Just in case it isn't clear from the video, I am not in the camp that places the blame for overweight and obesity on individuals. I feel strongly that the food industry, with its increasingly artificial foods that are designed to get us to eat more, is the main culprit for the obesity epidemic all around the world. Our data show quite clearly that it is difficult for most people to avoid overeating when exposed to this food. Let’s try our best, let’s support each other in our efforts, and let’s try to work together to move the food system away from absurd concoctions that are designed to make us obese and sick. And let’s not be too hard on ourselves and others if we struggle with overeating; this is a difficult battle against a food industry that has invested gobs of money to get us to eat more and more against our best intentions.
And our biology has not exactly evolved to make us great at being surrounded by tempting delicious convenience and be able to always say no to these highly engineered products !
The odd thing is that its such old knowledge. I am 62 and always had an interest in fitness and nutrition and very early in my journey (like 45 years ago) I read about the evolutionary drive to consume fat, sugar and salt when food was scarce. I am sure it was well known long before I stumbled across it too. In the absence of a magic wand to wind back time and given the huge vested interests at play I do wonder how we are going to try to best help people to minimise how much of this crap they eat. Apportioning blame to the food industry is fair but the individual also has responsibility for what they consume. @@hypoautonomic
When you’ve stopped eating ultra processed foods for long enough, you’ll be astonished by how delicious real, whole, one ingredient foods actually are. I am!
@@TheSpecialJ11 true, but how many already do eat whole, organic, free range, grass fed, grass finished, and fresh? I would dare say that most who have switched from ultra processed are eating mostly this way.
I have never eaten much of what people now call UPF. The main exception would have been Diet coke and tonic, the opposite of fattening foods. It did not prevent me to become really fat. That said, finding a way to eat that left me *less* hungry, at tolerable levels, in combination with willpower allowed me to lose well over half my weight again (over 65 kg). Even though I make my food as bland as I possibly can, it has in no way succeeded in reducing the enjoyment of it. Right now, I am doing an experiment with apples I already did over 40 years ago. The effect is the same so far: it more than doubles my energy intake due to increased run-away hunger. That, to me, is not good, even if it is only a single ingredient.
All I have to do to ruin a child's life is NOTHING. Children need to be taught by parents how to eat properly and read labels. Protect children. We grew up poor. I ate bad food and drank two liters of Pepsi or Soda every day. I get cancer of the lower intestine at age 42 and have diabetes at age 71, but not obese. Love your scientific approach. Trying to get my blood sugar down but not working yet. Thanks for your help.
I wish Dr. Mario I would have found you sooner. Everything you have said I believe to be the truth. I have been fighting chronic disease all my life. I now fight NAFLD, metabolic syndrome and arthritis. All three have one thing in common and that is diet. Thank you for all you are doing to help.
Sorry to hear, Cathy, and I sincerely hope the information I provide will be useful to you. The next few videos will all be about the basis of glucose intolerance, insulin resistance and metabolic disease, and NAFLD will feature heavily there as well. I am hoping to outline the causes and contributing factors, and share science-based strategies to prevent or reverse these conditions. Please do not hesitate to let me know should you have any specific questions or topics you'd like to see covered, or - once the videos are out - if anything remains unclear. Warm wishes, Mario
Good point: Observe how many times we eat ultra-processed foods. One note: record as much info as possible: Day, Date, Time, Location, Alone or With Others, Mood, product, and maybe a note on quantity (say, the usual, or more or less than usual). Probably no need to specify quantity. The Location, Time (between meals?), whether alone or with others, and Mood are probably pretty important antecedents.
Another fantastic review of an important topic. Thank you Dr. Mario! I see your subscribers are going up so let's hope you reach 100,000 in next while, then many more!
I don't fry food (only steam or boil, sometimes bake it without oil). I use mostly unrefined sunflower oil, and to a lesser extent olive oil and butter adding them to prepare meal. Should I move away from sunflower oil and replace it entirely with butter and some olive oil? Thank you.
So how is sunflower processed as most are bleached and not natural but with chemically process for life span do they become off ,,, and as we are told about codliver oils turn rancid so what realy is their shelf,life span
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.(Edmond BURKE).These you-tubers are certainly doing something about the evil SAD.Keep up the good work.
I just discovered your channel on RUclips and plan to listen to more. I have "liked" and "subscribed". I find your videos very informative and appreciate your introductory video explaining what and how you plan to proceed. Thanks
So many important points you made about how ultra-processed food-like substances might contribute to obesity and ill health. The ingredients.. seed oils?? The hyperpalpability? The overconsumption of calories or specific macronutrients? Lack of nutritional value? .... Your point about Italy has given me food for thought. Clearly it can't just be a matter of low carb/ high carb or low fat/hight fat diet. You mentioned convenience such as how some groups like Inuit youth might be guzzling soda all day, but didn't directly elaborate on how convenience "foods" and such an environment contibute to our eating frequency. Many snack all day.. eat more than three times a day.. are constantly eating or digesting what they just ate. I appreciate this video and your most recent one "Ultra-processed Foods: The Cause of Obesity and Weight Gain?" I don't have answers but while the jury is out, I abstain from most ultra-processed "foods", practice TRE and also extended fasting. Please keep your videos coming. Thank you.
Eating out at restaurants and to go food and fast food really has become the norm except the first months of COVID and my guess is for many of us, THAT’S where we get into the red Zone of poor health food. Many food chain places use ultra processed foods to maintain consistency. We all know those few go-to places we cannot resist.
Is there any data on the development of obesity in China? I observe mainly very slim people in rural areas and I see people grow obese in a couple of years when they move to a city. Fresh, unprocessed food is still well available and affordable here. A challenge though might be time pressure, as people tend to work long hours and not always want to invest time in preparing food at home. That said, my gut feeling is that the Chinese population is healthier than the American population.
Thank you for the question. Body weight and fat mass have certainly also increased in China, particularly in urban populations, but the situation is clearly less bad than in the US, Mexico, or many European countries. The latest data suggest that about 16% of Chinese are obese, which is less than half the US prevalence (reference see below). Even though I am not arguing that ultra-processed food intake is the only determinant of body weight, these data are consistent with the still fairly low consumption of UPF in the country. Also, within China, there seems to be an association between body weight and UPF intake, as we have seen in many other countries. www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8587(21)00045-0/fulltext pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34444957/
@@nourishedbyscience Thank you very much. I will enjoy the read. If you need something from China, or want to connect with someone from here, let me know and I will do my best. Really appreciate your video's.
The rural diet of our very slim Chinese friends in the 60's consisted primarily of a huge platter of white rice, and a big plate of stir fried Asian veggies, flash cooked in a minute bit of oil, with small amounts of meat, poultry or fish as flavoring. When they came to the US and opened a restaurant they had to alter the way they cooked to suit the rich western palate, but maintained their traditional diet. Once their slim kids started school however, and started eating the typical highly caloric and processed S.A.D. (Standard American Diet), they became overweight. It isn't the carbs we need to cut, 80%s their diet was white rice and they were healthy and slim. It's the processed garbage engineered to "addict" us that's the problem.
Hi doc, looking at the ingredients for "Donuts with Glaze" that you presented, makes me sick. In my (good ol'e) mothers cookbook for Donuts with Glaze, there are only 6 ingredients. And I recognize all 6 of them :-)
And I didn't even make this up. It's the actual ingredient list of a donut available from a national donut chain. As I say in the video, the food industry is selling us some absurd stuff as food ...! Thanks for the comment.
I really appreciate your podcast. It fits my information level perfect. To me it is strange that you have so few viewers and "likes". Looking at your presented data, isn't it obvious that ultra processed food is associated with eating more calories. Could that be the single reason for obesity? i.e. this food enhance too much eating?
Thank you for your kind feedback. My channel is pretty small I think partly because I have published only 20 videos, and partly because I am new at this craft of conveying science to a general audience. I used to be a clinical research scientist for 25 years, and its hard to switch gears and create videos that are scientifically rigorous yet still concise and entertaining. I have no illusions that I am an apprentice in this new craft, and that I need to get better to appeal to a wider audience. Another issue is that I am not part of any 'diet tribe'. The most successful nutrition RUclips channels have a clear theme (vegan, low-carb, carnivore) and people easily form tribes around that theme. I am not saying it's a bad thing, as many people clearly do better on these types of diets than the standard diet rich in ultra-processed foods. However, it's important to me to remain independent of one dietary philosophy so that I can evaluate and present the scientific data as I see it. As to whether ultra-processed foods are the only cause of the obesity epidemic, I don't think so, but I suggest that it's likely a major one. Best, Mario
It is very hard to find prepackaged food in the USA that doesn’t include soy, soy oil, soy lecithin , sunflower oil, sunflower lecithin. I think when this stuff was added to prepackaged foods along with high fructose corn syrup it became detrimental to our health. I am curious if these things are in European prepackaged foods.
Not much different here in Germany. Southern European countries such as Italy, Portugal, and Spain apparently have been slower to adopt UPF though. Cheers Mario
@@nourishedbyscience I have a question for you if you don’t mind I have been pre-diabetic for years. I was recently diagnosed as diabetic due two increases A1C levels. One at 6.5 the next at 6.8. Anyhow I bought a CGM to try to get this under control before it gets worse. I have noticed that once my blood sugar reaches 115 -108 I feel like I am STARVING like I haven’t eaten in days. Do you have any idea why this happens or what I can do to prevent it. I am desperately trying to get my levels in normal ranges. Thank you so much for your time and effort.
Is it fair to say that your baseline glucose is higher than the 108-115 mg/dL range? Or that your blood sugar dropped rapidly prior to reaching that range? Take a look at this video here, trigger #2: ruclips.net/video/DLtle7P5mN8/видео.htmlsi=dgGIoU5QL0yLNXxm Also, if you haven't seen them, I have a lot of other content about blood sugar, insulin resistance, CGMs etc.. For example, this one here on how to use CGMs for maximum benefit: ruclips.net/video/Fce5Tyul6ng/видео.htmlsi=ZvuNBNxdyaQhNfxW This one here about the basics of blood sugar regulation: ruclips.net/video/Yg9AS2sfY9Y/видео.htmlsi=FwcTWDzDB_n41yQP This one here about how to avoid blood sugar spikes: ruclips.net/video/yg0Y3eNSANg/видео.htmlsi=2k93n4slsCupTFX_ And this one here about the causes of insulin resistance: ruclips.net/video/HYtnlRCq83s/видео.htmlsi=0SEIM6z2sz9Hrtzo Hope this is helpful. Cheers Mario
@@nourishedbyscience I will double check if I have watched all of them I have been watching 3-4 videos a day of yours. Truly you have been most helpful. I wish every healthcare provider and staff were educated by you. Thanks again!
Great video/content as always. Many thanks for sharing! Ultra processed highly pallitable foods still may contain transfats which just adds salt to the wound in a big and bad way. While the claim is that transfats have been banned totally, this is not totally true. For instance in Canada, ultraprocessed food labels can still allow inclusion of 0.5 mg per “serving” and are legal. They can also contain less than 0.5 mg and label the food as having 0 mg per serving. Many food labels claiming 0 transfat(i.e., cool whip) will show ingredients such as partially hydrogentaed and hydrogenated oils, which if I am not mistaken are a red flag for transfat. Also given the hyperpalitability of such foods, it’s a given that most people won’t be able to resist eating more than one serving of such foods, and likely the whole box if you are anything like me with poor impulse contol when trying to limit myself to ine serving only. So, the dosage makes the poison argument does not work here. Also, I read that no amount of transfat is acceptable so best avoided. I don’t have the reference but I read one study which was done on primates. It showed even with feeding these primares enough food to keep them at maintenance or even below maintenance, they all experienced a rapid gain in visceral fat accumulation when more of the food included had transfats in it, all things being equal.
In the 1950's before anyone else a biochemist Dr. Fred Kummerow who at age 102 still had a full head of hair found out these artificial trans fats were no good but no one paid much attention to him for 50 years. For example a large french fries at a fast food place had about 8.5 grams of industrial trans fats, a typical 250 calorie donut about 5 grams trans fats, so the 0.5 they can get away with is still low compared to what many people were consuming who ate any food that was invented in the last 100 years. The tiny amount of natural trans fat found in dairy have a different chemical structure and are ok in moderation because they have a natural source of Vitamin A1, K2, B12, C15:0, Iodine, Sphingolipids, Omega 7, and Sulfur, all 8 which destroy cancer cells and protect the heart. Industrial trans fats do not have any of these 8 nutrients.
There are some massive dietary changes but also exposure changes. There is a massive increase in exposure to PFAS chemicals and various gender-bending chemicals like bisphenol A right around the start of the obesity epidemic.
Yes, agreed. Our exposome, as we call it now (the sum of all of our exposures) has changed so massively over the last 60 years, it's hard to isolate any one factor. That said, I do think we now have observational and compelling interventional data to implicate UPFs in weight gain and the obesity epidemic. Cheers Mario
Good stuff. What seems no one considers is why obesity seems a lifelong affliction? (85+% failure rate to maintain weight loss after 5 years) Was this always the case? Perhaps with so few obese, 40 years ago, it did not seem an issue. If indeed obesity is so tenacious, then why would seem an important thing to know, and that would suggest strong measures to prevent it in the first place are warranted.
Thanks for the comment, Roberto. There will be a lot of content about exactly these types of issues here on this channel in the future. The very short version is that as people gain weight and fat mass, the set point at which the body defends body weight and fat mass seems to be gradually raised. In other words, just like it's difficult for a normal weight person to lose 20 pounds, it is similarly hard for someone who is 20 pounds overweight to lose 20 pounds. It's not clear by which mechanisms this happens, but it probably evolved to help people store fat (=energy) efficiently in times of plenty. So, I absolutely agree that prevention would be best. I still am optimistic that long-term weight loss maintenance is possible for many people, even though it's clear that it's not easy, and it definitely doesn't work with short-term dieting. Much more on this in future videos.
Because people go back to eating what they were eating pre weight loss. It's addiction caused by the food industry. It's like a recovered alcoholic having just one drink.
Very nice video!! My question is why are there still lean/skinny folks within the "same" obesogenic environment? Are they avoiding ultra processed foods? How much are people gaining weight over a lifetime? To go from overweight to obesity, you have to go gain 5o-65 lbs right?
Hey Anoop B, thank you. Genetics certainly plays a role in making us more or less prone to overeating in this environment. Interestingly, many of the genes that have been identified as contributing to a higher body weight are expressed in the brain and thought to play a role in how our brain regulates fat mass and also in what we call reward perception. In other words, if 100 people eat some ultra-processed food, some will just be more 'hooked' by it and end up seeking it out again and again later, and those would then be expected to gain the most weight. And yes, eating habits, other lifestyle habits (exercise, enough sleep, stress), certain medical conditions (thyroid disease, depression), certain medications, and even socioeconomic factors matter a lot in this environment. Socioeconomic factors because, for example, ultra-processed foods are cheaper per calorie than healthy foods (such as vegetables). If you are poor and have a lot of mouths to feed, ultra-processed foods are more likely to be bought. In terms of your second question, let's assume you were 5'8'' or 1.73 m, to go from normal weight/just overweight (body mass index of 25) to obese (BMI of 30 or more), you would need to gain about 15 kg or 33 pounds. In the US, I think adults gain - on average - about 2 pounds per year. Some obviously more, some none, and the case I am making in the video is that how much you gain is largely related to how much ultra-processed foods you consume regularly. Take care!
In a world gone fat the Japanese remain remarkably as slender as always. This is partly due to Japan being a "shame" culture...they monitor their weight constantly and just skip a meal, fast for a day or cut back on starches and sugars if they gain just a couple pounds. From what I hear most Japanese take those corrective measures about once per week. And it's worth noting that gyms and workouts are quite unpopular. Japanese are actually amazing in many ways.
However in general their shame culture is extremely undesirable with adolescents regularly committing suicide for low school marks. Also there is a lot of research showing that fat shaming is not only ineffective but sometimes counterproductive. In any case it is aweful.
The points made in this talk were previously made in 1974 by T. L. Cleave in “The Saccharine Disease “. It also documented the pre-1970 rise in the consumption of refined carbs, and condemned seed oils. Interesting that we have to keep rediscovering things previously known.
The same points need to be reiterated over time to spread the message to succeeding generations. Plus, this is an important message that needs to be repeated often for those who are caught in the grip of ultra-processed food addiction. It's very hard to get out of. It helps if messages like Dr Mario's are followed up with education about how to make simple, whole foods taste delicious and how to learn to appreciate them more. And people need recipes to help them know what to do at home!
The number one problem is overuse of antibiotics both in humans and livestock. This has caused massive changes in microbiomes. Another problem is widespread environmental thiamine deficiency which is a closely related set of problems.
@@MarquitoRH yes. I just did not think it went directly enough to the heart of the problem. You may say the immediate problem is alcohol based mouthwash or fluoridation of toothpaste or drinking water all of which is to some extend correct. You can also argue politically that capitalism and consumerism are the core problems and that is correct, too. Technically speaking, the principal problem is an unbalanced microbiome and all of the above factors have screwed up our microbiomes leading to many adverse health effects that a consumerist and capitalist healthcare system only aggravates and a consumerist and capitalist food processing and agriculture industry cannot help.
Your Italy versus US diet graph is puzzling to me. No, the Mediterranean diet is not high in carbs. This diet focuses on consuming a variety of plant-based foods that are naturally high in beneficial nutrients like fiber, vitamins, minerals, and healthy fats (like olive oil) . The Mediterranean diet also emphasizes eating a moderate amount of carbohydrates, mostly from whole grains, fruits, veggies, and legumes. Additionally, it encourages reducing sugar intake and limiting processed and refined carbohydrates. IN short, Italians don't eat as much sugar as their signature pasta, pizza dishes would otherwise suggest. I agree that ultra processed foods are the culprit here... because many of them are extremely high in carbs. Sugar is the enemy - it is the common link across all cultures.
I picked Italy because, on average, Italians eat roughly as many carbs as Americans. So why is the prevalence of obesity 3-4-fold higher in the US? You argue sugar, I say ultra-processed food. Given that ultra-processed foods are a major source of added sugar in the US, these two factors are obviously related, but I feel that experimental evidence linking ultra-processed foods to the overconsumption of calories is stronger than for sugar (at least sugar in solid form). Thanks for chiming in. Cheers Mario
You say the Mediterranean diet emphasizes....but I have spent a lot of time in Italy and the Doc's description of how they eat, together with his statistics on carbs which are undeniable are spot on.
Or at least unregulated capitalism? I do think some regulations make some sense to protect people from the might of the food industry to manufacture highly rewarding (addicting?) foods and then use billions of dollars to market them to us. Cheers Mario
Just in case it isn't clear from the video, I am not in the camp that places the blame for overweight and obesity on individuals. I feel strongly that the food industry, with its increasingly artificial foods that are designed to get us to eat more, is the main culprit for the obesity epidemic all around the world. Our data show quite clearly that it is difficult for most people to avoid overeating when exposed to this food. Let’s try our best, let’s support each other in our efforts, and let’s try to work together to move the food system away from absurd concoctions that are designed to make us obese and sick. And let’s not be too hard on ourselves and others if we struggle with overeating; this is a difficult battle against a food industry that has invested gobs of money to get us to eat more and more against our best intentions.
And our biology has not exactly evolved to make us great at being surrounded by tempting delicious convenience and be able to always say no to these highly engineered products !
@@hypoautonomic Couldn't agree more. Food companies have understood this well before academic researchers have ...
Excellent! I like to blame others for all the things in my life that don't go well. I approve of this approach!
The odd thing is that its such old knowledge. I am 62 and always had an interest in fitness and nutrition and very early in my journey (like 45 years ago) I read about the evolutionary drive to consume fat, sugar and salt when food was scarce. I am sure it was well known long before I stumbled across it too. In the absence of a magic wand to wind back time and given the huge vested interests at play I do wonder how we are going to try to best help people to minimise how much of this crap they eat. Apportioning blame to the food industry is fair but the individual also has responsibility for what they consume.
@@hypoautonomic
Have you stopped making Videos Mario?
When you’ve stopped eating ultra processed foods for long enough, you’ll be astonished by how delicious real, whole, one ingredient foods actually are. I am!
And easy to prepare. It is simple… cook eggs, eat. Open fresh plain whole milk yogurt, add berries, eat. Get pan hot, sear steak, build salad, eat.
Totally
Gosh. And the next step is grassfed beef and fresh organic vegetables. The standard stuff in the grocery store is flavorless by comparison.
@@TheSpecialJ11 true, but how many already do eat whole, organic, free range, grass fed, grass finished, and fresh? I would dare say that most who have switched from ultra processed are eating mostly this way.
I have never eaten much of what people now call UPF. The main exception would have been Diet coke and tonic, the opposite of fattening foods. It did not prevent me to become really fat. That said, finding a way to eat that left me *less* hungry, at tolerable levels, in combination with willpower allowed me to lose well over half my weight again (over 65 kg). Even though I make my food as bland as I possibly can, it has in no way succeeded in reducing the enjoyment of it. Right now, I am doing an experiment with apples I already did over 40 years ago. The effect is the same so far: it more than doubles my energy intake due to increased run-away hunger. That, to me, is not good, even if it is only a single ingredient.
All I have to do to ruin a child's life is NOTHING. Children need to be taught by parents how to eat properly and read labels. Protect children. We grew up poor. I ate bad food and drank two liters of Pepsi or Soda every day. I get cancer of the lower intestine at age 42 and have diabetes at age 71, but not obese. Love your scientific approach. Trying to get my blood sugar down but not working yet. Thanks for your help.
Omg. You said. “These data”. I love you
One could argue that "Data" is the singular form which could be defined as a collection of datum, i.e. the individual parts.....
Before I stopped eating the standard American diet I thought I didn’t like strawberries. Now I love them!
I wish Dr. Mario I would have found you sooner. Everything you have said I believe to be the truth. I have been fighting chronic disease all my life. I now fight NAFLD, metabolic syndrome and arthritis. All three have one thing in common and that is diet. Thank you for all you are doing to help.
Sorry to hear, Cathy, and I sincerely hope the information I provide will be useful to you. The next few videos will all be about the basis of glucose intolerance, insulin resistance and metabolic disease, and NAFLD will feature heavily there as well. I am hoping to outline the causes and contributing factors, and share science-based strategies to prevent or reverse these conditions. Please do not hesitate to let me know should you have any specific questions or topics you'd like to see covered, or - once the videos are out - if anything remains unclear.
Warm wishes,
Mario
Dr. Mario, You are 1.class, I mean the best to explain the health. You have a new follower sir.
Thank you. I appreciate your kind feedback!
Cheers
Mario
Good point: Observe how many times we eat ultra-processed foods.
One note: record as much info as possible: Day, Date, Time, Location, Alone or With Others, Mood, product, and maybe a note on quantity (say, the usual, or more or less than usual). Probably no need to specify quantity. The Location, Time (between meals?), whether alone or with others, and Mood are probably pretty important antecedents.
Excellent. Thank you!
Another fantastic review of an important topic. Thank you Dr. Mario! I see your subscribers are going up so let's hope you reach 100,000 in next while, then many more!
Thank you, John!
Thanks!
Thank you for your support!
I don't fry food (only steam or boil, sometimes bake it without oil). I use mostly unrefined sunflower oil, and to a lesser extent olive oil and butter adding them to prepare meal. Should I move away from sunflower oil and replace it entirely with butter and some olive oil?
Thank you.
So how is sunflower processed as most are bleached and not natural but with chemically process for life span do they become off ,,, and as we are told about codliver oils turn rancid so what realy is their shelf,life span
Thanks!
Thanks for your support!
Cheers
Mario
This is top tier work. Keep it up!
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.(Edmond BURKE).These you-tubers are certainly doing something about the evil SAD.Keep up the good work.
I just discovered your channel on RUclips and plan to listen to more. I have "liked" and "subscribed". I find your videos very informative and appreciate your introductory video explaining what and how you plan to proceed. Thanks
So many important points you made about how ultra-processed food-like substances might contribute to obesity and ill health. The ingredients.. seed oils?? The hyperpalpability? The overconsumption of calories or specific macronutrients? Lack of nutritional value? ....
Your point about Italy has given me food for thought. Clearly it can't just be a matter of low carb/ high carb or low fat/hight fat diet.
You mentioned convenience such as how some groups like Inuit youth might be guzzling soda all day, but didn't directly elaborate on how convenience "foods" and such an environment contibute to our eating frequency. Many snack all day.. eat more than three times a day.. are constantly eating or digesting what they just ate.
I appreciate this video and your most recent one "Ultra-processed Foods: The Cause of Obesity and Weight Gain?" I don't have answers but while the jury is out, I abstain from most ultra-processed "foods", practice TRE and also extended fasting.
Please keep your videos coming. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
The same shifts seen in Innuit and Pima can be seen in Australian Aboriginal populations of course.
Very good Information
Eating out at restaurants and to go food and fast food really has become the norm except the first months of COVID and my guess is for many of us, THAT’S where we get into the red Zone of poor health food. Many food chain places use ultra processed foods to maintain consistency. We all know those few go-to places we cannot resist.
Is there any data on the development of obesity in China? I observe mainly very slim people in rural areas and I see people grow obese in a couple of years when they move to a city.
Fresh, unprocessed food is still well available and affordable here. A challenge though might be time pressure, as people tend to work long hours and not always want to invest time in preparing food at home. That said, my gut feeling is that the Chinese population is healthier than the American population.
Thank you for the question. Body weight and fat mass have certainly also increased in China, particularly in urban populations, but the situation is clearly less bad than in the US, Mexico, or many European countries. The latest data suggest that about 16% of Chinese are obese, which is less than half the US prevalence (reference see below).
Even though I am not arguing that ultra-processed food intake is the only determinant of body weight, these data are consistent with the still fairly low consumption of UPF in the country. Also, within China, there seems to be an association between body weight and UPF intake, as we have seen in many other countries.
www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8587(21)00045-0/fulltext
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34444957/
@@nourishedbyscience Thank you very much. I will enjoy the read. If you need something from China, or want to connect with someone from here, let me know and I will do my best. Really appreciate your video's.
The rural diet of our very slim Chinese friends in the 60's consisted primarily of a huge platter of white rice, and a big plate of stir fried Asian veggies, flash cooked in a minute bit of oil, with small amounts of meat, poultry or fish as flavoring. When they came to the US and opened a restaurant they had to alter the way they cooked to suit the rich western palate, but maintained their traditional diet. Once their slim kids started school however, and started eating the typical highly caloric and processed S.A.D. (Standard American Diet), they became overweight. It isn't the carbs we need to cut, 80%s their diet was white rice and they were healthy and slim. It's the processed garbage engineered to "addict" us that's the problem.
Hi doc, looking at the ingredients for "Donuts with Glaze" that you presented, makes me sick.
In my (good ol'e) mothers cookbook for Donuts with Glaze, there are only 6 ingredients. And I recognize all 6 of them :-)
And I didn't even make this up. It's the actual ingredient list of a donut available from a national donut chain. As I say in the video, the food industry is selling us some absurd stuff as food ...! Thanks for the comment.
I really appreciate your podcast. It fits my information level perfect. To me it is strange that you have so few viewers and "likes". Looking at your presented data, isn't it obvious that ultra processed food is associated with eating more calories. Could that be the single reason for obesity? i.e. this food enhance too much eating?
Thank you for your kind feedback.
My channel is pretty small I think partly because I have published only 20 videos, and partly because I am new at this craft of conveying science to a general audience. I used to be a clinical research scientist for 25 years, and its hard to switch gears and create videos that are scientifically rigorous yet still concise and entertaining. I have no illusions that I am an apprentice in this new craft, and that I need to get better to appeal to a wider audience.
Another issue is that I am not part of any 'diet tribe'. The most successful nutrition RUclips channels have a clear theme (vegan, low-carb, carnivore) and people easily form tribes around that theme. I am not saying it's a bad thing, as many people clearly do better on these types of diets than the standard diet rich in ultra-processed foods. However, it's important to me to remain independent of one dietary philosophy so that I can evaluate and present the scientific data as I see it.
As to whether ultra-processed foods are the only cause of the obesity epidemic, I don't think so, but I suggest that it's likely a major one.
Best,
Mario
You have a great voice
It is very hard to find prepackaged food in the USA that doesn’t include soy, soy oil, soy lecithin , sunflower oil, sunflower lecithin. I think when this stuff was added to prepackaged foods along with high fructose corn syrup it became detrimental to our health. I am curious if these things are in European prepackaged foods.
Not much different here in Germany. Southern European countries such as Italy, Portugal, and Spain apparently have been slower to adopt UPF though.
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Mario
@@nourishedbyscience I have a question for you if you don’t mind I have been pre-diabetic for years. I was recently diagnosed as diabetic due two increases A1C levels. One at 6.5 the next at 6.8. Anyhow I bought a CGM to try to get this under control before it gets worse. I have noticed that once my blood sugar reaches 115 -108 I feel like I am STARVING like I haven’t eaten in days. Do you have any idea why this happens or what I can do to prevent it. I am desperately trying to get my levels in normal ranges. Thank you so much for your time and effort.
Is it fair to say that your baseline glucose is higher than the 108-115 mg/dL range? Or that your blood sugar dropped rapidly prior to reaching that range?
Take a look at this video here, trigger #2:
ruclips.net/video/DLtle7P5mN8/видео.htmlsi=dgGIoU5QL0yLNXxm
Also, if you haven't seen them, I have a lot of other content about blood sugar, insulin resistance, CGMs etc.. For example, this one here on how to use CGMs for maximum benefit:
ruclips.net/video/Fce5Tyul6ng/видео.htmlsi=ZvuNBNxdyaQhNfxW
This one here about the basics of blood sugar regulation:
ruclips.net/video/Yg9AS2sfY9Y/видео.htmlsi=FwcTWDzDB_n41yQP
This one here about how to avoid blood sugar spikes:
ruclips.net/video/yg0Y3eNSANg/видео.htmlsi=2k93n4slsCupTFX_
And this one here about the causes of insulin resistance:
ruclips.net/video/HYtnlRCq83s/видео.htmlsi=0SEIM6z2sz9Hrtzo
Hope this is helpful.
Cheers
Mario
@@nourishedbyscience I will double check if I have watched all of them I have been watching 3-4 videos a day of yours. Truly you have been most helpful. I wish every healthcare provider and staff were educated by you. Thanks again!
Great video/content as always. Many thanks for sharing! Ultra processed highly pallitable foods still may contain transfats which just adds salt to the wound in a big and bad way. While the claim is that transfats have been banned totally, this is not totally true. For instance in Canada, ultraprocessed food labels can still allow inclusion of 0.5 mg per “serving” and are legal. They can also contain less than 0.5 mg and label the food as having 0 mg per serving. Many food labels claiming 0 transfat(i.e., cool whip) will show ingredients such as partially hydrogentaed and hydrogenated oils, which if I am not mistaken are a red flag for transfat. Also given the hyperpalitability of such foods, it’s a given that most people won’t be able to resist eating more than one serving of such foods, and likely the whole box if you are anything like me with poor impulse contol when trying to limit myself to ine serving only. So, the dosage makes the poison argument does not work here. Also, I read that no amount of transfat is acceptable so best avoided. I don’t have the reference but I read one study which was done on primates. It showed even with feeding these primares enough food to keep them at maintenance or even below maintenance, they all experienced a rapid gain in visceral fat accumulation when more of the food included had transfats in it, all things being equal.
In the 1950's before anyone else a biochemist Dr. Fred Kummerow who at age 102 still had a full head of hair found out these artificial trans fats were no good but no one paid much attention to him for 50 years. For example a large french fries at a fast food place had about 8.5 grams of industrial trans fats, a typical 250 calorie donut about 5 grams trans fats, so the 0.5 they can get away with is still low compared to what many people were consuming who ate any food that was invented in the last 100 years. The tiny amount of natural trans fat found in dairy have a different chemical structure and are ok in moderation because they have a natural source of Vitamin A1, K2, B12, C15:0, Iodine, Sphingolipids, Omega 7, and Sulfur, all 8 which destroy cancer cells and protect the heart. Industrial trans fats do not have any of these 8 nutrients.
There are some massive dietary changes but also exposure changes. There is a massive increase in exposure to PFAS chemicals and various gender-bending chemicals like bisphenol A right around the start of the obesity epidemic.
Yes, agreed. Our exposome, as we call it now (the sum of all of our exposures) has changed so massively over the last 60 years, it's hard to isolate any one factor. That said, I do think we now have observational and compelling interventional data to implicate UPFs in weight gain and the obesity epidemic.
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Mario
great video, thanks
Good stuff. What seems no one considers is why obesity seems a lifelong affliction? (85+% failure rate to maintain weight loss after 5 years) Was this always the case? Perhaps with so few obese, 40 years ago, it did not seem an issue. If indeed obesity is so tenacious, then why would seem an important thing to know, and that would suggest strong measures to prevent it in the first place are warranted.
Thanks for the comment, Roberto. There will be a lot of content about exactly these types of issues here on this channel in the future. The very short version is that as people gain weight and fat mass, the set point at which the body defends body weight and fat mass seems to be gradually raised. In other words, just like it's difficult for a normal weight person to lose 20 pounds, it is similarly hard for someone who is 20 pounds overweight to lose 20 pounds. It's not clear by which mechanisms this happens, but it probably evolved to help people store fat (=energy) efficiently in times of plenty. So, I absolutely agree that prevention would be best. I still am optimistic that long-term weight loss maintenance is possible for many people, even though it's clear that it's not easy, and it definitely doesn't work with short-term dieting. Much more on this in future videos.
Because people go back to eating what they were eating pre weight loss. It's addiction caused by the food industry. It's like a recovered alcoholic having just one drink.
Very nice video!! My question is why are there still lean/skinny folks within the "same" obesogenic environment? Are they avoiding ultra processed foods? How much are people gaining weight over a lifetime? To go from overweight to obesity, you have to go gain 5o-65 lbs right?
Hey Anoop B, thank you. Genetics certainly plays a role in making us more or less prone to overeating in this environment. Interestingly, many of the genes that have been identified as contributing to a higher body weight are expressed in the brain and thought to play a role in how our brain regulates fat mass and also in what we call reward perception. In other words, if 100 people eat some ultra-processed food, some will just be more 'hooked' by it and end up seeking it out again and again later, and those would then be expected to gain the most weight. And yes, eating habits, other lifestyle habits (exercise, enough sleep, stress), certain medical conditions (thyroid disease, depression), certain medications, and even socioeconomic factors matter a lot in this environment. Socioeconomic factors because, for example, ultra-processed foods are cheaper per calorie than healthy foods (such as vegetables). If you are poor and have a lot of mouths to feed, ultra-processed foods are more likely to be bought.
In terms of your second question, let's assume you were 5'8'' or 1.73 m, to go from normal weight/just overweight (body mass index of 25) to obese (BMI of 30 or more), you would need to gain about 15 kg or 33 pounds. In the US, I think adults gain - on average - about 2 pounds per year. Some obviously more, some none, and the case I am making in the video is that how much you gain is largely related to how much ultra-processed foods you consume regularly.
Take care!
Giles Yeo has some great content on this too.
In a world gone fat the Japanese remain remarkably as slender as always. This is partly due to Japan being a "shame" culture...they monitor their weight constantly and just skip a meal, fast for a day or cut back on starches and sugars if they gain just a couple pounds. From what I hear most Japanese take those corrective measures about once per week. And it's worth noting that gyms and workouts are quite unpopular. Japanese are actually amazing in many ways.
However in general their shame culture is extremely undesirable with adolescents regularly committing suicide for low school marks. Also there is a lot of research showing that fat shaming is not only ineffective but sometimes counterproductive. In any case it is aweful.
Actually a lot of research shows obesity rates are rising in Japan too.
The points made in this talk were previously made in 1974 by T. L. Cleave in “The Saccharine Disease “. It also documented the pre-1970 rise in the consumption of refined carbs, and condemned seed oils. Interesting that we have to keep rediscovering things previously known.
The same points need to be reiterated over time to spread the message to succeeding generations. Plus, this is an important message that needs to be repeated often for those who are caught in the grip of ultra-processed food addiction. It's very hard to get out of. It helps if messages like Dr Mario's are followed up with education about how to make simple, whole foods taste delicious and how to learn to appreciate them more. And people need recipes to help them know what to do at home!
The number one problem is overuse of antibiotics both in humans and livestock. This has caused massive changes in microbiomes. Another problem is widespread environmental thiamine deficiency which is a closely related set of problems.
Did you watch the video ?
@@MarquitoRH yes. I just did not think it went directly enough to the heart of the problem. You may say the immediate problem is alcohol based mouthwash or fluoridation of toothpaste or drinking water all of which is to some extend correct. You can also argue politically that capitalism and consumerism are the core problems and that is correct, too. Technically speaking, the principal problem is an unbalanced microbiome and all of the above factors have screwed up our microbiomes leading to many adverse health effects that a consumerist and capitalist healthcare system only aggravates and a consumerist and capitalist food processing and agriculture industry cannot help.
Am i the only one to look up the word "redeeding"?
Your Italy versus US diet graph is puzzling to me. No, the Mediterranean diet is not high in carbs. This diet focuses on consuming a variety of plant-based foods that are naturally high in beneficial nutrients like fiber, vitamins, minerals, and healthy fats (like olive oil) . The Mediterranean diet also emphasizes eating a moderate amount of carbohydrates, mostly from whole grains, fruits, veggies, and legumes. Additionally, it encourages reducing sugar intake and limiting processed and refined carbohydrates. IN short, Italians don't eat as much sugar as their signature pasta, pizza dishes would otherwise suggest. I agree that ultra processed foods are the culprit here... because many of them are extremely high in carbs. Sugar is the enemy - it is the common link across all cultures.
I picked Italy because, on average, Italians eat roughly as many carbs as Americans. So why is the prevalence of obesity 3-4-fold higher in the US? You argue sugar, I say ultra-processed food. Given that ultra-processed foods are a major source of added sugar in the US, these two factors are obviously related, but I feel that experimental evidence linking ultra-processed foods to the overconsumption of calories is stronger than for sugar (at least sugar in solid form).
Thanks for chiming in.
Cheers
Mario
You say the Mediterranean diet emphasizes....but I have spent a lot of time in Italy and the Doc's description of how they eat, together with his statistics on carbs which are undeniable are spot on.
Also, from my observation in 2 Italian cities, they are more active in their daily lives - walking, walking, walking!
Hmmm. Is this going to be an April Fool's video, I wonder? I guess the only way to find out is to watch it!
Hehe, should have thought of that, but no, this is - sadly - no April Fool's joke ...
The ancient egyptians also suffered from these modern diseases. They were heavy grain eaters.
Could you explain how you reached this conclusion. Can you point to the studies please.
No, the chinese smoke!
What do you mean? "The Chinese" all smoke? And no one else does?
MSG has to have something to do with overeating crappy foods.
Possibly, even though I haven't reviewed that science in a while.
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Mario
If upf’s rise is driven by profit motive, then ultimately capitalism is to blame.
Or at least unregulated capitalism? I do think some regulations make some sense to protect people from the might of the food industry to manufacture highly rewarding (addicting?) foods and then use billions of dollars to market them to us.
Cheers
Mario