Do Statins Cause Diabetes and Heart Disease?

This is a controversial topic, not because the science and evidence is not sound, but because of the vested commercial interest in statins. A good friend of mine called Jim told me how when his cholesterol level was reported as elevated, he was advised to commence taking statins. However, he was so troubled by his research into the side effects of these drugs, he decided to dig deeper. His findings convinced him to take a different route - nutritional, exercise and healthy lifestyle modification. Today, he is much the healthier for it - with lowered cholesterol levels to boot.

So today I am posting an article by Mark Hyman MD, a respected and accomplished practitioner of functional medicine and healthy lifestyle advocate, because this article raises some serious questions that need answers. There needs to be a debate, and more information as well as research done, so that what health professionals call proper, rational risk - benefit analysis can be carried out when deciding to place patients on these drugs - or not. His article follows below:

I WAS READING A SCIENTIFIC PAPER in the Journal of the American Medical Association a number of years ago by Dr. David Jenkins from the University of Toronto. He showed that using a combination of soy, fiber, almonds, and plant sterols (cholesterol-lowering fats) could lower cholesterol levels as much as statin medications.(i) Diet can lower cholesterol as much as statins — a surprise to many but common in my practice. Using a comprehensive approach of diet and lifestyle change, I routinely see effects that are more powerful than any medication. That was not why the article struck me. It was a finding buried in the text of the paper.
What I found fascinating was that the patients who lowered their cholesterol with statins had higher levels of insulin, while those who lowered their cholesterol through diet had lower insulin levels. Why is that important? Because elevated insulin levels are the first step on the road to diabetes — they make you gain weight around the middle, cause high blood pressure, increase inflammation, and promote stickiness of the blood. Each of these conditions, in turn, contributes to heart attacks and heart disease.
On reading this, the question that lingered in my mind was: Did statins contribute to the development of pre-diabetes and diabetes which are among the most significant risk factors for heart disease? In other words, did lowering cholesterol with statins — a treatment purported to reduce the risk of heart disease — actually increase the risk of heart disease by some other mechanism?
In treating thousands of patients with pre-diabetes, diabetes, high cholesterol, and heart disease, I have noticed one thing: Lowering insulin through diet and lifestyle corrects almost all of the risk factors for heart disease. It lowers blood pressure, increases good cholesterol (HDL), lowers triglycerides and bad cholesterol (LDL), leads to weight loss, lower levels of inflammation (C-reactive protein), and thins the blood. Lowering insulin even increases the light fluffy harmless cholesterol and lowers the level of small dense harmful cholesterol particles.
Lowering insulin is a good thing. However, statins — the best selling class of drugs on the market — appear not to do this. Do they actually increase the risk for diabetes and thus heart disease by increasing insulin levels?

The Truth about Statins and Insulin
The answer, according to a recent study in the Lancet, is yes statins do increase the risk of diabetes.(ii) The authors completed a meta-analysis of both published and unpublished randomized controlled trials from 1994 to 2009 for a total patient group of 91,140 who were treated with statins or a placebo. In the patients treated with statins there was a 9 percent increase in the risk of diabetes. The authors suggest this is a minimal risk and that current guidelines for cholesterol treatment should not change. I would suggest we think a little more deeply.
The study did not analyze any data for pre-diabetes, which dramatically increases the risk of heart disease well before a formal diagnosis of diabetes can be made. It could be that by taking these medications many people developed pre-diabetes or their pre-diabetic condition worsened. If this is true, the full risk of statins was not appreciated. The researchers also failed to consider a simple question: Why should we use a medication with significant potential risks when other treatments have proven MORE effective for reducing the risk of heart disease?
The treatment I’m talking about is dietary and lifestyle change-popularly referred to as lifestyle medicine. The recent “EPIC” study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine studied 23,000 people’s adherence to 4 simple behaviors-not smoking, exercising 3.5 hours a week, eating a healthy diet (fruits, vegetables, beans, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and low meat consumption), and keeping a healthy weight (BMI less than 30). In those that adhered, 93 percent of diabetes, 81 percent of heart attacks, 50 percent of strokes, and 36 percent of all cancers were prevented. (iii)
The fundamental focus of lifestyle or functional approaches (which includes nutrition, exercise, and stress management) is the restoration of normal function and balance in each individual. When you do this, risk factors and symptoms go away automatically. Conventional interventions, on the other hand, are primarily focus on blocking, interfering with, or excising a biochemical or physical manifestation of disease. This is the reason biology shifts towards normal when using lifestyle medicine, instead of medication, and the only side effects are good ones: weight loss, more energy, better sleep, increased well being, a reduction of most disease, and increased longevity.
While it is still a matter of public debate, there is ample evidence that lifestyle therapies equal or exceed the benefits of conventional therapies such as medication and surgery. Nutrition, exercise, and stress management can no longer be considered alternative medicine. They are essential medicine, and often the most effective and cost-effective therapies to deal with the chronic disease epidemic that afflicts millions of Americans and is now the primary cause of death worldwide.

Addressing the Global Burden of Chronic Disease
Chronic disease has replaced infectious and acute illnesses as the leading cause of death in the world, both in developed and developing countries.(iv) In 2002, the leading chronic diseases, including heart disease (17 million), cancer (7 million), chronic lung diseases (4 million), and diabetes (1 million), caused 29 million deaths worldwide. These ailments are almost entirely attributable to lifestyle risk factors including poor diet, sedentary lifestyle, and tobacco and alcohol use. The misperception that these diseases affect primarily developed and affluent societies has led to a misappropriation of resources, which fails to deal with the exponential growth of chronic lifestyle- and diet-related disease.
By 2030, 50 million will die from preventable chronic diseases compared to less than 20 million from infectious diseases. We need to include chronic disease in our global efforts to improve health. In Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, the major admitting diagnoses to the largest and main public health hospital where I worked after the earthquake in January 2010 was not tuberculosis or AIDS, but heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension related heart failure.
The major global health policy makers and agencies do not allocate appropriate resources to the prevention of chronic lifestyle diseases either because they have yet to recognize the problem or the economic and social benefits of focusing on chronic disease are underestimated. Heads of state, health ministries, the World Health Organization, academic and research institutions, non-governmental organizations, private donors, the World Bank, and the United Nations allocate only a fraction of their resources to chronic disease prevention despite a rich evidence base for the role of lifestyle and diet in the prevention of the major chronic diseases.
When compared to doing nothing, the argument can be made for high cost, technological interventions. When compared to changing our medical care system from one focused on treating end-stage disease, to one whose goal is to prevent disease and promote optimal health through nutrition, lifestyle, stress management, and adjunctive complementary therapies, the conversation shifts dramatically.

Diet, Lifestyle, and Chronic Disease: A Model for Increased Quality of Care and Lower Costs
Let’s briefly look at the science of nutrition and compare it to efforts for preventing or treating chronic disease with medication. This will highlight the powerful, cost-effective, and critical role nutrition plays in the cause, prevention, and treatment of chronic illness.
Science provides a firm foundation for moving nutritional and lifestyle interventions to the center of medical practice and public policy.(v) A single nutrient, food, or lifestyle habit when studied as an isolated intervention, while helpful, may not show significant effect, but when assessed collectively, the power of lifestyle over pharmacological approaches to prevent and treat chronic disease is overwhelming. That is why we have to stop looking at single nutrients or interventions and look at the whole picture. In his recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. David Ludwig of Harvard calls for a shift from a nutrient-based to a whole foods-based approach to our dietary guidelines.(vi) He indicts our current dietary guidelines showing how these recommendations have led to our chronic disease epidemic. Let us eat food, he says — real, whole, fresh, complex, interesting food. It’s the whole picture, not just fats or carbs or this or that nutrient that makes a difference.
For example, healthful lifestyle practices in an elderly population that included eating a whole foods Mediterranean-style diet, exercising moderately, not smoking, and moderate alcohol consumption were associated with nearly a 70 percent reduction in death from all causes.(vii) What’s remarkable is that these people didn’t start this healthy lifestyle until they were 70 years old, yet they still reduced their risk of death by 70 percent compared to a similar group of elderly who didn’t follow a healthy lifestyle.
Other studies(viii), (ix), (x) showed similar results including an 83 percent reduction in heart disease,(xi) 91 percent reduction in diabetes in women,(xii) and a 71 percent reduction in colon cancer in men.(xiii)

The Lyon Diet Heart Study,(xiv) showed a 79 percent reduction in heart disease in patients with established heart disease after a few years of following a Mediterranean diet. In another study of patients with existing heart disease, an integrated lifestyle approach of a plant-based diet, exercise, smoking cessation, and stress reduction found a 50 percent reduction in heart attacks and heart disease related deaths.(xv)
The evidence is simply overwhelming that healthful dietary patterns which include whole grains, legumes, nuts, vegetables, fruits, olive oil, fish, and, perhaps, moderate alcohol intake are associated with a decrease in chronic disease and death from all causes. The harmful effects of trans and certain saturated fats, refined carbohydrates, and other food additives or toxins are well known in the medical literature.
It is time to start putting into practice what we know, and stop the domination of our medical practice by the pharmaceutical industry. The Lancet paper on how statins increase the risk of diabetes should be front-page news. Medications such as statins that cost more, are less effective, and lead to serious side effects including diabetes should not be our first line of treatment for preventing or treating heart disease. The recent proposal that statins be handed out with cheeseburgers and fries at fast food restaurants is dangerous and misses the point.
You can’t eat a horrible diet, avoid exercise and expect to be healthy. A whole foods, plant-based diet, moderate physical activity, not smoking, and creating a supportive social network of friends and family is the best medicine. It works in ways we don’t yet understand and don’t need to-just eat real food, enjoy, and don’t worry. Your body knows what to do from there.......

This excellent and wide ranging article by Dr Hyman should be a wake up call for all those who are faced by the prospect of taking statins - why not dig deeper and work with your doctor or other health professional from a better informed position? After all, it is your life at stake!
Also, the serious questions raised reveal the necessity of further large scale, high quality research. I leave you with this thought provoking quote from Dr Hyman:

Nutrition, exercise, and stress management can no longer be considered alternative medicine. They are essential medicine.


To your abundant excellent health,

Dr Ike
Holistic Health Coach and Functional Health Expert.

Sources:

(i) Jenkins D.J., Kendall, C.W., Marchie, A., et. al. 2003. Effects of a dietary portfolio of cholesterol-lowering foods vs Lovastatin on serum lipids and C-reactive protein. JAMA. 290(4): 502-10
(ii) Sattar, N., Preiss, D., Murray, H., et. al. 2010. Statins and risk of incident diabetes: A collaborative meta-analysis of randomised statin trials. Lancet. 375(9716): 735-42.
(iii) Ford E.S., Bergmann M.M., Kroger J., et. al. 2009. Healthy living is the best revenge: findings from the European Prospective Investigation Into Cancer and Nutrition-Potsdam study. Arch Intern Med. 169(15): 1355-62.
(iv) Yach D., Hawkes C., Gould C.L., et. al. 2004. Global burden of chronic diseases: Overcoming impediments to prevention and control. JAMA. 291(21): 26
(v) Rimm E.B., and M.J. Stampfer. 2004. Diet, lifestyle, and longevity-the next steps? JAMA. 292(12): 1490-2. No abstract available.
(vi) Mozaffarian, D. and D.S. Ludwig. 2010. Dietary guidelines in the 21st century-a time for food. JAMA. 304(6): 681-682.
(vii) Knoops K.T., de Groot L.C., Kromhout D., et. al. 2004. Mediterranean diet, lifestyle factors, and 10-year mortality in elderly European men and women: The HALE project. JAMA. 292(12): 1433-9.
(viii) Trichopoulou A., Costacou T., Bamia C., et. al. 2003. Adherence to a Mediterranean diet and survival in a Greek population. N Engl J Med. 348(26): 2599-608.
(ix) Salmeron J., Manson J.E., Stampfer M.J., et. al. 1997. Dietary fiber, glycemic load, and risk of non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus in women. JAMA. 277(6): 472-477.
(x) Liu S., Willett W.C. 2002. Dietary glycemic load and atherothrombotic risk. Curr Atheroscler Rep. 4(6): 454-461.
(xi) Stampfer M.J., Hu F.B., Manson J.E., et. al. 2000. Primary prevention of coronary heart disease in women through diet and lifestyle. N Engl J Med. 343: 16-22.
(xii) Hu F.B., Manson J.E., Stampfer M.J., et al. 2001. Diet, lifestyle, and the risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus in women. N Engl J Med. 345: 790-797.
(xiii) Platz E.A., Willett W.C., Colditz G.A., et. al. 2000. Proportion of colon cancer risk that might be preventable in a cohort of middle-aged US men. Cancer Causes Control. 11(7): 579-588.
(xiv) de Lorgeril M., Renaud S., Mamelle N., et. al. 1994. Mediterranean alpha-linolenic acid-rich diet in secondary prevention of coronary heart disease. Lancet. 343: 1454-1459. [published correction appears in: Lancet. 1995; 345(8951): 738]
(xv) Ornish D., Scherwitz L.W., Billings J.H., et. al. 1998. Intensive lifestyle changes for reversal of coronary heart disease. JAMA. 280: 2001-2007.

Are you tired all the time?

If you are, you might find the substance NADH - Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide helpful. Also known as Coenzyme number one, this substance has recently become available as a nutritional additive, and is a key player in cellular metabolism along with ATP, promoting production of greater levels of ATP and hence higher energy levels available for driving cellular processes. NADH is involved in more than a thousand different metabolic processes. No wonder people feel tired all the time if they lack NADH...

Hence a growing body of evidence from researchers and doctors shows the significant effect of NADH on keeping us energetic and healthy. So do some due diligence on this compound for yourself - you never know, this might be the missing energy link you have been searching for....

To your abundant excellent health,

Dr Ike
Holistic Health Coach and Functional Health Expert

Sources
^ a b c Pollak, N; Dölle C, Ziegler M (2007). "The power to reduce: pyridine nucleotides—small molecules with a multitude of functions". Biochem. J. 402 (2): 205–18. doi:10.1042/BJ20061638. PMC 1798440. PMID 17295611.
^ a b c d e f g Belenky P; Bogan KL, Brenner C (2007). "NAD+ metabolism in health and disease" (PDF). Trends Biochem. Sci. 32 (1): 12–9. doi:10.1016/j.tibs.2006.11.006. PMID 17161604. Retrieved 2007-12-23.
^ Unden G; Bongaerts J (1997). "Alternative respiratory pathways of Escherichia coli: energetics and transcriptional regulation in response to electron acceptors". Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1320 (3): 217–34. doi:10.1016/S0005-2728(97)00034-0. PMID 9230919.
^ Windholz, Martha (1983). The Merck Index: an encyclopedia of chemicals, drugs, and biologicals (10th ed.). Rahway NJ, US: Merck. p. 909. ISBN 911910271.
^ Biellmann JF, Lapinte C, Haid E, Weimann G (1979). "Structure of lactate dehydrogenase inhibitor generated from coenzyme". Biochemistry 18 (7): 1212–7. doi:10.1021/bi00574a015. PMID 218616.
^ a b Dawson, R. Ben (1985). Data for biochemical research (3rd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 122. ISBN 0-19-855358-7.
^ a b Lakowicz JR, Szmacinski H, Nowaczyk K, Johnson ML (1992). "Fluorescence lifetime imaging of free and protein-bound NADH". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 89 (4): 1271–5. doi:10.1073/pnas.89.4.1271. PMC 48431. PMID 1741380.
^ Jameson DM, Thomas V, Zhou DM (1989). "Time-resolved fluorescence studies on NADH bound to mitochondrial malate dehydrogenase". Biochim. Biophys. Acta 994 (2): 187–90. PMID 2910350.
^ Kasimova MR, Grigiene J, Krab K, et al. (2006). "The free NADH concentration is kept constant in plant mitochondria under different metabolic conditions". Plant Cell 18 (3): 688–98. doi:10.1105/tpc.105.039354. PMC 1383643. PMID 16461578.
^ Reiss PD, Zuurendonk PF, Veech RL (1984). "Measurement of tissue purine, pyrimidine, and other nucleotides by radial compression high-performance liquid chromatography". Anal. Biochem. 140 (1): 162–71. doi:10.1016/0003-2697(84)90148-9. PMID 6486402.
^ Yamada K, Hara N, Shibata T, Osago H, Tsuchiya M (2006). "The simultaneous measurement of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide and related compounds by liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry". Anal. Biochem. 352

How to - and why you should - increase your Vitamin D levels...... (2)

...... Continuing from the previous post - I was about to provide the common reason why most multivitamin supplements do not contain 8000 IU of Vitamin D. Becky Jacobs, a worker for the US company NorthStar Nutritionals, offered an explanation: She said that supplement makers like NorthStar often avoid loading up any supplement formulation with too much vitamin D (or any other component) to give customers who take multiple supplements more flexible control over their dosage.

So the best way to get your full measure of D (after some daily direct sunlight exposure, of course) is to take a good quality supplement of D3 — that's the same form of the vitamin that's produced in your skin after exposure to sunlight.
Dr. Wright also recommends a consistent intake of dietary sources that contain vitamin D3, including salmon, sardines, and cod liver oil.

Some topics are just too urgent to let go, so here's an important tip for boosting your personal vitamin D level.By some estimates, 90 per cent of the population is D deficient. But evidence shows you can move yourself closer to the fortunate 10 percent by following one simple habit.

Cleveland Clinic researchers asked a group of 17 subjects to take D supplements with their largest meal of the day.

Results: Over three months, absorption of the vitamin was improved and blood levels of D increased, on average, by more than 55 percent! And that held true for nearly all subjects, whether their intake was just 1,000 IU daily, or 50,000.

So simple, but given the enormous importance of vitamin D in fighting cancer, improving heart health, and preventing type 2 diabetes, depression, and cognitive decline, this little study may prove to be a very big deal. Of course, large scale research is needed, but this looks very promising....

To your abundant excellent health,

Dr Ike
Holistic Health Coach and Functional Health Expert

Sources:

- Health Sciences Institute

- Nutrition and Healing Newsletter

-"Not Enough Vitamin D May Boost Depression Risk" Stephen Daniells, NutraIngredients-USA, 5/14/10, nutraingredients- usa.com

How to - and why you should - increase your Vitamin D levels...... (1)

...... to what clinical nutritionist Dr Wright calls the "tropical optimum" ie the amount of Vitamin D you would naturally get via sunlight if you lived in the tropics. He advocates a minimum of 5000 IU a day for those of us in more temperate climes. This is backed up by new research from the University of California, San Diego carried out over a five year period on 3600 adult participants. This involved Vitamin D blood level measurement and completing a questionnaire twice a year detailing their nutritional and supplement intake, sun exposure and general health status. Results showed that adults need 4,000 to 8,000 IU of vitamin D daily to cut their risk of certain cancers and other diseases by half.


Now some people would say that 8000 IU a day is a very high level of intake. But the fact is that with just 30 minutes of full body exposure to sunlight, your body produces at least 10,000 units of vitamin D. So if 8,000 IU were harmful, we'd see lifeguards, gardeners, and football players etc - all those working or playing in the sun - dropping like flies from Vitamin D toxicity - but that is not the case. So why is it that most supplement preparations do not contain these levels, you ask? It is a good question, but read why in my next blog entry....

To your abundant excellent health,

Dr Ike
Holistic Health Coach and Functional Health Expert

Sources:

- Health Sciences Institute

- Nutrition and Healing Newsletter

-"Not Enough Vitamin D May Boost Depression Risk" Stephen Daniells, NutraIngredients-USA, 5/14/10, nutraingredients- usa.com

How to protect your eyesight, kidneys and heart in one fell swoop.....

...... through the ingestion of a nutrient that most doctors have never heard of, much less know it's uses. This was definitely not taught at medical school! Now the average medical practitioner or nutritionist will tell you that the B group of vitamins are water soluble. But as with most things in medicine and life, there are exceptions - in this case the B vitamin benfotiamine, a fat soluble form of thiamine aka vitamin B1. Thiamine is an essential nutrirnt for the maintenace of kidney,heart and eye function, and the fat soluble form remains longer in the body tissues than the water soluble one, due to it's deposition in body fat, rather than it being lost via the urine.

Benfotiamine is also a crucial factor in carbohydrate metabolism, helping to prevent glucose induced oxidative cell damage. For example in vitro studies ie studies outside the body, usually cell and tissue culture based studies - sseem to reveal that benfotiamine protects the cells lining blood vessels from oxidative damage. We know where that could end up - blood vessel and heart disease. So this nutrient is definitely one to consider adding to your shopping list, especially as it is five times better absorbed than thiamine. It is not available in your usual run of the mill multivitamin combo - like I said before, many nutritionists will look at you blankly when asked about it, so what chance do the stack 'em high, bank profits higher (without much or no customer benefit) brigade have? But I say: do your own research on this fat soluble B1 vitamin and come to your own conclusions - your body may be the better for it when taken!


To your abundant excellent health,

Dr Ike
Holistic Health Coach and Functional Health Expert

Sources:
^ Yamazaki M (1968), Studies on the absorption of S-benzoylthiamine O-monophosphate : (I) Metabolism in tissue homogenates. Vitamins 38 (1) 12–20.
^ M.L. Volvert, S. Seyen, M. Piette, B. Evrard, M. Gangolf, J.C. Plumier and L. Bettendorff (2008) Benfotiamine, a synthetic S-acyl thiamine derivative, has different mechanisms of action and a different pharmacological profile than lipid-soluble thiamine disulfide derivatives. BMC Pharmacology 8: 10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2210-8-10
^ Reducing Glycation Reactions for Better Health and Longer Life
^ J Lin, A Alt, J Liersch, RG Bretzel, M Brownlee (2000 May). "Benfotiamine Inhibits Intracellular Formation of Advanced Glycation End Products in vivo". Diabetes 49 (Suppl1) (A143): 583.
^ Since AGEs are the actual agents productive of diabetic complications, in theory, if diabetic patients could block the action of AGEs completely by benfotiamine, strict blood sugar control, with its disruption of lifestyle and risks to health and life by severe hypoglycemic episodes, could be avoided, with revolutionary implications for the treatment of diabetes. Hammes HP, Du X, Edelstein D, Taguchi T, Matsumura T, Ju Q, Lin J, Bierhaus A, Nawroth P, Hannak D, Neumaier M, Bergfeld R, Giardino I, Brownlee M (2003) Benfotiamine blocks three major pathways of hyperglycemic damage and prevents experimental diabetic retinopathy. Nat Med 9(3):294-299
^ Stirban A, Negrean M, Stratmann B, et al. (2007). "Adiponectin decreases postprandially following a heat-processed meal in individuals with type 2 diabetes: an effect prevented by benfotiamine and cooking method". Diabetes Care 30 (10): 2514–6. doi:10.2337/dc07-0302. PMID 17630265.
^ Stracke H, Hammes HP, Werkmann D, et al. (2001). "Efficacy of benfotiamine versus thiamine on function and glycation products of peripheral nerves in diabetic rats". Exp. Clin. Endocrinol. Diabetes 109 (6): 330–6. doi:10.1055/s-2001-17399. PMID 11571671.
^ Stirban A, Negrean M, Stratmann B, et al. (2006). "Benfotiamine prevents macro- and microvascular endothelial dysfunction and oxidative stress following a meal rich in advanced glycation end products in individuals with type 2 diabetes". Diabetes Care 29 (9): 2064–71. doi:10.2337/dc06-0531. PMID 16936154.
^ Babaei-Jadidi R, Karachalias N, Ahmed N, Battah S, Thornalley PJ (2003). "Prevention of incipient diabetic nephropathy by high-dose thiamine and benfotiamine". Diabetes 52 (8): 2110–20. doi:10.2337/diabetes.52.8.2110. PMID 12882930.

Why our overweight children - and adults - will cost us millions....(2)

Continuing from the previous post....

As I posted previously, adequate nutrition and exercise are the mainstays of both prevention and management of overweight and obese children and adults. But what strategies and methods using these in combination were found by the report to be most cost effective? I will discuss these below. But first, the Chair of the Committee remarked that centralized, coordinated, strategic intervention was necessary - in other words a London wide strategy for tackling obesity. This no doubt is true. But I stress again, any strategy that does not take into account the need for proper parental or guardian education, accountability and responsibility is doomed to failure.

This is borne out by the findings of those who compiled the report. The most cost effective strategies were those that combined nutritional advice and physical activity. No real surprises there! However, a key point here is that people need to be regularly motivated to continue to make the right choices and take appropriate action - and this is where the the support of an experienced, dedicated and inspirational health coach becomes invaluable, the missing link, so to speak....


To your abundant excellent health,

Dr Ike
Holistic Health Coach and Functional Health Expert.

Sources:

Edmonton Advertiser and Herald

Tipping the Scales: Report published by the London Assembly's Health and Public Services Committee.

Why our overweight children - and adults - will cost us millions.... (1)

..... That is the shocking message from a report into childhood obesity in London, UK by the London Assembly's Health and Public Service Committee called Tipping the Scales. This report reveals that childhood obesity costs Londoners an eye watering 7.1 million pounds a year. Even worse, if this obesity trend is not reversed, these same children are projected to cost a staggering 111 million pounds a year on attaining adulthood. London has become the obese child capital of Britain - twenty per cent of London children are clinically obese, with the borough of Westminister -yes, where the Royal Wedding took place - worst hit (28 per cent) and leafy Richmond - Wimbledon country - least (12 per cent).

But obese adults cost London even more - a mind blowing 883.6 million pounds a year, according to the same report. No wonder James Claverly, Chair of the Health and Public Services Committee said "Childhood obesity is a major problem with serious health and economic consequences for London". No kidding! I wonder what the figures are like where you live? Why not do little research and find out? I will be interested to hear from you!

The cold hard truth is that this is a problem that is easily avoided. Proper nutrition, proper exercise are the mainstay, we know that. So why these staggering levels of obesity? This report offers a partial answer, at least in London - lack of focus of exercise initiatives ie not geared exclusively towards obesity reduction and poor coordination of these available initiatives. Maybe, but I believe the answer lies closer to home - that is, in families. I am going to be blunt - it is time for parents and guardians to be actually that - parents and guardians! If you cannot cope, seek expert help early - there will be less heart ache and cost for both you and your child in the long run. This scandal must come to an end - starting NOW. Our children's very lives depend on it, not just in London, but also elsewhere, especially in most advanced countries!


To your abundant excellent health,

Dr Ike
Holistic Health Coach and Functional Health Expert.

Sources:

-Edmonton Advertiser and Herald

-Tipping the Scales:Report published by the London Assembly's Health and Public Services Committee