Thursday, 26 August 2004
Woman who guzzle sugar-sweetened fruit juices or soft drinks run a greater risk of putting on weight and developing diabetes than women who keep the syrupy drinks to a minimum, according to a U.S. study.

The study in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association said this may be due to drinking large amounts of rapidly absorbable sugars found in soft drinks and drinks sweetened with sugar or high-fructose corn syrup.

The research was part of a study of 91,000 female nurses participating in the second phase of the Nurses' Health Study, based at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

A total of 741 women developed type II diabetes, also known as adult-onset diabetes, during the 1991-1999 study period.

The researchers found that women who drank sugared fruit punch at least once a day were twice as likely as those who drank it less than once a month to develop type II diabetes.

And women who drank one or more sugary soft drinks a day had an 80% increased risk of developing compared with women who drank less than one sugary drink a month.

Women who drank large amounts of soft drink also piled on the kilos. Women who went from drinking one or fewer soft drinks a week to one or more soft drinks a day put on an average of four to five kilograms over four years.

"Soft drinks are the leading source of added sugar in the American diet. They provide a large amount of excess calories and no nutritional value," said Dr Matthias Schulze, the lead study author.

"Our results show that increasing one's consumption of sugary soft drinks significantly increases the risk for weight gain and type II diabetes," said Schulze, who was a research fellow in the nutrition department at Harvard School of Public Health when the study was conducted.

Associate Professor Caroline Apovian, from the Boston University School of Medicine , wrote in a commentary in the same issue of the journal this was "strong, scientifically sound evidence that...soft drinks are directly contributing to epidemics of obesity and type II diabetes".

Note: This study was funded by a research grant from the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Schulze, now with the German Institute of Human Nutrition, Nuthetal, Germany, was also supported by a European Association for the Study of Diabetes/American Diabetes Association Trans-Atlantic fellowship and a fellowship of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Co-author Dr. Frank B. Hu is the recipient of an American Heart Association Established Investigator Award.

Government - Reflections of great minds on Government

1) Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress.But I repeat myself.-- Mark Twain

2) I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is likea man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.-- Winston Churchill

3) A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on thesupport of Paul.-- George Bernard Shaw

4) A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, whichdebt he proposes to pay off with your money.-- G. Gordon Liddy

5) Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.-- James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)

6) Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in richcountries to rich people in poor countries.-- Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University

7) Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.-- P.J. O'Rourke, Civil Libertarian

8) Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors tolive at the expense of everybody else.-- Frederic Bastiat, French Economist (1801-1850)

9) Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few shortphrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.-- Ronald Reagan (1986)

10) I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.-- Will Rogers

11) If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.-- P.J. O'Rourke

12) If you want government to intervene domestically, you're a liberal.
If you want government to intervene overseas, you're a conservative.
If you want government to intervene everywhere, you're a moderate.
If you don't want government to intervene anywhere, you're an extremist.-- Joseph Sobran, Former Editor of the National Review (1995)

13) In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.-- Voltaire (1764)

14) Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't meanpolitics won't take an interest in you.-- Pericles (430 B.C.)

15) No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature isin session.-- Mark Twain (1866)

16) Talk is cheap -- except when Congress does it.-- (Unknown)

17) The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.-- Ronald Reagan

18) The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of theblessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.-- Winston Churchill

19) The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that thetaxidermist leaves the skin.-- Mark Twain

20) The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is tofill the world with fools.-- Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

21) There is no distinctly native American criminal class save Congress.-- Mark Twain22) What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.-- Edward Langley, Artist (1928 - 1995)

23) A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Famous Revolutionary