase the production of leptin, a hormone produced by the body's fat cells.
Both insulin and leptin act as signals to the brain to turn down the appetite and control body weight. And in another metabolic twist, Havel's research shows that fructose does not appear to suppress the production of ghrelin, a hormone that increases hunger and appetite. "Because fructose in isolation doesn't activate the hormones that regulate body weight as do other types of carbohydrate composed of glucose, consuming a diet high in fructose could lead to taking in more calories and, over time, to weight gain," he says.
Still, other researchers are finding new problems with high fructose corn syrup. A study in last month's Journal of the National Cancer Institute suggests that women whose diet was high in total carbohydrate and fructose intake had an increased risk of colorectal cancer. And Dr. Mel Heyman, chief of pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition at UCSF, is seeing sick children whose bodies have been overloaded with fructose from naturally occurring fructose in fruit juice combined with soda and processed food.
The most important connection I can make regarding the sweetener is this: there is a proportional correlation between rising obesity rates and the increase of HFCS use in food and beverages, especially soda pop. Research shows that our bodies metabolize HFCS differently, making it easier to store as fat. It also shuts down receptors in our bodies that tell us we are full. There are additional health risks associated with HFCS. Read the excerpt below from the San Francisco Chronicle (Kim Severson, Feb. 18, 2004.) It contains some of the best information I have found on the subject. Note that it was written in 2004- and also that in Alaska alone, almost one-quarter of are children are currently obese.
The bottom line? Limit your overall sugar intake. If you consume sweeteners, try to stick to naturally ocurring forms of sugar, such as those found in fruit. Raw sugar, organic honey, blackstrap molasses and brown rice syrup are good options, as is the the low-glycemic sweetener stevia.
The inexpensive sweetener flooded the American food supply in the early 1980s, just about the time the nation's obesity rate started its unprecedented climb. Loading high fructose corn syrup into increasingly larger portions of soda and processed food has packed more calories into us and more money into food processing companies, say nutritionists and food activists. But some health experts argue that the issue is bigger than mere calories. The theory goes like this: the body processes the fructose in high fructose corn syrup differently than it does old-fashioned cane or beet sugar, which in turn alters the way metabolic-regulating hormones function. It also forces the liver to kick more fat out into the bloodstream. The end result is that our bodies are essentially tricked into wanting to eat more and at the same time, we are storing more fat.
Because high fructose corn syrup mixes easily, extends shelf-life and is as much as 20 percent cheaper than other sources of sugar, large-scale food manufacturers love it. It can help prevent freezer burn, so you'll find it on the labels of many frozen foods. It helps breads brown and keeps them soft, which is why hot dog buns and even English muffins hold unexpected amounts.
Journalist Greg Critser lays out a compelling case against high fructose corn syrup in his 2003 book, "Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World." He argues that federal policies that aimed to stabilize food prices and support corn production in the 1970s led to a glut of corn and then to high fructose corn syrup. With a cheaper way to sweeten food, producers pumped up the size and amount of sweet snacks and drinks on the market and increased profits. Critser also writes that despite the food industry's arguments that sugar is sugar, whether fructose or sucrose, no group "has yet refuted the growing scientific concern that, when all is said and done, fructose ... is about the furthest thing from natural that one can imagine, let alone eat."
Although some researchers have long been suspicious that too much fructose can cause problems, the latest case against high fructose corn syrup began in earnest a few years ago. Dr. George Bray, principal investigator of the Diabetes Prevention Program at Louisiana State University Medical Center told the International Congress on Obesity that in 1980, just after high fructose corn syrup was introduced in mass quantities, relatively stable obesity rates began to climb. By 2000, they had doubled.
Further, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2002 published research that showed that teenagers' milk consumption between 1965 and 1996 decreased by 36 percent, while soda consumption increased by more than 200 percent. Bray argues that without calcium, which nutritionists agree can help the body regulate weight, kids got fatter. He says that he could find no other single combination of environmental or food changes that were as significant to the rise in obesity. Other studies by researchers at UC Davis and the University of Michigan have shown that consuming fructose, which is more readily converted to fat by the liver, increases the levels of fat in the bloodstream in the form of triglycerides. And unlike other types of carbohydrate made up of glucose, fructose does not stimulate the pancreas to produce insulin. Peter Havel, a nutrition researcher at UC Davis who studies the metabolic effects of fructose, has also shown that fructose fails to increase the production of leptin, a hormone produced by the body's fat cells.
Both insulin and leptin act as signals to the brain to turn down the appetite and control body weight. And in another metabolic twist, Havel's research shows that fructose does not appear to suppress the production of ghrelin, a hormone that increases hunger and appetite. "Because fructose in isolation doesn't activate the hormones that regulate body weight as do other types of carbohydrate composed of glucose, consuming a diet high in fructose could lead to taking in more calories and, over time, to weight gain," he says.
Still, other researchers are finding new problems with high fructose corn syrup. A study in last month's Journal of the National Cancer Institute suggests that women whose diet was high in total carbohydrate and fructose intake had an increased risk of colorectal cancer. And Dr. Mel Heyman, chief of pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition at UCSF, is seeing sick children whose bodies have been overloaded with fructose from naturally occurring fructose in fruit juice combined with soda and processed food.
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