Archives for July 2006

The latest estimates peg the obesity rate among 11-19 year olds — not the incidence of simply being overweight, mind you, but the state of extreme fatness — at more than 15%…

Rampant misappropriation and misuse of monies allocated to heal and restore the Big Easy's disaster victims isn't the only malfeasance that ensued in the wake of the Storm of the Century. How about another "M" word…

You only have to look around to see that there are a lot of fat people out there, but I didn’t realize gluttony had been classified as a surgically correctable disease.

You know by now that I think that guzzling eight or more glasses of water a day is pointless–and even harmful. But don’t misunderstand me. Water itself is a critical part of life. For the people living in the southwestern part of the United States, a more pressing issue than oil is the rapid depletion of the Colorado River, the main water source for Nevada, Arizona, and California.

The deterioration of American medicine all started with Lyndon Johnson. He was a mean and vindictive man. Back in 1964, when he was running for president, doctors across America overwhelmingly voted against him because they were afraid of the impact his proposed Medicare plan could have on the practice of medicine. After he was elected, he swore he would get even.

Instead of advising patients to stop digging their graves with their own teeth, nonsurgical docs pull out a prescription pad and write a scrip for Xenical, a “fat blocker,” when what they really need is a good dose of self-control. But who needs self-control when there’s Xenical? The joke is on the patient, though, since fat is not what makes you fat, so blocking fat won’t make you–say it with me–thin! (I’ll come back to this outright scam that’s based on bad science and public ignorance in just a minute.)

IN THIS ISSUE: The quick-fix, short-term obesity solution with mortality rates too high for comfort; Krispy Kremes, Coke, and diet pills- a recipe for disaster; Even Harvard admits low-fat diets are bunk; Not getting the medical treatment you deserve?; Mediocre solutions for the problem of mediocrity; Rapidly depleting water supply threatens residents in southwest U.S.;