DIET | DETECTIVE^®

After blogging in December 2006 about an ongoing cover-up since 1990 by the Food & Drug Administration over cancer-causing amounts of benzene found in some popular soft drinks, now this Belfast Telegraph story highlights a new UK study on sodium benzoate causing damage to DNA bringing that whole controversy back into the limelight again.

Millions of diabetics take Avandia, but is it harming them?

We live in a society that says as long as you take your pills, you can live your life however you want to. Forget about making natural changes in your diet and lifestyle to manage your health, just go hog wild living it up and let the prescription drugs take care of the consequences of those foolish actions (like the American Diabetes Association's recommendation to go ahead and eat your carbs as long as you take your diabetes medicines--UGH!).

But doing that sometimes opens you up to certain health risks as we discovered in this USA Today column about the widely-used and prescribed diabetes drug Avandia. Have you heard this shocking story yet?

Have movie tie-ins like Shrek and McDonald's taken marketing too far?

When is the craziness gonna end with these cross-promotions between blockbuster films aimed at children and fast food restaurants? We wonder why childhood obesity isn't getting any better and yet we continue to see such blatant abuse of the love and trust kids have in these characters they see on the silver screen.

McDonald's is notorious for feigning to be a supporter of health with gimmicks like their new R Gym and donating money to combat childhood obesity while still serving such high-carb garbage "food" products as French Fries, apple pies, and milkshakes. Now they've done it again with the recent release of what is sure to be the biggest animated film of all-time--Shrek The Third.

When I was in Nashville, Tennessee earlier this month for the American Society of Bariatric Physicians obesity conference, there was a presentation made by researcher Dr. Jeff Volek from the University of Connecticut who said we've had it all wrong for years about dealing with obesity.

He said we have long been focused on obesity itself as a problem rather than a symptom which is why the high-carb, low-fat diet has failed to put a dent in the rising rates of people who are overweight and obese. Instead, Dr. Volek said the primary focus should be on dealing with hyperinsulinemia (excessive production of insulin) to treat obesity and the resulting illnesses that come from that.