“A Little Fast Food A Big Risk To Health”
|
JUST two or three visits a week to a fast-food outlet may be enough to put you under threat of obesity and diabetes.
Despite claims by the fast-food industry that its products can form part of a healthy diet, participants in a major US trial showed signs of significant weight gains by eating at fast-food diners more than twice a week.
The study, published today in the British medical journal The Lancet, covered more than 3000 young people for 15 years from 1985, to investigate the link between fast-food consumption, weight gain and insulin resistance.
The researchers found fast-food consumption had "strong associations" with weight gain and insulin resistance, indicating that fast food increased the risk of obesity and Type 2 diabetes.
By comparison with the average weight gain among trial participants who ate fast food less than once a week, those who made frequent visits to fast-food outlets - defined as more than two a week - gained an extra 4.5kg and doubled their increase in insulin resistance.
Insulin is a hormone secreted in the pancreas that regulates blood-sugar levels. Insulin resistance leads to elevated blood sugar - the cause of Type 2 or adult-onset diabetes, Australia's sixth-biggest cause of death.
Study co-author David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Boston's Children's Hospital in Massachusetts, said the study showed that the more fast food a person ate, the greater the health risk.
"We can't estimate any minimal safe level," Dr Ludwig said.
"Fast food as it is now marketed is inherently unhealthful. Fast food doesn't have any precise definition, but it's a bit like pornography - you know it when you see it.
"As to whether a pizza restaurant is fast food or not, you could debate - but everyone knows a bacon double cheeseburger with fries and Coke at McDonald's is a direct hit."
Like the US, Australia is facing an obesity epidemic. A study in the Medical Journal of Australia in 2003 found 48.2 per cent of men and 29.9 per cent of women were overweight, while another 19.3 per cent of men and 22.2 per cent of women were obese.
Several patrons of a fast-food outlet in central Sydney visited at random by The Australian yesterday were concerned by the findings.
Eden McGregor, 33, from Norah Head on the NSW central coast, said he and his wife Susan, 24, usually ate fast food once a week because it was convenient, but health warnings had "changed our eating habits drastically".
"Often we will come in and just choose something from the healthy range," he said.
A spokeswoman for McDonald's defended its record, saying the company "advocates a balanced lifestyle, offering menu variety, customer information to support an informed choice and the promotion of physical activity".
http://theaustralian.com.au
Free self help books website resources and new health articles for your Lifetime Health & Fitness and wellbeing, health news, ideal body weight, womens health issues and personal development health articles about health news, free self help books for your improved health, nutrition & lifetime fitness.
Try a local search of our site for your answers
Click here to make your own website just like I have … simple & fast - no need for webmaster skills!
===================================================================
SITE DISCLAIMER: The self help books and personal development resources on this site are not intended to be a substitute for therapy or professional advice. While all attempts have been made to verify information provided in this self help book and personal development publication, neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibility for errors, omissions or contrary interpretation of the self help books and personal development subject matter herein. There is no guarantee of validity of accuracy of any self help books and articles content. Any perceived slight of specific people or organizations is unintentional. This self help books and personal development articles website and its creators are not responsible for the content of any sites linked to.
The self help book and new health articles website contents are solely the opinion of the author and should not be considered as a form of therapy, advice, direction and/or diagnosis or treatment of any kind: medical, spiritual, mental or other. If expert advice or counseling is needed, services of a competent professional should be sought. The author and the Publisher assume no responsibility or liability and specifically disclaim any warranty, express or implied for any self help or otherwise products or self help or otherwise services mentioned, or any self help or otherwise techniques or practices described. The purchaser or reader of this self help book and personal development articles website publication assumes responsibility for the use of these self help personal development materials and self help books and personal development articles and information. Neither the self help author nor the self help book Publisher assumes any responsibility or liability whatsoever on the behalf of any purchaser or reader of these self help books and personal development materials.
Self help site contains: Self help books and new health articles for your Lifetime Health & Fitness and wellbeing self help book and personal development health article about keyword, free self help books for your improved health, nutrition & lifetime fitness Self help books and new health articles for happiness & personal development resources, free self help books and new health articles listed for your convenient self help books for lifetime fitness health and wellbeing search in the self help books and new health articles subjects of self image, self help health tips, self help book resources for lifetime health & fitness and self help emotion management, panic attack self help, self help for low self esteem, self help famous quotes, anxiety self help resources, stress management self help books, new health articles and depression self help books, new health articles and resources.
===================================================================
Back to Happiness self help books and health articles Home Page……
