Katie Couric Hosts “Fed Up” in Charlottesville Tomorrow

It’s predicted that if nothing is done about this continuous cascade of sugar into the American diet, in two decades 95 percent of Americans will be obese or overweight. Couric says that if this unprecedented consumption of sugar is not curtailed, by 2050 one out of three Americans will have diabetes.

This clarion call for the use of common sense when it comes to sugar shouldn’t be dismissed as just the latest scare tactics from no-fun leaf-and-twig eaters. Studies show that because of rampant obesity among children today, youngsters are on track to be the first generation in memory to have a life expectancy shorter than that of their parents.

“The average American eats almost one pound of sugar and flour a day altogether,” Hyman said. “That amount creates a vicious cycle of addiction, where you crave more and eat more sugar.

“Studies that show sugar can be eight times more addictive than cocaine. Sugar, not fat, creates a triple whammy for weight — an increase in hunger and sugar cravings, an increase in fat storage and a decrease in metabolic rate.

“It is also the major driver of heart attacks, stroke, dementia, many cancers and, of course, type 2 diabetes.

Artificial sweeteners can actually be more addictive than regular sugar. Artificial sweeteners jack up your cravings, driving you to eat more food over the course of the day. Just say no to sugar and artificial sweeteners.”

“Fed Up” will be presented at 2 p.m. Saturday at UVa’s Culbreth Theatre. A discussion with Katie Couric, Dr. Mark Hyman and Dr. Christine M. Burt Solorzano will follow the screening. For tickets and a full schedule of films and events for the 27th annual Virginia Film Festival, go to www.virginiafilmfestival.org.

Related: Artificial Sweeteners Linked to Metabolic Disease

Artificial Sweeteners Linked to Metabolic Disease

Artificial sweeteners — promoted as aids to weight loss and diabetes prevention — could actually hasten the development of glucose intolerance and metabolic disease, and they do so in a surprising way: by changing the composition and function of the gut microbiota — the substantial population of bacteria residing in our intestines. These findings, the results of experiments in mice and humans, were published September 17 in Nature. Dr. Eran Elinav of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Immunology, who led this research together with Prof. Eran Segal of the Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, says that the widespread use of artificial sweeteners in drinks and food, among other things, may be contributing to the obesity and diabetes epidemic that is sweeping much of the world.

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A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

By Anahad O’Connor

People who avoid carbohydrates and eat more fat, even saturated fat, lose more body fat and have fewer cardiovascular risks than people who follow the low-fat diet that health authorities have favored for decades, a major new study shows.

“To my knowledge, this is one of the first long-term trials that’s given these diets without calorie restrictions,” said Dariush Mozaffarian, the dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, who was not involved in the new study. “It shows that in a free-living setting, cutting your carbs helps you lose weight without focusing on calories. And that’s really important because someone can change what they eat more easily than trying to cut down on their calories.”

By the end of the yearlong trial, people in the low-carbohydrate group had lost about eight pounds more on average than those in the low-fat group. They had significantly greater reductions in body fat than the low-fat group, and improvements in lean muscle mass — even though neither group changed their levels of physical activity.

“They actually lost lean muscle mass, which is a bad thing,” Dr. Mozaffarian said. “Your balance of lean mass versus fat mass is much more important than weight. And that’s a very important finding that shows why the low-carb, high-fat group did so metabolically well.”

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Are You Loving It?

Young Oakland artists L.L.D.B., Pamela Arriera, and Taiwo Murray collaborated with AshEL SeaSunZ (of the green hip-hop group Earth Amplified) to write the track, using a beat created for the project by FX at Youth Uprising. Oakland video students at KDOL-TV helped produce the video, which was shot at People’s Grocery in West Oakland.

Thin Line

“Every ten seconds,
someone dies from diabetes
and in the time it’s taken me to recite this poem
fifteen people have died.”

Watch Ivori Holson outline the harmful effects of a sugary drink diet in “Thin Line” written and performed by Ivori for the Bigger Picture project, a collaboration between Youth Speaks and UCSF’s Center for Vulnerable Populations.

Sugary drinks are the number one source of calorie’s in young people’s diets. Drinking one or two sugary drinks each day increases the risk of type 2 diabetes by about 25%. Nearly 1 in 2 children of color born in the year 2000 will get diabetes in their lifetime…unless we do something about it. Raise your voice and join the conversation about diabetes.