kathleen johnson's List: health

• Foods that contain too little or too much sugar, fat or salt are either bland or overwhelming. But food scientists work hard to reach the precise point at which we derive the greatest pleasure from fat, sugar and salt.
• “My real goal is, How do you explain to people what’s going on with them?” Dr. Kessler said.
• “Nobody has ever explained to people how their brains have been captured.”

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• Food cravings mean that the body has its signals mixed up. When we are exhausted or blue, we have low blood sugar and/or low serotonin, and the body signals the brain that it needs a pick-me-up. This signal causes a sugar craving or carbohydrate craving.
• If serotonin is low, we feel sad or depressed. And hormonal imbalance or weak digestion can lead to low serotonin. Unfortunately, sugars and simple carbohydrates release a short burst of serotonin — we feel good for a moment, but soon return to our low-serotonin state — then crave more sugar and simple carbohydrates. It’s a downward spiral.

• Being insulin resistant means your body stops responding to insulin, and instead grabs every calorie it can and deposits it as fat. So no matter how little you eat, you will gradually gain weight.

   

  At the same time, your cells cannot absorb the glucose they need, so they signal your brain that you need more carbohydrates or sugars. The result is persistent food cravings.

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• every ounce of abnormally accumulated fat is always the result   of the same disorder of certain regulatory mechanisms. Persons   suffering from this particular disorder will get fat regardless   of whether they eat excessively, normally or less than normal.
• In all these cases a loss of   weight brought about by dieting, treatments with thyroid,   appetite-reducing drugs, laxatives, violent exercise, massage,   baths, etc., is only temporary and will be rapidly regained as   soon as the reducing regimen is relaxed. The reason is simply   that none of these measures corrects the basic disorder.
• obesity   was almost non-existent, as it still is in all wild animals and   most primitive races.
• In pre-Neolithic times, man ate   only when he was hungry and on1y as much as he required to still   the pangs of hunger. Moreover, much of his food was raw and all   of it was unrefined. He roasted his meat, but he did not boil   it, as he had no pots, and what little he may have grubbed from   the Earth and picked from the trees, he ate as he went along.
• three kinds of fat. The first is the   structural fat which fills the gaps between various organs, a   sort of packing material. Structural fat also performs such   important functions as bedding the kidneys in soft elastic   tissue, protecting the coronary arteries and keeping the skin   smooth and taut. It also provides the springy cushion of hard   fat under the bones of the feet, without which we would be   unable to walk.
• The second type of   fat is a normal reserve of fuel upon which the body can freely   draw when the nutritional income from the intestinal tract is   insufficient to meet the demand. Such normal reserves are   localized all over the body.
• But there is a   third type of fat which is entirely abnormal. It is the   accumulation of such fat, and of such fat only, from which the   overweight patient suffers. This abnormal fat is also a   potential reserve of fuel, but unlike the normal reserves it is   not available to the body in a nutritional emergency. It is, so   to speak, locked away in a fixed deposit and is not kept in a   current account[2],   as are the normal reserves.
• Obese patients   only feel physically well as long as they are stationary or   gaining weight.
• In the first   place, more caloric energy is required to keep a large body at a   certain temperature than to heat a small body.
• Many obese   patients actually gain weight on a diet which is calorically   deficient for their basic needs. There must thus be some other   mechanism at work.
• abnormal deposits   take no part in the body's energy-turnover - they are   inaccessibly locked away.
• Quite recently, however, a fat-mobilizing   factor has been found in pituitary glands, but it is still too   early to say whether this factor is destined to play a role in   the treatment of obesity.
• The   Fat-bank
• The second way in   which obesity can become established is the lowering of a   previously normal fat-banking capacity owing to some other   diencephalic disorder.
• In the menopause   and after castration the hormones previously produced in the   sex-glands no longer circulate in the body. In the presence of   normally functioning sex-glands their hormones act as a brake on   the secretion of the sex-gland stimulating hormones of the   anterior pituitary. When this brake is removed the anterior   pituitary enormously increases its output of these sex-gland   stimulating hormones, though they are now no longer effective.   In the absence of any response from the non-functioning or   missing sex glands, there is nothing to stop the anterior   pituitary from producing more and more of these hormones. This   situation causes an excessive strain on the diencephalic center   which controls the function of the anterior pituitary. In order   to cope with this additional burden the center appears to draw   more and more energy away from other centers, such as those   concerned with emotional stability, the blood circulation (hot   flushes) and other autonomous nervous regulations, particularly   also from the not so vitally important fat-bank.
• But there is still   a third way in which obesity can become established, and that is   when a presumably normal fat-center is suddenly -- the emphasis   is on suddenly -- called upon to deal with an enormous influx of   food far in excess of momentary requirements.
• as   when an athlete is confined to bed for many weeks with a broken   bone or when a man leading a highly active life is suddenly tied   to his desk in an office

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    In a person eating   coarse and unrefined food, the digestion is slow and only a   little nourishment at a time is assimilated from the intestinal   tract. When such a person is suddenly able to obtain highly   refined foods such as sugar, white flour, butter and oil these   are so rapidly digested and assimilated that the rush of   incoming fuel   which occurs at every meal may eventually overpower the   diecenphalic regulatory mechanisms and thus lead to obesity.
• There are thus a   large number of ways in which obesity can be initiated, though   the disorder itself is always due to the same mechanism, an   inadequacy of the diencephalic fat-center and the laying down of   abnormally fixed fat deposits in abnormal places.
• Pregnancy seems to   be the only normal human condition in which the diencephalic   fat-banking capacity is unlimited. It is only during pregnancy   that fixed fat deposits can be transferred back into the normal   current account and freely drawn upon to make up for any   nutritional deficit.
• Though we may be   able to increase the dieneephalic fat banking capacity by   injecting HCG, this does not in itself affect the weight, just   as transferring monetary funds from a fixed deposit into a   current account does not make a man any poorer; to become poorer   it is also necessary that he freely spends the money which thus   becomes available.  In pregnancy the needs of the growing embryo   take care of this to some extent, but in the treatment of   obesity there is no embryo, and so a very severe dietary   restriction must take its place for the duration of treatment.
• Only when the fat   which is in transit under the effect of HCG is actually consumed   can more fat be withdrawn from the fixed deposits.
• The most important associated disorders and the   ones in which obesity seems to play a precipitating or at least   an aggravating role are the following: the stable type of   diabetes, gout, rheumatism and arthritis, high blood pressure   and hardening of the arteries, coronary disease and cerebral   hemorrhage.
• ese disorders have two things in common. In all   of them, modern research is becoming more and more inclined to   believe that diencephalic regulations
• play a dominant role in   their causation. The other common factor is that they either   improve or do not occur during pregnancy.
• A brittle case of   diabetes is primarily due to the inability of the pancreas to   produce sufficient insulin, while in the stable type,   diencephalic regulations seem to be of greater importance.
• All rheumatic   pains, even those associated with demonstrable bony lesions,   improve subjectively within a few days of treatment, and often   require neither cortisone nor salicylates. Again this is a well   known phenomenon in pregnancy,
• it is now widely admitted that the blood cholesterol   level is governed by diencephalic mechanisms.
• Cholesterol circulates   in two forms, which we call free and esterified
• Normally these   fractions are present in a proportion of about 25% free to 75%   esterified cholesterol, and it is the latter fraction which   damages the walls of the arteries.
• As the increase is mostly in the form of the not dangerous free   cholesterol, we gradually came to welcome the phenomenon. Today   we believe that the rise is entirely due to the liberation of   recent cholesterol deposits that have not yet undergone   calcification in the arterial wall and therefore highly   beneficial.
• if   the diet is increased from 500 to 600 or 700 Calories, the loss   of weight is quite unsatisfactory.
• On the other hand, the diencephalon is an   extremely robust organ in spite of its unbelievable intricacy.
• From an evolutionary point of view it is one of the oldest   organs in our body and its evolutionary history dates back more   than 500 million years.  
• The degree of overweight is then calculated, and from   this the duration of treatment can be roughly assessed on the   basis of an average loss of weight of a little less than a   pound, say 300-400 grams-per injection, per day.  It is a   particularly interesting feature of the HCG treatment that in   reasonably cooperative patients this figure is remarkably   constant, regardless of sex, age and degree of overweight.
• all   patients must continue the 500-Calorie diet for three days after   the last injection. This is a very essential part of the   treatment, because if they start eating normally as long as   there is even a trace of HCG in their body they put on weight   alarmingly at the end of the treatment.
• a   treatment lasting less than 26 d
• ays, even in patients needing to   lose only 5 pounds. It seems that even in the mildest cases of   obesity the diencephalon requires about three weeks rest from   the maximal exertion to which it has been previously subjected   in order to regain fully its normal fat-banking capacity.
• We never give
• As soon as such   patients have lost all their abnormal superfluous fat, they at   once begin to feel ravenously hungry in spite of continued   injections. This is because HCG only puts abnormal fat into   circulation and cannot, in the doses used, liberate normal fat   deposits;
• As soon   as their statistically normal weight is reached, these patients   are put on 800-1000 Calories for the rest of the treatment.
• after the 23rd   injection. Only then are the patients free to eat anything they   please except sugar and starches for the next three weeks.
• it is in the nature of the HCG   method that it is self limiting. It becomes completely   ineffective as soon as all abnormal fat is consumed
• allow patients to lose more than 34 lbs
• nor do we   as a rule

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    The reason for   limiting a course to 40 injections is that by then some patients   may begin to show signs of HCG immunity
• A second course can be started after an interval of not   less than six weeks,
• Between a second and third course eight weeks should   elapse
• It is impressed upon him that he will have to   follow the prescribed diet to the letter and that after the   first three days this will cost him no effort, as he will feel   no hunger and may indeed have difficulty in getting down the 500   Calories which he will be given.
•   It is for this reason also that every case, even those that are   actually gaining must eat to capacity of the most fattening food   they can get down until they have had the third injection.   It is a fundamental mistake to put a patient on 500 Calories as   soon as the injections are started, as it seems to take about   three injections before abnormally deposited fat begins to   circulate and thus become available
• are very hard to convince of   the absolute necessity of gorging for at least two days, and yet   this must he insisted upon categorically if the further course   of treatment is to run smoothly.

• Breakfast:

     

    Tea or coffee in any quantity without sugar. Only   one tablespoonful of milk allowed in 24 hours.   Saccharin or Stevia may be used.

       

    Lunch:

     

        1.         100 grams of veal, beef, chicken breast, fresh white   fish, lobster, crab, or shrimp. All visible fat must   be carefully removed before cooking, and the meat   must be weighed raw. It must be boiled or grilled   without additional fat. Salmon, eel, tuna, herring,   dried or pickled fish are not allowed. The chicken   breast must be removed from the bird.

   

        2.         One type of vegetable only to be chosen from the   following: spinach, chard, chicory, beet-greens,   green salad, tomatoes, celery, fennel, onions, red   radishes, cucumbers, asparagus, cabbage.

   

        3.         One breadstick (grissino) or one Melba toast.  

   

        4.         An apple, orange, or a handful of strawberries or one-half   grapefruit.

       

      Dinner :   

     

    The same four choices as lunch (above.)
• Patients in a   satisfactory general condition and those who have not just   previously restricted their diet start forced feeding on the day   of the first injection.
• by insisting that they eat frequently of highly   concentrated foods such as milk chocolate, pastries with whipped   cream sugar, fried meats (particularly pork), eggs and bacon,   mayonnaise, bread with thick butter and jam, etc.
• During the two   days of forced feeding from the first to the third injection -   many patients are surprised that contrary to their previous   experience they do not gain weight and some even lose.
• The juice of one   lemon daily is allowed for all purposes. Salt, pepper,  vinegar,   mustard powder, garlic, sweet basil, parsley, thyme, majoram,   etc., may be used for seasoning
• Tea, coffee, plain   water, or mineral water are the only drinks allowed, but they   may be taken in any quantity and at all times.

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    In menstruating   women, the best time to start treatment is immediately after a   period.
• the end of a course of HCG should never be   made to coincide with menstruation
• patients who feel that even so little food is too much   for them, can omit anything they wish.
• American beef has almost   double the caloric value of South Italian beef, which is not   marbled with fat. This marbling is impossible to remove. In   America, therefore, low-grade veal should be used for one meal   and fish
• chicken   breast, lobster,   crawfish, prawns, shrimps, crabmeat or kidneys for the other   meal.
• Very   occasionally we allow egg - boiled, poached or raw - to patients   who develop an aversion to meat, but in this case they must add   the white of three eggs to the one they eat whole.  
• Few patients will   take one's word for it that the slightest deviation from the   diet has under HCG disastrous results as far as the weight is   concerned.
• are obliged to attend social   functions to which they cannot bring their meager meal must be   told beforehand that an official dinner will cost them the loss   of about three days treatment,
• Many patients notice that they are passing more   urine
• On the day of the   fourth injection most patients declare that they are feeling   fine. They have usually lost two pounds or more, some say they   feel a bit empty but hasten to explain that this does not amount   to hunger.
• t is usually at   this point that a difference appears between those patients who   have literally eaten to capacity during the first two days of   treatment and those who have not. The former feel remarkably   well; they have no hunger, nor do they feel tempted when others   eat normally at the same table. They feel lighter, more   clear-headed and notice a desire to move quite contrary to their   previous lethargy. Those who have disregarded the advice to eat   to capacity continue to have minor discomforts and do not have   the same euphoric sense of well-being until about a week later.   It seems that their normal fat reserves require that much more   time before they are fully stocked.
• There may be no drop at all for two or three days and   then a sudden loss which reestablishes the normal average. These   fluctuations are entirely due to variations in the retention and   elimination of water, which are more marked in women than in   men.
• The weight   registered by the scale is determined by two processes not   necessarily synchronized.  Under the influence of HCG, fat is   being extracted from the cells, in which it is stored in the   fatty tissue. When these cells are empty and therefore serve no   purpose, the body breaks down the cellular structure and absorbs   it, but breaking up of useless cells, connective tissue, blood   vessels, etc., may lag behind the process of fat-extraction.   When this happens the body appears to replace some of the   extracted fat with water which is retained for this purpose. As   water is heavier than fat the scales may show no loss of weight,   although sufficient fat has actually been consumed to make up   for the deficit in the 500-Calorie diet. When then such tissue   is finally broken down, the water is liberated and there is a   sudden flood of urine and a marked loss of weight. This simple   interpretation of what is really an extremely complex mechanism   is the one we give those patients who want to know why it is   that on certain days they do not lose, though they have   committed no dietary error.
• Diuretics should never be   used for reducing.
• A plateau lasts 4-6 days and   frequently occurs during the second half of a full course,

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    The second type of   interruption we call a “plateau”.
• apple day”. An apple-day begins at lunch and   continues until just before lunch of the following day. The   patients are given six large apples and are told to eat one   whenever they feel the desire though six apples is the maximum   allowed.
• The apple-day produces a gratifying loss of weight on   the following day, chiefly due to the elimination of water.
• It is useless to give either   an apple-day or a diuretic unless the weight has been stationary   for at least four days without any dietary error having been   committed.
• The third type of   interruption in the regular loss of weight may last much longer   - ten days to two weeks. Fortunately, it is rare and only occurs   in very advanced cases, and then hardly ever during the first   course of treatment.
• The fourth type of   interruption is the one which often occurs a few days before and   during the menstrual period and in some women at the time of   ovulation.
• He is always   surprised at being found out, because unless he has seen this   himself he will not believe that a salted almond, a couple of   potato chips, a glass of tomato juice or an extra orange will   bring about a definite increase in his weight on the following   day.
• Very often he   wants to know why extra food weighing one ounce should increase   his weight by six ounces. We explain this in the following way:   Under the influence of HCG the blood is saturated with food and   the blood volume has adapted itself so that it can only just   accommodate the 500 Calories which come in from the intestinal   tract in the course of the day. Any additional income, however   little this may be, cannot be accommodated and the blood is   therefore forced to increase its volume sufficiently to hold the   extra food, which it can only do in a very diluted form. Thus it   is not the weight of what is eaten that plays the determining   role but rather the amount of water which the body must retain   to accommodate this food.
• Though we allow the free use of salt, the daily amount taken   should be roughly the same
• Most women find it hard   to believe that fats, oils, creams and ointments applied to the   skin are absorbed and interfere with weight reduction by HCG   just as if they had been eaten.
• Obviously sun-tan oil is prohibited.
• Some patients unwittingly take chewing gum, throat   pastilles, vitamin pills, cough syrups etc., without realizing   that the sugar or fats they contain may interfere with a regular   loss of weight. Sex hormones or cortisone in its various modern   forms must be avoided, though oral contraceptives are permitted.   In fact the only self-medication we allow is aspirin for a   headache, though headaches almost invariably disappear after a   week of treatment, particularly if of the migraine type.
• patients should   be told that while under treatment they need and may get less   sleep.
• it should be   remembered that a severe sunburn always produces a temporary   rise in weight,
• Finally, the weight can temporarily increase - paradoxical   though this may sound - after an exceptional physical exertion   of long duration
• hey feel   neither breathlessness nor exhaustion but simply that their   muscles have to work harder. This phenomenon, which disappears   soon after the end of the treatment, is caused by the removal of   abnormal fat deposited between, in, and around the muscles. The   removal of this fat makes the muscles too long, and so in order   to achieve a certain skeletal movement - say the bending of an   arm - the muscles have to perform greater contraction than   before.
• I never allow any   kind of massage during treatment. It is entirely unnecessary and   merely disturbs a very delicate process which is going on in the   tissues.
• Towards the end of   a course or when a patient has nearly reached his normal weight   it occasionally happens that the blood sugar drops below normal,   and we have even seen this in patients who had an abnormally   high blood sugar before treatment. Such an attack of   hypoglycemia is almost identical with the one seen in diabetics   who have taken too much insulin. The attack comes on suddenly;   there is the same feeling of light-headedness, weakness in the   knees, trembling, and unmotivated sweating; but under HCG,   hypoglycemia does not produce any feeling of hunger. All these   symptoms are almost instantly relieved by taking two heaped   teaspoons of sugar.
• Of this solution 1.25 cc. are withdrawn   for each injection. One such bottle of 1000 I.U. therefore   furnishes 8 injections. When more than one patient is being   treated, they should not each have their own bottle but rather   all be injected from the same vial and a fresh solution made   when this is empty.
• When the three   days of dieting after the last injection are over, the patients   are told that they may now eat anything they please, except   sugar and starch provided they faithfully observe one simple   rule. This rule is that they must have their own portable   bathroom-scale always at hand, particularly while traveling.   They must without fail weigh themselves every morning as they   get out of bed, having first emptied their bladder. If they are   in the habit of having breakfast in bed, they must weigh before   breakfast.
• It takes about 3   weeks before the weight reached at the end of the treatment   becomes stable, i.e. does not show violent fluctuations after an   occasional excess. During this period patients must realize that   the so-called carbohydrates, that is sugar, rice, bread,   potatoes, pastries, etc, are by far the most dangerous. If no   carbohydrates whatsoever are eaten, fats can be indulged in   somewhat more liberally and even small quantities of alcohol,   such as a glass of wine with meals, does no harm, but as soon   as fats and starch are combined things are very liable to get   out of hand. This has to be observed very carefully during   the first 3 weeks after the treatment is ended otherwise   disappointments are almost sure to occur.
• They no longer   suffer from an abnormal appetite and feel satisfied with much   less food than before.
• When abnormal fat   is no longer being put into circulation either because it has   been consumed or because immunity has set in, this is always   felt by the patient as sudden, intolerable and constant hunger.
• As soon as no more abnormal fat is   being issued, the body starts consuming normal fat, and this is   always regained as soon as ordinary feeding is resumed.

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    The other trouble   which is frequently encountered immediately after treatment is   again due to over-enthusiasm.  Some patients cannot believe that   they can eat fairly normally without regaining weight.
• During treatment the patient has   been only just above the verge of protein deficiency and has had   the advantage of protein being fed back into his system from the   breakdown of fatty tissue.
• hunger- edema
• Late teenage girls   who suffer from attacks of compulsive eating have by far the   worst record of all as far as relapses are concerned.

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    Patients who have   once taken the treatment never seem to hesitate to come back for   another short course as soon as they notice that their weight is   once again getting out of hand. They come quite cheerfully and   hopefully, assured that they can be helped again. Repeat courses   are often even more satisfactory than the first treatment and   have the advantage, as do second courses, that the patient   already, knows that he will feel comfortable throughout.

• 125 I.U. of HCG   daily (except during menstruation) until 40 injections have been   given.

   

     

   

    Until 3rd   injection forced feeding.

   

     

   

    After 3rd   injection, 500 Calorie diet to be continued until 72 hours after   the last injection.

   

     

   

    For the following   3 weeks, all foods allowed except starch and sugar in any form   (careful with very sweet fruit).

   

     

   

    After 3 weeks,   very gradually add starch in small quantities, always controlled   by morning weighing.
•  In the HCG method the deficit is made up from the   abnormal fat-deposits, of which 1 lb. furnishes the body with   more than 2000 Calories. As this is roughly the amount lost   every day, a patient under HCG is never short of fuel.
• DIENCEPHALON . . . A primitive and hence very old part   of the brain which lies between and under the two large   hemispheres. In man the diencephalon (or hypothalamus) is   subordinate to the higher brain or cortex, and yet it ultimately   controls all that happens inside the body. It regulates all the   endocrine glands, the autonomous nervous system, the turnover of   fat and sugar. It seems also to be the seat of the primitive   animal instincts and is the relay station at which emotions are   translated into bodily reactions.

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