According to the World Health Organization (WHO), tobacco, alcohol, ultra-processed foods (UPFs), and fossil fuels are responsible for 2.7 million deaths annually in Europe. This alarming statistic has prompted the WHO to call on governments to impose stricter regulations on these health-harming products.
In a groundbreaking report, the WHO highlights how powerful industries are driving ill health and premature death through “misleading” marketing and interference in governmental efforts to combat diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. The report reveals that tobacco, fossil fuels, UPFs, and alcohol account for over 7,400 deaths daily across Europe’s 53 states. This means that these four industries are responsible for roughly 24.5% of all deaths in Europe each year.
The UN health agency’s findings present an unprecedented critique of the significant damage that major corporations and their products inflict on human health. The report describes how “big industry” employs both overt and covert methods to boost profits, often at the expense of public health policies.
“A small number of transnational corporations wield significant power over the political and legal contexts in which they operate, obstructing public interest regulations that could impact their profit margins,” the WHO stated.
Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge, the WHO regional director for Europe, explained that these industries exploit vulnerable populations through targeted marketing strategies, mislead consumers, and make false claims about the benefits of their products or their environmental credentials. These tactics undermine efforts to reduce smoking, drinking, and obesity, which are among the leading causes of preventable ill health.
The research comes on the heels of 2023 research that found alcohol, tobacco, processed foods and beverages, and fossil fuels cause 19 million deaths globally each year, accounting for 34% of all deaths.
Let’s take a look at these factors individually, and realize that our bodies are being asked to do a lot of detox with all of these issues on top of each other!
Why Processed Foods Harm Your Health
Our food system has been hijacked. 70 percent of the food eaten is not real food! Processed foods are loaded with fructose, seed oils, GMO grains, and artificial sweeteners, and they lack natural fiber. All these factors accelerate insulin resistance, leading to heart disease, fatty liver, and early death. Here’s how:
Fructose: Unlike glucose, fructose is metabolized in the liver and converted directly into liver fat instead of being used for energy. This lowers ATP in your cells’ mitochondria and leads to insulin resistance, high blood triglycerides, hypertension, and elevated uric acid levels.
Fiber: Fiber slows the rise in blood sugar when paired with carbs and natural sugars. Processed foods lack fiber, causing blood sugar to spike and quickly leading to insulin resistance. Added fructose and sugar in these foods make this effect even worse.
Seed Oils: Oils like canola, corn, soybean, rice bran, safflower, sunflower, grape seed, and peanut oil put your body in a pro-inflammatory state, worsening insulin resistance and other metabolic diseases.
Artificial Sweeteners: These may not have calories, but they increase cravings for sugar and carbs, leading to overeating. Artificial sweeteners also signal the brain to crave more sweets, increasing caloric intake and worsening insulin resistance. They can also cause leaky gut, hinder fat and protein metabolism, and contribute to fatty liver.
Hyper Palatability: Processed foods are designed to be hyper-palatable, combining extremely sweet, salty, and fatty tastes, which blunt your normal taste buds and lead to overeating. In nature, fat and carbs rarely come together, except in nuts and dairy, which are meant to “fatten up” animals. This combination of processed foods leads to uncontrollable cravings.
Lack of Amino Acids: Processed foods lack essential amino acids and omega-3 fatty acids. Without these, the hormone CCK, which suppresses appetite, isn’t triggered, leading to overeating.
Emulsifiers: Emulsifiers in processed foods extend shelf life but destroy the mucosal lining of the gut. This retraction of sensory neurons in the gut prevents the signaling of CCK, leading to a failure in registering satiety, causing you to eat more sugar-laden foods and increasing insulin resistance.
Gluten and Grains: These not only cause leaky gut but are often contaminated with glyphosate and GMOs, which further damage the gut microbiome, increase estrogen dominance, and steal nutrients from the body.
Dopamine Dysregulation: Processed foods mess with your brain’s dopamine regulation, intensifying sugar cravings. Here’s how:
- Taste of Sweet: Eating sweet foods releases a huge amount of dopamine, making you crave more to get that dopamine hit again.
- Post-Ingestive Dopamine: About 15 minutes after eating, the gut registers foods that increase blood glucose, activating dopamine pathways and telling your brain to eat more. Even hidden sugars in non-sweet-tasting foods trigger this response.
- Rise in Blood Glucose: If the gut detects that a food will raise blood glucose, it increases cravings for that food as a survival mechanism to store more energy.
Processed foods are addictive and harmful, driving insulin resistance and heart disease. By cutting them out, you can better manage your cravings, improve your metabolism, and protect your heart health.
Why Alcohol Harms Your Health
Alcohol has more effects than just a buzz, even if you’re only having 1-2 drinks a week. Here’s a closer look at how it impacts your body and mind:
Alcohol Increases Stress
Many people drink to unwind, but alcohol increases stress in the long run. Just 2-3 drinks once a week can lead to a spike in cortisol levels from the adrenal glands. When you’re not drinking, this makes you feel more stressed and anxious. Cortisol is a fat-storing hormone, so higher stress levels can lead to weight gain.
Alcohol Has Empty Calories
Alcoholic drinks, especially beer and high-calorie cocktails, might make you feel full, but they’re nutritionally empty. There’s no real value in the calories you get from alcohol.
Alcohol Shuts Off Fat Burning
Your body treats alcohol like a toxin because it has no way to store it. So, when you drink, your body stops burning fat to deal with the alcohol first. This means that the calories from fat, carbs, and protein are more likely to be stored as fat. Plus, liver damage from alcohol makes fat burning even harder when you’re not drinking.
Alcohol Increases Estrogen Dominance
Alcohol can lead to higher estrogen levels in several ways:
- It promotes Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth, which recycles estrogen.
- It directly increases estrogen levels.
- It boosts the conversion of testosterone to estrogen in both men and women.
Alcohol Causes Liver Damage
Your liver processes alcohol, and over time, this can lead to significant damage, including fatty liver. A damaged liver struggles to convert the thyroid hormone T4 into the active hormone T3, which is crucial for fat-burning and protein utilization. This can slow down your metabolism, leading to weight gain, inflammation, and chronic diseases.
Alcohol Enters All Cells
Because alcohol is both fat and water-soluble, it can penetrate every cell and tissue in your body. This means it can cause widespread cellular damage.
Alcohol Crosses the Blood-Brain Barrier
Most substances can’t get into the brain due to the blood-brain barrier, but alcohol can. It targets the prefrontal cortex, which controls thinking, planning, and impulse behavior. This leads to increased impulsive behavior and worsens both short-term and long-term memory.
Alcohol Destroys the Microbiome
Even a single drink can disrupt your gut microbiome, which plays a crucial role in signaling the brain to release serotonin and dopamine. After drinking, mood disorders can arise when you’re not drinking.
Alcohol Causes Leaky Gut
Alcohol increases harmful bacteria in the gut, and these bacteria can pass through the intestinal barrier into the bloodstream, a condition known as leaky gut. This can lead to autoimmune diseases, weight gain, nutrient malabsorption, mood disorders, inflammation, and chronic diseases.
Alcohol Increases Inflammation
Alcohol prompts the liver to release proinflammatory cytokines as it tries to break down the alcohol. These cytokines can pass into the brain, causing inflammation, mood disorders, headaches, and brain fog. These symptoms can have long-term impacts.
Alcohol Tricks the Brain into Wanting More
Alcohol disrupts the brain’s signaling to moderate consumption, which can lead to increased drinking. This vicious cycle of inflammation, gut microbiome disruption, and chronic disease continues as drinking habits persist.
Alcohol Increases Impulsive Behavior
Even drinking once a week can change the neural circuits that control habitual and impulsive behavior, making you more likely to act impulsively when not drinking.
In summary, alcohol has far-reaching and damaging effects on your body and mind, even if you’re only drinking occasionally.
How Tobacco Harms Your Health
Tobacco is a major health hazard that affects almost every organ in the body, causing a range of serious health issues. Here’s how tobacco can wreak havoc on your health:
Lung Damage and Cancer: The most well-known impact of smoking is on the lungs. Smoking damages the airways and small air sacs in your lungs, leading to chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Tobacco smoke is also a major cause of lung cancer. The harmful chemicals in tobacco, like tar and formaldehyde, damage the cells in the lungs, making them cancerous over time.
Heart Disease and Stroke: Tobacco use is a leading cause of cardiovascular diseases. Tobacco raises your blood pressure and spikes your heart rate, making your heart work harder. Over time, this can lead to the hardening and narrowing of your arteries (atherosclerosis), increasing the risk of heart attacks and strokes. The carbon monoxide in cigarette smoke also reduces the amount of oxygen your blood can carry, forcing your heart to pump harder to supply the body with enough oxygen.
Respiratory Problems: Even if you don’t develop lung cancer, smoking causes a host of other respiratory issues. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a group of lung diseases, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema, that obstruct airflow and make it difficult to breathe. Smokers are also more susceptible to infections like pneumonia and influenza.
Weakened Immune System: Tobacco weakens your immune system, making you more vulnerable to infections and diseases. The toxic chemicals in tobacco smoke impair the function of immune cells, leaving your body less capable of fighting off infections and illnesses.
Cancer Beyond the Lungs: Smoking isn’t just linked to lung cancer. It also increases the risk of cancers in other parts of the body, including the mouth, throat, esophagus, pancreas, bladder, stomach, liver, kidney, cervix, and even a type of blood cancer called acute myeloid leukemia.
Digestive Issues: Tobacco use can wreak havoc on your digestive system, increasing the risk of stomach ulcers and cancers of the digestive organs. Smoking affects the esophageal sphincter, which can lead to acid reflux and heartburn, causing damage over time.
Reproductive Health: Problems In men, smoking can lead to erectile dysfunction by damaging the blood vessels that supply blood to the penis. In women, smoking can cause complications with pregnancy, including preterm delivery, stillbirth, low birth weight, and even sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
Oral Health Issues: Tobacco use stains teeth and can lead to gum disease, tooth loss, and bad breath. Smokers are also at higher risk for oral cancers and infections.
Aging and Skin Damage Smoking: accelerates the aging process of your skin, leading to wrinkles, sagging skin, and a dull complexion. The reduced blood flow due to nicotine means less oxygen and nutrients reach the skin, causing it to age prematurely.
Impact on Others: Secondhand smoke is dangerous for non-smokers, particularly children and pregnant women. It can cause respiratory infections, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and trigger asthma attacks in children. Adults exposed to secondhand smoke are at risk of heart disease and lung cancer.
How Fossil Fuels Harm Your Health
Fossil fuels might power our world, but they take a huge toll on our health. This is one example of the increased toxic load that our systems are forced to process. Here’s how they impact us:
Air Pollution and Respiratory Issues
Burning fossil fuels releases a cocktail of pollutants into the air, including carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides. These pollutants contribute to smog and particulate matter that can penetrate deep into our lungs. This leads to respiratory problems like asthma, bronchitis, and even lung cancer. Living in areas with high air pollution can severely affect your breathing and overall lung health.
Cardiovascular Diseases
The tiny particles released from burning fossil fuels don’t just harm your lungs—they can also enter your bloodstream. This can cause inflammation in your blood vessels, leading to cardiovascular problems such as heart attacks, strokes, and hypertension. Long-term exposure to polluted air significantly increases the risk of developing heart disease.
Cancer
Certain chemicals released by fossil fuels are known carcinogens. Long-term exposure to these pollutants increases the risk of various cancers, including lung cancer, bladder cancer, and skin cancer. The more we burn fossil fuels, the higher our cancer risk.
Birth Defects and Developmental Issues
Pregnant women exposed to high levels of air pollution from fossil fuels are at a greater risk of having babies with low birth weight, premature births, and birth defects. Children growing up in polluted areas are also more likely to suffer from developmental issues, including cognitive impairments and reduced lung function.
Mental Health
Air pollution has been linked to mental health problems, including depression and anxiety. The inflammation caused by polluted air can affect the brain, leading to cognitive decline and mental health disorders. Living in a polluted environment can take a toll on your mental well-being over time.
Water Pollution
Fossil fuel extraction and burning also pollute water sources. Oil spills, fracking, and runoff from coal mines contaminate rivers, lakes, and oceans with heavy metals and toxic chemicals. This not only affects marine life but also the quality of water we rely on for drinking, cooking, and cleaning.
Soil Contamination
The extraction and use of fossil fuels can contaminate soil with hazardous chemicals, affecting agriculture and the quality of food we eat. This can lead to reduced crop yields and food security issues, impacting our nutrition and health.
Tips To Mitigate These Negative Health Risks
Stop Smoking and Drinking. I know this is easier said than done, but these addictive behaviors only degrade health with no positive impact.
Focus on Real Food: No Back Labels Needed. Metabolic disease was minimal before processed foods. Focus on the foods listed in the Accelerated Food Guide and stay away from anything packaged with hidden toxins and artificial ingredients. These ingredients only increase the workload on your detox systems.
Increase Protein Intake
Eating 1-1.2 grams of wild animal protein per pound of your desired lean body mass can do wonders. It can improve insulin resistance and fatty liver, curb cravings for processed foods and sugar, curb cravings for alcohol and smoking, satisfy your appetite, build lean muscle, reduce bloat, heal your gut, and keep you in a fat-burning state. Protein triggers the hormone CCK, which suppresses appetite, supports lean muscle gains, and boosts glucagon, the “fat-burning” hormone.
Wild proteins like lamb, bison, deer, grass-fed beef, elk, wild salmon, arctic char, and other wild fish provide essential amino acids, omega-3 fatty acids, collagen, and crucial vitamins like D, E, and B. Prioritizing these proteins will increase the glucagon-to-insulin ratio, lowering insulin resistance and ramping up fat burn.
Avoiding chicken, poultry, and conventional beef can also minimize the inflammatory amyloids in your body. These proteins found in conventional meats can increase liver inflammation, gut pathogens, hinder fat burning, and contribute to brain diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Check out the Accelerated Food Guide to find out more.
Top Supplements to Optimize Detoxification and Longevity
Sara Banta's Ascent Diet Cleanse
The Sara Banta’s Ascent Diet Cleanse is designed to help you smoothly transition away from alcohol, tobacco, and processed foods by tackling withdrawal symptoms head-on. These supplements work together to help boost dopamine, GABA, and serotonin levels, giving you more physical and mental energy. They also detoxify your liver and entire body, reset alcohol dependence, and eliminate cravings. Here’s what’s included in Sara Banta’s Ascent Diet Cleanse:
Accelerated Fast®
Accelerated Fast® helps provide ketones for energy, teaching your body to burn its fat for fuel. The ingredients help:
- Reduce insulin resistance and fatty liver.
- Suppress cravings for sugar and processed foods.
- Reduce oxidative stress and inflammation.
- Increase ATP production in the mitochondria, giving you more cellular energy.
- Maintain healthy muscle mass while teaching your body to burn fat effectively.
Acceleradine® Iodine
Iodine helps by:
- Cleansing the liver and blood, alleviating liver congestion caused by all of these toxins.
- Boosting metabolism and fat oxidation.
- Lowering blood sugar and regulating hormones.
- Detoxifying cells from toxins and radiation.
- Offering 100% absorption and enhanced healing with scalar frequencies.
Accelerated Cellular Detox® Powder
This organic formula is your go-to for soaking up toxins from alcohol, tobacco, fossil fuels, and processed foods. The ingredients help coat your stomach and intestinal lining, reducing inflammation, easing bloating, and promoting regularity. By absorbing toxins throughout the day, it helps prevent Leaky Gut and quicken the detoxification process. As toxins are expelled from the body, inflammation decreases, nutrient absorption improves, and health issues may be improved.
Sara Banta’s Accelerated Liver Flush Cleanse
This cleanse is a part of the Ascent Diet Cleanse and also a stand-alone cleanse. These supplements work to soften gallstones caused by alcohol, tobacco, and other toxins, prepping your liver to release them. The supplements in the cleans help improve detoxification, boost fat burning, and ramp up your metabolic rate. Performing a liver flush 3-4 times a year is essential with all of the toxins in our modern world for optimal liver function, thyroid health, and metabolism. With hundreds of stones clogging your liver, it struggles to break down fats for energy and detoxify your body, leading to accelerated aging and disease.
Think about this: the things we put into our bodies every day can have a huge impact on our health, and even on the health of the whole world. Smoking, drinking too much, and eating lots of junk food are like slowly filling up a bucket with bad stuff. Over time, this can lead to serious problems like heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.
It’s scary to think about, but the good news is, we can make a difference. We can choose to eat healthier, drink less, and quit smoking. Governments can also help by making it harder to get unhealthy stuff and by promoting healthy choices. Together, we can create a healthier world for ourselves and for future generations.
Sara Banta
Sara Banta is a Stanford University Graduate with a Degree in Economics and Psychology, and a certified Natural Supplement Expert & Graduate of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Sara is the Founder of Accelerated Health Products and host of the health & wellness podcast, Accelerated Health Radio.
