Daily French Roast

Anne is reading …

The serious question before the American public is whether sugar should be regulated like alcohol and tobacco over national health concerns?

A new commentary by Robert H. Lustig, Laura A. Schmidt and Claire D. Brindis published online by Nature argues that sugar is every bit as ‘toxic’ as alcohol and cigarettes and it leads the obesity epidemic worldwide.

Sugar meets the same criteria for regulation as alcohol, the authors wrote, because it’s unavoidable, there’s potential for abuse, it’s toxic, and it negatively impacts society. They write that sugar is added to so many processed foods that it’s everywhere, and people eat up to 500 calories per day in added sugar alone. Sugar acts on the same areas of the brain as alcohol and tobacco to encourage subsequent intake, they wrote, and it’s toxic because research shows that sugar increases disease risk from factors other than added calories, such as when it disrupts metabolism.

“Many people think that obesity is the root cause of these diseases,” they wrote. But 40 percent of normal-weight people are developing diseases like diabetes, hypertension, lipid problems, heart and liver disease. “Obesity is not the cause; rather, it is a marker.” via CBS News

Fatty Foods Gene

Credit: National Cancer InstitutePeople with certain forms of the CD36 gene may like high-fat foods more than those who have other forms of this gene. A higher risk of obesity is the result, writes Science Daily.

“Our results may help explain why some people have more difficulty adhering to a low-fat diet than other people and why these same people often do better when they adopt high-fat, low-carbohydrate diets such as the Atkins diet,” said Kathleen Keller, assistant professor of nutritional sciences, Penn State. “We hope these results will one day help people select diets that are easier for them to follow. We also think the results could help food developers create better tasting low-fat foods that appeal to a broader range of the population.”

More DFR | Komen Update

Discount Gun Sales was proud to team up with the Susan B. Koman Foundation to offer the Walther P-22 Hope Edition in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The P-22 Hope Edition has an exclusive DuraCoat Pink slide, utilizing the same reliable controls and firing mechanism that has made the Walther P-22 America’s top selling handgun. The Komen Foundation hopes the dust will settle after it seemingly reversed itself on Friday, regarding its decision to defund Planned Parenthood. Prochoice women and prolife voices both say the announcement doesn’t specifically say that Planned Parenthood will regain the grant money for breast exams and free mammogram referrals for poor women. In the middle of this public relations nightmare, it seems impossible that the Planned Parenthood funding won’t move forward — or Komen is finished among corporate supporters and many progressives.

In reality, the issue will not die down. The more information that emerges about Komen, its board of directors, its claim to ‘own’ the phrase ‘for the cure’ in the world of philanthropy and cause marketing, its very high salaries and comparatively low percent of dollars that are turned over to breast cancer research, AOC will not embrace Komen in the near future. And we will study the organization inside out.

Graph via Wiki

Surely we’re not alone in wanting to understand exactly what makes Komen tick. A key question is how many Komen executives and board members are antichoice women. The issue goes far beyond prochoice abortion rights, as the right wing attacks our right to birth control in America.

Progressives may be sleeping with the enemy and not even know it, when we walk with Komen. In that case, it would be better for social conservatives to support Komen and let more progressive women and men support another breast cancer charity.

More Komen | Planned Parenthood

Ari Fleischer Secretly Involved in Komen Strategy on Planned Parenthood ThinkProgress

Can Komen Recover From Controversy? NPR

Can Susan G. Komen for the Cure erase blemish? San Francisco Chronicle

Race for the Smear Wall Street Journal