Obesity on my news reader feeds

One story from PhysOrg and another from Treehugger, indicating the social and biological hurdles facing people who are trying to lose weight. I start with the PhysOrg brief: "Limiting fructose may boost weight loss." Apparently, humans are really good at metabolizing fructose:

"All three [sugars: fructose, sucrose, and glucose] can be made into triglycerides, a form of body fat; however, once you start the process of fat synthesis from fructose, it's hard to slow it down," she said.

In humans, triglycerides are predominantly formed in the liver, which acts like a traffic cop to coordinate the use of dietary sugars. It is the liver's job, when it encounters glucose, to decide whether the body needs to store the glucose as glycogen, burn it for energy or turn the glucose into triglycerides. When there's a lot of glucose to process, it is put aside to process later.

Fructose, on the other hand, enters this metabolic pathway downstream, bypassing the traffic cop and flooding the metabolic pathway.

In other words, fructose is a "deadlier" sugar than either sucrose or glucose, since it can easily bypass the normal metabolic "holds" that affect these two other sugars. Why would this be a problem, though? Well, in the United States, a vast majority of sweeteners are based on high-fructose corn syrup (which is typically 55% fructose, 45% glucose, but can be as high as 90% fructose). That soda you're sippin' on? HFCS. Morning sugar cereal? HFCS. Cake bought at the store? HFCS. Your can of Campbell's Tomato soup? HFCS. The list goes on-and-on-and-on. Maybe this is one more reason why the rest of the world (save Australia, which passed the US in June 2008 to garner the dubious distinction of "most obese country in the world") is not as obese as the United States: their sweet teeth are not satisfied by using high-fructose corn syrup as it is in the US. Short rule: if you want to help your chances of slimming down, apparently you should refuse any sort of additional fructose (i.e., anything other than what's naturally occurring in your fruit and veg).

I end this entry with the story from Treehugger: "Save Energy, Save the Planet, Lose Weight = Eat Less Meat & Junk Food." In this entry, Matthew McDermott cites a study from Cornell, published in Human Ecology that points out the connectedness of food production and energy use in this country. What does this have to do with obesity? Well, directly, nothing. However, it does make the connection between the earth-friendly benefits and the heal benefits of going vegetarian and off processed food. Based on another article McDermott indicates that the most earth-friendly diet is veganism, followed by vegetarianism, then by poultry-eaters. (I wonder what the numbers would be for an "internationally sourced" vegan vs. a "locally sourced" meat-and-veg.) Short rule here: eat less meat and processed food, because it's not only good for you; it's good for the planet.