You are your world

Bryan Hubbard — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 10:00:00 GMT

One of the central messages of our site is that you have to take responsibility for your own health. There's no such thing as the free lunch when it comes to your health (and, if you happen to be a 'free lunch' believer, you probably also cling to the notion of the 'magic bullet' antidote, which keeps the drug company coffers full).

While taking responsibility includes all the usual suspects of diet, nutrition and general lifestyle, there's a real possibility that it has an even deeper significance.

A while back I had the very great fortune to meet Dr Bruce Lipton, who came to speak at one of our 'Living The Field' conferences. Bruce has been one of the earliest pioneers of a branch of biology known as epigenetics, which studies the impact of the enviornment on our genetic make-up.

Bruce lost a very lucrative position as professor at a prestigious American university for even suggesting that our DNA is not a set code, but instead can be influenced and changed by the environment. At the time the science of epigenetics was dismissed as a heresy, and those who pronounced it were banished from academia.

But, of late, the tide has been turning. Researchers who studied obese families found that parents and children weren't necessarily genetically predisposed to be obese but rather that their immediate environment played a more significant role. This is not so astonishing to those who haven't swallowed the DNA argument whole; if you're in a family that eats processed foods in front of the television and drives to the corner shop, then you're more likely to get fat yourself, irrespective of your gene pool.

It goes deeper. What makes up your environment? It's not just your lifestyle choices, it's your thoughts and beliefs, and your perceptions of the world beyond your body. This complex mix all adds to the rich subtleties of your immediate environment.

And, if your environment can change your coding, where does 'you' end and the 'world' begin?

Epigenetics is an exciting new branch of science that suggests a feed-back loop system where we are constantly influenced by that which we influence.

So, now, who needs pills?

The slimmer's first resort

Bryan Hubbard — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:49:00 GMT

Most diseases have something to do with lifestyle and the environment, but the experts in our community, the doctors, know very little about such things. As they only get about one hour's teaching on nutrition in their five years of medical training, this is probably not so surprising.

So when overweight and obese people come to them for advice, the doctor is instead likely to revert to pill-pushing type and reach for the prescription pad. As a result the anti-obesity drugs orlistat (Xenical) and sibutramine (Reductil) have recently become the most prescribed drugs on the UK's National Health Service, with more than 1 million prescriptions written every year.

The drugs are supposed to be used only when dieting and exercise have failed, but, as Alan Maryon-Davis, president of the Faculty of Public Health, has said: "My fear is that these drugs of last resort are actually used quite early on. It is too easy to turn to the prescription pad."

But is this really helping the patient? Despite the enormous commercial success of orlistat, it doesn't seem to. The drug has lived off early glories for the longest time. One of the very first trials found that a third of participants lost 10 per cent of their initial weight, a result that had newspapers such as the Daily Mail claiming this was the magic bullet cure for obesity.

Since then, researchers have conducted 30 further trials on the drug, and have never been able to replicate that early result. A review of 30 trials into orlistat and other weight-loss drugs found that it achieves an average weight loss of just 2.9 kg a year.

The drugs can also increase the risk of heart disease, and orlistat is especially likely to cause gastro-intestinal problems and faecal incontinence, which the manufacturer has delicately described as "the ooops factor."

The World Health Authority says that "eating less and exercising more must remain the cornerstones of managing obesity."

Just don't go to the doctor if you want to find out how.

Adverse Reactions : obesity

You are your world

The slimmer's first resort