In the past, I have written about the intertwined relationship between Coca-Cola and the residents of Mexican. Yesterday as I was swimming laps in the pool outside our condo in Mazatlán, Mexico, I was reminded of this deal with the devil. A group of young Mexicans were having a lunch party near the pool and I counted over a dozen two-liter bottles of Coca-Cola on their tables. The picture above was just taken as we walked towards out condo. I noticed that there was a Mexican gardener doing his job and I took a picture of the essential tools of his trade—a 2-liter bottle of Coca-Cola, a transistor radio and a machete!
Small Town Mayhem
What are the roots of the Mexican love for this deadly brown poison? The small picturesque village of San Cristobal de las Casa provides a telling tale. This small mountain village has very limited access to clean water, so over the years they have relied on Coca-Cola as their beverage of choice. The large Coca-Cola Bottling plant on the edge of town takes care of the supply side of the equation. They have a contract with the Federal Government to extract more than 300,000 gallons of fresh water daily and turn it into Coke. The money from this decades-old arrangement goes to the Federal Government rather than the local government. Thus, there is almost no money for local infrastructure projects. The roads and schools are in terrible shape and medical care is almost non-existent. That’s why local folks are left to sit around and until they acquire the inevitable evil twins obesity and type 2 diabetes from drinking gallons of Coke every day.
Mexican’s lead the world in Coca-Cola consumption, drinking almost twice as much as the average American. When you rank all the countries in the world according to their incidence of type 2 diabetes, Mexico is ranked 24th but it is the first country with a large population that is listed. The United States comes in at 43rd and our rate is nothing to brag about. The local residents of this small town now consume more than two liters of this toxic brew daily. The national government has smartened up and a few years ago they decide to tax sugar, the first such tax by a large country in the world. For a short period of time this tax did reduce consumption of sugar, but since then it has gradually returned to pre-tax levels. This tax is largely irrelevant for consumption in places like San Cristobal de las Casa because they really have no other choice than to drink Coke, regardless of the cost. The tax simply makes it more difficult for poor people to buy healthy whole foods because Coke is sucking up all their meager income. This just isn’t a regressive tax—I call it a “toxic tax”.
Humans: The Kings of Fatville
Mexico is number two in the world behind the United States when it comes to having the highest average BMI, one measure of obesity. Because obesity if defined as “excess body fat” then obesity is really a body composition issue. BMI is more of a size measure and I can evaluate your size by simply looking at you. At the upper end of obesity humans have attained 60-70 percent body fat. To state it another way, we are the fattest species of animal on the planet! This is a list of our leaner cousins:
- whales – max body fat is 50%
- walruses – max body fat is 30-35%
- manatees – max body fat is 20-25%
- polar bears – max body fat is 35%
- penguins – max body fat is 30%
- seals – max body fat is 40%
The average human has 25-31% body fat for women and 18-24% for men. That gives you an idea of how much our diet of junk food and sugary beverages has pushed the envelope for extreme obesity.
Drain Your Brain
To make matters worse, excessive fructose consumption from sugary beverages like Coke eventually deplete the brain of key neurotransmitters such as dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin and acetylcholine leading to a form of food-induced brain dysfunction called Carbohydrate Reversible Brain syndrome or CARB syndrome. Folks with this disease always crave sweet and starchy food, pushing them to consume even more of the junk that is frying their brain. After a cursory look, sweet and starchy food appear to be “addictive”, but it’s a bit more complex than simple addiction. These cravings are hard-wired into our brain during our evolutionary development, but they have been “kidnapped” by sweet and starchy food.
CARB syndrome has 22 symptoms that overlap traditional brain disorders, creating a huge diagnostic and therapeutic mess. If you have CARB syndrome, likely the most common chronic disease on the planet, your physician will try to give you medications for the traditional disorders and these drugs will only make your CARB syndrome symptoms worse over time. They will also cause you to store more body fat. A fat body and a brain that doesn’t work so well—definitely not where you want to go!
In Mexico, Coca-Cola is distributed by FEMSA, one of the largest soda distributors in the world. Mexico’s former President Vicente Fox once worked as a Coca-Cola truck driver during the years that Coke and Pepsi were involved in an intense cola war that made the drug cartel wars look like child’s play. Coke eventually won that battle and Fox moved on to become President of Mexico. He received much of his financial backing from Coca-Cola.
A Little Knowledge Goes a Long Way
In my opinion, the only hope for the residents of San Cristobal de las Casa and the rest of Mexico is for them to understand the pathology of CARB syndrome so they become motivated to take the simple steps that it takes to reverse the disease. The first step is taking the supplement L-glutamine 500-1,000 mg 3-4x per day. This will help suppress those pesky cravings. The next step is to take a precursor supplement that can help restore your brain levels of key neurotransmitters. I have developed the supplement CARB-22 to fulfill this key part of treatment. Once your cravings are suppressed and your neurotransmitters are topped off, you need to avoid all highly processed food loaded with added sugar, high glycemic carbohydrates, and omega 6 fatty acids.
If you know and care about any Mexican people, please refer them to this blog post. It may turn out to be a life-saving gesture!