Obesity Linked To WHAT?

© Jacquelyn Johnston, M.Ed.

A couple of blogs ago I mentioned the disease pathway. I spent the day at a COPD forum hosted by the Lung Association of BC, in Vancouver. Four of Canada’s best researchers shared their insights on the link between the main killers in industrialized societies: COPD and Sleep Apnea ranked high with diabesity, heart and stroke, and, of course, cancer. Sleep apnea? What’s sleep got to do with those diseases, you ask.

Everything.

Mark Twain (You’ve probably read Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer) said “Don’t go to sleep—so may people die there!” Research scientists have now established that if if you’ve got sleep apnea you carry the stress with you throughout the day; this triggers an inflammatory reaction throughout your body. If you’re stressed there’s an inflammation of the arteries−and more− and diabetes does this too. So if you’ve got an inflammatory response from two sources your heart’s in the line of fire, as are your lungs and high blood pressure.

Well, you know it’s not as simple as that, and there are so many more details to elaborate on. However, now that you know that muffin-top can indicate diabetes(or rather, diabetes can be the trigger for midriff fat) and if you are permanently in a state of tension because you don’t sleep well, you can hasten the onset of Type 2 diabetes.

Back to the forum—I recognized several people from the last one, in January. Some of the morbidly obese people I had seen then were there, and it was piteous to see them navigating the walkers haltingly between the chairs just to get a brochure from outside, or to get lunch or change rooms for breakout sessions.

Most of them were just as obese as they were two months ago. One of the (lean, mean) researchers called obesity “The curse of middle age”. Does it have to be? I think not. It’s all the processed food the nation eats, the lack of exercise, the genetic modification and the premature harvesting. Do you really think we can get away with eating plastic look-alike food?

To see what lurks behind the scenes when we swallow foods that aren’t whole, download my free report from the right of this page. Then leave me a comment. Do you sleep well? More about this in future blogs.

Ciao,

Jacquelyn