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- Written by: Dr. Steven West, ND
Some studies claim the obesity rate to be much higher, more like 60 to 65 percent. Obesity is defined as 20 percent over the ideal body weight.
Studies claim we are the fattest country on earth! If you’ve traveled overseas to Europe and Asia you would probably concur. Asians, Europeans, Africans and Latin Americans definitely seem to be more slender than the average American.
Studies also point out that Americans have some of the world’s highest rates of cancer, diabetes and heart disease. And yet many Americans, and certainly our “health care” industry, brag that we have the finest and most advanced medical care system in the world.
The problem is at once simple and complex. Any dietitian, nutritionist or naturopath like me would suggest that, for one thing, we simply eat less and exercise more. We’ve all heard that we need to eat far fewer simple and far more complex carbohydrates.
Another mantra is increasingly becoming, “Eat more organically grown foods (clean and more nutrient-rich) and less processed food.” That’s the “simple” part.
The hard parts are that we’ve grown up as an addictive society. The vast majority of us grew up eating foods laden with pesticides and grown in nutritionally poor or bankrupt agri-soils. Relatively inexpensive frozen and canned foods that typically contain sugars, and a host of additives, are not only our choice and for the most part what’s readily available to us, but due to the sugars ( including high fructose corn syrup) these food have become our addiction.
There are six tastes: sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent. Each taste has both a physiological and emotional response. Sweet taste is the most emotionally nurturing of all the tastes. Sweet taste is the taste of “I feel secure now.” It occurs, to some extent, in all grains, fruits and vegetables. It is the main taste in meats.
We need sugars to turn into glycogen to feed our 100 trillion cells. What we don’t need is refined, concentrated and processed sugars like cane and high fructose sugars. These sugars spike insulin levels and ultimately create enormous health problems. These sugars, more than anything else, create obesity. They’re almost ubiquitous in our supermarket food supply. And we’ve become addicted to them.
These refined sugars, along with excessive free-radical and homocystiene damage, create an almost unbridled internal inflammation. Studies all over the world are now in agreement that all of our deadly diseases are at least co-created by chronic subclinical inflammation. It’s not inflammation that we most often don’t feel, nor have any symptom of, and yet inflammation is a natural response in the body.
The immune system creates an inflammation whenever we suffer a cut or abrasion. It’s a natural part of the healing response. But internal inflammation often goes unchecked and out of control due, in part, to a cascade of events from consuming excessive amounts of refined sugars. Also, its internal scaring and ensuing inflammation in our veins and arteries that demand a build up of excessive cholesterol that acts as an anti-inflammatory agent.
Finally, it doesn’t take a well-financed scientific study to conclude that Lake County has a very high rate of obesity. Something must be done to avert further landslides of suffering from an information vacuum on the causes and prevention of the obesity epidemic in Lake County.
As long as local residents purchase foods that contribute to the problem, the supermarkets and mom and pop stores will continue to carry sugar-laden foods. Demand creates supply. Informed Lake County residents will eventually make more intelligent food choices. Life is not so much a tragedy of nutrition – life is a tragedy of information.
Steven West, ND is a Kelseyville- based naturopath and nutritionist. He graduated form the Institute for Natural Health Studies and has been in practice in California for 18 years.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The state is offering a new set of rules under AB 885 that would require inspections of septic systems at least once every five years, and also could require some people to replace their systems, costs which could run into the tens of thousands, according to opponents of the measure.
A meeting had been set for Tuesday evening at the Wells Fargo Center in Santa Rosa, as Lake County News reported earlier this week.
However, when hundreds of people showed up, with traffic backing up out onto Highway 101 and people standing in aisles and doorways, the meeting was shut down.
Chuck March, executive director of the Lake County Farm Bureau, attended the very short meeting, which he said only ran about 15 minutes before it was stopped.
“A lot of people were pretty upset,” said March, who noted that a water board official was about three pages into a PowerPoint presentation before the meeting was halted.
March noted that people “from all walks of life” had crowded into the meeting to hear what the state is proposing.
Ray Ruminski, director of Lake County Environmental Health, also attended with some of his staffers, and recounted the many people jammed into the auditorium and out into the hallway and lobby.
He said he didn't think the water board could have foreseen such a huge crowd turning out.
Both Ruminski and March said it was a fire official who ultimately stopped the proceedings.
Water board spokesperson Kathie Smith said in response to the cancellation two new meetings have been scheduled in Santa Rosa on Feb. 9, in the Ruth Finley Person Theater – which has a 1,500-person capacity – at the Wells Fargo Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road.
The first session will take place from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., the second from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. Smith said both meetings will present identical information.
Feb. 9 was the original date for a public hearing in Sacramento that the State Water Resources Control Board had planned. That hearing has been postponed, Smith said.
The state also has extended the comment period on the regulations, from Feb. 9 to noon on Feb. 23.
Written comments may be sent to Todd Thompson, PE, Division of Water Quality, State Water Resources Control Board, 1001 I St., P.O. Box 2231, Sacramento, CA 95812; fax, 916-341-5463; e-mail,
Questions about the public comments also can be directed to Thompson at 916-341-5518 or to Gita Kapahi, director of public participation, at 916-341-5501.
To see the proposed regulations and other background information, visit www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/septic_tanks/.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Lake County News Reports
Patrick Dewin McDaniel, 44, of Clearlake Oaks was returned to Lake County on Thursday and booked into the Lake County Jail on an attempted murder charge, according to Capt. James Bauman of the Lake County Sheriff's Office.
McDaniel was wanted for his alleged part in a Nov. 26 confrontation, in which he is alleged to have shot 42-year-old Patrick O'Conner of Clearlake Oaks, as Lake County News has reported.
His brother, Cecil McDaniel, 37, also of Clearlake Oaks, also was allegedly involved.
The two brothers allegedly fled from the scene that night. Cecil McDaniel was located and arrested by sheriff’s detectives in Clearlake Oaks on Dec. 3 and remains in the Lake County Jail on $500,000 bail, charged with being an accessory.
Bauman said Patrick McDaniel remained at large until Dec. 17, when he was located and arrested on fugitive warrant by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police.
McDaniel, a recent parolee, was extradited by the U.S. Marshals Office from the Clark County Jail in Nevada to the San Quentin State Prison in early December where he was held on a related parole violation, Bauman said.
A removal order was signed by Lake County Superior Court Judge Stephen Hedstrom on Jan. 26, and McDaniel was transported back to Lake County on Thursday, according to Bauman.
McDaniel was booked at the Lake County Jail Thursday afternoon on charges which Bauman said include attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, felon in possession of a firearm and accessory to a crime.
Bauman said that McDaniel also is being held on a bench warrant for failure to appear on a prior felony narcotics offense and a CDC parole hold.
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- Written by: Lake County News Reports
On Super Bowl Sunday 2008, 12 people were killed in alcohol-involved collisions – three times the daily average in California, the agency reported.
These deaths, CHP said, were in addition to the 167 people injured in alcohol-related crashes throughout the state.
“We're not discouraging the celebration,” said CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow. “We're asking fans to make the right call, so they won't find themselves benched in a jail cell.”
CHP officers statewide arrested 403 motorists for driving under the influence (DUI) on Super Bowl Sunday last year.
This year the CHP, along with police and sheriff's departments, will be deploying special DUI patrols through the Avoid Campaign across the state to lower alcohol-involved deaths and injuries.
Law enforcement invites the public to help by calling 911 to report a suspected drunk driver. Callers should be prepared to provide dispatchers with a description of the vehicle, its location and direction of travel.
“A DUI is no 5-yard penalty,” Farrow warned. “It's something that will follow you around for years to come.“
In addition to designating a driver, the CHP encourages motorists to wear a seat belt and comply with the speed limit.
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