Doctors Agree - Big Macs Bad for Liver

How 30 days of Big Macs gave
man super-size health woes

Last February, Morgan Spurlock decided to become a gastronomical guinea pig. His mission: To eat three meals a day for 30 days at McDonald's and document the impact on his health.

Scores of cheeseburgers, hundreds of fries and dozens of chocolate shakes later, the formerly strapping 6-foot-2 New Yorker - who started out at a healthy 185 pounds - had packed on 25 pounds. But his supersized shape was the least of his problems.

Within a few days of beginning his drive-through diet, Spurlock, 33, was vomiting out the window of his car, and doctors who examined him were shocked at how rapidly Spurlock's entire body deteriorated.

"It was really crazy - my body basically fell apart over the course of 30 days," Spurlock told The Post.

His liver became toxic, his cholesterol shot up from a low 165 to 230, his libido flagged and he suffered headaches and depression.

Spurlock charted his journey from fit to flab in a tongue-in-cheek documentary, which he has taken to the Sundance Film Festival with the hopes of getting a distribution deal.

'Super-Size Me' explores the obesity epidemic that plagues America today - a sort of 'Bowling for Columbine' for fast food.

As well as documenting his own burger-fueled bulk-up, Spurlock travels to 20 cities across America, interviewing people on the street, health experts and a lobbyist for the fast-food industry.

Despite making dozens of phone calls, Spurlock fails to get anyone from McDonald's to agree to an on-camera interview.

A spokeswoman for McDonald's told The Post yesterday that no representatives from the corporation had seen 'Super-Size Me.'

"Consumers can achieve balance in their daily dining decisions by choosing from our array of quality offerings and range of portion sizes to meet their taste and nutrition goals," McDonald's said in a statement.

Over the course of the film, Spurlock is regularly examined by a gastroenterologist, a cardiologist and Soho-based general practitioner Dr. Daryl Isaacs.

"He was an extremely healthy person who got very sick eating this McDonald's diet," Dr. Isaacs told The Post. "None of us imagined he could deteriorate this badly - he looked terrible. The liver test was the most shocking thing - it became very, very abnormal."

Spurlock has since returned to normal health. "The treatment was to just stop doing what he was doing," Dr. Isaacs says.

Spurlock, who says he ate at McDonald's only sporadically before his total immersion in the Mickey D's menu, says he even began craving fat and sugar fixes between meals.

"I got desperately ill," he says. "My face was splotchy and I had this huge gut, which I've never had in my life. My knees started to hurt from the extra weight coming on so quickly. It was amazing - and really frightening."

Spurlock's girlfriend, Alex Jamieson, was horrified - she's a vegan chef.

"She was completely disgusted by me, not happy at all," he says. "But she realized what my goals were in trying to educate people."

Spurlock, a film producer who grew up in West Virginia and studied ballet for eight years, was spurred to make his first feature film while watching TV on Thanksgiving Day, 2002.

"I was feeling like a typical American on Thanksgiving - very bloated and happy on the couch - and at some point on the news they were talking about two women who were suing McDonald's. People from the food industry were saying, "You can't link kids being fat to our food - our food is nutritious." I said, "How nutritious is it really? Let's find out."

Not surprisingly, Spurlock has steered clear of the Golden Arches since filming wrapped.

"I have not had McDonald's for seven months, but yesterday, during an interview, I had a bite of a Big Mac," he says. "I chewed it up, swallowed it and I said, You know what, I'm pretty much done after that bite."
Megan Lehmann, New York Post, 22nd January 2004

CTM COMMENT: Perhaps the most telling statement in the above article are the words of Dr Isaacs: 'The treatment was to just stop doing what he was doing.' How about that for a doctor giving nutritional advice to his patient? For the full CTM treatment on food and what to do if you are caught in the fun-buns trap, please see the resources below.

US Government Influenced by Sugar Industry

The Bush administration has been putting the interests of businesses, particularly the sugar industry, ahead of the global fight against obesity.

Since 1990, successive U.S. governments have blocked the World Health Organization's (WHO) call for action to reduce the national recommendation of sugar consumption from 25 percent to 10 percent. The Bush administration, which receives millions of dollars in funding from the sugar industry, argues that there is little evidence to prove that consuming too much sugar is a direct cause of obesity. The president believes fighting fat is a matter of the individual, not the state, and opposes WHO's recommendation to reduce sugar consumption to 10 percent.

In response to the Bush Administration's statement, the leader of WHO fought back with a worldwide policy that proposes changes to advertising and tax policy to promote healthier diets. At this time, it is said that further discussions would be needed before a final plan is approved.

One in three Americans suffer from the health risks that are linked with obesity. It is estimated that 300 million people worldwide are obese, and 750 million are overweight. Statistics show obesity rates have risen 50 percent in American children. Obesity has been proven to increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes and other chronic illness.
BBC News, 21st January 2004

PHILLIP DAY'S COMMENT: In my book Health Wars, I have a special chapter devoted to the damage sugar and high-glycaemic foods can do to the body. Obesity is now such a problem in the US, GB, Canada and Australasia that pressure must be brought to bear on the media and government alike to educate the population on the dangers. I am not at all surprised by the massive sugar lobby's success with G W Bush, a man whose capacity for self-aggrandisement and nest-feathering is Herculean. Perhaps another reason for attacking the very core of politicians' power when there is so much at stake might be to let the apathetic multitudes know directly there is so much they can do to avoid keeling over in the shopping mall and spending the remainder of their fore-shortened lives sucking on a ventilator. In the end, from your body's biochemical standpoint, there are no choices. Eat wrong, die badly. Eat well, see your grandkids grow up.

Further Resources:
Health Wars by Phillip Day
Wake up to Health in the 21st Century by Steven Ransom
Food for Thought by Phillip Day

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