If trends continue, we’ll all be fat in 40 years

If the trends of the past three decades continue, it’s possible that every American adult could be overweight 40 years from now, a government-funded study projects.

The figure might sound alarming, or impossible, but researchers say that even if the actual rate never reaches the 100-percent mark, any upward movement is worrying; two-thirds of the population is already overweight.

“Genetically and physiologically, it should be impossible” for all U.S. adults to become overweight, said Dr. Lan Liang of the federal government’s Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, one of the researchers on the study.

However, she told Reuters Health, the data suggest that if the trends of the past 30 years persist, “that is the direction we’re going.”

Already, she and her colleagues point out, some groups of U.S. adults have extremely high rates of overweight and obesity; among African- American women, for instance, 78 percent are currently overweight or obese.

A ‘wake-up call’?
The new projections, published in the journal Obesity, are based on government survey data collected between the 1970s and 2004.

If the trends of those years continue, the researchers estimate that 86 percent of American adults will be overweight by 2030, with an obesity rate of 51 percent. By 2048, all U.S. adults could be at least mildly overweight.

Weight problems will be most acute among African-Americans and Mexican- Americans, the study projects. All black women could be overweight by 2034, according to the researchers, as could more than 90 percent of Mexican-American men.

All of this rests on the “big assumption” that the trends of recent decades will march on unabated, Liang acknowledged.

“This is really intended as a wake-up call to show what could happen if nothing changes,” she said.

Waistlines aren’t the only thing poised to balloon in the future, according to Liang and her colleagues. They estimate that the healthcare costs directly related to excess pounds will double each decade, reaching $957 billion in 2030 — accounting for one of every six healthcare dollars spent in the U.S.

Those financial projections are based on Census data and published estimates of the current healthcare costs attributed to excess weight — and they are probably a “huge underestimate” of what the actual costs will be, Liang said.

The findings highlight a need for widespread efforts to improve Americans’ lifestyles and keep their weight in check, according to the researchers. Simply telling people to eat less and exercise more is not enough, Liang noted.

Broader social changes are needed as well, she said -- such as making communities more pedestrian-friendly so that people can walk regularly, or getting the food industry to offer healthier, calorie-conscious choices.

“It really needs to be more than an individual effort,” Liang said. “It needs to be a societal effort.”

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Three people held in raids at marijuana dispensaries

Narcotics agents raided four San Diego marijuana dispensaries, made three arrests at the locations and seized about 20 pounds of pot yesterday.
Federal authorities said the businesses were not selling the drug within the limits of state Proposition 215, a 1996 initiative legalizing the sale of marijuana by prescription to seriously ill patients.

Drug Enforcement Administration and county Narcotics Task Force agents served search warrants at Answerdam on Convoy Court, Plan B Coastal Care Group on Adams Avenue, Chronic Care Providers on Daggett Street and Safe California Access on Murphy Canyon Road. Three men, ages 59, 35 and 26, were arrested at three of the businesses on suspicion of marijuana sales and possession for sale, DEA spokeswoman Eileen Zeidler said.

A home on Marlborough Avenue in City Heights also was searched, and a 30-year-old resident was arrested on suspicion of the same marijuana charges and suspicion of possessing Ecstasy.

Zeidler said marijuana and pot-laced brownies, ice cream, chocolate and fruit bars were seized at the businesses, along with a loaded handgun and thousands of dollars. She said the investigation took several months, and continues, to trace where the pot came from.

Meanwhile, the county Board of Supervisors is continuing its court battle against the state's medical marijuana laws.

The board voted 4-1 yesterday, with Ron Roberts opposing, to ask the state Supreme Court to review its lawsuit challenging the state requirement that counties issue government identification to qualified medical marijuana patients.

The county contends the requirement conflicts with federal drug statutes that categorize marijuana as a dangerous drug with no medical benefits.

A Superior Court judge rejected the county's case in 2006, and an appellate court backed that decision Thursday. The state Supreme Court will be asked to review last week's ruling, said Tom Bunton, senior deputy county counsel.

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Americans Drinking Less Alcohol

Americans are drinking less alcohol, with middle-aged people consuming about one-third less than 50 years ago, researchers report.

Overall, Americans are drinking less beer, but more wine, while consumption of hard liquor has remained fairly constant. Also, more people say they don't drink, and those born later in the 20th century are more moderate drinkers than their parents.

"It looks like moderate drinking has been increasing, heavy drinking is down a little bit, and total alcohol consumption is down a little bit," said lead researcher Dr. R. Curtis Ellison, a professor of medicine and public health at Boston University School of Medicine.

"It is encouraging news that more people are drinking moderately, and the average intake is coming down rather than shooting up," he said.

For the study, Ellison's team collected data on 8,000 people who took part in the Framingham Heart Study. People in the initial arm of the study were born before 1900 up until 1959. Those from the initial enrollment group as well as their children were interviewed every four years from 1948 to 2003 about their alcohol consumption.

Ellison explained that the Framingham study consists primarily of white, middle-class individuals from the Massachusetts town of the same name. "It generally tends to reflect trends within the country among middle-class, white Americans," he said.

The researchers found that, overall, people are drinking less. "People drank about a third more back in the '50s and '60s than they did in the '70s up to 2004," Ellison said.

There's been a gradual decrease in the average amount of alcohol people drink. For instance, alcohol consumption among men has gone from about two-and-a-half drinks a day to one-and-a-half drinks a day, Ellison said.

"At the same time, there's been a decrease in beer and an increase in wine consumption among people. But the average intake has decreased," he said.

As for liquor, the average intake has remained pretty much the same, he added.

Despite the decline in alcohol consumption, the risk of alcohol dependence did not show a corresponding decrease, the study also found.

"We don't know why alcohol consumption has gone down," Ellison said. "The data are very clear that light to moderate drinking, without binge drinking, is generally good for health, whereas a larger amount of binge drinking is bad. It looks like, in this population, it's going in the right direction."

The study findings were published in the August issue of The American Journal of Medicine.

David L. Katz, director of the Yale University School of Medicine Prevention Research Center, noted that during "recent decades, the messages about alcohol have increasingly emphasized the potential to derive both pleasure and health benefits from wine, provided the dose is prudent. The trends in this study suggest those messages are having an impact, at least in Framingham, Massachusetts. Among those not vulnerable to alcohol abuse, intake patterns appear to be shifting in accord with expert recommendations."

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