The Potbelly Syndrome: How Common Germs Cause Obesity, Diabetes, And Heart Disease [Paperback]

Russell Farris (Author), Per Marin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 30, 2005

Potbelly syndrome (PBS) is a metabolic disorder that affects about one-third of the adults in industrialized countries. Its most important symptoms are abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes. Contrary to popular belief,these conditions are caused by chronic infections, not by bad habits. PBS is initiated by a small, long-term excess of the stress hormone cortisol. The extra cortisol stimulates our appetite and slows down our metabolism. It makes fat accumulate in places where it isn't wanted or needed. Most of th fat settles around our waists, but some of it settles in our liver and muscles. Liver and muscle cells aren't supposted to store fat, and the fat prevents them from working correctly. As a result, we feel tired and hungry much of the time. As our potbellies grow and our PBS gets worse, our blood pressure, cholesterol, insulin, and blood sugar levels rise. Most of the excess cortisol is produced in response to mild, chronic infections. Some of the germs that cause PBS also produce sores in our arteries. When these sores are large enough, they can block artieris and cause heart attacks. "The Potbelly Syndrome" explains how to diagnose and treat some of the germs that cause PBS and heart disease. If you've done everything you were supposed to do and still gained weight, became diabetic, or had a heart attack,or if you are a medical professional who suspects that there are serieous gaps in the current understanding of obesity, disbetes, and heart disease, "The Potbelly Syndrome" will provide you with the answers you need to bring about better health.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Russell Farris is a retired artificial-intelligence researcher who spent most of his life solving problems for the U.S. Navy. After suffering a heart attack in 1998, he began to apply his problem-solving skills to the study of heart disease and related illnesses. Per Marin, M.D., Ph.,is a distinguished scientist, physician, and clinical teacher from Sweden. He has been writing about obesity since 1985, and many of his eighty-two publications deal with the effects of cortisol on weight and health.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Basic Health Publications; 1 edition (November 30, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159120058X
• ISBN-13: 978-1591200581
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,115,621 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a revelation but of little practical help, July 27, 2009

By 

D&D - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Potbelly Syndrome: How Common Germs Cause Obesity, Diabetes, And Heart Disease (Paperback)

This book, by a layman who has put in years of intense research to try to find a solution to his own serious health problems, claims that potbellies, and perhaps most cases of obesity, are due to ongoing inflammation, something most doctors ignore or even deny. Although this is clearly not a proven theory, there is plenty of evidence presented that infectious diseases, often in chronic form that the standard tests fail to identify, are also the cause of heart disease and diabetes. Physicians are reluctant to accept that standard tests might not be foolproof and even more reluctant to accept that the same type of bacteria and viruses present in healthy people could cause a variety of diseases in sick people, even though almost all healthy people eventually die of the same diseases such as cancer, heart disease, or stroke (see PS below).

The obesity culprit appears to be cortisol, produced by the adrenal glands, and the evidence that excess cortisol is (basically) to blame was well supported. For those of us who assumed we had underfunctioning adrenal glands, this is an interesting reversal. Today's prevention and treatment approaches are clearly inadequate as no one ever seems to be cured (it's called ageing but you simply can't go on blaming everything on this!). Also worth reading is Alan Cantwell's "Four Women Against Cancer" which explains how CWD bacteria - they can live without having a cell wall and therefore act more like a virus - cause cancer and how, since this bacteria is inside the cancer cells, tests don't find them and anti-microbial treatments (both natural and synthetic antibiotics, antifungals, antiprotozoals, and antivirals) do not cure cancer. The Potbelly Syndrome seems to be about a similar underlying basis for other incurable health problems.

Farris recommends specific steps but most are lifestyle changes many of us have already adopted: reducing and avoiding stressors, including mental/emotional, noise, TV and substances (caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, sugar) as well as adding music, exercise and happy relationships to your life. I doubt these have worked for many of us who have been early adopters of most of these recommendations, over the last decade and more. This includes the author, who has atrial fibrillations and congestive heart failure and states clearly that he remains obese and requires frequent and expensive medical treatments, none of which have improved his situation, much less cured him. The author also recommends various nutritional supplements but, again, the trouble is that natural supplements just don't get rid of chronic infections - it is fairy tale thinking and those claiming otherwise are stealing credit from the body's own ability to recover from most inflammations; they are usually the same alternative health practitioners who don't hesitate to accuse us of "not really wanting to get better" when they are unable to heal our chronic illnesses.

On his website, the author writes "Even if a doctor believes that chronic, low-level infections cause obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, there are no easy, safe, effective, and proven treatments for him or her to prescribe." All the recommendations in his book certainly haven't helped the author, who believes that if only doctors would give him months or even years of (low-dose) antibiotics and other drugs that would kill his main infections, and thus reduce cortisol production in the body, he could get better. I wonder, since the negative consequences of antibiotics are now well-known: research indicates that long-term antibiotic use is counterproductive. Hence I have docked one star.

It is so distressing for me that the book does not really provide a solution that I'm almost sorry it's been published. I pondered whether to dock another star because of this, but the book does have much value because it shows how modern medicine always puts the cart before the horse. Illness causes obesity, not the other way around. Dieting doesn't work yet doctors still recommend it ("because it absolves them of blame when patients die from diabetes or heart disease"). Healthy people don't need to be told to exercise and don't need to use will power to do so; healthy bodies naturally seek movement, play and sports.

P.S. There are a few other books on this point: "The Heart Attack Germ" by Dvonch (see my review there), "The Inflammation Cure" by Meggs and Svec, "The Inflammation Syndrome" by Challem (dietary remedies only, in this one), "Stopping Inflammation" by Appleton (food again, particularly sugar, dairy and wheat as the bad guys), "Inflammation Nation" by Chilton (good and bad fats), and The Anti-Inflammation Zone by Sears (nutrition again) all appeared in 2003/4/5 - and all discuss the role of inflammation in the major diseases of our time, and some of the things that one can do to limit infections. All those books are also fairly easy to read but, as I know too well after more than a decade of careful nutrition, none really has a complete solution for the problem - nor can I find anything more recent that might have offered newer/better advice even though there's more and more evidence to back up the book's claims - in 2009 one report suggests that high blood pressure could be caused by a common virus, known as CMV, affecting between 60 and 99 per cent of adults worldwide and that it is also linked to stroke, kidney disease and even cancer.

I suspect one of the reasons is that they are looking at fairly conventional solutions. I'd recommend looking instead at a well-researched book called "Outsmart Your Cancer" - anything that can HEAL cancer is also a general healer and should be able to help much else in the body, at "Trick and Treat" by Groves which turns modern eating advice on its head, backed up by plenty of evidence, and at "Never Fear Cancer Again" by Raymond Francis, a brilliant distillation of what is truly needed for health. All 3 books should be on the "top 10" of any list of books on health. Also the supplement Papaya 35, a super concentrate with fermented pawpaw.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a gem of a self-help book and a valuable resource!, October 15, 2007

By 

Katherine M. Poehlmann "Health PhD, Author" (Torrance, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Potbelly Syndrome: How Common Germs Cause Obesity, Diabetes, And Heart Disease (Paperback)

This information-packed book explains the many effects of a naturally occurring stress hormone called cortisol. When the brain needs glucose (blood sugar), cortisol takes glucose from the cells of the muscles and liver, routing it to the brain. The inability of these cells to respond is called "insulin resistance". People with insulin resistance (e.g., those with Type 2 diabetes) must eat more food to obtain the required glucose. The surplus glucose is converted to abdominal fat. When this cycle happens frequently, the result is a potbelly.
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Cortisol is one of three important natural products of the adrenal glands. Cortisol is always present in the bloodstream, so even small changes in stress result in corresponding changes in cortisol levels. Chronic infections can also stimulate the production of cortisol to levels high enough to cause insulin resistance, obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes - four conditions associated with the "potbelly syndrome", a term coined by the authors.
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Corticosteroid medications used to treat inflammations and autoimmune diseases introduce more cortisol into the bloodstream, resulting in increased appetite and weight gain. These drugs also lead to various forms of serious heart disease and high blood pressure because they tip the healthy cortisol balance. Thyroid deficiencies may be blamed for health problems that are really the result of excess cortisol.
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This book recommends specific steps to treat chronic hypercortisolism. It provides dozens of useful references and is well footnoted. The title chosen is unfortunate, because the important words "obesity", "diabetes", and "heart disease" don't turn up in a keyword search because they are buried in the subtitle. It is unlikely that someone with these health problems will search on the keyword "potbelly".
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I am an autoimmune disease specialist and endorse the findings presented in this book. My research has found a clear link between so-called autoimmune diseases and infection, but today's prevention and treatment approaches are inadequate. Patients must take charge of their health and become informed about the prescribed painkillers that do not address the root cause of the illness. These drugs merely treat symptoms and often have toxic side effects.
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This book is a great start to understanding three of the most important health problems today and how to deal with them. Armed with this knowledge, a patient is better equipped to work with the doctor as a team player to conquer chronic illness.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AMAZING DISCOVERY........., March 30, 2006

By 

Lisaannevictoria "sunny lee" (queens, NY) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Potbelly Syndrome: How Common Germs Cause Obesity, Diabetes, And Heart Disease (Paperback)

Whoa! I thought that I was healthy, Russell Farris and Per Marin will change how you look at your world. At least I can say that. This book is a wake-up call for people who can't seem to figure out why they are depressed, overweight, or constantly craving that sugary donut. This book has changed my thinking more that any other so called "diet" book out there. The relationship between how we deal with stressors (sugar, caffeine, catastrophic thinking, etc) is much more important than ANY other single thing we do for our health. You will never lose weight if you don't change your lifestyle to include more relaxation techniques. Period, end of story! Thanks Mr. Farris, and Dr. Marin!!!!!