Obesity Classified as a Disease - Beneficial or Not?

Interviewer: Let's talk about something in the recent news.  As we're shooting this today it's just a day or two past the American Medical Association officially classifying obesity as a disease.  What does that do moving forward?  Is that a good thing in the long term?

Dr. Derrick DeSilva: Is that a good thing in the long term?  I think it opens up the possibility that there will be more funding and there will be more emphasis placed on the obesity epidemic in this country.  I think there's the other side of that is the insurance companies are going, whoa!  You mean we got to pay for this now?  We pay for everything else, now we have to pay for prevention?  Jees, that's just really freaking us out.  And I think that's what's going to happen.  Is the insurance companies are going to say, we're not going to pay for this.  You mean we have to start paying for, and I heard a commentary on this yesterday, so now because it's a disease we have to treat it as a disease.  The funding now has to be increased just like funding for diabetes research, funding for heart disease research, etc.  And insurance companies are going to have to pay for dietary counseling.  They're going to have to pay for exercise.  They're going to have to pay for anything that goes along with that disease being taken care of.  So I think...it's going to...I'm not sure how it's going to morph, I don't know how it's going to evolve but I think that it's a good thing and I'm hoping that people will start paying a little bit more attention to themselves.

Interviewer: Go back a ways.  Can you talk about how we got to the problem in the first place with obesity in this country?

Dr. Derrick DeSilva: I really think that the problem began when we took...when we really stopped paying attention to eating at home.  So many of us eat out.  I think the average family eats out two or three times a week.  When you do that the preservatives, the sugar, the chemicals. All of this I believe contributes to the body's obesity epidemic.  I also think that going back we as a society are so incredibly stressed.  There is tons of data on human studies and on animal studies that have shown that when you stress the body and when you stress the body and raise cortisol what happens is the body starts to burn fuel.  It needs fuel.  That fuel becomes sugar.  Your body starts to say, oh my goodness we don't have enough stores so you start eating.  I was just reading a study yesterday that showed that people that are more stressed are 60 to 70% more likely to eat badly because your body goes back to the caveman days and says, oh my goodness I'm running around, I'm stressed I have to make sure that I have enough fuel to get through the next couple of days and that would be food.  So you eat foods that are very high in sugar to store in the body.  So what is contributed to this? I think number one, sugar.  Sugar is the most addicting substance on the planet.  It's more addicting than heroin, cocaine, or any other drug.  We've got to start eating at home.  Mom's got to start cooking, dad's got to start cooking.  And we have to stop eating out more.  And I think we have to do everything we can to cut down the stress in our bodies, the stress in our lives.  And we also, the other thing that contributes a tremendous amount to the obesity epidemic is that...and I've been looking at this recently with some new technology that I have to look at the heavy metal toxicities.  The heavy metal concentrations in people's bodies.  I have looked at over 150 people in my practice, through again some new technology that I have.  And it has shown me that every single one of those people including myself, who I've been pretty clean for a long time, have heavy metals.  Lead, mercury, aluminum.  Nickel.  In our bodies.  That are deadly.  That block receptors.  That block the function of so many vitamins, minerals, nutrients in this country.  Women that are menopausal, perimenopausal, men that are going through andropause you can't fix that problem unless you get rid of the minerals.  Unless you clean your liver.  Unless you clean your kidneys and unless you clean your system you are not going to get better.  And I've been doing this, again, a long time and these are the trends that I'm starting to see.

Interviewer: Where are these metals coming from?

Dr. Derrick DeSilva: Where aren't they coming from?  Aluminum.  Aluminum.  Mom used aluminum pots and pans 39 years ago.  Aluminum comes from the soda cans that people are drinking from.  Aluminum comes from...it's in the environment.  Mercury, fillings.  Fish.  Lead.  Fillings. I would bet that if there's 100 people watching this video I would be 95 of you have fillings in your mouth.  That's the number one source and I tell my patients, don't you dare start taking them out.  Because that's going to go straight to your brain, it's going to really go into your adrenals and you're going to have a problem.  You need to deal with a natural holistic dentist.