Slap You Silly Statistics about America's Health Woes

Image by Dan SanDonkey via Flickr

I haven't been able to find a single argument that proves to me that gluten or high fructose corn syrup are good things for ANYONE, not to mention those of us with sensitivities to them. I hear from people every day who tell me they like what I have to say about gluten, corn and dairy (thank you!) but they are also quick to tell me that they are sure they do not have any food issues.

I know but apparently they don't know that there are countless people who have a problem with gluten who are asymptomatic. I also know that gluten sensitivity affects up to 144 million Americans, so if you think you are among the lucky it doesn't affect, I sure hope you have tested yourself every which way possible to try to rule out a gluten issue.

In case you are still skeptical that our food is wreaking havoc on our bodies, here are some eye-opening, slap-you-silly statistics that might make you consider your diet and how it can be improved. I am not saying bad food choices cause every single one of these ailments but I am saying that what you eat plays a major role in how you feel. I find it depressing that as a nation we are so very sick.

I've gathered this information from my library of health books, almost all of which are written by M.D.s or from websites such as the Center for Disease Control:

• Depression affects up to 18 million Americans yet 27 million Americans are taking antidepressants.

• 24 million Americans have diabetes (and that number seems to increase by the minute).

• The number of Americans with Type 2 diabetes has TRIPLED over the past 30 years.

• 75% of the world's population is lactose intolerant. 50 million Americans suffer from lactose issues.

• 50 million adult Americans suffer from heartburn at least once a month.

• 34% of Americans are obese.

• 11% of children aged 2-5 are overweight.

• 89% of Americans will develop hemorrhoids at one time or another in their lives.

• Autoimmune thyroid disease is the most common autoimmune disease in the nation.

• More than 12 million Americans have a thyroid condition and as many as 60 million are estimated to have a thyroid problem.

• By 2016, less than a decade from now, the number of American adults (those 22 and over) with autism is expected to be nearly 1.5 million.

• Autism affects as many as 1 in every 110 children in the United States.

• 80,700,000 people in the United States have one or more forms of cardiovascular disease.

• 73 million Americans have high blood pressure.

• 16 million Americans have coronary heart disease.

• 5.3 million Americans have heart failure.

• 6 million men and women of reproductive age in the USA are affected by infertility.

• 2.1 million Americans have Rheumatoid Arthritis.

• 1 out of 5 Americans suffers from Irritable Bowl Syndrome. It is one of the most frequently occurring gastrointestinal disorders.

• More than 25 million Americans will develop a peptic ulcer at some times in their lives.

• Crohn's Disease has spread like an epidemic since 1950 and it affects up to 1 million Americans.

• By the age of 55, 1 in 5 American women will have their uterus removed.

• 11 million Americans have cancer.

• 555,500 Americans will die from cancer, corresponding to 1,500 Americans a day.

• 1,284,900 new cases of cancer are diagnosed each day.

• An estimated 205,000 new cases of breast cancer are diagnosed each year, with an estimated number of deaths at 40,000.

• 28 million Americans have migraines.

• An estimated 26% of Americans ages 18 and older — about one in four adults — suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.

• Approximately 20 million American adults, or about 9.5% of the U.S. population age 18 and older in a given year, have a mood disorder.

• Bipolar disorder affects approximately 5.7 million American adults, or about 2.6% of the U.S. population age 18 and older in a given year

• Approximately 2.4 million American adults, or about 1.1 percent of the population age 18 and older in a given year,11 have schizophrenia.

• Gastritis accounts for more than 2 million doctor office visits each year in the U.S.

• More than 19 million Americans have chronic esophagitis.

• More than 1 million Americans have recurrent seizures.

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Milk Is Eviler than Corn

I used to start every day with my favorite breakfast: whole wheat toast with cheese on top and some yogurt too.

Just as my grandmother Mimi did before me, I was poisoning my system with dairy (casein) and gluten in the bread. Mimi eventually went completely insane. I didn't but I was nearly bed ridden for two years in horrible health. I finally started down the path to good health, but it came at a high price. I will pay any price to be truly healthy, however. It is my hope that my experiences shared in this blog will save someone else all of that misery and money I have spent on getting smart about getting healthy.

One thing that I cannot stand the thought of ingesting any longer is casein, which is the protein found in all dairy products. You may think you "just" have a problem with lactose but you need to look further and read up on caseins.

You can start by reading this interview with a dairy expert. If this doesn't gross you out and make you run to your refrigerator and toss anything with dairy in it, nothing will.

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We Got Caseined

Image via Wikipedia

Instead of those omni-present Got Milk advertising campaigns, I would one day love to see people asking instead: Have you been caseined?

We got caseined over here recently. We were at a local, small town restaurant and I pulled the waitress aside and said we could not eat gluten, dairy or corn. How I wish I had said PLEASE don't give us anything that has casein in it. PLEASE.

What is casein?

Casein is a protein that is found in milk and used independently in many foods as a binding agent. You stand at least a 50% chance of having an issue with caseins if you have an issue with gluten. Isn't that special that they run in the same crowd?

My husband has felt for years that he was lactose intolerant so we removed lactose from our diets . . . but didn't yet know about caseins, which were still present in the lactose free milk and in many, many other suspicious foods we were still consuming.

I stopped ingesting caseins to support my husband and I was convinced that I did not have an issue with "dairy." I was wrong. I knew I did when I finally added some dairy back in my meals. I felt awful for days. It wasn't pleasant.

When we ate at the locally owned Mexican restaurant, I ordered chicken fajitas and ate them with no tortillas. Jeff had a wonderful grilled shrimp salad. If you can get through a Mexican meal and not touch a single corn tortilla chip placed on your table, you know that your will power to stay healthy is growing. We had no chips and felt good about our food choices.

A few hours later, Jeff's stomach was in knots and he did not feel well at all. I felt okay which may mean something or it may mean nothing at all in terms of my ability to digest caiseins. I called the restaurant and the hapless person who answered it listened to my questions about gluten, corn and dairy. She put the phone down and I could hear her yell to someone "HEY! do we put gluten in anything these people had for lunch here? They had chicken fajitas and the shrimp salad." She came back to phone and informed me that nope, we had ingested no corn, gluten or dairy. I didn't feel right about her "researching" my questions and by the way Jeff was feeling, I knew he had gotten something bad for his system, but what? It's the not so fun game of trying to figure out what you ate where that was now poisoning you. That game gets old in a hurry.

Then my phone rang suddenly. It was the restaurant owner! She wanted to tell me to ask for her next as she knew exactly what the ingredients were in every meal. She then asked me a question I will never forget to ask in the future: "did you tell the waitress to leave out the dairy or did you tell her about caiseins?"

I did just say dairy! Wow, someone in the teeny small Texas town we live in knew about caseins! She told me that they dip both the shrimp and the chicken fajitas in BUTTER before they grill them. Butter has caiseins! Our food sleuthing worked this time, not that it helped Jeff in the short term but it will for all of our future food restaurant dining. That restaurant is now our favorite little restaurant in town and we send them customers by the boatloadfull. (Though I do think it would help to have all of their waitresses well versed in casein-ology)

After that meal, I look the waiter in the eye and say clearly: we have some SERIOUS food allergies, please help us to not anything that might possibly contain wheat, gluten, corn dairy or anything that is made of a dairly substances such as butter.

Then I ask my honey if he brought that epi pen with him. Okay, I don't always ask about the epi pen but I will say that if I feel the waiter is not paying attention. Usually the threat of my throat closing up tends to make them perk up a bit and listen. Not that my throat would swell up but that sounds so much prettier to say than my guts will swell, don't you agree?

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