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Fibre's bad for you. Fat's healthy. And five-a-day is a gimmick to make fruit and veg firms rich. Or so claims a remarkable new book 'We think we know what to eat: less red meat and more fibre, less saturated fat and more fruit and veg, right? Wrong, according to a controversial new book by obesity researcher and nutritionist Zoe Harcombe. In The Obesity Epidemic: What Caused It? How Can We Stop It? Harcombe charts her meticulous journey of research into studies that underpin dietary advice — and her myth-busting conclusions are startling.'

The South Beach Diet produces rapid weight loss without counting carbs, fats, or calories. It started out simply enough. Arthur Agatston, MD, a cardiologist, decided to develop an eating plan that would improve the cholesterol and insulin levels of his patients with heart disease. Now, the South Beach diet has grown into something much bigger. That's because the plan Agatston created not only improves cholesterol and insulin levels, but it also has helped many people lose weight. "We've had people lose anywhere from five to 100 pounds on the diet," says Agatston, who is director of the Mount Sinai Cardiac...

Changing the way the world eats is an ambitious goal. The significant changes in the government’s dietary guidelines are an important step forward and a clear signal that the message Dr. Atkins long championed is increasingly heeded. I’m delighted to see the much-awaited dietary guidelines of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). A close look at the recommendations released last week shows how closely these recommendations reflect our efforts to raise carbohydrate awareness and emphasize the importance of weight management. It appears that government officials have listened to the Atkins’...

Eating a high-protein diet can boost the release of a hunger-suppressing hormone, according to new study on mice. The research suggests that a diet rich in protein may be a good way to lose weight and keep it off. Mice fed a protein-heavy diet produced higher levels of an appetite-regulating protein called peptide YY (PYY), which has been linked to reduced appetite in human studies. What's more, the high-protein mice put on less fat than mice on a low-protein regime. The discovery boosts the theory that eating more protein might help to reduce appetite and lead to sustained weight loss,...

Eat less saturated fat: that has been the take-home message from the U.S. government for the past 30 years. But while Americans have dutifully reduced the percentage of daily calories from saturated fat since 1970, the obesity rate during that time has more than doubled, diabetes has tripled, and heart disease is still the country’s biggest killer. Now a spate of new research, including a meta-analysis of nearly two dozen studies, suggests a reason why: investigators may have picked the wrong culprit. Processed carbohydrates, which many Americans eat today in place of fat, may increase the risk of obesity, diabetes...

<p>With courage and care Dr. Ravnskov exposes the lack of experimental evidence for the diet-heart theory, which claims that eating less fat and cholesterol will prevent atheroslcerosis (hardening of the arteries) and myocardial infarctions (heart attacks). By examining original peer-reviewed literature, the author finds no support for the diet-heart theory. He gives examples of scientific fraud among efforts to support the theory, including the deliberate selective omission of data points, and the deliberate assignment of subjects in a clinical trial to treatment or to control groups by physicians with the subject's medical records in hand. He shows how the abstract or conclusions of a number of papers are at odds with the actual data in the papers. He demonstrates how the use of one statistical method in preference to another can give a false impression that there is an effect, where there is, in fact, none. He shows how the reporting of differences in fatality rates by per cent reduction (say, a 50% reduction in relative risk) is actually misleading when the actual death rates are quite small in both the treatment and control groups of subjects in diet or drug studies. For example, a treatment that changes the absolute survival rate over a multi-year period from 99.0% to 99.5% represents a 50% reduction in relative risk, from 1% to 0.5% absolute. This is often described in papers as a 50% reduction in death rate. However, when the difference is barely significant statistically, as was often the case, Ravnskov points out that there is no real reason to recommend adoption of the treatment, especially if there are serious side-effects.</p>

The world's most famous diet is back.  And this time around, it's easier to swallow.  The Atkins Diet, the original low-carbohydrate regimen launched by Dr. Robert Atkins in the '70s, has been reworked in a new book that promises it's healthier and more effective than ever.   "The New Atkins for a New You: The Ultimate Diet for Shedding Weight and Feeling Great," penned by Dr. Eric Westman, Dr. Stephen Phinney and Dr. Jeff Volek, adapts the infamous plan for the 21st century.  "The best way to describe this book is that it makes it easier to do the Atkins Diet...

Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease1,2,3,4,5Patty W Siri-Tarino, Qi Sun, Frank B Hu and Ronald M Krauss1 From the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute Oakland CA (PWS-TRMK)the Departments of Nutrition (QSFBH)Epidemiology (FBH) Harvard School of Public Health Boston MA. 2 PWS-T and QS contributed equally to this work. 3 The contents of this article are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official view of the National Center for Research Resources (http://www.ncrr.nih.gov) or the National Institutes of Health. 4 Supported by the National Dairy Council (PWS-T and...

If the members of the American medical establishment were to have a collective find-yourself-standing-naked-in-Times-Square-type nightmare, this might be it. They spend 30 years ridiculing Robert Atkins, author of the phenomenally-best-selling ''Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution'' and ''Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution,'' accusing the Manhattan doctor of quackery and fraud, only to discover that the unrepentant Atkins was right all along. Or maybe it's this: they find that their very own dietary recommendations -- eat less fat and more carbohydrates -- are the cause of the rampaging epidemic of obesity in America. Or, just possibly this: they find out both of the...

BOSTON — Proponents of the Atkins low-carbohydrate/high saturated fat diet say that you can have your steak and eat it, too, and still lose weight. But the adverse metabolic consequences are too heavy a price to pay, Australian investigators reported at a symposium sponsored by the International Atherosclerosis Society. After 1 year, overweight and obese patients randomly assigned to the Atkins diet or to a low-saturated-fat, high-carbohydrate diet lost similar amounts of weight. But patients on the Atkins diet had a deterioration in flow-mediated arterial dilatation, a marker for cardiovascular disease, and higher levels of LDL cholesterol than at baseline,...

Have you seen the news stories about the obesity epidemic? Did you see Super Size Me? Then guess what? ... You've been fed a load of bologna. Comedian (and former health writer) Tom Naughton replies to the blame-McDonald's crowd by losing weight on a fat-laden fast-food diet while demonstrating that nearly everything we've been told about obesity and healthy eating is wrong. Along with some delicious parody of Super Size Me Naughton serves up plenty of no-bologna facts that will stun most viewers, such as: The obesity "epidemic" has been wildly exaggerated by the CDC. People the government classifies as...

People on low-carbohydrate diets are more dependent on the oxidation of fat in the liver for energy than those on a low-calorie diet, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found in a small clinical study.The findings, published in the journal Hepatology, could have implications for treating obesity and related diseases such as diabetes, insulin resistance and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, said Dr. Jeffrey Browning, assistant professor in the UT Southwestern Advanced Imaging Research Center and of internal medicine at the medical center. "Instead of looking at drugs to combat obesity and the diseases that stem from it, maybe optimizing...

Michael Purdy Senior Medical Sciences Writer purdym@wustl.edu (314) 286-0122 Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis working with diabetic mice have examined in unprecedented detail the immune cells long thought to be responsible for type 1 diabetes. Researchers were able to examine the immune cells from isolated insulin-making structures in the pancreas known as the islets of Langerhans. They caught the immune cells, known as dendritic cells, "red-handed" carrying insulin and fragments of insulin-producing cells known as beta cells. This can be the first step toward starting a misdirected immune system attack that destroys the beta cells,...

For decades, researchers believed that if people with diabetes lowered their blood sugar to normal levels, they would no longer be at high risk of dying from heart disease. But a major federal study of more than 10,000 middle-aged and older people with Type 2 diabetes has found that lowering blood sugar actually increased their risk of death, researchers reported Wednesday. The researchers announced that they were abruptly halting that part of the study, whose surprising results call into question how the disease, which affects 21 million Americans, should be managed. The study’s investigators emphasized that patients should still consult...

'Atkins hormone' discovered 05 June 2007 They are loved and endorsed by celebrities and dismissed as an unhealthy diet craze by critics. But 'low carb', high protein and high fat diets have proven their metabolic worth: scientists in the US have discovered a fat-burning role for a specific hormone stimulated by these eating regimes. The work has also raised the intriguing question of whether the Atkins diet could make you live longer. A group of researchers led by Steven Kliewer at Southwestern University in Dallas, Texas found that a growth hormone called fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) stimulates fat metabolism in...

This is from the Journal Of American Medical Association published on 7 March 2007. The authors are Christopher D. Gardner, PhD et al and the study was sponsored by Stanford University. This is a prospective study of these diets. The Atkins Diet is very low carbohydrate. The LEARN DIET is a comprehensive lifestyle, excercise, attitude and relationship approach that includes a diet low in fat and high carbohydrate. The Ornish Diet is very high in carbohydrates. The Zone Diet is low in carbohydrate. These diets are popular and can be easily Googled. Seventy or more premenopausal women randomly assigned to...

CHICAGO - The low-carb, high-fat Atkins diet gets high marks in one of the biggest, longest head-to-head studies of popular weight-loss plans, beating the Zone, the Ornish diet and even U.S. guidelines. Even so, critics say the results show how hard it is to lose weight and keep it off. Overweight women on the Atkins plan lost more weight over a year than those on the low-carb Zone diet. And they had slightly better blood pressure and cholesterol readings than those on the Zone; the very low-fat, high-carb Ornish diet, and a low-fat, high-carb diet similar to U.S. government guidelines....

Nov 8, 11:19 PM EST Low-Carb Diet Doesn't Raise Heart Risk By LINDA A. JOHNSON Associated Press Writer Eating a low-carb, high-fat diet for years doesn't raise the risk of heart disease, a long-term study suggests, easing fears that the popular Atkins diet and similar regimens might set people up for eventual heart attacks. The study of thousands of women over two decades found that those who got lots of their carbohydrates from refined sugars and highly processed foods nearly doubled their risk of heart disease.At the same time, those who ate a low-carb diet but got more of...

Diabetes appears to be written into some people's genes, but with the right diet and exercise, the disease may never surface, according to a new study. Nearly 1 in 10 U.S. adults age 20 and older have diabetes, a condition in which the body cannot properly regulate blood glucose levels, leading to organ disease and other complications. Type 2 diabetes accounts for 90% to 95% of all diabetes cases, and over the past 6 years, researchers have linked a handful of genes to the disease. Most recently a team at deCode Genetics in Reykjavik, Iceland, found that individuals with one...

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- More dieters are ditching carb counts and biting into baguettes with gusto these days. ... This week's bankruptcy filing by the late Dr. Robert C. Atkins' old company provide fresh evidence of the low-carb diet's demise, a downward spiral that began early last year. But no single new diet has filled the void. Observers say the only sure thing -- given the boom-and-bust nature of weight-loss trends -- is that something will pop up eventually. ''There isn't one single strong contender,'' said Anne M. Russell, editor-in-chief of Shape magazine. ''If you look at what the single...

Carb-conscious Americans continued to flatten Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, as the onetime Wall Street darling yesterday posted a loss of $3 million in the third quarter. That bad news sent the stock reeling 16 percent — or to just above the $7 price of a dozen assorted sweet things. The struggling doughnut chain has lost more than 75 percent of its market value since last year as people have suddenly stayed away from the glazed treats in droves, and opted for healthier snacks. As a result, each Krispy Kreme store has seen $10,000 a week in revenue waddle out the...

[Abstract:] It has been reported that one Ms. Sonya Thomas of Alexandria, VA, net wt 105 lbs, won the lobster speed-eating championship by eating 38 lobsters (9.76 lbs of meat) within 12 minutes. It is further mentioned that in the past she also won baked beans/pork (8.4 lbs in 2min 47sec) and hard-boiled eggs events (results not reported).

New Front in the Golf War. (How Atkins helped my golf game). It's a new year. I'm not dieting, but my wife is. And this time it's strange. Her moods have undergone a radical change. Usually she is like the weird tides up in Nova Scotia - sometimes extreme, always requiring vigilance. Recently however, I've been living on the beaches of Panama City, Fla. Where'd my wife go? Well, she went on something called the Endocrine Control Diet. Basically, it's Atkins with a few twists. My wife has usually given me the same kind of feedback my golf game has...

The Atkins Physicians Council introduces the Atkins Lifestyle Food Guide Pyramid to government officials. Earlier this week, I was privileged to brief federal officials and members of the Bush administration, along with Mary C. Vernon, M.D. and Stephen B. Sondike, M.D., my two fellow members of the Atkins Physicians Council (APC). Our mission in going to Washington, D.C., was to deliver a proposal for a new and innovative food guide pyramid that supports a controlled-carbohydrate lifestyle. This way of eating could serve the needs of many of the more than 100 million Americans who are losing the battle against obesity....

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Your Right to Use Nutritional Supplements Is in Jeopardy Senators Push Regulatory Assault on Vitamins by Dr. Julian Whitaker Posted Sep 3, 2003 Text Size:  S   M   L printer-friendly email to a friend Government Ignores the True Cost of Medical Care    Pharmaceutical Firms Latest To Learn That No Good Deed Goes Unpunished    Hillary's Back!    Admitting Real Costs Could Have Killed Drug Bill    Medicare?s Insolvent Entitlement    We need to take action, and we need to take action now. There is a movement in Congress to push through legislation that would restrict your freedom to use nutritional supplements, and...

<p>May 16, 2004 -- Dr. Atkins' disciples are eating major food companies alive. The low-carb diet trend is turning the stomachs of the makers of traditional staples like bread and pasta, who are blaming their shrinking profits on shrinking waistlines.</p>

No-Carb Eating Couple Booted From Buffet for Eating Too Much Beef Apr 23, 2004 The Associated Press SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - A couple on a low-carb diet were kicked out of a buffet restaurant after the manager said they'd eaten too much roast beef. Sui Amaama, who along with his wife have been on the Atkins Diet for two weeks, was "It's so embarrassing actually," said Isabelle Leota, Amaama's wife. "We went in to have dinner, we were under the impression Chuck-A-Rama was an all-you-can-eat establishment." Not so, said Jack Johanson, the restaurant chain's district manager. "We've never claimed...

Jeff Greenfield, in his end of the show commentary on Inside Politics, surmised that Bush is in trouble come November thanks to Atkins dieters. How does he come to this improbable, and wishful, conclusion? A study released last week showed that carbohydrate deprived dieters had low levels of serotonin, leading them to be grumpier. And grumpy people tend to vote incumbents out of office. There are currently fifteen million people on the low-carb Atkins diet, therefore Bush will face the wrath of Grumpy Atkins dieters and be voted out of office in November, at least that's the way Jeff Greenfield...

<p>The world's oldest and now most controversial sport -- big-game hunting -- could be transformed into a provocative quest acceptable to most anyone if a new sport were created: catch-and-release hunting.</p> <p>Imagine the thrill of tracking, spotting, stalking and hunting the world's greatest game animals at close range in Africa -- lion, Cape buffalo, leopard, elephant and rhinoceros -- without killing any of them.</p>

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans are eating more fat and cholesterol as "low-carb" diets grow in popularity, but people do not seem to be losing weight and they are putting their health at risk, U.S. researchers said on Friday. If the trend continues toward more fat and fewer vegetables and grains, Americans could suffer more heart disease, already the No. 1 killer in the country, they warned. "It is pretty clear from marketing data ... that over the past two years there have been specific trends toward more fat intake in the diet. If that is true, that would then suggest...

<p>The Atkins Diet and other weight-loss plans that limit carbohydrates can turn you into a sourpuss, a new study shows.</p> <p>Scientists found carbohydrates help boost the production of serotonin which controls emotions and a shortage can lead to mood swings and depression.</p>

The Atkins diet - and others that limit carbohydrates - are likely to put you in a bad mood, research has found. A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has found carbohydrates help to stimulate production of a key brain chemical called serotonin. It controls our emotions, and a shortage can lead to mood swings and depression. The Atkins diet has become hugely popular despite concerns over its effect on health. Some experts are concerned about whether it might trigger diabetes and kidney damage in the long term. Researcher Dr Judith Wurtman said: "When serotonin is made and becomes...

LAKELAND, Fla. - Tired of losing orange juice drinkers to low-carb diets, Florida's citrus growers are fighting back. The state Department of Citrus on Wednesday changed its marketing strategy to convince consumers that orange juice can be compatible with the Atkins diet as well as the popular weight-loss plan pushed by television talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw. The department's lawyer also is reviewing legal options against some books, such as "The South Beach Diet," that discourage orange juice for dieting purposes because of its high sugar levels. About $1.8 million will be spent on a marketing campaign to combat...

New York's Mayor Bloomberg, a dedicated foe of tobacco doesn't like fat either - and he thinks it was fat and not a head injury that killed diet guru Dr. Robert Atkins. Chowing down at a New York firehouse, Bloomberg told firefighters "I don't believe that bull- s- - - - that [Atkins] dropped dead slipping on the sidewalk," Bloomberg said eating low fat bow-tie pasta, chicken and vegetables with FDNY Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta and a group of Brooklyn firefighters according to the New York Post. Atkins, whose high protein, low carb diet is the rage across America reportedly died...

The Atkins diet - not always seen as a healthy way to shed weight - may help to prevent fits in children with epilepsy, a team of US scientists says. Six patients, including three children aged up to 12, kept to the low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet and were studied by researchers from Johns Hopkins children's centre in Baltimore. They remained seizure-free for between four and 20 months and were able to take lower doses of medication. Because the study involved only six people, the research should be treated with caution and the Atkins diet should not be used to replace the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A nutrition advocacy group warned on Thursday that the popular Atkins diet may cause heart disease and could have killed a teen-age dieter. It urged the U.S. government to monitor the high-fat weight loss approach to see if it indeed causes heart disease. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine stressed it could not prove the diet had hurt or killed anyone. But one dieter said he believed the approach clogged his arteries and the parents of a teen-ager who died while on the diet also blamed her meat-heavy regimen. The PCRM called on the U.S. Centers for...

Monica Lewinsky Says Her Past Has Hurt Her Love Life - Wed Nov 19, 1:46 PM ET NEW YORK (Reuters) - Monica Lewinsky says her White House liaison is a liability on the dating scene. The intern infamous for her affair with U.S. President Bill Clinton said in the December issue of GQ magazine that she dates occasionally but her romantic relationships have been short-lived. Lewinsky, 30, said in the interview she sympathized with the men she meets, saying she, too, would be intimidated by the tales of her past. "If I were a guy and I'd heard all those...

NOVEMBER 10--Fresh from a $24,000 victory over the British tab that published her wedding photos, Catherine Zeta-Jones is fixing for her next legal fight--this time, if you can believe it, over published reports that the Academy Award winner shed pounds via the Atkins diet. In a warning letter sent last week to media outlets (see below), lawyers for Zeta-Jones assert that "her likeness and persona have been improperly linked" to the popular diet in press accounts, adding that the weight loss program "has been derided by nutritionists and other health care officials for decades." By incorrectly reporting that Zeta-Jones "uses...

Embarrassment, Health Issues Prompted Dieting Many people have struggled to drop a few pounds, but what happens when you need to lose several hundred pounds? Several years ago, Steve and Melissa Horstman of Boone County, Ky., decided that they didn't want to live with their weight problems anymore, and they used the emotional pain over being overweight to reach their goals. Melissa and Steve met on the Internet several years ago and soon learned of their common bond: obesity. "When you weigh 150 pounds over, you don't go out and socialize," Melissa said. The couple met, dated and married, but...

Rehab plan focuses on dietBy DAN RICE, Staff WriterAudrey Sunnyboy noticed a troubling trend when she entered the drug and alcohol treatment field in 1990. "I was watching people and was realizing that most of the Alaska Native people did not recover from alcoholism," she said. "And as I was going along, I would ask, 'Did you ever go to AA?' Then they would say, 'No, because I didn't want to talk.'" Sunnyboy said the realization that AA's 12-step program does not work for everyone, especially people who are reluctant to talk about themselves, is what led to her interest...

Official: Atkins diet can be deadly Jo Revill, health editor Sunday September 21, 2003 The Observer The first official warning about the dangers of the Atkins diet has been issued by the Government amid concern about the rising number of people opting for the high-fat, high-protein regime. The Food Standards Agency, which is responsible for all the Government's nutritional guidance, has published a statement alerting the public to the health risks of low-carbohydrate diets, including Atkins, claiming that they are linked to heart disease, cancer and even obesity. In the past two months senior nutritionists have held talks with the...

When Unilever PLC, the British food giant that owns Slim-Fast Foods, announced in July that U.S. profits had dropped 23 percent, it quickly pointed an accusing finger at the Atkins diet, the trendy weight-loss plan high in protein and low in carbohydrates. Atkins, Unilever's chairman explained, has set off shock waves in consumption that have cut Slim-Fast's profits, and there's no way to fight a fad. Suddenly, Wall Street is blaming the diet craze for all sorts of economic upheavals, and the deafening buzz is almost enough to drown out economic sense. Time, the Economist, USA Today, and countless media...

David Blaine is being "tortured" by the smell of food wafting up from a burger van parked underneath the transparent box in which he is spending 44 days without food. The New York illusionist, 30, has been suspended 40ft in the air in his tiny plexiglass central London "home" since Friday. Tony Montana, manager of the Riverside Refreshments van parked just 50 yards from Blaine said: "If he doesn't like it, that's tough. We can't move the smell." Montana has even extended his opening hours as Blaine's stunt has upped his takings to over £1,000 a day from the transfixed...

<p>WASHINGTON, Aug. 22 (UPI) -- Nutritionists are urging the top 10 U.S. hospitals to ban the Atkins diet, reports said Friday.</p> <p>The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine announced Friday in Washington it hopes the hospitals will emulate England's Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, which is eliminating the controversial diet from its menus, fearing a link to kidney damage.</p>

FLATULENCE is responsible for the death of hundreds of cattle exported to the Middle East each year. Cows gas themselves to death by emitting fatally high levels of ammonia during the lengthy voyages, a University of New England conference has heard. The exact reason for high fatality rates on cattle export voyages had eluded scientists until now, the university said. Researcher Jeisana Accioly said the cows' high protein diets were the cause of the problem. Voyages to the Middle East can take between 13 and 31 days. Temperatures on board can soar dramatically as the ship crosses the Equator, leading...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Former Charles Manson disciple and convicted murderer Susan Atkins is suing Gov. Gray Davis, contending his policy opposing parole for nearly all murderers has made her a political prisoner. Parole board members and prison officials also are named in the federal civil rights lawsuit, which accuses them of ignoring the Constitution and parole rules to keep Atkins behind bars. "Over the course of her incarceration, Ms. Atkins has been transformed into a political prisoner," said the suit, filed by attorney Eric P. Lampel of Irvine. He said psychiatrists call her a model prisoner who is not a...

Now, food companies and retailers are hoping for similar happy results by focusing on products that fit the Atkins plan. But some of those sales gains are coming at the expense of companies whose foods aren't Atkins-friendly. :VERY LARGE BREAK IN ARTICLE: A low for carbs The Atkins boom worries companies that depend on carbohydrates – such as pasta, tortilla and bread makers. Pasta consumption is still growing, but hardly at the carbo-loading inspired rates of the 1980s, according to American Italian Pasta Co., the largest U.S. pasta maker. "Our industry would be growing faster if not for the Atkins...

Well, Some of us Freepers are going to give the Atkins Diet the good ole college try! Now that several articles have been posted on the Atkins diet.. a truly good proven way to lose weight we invite all you folks who are serious to come and join in our comments and suggestions. Since staying positive adds to the joy on the journey, I invite you to stay POSITIVE. Let us know what works for you and what doesn't. I would like to suggest that we "freep mail" each other through out the week for support. Also Let's comment on...

<p>Thanksgiving dinner: Turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes and the most served dish of all in America: guilt.</p> <p>Every newspaper reader knows it. Americans are growing wider. According to the federal government, 61 percent of American adults are overweight -- 26 percent are obese.</p>