Obesity spreads in social networks

8/1/2007 in Weight Loss | No Comments >>

Although a variety of personal traits influence weight gain, obesity is socially contagious, moving from person to person through networks of friends and relatives, a new investigation finds.

HEFTY TIES. New data from a 32-year investigation indicate that obesity spreads contagiously among networks of friends and relatives. iStockphoto

The study, the first to examine how social ties influence the development of obesity over time, finds that if one person becomes obese, others who know that person well have an increased risk of also becoming obese within the next 4 years. This effect occurs especially strongly among people identifying each other as friends.

The proliferation of permissive attitudes about weight gain and large body sizes among social groups has contributed to soaring U.S. obesity rates, propose medical sociologist Nicholas A. Christakis of Harvard Medical School in Boston and political scientist James H. Fowler of the University of California, San Diego.

"Obesity is not just an individual problem, it's a collective problem," Christakis says.

The new findings appear in the July 26 New England Journal of Medicine.

Christakis and Fowler tapped into previously unexamined data on 12,067 adults who underwent health assessments every 2 to 4 years, from 1971 to 2003, as part of the Framingham Heart Study. The researchers traced social networks for study participants by consulting records of contact information for each volunteer's close friends and relatives, many of whom also participated in the Framingham study and whose weights could also be tracked.

In this largely white, middle class sample, roughly one in three individuals displayed a body mass index that qualified him or her as obese by the end of the study.

The scientists found that when an individual becomes obese, the likelihood that a person who regards that individual as a friend will also become obese increases by 57 percent. This obesity risk increases far more, by 171 percent, when one of two people who regard each other as friends becomes obese.

Friends' impact on obesity appears equally strong whether they live next door to each other or 500 miles apart. Smaller but significant influences on obesity risk extend to friends of friends of people who become obese as well as to people with even less-direct ties to obese individuals. If one sibling becomes obese, the likelihood of the other following suit increases by 40 percent. A comparable effect occurs between spouses.

The sex of social partners also sways obesity's spread. In same-sex friendships, an individual's obesity risk increases by 71 percent if a friend becomes obese. Same-sex siblings display a comparable pattern. Friends and siblings of opposite sexes showed no such liability.

Obesity doesn't spread among neighbors, unless they're also friends. Nor does the risk of obesity rise in an individual dubbed a friend by someone who becomes obese but who doesn't consider that person a friend in return.

Obese people didn't simply seek out similar-looking friends but actually influenced others, Christakis contends. He says that in many cases, people overweight to begin with were encouraged to eat even more, sending them over the line into obesity.

The new findings suggest that obesity treatment should target groups of people who belong to the same social networks, remarks Harvard Medical School psychologist Matthew Gillman, who heads an obesity-prevention program.

Stop Ignoring Herbal Medication

8/1/2007 in Other | No Comments >>

Every year millions of Americans are prescribed pharmaceuticals to treat health conditions, while potentially more effective and affordable treatments are being neglected. For the past 25 years, pharmaceutical companies have grown profits faster than any other industry, while countless patients are going broke paying for drugs that often don’t work very well, or even cause other health problems. In other countries, herbal medicines are often used resulting in better outcomes at a fraction of the cost.

Herbal medicines have been used throughout the world for thousands of years to successfully treat a wide variety of health conditions. Drug companies know this, and have exploited it - between one third and one half of all drugs on the market today are derived from plants.

Unfortunately, the drugs that come from plants often use only a single active ingredient in the plant, making the treatment less desirable than its natural source. For example, Aspirin tablets use an active ingredient from the White Willow tree. Unfortunately, Aspirin can have adverse side effects such as ulcers. In contrast, the herbal extract of the White Willow tree has the same painkilling properties as Aspirin, but with minimal risk of side effects. This is due to other ingredients in the bark, which protect the stomach. This is just one example of the many herbal drugs that are superior to drugs widely used today.

In countries such as Germany herbal medicines are being embraced. Natural treatments such as St. John’s Wort for depression are increasingly prescribed. This herbal remedy, like many others, appears to be highly effective and has a much better side effect profile than drugs used to treat the ailment.

Despite the promise shown in many natural herbal remedies, and their underutilization in America, the pharmaceutical companies have a strong incentive to maintain the status quo. Unlike molecules created in the lab, plants cannot be patented. The multi billion dollar profits that drug companies seek and shareholders demand cannot be generated with a product that grows out of the ground and cannot be patented.

Decades ago, most of the drug research was done by academics rather than private corporations. Today, the opposite is the truth, and patients are suffering as a result. The bottom line is this: the best solution for patients is not the best solution for drug companies. Contrary to popular belief, drug companies do not profit by healing or curing people. They maximize profit by creating expensive drugs that patients are required to take on an ongoing basis. Make no mistake, drug companies are not motivated by the desire to help people, they are motivated by the almighty dollar.

This is not to say that there are no good drugs on the market, or that herbal medicines are superior in every case. As always, it is important for patients to research the facts and reach their own conclusions. However, there is no denying that it is in the best interest of the pharmaceutical industry to dismiss the herbal medicine proponents as “quacks”, which is exactly what they do. This completely ignores the fact that herbal medicines have a long history of being used successfully all over the world. And it ignores the millions of people around the world who continue to use these medicines to successfully treat and cure their conditions.

Herbal medicines are often the best choice for patients, and pharmaceutical companies fear the competition they represent for their highly profitable, yet often ineffective treatments. Of course when their astronomical profits are jeopardized by herbal medicines, drug companies will do everything they can to keep patients misinformed. However, thanks to the internet, people are slowly educating themselves about the alternatives to pharmaceuticals. Now there is hope that they will start to choose the best solution for improving their lives over improving drug companies’ profits.

Ado T