The FAT Truth

That triple bacon cheeseburger will kill you, even if you are not obese. Turns out that adipose tissue (aka your fat tissue) is a dumping ground for excess dietary fat. OK no surprises there, but listen to this. Getting fatter is actually part of the body’s defense against unhealthy eating. Health risks skyrocket either when the fat cells of obese people finally get overloaded, or when lean people who can’t store a lot of fat eat too much. Either way, the result is elevated levels of fat in the blood which triggers inflammation and oxidative stress.

And there’s more. Sugary soft drinks (that often accompany the bacon cheeseburger) compound and accelerate the problem. That’s because insulin converts excess sugar to fats called triglycerides. As a survival strategy during times of famine (a common occurrence for 3 million years) the human body has extremely efficient ways of storing these triglycerides. After all, they represent a source of caloric energy. So they get stored in the blood and in fat cells.

So that’s how sugar gets converted to fat, and we all know how in the last 20 years, soft drink consumption has gone through the roof. All of a sudden, there was UNLIMITED REFILLS at junk food “restaurants.” People started walking around with “Big Gulp” containers that hold half a liter of Coke or Pepsi. And what has this produced? According to researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, between 1990 and 2000, sugary soft drinks contributed to 130,000 new cases of diabetes, 14,000 new cases of coronary heart disease, a total of 50,000 years of incapacitation due to coronary disease, and 6,000 extra deaths overall.

Let’s stop this madness. Let’s remember the original “crystal beverage” is WATER. Let’s make better food choices and stop giving our hard-earned dollars to the people who have been fueling this epidemic of heart disease, diabetes and obesity.