SLATFATF

There’s a lot more to artificial sweeteners than simply tasting sweet without the calories of sugar. There is growing evidence that artificial sweeteners can cause craving for real sugar.
Also, next time you look at the ingredients on full sugar fizzy drinks, note that a lot of them use ‘glucose-fructose syrup’ which has other names, including ‘modified corn syrup’. Unlike glucose, it is not a natural sugar and again, there is a growing body of evidence that it is partly responsible for causing obesity.

Also, aside from the weight issue, certain fizzy drinks (eg, diet coke) are associated with increased risk of osteoporosis. And they are hellish bad for your teeth!

I see a lot of fat people drinking diet coke.

+1 to Vickypea. There is a strong argument that diet coke still conditions your brain to want sweet things. Evidence that consumption leads to weight gain is patchy, but most diet diary type studies produce weak results.

Continuing my crusade against glucose-fructose syrup….
It’s used as a cheap sweetener in loads of foods, much like corn starch is used as a cheap bulking agent. They tend to be in cheaper foods, so people who don’t have a lot of money are potentially more exposed to them.
At best, they have no nutritional value, at worst they may do harm.

I see a lot of fat people drinking diet coke. There could be something interesting in that.. maybe not.

Keep up molly. Diet coke dissolves calories. Everyone know that, silly! Which is why this capacity is so often utlised for washing down all-you-can-eat lunchtime Pizza Hut binges and Supersized Big Mac Meals

Its how I maintain my rippling torso, despite my pie intake. like so….

Binners.
I thought you weren’t allowed to post pictures of yourself, and cavorting with a soft drink too !
😯

Anyway, forget the obese. Wont anyone think of the share holders ?

The problem is that school’s have gone soft and stopped bullying.

Loads less fat kids when you could pick on them, and now they’ve grown up thinking it’s acceptable to be fat, bred, and encouraged their kids to be porkers.

It’s not acceptable to get cancer from smoking, liver disease from drinking, so why is pointing out pie-itis against their human rights?

Probably PC gone mad.

One in three homeless people in Boston are clinically obese

Thought I’d throw that one out there for the wealthy/not wealthy protagonists.

Fast food is dirt cheap (in the US), and the sugar content very quickly makes you feel good (sugar high?). I can see the appeal, if you’ve been begging on the streets for hours.

It’s not like the hobos have a full kitchen at their disposal to cook fresh meals?

Binners – is that a tattoo of a young Judy Garland on your bicep?

Thought I’d throw that one out there for the wealthy/not wealthy protagonists.

It’s all relative. A homeless American is wealthy compared to much of the world’s population.

Also, next time you look at the ingredients on full sugar fizzy drinks, note that a lot of them use ‘glucose-fructose syrup’

Mostly in the US I think. There almost all ‘soda’ is made with HFCC, which tastes a bit yucky unless you drink it in a big cup with loads of ice, where it’s actually pretty refreshing. That’s why Diet Coke etc are so popular for home drinking from cans, because it tastes sweeter. They make some kind of retro Pepsi and another lemonadey thing with real sugar and this is marketed as a big deal.

There’s a political background to this too – the US used to get a lot of sugar from Cuba, but they got cut off with the revolution. The corn farmers association is an enormously powerful lobby group. And guess what – sugar has import taxes stuck on it, to make corn syrup look cheap!

hmmmm, wonder if US citizen could sue their favored ( ) fast food outlet for making them ill

A 14 year old girl in the USA has just begun to sue the big 3 manufacturers if high fructose corn syrup for $5,000,000 because she developed T2 diabetes.

I see a lot of fat people drinking diet coke

play the game grips, you can’t have it both ways, you go from people are individual and respond differently to food, or you make generalisations like that one.

Make your mind up.

HFCC has been shown to make rats fat, alterning the amount of food which they eat:

Princeton Uni

Molgrips- I also thought it was mostly in the US, but was shocked to see it listed on the can of a drink here in the UK recently. I’m going to have a snoop at a few labels when I’m next in the supermarket 🙂

play the game grips, you can’t have it both ways, you go from people are individual and respond differently to food, or you make generalisations like that one.

Nono, it’s not a generalisation – just an observation. I should have made that clear. I don’t know if more fat people drink diet coke than skinny people; I also don’t know if it’s cause or effect, as in “Oh shit I’m fat, better switch to diet drinks”.

I was thinking more of a conversational leader to see if anyone knows of research about sweetners, but given the context I can see how it would come across as the kind of crap logic I detest 🙂

However even if diet drinks do make you fat, it’s not at odds with my previous comments about people being different. As a general rule, junk food does make you fat, but the amount of fat from a given amount of junk food ranges from 0 to loads.

What tyre for…

Stomm! Is being a comic-reading nerd a disease?

I also thought it was mostly in the US, but was shocked to see it listed on the can of a drink here in the UK recently. I’m going to have a snoop at a few labels when I’m next in the supermarket

It’s quite common to see an ingredient in this country called inverted sugar syrup or glucose syrup which AFAIK is the same or very similar to HFCS.

HFCS contains glucose and fructose, and it’s the high levels of fructose that are controversial. It is metabolised differently to glucose and there is some thought that it is more easily converted to fat, and that it may suppress the feeling of satiety by inhibiting leptin.
Of course this is not totally proven at the moment, but what is apparent is that more sugar is being consumed than before, given that HFCS appears all over the place.

Interestingly, lots of websites defending HFCS are appearing. Probably the food and drink industry?

Recently lost ~12kg and gone from being obese to just plain fat, perhaps being kind, no one I explain my weight loss to believes I was ever obese. I was though and feel much healthier now.

All I have done is stop eating the food I grew up being told was good for me- spuds and pies and stop eating the food they is heavily advertised- chocolate and biscuits etc and stopped eating any food unless I was actually hungry.

I seem to have cured myself of obesity perhaps I can sell it to the NHS.

With all due respect, as I know you’ve bad huge problems but why on earth do you have to self-medicate. Surely if they have now identified the problem, you should be treated within he NHS. Sorry if I missed part of he saga but I’m genuinely interested as my Mother is borderline under-active thyroid.

I know you’ve been cagey about it in the past c-g, but I really would be interred to know the name of the drug you are having to buy, as t4 and t3 are both available on the NHS.

OK, I’ll try to explain. In the UK the thyroid is tested by means of the TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone)test and a measurement of over 10 is considered to indicate hypothyroidism.

In Europe and the USA, the measurement has been reduced to 2.5.

My TSH was under 10 and was told that I wasn’t hypothyroid despite having many of the symptoms. Apparently I was depressed and I strongly disagreed with this. Then I was told I was menopausal to which my reply was ‘check my records’.

Now to the science bit … the TSH test has been questioned by many physicians who claim that this test will not show if you are converting enough T4 into T3, or your thyroid is being attacked by antibodies, or you have T3 receptor resistance, or you are suffering from adrenal insufficiency, or you’re deficient in minerals and vitamins that are essential for thyroid health.

So … despite at my worst sleeping for 12 hours at night and sleeping again during the day, walking up or down stairs exhausting me, having a croaky voice and brain fog being so bad that I couldn’t string two words together, giving up riding, it was not due to my thyroid because the TSH test said my bloods were ‘normal’. Clinical symptoms were completely ignored.

I knew I was hypothyroid and did persuade a GP to prescribe a month’s supply of thyroxine but it was only the lowest dose. I actually felt worse then was informed that it definitely wasn’t my thyroid, was pointless increasing the dose and taking it for longer.

Dr P – yes, thyroxine and T3 are available on the NHS but any Endocronologist has to follow NHS guidelines and that includes a maximum dosage level. I understand (from those bloomin’ internet forums) that some GPs are not happy to monitor patients taking T3, let alone taking into account the high cost and do indeed refuse. I do buy my own T3.

Going back to the original topic, as can be seen from my comments I do believe that the reason for some of the obesity is undiagnosed thyroid disease.

My brain hurts now but do hope that this makes sense! Happy to answer any questions. 🙂

Can I just make the point that self-medicating was a last resort for me. This was only done following a (private) comprehensive range of blood tests that had been carried out together with considerable research and ongoing self-monitoring.

The estimate is that around 15% of thyroid sufferers do not do well on thyroxine.

Re the thyroid thing. I don’t think anyone really doubts there are obesity cases caused by this. I think people are just wondering what percentage of obese people have their weight gain caused by a thyroid problem.

I have no figures, but anecdotal evidence suggests that the percentage is fairly small.

I don’t think anyone is looking down on overweight people either. However classifying something as a disease when, for the majority of people, it is a lifestyle choice reduces their chances of ever doing anything about it.

….and a measurement of over 10 is considered to indicate hypothyroidism.

Hmm…. Not strictly true c-g, though.
True it (TSH figure) won’t show if you have auto antibodies, hence the TPA test.
T4 and free T3 are also very easily tested levels – I’m forever requesting them…
Plus, the TSH/T4/T3 feedback cycle can be seen as complicated, but a simple understanding of it demystifies it….
TSH can be elevated for a variety of reasons – hypo or hyper thyroid.

I’m not asking you to go into any more details about your health on here, though I really am interested as to the local failings in your management, requiring you to buy a drug prescribed (quite easily) by the NHS, unless the NHS/NICE disagrees with its prescribing in the first place?

DrP

I don’t think anyone is looking down on overweight people either.

They are, just read STW!

TSH 10 mU/L or less

How should I manage someone with subclinical hypothyroidism who has a thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) level of 10 mU/L or less?

Confirm by repeat testing of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) and free thyroxine (FT4) levels, with the addition of measurement of thyroid peroxidase antibodies (TPO-Ab), 3–6 months after the original result.

Levothyroxine treatment is not routinely recommended.

Consider offering levothyroxine treatment if:

The person has a goitre.

Their TSH level is rising.

The woman is pregnant or planning pregnancy (see Scenario : Preconception or pregnant).

Consider offering a trial of treatment if the person has symptoms compatible with hypothyroidism.

Prescribe treatment for a sufficient length of time to be able to judge whether there is symptomatic benefit, see Prescribing information.

Only continue treatment if there is a clear improvement in symptoms.

If treatment is continued, once stable, measure TSH annually and alter the levothyroxine dose to maintain the TSH level within the reference range.

If treatment is not offered, it is still necessary to monitor thyroid function to detect progression to overt hypothyroidism.

If the person has serum TPO-Abs, measure serum TSH and FT4 annually, or earlier if symptoms develop.

Otherwise, measure serum TSH and FT4 approximately every 3 years, or earlier if symptoms develop.

Current NICE guidance.
I’d be testing T3 too.

Bear in mind this guidance ONLY applies if the T4 or T3 are low I.e. all figures need to be considered in relation to one another.
As mentioned, a high TSH and raised T4 indicatd HYPERTHYROID…

DrP

1. A pathological condition of a part, organ, or system of an organism resulting from various causes, such as infection, genetic defect, or environmental stress, and characterized by an identifiable group of signs or symptoms.
2. A condition or tendency, as of society, regarded as abnormal and harmful.
3. Obsolete Lack of ease; trouble.

2. A condition or tendency, as of society, regarded as abnormal and harmful.

Hmmmm – that one muddys the water a bit.

obesity is sometimes caused by a legitimate, underlying condition, eg underactive thyroid. no argument from me!

obesity is sometimes caused purely by being a coke-drinking, pie-eating lazy-bones.

by saying obesity is a disease, you are saying that the pie-eater has a disease. which they don’t.

Therefore obesity is not a disease and if you say it is you are wrong. and an idiot.

notmyrealname and solo are correct. cinammon girl has valid points but is kind of missing the point. I suggest she rereads the question.

Try this one on for size

mickolas – Member

obesity cancer is sometimes caused by a legitimate, underlying condition!

obesity cancer is sometimes caused by smoking or other lifestyle choices

by saying obesity cancer is a disease, you are saying that the smoker has a disease. which they don’t.

It’s all getting a bit Good AIDS/Bad AIDS this.

glupton – being obese is not a condition or tendecy regarded as abnormal. it is a measurement. overeating is a tendency. underactive thyroid is a condition.

by saying obesity is a condition, you are saying that most of those large, very fit rugy player types have an abnormal condition.

you could argue that being fit IS abnormal….or that being very fat is NOT abnormal, given apparently one third of the US population qualifies…

by saying obesity is a disease, you are saying that the pie-eater has a disease. which they don’t.

Alcohol and (other) drug addictions are also classified as diseases, in both cases the solution is obvious: stop taking the drug(s). Somehow reality is a little more complicated.

by saying obesity is a condition, you are saying that most of those large, very fit rugy player types have an abnormal condition.

No, because noone is saying that professional rugby players are obese, it’s commonly recognised that BMI scores aren’t valid for certain edge cases. (Although their fitness levels are “abnormal”, of course).

I used to be massively fat, this was because I drank and ate crap and was lazy and ill disciplined. I realised I was lazy and ill disciplined and sorted it out (I’m still overweight, but I’m still heading in the right direction). If obesity was classified as a disease I may have not been as motivated to find my own solution to the problem I had.

northwind – the pie-eater can fix their situation without recourse to any medication. Can the cancer patient?

anyway, cancer happens when the body is NOT functioning normally. obesity sometimes happens when the bodies systems are functioning perfectly – hence no disease.

unrelated, but there is a theory that cancer is simply a dietary deficiency. look up ‘world without cancer’. just remember that it’s not MY theory.

you are saying that most of those large, very fit rugy player types have an abnormal condition.

Well they are not normal are they?

Like arguing a power lifter is normal

not sure either has a disease though

mogrim you are wrong. obesity is one of the classifications on the bmi scale. that is how it is defined!

as for your other point: addiction may or may not be a disease(mental); being drunk or stoned are certainly not diseases. I hope you understand the distinction.

mogrim you are wrong. obesity is one of the classifications on the bmi scale. that is how it is defined!

That’s part of the definition, not the whole definition, and it’s widely acknowledged that BMI isn’t directly applicable in all cases.

as for your other point: addiction may or may not be a disease(mental); being drunk or stoned are certainly not diseases. I hope you understand the distinction.

Being drunk or stoned every now and then are obviously not diseases, and I have never said they were. But that’s not what I was talking about, I was talking about addictions.

(And incidentally, that “world without cancer” thing is a huge pile of quackery, as I’m sure you knew).

mickolas – Member

addiction may or may not be a disease(mental); being drunk or stoned are certainly not diseases.

Liver disease caused by alcohol is a disease, regardless of whether you’re an addict or not. The reason for the disease doesn’t signify. Disease doesn’t care what caused it.

mickolas – Member

northwind – the pie-eater can fix their situation without recourse to any medication.

Can they? Can the smoker just stop smoking? And why would you think it makes any difference? You can get better from many diseases without treatment.