Disease Proof

• According to HealthDay News the CDC has joined the probe into the spinach-E. coli breakout. Barry Hoffman and Jeff Walsh report:

The number of people sickened by the E. coli outbreak linked to contaminated spinach from California's Salinas Valley has risen to 109 people in 19 states, while officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they have joined the investigation.

CDC officials said Sunday that they've started an emergency operations center in Atlanta to assist state health agencies with testing for E. coli, which has also been blamed for the death of a 77-year-old woman in Wisconsin. The center is assisting state agencies that can't perform the tests or when a second opinion is needed, agency spokeswoman Lola Russell told the Associated Press.

• Diabetes Mine talks about a recent article in Business Week discussing the growth of the healthcare industry in the United States:

Why is that our doctors are typically so rushed during visits? Rarely return our phone calls, or have "new policies" that forbid their office workers from faxing patients' subscriptions to pharmacies and other helpful gestures? Because they are trying to do more with less, right?! At least that's what they've been bemoaning for years now, and I believe it.

• The AFP reports by 2010 one in five American children will be obese:

Unless public health takes urgent measures, one in five children in the United States will be obese by the year 2010, the Institute of Medicine warned in a report.

Currently, one third of American children are obese or at risk of becoming so. The rate of childhood obesity has jumped from 16 percent in 2002, to 17.1 percent in 2004 and will reach 20 percent in four years, the report said.

• Organic Fan passes on a link listing the top green schools in the U.S.:

1. Punahou School (private), Honolulu, HI
2. The Willow School (private), Gladstone, NJ
3. Desert Edge High School (public), Goodyear, AZ
4. East Clayton Elementary (public), Clayton, NC
5. Conserve School (private), Land O’Lakes, WI

• A recent survey reveals poor states are among the fattest. Reuters reports:

The survey of 300,000 adults by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that overall, 60.5 percent of Americans were overweight, 23.9 percent were obese, and 3 percent were extremely obese.


Obesity was as common in men as in women -- 24 percent in both. Among ethnic groups, non-Hispanic blacks had the highest rates, with just under 34 percent of those surveyed considered obese, according to the survey known as the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.

• Now Dr. Fuhrman would prefer you eat raw almond or cashew butter, but for the record, Diet-Blog is busy discussing the merits of Skippy:

Take the humble spanish peanut. Per 100 grams it contains 50g of fat, 26g of protein, and 16g of carbohydrate (of which 9g is fiber) - and that's just the macro-nutrients. The peanut butter process involves roasting the nut, stripping the outer skin, and grinding the nut into a paste.


Over the years food manufacturers have added sugar to appease our sweet tooth, they've added salt, and they've added various kinds of stabilizers to get that creamy texture. Eventually we end up with products like Skippy® Reduced Fat Creamy - a complete oxymoron because peanuts are all about fats and protein.