Word: blood
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...population, twice its prevalence 20 years ago-is a hitch for skeptics. A disease strongly correlated with obesity and once almost exclusively associated with ageing, type 2 diabetes appears to be striking more people, and earlier. For the N.S.W. Schools Physical Activity and Nutrition Survey 2004 (SPANS), researchers took blood samples from 500 Year 10 students and found elevated insulin levels-a precursor to the disease-in almost 20% of them. Some researchers argue that obesity may be an early symptom of diabetes rather than a cause of it. They say eating better and exercising more are much better ways...
...Others worry that the preoccupation with obesity will discourage people from thinking about their health in a balanced way. More than 80% of cardiovascular disease is explainable by some combination of smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity, diabetes and sedentary living (being male works against you, too). Generally, the poor sod who collapses from a heart attack could tick three or more of those boxes. "We've been fighting to stop doctors and patients thinking about any of these risk factors in a vacuum," says The George Institute's MacMahon, professor of cardiovascular medicine and epidemiology at the University...
...same vein, Adrian Bauman, director of the Australian Centre for Health Promotion, notes that high blood pressure and cholesterol, as well as physical inactivity, are more prevalent in the population than obesity. "Yet obesity has captured the hearts and minds of the media," says Bauman. "And it's done that because it's graphic. It is depictable. It's boring to show physical inactivity, because it's just people being inert." Likewise, increasing weight is relatively easy to measure, he says. "So all of a sudden we have an epidemic of obesity interest. Not that we haven...
...Henry, professor of clinical pharmacology at the University of Newcastle, notes the potential for disease mongering among the overweight, and the gold-plated possibilities for drug companies, in a broad perception of an obesity crisis. "There aren't many frontiers left for mass-population treatment drugs," says Henry. "The blood pressure, cholesterol and mood-disorder drugs are all coming off patent. Obesity and substance abuse are probably the final two frontiers for drugs taken by huge numbers of people, year after year ... they're the golden egg of drug development...
...York, it was the people I saw standing 500 deep to give blood to those who might need it. It was the off-duty doctors and nurses tending to the injured in cars, vans and alleyways. It was the strangers carrying the disabled, elderly, young and injured to safety. It was the legions of concerned Americans rushing not away from Ground Zero, but to Ground Zero, eager to help their neighbors any way they could...