When you consider obesity causes, one fact stands out clearly: our bodies are being overdosed with FOOD. In my four decades of being a doctor, I’ve learned that some of our biggest health concerns come not from what you’re lacking but from what you’re eating that your body doesn’t want or need.
You already know that portions in developed countries are out of control…it’s far more food than the human body needs. However, when you add the flood of over-processed and chemically heavy choices to the situation, and you create a perfect storm of inflammatory conditions that your body is unable to overcome naturally.
Simple, whole foods that provide the energy and nutrition you need to live have fallen by the wayside. The obesity epidemic is a real – and potentially catastrophic – situation.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, more than two-thirds of the United States population alone is considered overweight or obese. Obesity statistics are around 18% for children and rapidly rising to join the overwhelming rate of adult obesity.
Obesity Causes: The Role of Inflammation
Inflammation has now been linked as a cause of obesity and the reverse is also true that obesity leads to systemic inflammation. This highly dangerous process attacks and inflames your tissues until you are left vulnerable to disease.
Cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, arthritis, diabetes, and more all have risk factors linked to both obesity and inflammation. Either of these two conditions – if left untreated – will lead to illness and rapid aging.
The World Can No Longer Ignore the Signs
A recent study completed at Norway’s Research Institute for Internal Medicine, University of Oslo found that obesity is just as dangerous as malnutrition on a molecular level.
It has been known for decades that malnutrition damages the immune system and leaves your body vulnerable to infections and disease. The immune system uses temporary inflammation to fight bacteria, viruses, and parasites in your body. When the risk is resolved, the inflammation lowers.
It turns out that eating too much boosts the immune response without a threat, causing chronic inflammation, the verified source of some of the biggest killers on the planet.
Professor Bente Halvorsen explained, “With this new knowledge, we can better understand why too much food can cause such serious diseases as heart attack, stroke, cancer and chronic intestinal inflammation. We can reduce the inflammatory reaction by losing weight.”
There is much more research to be done but initial results point to the mitochondria – our cells’ power sources – and how they convert fat to energy. Too much food stresses these tiny power plants and causes damage that leads to inflammation.
The real causes of obesity (and inflammation) are easy to pinpoint. On the whole, we eat too much, fat accumulates in the cells, the mitochondria become overworked and damaged, which leads to an immune response, resulting in inflammation over your entire body that becomes chronic after years of the same cycle.
Another study from the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at the University of Queensland in Australia found that PAR2 – a protein found in abundance in belly fat tissue – causes an intense inflammatory reaction in humans and rats.
The study is to find an “obesity drug” to block what high fats and sugars do to your body. The medical industry is scrambling to figure out which comes first…obesity and then inflammation or inflammation and then obesity.
The answer is an easy one. The two conditions are linked on a molecular level – proven by countless scientific studies. Rid yourself of one and you reduce the other and vice versa!
Address the Causes of Obesity and Inflammation NOW!
The right combination of foods for you to consume is likely different from anyone else. It isn’t about “food allergies” as much as how you personally metabolize the foods you eat.
Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are genetic markers specific to you and determine how you will react to food.
Learning what you truly need to eat – as well as what you should never eat – is the first step to ramping up your body’s ability to absorb the right nutrients and detoxify your system.
Getting enough sleep, exercising, and reducing stress are crucial to total body health and anti-aging but it is your food consumption that makes all the difference! What you eat and how much you eat determines the levels of inflammation in your body.
Your “perfect eating plan” is exclusive to you. That means standard diets, fads, and quick weight loss supplements are not the answer.
It starts with every bite of food that goes into your body. Experts estimate that as many as 80% of visits to the doctor for random complaints are caused by adverse reactions to something in your food supply. Not necessarily a food allergy so much as a food your body doesn’t recognize or know how to process.
Food is the first and most important step in changing your life because it is the best way to minimize inflammation that causes obesity (and vice versa) – which in turn lead to depression, disease, and rapid aging.
Before emotional, mental, and professional goals – you must take control of your physical body. When your body is healthy and strong – other life changes can be focused on with greater intensity.
First, get well. For more information about finding the perfect eating plan that works for you, read my book Diet Wise right now. Your body will be glad you did!
REFERENCES
US Dept of Health and Human Services: Overweight & Obesity Statistics https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/overweight-obesity
Universiti Putra Malaysia: Obesity and inflammation: the linking mechanism and the complications https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5507106/
Louisiana State University: The NALP3/NLRP3 Inflammasome Instigates Obesity-Induced Autoinflammation and Insulin Resistance https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3076025/
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Adult Obesity Causes & Consequences https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/adult/causes.html
University of Oslo, Norway: Overweight causes hazardous inflammations https://www.apollon.uio.no/english/articles/2014/3_inflammations.html
Science Daily: New research shows obesity is inflammatory disease https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131202112156.htm
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