Amerindians, Hypertension and Obesity

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Updated November 19:

I recall when I worked for an Indian tribe a decade or so ago. Some silly White liberal health workers came in one day and I went in to talk to them. What was I doing at the Indian tribal headquarters? Why, I was employed on a government grant as an anthropologist and linguist. Wow, how fascinating! And what did these silly PC health workers do? Why, they went around wherever doing health work with Indians.

Why did so many of these Indians have high blood pressure? I was dying to know. First came denial. Whites have HTN too, you know. The angry, suspicious and uncomfortable looks were already starting. Ok, but Indians have more. Way more. What’s it all about? The entire conversation was soon veiled in hostility, suspicion and out and out bad vibes.

I finally got out of these idiots that the diabetes epidemic among these Indians was giving them HTN. Diabetes causes hypertension. How? It destroys your blood vessels by narrowing them. Narrow blood vessels gives you HTN. Why the diabetes? Abandoning the native diet and the taking up (with gusto) of absolutely the very worst (And I do mean the worst!) aspects of the White man’s diet.

I suggested that the high Indian rate of diabetes was due to genetics and an inability to adapt to a White diet they had not evolved to eat. By this time my conversation with the idiotic White health workers had deteriorated, and I kept trying to rescue it. Did you know that genetics and genes do not exist, or, if they do, that they are irrelevant in humans? That there is no such thing as race?

I had wandered into race-denier Hell and, as in a Sartre play, there was "No Exit." Accusations of racism, veiled and otherwise, were hurled in my direction. I was an evil racist and I deserved to die.

Turns out Indians, like indigenous peoples all over, have adopted a thrifty metabolism due to surviving many famines. You have a horrible famine, and the only folks that survive are the ones who can eat hardly any food and somehow manage to not die. Their genes get passed on, and you end up with a race that doesn't need much food to get by.

They live well on a native diet, but on a modern diet (which they invariably adopt the very worst aspects of) they become obese and develop epidemic diabetes and all of the resulting problems. This is also true among Oceanians, Aborigines and Hispanics, who have lots of Indian blood.

The Indians’ idiotic response to this was to blame Whitey for creating an evil diet and I guess force-feeding it to poor helpless Indians, probably by feeding tubes while they were strapped helplessly to their hospital beds. My response, muttered under my breath many times, was, "So quit eating it already!"

Actually I said it out loud a few times. Yep, they admitted doggedly, we gotta quit eating this crappy White man's food. Next time you see them at the supermarket, it's a whole shopping basket loaded up with the very worst foods in the store, and the Indian pushing it can barely squeeze through the aisle.

Some people never learn.

Indians are addicted to the Blame Whitey Game. It’s their favorite pastime.

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Sugar-Free Products and Weight Gain

I was as mystified as the rest of you when I heard that consumption of sugar-free drinks was associated with weight gain. There was a theory behind it - that the sugar-free stuff somehow made you crave actual sugary foods.

I've never liked these drinks much, but lately, I've been sick and living off Squirt and 7-Up. I decided to try some sugar-free stuff for the low-cal. I've been working on a bottle of Coke's Fresca for the last two days. It tastes great for some reason, unlike most aspartame crap.

And I've been snacking on sweets, and food in general, all day. Before I was drinking Squirt and 7-up, full of real sugar, and I wasn't craving any food, sugary or otherwise. Now I'm drinking Fresca and I can't get enough sugary foods.

Now, I usually eat sugar a couple times a day. I eat one as a reward for dessert and maybe a small other one early in the day for a treat. Never had problems with sugar cravings.

How does this work. The real sugary drink doesn't make you crave sugar, maybe because it is sugar. The fake sugar makes you crave sugar, because it tastes sweet, but somehow your body knows it's not real sugar, and the more you drink, the more you want the real thing.

I guess there is something to the theory after all.

Computer Eye Strain

I really do not know why I've suddenly been getting a lot of computer eye strain. Eyebright herb was taking care of it for a while, but it seems to have stopped working. The screen looks kind of dark now, and if I open up a window and let lots of light in, there's less eyestrain.

The other day I reset the monitor refresh from 60 hertz to 75 hertz. If you're having computer eyestrain problems, you might want to look into that.

Juice Fasting

Juice fasting is highly recommended for anyone who wishes to try it.

I just live off coffee, juice, wine and water for a few days. After about four days, things start getting kind of weird. You will start to get a lot more energy, but you will feel strange, like you are on LSD. The increased energy is because your body is not wasting energy digesting food all the time.

You may also find that aches and pains may also go away during the fast. I also found radical diminishment of anxiety and much clearer thinking. But that seems to go away as you start eating again.

Water fasts are dangerous, but are ok for a day or two. Juice fasts work great. Just drink around 32 oz of juice per day for 1-4 days. You can go up to 64 ounces or so. It's completely harmless. Your body odor will start to stink after a well and so will your breath and your farts. This is probably because you are leaking out toxins.

You can exercise, but be careful as you may faint. Just go real easy. You may find yourself tired a lot. Just lie down and sleep. You can also lose weight this way, and I have lost 12 pounds doing juice fasting lately.
Make sure to drink 40 ounces of water per day. You can continue to drink coffee and alcohol. After all, what does a man need but coffee, wine, water, juice and sex? And maybe a steak once in a while?

In fact, alcohol will get you very intoxicated when you fast. Break the fast after 1-4 days. I don't really care how I break it, but some say it is important.

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