At Length with Steve Scher

We swim in a sea of chemicals. Some of them are harming our environment, some are harming us .

Bruce Blumberg Obesogens Part 2

Steve Scher, UWAA

In part two of Steve Scher's conversation with scientist Bruce Blumberg , we hear more about the science of hormone disrupting chemicals, what action the regulatory agencies are taking and whether an approach called green chemistry could keep suspect chemicals from ever entering the environment.

Professor Bruce Blumberg spoke at the University of Washington in May 2015, part of the Weight and Wellness series at the UW.

Find more interviews on iTunes and Stitcher and at here too.

Support for At Length with Steve Scher comes from the University of Washington Alumni Association . and the UW Graduate School.

Steve Scher talks with Professor Bruce Blumberg about obesogens , hormone disrupting chemicals that seem to change human metabolism.

Bruce Blumberg on Obesogens, Pt. 1

Steve Scher , UWAA

We eat too much. We eat too much processed foods high in calories. We don’t exercise enough. It is being called an obesity epidemic , and it is putting more and more people at risk for heart disease, diabetes, cancer and other conditions at ever greater numbers around the world. But something more than our own actions seems to be at work resetting our bodies systems that regulate weight gain and loss.

Bruce Blumberg, a developmental biologist and a molecular endocrinologist , coined the term 'obesogens' in 2006 after he discovered that exposing pregnant mice to a chemical compound call Tributyltin made their offspring heavier than those not exposed-- even when they are on a normal diet. His lab is at the University of California, Irvine .

Scientists now know that fat tissue acts as an endocrine organ, releasing hormones related to appetite and metabolism. A rising number of manufactured chemicals bind to the same receptors as the hormones and either prevent proper actions by hormones or activate them in the wrong place and the wrong time.

These Chemical “obesogens” may alter human metabolism and predispose some people to gain weight.

Studies show that obesity is strongly linked to exposures to risk factors, such as hormone distrupting chemicals, during fetal and infant development. Blumberg found that exposure to tributyltin predisposes lab animals to make more and bigger fat cells. The insidious thing, Blumberg says is that animals exposed in utero to TBT are permanently affected

Professor Bruce Blumberg spoke at the University of Washington in May 2015, part of the Weight and Wellness series at the UW.

Find more interviews on iTunes and Stitcher and at here too.

Support for At Length with Steve Scher comes from the University of Washington Alumni Association . and the UW Graduate School.

Dr. Ellen Schur talks to Steve Scher about our bodies internal regulatory systems and how they change as we gain weight. She says the body's changes mean that simply exercising more and eating less is not the only factor to consider when we try to lose weight.

Why It's So Hard To Lose Weight

Steve Scher, UWAA

Obesity is medically defined through the body mass index – BMI- an indirect measure of how much body fat a person carries. BMI is your weight in kilograms over your height in meters. Though Dr. Ellen Schur says it’s somewhat arbitrary and is dependent on the person, the cut off for obesity is a BMI of 30. Overweight is 25-29, normal weight 18 and half to 20. Dr. Schur is Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine, University of Washington, Co-Director, UW Medicine Weight Loss Management Program. She is part of the UW’s Weight and Wellness Lecture Series spring, 2015.

So when to worry?

When people are in the overweight category, are they showing signs of changes that affect health? Are the blood sugars starting rise, is blood pressure starting to rise? Is the body weight tending to settle in the persons middle rather than in the hips or extremities? Any of these factors, in combination with a body mass that’s in the overweight range, puts people at higher risk for various disorders. Losing some weight is recommended.

At this point, the connection between weight and wellness is pretty clear, according to Dr. Ellen Schur, Once we get obese, our body's internal regulatory systems change and it is going to take a lot more than simply exercising more and eating less to stay healthy.

The newest thinking among medical specialists is that obesity is a disease and we need to treat it the way we treat other diseases.

Just as with high blood pressure, doctors don’t expect a person’s will power will bring their weight down. At the point when we are overweight, all sorts of interventions are necessary, including permanent changes to lifestyle habits and medications.

Sonia Nazario, author of “Enrique’s Journey: the story of a boy’s dangerous odyssey to reunite with his mother ” talks to Steve Scher about the plight of o ne of the tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors who illegally cross Mexico by freight train and then the U.S. border in order to reunite with their families in the U.S.

She spoke to Seattle area audiences April 2015, about America’s Immigration Dilemma and the policies that might help these families.

Sonia Nazario, "Enrique's Journey"

Steven Scher, UWAA

Tens of thousands of Central American children, unaccompanied by parents or other adults are hopping freights and fleeing the drug cartels, the gangs and the thuggish police in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Almost 50 thousand arrived by the middle of the summer of 2014, when the surge captured media and political attention. These children are often robbed, raped, beaten or kidnapped along the way. Thousands are detained in detention cells for months before their fate- often deportation is determined. There are at least 5 holding facilities in the Puget Sound Area alone.

Though this story exploded onto the public mind last year, it has been a humanitarian crisis for years. Journalist Sonia Nazario won a Pulitzer Prize for her LA Times coverage in 2003 for “Enrique’s Journey,” a Honduran boy’s search for his mother who emigrated to the U.S. It became a best selling book in 2006. In 2014, her book gathered attention again, as the rising flood of young children peaked at about 60 thousand by the end of the year. Numbers are lower in 2015, as the U.S. has paid Mexico interdict the migrants before they reach our border. However the violence, criminality and chaos these children are fleeing has continued unabated.

Sonia Nazario’s book is assigned in schools and universities around the world . She speaks to organizations and communities about the difficult journey, the hard conditions these young people are fleeing and the need to at least provide them with legal representation at immigration hearings.

For more information about KIND and about Sonia Nazario as well as the other guest speakers visiting the UW, search for UW Alumni Association .

For more interviews with those guests, search for At Length with Steve Scher

You can also find us on iTunes and Stitcher .

Dr. Regina Benjamin, 18th Surgeon General of the United States, talks with Steve Scher about bringing joy to efforts at losing weight and staying healthy. She spoke in Seattle as part of the UW's Weight and Wellness Series of Lectures.

Advice From America's Doctor

Steve Scher, UWAA

Dr. Regina Benjamin , Surgeon General from 2009-2013 says we have to rediscover the joy in being healthy.

"Being healthy can be joyful. Food can be taste good if you work at it. Exercise doesn’t have to be a drag. You can enjoy being around dancing, walking, whatever you find that you enjoy.”

As Surgeon General , Dr. Regina Benjamin tried to find ways to remove the barriers to exercise. That included getting hairdressers involved in thinking about the most exercise friendly hairstyle. It meant starting a get out and walk campaign .

Dr. Benjamin was the 18th Surgeon General, with the rank of a three star admiral. She is the recipient of numerous awards, honorary degrees. She started and continues to run a primary care clinic in Bayou La Batre, a small fishing community in Louisiana. She currently holds the endowed chair in public health at Xavier University.

She has served on numerous boards and committees and is an officer with American Board of Family Practice and a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians

She is a member of the Institute of Medicine, the first physician under age 40 and the first African-American woman to be elected to the American Medical Association Board of Trustees.

She is a Macarthur Genius grantee . She is also wonderfully down to earth , the kind of person you’d imagine as your primary care doc, friendly, helpful, non-judgmental.

Dr. Benjamin's talk was sponsored in part by the UW School of Public Health , the UW Alumni Association and The UW Graduate School .

Steve Scher talks with Dr. Adam Drewnowsk i about the links between obesity and poverty. Simply put, people with more money can pay for better food. But people with an attitude researchers are calling 'nutritional resilience' manage to put together a good diet at low cost. So, how can those strategies for eating better on less money spread to the rest of the population?

Dr. Adam Drewnowski on Poverty and Obesity

Steve Scher, UWAA

Two-Thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. The NIH has found that " in contrast to international trends, people in America who live in the most poverty-dense counties are those most prone to obesity." That puts them at greater risk of diabetes and heart disease. Dr. Adam Drewnowski says that while food choices are based on taste, cost and convenience, there is a growing body of evidence that obesity in America is largely an economic issue. Policies that address access or behavior alone are inadequate .

Disparities in health follow disparities in income . For example, UW researchers observed higher obesity rates along the I-5 corridor compared with a leaner population living along the waterfront. Shoppers at Whole Foods are likely leaner than shoppers at Safeway. Both stores offer a variety of food choices. What is happening? Given the results, what are the tools citizens can use to create healthier eating patterns?

Adam Drewnowski is world renowned for his research into diet and social inequality , food taste and food preference, for studies on genetic food taste markers and the roles of sugar, salt and fat on food preferences and food cravings. His studies on taste, cost and convenience have spanned his almost 30 years in this discipline.

He spoke at the UW's Wellness and Weight Lecture Series April 14, 2015 in the talk, "Obesity and Poverty: Linking Food, Health and Incomes."

The series is sponsored by the UW Graduate School , the UW Alumni Association , the School of Public Health

Steve Scher talks with obesity epidemic scholar Shiriki Kumanyika about giving people the tools to understand the health implications of their personal choices.

Shiriki Kumanyika on Lessons From The Obesity Epidemic

Steve Scher, UWAA

There is an obesity epidemic in America and it is spreading around the world, according the World Health Organization . Most of the world population now lives in countries where overweight and obesity kills more people than underweight. The Centers for Disease Control says about one third of Adult Americans are obese. Those rates are higher in the black community. Half of African-American women are obese. Worldwide, obesity has doubled since 1980, according to World Health Organization and 42 million children under 5 were overweight or obese in 2013.

In America, obesity is more common among black women than white women. That has been true for decades. However, it is now more common among black girls than white girls. What is happening?

Shiriki Kumanyika is a scholar in the field of nutrition and public health. She is currently president of the American Public Health Association, a non profit focused around the goal of raising health outcomes in America. Obesity leads to higher risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, osteoarthritis and some cancers. The causes are people eating more foods high in fat, more sedentary lifestyles and physical conditions-bad air, poor urban design, high stress.

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Kumanyika, a name she adopted to reflect her African roots, was born and raised in racially segregated Baltimore, Maryland in the 50's and 60's. After spending some time in social work, she found the tools of nutrition gave her a more concrete way to help. She studied the affect of salt on hypertension and by the 70's was among a number of science researchers arguing for a reduction of salt in the American diet. At Johns Hopkins University, her work as a cardiovascular/nutritional epidemiologist led her to study health disparities in general and the impact of obesity on black women in particular. Her work on the obesity epidemic is focused on efforts that lead black women towards positive changes in their diet.

There are problems with Bell Street in downtown Seattle. It isn't signed clearly at all, and it has inadvertently become a ticket trap. The redesigned street is called a woonerf, a Dutch idea defined as a living yard, or a park-like street where bikers and walkers take precedence over cars. Steve Scher and urban design writer Chuck Wolfe walked the neighborhood to get a sense of what is and is not working. Recorded in 2015.

Michael Pollan talks with Steve Scher about our national eating disorder.

Michael Pollan

Steve Scher

Michael Pollan has helped move food issues toward the center of American politics. His books and articles have focused on how the foods we eat shape our health, environment and culture. He recently co-authored an article , with Mark Bittman and others, calling for a national food policy that could bring about fairer wages, healthier citizens and a more sustainable environmental future.

April 8th, Michael Pollan is kicking off the UW's Weight and Wellness series with a talk entitled "Our National Eating Disorder." The event is sold out, but there may be stand-by tickets.

The Weight and Wellness Series is supported by The UW Alumni Association and The UW Graduate School.

As are these podcasts.

Steve Scher has an in-depth, wide-ranging conversation with David J. Morris about his well-received book, The Evil Hours: A Biography of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Recorded in 2015.