Health is the Greatest Wealth, Part 1

The first wealth is health. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Please keep in mind the distinction between healing and treatment: treatment originates from outside, whereas healing comes from within. – Andrew Weil

The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, and in the cause and prevention of disease. – Thomas Edison

As of today, we begin a new series, shifting the focus from sustainable/green living, which was the topic of the last series, to health.

Health is the greatest wealth, but it seems to be a commodity that, while much in demand, is hard to grasp. Everyone wants to be healthier, but the way most people go about it, is hard to attain.

In the U.S., medical costs are skyrocketing, as are insurance premiums. At the same time, all that money spent is not doing much good in helping people become healthier; sickness rates across the board keep going up, up, up.

The U.S. medical system is a sick care system, not a health care system. It knows nothing about how to help people live healthier lives; it is all about trying to arrest illness – and at that it’s not doing a great job.

And so, over the next few weeks, I’ll be talking about health and how to be healthier in a variety of ways.

I’ve discussed on these pages many times the importance of a whole foods oriented diet, one that’s not heavy in animal protein.

Eating well is the foundation for being healthy, but the cultivation of overall good health and wellness includes other factors, and is ultimately about developing the right approach and mindset. If you do that, good health becomes easy to achieve and maintain.

Being in good health allows you to easily live a Low Density Lifestyle, while being in ill health is not conducive to it. Unfortunately, most people are walking around in poor health, and are taking medications in order that they can function, be productive and carry on in their daily routine.

Medications have a number of inherent problems, and do not help to restore health. All they do at best is arrest symptoms and keep you functioning. They can cause side effects that range from mild to severe, can be toxic to the liver, can depress the immune system and can lead to other long-term health problems.

The key to developing good health is empowering yourself and being proactive. If you are not feeling well, this is a signal from the body that something is amiss. If you learn to listen to what the body is saying, and take that message to heart, you will start becoming healthier.

One of the inevitable side effects of a High Density Lifestyle, which is a lifestyle of high stress, is illness. Just the stress of living this way will sooner or later catch up to you.

But if you start listening to you body, you will start to understand when the body is telling you that you are overtaxed. Instead of rushing to take a drug for the symptoms you are experiencing from living a High Density Lifestyle, if you learn to slow down, that by itself may do you wonders.

Now, I’m not saying that you should never take a medication—there are times when they are necessary, but they should only be seen as a bridge, a temporary remedy while you work on the permanent solution.

The great majority of people seek out a doctor when they are not feeling well, with the hope that the doctor will have the answers. But did you know that most physicians are immersed in a High Density Lifestyle? A study published in the September 2008 medical journal Annals of Internal Medicine found that when physicians are in medical school, 50% suffer from burnout and 10% consider suicide.

If this is what they go through when they are trained, how can the profession be of help in understanding how to help a person get off the treadmill of a High Density Lifestyle?

I’ll continue in this vein tomorrow, talking about health and how to achieve it.

Sustainable/Green Living: Living Light on Mother Earth

A new series begins as of today, on green and sustainable living. Earth Day was a few weeks ago, but because I was on hiatus last week, I couldn’t write it about it last week. So the series begins today.

In reality, though, everyday should be Earth Day.

A Low Density Lifestyle is not just about being on the path of health and wellness, and of healthy living in general. Of course, this is so important.

A Low Density Lifestyle also will make you feel lighter of body and mind, and allow you to feel less dense in relationship to our planet.

With all the concern about global warming, pollution and toxins in our environment – what with the recent oil spill in the Gulf Coast – and also sustainable foods and agriculture, it’s so important to apply a Low Density Lifestyle to the environment, and tread lightly wherever you go.

The point is that living a Low Density Lifestyle applies not only to your personal well-being, but to the well-being of the greater whole. You can say that it extends to the health and wellness of the entire planet, so that the planet can experience healthy living.

Before I close today’s article, I want to bring your attention to the below video, which is footage of the Gulf Coast oil spill, and an in-situ burn.

This is an ecological and environmental disaster, and shows the shortsightedness of the policy of “Drill, Baby, Drill,” which was the Republican mantra back in 2008. It was was their solution to what the U.S. energy policy should be – just drill offshore.

Well, at least one right-thinking Republican, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, has pulled the plug on Drill, Baby, Drill. He has announced that there will be no offshore drilling in California.

What the U.S. and the world needs is an innovative energy policy, a Low Density Lifestyle energy policy, one that stresses renewable resources, conservation, and a lessening of consumption.

As opposed to Drill, Baby, Drill – which is just more of the same: a tired, antiquated way of thinking, and an expression of a High Density Lifestyle paradigm, a way of life that has created the problems that we are now facing.

And which is the paradigm we need to move away from.

Drugged-Out Nation

I start a new series as of today, on the topic of Drugs. The pharmaceutical kind, that is. You know, the stuff you go to the drug store to get.

I’m not anti-drugs. There’s a time and place for them. They can save lives. And sometimes they are necessary.

But the problem is that they should be used as a bridge, to be a stopgap measure while a person is working on getting healthier.

Instead, they are the only thing the great majority of people turn to when they are not feeling well.

As a result, drug use is at an epidemic level. In the U.S., per capita drug use is one dozen. Imagine that: on average, every man, woman and child in the U.S. is taking one dozen medications.

And I’m not taking any, so that means someone is picking up the slack for me.

The thing is: if you truly want to be healthy, you need to cut down and then cut out taking any medications.

Because taking medications is one of the surest ways to end up living a High Density Lifestyle, and with it, a very unhealthy and unhappy life.

Here’s the most ironic thing: in the U.S., every child is taught the slogan, “Just say no.” And yet, what kind of a lesson is being taught when the use of prescription medication is so rampant? Where’s the “Just say no” of that?

In 2008, overall drug sales in the U.S. were $291.5 billion. Lipitor, a statin used to control cholesterol, was the top-selling drug, followed by the acid reflux medication Nexium, and Plavix, an anti-platelet agent that reduces the risk of heart attack or stroke.

Sales of cardiovascular and gastroenterology medications, as well as ones that regulate central nervous system issues like seizures, depression, pain and Alzheimer’s, accounted for half of all drug sales in 2008.

Another big seller are antidepressants – they were the third most-popular type of drug dispensed in 2008, with $9.5 billion in sales.

It’s a boom time for the depression business, as long as you’re not a psychotherapist – fewer patients are seeing psychotherapists to resolve their mental health problems. Instead, says Dr. Mark Olfson, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center, “there’s a greater emphasis on drugs.”

Over 3.5 billion prescriptions a year are written in the U.S. And as a consequence of all those prescriptions written, here’s no surprise – the 4th leading cause of death is medication side effects.

And the outlook for the future? With prescription volume growing exponentially year after year, it’s not good.

This is great news for the drug industry and insurance companies – drug costs are driving premiums through the roof – but not good for the rest of us.

Drugs have direct, powerful effects on human systems. Most of these effects are negative, and taking multiple drugs increases the risks. Psychologically, the growing attitude that drugs are the answer for every ache and angst is destructive for individuals and societies.

With drug advertising everywhere, what is the message being drummed into us and our children: that for every symptom and sensation the solution is a pill?

The drug industry has been the most profitable industry by far year after year, and they have no ethical problem with the totally unethical act of giving financial incentives to doctors to write prescriptions for their products.

And it goes both ways: many doctors have no ethical problem with the totally unethical act of taking financial incentives from drug companies to write prescriptions for their products.

This is a sad state of affairs, and until it changes, we are going to be stuck in the quagmire of High Density Lifestyle living.

Which means we’ll continue to have people getting sicker, with their medical needs and costs draining the system; health care costs and premiums will continue to skyrocket with less coverage and higher co-pays; and businesses will be strangled with the burden of trying to give employees health care coverage.

The answer – along with health care reform – is for people to learn how to be healthier, and one of the most important steps in seeing that happen is the reduction and elimination of prescription drug consumption.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be delving into this more.

Relationships, Love and Sex, Part 2

In yesterday’s article, Relationships, Love and Sex, Part 1, I began to dissect this crazy little thing called love.

I said how these are complicated topics, full of pitfalls and entanglements, mishaps and risks, and also much bliss and happiness.

I also said how it’s the arena in which we can become most vulnerable, in which our deepest intimacies can become known; it can also be the arena in which our buttons are pushed to the max.

So let’s delve deeper into it. I’ll also explain why I believe that people who live a Low Density Lifestyle have a better chance of entering into lasting relationships and having better sex.

We are all social animals, and everyone desires to have a social network of friends, family, loved ones and significant other that you desire to spend time together with.

Strong relationships are a vital component of a healthy and happy life, while negative relationships can impact health and happiness in a detrimental manner.

When you are living a Low Density Lifestyle, you are naturally attracted to other people who are also living a Low Density Lifestyle, and it is these people who will make up your most intimate social network. If you feel centered, balanced and in the flow, you won’t readily enjoy the company of people who live a completely opposite lifestyle, as it will just be too jarring to your soul.

Interestingly though, people who live a High Density Lifestyle will be naturally attracted to those who live a Low Density Lifestyle, because the calmness and peacefulness of someone living a Low Density Lifestyle is something that can help to balance and center someone living a High Density Lifestyle.

It can actually be a profoundly transformative experience if someone living a High Density Lifestyle allows themselves to open up to the energies and calming influence of someone living a Low Density Lifestyle. So this is truly one case of opposites attracting!

But the tricky thing is that for those living a Low Density Lifestyle, the desire is to have happy and harmonious relationships, and they will go out of their way to find them and to reject relationships that create unhappiness and disharmony.

So it’s not impossible for people on opposite ends of the spectrum to come together—after all, the chemical bond of love transcends all boundaries and overcomes all limitations—it’s just that if you want to have a sustaining and lasting relationship, there needs to be a bonding of two souls, one in which each person can gaze into the other’s eyes and see the reflection of the deep and infinite waters of the Zero-Point Field, which is the origins of universal love and consciousness.

Communication is a big part of a relationship, and failure to communicate is a major reason for breakups. To be able to communicate, each party in a relationship needs to feel loved and safe. Each person in the relationship also has to let go of expectations and not judge or criticize the other, but instead help them to feel comfortable being able to communicate.

Communicating your deepest and most intimate thoughts and feelings is not easy, but if you feel safe and loved, and feel that what you say won’t be held against you, then it is easier to speak from your heart. This happens easiest when both people in the relationship are living a Low Density Lifestyle.

If one or both people in the relationship are living a High Density Lifestyle, then it’s a lot harder, because there’s no feeling of safety in expressing intimate thoughts. These are the relationships that are doomed to fail.

Another important part of a strong and lasting relationship is the sex life. Because those living a Low Density Lifestyle are healthier and more balanced, less stressed and more in the flow, they have the capability of having a strong sex drive and having better sex.

They understand that sexual desire is a natural biological urge, as opposed to a feeling that one should be ashamed of or should repress. They know that sex, and orgasm, make both parties feel good and is a vital part of making love. In addition, sex allows for intimacy and expressions of love, and these are things cherished by those living a Low Density Lifestyle.

For many people living a High Density Lifestyle, the only time when they’re able to relax and feel comfortable having sex is when they imbibe in alcohol or recreational drugs, because these allow them to relax their inhibitions and feel less stressed.

Although sex can be very enjoyable when performed in an altered state, an important part of the sexual experience is the feeling of intimacy that one person has with another, because in that state of intimacy, a strong bond is formed between both people and the flow of love, happiness and joy circulates and is expressed between them.

When a person is having sex in an altered state, the flow is impeded. But unfortunately, for many people living a High Density Lifestyle, having sex while in an altered state is the only way they can get full enjoyment of the act of making love.

Another great aspect of sex is that it increases your chances to be healthier and happier. People who have a regular sex life have been found to have a decreased risk of heart disease and stroke, a decrease in pain in the body, and an increase in life span.

These are enormous motives for having a healthy sex life, but the reality is that in order to have a healthy and happy sex life, it is best that both people involved live a Low Density Lifestyle.

Lessons for a Long Life From the Island of Ikaria, Greece

On the tiny island of Ikaria, off the coast of Greece, there is much to learn about living a long and healthy life, because a large percentage of the population of this island do so.

During the course of this series on Longevity, I have introduced you to various people who have lived a long and vital life, from the late Joe Rollino, to Jack Lalanne, yoga teacher Bette Calman, Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara, and Mimi Kirk (whose three-part exclusive interview with me ended yesterday), among others.

But with the above video, you can be introduced to an entire population of people, as opposed to individuals.

The above video is based on the work of Dan Buettner and the Blue Zones team, researchers who have identified certain regions of the world where people live longer.

They found that in Ikaria, and especially in the northeastern end of the island, that over one-third of everyone in the northeastern end reaches age 90. They suffer 20% less cancer and half the rate of heart disease. And there’s virtually no dementia.

In other words, they’re living the good years many people are missing. Years we could possibly have by just adjusting a few simple habits, including:

1. Wild Greens – Greens are abundant in fields and roadsides, Ikarians frequently eat wild green salads and pies. Some contain more antioxidants than green tea or wine.
2. Herbal Teas – The common herbal teas consumed here contain compounds that lower blood pressure and decrease the risk of heart disease and dementia.
3. Low sense of time urgency – Feeling less obligation to one’s schedule and day is shown to lower heart-harming stress hormones.
4. Daily naps – Taking a 30-minute nap at least five times a week can decrease the risk of heart attack by 35 percent.
5. Mountain living – Here, every trip out of the house occasions a mini workout. People get their daily exercise without thinking about it. Studies show the mountain people have lower cardio vascular disease.
6. Strong sense of community – Family and village support create strong social connections, which are proven to promote longevity.
7. Goat’s milk – 80 percent of all people over 90 have consumed goat’s milk many times per week throughout their life. It is rich in blood-pressure lowering tryptophan and antibacterial compounds.
8. Ikarian diet – The Ikarian variation of Mediterranean Diet is high in vegetables, beans, and low in meat and sugar. Uniquely, though, it’s lower in grains and fish, but high in potatoes.

In the U.S., cancer costs almost $250 billion per year, heart disease another approximately $500 billion and dementia yet another $175 billion. If people of the U.S. could live Ikaria’s lifestyle, rates could be cut in half and half a trillion dollars could be saved.

People of Ikaria are clearly living a Low Density Lifestyle, and living long and vital lives because of it. There’s a lot of life lessons for living a long life that we can learn from the people of Ikaria, Greece, if only we can heed the call.

One of the biggest lessons to be learned is that living a High Density Lifestyle will surely affect the quality of your life both in terms of health and your lifespan.

Ok…So What the Heck is a Low Density Lifestyle?

Having started the new year off with poetry – which was the nature of all the articles last week, from the poetry of David Tucker, to Susan Jefts, to the odes to the New Year, and finally, to the poetry of Leonard Cohen, I will be beginning a new series, on Longevity, in just a couple of days.

But first, we interrupt this message to give you an important message from our sponsors…

Ok, it’s not exactly from our sponsors, the message is from me. You see, it’s almost a year now since I started the Low Density Lifestyle website. I’m starting to do radio interviews, and here’s the schedule of them; and my book The Low Density Lifestyle will be coming out in the near future; but…

People still want to know, What the Heck is a Low Density Lifestyle?

The concept is amazingly easy to grasp, but allow me to explain it to you…

Have you ever had a time in your life when everything seemed to be going just right? When everything flows and you feel like you’re clicking on all cylinders? Maybe it was when you were on vacation, or when you did something you felt passionate about. Maybe it was when you were absorbed in nature, listening to music, or perhaps even in the middle of a crowded city street.

Ultimately, where you are when you experience this isn’t so important, because in the end it’s really a state of mind.

This state, which occurs when your body, mind and spirit are in such resonance that you feel like you are in the zone, is called a Low Density Lifestyle.

When you are living this way, you are living in a more relaxed, less stressed, and calm, clear and focused manner on an everyday basis. It can lead you to better health and happiness, along with a more fulfilled, successful and enlightened life.

When you live a Low Density Lifestyle, you have less density, rigidity and tension in your body, mind and spirit—this means there are fewer blockages obstructing the dynamic flow of energy circulating throughout your body. You are more fluid and flexible, and less inflexible, rigid and uncompromising.

Paulo Coelho, the author of The Alchemist, said, “Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains.”

In essence, this is the formula for living a Low Density Lifestyle: if you let go of your densities and rigidities, and overcome your blockages, you will be like a fountain. You then become a circuit of energy, flowing infinitely, much like an unimpeded electrical circuit in which the electricity freely courses throughout.

How do you achieve a Low Density Lifestyle? Like anything in life, it takes a commitment, but the investment you put into it in terms of time and energy pays itself back with tremendous dividends.

You can start just by doing some simple things—eat more vegetables, grains and whole foods, and less animal foods; turn on some music and let go, moving and swaying to the beat as you feel it move through you; stop doing the same routine that you always do, instead doing something different everyday.

For instance, brush your teeth with your right hand if you always brush with your left, or sleep on the other side of the bed, or take a different route to work.

Make room for quiet time everyday, whether via meditation, walking in nature, or sitting quietly in your living room; and say “yes” instead of always saying “no.” See the Jim Carrey movie “Yes Man” to help guide you.

I have put together a 12-step guide to living a Low Density Lifestyle, which explains how to do it.

If this 12-step guide sounds complicated or overwhelming, let me distill it down to its essence: a Low Density Lifestyle is about being fluid and flexible of mind, body and spirit. From that starting point, all the benefits—better health, happiness, self-mastery, more joy and passion, fulfillment, success and inner peace—ensue.

Ultimately, the key to fluidity begins in the mind. How unbending are you in your beliefs? Are you a flexible thinker or someone who can be stubborn and dogmatic? Even if you eat the best vegetarian diet in the world, if you do it out of a rigid and holier-than-thou sense of what’s right, you may be doing more harm than good.

Now I’m not saying not to eat well, because that is an important component; however, a fluid and flexible mindset is what’s most important. It’s really the most important aspect to living a Low Density Lifestyle.

If you don’t live a Low Density Lifestyle, you may find yourself trapped in a High Density Lifestyle, a realm in which the burdens of stress and feeling overwhelmed can lay heavy on you and cause you to feel dense, tense and rigid.

If you feel heavy, and weighed down in your body, mind and spirit because of stress, poor eating, lack of exercise, a rigid belief system, unethical behavior, or a negative world view, then you are caught in the treadmill of a High Density Lifestyle. Billions of people on this planet are now caught in the trap of a High Density Lifestyle, and the increasingly fast-paced lifestyle of the modern world is to blame.

According to a survey by the American Psychological Association, in 2008, more people reported stress-related physical and emotional symptoms than they did in 2007, and nearly half of adults said their stress has increased in the past year.

A High-Density Lifestyle causes people to become physically ill, as well as mentally, emotionally and spiritually dense and rigid. This is evidenced by many of the common ills plaguing people today—weight gain, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, depression, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and numerous other chronic and degenerative health problems.

So which would you rather live? A Low Density Lifestyle or a High Density Lifestyle? I think the choice is obvious. I invite you to be a part of a Low Density Lifestyle world.

And if more people lived a Low Density Lifestyle, we could then imagine the question, What Would a Low Density Lifestyle World Look Like?

What if War Isn’t Over?

In yesterday’s article during this series on What Would a Low Density Lifestyle World Look Like?, I showed the video of John Lennon’s well-known holiday anthem, Happy Xmas/War is Over.

I discussed it within the context of what John Lennon stood for – he was a man of vision and a man of peace. He was able to clearly articulate what a Low Density Lifestyle world should look like.

I said how the song, when it came out in 1971, was seen as radical and the work of a notorious peace activist, but now is sung far and wide by all kinds of musicians.

And to prove my point, in yesterday’s article were versions by Celine Dion, Melissa Etheridge, Tom Jones, the Three Tenors, and U2.

Which means the song is now a fully accepted and loved part of the holiday season. As well it should, since it is a hymn to peace – and isn’t that what the holiday spirit is about?

But what if war isn’t over? (I know, I know, just look around us – it goes without saying.)

So let me clarify it: what if we continue on the path we’re on, of many countries armed with nuclear weapons, ready to use the final option if necessary?

That’s the point of the above video, courtesy of Good Magazine.

So I invite you to watch it and to understand that is not the vision of the world we want to live in. That’s the vision of a High Density Lifestyle world, and is certainly not what a Low Density Lifestyle World Would Look Like.

So let’s all resolve to do better. Before it’s too late.

A Voice of Sanity in a High Density Lifestyle World

In a world in which people are stressed to the max, feel overwhelmed, and are caught up living a High Density Lifestyle existence; and in a world in which things seem topsy-turvy and what is wrong is right and what is right is wrong, voices of sanity are desperately needed.

That’s why we need people who live a Low Density Lifestyle to speak out and to be bold with their vision, because they are the voices of sanity, and the voices to lead us out of the wilderness.

And that’s why I’ve had this series on What Would a Low Density Lifestyle World Look Like? - to inspire the Low Density Lifestyle folks to help point the finger to the way to live a sane existence.

In the above video, you can see the actor Woody Harrelson’s poem Thoughts From Within set to music and images. In the poem he speaks simply, clearly and eloquently to help us understand how we’ve lost our way.

Woody is giving a Low Density Lifestyle perspective to a High Density Lifestyle world. Perspectives like these are voices from the wilderness, voices of clarity. They shine a light to help us see through the darkness of a High Density Lifestyle existence.

Woody Harrelson, best-known as Woody on the TV show Cheers, but also star of many well-known movies, including Indecent Proposal, Wag the Dog, and The Messenger, lives a Low Density Lifestyle. He’s a peace activist, a vegan – in the recent film Zombieland, when the script required him to eat a Twinkie, he replaced it with a vegan-faux Twinkie made from cornmeal – and in October 2009, he was conferred an honorary degree York University for his contributions in the fields of environmental education, sustainability, and activism.

I hope you enjoy the video and it inspires you to become a voice of sanity in a High Density Lifestyle World.

The Obesity Apocalypse is Nearing

Today is the last article for this series on obesity, and the last article for this week -  Thanksgiving is upon us, and with it I am taking a few day hiatus.

And what better time than Thanksgiving to talk about the dangers of eating too much food and the wrong types of food?

Because as a nation, here in the U.S., statistics show that obesity is rapidly reaching epidemic proportions.  Already the U.S. is the most obese nation on the planet.

I’ve talked about all the different causes of obesity – diet, sugar/high fructose corn syrup, chemicals, cars and stress – but no matter how you cut the mustard, the truth is that if we continue the path we’re on, there is something ugly looming on the horizon.

And that is the obesity apocalypse.

Forget 2012 and the Mayan Long Count calendar.  That just makes for a thriller of a Hollywood movie.

The real apocalypse will occur in 2030. That’s the year, according to a study that came out in the August 2008 edition of the medical journal Obesity, that nearly every American will be overweight or obese.

The study, led by Dr. Youfa Wang of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, says that if current overweight and obesity trends continue, 86 percent of Americans could be overweight or obese by the year 2030.

And even more troubling, the authors note, is the fact that “by 2048, all American adults would become overweight or obese.”

Shades of the Pixar film Wall-E.  In that film, 700 years in the future, the inhabitants of earth are forced to evacuate the planet, because due to mass consumerism the entire planet is covered with trash. The people of earth are now living in space on starliners, and are grossly obese and no longer able to walk. They have to rely on motorized hovercrafts to get them around.

Dr. Wang of John Hopkins also said that the increase in metabolic disease and other weight-related conditions could have a catastrophic toll on public health — and on the public pocket. If these predictions come to bear, Wang and his colleagues estimate that the additional overweight and obesity burden could add up to an extra $860 billion to $956 billion per year in health expenditures to treat these conditions.

All told, this would mean that $1 in every $6 spent on health care would be spent as a result of the overweight and obesity.

The reality is that if those dollar figures quoted above are spent on the health demands of obesity, it will bankrupt this nation. We can reform health care until we’re blue in the face, we can create a single payer system that is compassionate, caring and exceeds expectations, but if we have that level of burden to pay on health care, the only way to rescue the U.S. economy will be if every person in the country is allowed to have a printing press in their home in order to print up money.

Obviously, we are in dire need of reversing course, and doing it soon…or else.

Dr. David Katz, co-founder of the Yale University Prevention Research Center says, “We are terribly, ominously off-course. To close the gap, we need to fix everything that’s broken — from neighborhoods without sidewalks, to the high price of produce, to food marketing to children, to misleading health claims on food packages, to school days devoid of physical activity and school cafeterias devoid of healthful offerings. The list goes on and on.”

Others state that the path to reversing course lie in individuals taking responsibility for diet and lifestyle habits. Dr. Neal Barnard, founder and president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) and a staunch supporter of a vegetarian diet, says dietary modification could be a crucial step in solving the problem.

“U.S. eating habits are nowhere near where they should be,” he says. “The average American eats 50 pounds more meat and 20 pounds more cheese per year, compared to the 1960s. … I would strongly encourage Americans to adopt more vegetarian meals.”

Soon we will be at a crossroads. On one path is the road to a Low Density Lifestyle, while the other is the trail to a High Density Lifestyle.

The choice is ours.

And so with that, I leave you to have a happy Thanksgiving.  I wish you well, and I hope you remember all I’ve written on this important subject.

Stress: A Major Cause of Obesity

I’ve been writing on the theme of obesity for the last few weeks, and will wrap this series up tomorrow. (It’s a short week, what with the Thanksgiving holiday, and so tomorrow’s article will be the last for this week.)

I’ve written about many causes of obesity – diet, chemicals in foods, sugar/high fructose corn syrup, cars.

Another cause of obesity, and a major cause at that, is stress.

Stress is a major cause of living a High Density Lifestyle, and a major cause of obesity – that’s why I’ve said throughout this series that being obese can get you trapped in the treadmill of a High Density Lifestyle.

What is it about stress that leads to obesity?

There’s two main reasons: behavioral and physiological.

Behaviorally, stressed-out people will often eat even when they’re not hungry – this is known as stress eating or emotional eating, and the food choices made are usually not the wisest.

Physiologically, there’s a few factors that lead to obesity. One factor is cortisol and cortisol-induced insulin.

When faced with a stressful situation, the body triggers the stress response, the fight-or-flight response. This leads to the secretion of cortisol, adrenaline and other stress hormones along with an increase of blood pressure, breathing and heart rate.

The natural stress response is usually short-term and self-regulating. When the threat is gone, the body returns to normal. As cortisol and adrenaline levels drop, heart rate, respiratory rate and blood pressure, as well as energy levels return to their baseline levels. Other systems inhibited by the stress response return to their regular activities.

The natural stress response goes awry when stress is constant and excessive. In today’s society, most people are inundated with overwhelming stress. For those constantly dealing with excessive and chronic stress, the body’s fight-or-flight response is constantly on. In turn, the resulting stress hormones released are chronically high.

Chronically high levels of cortisol plays a big role in the development of obesity.

Cortisol helps the body handle stress, so when stress goes up, cortisol also goes up. Cortisol stimulates fat and carbohydrate metabolism during stressful situations. This leads to increased blood sugar levels required for fast energy. In turn, this stimulates insulin release which can lead to an increase in appetite.

When the immediate stress is over, cortisol lingers to help bring the body back into balance after stress. One of the ways it gets things back to balance is by increasing appetite to replace the carbohydrate and fat used for the flight or fight response.

The problem is that in today’s society, stress-causing situations — such as traffic jams or computer malfunctions — don’t require the body to use up a lot of energy. So, cortisol ends up causing the body to refuel after stress even when it doesn’t really need to refuel. This excess fuel or glucose is converted into fat, resulting in increased storage of fat.

What makes matters worse is that cortisol-induced high levels of insulin also leads to increased production and storage of fat. This means that exposure to chronically high levels of cortisol and cortisol-induced insulin are major main reasons why stress can lead to increase in body fat and obesity.

Another physiological reason that was found recently for why stress leads to obesity is a molecule that the body releases when stressed called NPY (neuropeptide Y). NPY appears to unlock certain receptors in fat cells, causing them to grow in both size and number.

NPY was discovered by researchers during an experiment in which stressed and unstressed mice were fed either a standard diet or a high-fat, high-sugar, “comfort food” diet.

As expected, the mice on the high-fat, high-sugar diet gained fat while those on the standard diet did not. But researchers found the stressed mice on the high-fat, high-sugar diet developed more body fat than the unstressed mice fed the same diet.

The good news of all this is that stress-induced obesity can be overturned by the learning of simple stress management techniques.

And for that matter, diet-induced obesity can be overturned by the learning of better food habits.

So there is hope!

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