Source: Speak Up
Language level: Advanced
Speaker: Mark Worden
Standard: British accent
You Are What You Eat
IF you’ve ever wondered any obesity is increasing dramatically, then Barry Sears can explain. Barry Sears is best known for having invended the Zone Diet, which he sees as a scientific method for preventing heart disease, diabetes and cancer. He has written a number of best-selling books on the subject, the latest of which is Toxic Fat: When Good Fat Turns Bad. When he met with Speak Up we asked him to explain the reasons for the world’s current obesity epidemic:
NO GLOBAL
Barry Sears (Standard American accent)
What’s happening is a globalisation of food ingredients, and basically coming from America, and two things in particular: cheap carbohydrates and cheap vegetable oils. These are ones which are rich in Omega-6 fatty acids. Neither one by themselves is too dangerous, but when combined, it’s like adding kerosene to a fire. And the first consequence of this fire, this inflammation of the body, is the increase of body fat and basically, as this inflammation continues then you get an acceleration of chronic disease states, such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and neurological disorders. And it’s really type 2 diabetes that threatens to destroy the healthcare systems of every country in the world. So, in many ways, that basically we have found the answer to the obesity crisis is the foods that we like to eat because now cheap carbohydrates and cheap vegetable oils, all coming from the United States, are 400 times cheaper per calorie than fresh fruits and vegetables.
GENETIC ENGINEERING
In addition to preventing disease, the correct diet can also prolong your life expectancy. In actual fact Barry Sears quit his job as an MIT researcher to work on the Zone Diet for largely personal reasons.
Barry Sears:
I have very bad genes. My father died in his early 20s of heart disease and he was a world-class athlete; his brothers died in their early 50s, as did my grandfather. So I realised about 30 years ago I had the same genes that would pre-dispose me to an early death from heart disease. Now, I knew I couldn’t change my genes, but there was the opportunity to change their expression and that’s the power of food. Food, if used correctly, allows you to change the expression of your genes and therefore take control of your future. And that’s basically the promise that basically we can offer now people in the 21st century. Drugs can’t do that, but food can, but you have to treat food like a drug, take it at the right dosage, at the right time, and if you’re willing to do that, then you can control your future with frightening precision.
VINDICATION
Today the Zone Diet is recognised by the scientific establishment, but that hasn’t always been the case:
Barry Sears:
I went from being considered a boy genius of drug delivery technology at MIT to “charlatan of the world” within a very short period time because what I proposed was totally contrary to all existing nutritional advice, whether it be the American Heart Association, the American government, The American Cancer Association. They said, “How dare you say we’re wrong?” And I just had basically enough perseverance to say, “The data will prove me right.” And, ironically, about three years ago, Harvard Medical School, announced their new guidelines for treating obesity and type 2 diabetes and they were The Zone. So a certain degree of vindication, but still, again, a great degree of reticence because every health authority in the world have blindly adopted in the American recommendation as the way people should eat. And it turns out what they have done, without thinking of the consequences, have basically caused our populations being incredibly less healthy, as a consequence.
And, as an accompaniment to that, Barry Sears reads the opening paragraphs of his book, Toxic Fat:
Something is terribly wrong in American. You only have to walk down the streets to see the surging epidemic of obesity. However, this epidemic is for more complex than simply the result of sloth and gluttony.
After years of studying this problem I’ve concluded that we can view obesity as a form of cancer driven by inflammation. Obesity can be viewed as an inflammation induced cancer that can either be benign or malignant. You can live with a benign fat tumor for a long time, but a malignant tumor will kill you. The reason is that a malignant fat tumor is one that rapidly spreads the molecular building black – this i toxic fat of inflammation - from your fat cells to every organ in your body. When this occurs you have what I term “toxic fat syndrome.”
Toxic Fat is published in the U.S. by Thomas Nelson Books.
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