Food

Nanoparticles in food, vitamins could harm human health

February 22, 2012 by Aaron Jackson 1 Comment

Billions of engineered nanoparticles in foods and pharmaceuticals are ingested by humans daily, and new Cornell University research warns they may be more harmful to health than previously thought.

An intestinal cell monolayer after exposure to nanoparticles, shown in green (credit: Cornell)

The researchers studied how large doses of polystyrene nanoparticles — a common, FDA-approved material found in substances from food additives to vitamins — affected how well chickens absorbed iron, an essential nutrient, into their cells.

According to the study, high-intensity, short-term exposure to the particles initially blocked iron absorption, whereas longer-term exposure caused intestinal cell structures to change, allowing for a compensating uptick in iron absorption.

The researchers tested both acute and chronic nanoparticle exposure using human gut cells in petri dishes as well as live chickens and reported matching results. They chose chickens because these animals absorb iron into their bodies similarly to humans, and they are also similarly sensitive to micronutrient deficiencies, explained the paper’s first author Gretchen Mahler.

Intestinal villi remodeling

The researchers used commercially available, 50-nanometer polystyrene carboxylated particles that are generally considered safe for human consumption. They found that following acute exposure, a few minutes to a few hours after consumption, both the absorption of iron in the in vitro cells and the chickens decreased.

But following exposure of 2 milligrams per kilogram for two weeks — a slower, more chronic intake — the structure of the intestinal villi began to change and increase in surface area. This was an effective physiological remodeling that led to increased iron absorption.

“This was a physiological response that was unexpected,” Mahler said.

Research leader Michael Shuler noted that in some sense this intestinal villi remodeling was positive because it shows the body adapts to challenges. “Nanoparticles are entering our environment in many different ways,” Shuler said. “We have some assurance that at a gross level they are not harmful, but there may be more subtle effects that we need to worry about.”

Ref.: Gretchen J. Mahler, et al., Oral exposure to polystyrene nanoparticles affects iron absorption, Nature Nanotechnology, 2012; [DOI:10.1038/nnano.2012.3]

Source: https://www.kurzweilai.net/nanoparticles-in-food-vitamins-could-harm-human-health

Filed Under: Food, Health, Nanoparticles, Science

Magnus A.L. Mulliner - Health and Nutrition Secrets that can save your life - TruthJuice Bristol

January 8, 2012 by Aaron Jackson 1 Comment

If you’d like to take complete control of your health and ultimate quality of life, this talk is for you. You’ll be invited on a journey to gain more knowledge about how your body works and WHAT and WHEN it requires food, drink, sleep, creative movements and much more. You’ll be ‘reminded’ about our ‘Forefather’s’ wisdom and provided with practical tools, so that you can EMPOWER yourself for life. Recorded on the 30th November 2011.

For information on Magnus, click here: https://www.mtenergie.com/aboutus.php

This video can be played on youtube (in HD) by following this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFswE7Y1uTc

To subscribe to the Truth Juice Bristol youtube channel follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/user/TruthJuiceBristol

For more information on weekly TruthJuice Bristol talks visit these links:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/173598132725670

https://bristol.truthjuice.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/TruthJuiceBristol

https://twitter.com/BristolTruth

Filed Under: Featured, Food, Health

Preppers Are Now Considered To Be Potential Terrorists?

December 12, 2011 by T Kelly 1 Comment

If you and your family store up lots of food, will you be identified as “potential terrorists” by law enforcement authorities? That sounds like an insane question, but sadly it has gotten to the point where “preparing for the worst” has become a “suspicious activity“.

Today, there are millions of preppers all across the United States, and the vast majority of them just want to be left alone and do not want the government to interfere in their lives. Storing up food is a completely peaceful activity, and preppers are generally some of the most patriotic and law-abiding people that you could ever hope to meet. Unfortunately, prepping has become associated with “extremism” by many in the government, and lately we have seen some very disturbing signs that authorities are actively seeking to gather information on preppers. So are preppers now considered to be potential terrorists?

Well, read the evidence posted in the rest of this article and decide for yourself.

The other day, U.S. Senator Rand Paul gave a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate during which he suggested that having “more than seven days of food” in your house could potentially get you branded as a “potential terrorist” by the federal government.

The following is an excerpt from that speech:

Know good and well that some day there could be a government in power that is shipping its citizens off for disagreements. There are laws on the books now that characterize who might be a terrorist.

Someone missing fingers on their hands is a suspect according to the Department of Justice. Someone who has guns, someone who has ammunition that is weatherproofed, someone who has more than seven days of food in their house can be considered a potential terrorist.

If you are suspected by these activities do you want the government to have the ability to send you to Guantanamo Bay for indefinite detention?

It is incredibly chilling to hear a defender of liberty such as Rand Paul warn of such things.

But just because a politician says something that does not always mean that it is true.

So is there any evidence that Americans that are storing up food are being watched by the federal government?

Unfortunately, there is. In fact, Oath Keepers has posted a report about one incident in which federal agents actually visited a food production facility and demanded the names of anyone that has been “purchasing bulk food”. The following come from an article about this incident that was recently written by Rand Cardwell, the president of the Tennessee chapter of the Oath Keepers….

A fellow veteran contacted me concerning a new and disturbing development. He had been utilizing a Mormon cannery near his home to purchase bulk food supplies. The man that manages the facility related to him that federal agents had visited the facility and demanded a list of individuals that had been purchasing bulk food. The manager informed the agents that the facility kept no such records and that all transactions were conducted on a cash-and-carry basis. The agents pressed for any record of personal checks, credit card transactions, etc., but the manager could provide no such record. The agents appeared to become very agitated and after several minutes of questioning finally left with no information. I contacted the manager and personally confirmed this information.

Why in the world would federal agents be so interested in Americans that are “purchasing bulk food”?

Don’t they have anything better to do?

As I have written about previously, authorities are also now using a tool developed by the CDC to conduct “door to door disaster preparedness assessments” in some areas of the United States.

The following comes from a local news report in Tennessee….

The Metro Public Health and the Tennessee Department of Health will be using a tool designed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to go door to door and check to see how disaster ready you are.

The door to door assessment will take place from 3:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Thursday and from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday. It will be in 30 neighborhoods in Davidson County that have been randomly selected to be the target of a door to door assessment.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want anyone coming to my door to “assess” how “prepared” I am.

This is all very, very disturbing.

Lately, the federal government seems absolutely obsessed with the distribution of food.

As author Brandon Turbeville noted recently, “the U.S. government has publicly raided organic food shops, raw milk distributors, and the Amish with guns drawn” in recent years.

Aren’t there bigger threats to national security than the Amish?

Unfortunately, we now live in a “Big Brother” police state where just about anything can be considered a “suspicious activity”.

In fact, according to the FBI a bulk purchase of “meals ready to eat” is now considered to be “suspicious activity” that should be reported to them.

When the “war on terror” started a decade ago, we were told that we needed to fight the terrorists “over there” so that they would not come over here.

Well, now we are being told that the United States itself is part of the “battleground” and that the “terrorists” might just be our neighbors.

We are being told that if we “see something” that we should “say something” to the government.

In essence, the federal government wants us all to “inform” on one another.

Now that most of the big name terrorists have been removed from the picture, the Obama administration and the mainstream media are really hyping the idea that “homegrown terrorism” is a grave danger.

Just check out these headlines from the past few days….

ABC News: “White House Unveils New Strategy to Fight Homegrown Terrorism”

USA Today: “White House unveils new strategy to combat homegrown terror”

CNN: “Measuring the homegrown terrorist threat to U.S. military”

The entire focus of the “war on terror” has shifted. According to FBI Director Robert Mueller, “homegrown terrorists” represent as big a threat to American national security as al-Qaeda does at this point.

America is rapidly changing, and not for the better. All of this paranoia is going to rip this country apart.

In addition, have you noticed how they have taken the word “Islamic” out of their description of the terrorists and have replaced it with words like “extremist” and “extremism”?

Well, the truth is that just about anyone can be considered an “extremist” in one sense or another.

In fact, a recent Salon article asked this question: “Are Evangelicals A National Security Threat?”

These days, if you support an “alternative” political candidate there is a good chance that you will be labeled as an extremist.

During the 2008 election, one law enforcement report identified supporters of presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr as potential terrorists.

Today, if you have a religious or political ideology that differs from the “orthodoxy” of the federal government then you are probably considered to be an “extremist”.

Beliefs that were once considered normal are now considered to be “dangerous” and “radical”.

For example, one unclassified Department of Homeland Security report published a couple of years ago entitled “Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment“ claimed that a belief in Bible prophecy “could motivate extremist individuals and groups to stockpile food, ammunition and weapons.”

During a Congressional hearing earlier this year, U.S. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee warned that “Christian militants” might try to “bring down the country” and that such groups need to be investigated.

Back on February 20, 2009, the State of Missouri issued a report entitled “MIAC Strategic Report: The Modern Militia Movement“. That report warned that the following types of people may be potential terrorists….

*anti-abortion activists

*those that are against illegal immigration

*those that consider “the New World Order” to be a threat

*those that have a negative view of the United Nations

As I have written about previously, a very revealing document obtained by Oath Keepers shows that the FBI is actually instructing store owners to report many new forms of “suspicious activity” to them.

So what does the FBI consider “suspicious activity” to include? According to the document, the FBI now considers “suspicious activity” to include the following….

*paying with cash

*missing a hand or fingers

*”strange odors”

*making “extreme religious statements”

*”radical theology”

*purchasing weatherproofed ammunition or match containers

*purchasing meals ready to eat

*purchasing night vision devices, night flashlights or gas masks

All of this is completely and totally ridiculous.

Law enforcement authorities should quit worrying about preppers. The vast majority of us that are preparing for the hard times that are coming truly love this country, are completely and totally non-violent, and just want to be left alone.

There are real threats to national security out there, but the federal government refuses to address them. For example, our border with Mexico is wide open and it has been documented that terror groups are working in northern Mexico and have been coming across the border on a regular basis.

But instead of securing the border, the Obama administration is granting “backdoor amnesty” to illegal aliens instead.

In addition, law enforcement authorities should look into the massive breach of national security that the “Fast and Furious” scandal represents. With the full knowledge of the Department of Justice, ATF agents facilitated the sale of thousands of guns to Mexican drug cartels and dropped all surveillance on those weapons once they crossed the border. Those guns will be used to kill people (including Americans) for many years to come.

In fact, there is so much corruption and so many “potential terrorists” in Washington D.C. that it should be more than enough to keep law enforcement officials busy for a very long time.

So leave preppers alone.

Preppers are not a threat. They are not going to hurt anyone. They just want to store up food and prepare for the difficult times that are coming.

So what do all of you think about preppers?

Source: https://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/preppers-are-now-considered-to-be-potential-terrorists

Filed Under: Crime, Extremism, Food, Law, Police, Politicians, Self-Sustainability, Surveillance, Terrorism, Tyranny, USA Tagged With: Food Stockpiling

Over 9 Hectares Of Forests Lost Per Minute: Report

December 1, 2011 by T Kelly Leave a Comment

ROME - More than nine hectares of forests were lost per minute between 1990 and 2005, aperiod when the world’s deforestation rate accelerated, shows a UN survey issued onWednesday.

The net loss of forests - deforestation offset by afforestation or natural expansion - totalled 72.9 million hectares during the 15-year period, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

In other words, the net loss averaged 4.9 million hectares per year, or 9.3 hectares of forests per minute over the 15 years.

The new data also shows that the net loss of forests increased from 4.1 million hectares peryear between 1990 and 2000 to 6.4 million hectares between 2000 and 2005.

The survey also shows that the worldwide net loss in forest area between 1990 and 2005 was
not as great as previously believed, since gains in forest areas are larger than previouslyestimated.

The net loss was only two thirds of the previous figure of 107.4 million hectares, according to the survey.

The world’s deforestation averaged 14.5 million hectares per year, consistent with previous estimates.

Deforestation, which occurred mainly in the tropics, may be attributed to the conversion of forests to farmland.

“Deforestation is depriving millions of people of forest goods and services that are crucial torural livelihoods, economic well-being and environmental health,” said Eduardo Rojas-Briales,FAO Assistant Director-General for Forestry.

The satellite imagery-based survey shows that the world was covered by 3.69 billion hectaresof forests in 2005, or 30 percent of the global land area.

Source: https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2011-12/01/content_14196567.htm

Filed Under: Environment, Food, Health, Politics, Pollution, Population, Poverty, Propaganda Tagged With: Deforestation, Farmland

Monsanto’s Roundup Spawns Superweeds Consuming Over 120 Million Hectares

November 30, 2011 by T Kelly Leave a Comment

Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide Roundup has created a new category of superweeds that are heavily resistant to the herbicide that Roundup contains known as glyphosate.

These resistant weeds currently cover over 4.5 hectares in the United States alone, though experts estimate the world-wide land coverage to have reached at least 120 million hectares by 2010.

The onset of superweeds is being increasingly documented in Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Europe and South Africa.

Meanwhile, Monsanto pushes its genetically modified crops and biopesticides under the guise of helping the environment and reducing pesticide use.

In reality, the resistant weeds are now so resistant to Roundup that they require significantly more pesticides.

Due to the large-scale use of Roundup, pesticide spraying will have to increase worldwide in order to combat the new superweeds.

Of course the company is refusing to accept responsibility for the escalating cost of combating the weeds, stating that “Roundup agricultural warranties will not cover the failure to control glyphosate resistant weed populations.”

Superweeds, Mutant Insects, and a Devastated Environment

Roundup is not the only Monsanto invention tearing up the environment and producing super resistant organisms. The usage of genetically modified Bt, a biopesticide manufactured by Monsanto, has created a number of new mutated insect species. Research has confirmed that at least 8 populations of insects have developed resistance, with 2 populations resistant to Bt sprays and 6 species resistant to Bt crops as a whole. As a result, biotech scientists are now further genetically modifying the Bt to kill the mutated insects. This is despite the fact that tests have indicated that the additional modification will provide ‘little or no advantage’ in fending off the super insects.

All of this is being done instead of simply turning to sustainable and organic farming practices that do not yield super resistant, mutated organisms of any kind. Even the researchers conducting the research on Bt concluded that alternative organic farming methods would provide a more environmentally-friendly alternative in which there would be no dependence on bloated corporations like Monsanto:

Alternative organic, sustainable methods of farming provide a realistic alternative, independent of reliance on agrobiotech corporations.

Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/monsantos-roundup-spawns-superweeds.html

Filed Under: Biotechnology, Food, Health, Monsanto, USA Tagged With: Roundup Pesticide, Superweeds

Hunger In America, By The Numbers

November 29, 2011 by T Kelly Leave a Comment

Last year, 17.2 million households in the United States were food insecure, the highest level on record, as the Great Recession continued to wreak havoc on families across the country. Of those 17.2 million households, 3.9 million included children. On Thanksgiving Day, here’s a look at hunger in America, as millions of Americans struggle to get enough to eat in the wake of the economic crisis:

17.2 million: The number of households that were food insecure in 2010, the highest number on record. They make up 14.5 percent of households, or approximately one in seven.

48.8 million: People who lived in food insecure households last year.

3.9 million: The number of households with children that were food insecure last year. In 1 percent of households with children, “one or more of the children experienced the most severe food-insecure condition measured by USDA, very low food security, in which meals were irregular and food intake was below levels considered adequate by caregivers.”

6.4 million: Households that experienced very low food security last year, meaning “normal eating patterns of one or more household members were disrupted and food intake was reduced at times during the year because they had insufficient money or other resources for food.”

55: The percentage of food-insecure households that participated in one or more of the three largest Federal food and nutrition assistance programs (SNAP, WIC, School lunch program).

19.4: The percentage of food insecure households in Mississippi, which had the highest rate in the nation last year.

3.6 percent: The amount by which food prices increased last year.

30 percent: The amount by which food insecurity grew during the Great Recession.

44: The percentage increase in households using food pantries between 2007 and 2009.

20 million: The number of children who benefit from free and reduced lunch per day.

10.5 million: The number of eligible children who don’t receive their free and reduced lunch benefits.

$167.5 billion: The amount that the U.S. lost in 2010 due to hunger (lost educational attainment + avoidable illness + charitable giving to fight hunger). This doesn’t take into account the $94 billion cost of SNAP and other food programs.

8: The number of states (FL, TX, CA, IL, NY, OH, PA, GA) where the annual cost of hunger exceeds $6 billion.

Last year, “nearly half of the households seeking emergency food assistance reported having to choose between paying for utilities or heating fuel and food. Nearly 40 percent said they had to choose between paying for rent or a mortgage and food.” This Thanksgiving, as you sit down to enjoy a meal with family and friends, please spare a thought for those who, due to the country’s continuing economic woes, may not have enough to eat.

This holiday season, please consider donating to a local food bank. You can find one nearby ordonate online through the Feeding America website. You can also give to Operation Homefront, a group that provides assistance to military families.

Source: https://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/11/24/375776/food-insecurity-by-the-numbers/

Filed Under: Food, Health, Money, Poverty, USA

Five Surprising Culprits Behind Obesity and Weight Gain

November 28, 2011 by T Kelly Leave a Comment

There is no doubt that the Western diet holds most of the weight regarding the escalating obesity epidemic we are facing today.

Ingesting overly large portions of foods containing fat-promoting ingredients coupled with an inactive lifestyle is the perfect recipe for a gigantic disaster.

While these obesity contributors are widely known, there are actually some other very surprising factors to consider when analyzing the reason for the nation’s continued growth.

Antibiotics Could be to Blame for Excess Weight

As surprising as it may seem, antibiotics have actually be pinpointed as being a promoter for obesity as well as diabetes and metabolic syndrome. While antibiotics succeed in destroying bad bacteria, which is their intended use, they also destroy good bacteria in the gut known as friendly flora.

This lack of bacterial discrimination leads to a shortage in friendly gut bacteria which are responsible for regulating overall health, including weight management.

Pollution has been Connected with Weight Gain

Not many people would point their finger at pollution when searching for a cause for obesity. And while poor air quality certainly isn’t a primary reason for extra weight, it does indeed have a link to extra weight. Research has shown that ingesting toxic chemicals found in both food and the air leads to increased fat storage in babies. A defense mechanism is triggered in unborn babies when mother’s take in these toxic chemicals which is supposed to protect the baby. It just so happens that this defense mechanism is the formation of fat.

Shampoo, Plastic, and Pesticides

There is growing concern regarding various chemicals used in products today and their impact on our health. Chemicals like bisphenol-A, phthalates, PCB’s, POP’s, and pesticides, which are all endocrine disruptors, have been tied to many health ailments such as infertility, asthma, diabetes, and obesity. Paula Baillie-Hamilton, an expert on metabolism and environmental toxins at Stirling University in Scotland, was one of the first to point out the connection between environmental toxins and obesity. She noted that:

Overlooked in the obesity debate is that the earth’s environment has changed significantly during the last few decades because of the exponential production and usage of synthetic organic and inorganic chemicals

Environmental toxins are lesser known evils when it comes to health complications, but it may be time people started seriously considering these toxins when evaluating their health.

Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/5-surprising-culprits-behind-obesity.html

Filed Under: Corporations, Environment, Food, Health, Pollution Tagged With: Obesity, Toxins

Graphic Australian Sheep Cruelty

November 25, 2011 by T Kelly Leave a Comment

Filed Under: Animal Cruelty, Animal Rights, Food

EU Bans Claim That Water Can Prevent Dehydration

November 24, 2011 by T Kelly Leave a Comment

Brussels bureaucrats were ridiculed yesterday after banning drink manufacturers from claiming that water can prevent dehydration.

EU officials concluded that, following a three-year investigation, there was no evidence to prove the previously undisputed fact.

Producers of bottled water are now forbidden by law from making the claim and will face a two-year jail sentence if they defy the edict, which comes into force in the UK next month.

Last night, critics claimed the EU was at odds with both science and common sense. Conservative MEP Roger Helmer said: “This is stupidity writ large.

“The euro is burning, the EU is falling apart and yet here they are: highly-paid, highly-pensioned officials worrying about the obvious qualities of water and trying to deny us the right to say what is patently true.

“If ever there were an episode which demonstrates the folly of the great European project then this is it.”

NHS health guidelines state clearly that drinking water helps avoid dehydration, and that Britons should drink at least 1.2 litres per day.

The Department for Health disputed the wisdom of the new law. A spokesman said: “Of course water hydrates. While we support the EU in preventing false claims about products, we need to exercise common sense as far as possible.”

German professors Dr Andreas Hahn and Dr Moritz Hagenmeyer, who advise food manufacturers on how to advertise their products, asked the European Commission if the claim could be made on labels.

They compiled what they assumed was an uncontroversial statement in order to test new laws which allow products to claim they can reduce the risk of disease, subject to EU approval.

They applied for the right to state that “regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration” as well as preventing a decrease in performance.

However, last February, the European Food Standards Authority (EFSA) refused to approve the statement.

A meeting of 21 scientists in Parma, Italy, concluded that reduced water content in the body was a symptom of dehydration and not something that drinking water could subsequently control.

Now the EFSA verdict has been turned into an EU directive which was issued on Wednesday.

Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8897662/EU-bans-claim-that-water-can-prevent-dehydration.html

Filed Under: European Union, Food, Law

Junk food can hijack brain like drugs do, experts say

November 18, 2011 by T Kelly Leave a Comment

A growing body of medical research at leading universities and government laboratories suggests that processed foods and sugary drinks aren’t simply unhealthy. They can hijack the brain in ways that resemble addictions to cocaine, nicotine and other drugs.

“The data is so overwhelming the field has to accept it,” said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “We are finding tremendous overlap between drugs in the brain and food in the brain.”

The idea that food may be addictive was barely on scientists’ radar a decade ago. Now the field is heating up. Lab studies have found sugary drinks and fatty foods can produce addictive behavior in animals. Brain scans of obese people and compulsive eaters, meanwhile, reveal disturbances in brain reward circuits similar to those experienced by drug abusers.

Twenty-eight scientific studies and papers on food addiction have been published this year, according to a National Library of Medicine database. As the evidence expands, the science of addiction could become a game-changer for the $1 trillion food and beverage industries.

If fatty foods and snacks and drinks sweetened with sugar and high fructose corn syrup are proven to be addictive, food companies may face the most drawn-out consumer safety battle since the anti-smoking movement took on the tobacco industry a generation ago.

“This could change the legal landscape,” said Kelly Brownell, director of Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity and a proponent of anti-obesity regulation. “People knew for a long time cigarettes were killing people, but it was only later they learned about nicotine and the intentional manipulation of it.”

Food company executives and lobbyists are quick to counter that nothing has been proven, that nothing is wrong with what PepsiCo Chief Executive Officer Indra Nooyi calls “fun-for-you” foods, if eaten in moderation. In fact, the companies say they’re making big strides toward offering consumers a wide range of healthier snacking options. Nooyi, for one, is as well known for calling attention to PepsiCo’s progress offering healthier fare as she is for driving sales.

Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Kraft Foods and Kellogg declined to grant interviews with their scientists.

No one disputes that obesity is a fast-growing global problem. In the U.S., a third of adults and 17 percent of teens and children are obese, and those numbers are increasing. Across the globe, from Latin America, to Europe to Pacific Island nations, obesity rates are also climbing.

Shorter lifespans

The cost to society is enormous. A 2009 study of 900,000 people, published in the Lancet, found that moderate obesity reduces life expectancy by two to four years, while severe obesity shortens life expectancy by as much as 10 years. Obesity has been shown to boost the risk of heart disease, diabetes, some cancers, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea and stroke, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The costs of treating illness associated with obesity were estimated at $147 billion in 2008, according to a 2009 study in Health Affairs.

Sugars and fats, of course, have always been present in the human diet and our bodies are programmed to crave them. What has changed is modern processing that creates food with concentrated levels of sugars, unhealthy fats and refined flour, without redeeming levels of fiber or nutrients, obesity experts said. Consumption of large quantities of those processed foods may be changing the way the brain is wired.

Those changes look a lot like addiction to some experts. Addiction “is a loaded term, but there are aspects of the modern diet that can elicit behavior that resembles addiction,” said David Ludwig, a Harvard researcher and director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center at Children’s Hospital Boston. Highly processed foods may cause rapid spikes and declines in blood sugar, increasing cravings, his research has found.

Education, diets and drugs to treat obesity have proven largely ineffective and the new science of obesity may explain why, proponents say. Constant stimulation with tasty, calorie-laden foods may desensitize the brain’s circuitry, leading people to consume greater quantities of junk food to maintain a constant state of pleasure.

In one 2010 study, scientists at Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Fla., fed rats an array of fatty and sugary products including Hormel Foods bacon, Sara Lee pound cake, Cheesecake Factory cheesecake and Pillsbury Creamy Supreme cake frosting. The study measured activity in regions of the brain involved in registering reward and pleasure through electrodes implanted in the rats.

The rats that had access to these foods for one hour a day started binge eating, even when more nutritious food was available all day long. Other groups of rats that had access to the sweets and fatty foods for 18 to 23 hours per day became obese, Paul Kenny, the Scripps scientist heading the study wrote in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

The results produced the same brain pattern that occurs with escalating intake of cocaine, he wrote.

“To see food do the same thing was mind-boggling,” Kenny said in an interview.

Filed Under: Big Pharma, Biotechnology, Consumerism, Corporations, Corruption, Drugs, Food, Health, Media, Money, Neuroscience, Obesity, Politics, Propaganda, Rights