Byron J. Richards -- How the FDA is Causing the Obesity Epidemic

HOW THE FDA IS CAUSING THE OBESITY EPIDEMIC

By Byron J. Richards, CCN

November 2, 2006

NewsWithViews.com

I am amazed by the relentless attack of Big Pharma-controlled media on dietary supplements that help people lose weight. The FDA, colluding illegally with health officials in Mexico and Canada, has weight-loss fraud at the top of their list. The FDA is constantly insinuating that all weight-loss supplements are fraudulent and unproven, and they implore all consumers to beware. As one of the leading clinical nutritionists in this country and owner of Wellness Resources, an independent supplement company, I have over twenty years experience helping individuals lose weight with diet, exercise, and nutritional supplements. I�m more than happy to weigh in on this subject from my experienced point of view.

I have written extensively on the subject of weight management. In 2002 I published Mastering Leptin, the first book to explain the science behind the fat-hormone leptin and what it meant for people trying to lose weight and prevent disease. My new book, The Leptin Diet, will be out in December of 2006. I explain in great detail how hormonal systems in your body manage energy, how you can extract more energy from less food, how to get on top of cravings, and how to lose weight without gaining it back again. We now know that white adipose tissue (stored fat) is a metabolic organ that communicates to your brain. Most people struggle because they are operating their bodies without an owner�s manual.

Based on the FDA website it is plain to see that they think they are the authority on accurate weight loss information. The have convened panels of �experts� and have adopted a gangbuster plan to tackle the obesity epidemic. They have concluded that people eat too many calories and that weight loss is all about eating less food. The only other possibilities they openly promote on their weight loss web page are exercise, the drug Orlistat (which blocks absorption of fat and thus vital nutrients from fruits and vegetables), invasive surgery, and liposuction (a hack job on a metabolic organ). The FDA does have plenty of expertise overseeing the onset of the obesity epidemic. And heaven forbid if the casual observer looks at the waistline of the man running the FDA.

A good diet and exercise program will always be the foundation of any person�s health plan, especially regarding weight management. No health professional debates this point and every American knows this already, including those who are overweight. What on earth makes the FDA think that lecturing people to eat less and exercise more will somehow magically solve the obesity epidemic? Most people that are overweight know that it increases their risk for diabetes, heart disease, many forms of cancer, and the early onset of every disease of aging. So why are people fat and getting fatter?

The FDA Blames You

Yes, the FDA thinks that overweight Americans are weak-spined, no-willpower individuals who can�t walk by their favorite junk food without filling up. They know people eat in response to stress, stuff themselves full, and have no control over meal portions. The FDA thinks it is time for a publicity campaign to knock some common sense into obese Americans. Their message is fairly straightforward: Don�t you realize you are killing yourself? Don�t you know that obesity is a self-inflicted disease? It is your faulty decision making and poor choices that is causing this epidemic.

Big Pharma has been spending billions on obesity drug research and is chomping at the bit. The quick-fix magic diet pill is almost on the market. The FDA will be proud to promote the new wonder drug as soon as they approve it, ignoring the severity of the risks.

The FDA is the Main Cause of the Obesity Epidemic

The FDA is not alone. There are plenty of other government agencies and profit-mongering businesses that share the blame for truly causing the obesity epidemic. However, the FDA�s job is to protect the American public from harm. Not only have they failed miserably by allowing exposure of Americans to a variety of factors that cause obesity, they are themselves the largest part of the problem. On top of that they are actively preventing Americans from learning realistic natural options to help solve the problem.

The FDA is the primary organization responsible for the massive adulteration of our food supply. The reason Harvey Wiley, M.D., started the FDA in 1906 was to get rid of all the preservatives and processed food that was emerging in the market. His good efforts to create a truly wholesome food supply were undermined every step of the way by the food industry and the White House. The FDA was taken over by the groups it was supposed to be regulating. The quality of the food supply has been in a constantly deteriorating state ever since.

The FDA has led the charge. When the FDA got more power in 1938 one of their first actions was to approve the use of German-produced, coal-tar derived food coloring chemicals as food additives. Allowing the intake of such poison over the course of a lifetime, in combination with thousands of other now FDA-approved chemical additives, is a crime against humanity. There is no excuse for it.

The FDA allows and continues to condone the junk food industry�s intentional perversion of appetite signaling systems with MSG, aspartame, sweeteners, and other chemicals that directly promote food addiction. Do you really think Americans would be addicted to junk food if the FDA didn�t allow addictive chemicals to be placed in food? The combination of slick advertising and addictive chemicals has made more than one junk food organization wealthy. It is a sad day when a child goes down the aisle of a grocery store singing the jingles of every box of trash on the shelves.

We�ve known for twenty years, as has the FDA, that trans fats and refined grains were destroying health, metabolism, and causing disease. All it took was the FDA making companies state the amount of trans fats on labels and overnight the junk food industry starts to change. What took the FDA so long?

The government-sponsored food pyramid, which has also been making Americans fat for several decades, still thinks it is acceptable to eat refined grains every day as part of a healthy diet. Nobody pays any attention to the food pyramid, except the food industry that uses it is as a guide to make a few billion easy dollars providing substandard school lunches to our children, helping to make them fat.

Why is the FDA now allowing viruses to be sprayed on food? Why is the FDA allowing genetically modified food that expresses a toxin in every cell into the food supply? Why is the FDA refusing to label genetically modified food? Why is the FDA going to allow cloned animals in the food supply and not label them either? Why does the FDA allow synthetic growth hormone to be used in animals? Answer: profits for multi-national food, biotech, and agribusiness companies. Healthy food for metabolism is not a priority. In fact, the FDA wants to protect industry by making sure you can�t identify real food by looking at the label.

The EPA allows all kinds of toxic chemicals to be applied to food. The recent ten-year study of chemicals by the EPA was watered down into a Big Agribusiness-friendly report, since the EPA was terrified of being sued by the companies that are poisoning Americans. Industrial pollution is another huge factor that is destroying metabolism. Government-promoted fluoride and the military industry contaminate known as perchlorate are ruining the thyroid glands of our citizens by contaminating our water supply.

Monsanto, one of the companies the FDA is allowing to alter the food supply with genetically modified organisms, has a wonderful history. With the help of the FDA they brought the neurotoxin aspartame to the market. They also poisoned the entire planet with metabolism-disrupting PCBs. PCBs, found in almost all human fat samples, accumulate in stored fat and damage the metabolic function of white adipose tissue, which is now recognized as a metabolic organ (like the heart, liver, or kidneys). Many of the chemicals polluting our environment are known hormone disrupters that block proper metabolism and cause obesity.

One of the body�s defense systems against excessive pollution is to stuff these toxins into white adipose tissue (stored fat) in an effort to keep them away from the heart, liver, and kidneys. Guess what? Not only do these toxins damage the white adipose tissue organ, it is very difficult to break down toxic stored fat. We know that PCBs are elevated in the blood as a person tries to lose weight. Toxicity during dieting is never discussed by the FDA, yet is a main reason people can�t make stable progress or easily relapse. In fact, forcing your body to lose weight without proper detoxification systems in place may cause serious health problems.

Unfortunately, medications in general simply make people more toxic. Many drugs, like statins and blood pressure medication, de-energize people and cause them to gain weight. The FDA sits by while Eli Lilly makes billions poisoning our children with the antipsychotic medication Zyprexa, making them fat and diabetic. It�s not just environmental pollution making people fat. It�s also Big Pharma pollution.

The liver uses selenium and sulfur containing enzymes to clear many toxins, whether pollution or drugs. This pollution-driven excessive nutritional demand ends up depleting selenium and sulfur, nutrients that are also required to activate thyroid hormone so it can work in cells to burn calories properly. This is one of the major causes of obesity in America today, and the problem seldom shows up on a thyroid lab test. I wonder what drug the FDA will promote to correct pollution-induced, society-wide deficiencies of selenium and sulfur? Rest assured, the FDA will never tell Americans that obesity is being caused, in part, by a deficiency of essential nutrients. If they did, it would only take about two minutes for Americans to figure out that the Nazi organophosphate chemicals being used on our food have been depleting the soil of selenium and sulfur for the past sixty years. And don�t think scientists at the FDA and EPA haven�t known all these facts for many years.

To find weight loss fraud all the FDA has to do is look in a mirror, or study their own history.

Supplements Are Safe and Effective Tools

How are individuals supposed to have normal metabolism when key nutrients are missing? Even worse, the food being ingested is adulterated with energy-depleting, hormone-disrupting, neurologically-damaging, toxic substances.

Dietary supplements stand at the forefront of safe and effective health options to improve metabolism and help offset the FDA-sponsored adulteration of our food supply. Supplements can help people improve their production of energy, protect the liver and digestive tract from ingested toxicity, and can directly boost the normal and healthy metabolism of insulin and fat burning.

There are thousands of studies supporting the safe and effective use of ingredients found in nutritional supplements for weight management. Its not just one or two nutrients that may help, there are hundreds of compounds provided by Mother Nature that assist metabolism. This doesn�t take a degree in rocket science to figure out. The human species could not have withstood the challenges of food scarcity without a plethora and abundance of natural compounds in food that could help metabolism in one way or another. These compounds are easy to concentrate in nutritional supplements, and they are very safe.

The FDA gets all bent out of shape as soon as anyone suggests nutritional support can help prevent disease � which it obviously does. The FDA has placed a gag order on the first amendment, threatening small companies with extinction. The FDA considers itself above the rule of law. They selectively knock out the competition of Big Pharma, whose primary interest is a profit strategy based on keeping people sick and on a long list of poisons. The FDA is little more than a bully police force for hire, operating like the mob. Big Pharma is their biggest client.

People who think supplements will replace a healthy diet and exercise are gravely mistaken, as are people who think one nutritional ingredient or one company�s product will be some magical weight loss miracle. There are no short cuts for healthy weight loss. People make choices about diet and exercise. And they can certainly choose to try a nutritional product of one kind or another to help their metabolism.

There are hundreds of supplement companies that make products. Some companies, like mine, are focused on true quality and make excellent products to assist individuals with weight management. Other supplement companies are owned by Big Pharma and have little concern for your health. A primary goal of the FDA is to put good nutritional companies out of business and to turn all therapeutic nutrition into a Big Pharma-controlled industry. This is why I wrote Fight for Your Health: Exposing the FDA�s Betrayal of America.

Americans that value their health need to see through the spin and start taking effective action. The FDA weight loss plan doesn�t begin to address the source of the problems. The FDA actively attacks natural options that can truly help people. This is part of a delaying tactic to prepare society for the next Big Pharma drugs.

It is the job of health professionals to work with individuals to better manage their weight. The FDA�s job is to protect society as a whole from danger. It is now widely acknowledged that the FDA is inept and unable to protect Americans from the dangers of drugs. It is equally clear that the FDA has no intention of protecting Americans from the true causes of obesity.

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Changing the food supply into a healthy food supply is a monumental undertaking. Unless health-conscious Americans demand true reform, our country will be engulfed by the Big Pharma bills to pay for all the diseases resulting from the national epidemic of obesity. This problem is rotting the fabric of our culture at its foundation. It is as great a threat to national security as any other issue. It is time for Congress to �just say no� to Big Pharma money and overhaul the FDA for the benefit of the health of all Americans.

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Byron J. Richards, Founder/Director of Wellness Resources, is a Board-Certified Clinical Nutritionist and nationally-renowned health expert, radio personality, educator, and author.

Richards encourages individuals to take charge of their health, stand up for their health rights, and not blindly succumb to propaganda from the vested-interests who profit from keeping Americans sick. Author of Mastering Leptin and Fight for Your Health, Richards is now joining forces with health freedom leaders in the U.S. and throughout the world. Visit his health blog for up to date happenings. www.truthinwellness.com

As founder of Wellness Resources, Inc. of Minneapolis, MN (since 1985), he has personally developed 75 unique nutraceutical-grade nutritional formulas. www.wellnessresources.com

Charter Member of the International and American Associations of Clinical Nutritionists (IAACN) (since 1991) Richards has presented hundreds of educational classes to health professionals and individuals who want to take charge of their health!

E-mail:�byron@truthinwellness.com

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