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30 November, 2006

OBESITY NOW A CRIME IN BRITAIN

So far only in dogs but child obesity cannot be far behind

Obesity has become such an issue of political incorrectness that two brothers appeared in court yesterday charged with allowing a dog to get too fat. Rusty, a nine-year-old labrador, may only have been doing what labradors do, which is to eat everything in sight. But he ballooned to more than 11« stone (161lb, 73kg), the ideal weight for a large-boned 6ft (1.82m) woman, but not a retriever, which should be chasing sticks and newly shot game. Rusty had trouble standing up, and after no more than five paces he had to sit down again, breathless. He looked, magistrates at Ely, Cambridgeshire, were told yesterday, more like a seal than a dog.

In what is thought to be the first case of its kind, Rusty's owners, David Benton and his brother Derek, have been charged with animal cruelty for allowing him to become grossly overweight. According to the Kennel Club, the ideal weight for a dog of Rusty's age and breed is between 65lb and 80lb. When found by an RSPCA inspector, Rusty was more than twice the upper limit. Unlike most labradors, he was quite incapable of leaping into a van. The Benton brothers, of Fordham, Cambridgeshire, deny causing the dog unncessary suffering. They claim that they fed Rusty a normal diet of dried pet food with only the odd bone as a treat.

When Jason Finch of the RSPCA first saw Rusty in February, he found the dog virtually unable to move, the court was told. He issued a notice advising the owners to take the dog to a vet as soon as possible. When he returned in March, they had not done so. The owners declined to sign the dog over to the RSPCA, but agreed to let Mr Finch take Rusty to the charity's own vet. But the dog could not even walk to Mr Finch's van.

Stephen Climie, for the prosecution, said that Rusty had been found to be morbidly obese at 74.2kg, double the weight of a normal labrador; the brothers had been told repeatedly by vets over five years to put the dog on a diet, but had not done so. Rusty suffers from arthritis, a common complaint in labradors, but his condition had been made worse by his being grossly overweight, Mr Climie said. Alex Wylie, a vet from Bury St Edmunds who treated Rusty, said that the dog suffered from painful joints and breathing problems. "He did literally look like a walrus. There were times when he couldn't get up from his back legs at all. It was horrible to see."

When interviewed by the RSPCA, David Benton insisted that Rusty ate only one meal of dried food each evening and a snack in the morning. "He has been plump ever since he was a puppy. He is a poor old thing but he is not in pain. We have tried to give him many foods, but it does not make any difference," he said. Derek Benton told the charity that Rusty's weight gain was old age catching up with him.

The court was told that Rusty had not seen a vet for 17 months before the RSPCA took him away. The brothers claimed that they used to get him treated under a pet insurance plan, but could no longer get cover because of his age. Since living with an RSPCA dog carer, the court was told, Rusty had lost 3.5 stone [49lb].

Source



SLOUCHING IS GOOD FOR YOU

There are a few leaps in the reasoning below but it has given room for debate in an area not usually discussed scientifically

Your mother probably told you, as her mother told her: sit up straight. Whether at table, in class or at work we have always been told that sitting stiff-backed and upright is good for our bones, our posture, our digestion, our alertness and our general air of looking as if we are plugged into the world. Now research suggests that we would be far better off slouching and slumping. Today's advice is to let go and recline. Using a new form of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a team of radiologists have found that sitting up straight puts unneccesary strain on the spine and could cause chronic back pain because of trapped nerves or slipped discs.

The ideal angle for office workers who sit for long periods is about 135 degrees. It might make working at a computer impractical but it will put less pressure on the spine than a hunched or upright position, the researchers say. The study at Woodend Hospital in Aberdeen involved 22 healthy volunteers who had no history of back pain or surgery. They adjusted their posture while being scanned by a movable MRI machine, assuming three sitting positions: a slouch, with the body hunched forward over a desk or video game console; an upright 90-degree sitting position; and a relaxed position where the patient reclined at 135 degrees but kept their feet on the floor. By measuring the spinal angles and the arrangement and height of spinal discs and movement across the positions, the radiologists found that the relaxed posture best preserved the spine's natural shape.

Waseem Amir Bashir, from Edinburgh, lead author of the study, said: "When pressure is put on the spine it becomes squashed and misaligned. A 135-degree body-thigh sitting posture was demonstrated to be the best biomechanical sitting position, as opposed to a 90-degree posture, which most people consider normal. "Sitting in a sound anatomic position is essential, since the strain put on the spine and its associated muscles and ligaments over time can lead to pain, deformity and chronic illness." Dr Bashir, who now works at the University of Alberta Hospital in Canada, presented the research yesterday at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) in Chicago. The study was the first of its kind because MRI scanning has previously required patients to lie flat.

Back pain is the cause of one in six days off work and about 80 per cent of Britons are expected to suffer from it at some point. Office workers and school children may stave off future back problems by correcting their sitting posture and finding a chair that allows them to recline, Dr Bashir said. He added: "We were not created to sit down for long hours, but somehow modern life requires the vast majority of the global population to work in a seated position, The best position for our backs is arguably lying down, but this is hardly practical."

However, Gordon Waddell, an orthopaedic surgeon at the Glasgow Nuffield Hospital, said that the link between biomechanics as shown in MRI scans and preventing back pain was still very theoretical. It was "human nature" to develop back pain, he said. "Like a headache or a cold, it seems we all get back pain and most of the evidence suggests that sitting position does not make a difference

Source



AN ALL-NATURAL CHEMICAL FEAST

The "chemicals" America eats at Thanksgiving

It's time to start the preparation for your multicourse serving of Thanksgiving chemicals. These days, people think the word "chemical" means "bad" - and supermarkets are filled with foods that claim to be "chemical-free," "all-natural" and "purely organic." Almost daily, media stories tell us, for example, how a "carcinogen" known as acrylamide is showing up in French fries and other cooked high-starch foods. We're told that nitrite in bacon, saccharin in Sweet 'N Low and PCB traces in farmed salmon are "carcinogens." The basis? They cause cancer in lab rats that have been fed enormous doses.

So it may be a suprise to learn that even 100 percent natural foods - including the holiday feast that will be coming your way shortly - come replete with chemicals, including toxins (poisons) and carcinogens (cancer-causing chemicals), which average consumers would reject simply because they can't pronounce the names.

Assume you start with a soup course, then munch down some crispy, natural vegetables, move on to a traditional stuffed bird with all the trimmings (washing it down with a few glasses of wine) and then top it all off with dessert and coffee. You will thus have consumed holiday helpings of various "carcinogens" (again, in lab animals fed high doses). Yes, Mother Nature makes "carcinogens," too:

* hydrazines (mushroom soup)
* aniline, caffeic acid, benzaldehyde, hydrogen peroxide, quercetin glycosides, and psoralens (your fresh vegetable salad)
* heterocyclic amines, acrylamide, benzo(a)pyrene, ethyl carbamate, dihydrazines, d-limonene, safrole, and quercetin glycosides (roast turkey with stuffing)
* benzene and heterocyclic amines (prime rib of beef with parsley sauce)
* furfural, ethyl alcohol, allyl isothiocyanate (broccoli, potatoes, sweet potatoes)
* coumarin, methyl eugenol, acetaldehyde, estragole and safrole (apple and pumpkin pies)
* ethyl alcohol with ethyl carbamate (red and white wines)

Then sit back and relax with some benzofuran, caffeic acid, catechol, l,2,5,6,-dibenz(a)anthra-cene with 4-methylcatechol (coffee).

Source

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Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

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29 November, 2006

SALT AND BLOOD PRESSURE: MORE OVER-HYPED FINDINGS

First read the following press report:

The humble cheese stick could be killing your children. Visiting cardiovascular medicine specialist Graham MacGregor, of St George's Hospital Medical School in London, has warned parents that diets high in salt were placing children at risk of heart attacks and strokes later in life. Autopsies on preschool accident victims revealed signs of diseased blood vessels, he said. Professor MacGregor's latest research, published this month in the journal Hypertension, showed a modest reduction in salt intake among children caused significant falls in blood pressure.

A review by Australia's National Heart Foundation found one processed cheese stick provided almost all the salt intake a toddler needed in a day. A pack of instant flavoured noodles contained almost three times a teenager's recommended daily salt needs.

"If you got all the nutritionists together in the world and said let's design a diet that's going to cause strokes and heart attacks later in life, that's exactly what these products seem to be designed to do," Professor MacGregor said. "It's mad how we allow ourselves to be feeding our children something that is going to cause heart attacks and strokes later in life. We know how to prevent strokes and heart attacks yet we seem to be doing our best to cause them."

Professor MacGregor said the battle to prevent heart attacks and strokes needed to begin in childhood. Feeding children salty food suppressed their taste receptors, getting them used to eating foods with high salt levels. "Most of these things are the concentration of sea water," Professor MacGregor said. "Do you really want your children to be eating solid seawater for lunch?"

Heart foundation national nutrition manager Barbara Eden said consumers should compare the sodium content of foods before purchasing. She said low salt foods must contain no more than 120mg of sodium per 100g of product.

Professor MacGregor called on food manufacturers to reduce salt levels in their products by a fifth. He said the salt concentration of most processed foods could be cut by 20 per cent tomorrow without anyone noticing. Prof MacGregor is in Sydney this week to address health professionals and food industry representatives on the need to reduce salt intake.

Source

If however you read the actual abstract of Macgregor's paper, it says only about one tenth of all the assertions above. It reports simply that children who have had their salt intake experimentally suppressed to varying degees show reduced blood pressure during the experiment. And that is no suprise. Studies with mice show the same.

What is NOT shown is ANY long-term effect of such salt reductions. That artificial salt restriction might also DO HARM in various ways is not considered -- which is just negligent, considering that people on salt-restricted diets die younger.

Note also that blood pressure response to salt varies between individuals. Genetic differences make some individuals more responsive to salt level than others. So any policy that treates everybody as the same is Leftist ideology, not medical science.

Note further that in healthy ADULTS, level of salt intake does NOT affect the level of salt in your blood. You just piss out any salt you do not need.

What utter crap the salt phobia is!



BACON IS BAD FOR YOU -- OF COURSE!

This finding is so predictable from a Leftist political agenda -- anything that people enjoy is bad -- that I just cannot be bothered looking up the original paper and pulling it apart. Data-dredging unaccompanied by error-rate correction would be my initial suspicion. Note however the undoubtedly justified caution at the end of the article

Indulging in bacon too frequently may be hazardous to your health, a new study suggests, while taking the skin off your chicken before you cook it might not be so good for you either. Dr Dominique S Michaud of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and her colleagues found that people who ate bacon five times a week or more were nearly 60 per cent more likely to develop bladder cancer, while those who ate skinless chicken this frequently had a 52 per cent greater risk of the disease.

Some meat products contain nitrosamines, which are known to cause bladder cancer, Michaud and her team note in their report, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. But the studies that have attempted to investigate the meat-bladder cancer link have been small and most have not separated out the effects of different types of meat. To better understand the relationship, Michaud and her team looked at data for 47,422 men and 88,471 women participating in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study and the Nurse's Health Study, respectively. Participants were followed for up to 22 years, during which time 808 developed bladder cancer. People who ate bacon and other processed meats frequently were also more likely to smoke and to take in more fat and fewer vitamins, the researchers found. They were also less likely to exercise.

The association between the total meat consumption and bladder cancer was not statistically significant. But those who ate bacon five or more times per week were 59 per cent more likely to develop bladder cancer than those who never did. Also, men and women who ate chicken this often were 52 per cent more likely to develop bladder cancer than those who never ate skinless chicken. Compared with skinless chicken, cooked chicken with skin is known to contain a smaller amount of heterocyclic amines, carcinogenic compounds that form when meat is cooked at high temperatures, the researchers note. The researchers suggest that nitrosamines, heterocyclic amines, or both are responsible for the health effects of bacon seen in the current study, but they note that their findings must be confirmed by other research teams before any conclusions can be made.

Source



Alternative cures under microscope

Alternative medicines, which are bought by up to 75 per cent of Australians, face their toughest scrutiny yet under an investigation commissioned by the Federal Government. Alternative or complementary medicines have been dismissed as a "great dupe" by a medical leader, although in some cases they have been found to be more effective than pharmaceuticals. They are believed to account for more than $1 billion in sales a year in Australia. The National Health and Medical Research Council will oversee a $5 million project to investigate the use and effectiveness of hundreds of pills, potions and therapies that mostly have little standing in conventional medicine, the Health Minister, Tony Abbott, has announced.

The funding follows an unprecedented meeting last week between the alternative therapy lobby and the council and has been welcomed by advocates and critics of alternative medicines. "There is no reason why any therapy offered to the public should not be evidence-based," the chief executive of the research council, Warwick Anderson, said. Professor Anderson said the targets of the research would depend on what projects won funding. There was increasing interest among medical researchers and the Australian move followed the development of a special research centre by the National Institutes of Health in the United States, he said. The project flows from the inquiry triggered by the Pan Pharmaceuticals crisis in which hundreds of products were withdrawn from sale because of manufacturing irregularities.

The executive director of the Complementary Healthcare Council, Tony Lewis, said he was not concerned by the possibility that research would undermine the claims for alternative medicine. "If a therapy does not work, let's get the results to show that. But I think most results will be quite positive." The shark fin extract, glucosamine, for instance, had been found in a US study to be more effective than Celebrex for the treatment of osteoarthritis. Among the biggest sellers in the complementary medicine range were multivitamins and multiminerals, fish oil for cardiovascular conditions and glucosamine, Dr Lewis said.

A former chairman of the Australian Divisions of General Practice, Rob Walters, described most alternative medicines as "a great dupe.. . they just don't work". While most did no harm, some did have harmful reactions when people were also taking other drugs, he said.

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



28 November, 2006

"Child Obesity" campaigns encourage child anorexia

Children as young as five are being diagnosed with anorexia as experts blame stress and a national obsession with obesity for a shocking rise in the number of NSW youth being treated for the illness. Pressures from family breakdowns, peers, school and the electronic media meant children were falling victim to the disease years earlier than they were last decade, adolescent health specialist Michael Kohn, from the Children's Hospital at Westmead, said. The typical age of onset is now between 12 and 14, compared to the average age of 16 as recently as five years ago.

Since 2001 there has been a 20 per cent rise in the number of children younger than 18 being admitted to the hospital with anorexia. About 45 new patients are admitted every year and a similar number of patients aged between 15 and 20 are treated in Westmead Hospital's psychiatric unit, which handles the majority of child eating disorder cases in NSW. Dr Kohn said the hospital was now treating children aged between 7 and 11. In children that young, anorexia is as common among boys as it is in girls although, after 12, females are at least 10 times more likely to develop the illness. "Young people are under increasing stress and stress comes from so many factors in their lives," Dr Kohn said. The physical impact of the disease is much greater on pre-pubescent children because the malnutrition coincides with the period of peak growth and development.

Television shows, cartoons, websites, games and toy figurines had promoted a "thin" ideal among children, Dr Kohn said. A focus on the obesity epidemic could also fuel eating disorders. Eating Disorders Foundation executive officer Greta Kretchmer said the focus on obesity and eating the right food had created a backlash. "When you have some people who have perfectionist tendencies, it leads to them trying to do it too well by cutting out all fats, all carbohydrates, all dairy," she said. The foundation has seen a quadrupling in the number of calls about eating disorders over the past five years, with many about children aged 8-13. The youngest was a five-year-old boy who had been diagnosed with anorexia. The child had been teased in preschool and was about to start kindergarten. "He got it into his mind that if he went to school he could not be fat because he would be teased worse, so he got terrified of becoming overweight," Ms Kretchmer said. "His poor mum was beside herself. How do you reason with a five-year-old?"

Sarah, 26, of West Pennant Hills, who did not want her surname published, overcame anorexia six years ago. She said wanting to be thin was only part of the problem. "It was other types of pressures, wanting to fit in to the world," Sarah said. Sarah now works as a psychologist and counsels other young people with eating disorders. "We are socialised to be very image-driven and you can see that more and more in younger and younger girls," she said. "Most of them now are wearing make-up before my generation would have been. I think it is pressure to do well at school and peer pressure, which comes from a social expectation that people will be slim and attractive."

Source



Advertising is a free speech issue

The ban on junk food ads on British TV is far more 'mind-controlling' than anything a cynical adman could come up with.

I can’t have been the only person who, upon hearing that the Office for Communications planned to introduce a widespread ban on junk food advertising on British TV, thought to himself: ‘Who the hell do these poncy unelected suits think they are?’ And yet there has been little outcry over the ban. Ofcom announced this week that in March 2007 it will introduce a ‘total ban’ on ads for hamburgers, crisps, chocolate and other foodstuffs high in fat, salt or sugar during all children’s programming, on all children’s channels and during any other programmes that have a ‘particular appeal’ to 16-year-olds and under. The only complaint is that Ofcom hasn’t gone far enough. The failure to extend the ban to adults programmes that children also watch – like Coronation Street or, come to think of it, pretty much any show on TV – was a ‘betrayal’ of future generations, who now face the prospect of obesity, ill-health and early death, said health campaigners and commentators.

A far better response to Ofcom’s illiberal, patronising and bizarre ban would have been to tell Ofcom officials to get stuffed, and to disband themselves while they’re at it. I don’t hold a candle for big corporations; I don’t like the fact that they can afford to flog their wares in primetime TV slots or on big brash billboards on street corners, while cash-strapped outfits who make far better products – like spiked, for example – have to rely on word-of-mouth and something called ‘viral marketing’ (which I’ve never liked the sound of).

And yet I would far rather take my chances in the weird and loud chatroom that is the world of advertising than have public space sanitised on my behalf by an unrepresentative quango which, like mother, thinks it knows best. Advertising is a free speech issue, or at least it ought to be. Because behind today’s anti-ad campaigning there lurks a degrading view of the public as fickle and easily bought off, who must be protected from certain words and imagery by better men and women. And that is far more patronising – far more ‘mind-controlling’ – than anything a cynical suited and booted adman could come up with.

The first striking thing about Ofcom’s ban on junk food ads is that the justifications for it are – if you will forgive my post-watershed language – total bollocks. Forget facts or evidence; this ban is based on a creepy combination of scaremongering, snobbery and paternalism.

Ofcom documents and media coverage of the ban constantly refer to ‘junk food’, as if it were an always-existing factual and historical category. In fact, some experts argue that there is no such thing as junk food. According to Vincent Marks, emeritus professor of clinical biochemistry at the University of Surrey and co-editor of Panic Nation: Unpicking the Myths We’re Told About Food and Health: ‘Junk food is an oxymoron. Food is either good – that is, it is enjoyable to eat and will sustain life – or it is good food that has gone bad, meaning that it has deteriorated and gone off.’ For Marks, the ‘junk food’ tag is a moral judgement rather than a health-based one: ‘To label a food as “junk” is just another way of saying, “I disapprove of it”.’ (1)

There’s always a big side order of snobbery in denunciations of junk food – which might explain why Ofcom’s rules will mean that Domino’s Pizzas (an eaterie popular in working-class areas) will have to stop sponsoring The Simpsons, while Gordon Ramsay (whose Channel 4 show The F Word is popular among teens who like his swearing and general cockiness) will still be free to make fatty dishes like duck a la orange and salty pork steaks and chunky chips with their red potato skins still attached. It is hard not to sympathise with the boss of Domino’s Pizzas, who said he might try to get around the new rules by sticking a bowl of salad next to his pizzas because at least salad is seen as ‘good’ grub (2).

Ofcom and its backers claim their tough action is necessary to stop the new generation of Brits from fast becoming the most ‘unhealthy in history’ (3). What, more unhealthy than those kids who lived through (or didn’t live through, more to the point) Black Death, smallpox, wars and food shortages? This is clearly codswallop. In 1900, there were 140 deaths per 1,000 births; that had fallen to 5.7 by 1999 and it continues to fall. Of those born in the early 1900s, 63 per cent died before they reached 60; today only 11 per cent die before 60. A boy born in 1901 could expect to live to 46, and a girl to 50; today a boy is likely to live to 76 and a girl to 81. British children can expect to live more comfortably, and for longer, than any generation in history.

And Ofcom relies on very shaky evidence for its basic premise that banning junk food ads will change children’s eating habits. One of its pieces of evidence is an email from a self-selected group of parents called NetMums, who claim that ‘TV ads for junk food do work – they make children demand junk food which inevitably means more consumption of junk food.’ (4) More serious studies have found little evidence of a clear link between ads and eating habits. As one news report said this week, there is a ‘relative paucity of evidence that TV advertising has much effect on children’s food choices’ (5). An academic study found that ‘just two per cent of all children’s food choices were influenced by TV advertising’ (6).

Ofcom’s ban is based on fear dressed up as facts: children are not as unhealthy as the hysterical headlines claim, and there’s little evidence that the blunt instrument of TV censorship will make them switch from a Happy Meal to broccoli with a side of semi-skimmed milk. What really seems to be motivating Ofcom and its supporters is a patronising view of parents. Mums and dads are seen as powerless to resist ‘pester power’ demands for sweets and snacks. In banning ads during children’s programmes, Ofcom sends a powerful message that parents cannot be trusted to do right by their kids. It is effectively setting itself up as a surrogate parent, making decisions on behalf of mums and dads who are apparently too weak-minded or thick to make the right decision themselves.

We’ve gone from ‘Watch with mother’ to ‘Watch with the strange men and women from a jumped-up quango called Ofcom because they’re more caring than your mother’.

Ofcom likes to present itself as a ‘media literacy’ outfit whose aim is to ensure balance and quality in the communications media in Britain. That is a case of false advertising if ever I heard one. Someone call the trading standards authority. In truth, Ofcom is a petty and censorious organisation seeking to control public debate and public space and protect people from what it views as their own worst instincts. It is at the forefront of new forms of censorship that cloak themselves in ethical lingo and use nice words like ‘diversity’ and ‘respect’ as a cover for clamping down on free speech.

So Ofcom banned a beer advert for giving ‘undue emphasis to the alcohol strength of the product’. Er, why else do people buy beer, if it isn’t for a bit of ‘alcohol strength’? It banned a radio ad that made a pun on the word ‘faggot’ (which can mean a meat product or a homosexual), decreeing that the ad was ‘capable of causing serious offence’. And usually it bans things in response to handfuls of complaints. That beer ad was banned after Ofcom received one complaint, the radio ad after it received three complaints. Recently Ofcom demanded that Hanna-Barbera remove all cigarette-smoking from its entire back catalogue of Tom and Jerry cartoons after it received a single complaint (7).

Ofcom represents the tyranny of the minority. What about the 60 million of us who aren’t offended by strong booze or the word ‘faggot’ or cartoon cats puffing on a cartoon fag? Why should the public realm – that marketplace of ads, goods, debate and argument – be designed to the tastes of tiny handfuls of people who are weirdly oversensitive? Outraged of Oldham was once restricted to writing cranky green-ink letters to the local paper. Now, thanks to Ofcom and its mission to ensure that no one is ever offended, he’s dictating what images and words the rest of us can see and hear.

No, the world of advertising is not a level playing field. Yes, big corporations can speak more loudly and to more people than you or I can. But we should still defend advertising from today’s gracious and caring censors. You can’t make things more equal or free by running to powerful bodies like Ofcom and pleading with them to punish the nasty corporation and its adman who offended your sensibilities on the train to work. I would rather be Richard Branson’s potential target than Ofcom’s bitch; a free citizen or consumer able to make up my own mind about what I want to buy from companies that are at least upfront, rather than the charge of a powerful quango whose board members I don’t know from Adam.

From Ofcom’s attack on junk food ads to those campaign groups who demand bans on ads for 4x4s, cheap flights, cigarettes and booze: the argument seems to be that people are gullible and thus must be watched over by caring men and women in positions of power. Funnily enough, that is the same justification used by censors throughout history, from Torquemada to Tony Blair: all of their bans are about giving a sedative to society, sanitising public discussion, and protecting people from an alleged harm. Thanks, but no thanks.

For Karl Marx, the ‘chatter’ of consumerist society was one of the more positive aspects of capitalism. The capitalist ‘searches for means to spur [people] on to consumption, to give his wares new charms, to inspire [people] with new needs by constant chatter etc. It is precisely this side of the relation of capital and labour which is an essential civilising moment…’ (8) So what if ads are sometimes irritating and get into our heads? Forever knowing the tune to ‘Opal Fruits, made to make your mouth water’ is a small price to pay for openness in public space and chatter.

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



27 November, 2006

"Ethical" Consumption -- The usual attitude/behaviour gap

The attitude/behaviour gap has been known to psychologists since the work of La Piere in the 1930s. What people say and what they do can be very different. Cheap food will almost always trump "ethical" (whatever that means) food depite claims to the contrary

Recently, the celebrity gossip blog, DMZ, took a swipe at celebrities "who claim they're green, but guzzle gas". George Clooney, among others, was mocked for his `I drive an electric car so I'm environmentally conscious-except when I'm flying to Tokyo in my private jet' hypocrisy. But besides delivering a smacking to self-righteous celebrities, such an expose illustrates the sizable gap that exists between the attitude and behavior of "ethical" consumers.

Conscientious or ethical consumption is the new frame through which we are asked to view our economic decisions. For instance, the New York Times suggests asking "How Green is My Conscience?" while the Washington Post argues that it is [liberal] guilt that leads us to worry about the ethical content of our purchasing decisions in the first place. So it seems that finding a low-priced, good quality product is not enough, you should "feel good" about your purchase, in a Good Samaritan-type of way. But do we really?

We can certainly pose beside our electric car and feel good about ourselves as Mr. Clooney does so well. But even though we claim to want to do our part to save the planet by buying the organic lettuce for $4.80 at supermarket X instead of the regular lettuce for $1.80 at supermarket Y, we don't even do this.

Studies of ethical consumers often are little more than opinion surveys that ask `would you be willing to pay a little more to help save the rainforests?' And of course you would, because you're a good person who wants to walk away from the survey with a green conscience. But this tells us nothing useful because it only measures attitudes and not actual behavior as revealed by consumers' willingness to pay. Furthermore, one also needs to take into account factors such as brand preference, other values ("buy American", for example), socio-demographic characteristics, price and various measures of quality.

A group of Belgian business professors published a study last year that attempts to do all of this. The authors' idea was to use the FairTrade coffee label as a proxy for `ethical consumption' and then to estimate consumers' willingness to pay for it. Initially, the study finds that, as expected, coffee drinkers claim that whether the coffee is FairTrade or not-that is, whether a given coffee product is "ethical"-matters. But upon further investigation, it turns out that coffee drinkers actually place a higher value on both the brand name of coffee as well as on coffee taste (a measure of product quality). Finally, only 10 percent of coffee drinkers were willing to pay a premium of 27 percent above the average coffee price for FairTrade coffee. In the authors' words, "the appreciation for the fair-trade attribute was not strong enough to support the actual price premium."

The point of this is not to argue that one should only look at the price when making a purchasing decision. On the contrary, people buy things for many different reasons. But just because someone asserts that he makes a consumption decision based on ethical or environmental concerns doesn't make it so. And, in fact, there is evidence to suggest it is not so.

Moreover, we have not even begun to examine whether "ethical" consumption offers any measurable benefits to anyone. Nor have we even questioned the implication of this discussion that "normal" consumption -consumption that doesn't contain a contrived moral/political assessment- is somehow unethical.

Yes. What is ethical depends on your ethics and there can be very large differences over what is ethical even when the basic ethical principles are agreed on -- which they are often not. So calling a purchase ethical is simply an arrogant assumption that your ideas and priorities are superior to those of other people. Humility seems to be a rare virtue in the ethical systems of the self-proclaimed ethical brigade. And note that cheap food will usually have used fewer resources (land, labour etc.) in its production -- and is not a reduced use of resources just about the top imperative of Greenie ethics? Dilemma!

Source



Australian Prime Minister hoses down the fast food hatred

Parents have to take responsibility for Australia's child obesity crisis, Prime Minister John Howard says. Rejecting calls for "heavy-handed" bans on junk food ads, Mr Howard called for parents to show - and teach - some self-discipline. The reasons for Australia's soaring numbers of overweight and obese people were obvious - lack of exercise and bad diet. "Fundamentally, I believe that obesity . . . the response to it does lie very much in changing lifestyle," Mr Howard said in a speech to the Heart Research Institute.

A study released by Diabetes Australia this month revealed 3.2 million people are obese and predicted the numbers would more than double by 2025. "We appear to be struggling as a nation with the challenge of obesity, something that's come upon us with alarming speed and something that is affecting all age groups," said Mr Howard. "The Government can do a lot but I do hope the community doesn't see obesity as a problem that can simply be solved by government regulation. "I think that rather misses the point that a certain degree of individual responsibility and individual self-discipline (is needed) and, particularly, an assumption again of parental responsibility and parental surveillance of the activities of children - what they eat, how much exercise they get, the balance between playing sport and other physical activity and time spent in front of the television set and on computer games."

But Mr Howard said the Government did have a role in changing attitudes through hard-hitting public health campaigns like those which targeted smoking and HIV-Aids. "Because it's only been with us for a short period of time, if we tackle it in the right fashion, there's no reason why we can't overcome it within a relatively short period of time as well."

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



26 November, 2006

FISH AND ALZHEIMER'S: MORE CRAP REPORTING

Read the following and see what you conclude:

High levels of the fatty acid DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) found in fish could protect against dementia and Alzheimer's disease, says a study in the Archives of Neurology this week. The study involved 899 men and women with an average age of 76 years. Participants underwent psychological testing, gave blood samples, and were followed for an average of nine years. Of these participants, 488 also completed a diet survey, including their consumption of fish. Participants were free from dementia at the start of the study, and were screened every two years to detect its development. Over nine years, 99 participants developed dementia, including 71 that were diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Men and women with the highest DHA levels (in the top 25 per cent) had a 47 per cent lower risk of developing dementia, and 39 per cent lower risk of developing Alzheimer's disease than those with lower DHA levels. Those with the highest DHA levels reported eating an average of three serves of fish per week.

Source

Pretty clear that fish fights Alzheimer's, isn't it? But it's a lie. In the originating journal, we read: "Fish consumption was positively correlated with plasma DHA but was not statistically significantly associated with incident Alzheimer disease". In other words, eating fish did NOT reduce risk of Alzheimer's. It's amazing the garbage that the media feed people. The journal abstract is here



New antiviral drug -- may boost defence against bird flu pandemic

A new flu drug that can kill deadly strains of bird flu is promising to transform global preparations for an influenza pandemic. Peramivir, an antiviral agent, could provide the world with a critical new line of defence against flu viruses with the potential to cause millions of deaths, such as the H5N1 avian strain, research has suggested.

Studies in the United States show that it should be more powerful and easier to give to seriously ill patients than either Tamiflu or Relenza, the two existing drugs for H5N1 flu. Flu experts said that the advent of a third effective option could save hundreds of thousands of lives if H5N1 acquires the ability to pass easily from person to person — the key trigger for a pandemic. H5N1 has already infected 258 people and killed 153, mainly in South-East Asia, and it has recently mutated in ways that make human infections more probable.

“We need as many good antiviral drugs for flu as we can develop,” said Frederick Hayden, a World Health Organisation medical officer who has studied peramivir. “Having multiple options with different antiviral spectra is very desirable.”

Peramivir has two important advantages over the other therapies. Tamiflu, which is taken orally, and Relenza, which is inhaled, are difficult to administer to unconscious patients. Peramivir does not have this problem because it is injected, and the first human studies have shown that it also reaches the bloodstream in higher concentrations and remains active for longer.

The new drug would also provide a valuable alternative if a pandemic strain were to evolve resistance to Tamiflu, the front-line treatment that has been stockpiled by many countries, including Britain. Some H5N1 viruses have already shown resistance to Tamiflu, and if such a strain became dominant the drug would become useless. This week, a report from the Royal Society urged the Government not to rely on it exclusively.

Laboratory tests show that peramivir is effective against every known variant of H5N1, and its greater potency means that the virus is less likely to acquire resistance.

It is also simple to manufacture from synthetic raw materials that are readily available in bulk. Tamiflu production has been delayed by a shortage of star anise, the plant from which the active ingredient comes.

Peramivir was developed by BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, based in Alabama. It said that facilities already exist that could make a billion doses a year; Roche can make only 400 million doses of Tamiflu a year. BioCryst recently completed successful safety trials on human volunteers, which also proved that both intramuscular (IM) and intravenous (IV) injections deliver high levels of the drug to the bloodstream.

Phase 2 trials of the IM formulation will start testing peramivir’s effectiveness in more than 100 patients with seasonal flu from next week, and a similar study of the IV injection is due to begin in January. If these are successful, larger phase 3 trials would take place during next winter’s flu season, and the drug could be marketed within two to three years. If a flu pandemic were to start before then, peramivir could be made available as an emergency measure, as it already has a good safety record.

Source



Young mothers' firstborn live long: "Firstborn children of women younger than 25 are about twice as likely to surpass the average life span and go on to live beyond 100, according to a new study. Leonid Gavrilov and his colleagues at the University of Chicago's Center for Aging have studied a wealth of data on centenarians to figure out why so many firstborns seem to outpace their younger siblings in the longevity race. Although there is no clear answer yet, scientists believe the phenomenon may be related to the physical youthfulness of young mothers and the eggs they produce. They found that firstborn children are 1.7 times more likely to live to a ripe old age. The scientists studied a variety of factors, and what stood out strongly was the age of the mother."

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



25 November, 2006

Dental amalgam safe

Most of us have our share of metal in our mouths. "I've got a lot of fillings. I have fillings that have been removed and replaced twice," Susan Stillman says. But are they safe? She doesn't think they're a problem. Dentists have been using silver fillings for more than a century. Researchers recently discovered they cause mercury exposure. Now, there's debate over their safety in kids and whether composite fillings should be the only way to go.

But two new studies show silver fillings do not harm children. When compared to the tooth-colored composite fillings, researchers found kids with the silver were exposed to more mercury, but the levels were too low to affect them. "What we have is objective evidence," Timothy DeRouen, Ph.D., a dental health researcher at University of Washington in Seattle, tells Ivanhoe. He studied the two groups of children for seven years. "We saw no differences over time in these two," he says. "They seemed to develop and do identically on the neurobehavioral tests that were conducted."

But some dentists believe mercury in silver is harmful and dispute the findings. They argue the fillings can cause autism and neurological damage. "They say that the exposure is low, but they never actually said in the article how much mercury the children were exposed to," Jessica Saepoff, D.D.S., of Natural Dental Health Associates in Issaquah, Wash., tells Ivanhoe. "Mercury is known to be a neurotoxin, and the World Health Organization has said there is no safe level." [An opinion only, and an unscientific one -- as anybody who has heard about hormesis will know]

But most dentists say as long as there is nothing that proves they are unsafe, they'll keep on filling with silver. Silver fillings cost $40 to $50 less than composite fillings. They're used less often in the United States, and fillings in general are also decreasing as the number of cavities decreases.

Source



Bloomberg pissing into the wind

Mayor Michael Bloomberg launched another assault on unhealthy food Wednesday, creating a task force and a food czar to encourage grocers in poor neighborhoods to stock reduced-fat milk, fruits and vegetables. "There are too many New Yorkers without the ability to select healthy foods, because those foods are not on their store shelves," Bloomberg said.

The food policy task force, along with its coordinator, will work directly with small grocery owners to provide healthy food options, he said. They will help oversee the expansion of a program launched in January called the Healthy Bodegas Initiative, which works with small grocery stores in communities with the highest rates of poverty and diet-related health diseases to help them stock more nutritional items.

Such corner stores are often the chief source for groceries in poor neighborhoods, and many do not stock healthy foods. City officials said sales of 1 percent milk had increased since the initiative was launched.

The mayor said he hopes to fill the coordinator's position early next year. He said the program will expand over the next two years from 200 small groceries to more than 1,000.

Earlier this year, Bloomberg proposed banning trans fat in restaurants, which would make New York the first U.S. city to outlaw the harmful man-made ingredient

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



24 November, 2006

Personality Traits Increase Heart Disease Risk

I agree with this finding but it is very old news. I had several papers published in the medical journals back in the 80's that said much the same thing. There is in fact a wealth of evidence showing that anger and hostility predisposes to coronary heart disease

If you're often depressed, anxious, hostile or angry, you could be increasing your risk for heart disease. New research reveals people with a combination of these "negative" personality traits are more likely to suffer from heart disease.

Researchers at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., analyzed data from 2,105 Vietnam War veterans who were in the U.S. Air Force Health Study. The health of the veterans was tracked for 20 years. None of the participants had heart disease when the study began. The men had physical examinations six times during the study, checking their blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and body mass index -- information that can determine whether someone is at risk for heart disease. Their personality traits were also determined. The study reveals each negative personality trait by itself was significantly associated with an increased risk for heart disease. But a combination of all the traits was the best predictor of the risk.

Researchers report their findings may prompt doctors to look at personality traits in addition to physical health to determine a patient's overall risk for heart disease. "In the future, doctors may wish to explore the use of earlier interventions aimed at diminishing negative personality traits in people who may be most at risk for future heart disease," reports lead investigator, Edward C. Suarez, Ph.D., from Duke University Medical Center. But Dr. Suarez notes because the participants were all men and most of them were white, the findings cannot be generalized to others.

Source



New Combined Treatment for Overactive Male Bladder

The obvious does sometimes work

An overactive bladder sends an estimated 10 million American men running to the restroom too much. Now, a new way to treat the problem could help many of those men avoid the frequent pit stops. For some men with the disorder, the standard medications do not work well enough to relieve their symptoms. Researchers from New York Presbyterian Hospital and the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York report the combination of two drugs used to treat overactive bladder works better than either of the drugs alone.

Steven Kaplan, M.D., from Weill Cornell Medical College in New York told Ivanhoe the two drugs used in this combination -- tolterodine (Detrol LA) and tamsulosin (Flomaxtra, Flomax) -- work on different parts of the overactive bladder problem. Tolterodine relaxes the bladder, while tamsulosin relaxes the prostate. "By using both we really enhance the effect of the improvement of the prostate condition and the bladder condition," said Dr. Kaplan.

Researchers compared patients taking the combination treatment to patients taking the drugs alone and to patients who took a placebo. Significantly more men taking the combination treatment reported an improvement in their symptoms than the men in the other groups.

Dr. Kaplan said when men with overactive bladders are treated successfully it makes a huge impact on their lives. "Guys can sit through a movie, they can sit through a ballgame, they can even sit through dinner with their loved ones and not make excuses of having to use the bathroom," he said.

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



23 November, 2006

SUGARY FOOD GIVES YOU CANCER? -- But of course!

Until you look at the actual data. Popular summary below followed by the actual journal abstract

SWEETENED foods and drinks are already at the pointy end of the food pyramid, but now there's another reason to avoid them. According to new research in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, consumption of soft drinks and added sugar increases the risk of developing pancreatic cancer, one of the most deadly forms of this disease. Starting in 1997, scientists surveyed the diets of 77,797 healthy men and women aged 45 to 83.

Participants were monitored for the next eight years, during which time 131 were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Those who drank soft drinks twice a day or more had a 93 per cent greater risk of pancreatic cancer than those who never drank them. Adding sugar to food or drinks (such as coffee, tea and cereal) at least five times a day increased the risk of pancreatic cancer by 69 per cent. The authors suggest that the constant pressure on the pancreas to produce insulin in response to high sugar intake could lead to cancer.

Source

Journal Abstract follows:

Consumption of sugar and sugar-sweetened foods and the risk of pancreatic cancer in a prospective study

By Susanna C Larsson, Leif Bergkvist and Alicja Wolk

Background: Emerging evidence indicates that hyperglycemia and hyperinsulinemia may be implicated in the development of pancreatic cancer. Frequent consumption of sugar and high-sugar foods may increase the risk of pancreatic cancer by inducing frequent postprandial hyperglycemia, increasing insulin demand, and decreasing insulin sensitivity.

Objective: The objective of the study was to examine prospectively the association of the consumption of added sugar (ie, sugar added to coffee, tea, cereals, etc) and of high-sugar foods with the risk of pancreatic cancer in a population-based cohort study of Swedish women and men.

Design: A food-frequency questionnaire was completed in 1997 by 77 797 women and men aged 45-83 y who had no previous diagnosis of cancer or history of diabetes. The participants were followed through June 2005.

Results: During a mean follow-up of 7.2 y, we identified 131 incident cases of pancreatic cancer. The consumption of added sugar, soft drinks, and sweetened fruit soups or stewed fruit was positively associated with the risk of pancreatic cancer. The multivariate hazard ratios for the highest compared with the lowest consumption categories were 1.69 (95% CI: 0.99, 2.89; P for trend = 0.06) for sugar, 1.93 (1.18, 3.14; P for trend = 0.02) for soft drinks, and 1.51 (0.97, 2.36; P for trend = 0.05) for sweetened fruit soups or stewed fruit.

Conclusion: High consumption of sugar and high-sugar foods may be associated with a greater risk of pancreatic cancer.

Source

Note that despite the dubious expedient of taking extreme groups only, the trend for sugar overall was NOT STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT (p = .06 -- above the conventional .05 threshold). That certainly plays havoc with the interpretation! Clearly, all the effects were very weak -- the sort of effect that is often not replicable. Simple mean scores for cancer sufferers and non-sufferers would have been much more interesting -- and undoubtedly inconvenient



Britain: The ‘school meals revolution’: a dog’s dinner

Scare stories about kids eating 'shit' have created a crisis in school dinners. What a shock!

‘It is about one decent man’s heroic battle against an uncaring, bureaucratic system; about the exploitation of dinner ladies and everybody else who has to struggle away on the front line in a country which no longer values leadership, principles and standards; about the corruption of childhood; and the loss of virtue.’ So said a columnist in the Daily Telegraph after celebrity chef Jamie Oliver launched his Channel 4 TV campaign – nay, crusade – to rescue British school meals from multinationals, and children from their own bad eating habits and feckless parents. What has been the upshot of Oliver’s ‘heroic battle’? Increased bureaucratic monitoring of parents; fewer children eating school meals; even greater exploitation of dinner ladies; and local authorities struggling to pay for all this new found ‘virtue’.

New rules on meals, including restrictions on vending machines, came into force in September. This week, the BBC reported on the results of a survey conducted in 59 local authorities to find out how they had fared. In 35 of them, fewer children were eating school meals – that is, they are no longer having a hot dinner during the day. Of these, 71 per cent felt that Oliver’s campaign was one of the reasons. As it happens, Oliver is far from being solely responsible. But he has been the most high-profile promoter of an obsession with freshly prepared food, locally-sourced, at the expense of ‘junk’ containing salt, sugar and fat. If he’s happy to accept the plaudits, he should also take a few brickbats.

The fresh-food obsession has been cut-and-pasted into a school meals service that doesn’t do that kind of thing, and which has been in steady decline. With staff not accustomed to actually doing much cooking, instead just heating pre-packed food, the jump to food preparation has been mainly at their expense. Across the country, dinner ladies have been working late and starting early to get everything done – usually without extra pay. This is hardly a surprise. In the original series, Jamie’s School Dinners, his sidekick and long-suffering school cook Nora Sands seemed to have her life taken over by the demands of making and promoting Jamie’s food.

In May this year, spiked‘s Brendan O’Neill interviewed Cathy Stewart, a dinner lady in Hackney in London and a union rep, for the New Statesman. ‘Overnight, we were expected to start seasoning meat and peeling hundreds of carrots - but that takes time and we’re not being paid for it’, said Stewart. ‘They want dinner ladies to become professional chefs. But they won’t give us the resources we need. We have outdated equipment and we don’t have enough staff.’ (2) Stewart was balloting members about industrial action.

When the food is finally ready, many children are turning their noses up at it. It’s not just that the food is unfamiliar – it’s also not actually allowed to taste of anything. In post-Jamie’s School Dinners Britain, salt is treated like nerve poison rather than an essential element of flavour, and is banned from canteen tables. When given a choice, kids have tended to choose the ‘junk’ and vote with their feet against the new options. School caterers in Denbighshire in North Wales found that 40 per cent fewer children ate meals on ‘healthy’ food days (3).

If the kids don’t like the food, they will struggle to find alternative sustenance like crisps and chocolate bars in school. The ban on ‘tuck’, along with the extra costs of ingredients, has been a double whammy for school food budgets. As the follow-up Channel 4 programme, Jamie’s Return to School Dinners, showed at Kidbrooke School, this didn’t stop children from eating sweets and savoury snacks. It simply meant that they bought them on the way to school instead – enriching local shopkeepers and depriving the school of important revenue; a sum that ran well into five figures in Kidbrooke’s case.

In other schools, it is reported that children have set up their own ‘black markets’ in junk food, selling sweets to each other behind the bike sheds or in the toilets, as if they were dealing in deadly substances. This might show that children are as wily as ever when it comes to breaking the rules; it also suggests they are developing a pretty screwed-up attitude to the joys of food in general (see The junk food smugglers).

If the sums are getting uncomfortable at Kidbrooke, they’re downright serious in Denbighshire. A report has warned councillors in the county that the school meals service is ‘no longer financially viable’ after servings were down by 100,000. The service lost £81,000 in the last year – a major blow for a relatively small local authority. Part of the problem was the decision to go for locally-sourced meat – a nice subsidy to farmers which looks like a luxury now that sales are down.

What started out as a crusade has become mired not only in the hubris of Oliver’s fantasy of a ‘school meals revolution’ (replacing chips with ciabatta does not qualify as a revolution) but also in the dumping of every other modern food prejudice into the mix. For one thing, we’ve been forced to listen to Oliver’s tirades against parents and packed lunches (see Jamie Oliver: what a ‘tosser’ and Are packed lunches the ‘biggest evil’? by Rob Lyons). This tirade became a chorus of indignation from all right-thinking newspaper hacks when two mothers started supplying takeaway food to kids at a Rotherham school. The fact that the children were struggling to be fed in the ludicrously short lunchbreak, and didn’t much like the food when they did manage to get it, was simply ignored. Parents getting involved with schools is usually regarded as a wholesome example of community spirit - except when it’s off-message like this.

We also now have the prospect of ‘fat charts’ in schools, where children will be weighed by school staff to see if they are the ‘right weight’ for their age, height and gender (4). Such a measure will effectively institutionalise that age-old trend of bullying the fat kid of the class, where children who fall short of state-imposed waist measurements will be made to feel like outcasts not only by their peers but also by the school system itself. And these fat charts are also yet another example of the undermining of parents’ authority: the clear message is that mums and dads can’t be trusted to keep their children in shape, so the authorities will have to do it.

A significant chunk of the extra millions spent on school meals has actually gone to create the School Food Trust, a quango designed to promote healthy eating (5). Did we really need another body to tell us that kids are getting too fat, or remind us of the ‘Seven Deadly Sins: food facts that every parent should know’? And vilifying the catering giants like Sodexho might provide a thrill for those who hate big corporations, but having handed a swathe of school meals over to them, it might have been easier to take a more constructive approach to working with them.

Jamie Oliver, and the government ministers and journalists who fell at his feet, told us that schools are feeding our children ‘shit’, and today’s children will be the first generation to die before their parents. None of this was based in fact, but unsurprisingly such kneejerk scaremongering has had a negative rather than a positive impact. After Jamie has ridden off on his scooter into the sunset, the school meals service may actually settle down and recover - but only if staff and parents work very hard to fix it while quietly dropping or subverting many of his more nonsensical ideas, and while kicking against that new layer of school-meals bureaucracy that is at least as obsessed with lecturing mums, dads and their children as it is with replacing butter with olive oil.

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



22 November, 2006

The wi-fi scare

Some British schools are ripping out their wi-fi networks because of complaints from neurotic parents

In the 1950s, anything that went wrong - the weather, a bout of flu, England losing at cricket - tended to be blamed on the effects of nuclear tests. There was, of course, no connection. Today radio signals from mobile phones, mobile phone masts and now wi-fi installations have taken over where nuclear tests left off. Feeling a bit peaky? It's probably that mobile mast round the corner.

It can't be said often enough that there is hardly a shred of worthwhile evidence to support the worries. In some US schools, and even in a university in Canada, wi-fi has been banned until it can be "proved safe". Can Canadian academic standards be so low that they do not know it is impossible to prove anything safe? The best that can be hoped for is no evidence of risk: evidence of no risk is asking the impossible.

People who worry about mobile phones and wi-fi should be asked why they don't worry about TV transmitters, radar installations, or telephones you can carry about the house, which communicate with their base stations using radio signals. Ever since Marconi, we have been enveloped in a fog of radio-frequency transmissions of various powers and wavelengths. They activate our TV sets, and play a pretty tune on the tranny. Until somebody started the alarm over mobile phones, nobody except the mentally disturbed gave radio waves a second thought.

Wi-fi works at much lower power levels and over shorter ranges than mobile phone networks, so is even less likely to cause a problem. But even writing this implies that mobile phones themselves may be a problem when there is no persuasive evidence that they are.

It would be much better if these scares could be strangled at birth, before they have a chance to become embedded in the psyche of the anxious. But they never are. Stand by for a Government inquiry, a programme of research (paid for by the industry, naturally, not the protesters) and the invocation of the Precautionary Principle. Wake me when it's all over.

Source



Sex okay for your heart

Contrary to movie mythology, sex does not increase your chances of a heart attack, a Australian study has found. But cocaine lifts the risk of seizure more than 20 times.

The review by University of Sydney and Harvard academics is the first to analyse triggers for heart attacks, including sexual activity, cocaine use, pollution, heavy meals, and stressful major events such as terrorist attacks. Co-researcher Geoffrey Tofler said traditional long-term approaches to heart attack prevention, such as diet and exercise regimes and medication, were important but they often ignored other triggers. These external pressures - such as sudden severe stress or physical exertion - could be a factor in up to 40 per cent of heart attacks, said Professor Tofler, who is associated with both universities. "We know, for example, that the incidence of heart attacks rises sharply in the days after people are exposed to major events such as an earthquake or a September 11," he said.

Having sex causes very little increased risk of heart attack while, in contrast, cocaine use lifts the likelihood 20 times. "If individuals know what the relative risks are they will be better able to manage their own health accordingly," he said.

Source



Unbelievable: Dogs get a melanoma vaccine before people

Even though it was developed for people

Ken Lipmann, an avid outdoorsman, is one of the human volunteers testing a vaccine for melanoma - a potentially fatal skin cancer that strikes 60,000 Americans a year. "You had to have a tan!" says Lipmann. "None of you ladies would ever look at us if we were pale." The human results at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center are not in yet, but a few blocks away in New York at the Animal Medical Center, veterinarians heard about the vaccine and asked to try it in dogs.

Dogs, like humans, can naturally get many forms of cancer, including melanoma. In dogs, the melanoma is not usually related to sun exposure, but it can be very difficult to treat, and it's often fatal.

Vet Philip Bergman remembers the first time he tried the vaccine in a dog. "That was a dog that thankfully underwent complete disappearance of his tumor," says Bergman. "It was remarkable, obviously, to us." Since then, more than 100 dogs have been treated, including Lawana Hart's Lucky, who last June appeared to have only a few months to live. "He's great!" Hart says about Lucky these days. "He's got lots of energy, runs around the house, plays with his ball, loves to go out."

The vaccine works so well that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is about to license it as a treatment for melanoma in dogs.

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



21 November, 2006

First non-addictive ADHD drug to be trialled

I hate to mention it but heroin was originally supposed to be a non-addictive alternative to morphine

THE first non-addictive drug to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is to be trialled on Australian adolescents. It is hoped that Strattera - which does not contain amphetamines or other stimulants - will be made available under subsidy as an alternative medication for sufferers if the trial is successful. Australia has one of the highest recorded rates of ADHD in the world, with about a quarter of a million prescriptions for treatment a year.

The usually prescribed drugs Ritalin and dexamphetamine have become controversial because of cases of dependency, recreational use and side-effects. Strattera works by increasing the flow of dopamine to the brain's neuro-transmitters, which aids decision-making and learning. Specialists say the drug could be available under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) within two years.

Source



MORE WONDERS OF RED WINE



Athletes and non-athletes alike may want to raise a glass to resveratrol, an ingredient in red wine that researchers say doubled the physical endurance of mice in a new study, while protecting them against diabetes and obesity. Mice given high doses of the compound were able to run twice as far on treadmills than they normally could, French researchers reported.

Resveratrol might even help the rodents live longer, they say. "The compound resveratrol, found in the skin of red grapes and cranberries, was known to activate SIRT1, an enzyme known to be involved in lifespan extension," explained lead researcher Dr. Johan Auwerx, from the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology in Illkirch, France.

These results, published in the Nov. 16 issue of Cell, add to findings from a recent study that showed that resveratrol improved health and lengthened survival of mice placed on a high-calorie diet. While studies have so far been limited to mice, the French team said they had also found a genetic link to energy expenditure in humans that looks like it might be similarly affected by resveratrol. "Our study shows that activation of SIRT1 by resveratrol is a very promising and well-tolerated approach to treat common metabolic diseases, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes," Auwerx said.

The study involved obese mice with a condition that mimicked type 2 diabetes. Auwerx's team found that resveratrol activated the SIRT1 gene, inducing the activity of mitochondria, the tiny energy factories within cells. By activating mitochondria, resveratrol causes the cells to burn more energy than they normally could. Burning more energy protects against fat accumulation and type 2 diabetes, the research team explained. Increasing mitochondria activity also improves the performance of certain tissues, most especially skeletal muscles. "That is why we saw a spectacular increase in endurance in the mice, which doubled the distance they run," Auwerx explained. "We showed this not only in cultured cells and mice, but also, more importantly, the first time in humans, where we linked the SIRT1 gene with energy expenditure," Auwerx said.

Resveratrol or its analogs could prove useful in treating several diseases that are characterized by abnormal mitochondrial activity, Auwerx said. "In the first case, you can think about applications in the treatment of obesity and type 2 diabetes," he said. "Many more diseases could benefit from increased mitochondrial activity, most notably neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson's disease and Huntington's," he added. This study was paid for by Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, which developed the compound used in the experiments.

But if you think that drinking more wine or taking resveratrol supplements might turn you into a super-athlete, think again, said Sirtris CEO Dr. Christoph Westphal. "Native resveratrol from red wine or nutraceuticals cannot reach therapeutic levels in man," he said. "You would need to drink hundreds of glasses of red wine or take hundreds of nutraceutical pills in a day to get a therapeutic dose." According to Westphal, the company has completed two phase 1 studies with 85 human volunteers of an improved formulation of resveratrol which reaches therapeutic levels in man and is safe. In addition, Sirtris has started giving diabetic patients its resveratrol compound in a 28-day phase 1 trial to test the safety of the drug and to see how it affects glucose levels. "We are also initiating a phase 1 study in a rare, very severe mitochondrial disorder called MELAS," Westphal said. The condition -- "mitochondrial myopathy, encephalopathy, lactacidosis, stroke" (MELAS) -- is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder.

One expert was cautious about the findings. "This is an important addition to the body of work that is showing that you can activate anti-aging genetic pathways," said David Sinclair, an associate professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School, and a cofounder of Sirtris. He called the study an important sep in the development of new drugs to fight heart disease, Alzheimer's and age-relate other woes. "In five years, we should know if the results obtained in mice can be achieved in people," he said. The compound's usefulness against diabetes remains unproven, Sinclair said. "A mouse is not a human," he said. "It would be amazing if it worked in humans. But we will have to wait and see."

Another expert expressed similar skepticism. "It's clear that the authors of the Cell paper want to strongly argue that their data show a causal link between activation of SIRT1 and the effects of resveratrol," said Matt Kaeberlein, an assistant professor of pathology at the University of Washington. "While all of their data is consistent with this model, and the data is compelling, there really is no causal evidence that the effects of resveratrol in mice require SIRT1 activation," he said. Kaeberlein suggested that to really test their theory, the researchers should have experimented with mice that did not have the SIRT1 gene, to see whether these mice would respond to resveratrol when fed a high-fat diet. "Also, there is abundant evidence that resveratrol acts on proteins other than SIRT1, so it's premature to conclude that everything seen in this paper is due to effects on SIRT1," he said.

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



20 November, 2006

An open and shut case?

After 50 years of conflicting evidence and advice, the fats in our food have been tried and sentenced. But have the real killers been identified — or are they still wrecking lives? Investigation by Britain's Richard Girling

Food scares. Don’t they bring you out in sores? Proselytising zealots on the one hand try to tell us that “natural” is best, and on the other hand that, well, it’s only best if you skim off the fatty bits that actually make it taste of something. The penalty for noncompliance with dietary high command used to be rickets. Now it’s bad skin, obesity, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, depression, diabetes and cancer.

It’s a peculiarly human thing. Birds and animals know instinctively what is good and bad to eat, which is all to do with how food looks, smells and tastes. Humans, by contrast, have been taught to sublimate their instincts and eat what they’re told. The result is a confused populace that seldom understands the terms in which it is being addressed, but picks up the mantras of “good” and “bad” fat, high-fibre, five-portions-a-day and chuck-away-the-frying-pan. It swallows either the most recent prescriptions of the diet lobby or what is urged upon it by the wilier practitioners of the advertising industry. Sometimes – for nothing sells better than the promise of good health – the messages coincide. “Low-fat” foods are a good example. So are the plastic tubs of primrose-coloured grease that are slid across the table in some households when you ask for butter.

In the 1970s, specially selected stupid people were challenged in television commercials to “tell Stork from butter”, and we were asked to believe that 7 out of 10 couldn’t do it. Aside from arguments about how such a result could have been achieved (did they poll only smokers with a Capstan Full Strength on the go?), the hottest controversy then was whether the G in margarine should be hard or soft. Nobody doubted the twin prongs of the advertisers’ message – that the stuff spread straight from the fridge (demonstrably true) and that it was better for you than hard, saturated fats churned from cows’ milk (taken on trust). The eventual brand leader, Flora, built its whole image on the health benefits of eating hydrogenated vegetable oils in place of butter – a marketing slant that was bang in line with government health policy.

Nobody imagined that one day these very same oils would find themselves in the dock alongside the fat old lags they were designed to replace. But there they stand: accused, convicted and condemned. Hydrogenated vegetable oils contain trans fats, or “trans-fatty acids”, which it turns out are even worse for our hearts than the saturated fats we were taught to abhor. The current, highly publicised unrest in New York, where the health department wants to ban trans fats from restaurants and takeaways, is the latest flare-up in a war that has been rumbling for years. As in so many food scares, however, the truth struggles to live up to the headlines.

As in many food scares, too, mention of life-threatening disease has stimulated something very close to panic. In the UK this summer, a new rash of headlines was provoked, first, by some long-term American research showing that monkeys fed on polyunsaturates put on 30% more belly fat than those given monounsaturates; and then by the British Medical Journal, which argued in an editorial that – in the UK as in America – trans fats should be compulsorily labelled, just like the old-school killers saturated fats. It was all a bit late, though. Hydrogenated vegetable oils have been purged from spreads, and retailers and manufacturers (see panel on page 25) are racing each other to remove them from the plethora of other products – cakes and biscuits, pies and pastries, sweets, ready meals, chocolate, even Horlicks – in which they have been ubiquitous.

The old-school killers themselves, meanwhile, are rampaging around the supermarket as if they own the place. Buyers of processed meat products may not be the most discriminating consumers, but some will have wised up to the fact that the “meat” in their dinner, if laid out in its raw state, would not look appetising. The truth is, it would test the appetite of a hyena. To keep the lawyers happy, manufacturers have to satisfy the official “European definition of meat” introduced in 2003, which, you won’t be surprised to learn, differs in several respects from any definition your grandmother might have recognised. This has been tightened up somewhat (it now excludes, for example, brains, feet, intestines, lungs, oesophagus, rectum, spinal cord, spleen, stomach, testicles and udder), but there’s plenty of slithery stuff still going on, and half the “meat” could be fat, rind and gristle.

The trans-fat story began with that old-fashioned word “margarine”, and it’s a longer story than many people think. The word itself comes from the Greek margarites, meaning pearl – an oddly poetic image coined by its inventor, the 19th-century French chemist Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès. His recipe, processed suet mixed with buttermilk and water, patented in 1869, was inspired by the need for a cheaper rather than healthier alternative to butter. Moneyed folk continued to prefer milk fat, and the comparison with butter has obsessed margarine-makers ever since. Mège-Mouriès sold out to a Dutch company in 1871, and by 1889 factories were turning out margarine in Germany, Austria, America, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and England. By 1906 the supply of suet was being outstripped by the demand, and factories began to look instead to vegetable oils – a switch that was all but complete by 1920.

Margarine’s inferiority complex found some relief in the 1960s when it first realised the power of the health card. In that decade too, the original hard margarines, packeted like the butter they so desperately wanted to imitate, were replaced by soft varieties in tubs. The first margarine “high in polyunsaturates, low in saturated fats” hit the shelves in 1964. Twenty years later, the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food and Nutrition Policy (Coma) published its report Diet and Cardiovascular Disease, which once and for all spelt out the heart-stopping dangers of saturated fats. City streets began to vibrate with wobble-bottomed joggers staggering home not to naughty butter but to smears of vegetable yuk. In a London restaurant, I watched a man hack the fat from his parma ham as if he was fighting for his life. Proper butchers went on selling proper meat, but supermarkets were packaging stuff that looked as if it had been cut from Victoria Beckham.

Yet even as one branch of the food industry was pulling the saturated fats out of our diet, another was shoving them in again. Sausages, burgers, pies and pasties were being bulked out with body fat and other bits and pieces discarded by the butchers. Remember mechanically recovered meat (MRM)? The official definition quoted in the report of the BSE inquiry was unflinching: “Residual material, off bones, obtained by machines operating on pressure principles in such manner that the cellular structure of the material is broken down sufficiently for it to flow as purée from the bone.” As far as the law went, it was perfectly okay for these intimate scrapings, with their cellular structure broken down into gloop, to be described on packaging as “meat”. It was this very stuff, gleaned from places other recipes could not reach, that built the bridge between BSE and its nightmare human twin, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Don’t imagine it has been banned, however. Manufacturers are simply not allowed to describe it in the labelling as “meat”. It will appear instead as “recovered pork”, or whatever.

There is another irony too. Cookery writers like to applaud the peasant cuisines of continental Europe and marvel at their thrift. It has been repeated so often that it has become a cliché: they use every part of a pig except its squeak. But the same middle-class writers clutched their throats when the principle was seized upon by pie-makers. If Britain had any living equivalent of peasant cuisine, it was – still is – ingredients of rock-bottom cheapness chemically enhanced to give flavour, shelf life and “mouth-feel”, then fashioned into the resemblance of food that needs little chewing but can only be swallowed with ketchup.

While all this was going on, the health-obsessed middle classes were piling on the polyunsaturates, even if they didn’t quite understand what they were – food science is as opaque as lard, and twice as slippery. Most people know at least that, like butter, hard margarine and cheese, lard itself is a “saturated” fat, hard at room temperature. This is the stuff that raises cholesterol, blocks our arteries and – by some accounts – hastens the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Pretty much every health authority on the planet urges us to go easy on it.

Many people also understand “unsaturated” fats stay runny at room temperature and subdivide into polyunsaturates and monounsaturates. Polyunsaturates are said to protect against heart disease and arthritis, and are found in oily fish, soft margarines and some cooking oils (safflower, grapeseed, sunflower and corn oils, for example). Monounsaturates are said to be more or less health-neutral, though there is a suggestion they may reduce the risk of heart disease. They are found in olives, olive oil, nut oils and avocados. After that it all gets a bit hazy.

Even mainstream health advice wriggles with weasels such as “some experts now believe that”, which invites you to conclude that other experts think differently, and raises the question: how expert are the experts? Margarine, or “synthetic edible fat” as the Butter Board would prefer us to call it, remains the benchmark of dietary false idols. Unlike butter, it was not something you could make at home. Liquid vegetable oils were stiffened to a butter-like consistency (in other words, had their melting point raised) by a high-tech industrial process that involved extreme heat, metallic catalysts (nickel, for example) and hydrogen. A bit of fiddling with flavouring and colouring agents, stabilisers and salt turned these “hydrogenated vegetable oils”, now “high in polyunsaturates”, into margarine.

It was not long before scientists started adding some rationalist caveats to the good-health gospel. As early as 1974, Australian researchers found a link between polyunsaturates and skin cancer. In 1975 a group from the University of Glamorgan began to suspect that hydrogenated vegetable oils were implicated in coronary heart disease. Others around the world found links with cancers of the colon and breast. There was a particular kerfuffle in 1989 when the clinical pharmacology department at Cambridge University backed the earlier findings on heart disease. When The Sunday Times reported this, it drew an angry letter from the president of the Margarine and Shortening Manufacturers’ Association (who was also chairman of Van den Berghs, the manufacturers of Flora), complaining that the issues “had not been substantiated”. Van den Berghs itself followed up with full-page newspaper advertisements headed “Polyunsaturates Are Essential for Health”.

And so it went on. In 1991 the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition announced that “polyunsaturated vegetable oils promote cancer more effectively than do saturated fats or polyunsaturated fish oils”. In 2001, researchers at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne reported that a heavy intake of polyunsaturates could more than double a child’s risk of asthma. In 2002 a link with depression was suggested, and Walter Willett, head of Harvard University’s department of nutrition, famously added his weight to the opinion that low-fat diets were making people obese. In 2004 a researcher at the Medical University of South Carolina reported a possible link with Alzheimer’s disease.

But medical opinion is like a merry-go-round with the merriment removed. Assertion meets counter-assertion; rival camps ridicule each other’s methods and conclusions; each headline contradicts another. For consumers who can’t tell a linoleate from an eicosanoid from a bowl of custard, the result is like a babble of tongues in a science bazaar. We must assume, however, that the Food Standards Agency (FSA), the UK’s highest authority on such things, listens and understands. Its advice remains unaltered: polyunsaturates are good for us, and we should eat more of them. On the basis of reviews of evidence by the World Cancer Research Fund in 1997 and the British Nutrition Foundation in 1995, it rejects the idea that either polyunsaturates or trans fats are carcinogenic. Which, if we are looking for something to worry about, leaves just coronary heart disease.

By the early 1990s it was clear that the apparent risk in polyunsaturates came from the trans fats that were produced as a by-product of the hydrogenation process. In 1994, Flora quietly reduced the level of trans fats in its formulation from around 7% to 1.5%, and “margarine” slid towards obsolescence. Surprising to some, the word has a legal definition – it may be applied only to products with a fat content of between 80-90%. Any lower and it’s not margarine at all, but reduced-fat or low-fat spread bulked out with water (which is why it’s not good to cook with). According to the UK Margarine and Spreads Association (MSA), all non-dairy spreads are now less than 80% fat, so “margarine” is technically obsolete. By further chemical jiggery-pokery, says the MSA, the spreads mostly have a trans-acid content of less than 1%.

As things stand, however, unless you home-make everything and never eat out, you’ll have about as much chance of avoiding trans fats as you do of avoiding Christmas.

The first problem is knowing where they are – trans fats do not have to be listed on food labels. But, says the FSA, hydrogenated vegetable oils do have to be declared, which means that “if the ingredients list includes hydrogenated vegetable oil, there may also be trans fats in the product”.

Or there may not. Who knows? The difficulty arises because, truly speaking, it is only partially hydrogenated vegetable oils – the semi-soft ones – that contain trans fats. Fully hydrogenated ones do not. Yet the labelling regulations make no distinction. Partially or fully hydrogenated, it’s all the same: the label will list only “hydrogenated vegetable oil”. And the muddle continues. As the FSA puts it, “Trans fats count as part of the total fat in the nutritional information on the label. They are not classed as saturates, monounsaturates or polyunsaturates, so they won’t be included in the figures for these.”

So, the only certain way to be sure your food contains no added trans fats is to buy organic. The FSA says it will seek an “appropriate amendment” when the EU nutrition-labelling directive is revised next year, but in the meantime it is being left to food companies to clean up their recipes.

This is actually less of an evasion than it sounds. Though the headlines have elevated trans fats into the most determined killers of humankind since the plague rat, the fact is that most of us eat very little of them. In common with the World Health Organization, the FSA warns that no more than 2% of our daily energy intake should come from trans fats. The most recent National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS) of adults, in 2000-1, showed a national average of just 1.2%. And neither did this look like a statistical artefact with a low average disguising high peaks. The same survey showed that 97% of adults were consuming within the safety zone. An earlier NDNS of young people aged 4-18, carried out in 1997, showed that 96% of even this temptation-prone group were staying within limits. Since then the herd impulse of the packaged-food industry has seen them stamp on trans fats with the exterminating zeal of cockroach-hunters, so that popular brands now commonly contain no more than the trace amounts found in raw ingredients. The latest estimate for trans fats is down to 1.1% of total daily energy intake. Hence the FSA’s apparent insouciance.

Source



The organic delusion

The [British] Food Standards Agency, having examined the evidence, does not yet accept that organic food is any healthier than its non-organic equivalent. Meanwhile, its nationwide inquiry into food fraud, we learnt last week, has uncovered an industry riddled with sharp practice and Jesuitical labelling. Not only have we been taking it on trust that organic food is better for us; it turns out we've been taking it on trust that it's organic food at all. It can cost as much as five times the price of ordinary food and yet sales are rising by 12% every year. Why - do we all have money to burn?

I don't believe there is any rationale to it really. I think that when people buy organic it's a purely emotional thing: an all-purpose placebo to keep any number of middle-class anxieties at bay. Pay a little extra for those chemical-free vegetables and hey, maybe the children do watch too much television, maybe I needn't have used the car this morning . . . but dammit, these vegetables are so expensive they must be doing us good. At least I'm doing something right.

Look around. We have a population with a life expectancy verging towards treble figures. More or less. People - and not just the organic-eating classes - are growing faster, taller and stronger every year; our babies are born healthier; our children by and large are thriving. If we are what we eat then clearly we've been doing something right for some time - since long before this new organic explosion.

A woman I know recently invited her son's six-year-old friend over for supper. After accepting the invitation, the friend's mother proceeded to give a long list of the things the boy wouldn't eat - including pizzas, burgers and chips, so she was obviously lying. Then she said, with a slightly mad, hysterical giggle, "And of course, I mean, we all eat organic, don't we?" My friend's response was a lot more polite than mine would have been.

There is something vaguely disgusting about the modern obsession with healthy eating when so much of the world is starving. Whether or not organic food proves to be better in long run, I think - for the sake of good taste if for nothing else - that it's time we all learnt to be be a bit cooler. After all, we face a neverending stream of health warnings and health scares and we should have learnt by now that they never come to much. We have not been wiped out by BSE. We were not wiped out by Edwina Currie's salmonella and we won't be wiped out by this week's salmonella scare either. Avian flu scared the living daylights out of us but it never came to much. In any case the sad fact is, somehow or other, death will come even to the children of the middle classes. Even if they are fed organic.

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



19 November, 2006

Value in a firm handshake?

A strong grip, a good education, a wife, and not becoming overweight are among the keys to a long life for middle-aged men who would like to grow old in good health, a new study shows. Nine factors were good predictors of which middle-aged men would live healthily into their 80s and beyond, concluded a 40-year US study released yesterday of nearly 6000 Japanese-American men living in Hawaii. The factors: not being overweight, low blood pressure, low blood sugar levels, low levels of bad cholesterol, not drinking alcohol excessively, not smoking, having a strong grip, achieving a high level of education, and being married.

Grip strength is a strong indication of upper body strength. It is further proof "that it is important to be physically robust in mid-life . . . consistent with theories of ageing that suggest that better-built organisms last longer," the study, published in this week's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association said.

The men in the study averaged 54 years when it began in 1965. Those who met all the healthy criteria had an 80 per cent chance of living to age 80, and also were much more likely to reach old age while avoiding illness. Of the 5820 original study participants, 2451 - or 42 per cent - survived to age 85, and 655 participants (11 per cent), reached that age without suffering serious health problems such as heart disease, cancer, or diabetes. "Your chances were more than 60 per cent of being healthy at that age if you avoided these risk factors, yet if you had six or more of these risk factors you had less than a 10 per cent chance of living into your mid-80s," study author Dr Bradley Willcox of Pacific Health Research Institute in Honolulu said.

The over-85 age bracket is the fastest growing in industrialised countries, but it also comprises the biggest consumers of health care resources, the study said.

Source



Lamarckian inheritance revived?

I will have to leave it to the genetics experts to comment on this one but Lamarckianism -- the inheritance of acquired characteristics -- has long been regarded as discredited. The idea was of course long supported in Russia by Trofim Lysenko and Joe Stalin. Leftists hate the "straitjacket" of genetic inheritance

New world-first Australian research proves not only that you are what you eat - you also inherit the food sins of your mother and your grandmother. Scientists from the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute have found that a pregnant woman's diet affects not only her unborn child's health, but also the health of her children's children. "Our research suggests diet can directly affect the health of future generations. You inherit not only the genes of your parents and grandparents, but the consequences of their lifestyle," scientist Jennifer Cropley said.

The research found that the diet of a pregnant woman can switch certain genes on or off. That genetic state is passed down to the foetus and that child then grows up with the same genetic pattern, which is passed on to their child in turn. Until now scientists believed these "epigenetic" states cleared between generations. "We found that a vitamin supplement switched off the gene in mice and it continued on into their grandchildren," Dr Cropley said. "This shows us that not only does what we eat affect our own health, but also the health of our children and grandchildren."

Fellow investigator Catherine Suter said the findings were significant as they could lead to discovering which of the genes causing conditions like diabetes or obesity are affected by diet. If those genes can then be identified and "switched off", research could potentially lead to wiping out those conditions.

First-time mother Megan Rowe knows first-hand the impact of hereditary health conditions. The 29-year-old has just been diagnosed with arthritis, a condition her mother also suffers from. With her own daughter Olivia, 2, having the same tall and lanky body shape as her mother and grandmother, Ms Rowe said she is not surprised to hear of the dietary impact on generations. She said it showed the importance of pregnant women taking supplements and eating well. "I took a folate supplement as soon as I found out I was pregnant and a multi-vitamin all through pregnancy and while I was breast-feeding," she said.

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



18 November, 2006

Bad diet makes you crooked?

An American study investigating the effects of omega-3 fatty acid supplements on the brain is at the cutting edge of the debate on crime and punishment. The new research, conducted by the US Government's National Institutes of Health, calls into question the very basis of criminal justice and the notion of culpability. It suggests that individuals may not always be responsible for their aggression. Together with a study in a high-security prison for young offenders in Britain, it shows that violent behaviour may be attributable at least in part to nutritional deficiencies.

The British prison trial at Aylesbury jail showed that when young men there were fed multivitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids, the number of violent offences committed in the prison fell by 37 per cent.

Although no one is suggesting that poor diet alone can account for complex social problems, Britain's former chief inspector of prisons, Lord Ramsbotham, says he is now "absolutely convinced that there is a direct link between diet and antisocial behaviour, both that bad diet causes bad behaviour and that good diet prevents it".

The Dutch Government is conducting a large trial to see if nutritional supplements have the same effect on its prison population.

In Australia, Dr Gordon Parker of the Black Dog Institute has co-authored a scientific review of recent studies suggesting that omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids may be beneficial for treatment of mood disorders. The review, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry earlier this year, confirmed that omega-3 supplementation may benefit individuals suffering from depression, or the depressive phase of bipolar disorder. "One of the nice things is that you can measure omega-3 levels," he says, "and if you measure [them] in people with mood disorders it is often low while omega-6 is increased."

The clinician in charge of the US study on aggression, Joseph Hibbeln, hypothesises that modern industrialised diets may be changing the very architecture and functioning of the brain. We are suffering, he believes, from widespread diseases of deficiency. Just as vitamin C deficiency causes scurvy, deficiency in the essential fats the brain needs and the nutrients needed to metabolise those fats is causing a host of mental problems, from depression to aggression. Not all experts agree, but if he is right, the consequences are serious. The pandemic of violence in Western societies may be related to what we eat or fail to eat.

Researchers at the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, had placed advertisements for aggressive alcoholics in The Washington Post in 2001. About 80 volunteers have since been enrolled in the double-blind study. They range from homeless people to a teacher to a former secret service agent. Following a period of three weeks' detoxification on a locked ward, half were randomly assigned to two grams per day of the omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA for three months, and half to placebos of fish-flavoured corn oil.

An earlier pilot study on 30 patients with violent records found that those given omega-3 supplements had their anger reduced by one-third, measured by standard scales of hostility and irritability, regardless of whether they were relapsing and drinking again. The bigger trial is nearly complete now and Dell Wright, the nurse administering the pills, has seen startling changes in those on the omega-3 acids.

Some subjects on the trial have long histories of violence but with omega-3 fatty acids have been able for the first time to control their anger and aggression. "W" was a 120-kilogram barrel of a man with convictions for assault and battery. He improved dramatically on the acids and later told doctors that for the first time since the age of five he had gone three months without punching anyone in the head.

Parker is not sure that blanket supplementation of every individual with omega-3s will end mood disorders like depression. "I don't have many people come back to me [after taking the acids] saying 'hallelujah I'm cured' - only about 5 per cent of people say that." This may be because supplementation can only help people whose signs are due to a deficiency in the first place. "We still need further studies to work out the right dose," he says.

Hibbeln, a psychiatrist and physician, says that over the past century most Western countries have undergone a dramatic shift in diet. The omega-3 fatty acids that are essential to the brain have been flooded out by competing omega-6 fatty acids, mainly from industrial oils such as soya, corn and sunflower. In the US, for example, soya oil accounted for only 0.02 per cent of all calories available in 1909, but by 2000 it accounted for 20 per cent. Americans have gone from eating a fraction of an ounce of soya oil a year to downing 11.3 kilograms a person a year in that period. These omega-6 fatty acids come mainly from industrial frying for takeaways, ready meals and snack foods such as crisps, chips, biscuits, ice-creams and margarine.

To test the hypothesis, Hibbeln and his colleagues have mapped the growth in consumption of omega-6 fatty acids from seed oils in 38 countries, including Australia, since the 1960s against the rise in murder rates over the same period. In all cases there is an unnerving match. Industrial societies where omega-3 consumption has remained high and omega-6 low because people eat fish, such as Japan, have low rates of murder and depression. "The average Australian diet probably contains 15 milligrams of omega-3s [daily], whereas in Japan the average diet contains about 1000 milligrams," says Parker.

Of course, all these graphs prove is that there is a striking correlation between violence and omega-6 fatty acids in the diet. They don't prove that high omega-6 and low omega-3 fat consumption actually causes violence. Many other things have changed in the past century and been blamed for rising violence - mass media, the breakdown of the family unit and increased consumption of sugar, for example. But some of the trends you might expect to be linked to increased violence - such as availability of firearms and alcohol, or urbanisation - do not in fact reliably predict a rise in murder across countries, says Hibbeln.

Professor John Stein, of the department of physiology at Oxford University, believes that the evidence from the British prison study and from Hibbeln's research in the US is "strong", although the mechanisms involved are still not fully understood. Hibbeln, Stein and others have been investigating what the mechanisms of a causal relationship between diet and aggression might be. Laboratory tests at the National Institutes of Health have found that Americans have cell membranes higher in the less flexible omega-6 fatty acids than the Japanese have. The omega-6 acids appear to have displaced the elastic omega-3 fatty acids found in Japanese nerve cells. Hibbeln's theory is that because the omega-6 fatty acids compete with the omega-3 variety for the same metabolic pathways, when omega-6 dominates in the diet, we can't convert the omega-3s to DHA and EPA, the longer chain versions we need for the brain. Then it seems the brain picks up a more rigid omega-6 fatty acid DPA instead of DHA to build the cell membranes - and they don't function as well.



These effects were also predicted in the 1970s by a leading fats expert in Britain, Professor Michael Crawford, now at London's Metropolitan University. Two decades later the first study of the effect of diet on behaviour took place in a British prison. It was conducted by Bernard Gesch, now a senior researcher at Stein's Oxford laboratory, at Aylesbury prison. His study, a placebo-controlled double-blind randomised trial, took 231 volunteer prisoners and assigned half to a regime of multivitamin, mineral and essential fatty acid supplements and half to placebos.

The results, published in 2002, showed that those receiving the extra nutrients committed 37 per cent less serious offences involving violence, and 26 per cent less offences overall. Those on the placebos showed no change in their behaviour. Once the trial had finished the number of offences went up by the same amount.

Gesch believes we should be rethinking the whole notion of culpability. The overall rate of violent crime in Britain has risen since the 1950s, with huge rises since the 1970s. "Such large changes are hard to explain in terms of genetics or simply changes of reporting or recording crime."

In Australia, the Black Dog Institute is planning studies to determine the effect of omega-3 supplementation to curb antisocial behaviour in adolescents. "It is a plausible argument that there may be a subgroup of younger people showing antisocial behaviour as a consequence of a dietary problem," says Parker. "I think this is another area of study that will expand dramatically."

Source

The Aylesbury study sounds impressive methodologically but may simply show that prisoners tend to suffer from deficiency diseases. Note that over fifteen micro nutrients were used at Aylesbury. Note also that heavy drug use can have an adverse impact on the absorption and retention of nutrients, and many prisoners either have drug problems on entering the prison system or acquire one once inside. This may severely limit the generalizability of the results



Food fads invite fakery

If there's no discernable difference, faking a label must be very tempting

The Food Standards Agency has begun a comprehensive inquiry into food fraud in Britain. Trading standards officers throughout the country have been reporting irregularities from fake organic chickens to labels written in felt pen on certified foods at market stalls. Some butchers have also been trying to cash in on the higher value of organic meat, which can sell at prices up to five times those of meat from a conventionally reared animal. A nationwide survey into bogus organic foods by trading standards will not be completed until the new year, but the agency has already been alerted to possible scams.

With consumers demanding high quality and healthy food and people willing to pay a premium, David Statham, head of enforcement at the agency, has recognised that the market is one in which cheats are prepared to take a chance. Investigations are being conducted to root out the fraudsters and to assess the scale of illegal activity around the country and on the internet. They follow the disclosure in The Times yesterday that shoppers have been duped into buying bogus free-range eggs and paying double the usual prices for eggs from factory farms on the Continent.

The agency is investigating a range of activities. There is particular concern about the authenticity of beef being sold under premium labels such as Aberdeen Angus or Scotch beef when it is imported meat from South America or poor-quality beef from Britain. Similarly the alarm has been raised over farmed salmon being passed off as wild salmon, as rogue traders cash in on the public demand for higher-priced ethically produced food. The growth in popularity of expensive corn-fed chickens has also caught the attention of enforcement officers. It is an easy label to put on a bird that has not eaten a crumb of corn. A new isotope test can show whether a bird has had a corn diet.

Mr Statham said: "Three studies are under way and we expect the results in March. We are particularly concerned about geographic origin of beef because what it is on the label does not mean where it has come from. If you are buying a prime piece of English or Scotch beef and it has come from South America you are being defrauded." It will distribute new testing kits that will enable trading standards officers to speed up the identification of fakes without spending hours on a paperwork trail.

A test now exists to distinguish organic vegetables from non-organic. A product can now be tested to see whether a nitrogen-based fertiliser had been used during production. Any vegetable showing traces of the chemical will not meet the organic standard. Similarly the agency, in collaboration with the Central Science Laboratory in York, is just completing a test that can detect a piece of organic meat from meat from a conventionally farmed animal. Animals on organic farms may only have one therapeutic dose of an antibiotic in a year. The new tests can detect the build up of anti- biotics from a piece of meat.

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



17 November, 2006

Happy people may suffer fewer colds

More rubbish research for several reasons. That inborn good health makes you happier seems not to have been considered, for instance

STAYING positive through the cold season could be your best defence against getting sick, new study findings suggest. In an experiment that exposed healthy volunteers to a cold or flu virus, researchers found people with a generally sunny disposition were less likely to fall ill. The findings, published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, build on evidence that a "positive emotional style" can help ward off the common cold and other illnesses.

Researchers believe the reasons may be both objective - as in happiness boosting immune function - and subjective - as in happy people being less troubled by a scratchy throat or runny nose. "People with a positive emotional style may have different immune responses to the virus," said lead study author Sheldon Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. "And when they do get a cold, they may interpret their illness as being less severe."

Dr Cohen and his colleagues had found in a previous study that happier people seemed less susceptible to catching a cold, but some questions remained as to whether the emotional trait itself had the effect. For the new study, the researchers had 193 healthy adults complete standard measures of personality traits, self-perceived health and emotional "style". Those who tended to be happy, energetic and easy-going were judged as having a positive emotional style, while those who were often unhappy, tense and hostile had a negative style.

Afterward, the researchers gave them nasal drops containing either a cold virus or a particular flu virus that causes cold-like symptoms. Over the next six days, the volunteers reported on any aches, pains, sneezing or congestion they had, while the researchers collected objective data, like daily mucus production. Dr Cohen and his colleagues found that based on objective measures of nasal woes, happy people were less likely to develop a cold. What's more, when happy people did develop a cold, their self-rated symptoms were less severe than would be expected based on objective measures.

When the researchers weighed other factors that could explain the relationship - like volunteers' perception of their general health, their self-esteem and tendency to be optimistic - happiness itself still seemed to protect against cold symptoms. In contrast, people with negative dispositions were not at increased risk of developing a cold based on objective measures - though they did tend to get down about their symptoms. "We find that it's really positive emotions that have the big effect," Dr Cohen said, "not negative ones."

So can a grumpy person fight the common cold by deciding to be happy? Conventional wisdom holds that personality traits - unlike fleeting emotions - are "very stable and difficult to change," Dr Cohen said. However, he noted that some recent research suggested emotional traits were more amenable to change than traditionally believed.

Source



Psychiatric warning put on flu drug

Yet another case of the medical miracle of today being the iatrogenic disaster of tomorrow. It should however be good news for Relenza -- the alternative to Tamiflu

Federal health officials Monday added a warning to the label on the popular anti-viral drug Tamiflu, citing reports of psychiatric symptoms such as confusion and delirium, particularly in children who have taken the drug for the flu. The drug, used by more than 42 million people around the world since its initial approval in 1999, has been associated with 123 psychiatric cases in the past 10 months, including suicide. Three of the cases resulted in death.

The label change, which urges careful monitoring of children taking the drug, "provides important safety information and is intended to mitigate a potential risk associated with Tamiflu," the FDA said in a statement issued late Monday. "This makes a lot of sense to raise awareness of the issue, especially among health care providers," said Dr. Dean Blumberg, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at UC Davis Medical Center. "If they do prescribe it, they can communicate this and closely monitor their patients."

Tamiflu is the only oral anti-viral drug approved for prevention and treatment of flu in adults and in children as young as a year. Studies show the drug shortens the duration of the illness by a half-day to a day. Taken every day for seven days, Tamiflu can prevent onset of influenza. The drug has been prescribed 8.3 million times in the United States since June 2000, including 1.9 million times this year. In Japan, where Tamiflu is used far more frequently, it was prescribed 24.5 million times from 2001 to 2005, including 11.6 million prescriptions to children 16 or younger. In comparison, the drug was prescribed to U.S. children 900,000 times during that same period.

Ninety-five percent of the cases of neuropsychiatric problems were reported in Japan. In a detailed report prepared for the FDA's pediatric advisory committee, FDA staff described some of the cases in which otherwise normal children exhibited bizarre behavior shortly after taking Tamiflu, also known by its generic name, oseltamivir phosphate. Among them: an 8-year-old boy who tried to run out of his house, couldn't answer to his own name and began growling; a 14-year-old who fell to his death after climbing on his building's balcony railing; and a 14-year-old girl, struck with paranoia, who swore someone was watching her from outside her home and that her salad had been poisoned.

The new, supplementary information on the Tamiflu label states: "People with the flu, particularly children, may be at an increased risk of self-injury and confusion shortly after taking TAMIFLU and should be closely monitored for signs of unusual behavior."It is still unclear how Tamiflu might contribute to such behavior, but experts have noted that in the majority of cases, the symptoms ceased after use of the drug was discontinued.In a prepared statement, Tamiflu maker Roche Pharmaceuticals said that it "agreed with the FDA" on the label revision, but stressed that "there is no evidence of a causal relationship between the use of oseltamivir and the likelihood of neuropsychiatric events in influenza patients."

A report prepared by the FDA's Division of Drug Risk Evaluation cited delirium, suicide, panic attack, delusions, convulsions, depression and loss of consciousness among the symptoms reported in some patients who took the drug. In addition to the 14-year-old who died, two men fell to their deaths after taking Tamiflu, and one of them left a suicide note, the report states. None of the three had any reported psychological or neurological problems before taking the medication. "We are concerned that when/if the use of this drug increases in the U.S. ... there may be increasing cases of adverse consequence in the U.S," the FDA report stated.

The annual flu season in the United States is beginning, and countries around the globe are stockpiling the drug for use in the event of a worldwide influenza pandemic. While seasonal flu affects an estimated 40 million people in the United States annually, an influenza pandemic, in which a new, virulent strain of the disease emerges, could sicken 90 million Americans and kill 2 million, federal officials estimate. While acknowledging that some of the neurological symptoms could be associated with severe influenza itself, the FDA report noted "the peculiar characteristics of these adverse events which are different from the usual influenza-related set of central nervous system symptoms."

Blumberg, of UC Davis, said the drug's benefits are modest for most people who get influenza. But he acknowledged that for anyone hospitalized with complications of flu, or for those who can't tolerate the flu vaccine, the drug can be particularly useful. And Blumberg emphasized that the psychiatric events reported are still relatively rare, and that doctors and patients must weigh the drug's risks against its benefits in a public health emergency. "If there is a pandemic, and people don't have previous immunity, and the complications are much more frequent, more widespread use (of Tamiflu) would outweigh any theoretical risks," he said.

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



16 November, 2006

Meat bad for you (maybe)

The vegos will like this finding -- but since humans evolved as a meat-eating species, the conclusion is a highly improbable one

Women who eat red meat more than once a day double the risk of getting the most common form of breast cancer, doctors have found. A study of pre-menopausal women examined the effect of diet on different types of breast cancer and found that those who ate the most meat - especially in processed forms such as hamburgers and sausages - were at the greatest risk of hormone-sensitive breast cancers. The natural female hormones oestrogen and progesterone are essential for a range of bodily functions but are also responsible for stimulating growth in 70 per cent of breast cancers - those known as hormone receptor positive.

Eunyoung Cho, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, who led the study, said there were several reasons red meat triggered this type of breast cancer. They included the treatment of American beef cattle with hormones to speed up growth, carcinogens created when meat was cooked at high temperatures and the presence of a certain form of iron in meat.

More than 90,600 pre-menopausal American nurses aged 26 to 46 filled in questionnaires about their diets between 1991 and 1999, according to Archives of Internal Medicine, which published the research. Twelve years after the start of the study researchers identified 1021 cases of breast cancer in the group. Women who ate more than 1« servings of red meat a day (where a serving is defined as the main part of a dish) were 97 per cent more likely to have a hormone receptor positive breast cancer than those who ate three or fewer servings a week. The increased risk for those who said they had between three and five servings a week was 42 per cent.

Women who had meat in processed form such as sausages, salami and mortadella more than three times a week were 2.3 times more likely to get a hormone receptor positive cancer than those who ate them less than once a month. Those who ate hamburgers between one and three times a week were 71 per cent more likely than those who did so less than once a month.

There was little difference in the risk of hormone receptor positive breast cancer between those was ate unprocessed beef, pork or lamb between one and three times a week and those who did so less than once a month.

Dr Cho checked to ensure that causes of breast cancer such as obesity, smoking, alcohol and family medical history were not the real causes of the increased risks.

Source

But did he check for confounding from that powerful health predictor, social class? NO. Journal abstract follows. Note that the results as reported imply that red meat eating lifts your probability of getting cancer from about 1% to 2% -- a very small effect, the sort of effect that is often not replicable. Although the large sample size makes the results statistically significant, that does not exclude other sources of random error:

Red Meat Intake and Risk of Breast Cancer Among Premenopausal Women

By: Eunyoung Cho et al.

Background The association between red meat intake and breast cancer is unclear, but most studies have assessed diet in midlife or later. Although breast tumors differ clinically and biologically by hormone receptor status, few epidemiologic studies of diet have made this distinction.

Methods Red meat intake and breast cancer risk were assessed among premenopausal women aged 26 to 46 years in the Nurses' Health Study II. Red meat intake was assessed with a food frequency questionnaire administered in 1991, 1995, and 1999, with respondents followed up through 2003. Breast cancers were self-reported and confirmed by review of pathologic reports.

Results During 12 years of follow-up of 90 659 premenopausal women, we documented 1021 cases of invasive breast carcinoma. Greater red meat intake was strongly related to elevated risk of breast cancers that were estrogen and progesterone receptor positive (ER+/PR+; n = 512) but not to those that were estrogen and progesterone receptor negative (ER-/PR-; n = 167). Compared with those eating 3 or fewer servings per week of red meat, the multivariate relative risks (95% confidence intervals) for ER+/PR+ breast cancer with increasing servings of red meat intake were 1.14 (0.90-1.45) for more than 3 to 5 or fewer servings per week, 1.42 (1.06-1.90) for more than 5 per week to 1 or fewer servings per day, 1.20 (0.89-1.63) for more than 1 to 1.5 or fewer servings per day, and 1.97 (1.35-2.88) for more than 1.5 servings per day (test for trend, P = .001). The corresponding relative risks for ER-/PR- breast cancer were 1.34 (0.89-2.00), 1.21 (0.73-2.00), 0.69 (0.39-1.23), and 0.89 (0.43-1.84) (test for trend, P = .28). Higher intakes of several individual red meat items were also strongly related to elevated risk of ER+/PR+ breast cancer.

Conclusion Higher red meat intake may be a risk factor for ER+/PR+ breast cancer among premenopausal women.

Trans fats antidote

The unmentionable alternative

We have heard angst, outrage and political rhetoric about traces of much-maligned trans fats (TFAs) in our diet -- and about the growing problem of obesity and the health problems it spawns. There is one overlooked proposal that could address both issues, leaving our foods free of TFAs and allowing us to eat french fries, ice cream and doughnuts with less risk of getting fat. The secret weapon not even considered: the fat substitute olestra.

The food cops prefer to talk about proposals that would (a) make it illegal to use oils and spreads with trans fats in restaurants and (b) require that most restaurants prominently feature calorie counts on all menu items. These two plans actually address two very different issues:

The first -- trying to reduce heart disease rates by banning trans fats in eateries -- is based only on speculative data and unusual level of exposure. True, high levels of dietary trans fats -- derived primarily from partially hydrogenated vegetable oils and frequently used in frying and preparing foods such as doughnuts and spreads -- can raise levels of LDL, the so-called "bad cholesterol." But TFAs are only one of several dietary factors that affect cholesterol levels (saturated fats are more important) and, more importantly, serum cholesterol is only one of several factors that may influence the risk of heart disease.

Cigarette smoking and high blood pressure, as well as diabetes and obesity, contribute far more to heart disease than any specific dietary factor. Even the strictest low-fat diet often modestly cuts cholesterol. So how could we expect significant effects on LDL cholesterol from banishing levels of just one type of fat -- one that on average represents less than 3 percent of our total daily calorie intake?

The second proposal would ineffectively confront a real problem, our life-threatening obesity epidemic. Including caloric information on every menu would likely do little to curb our waistlines. Most so-called "fast food" restaurants already display the calories on wall posters, food wrappers and placemats. Providing information on calories will not help if consumers do not fully understand what a desirable caloric intake actually is. A display of numbers will only confuse.

There is an obvious solution, though, that will address the perceived problems of trans fats and the real problem of obesity: invite restaurants to use olestra as a substitute for fats and oils in frying, baking and roasting. Olestra, the first noncaloric fat replacer, could be used in many ways. Not only is olestra stable in frozen products -- making it suitable for foods like ice cream -- it is stable at high temperatures, making it available for deep-frying, unlike other fat replacers. Olestra could replace a good portion of the 34 percent of fat calories we take in daily. In addition to protecting us from the (speculative) threat of TFAs, olestra would protect our hearts from the real deleterious effects of saturated fat.

Why aren't nutrition advocates petitioning the Food and Drug Administration to approve a whole slew of new applications for olestra? (It is now only FDA-approved for savory snacks and microwave popcorn.) The olestra solution is not even being considered by, for instance, those who held anti-trans-fat rallies outside the New York City Department of Health recently, nor by the Center for Science in the Public Interest. CSPI is trying to exorcise trans fats and regularly decries obesity as the work of "greedy" food companies -- but it drove many potential low-calorie and trans-fat-free products from the market with hyperbole about alleged side effects of eating olestra.

For the record, there is no scientific evidence ingestion of foods made with olestra has serious gastrointestinal effects. In large quantities, it can have some minor effects -- in the same way any other high-fiber diet (lots of beans, for example) would. But people can easily adjust their diets. Using olestra would give consumers a wider selection of foods --and permit them to enjoy foods they might otherwise shun. What's not to like about that?

Source



Another reason why you have to be your own doctor as far as possible

General practitioners need to improve their knowledge of heart disease, according to an alarming report that found only 1 per cent of doctors could name the medications that reduced the chance of dying following heart failure. A survey of 803 GPs also found that only 15 per cent of GPs always asked their patients what over-the-counter medicines they were taking. When reviewing medication, only 12 per cent always asked whether the patient was using any complementary medicines. Australian Divisions of General Practice chairman Tony Hobbs said GPs tended "to prescribe the drugs that they are used to prescribing".

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



15 November, 2006

The folate debate

Panacea or public health experiment? Kellie Bisset finds some experts worried that adding folate to bread may bring health dangers

Professor Fiona Stanley is a patient woman. The child health expert and former Australian of the Year has been campaigning to have bread products fortified with folic acid for nearly four years. It's a grand plan that aims to reduce the rate of babies born with neural tube birth defects such as spina bifida. And evidence shows that the B group vitamin - known as folate in its natural form - can reduce the incidence of these defects by as much as 70 per cent. Stanley has watched for the best part of a decade as other countries have made folate fortification mandatory. She's looked on as the rate of neural tube defects has plummeted by between 30 per cent and 50 per cent in the US, Canada and Chile. She's lowered her expectations on how much folic acid we should add to bread, just to keep the idea alive. And she's hoping that finally, recommendations from Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) supporting fortification will be adopted by federal, state and territory governments. But the scheme to have all Australians eating fortified bread has hit some turbulence, despite the fact that it could save the health system more than $120 million a year.

Not only is the food industry opposed to the plan, consumers are also sceptical. And to further complicate things, there are voices of alarm being raised within health circles about the potential risks of mass supplementation. "This is effectively a population-wide experiment," says Mark Lawrence, a senior lecturer in public health and nutrition at Deakin University. "The whole thing seems to be being rushed through." Lawrence and leading nutritionist Rosemary Stanton are both concerned about recent evidence suggesting a link between folate and colorectal and breast cancers. "The evidence is by no means conclusive, but if there is any chance of any danger then we need to move carefully," Stanton says.

Neither believes enough weight has been given to several studies published this year suggesting there are health risks associated with higher folate levels. One, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, said a high intake could increase breast cancer risk in postmenopausal women (2006;83:895-904). Another in Gut (2006;55:1461-66) said those with lower folate levels had a decreased risk of colorectal cancer. In its final report on mandatory fortification, FSANZ says that because of uncertainty over potential health risks, fortification should be set to a conservative level of 80 to 180 micrograms (mcg) per 100g of bread. But it says the recent research does not alter its conclusion that folate intakes do not increase the risk of breast or colorectal cancer, or indeed pose any public health risk.

Elizabeth Milne supports this position. The senior research fellow at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Perth was responsible for reviewing all available evidence on folate and cancer for FSANZ last year. She has also reviewed the more recent studies, and says the great weight of evidence is in favour of folate having a protective effect against colon and breast cancer. The Journal of Clinical Nutrition study was not population based, but in women taking part in a cancer screening trial who had "very high" folate levels in their system, and Milne says its results should be interpreted with caution. As for colorectal cancer, the Gut study was small and didn't control effectively for aspirin or alcohol use - both of which react with folate in the body. According to Milne the recent findings "would need to be replicated in well-designed studies before there would be justification for changing the decision to fortify".

The FSANZ final report on fortification discusses other potential health risks of a widespread increase in folic acid intake, such as multiple births, but says evidence on this is inconclusive. There has also been a suggestion that high intakes could mask Vitamin B12 deficiency in older people, although the report says levels would need to be more than 1000 micrograms a day for that to happen.

What has raised a few eyebrows though, is the report's admission that children are more likely to exceed the upper level for folic acid if staple foods are fortified. The recommended daily intake of folic acid in children is only 150 micrograms, whereas pregnant women, or those planning a pregnancy, need to take 400. The report says under the levels of fortification currently proposed, 7 per cent of 2-3 year-olds are expected to exceed the upper level of intake for folic acid. But despite acknowledging this as "undesirable" it doesn't believe it is a health risk.

Director of Food and Nutrition Australia Sharon Natoli concurs, arguing that most children don't eat enough fruit and vegetables anyway, so their natural levels of folate are unlikely to be high to begin with.

But Lawrence argues the long-term effects on children are a big unknown: "When you are talking about children you are talking about many years of raised levels." He says at the very least, folic acid should be removed from children's breakfast cereals to minimise the risk of them overdosing if mandatory fortification of bread is brought in. There is currently a voluntary fortification system operating nationally, and breakfast cereals have been targeted by manufacturers. In the US, between 15 per cent and 25 per cent of children under eight are estimated to have folic acid intakes above the upper level since fortification was introduced eight years ago. While no negative effects have been reported, FSANZ says it isn't clear if any surveillance is being done, since there was no commitment to monitor adverse health outcomes when the policy was launched.

In Australia, the need for ongoing monitoring is something the experts do agree on. "It is very important to monitor folate," Milne says. "As we go ahead someone has to make it happen." FSANZ says monitoring is outside its responsibility and Lawrence believes our weak and abysmal record on these things doesn't auger well for the future. "There is no commitment at a federal level to look at a national system of monitoring levels at all," he says.

The Australian Consumers Association has also raised concerns, saying it's irresponsible to consider any mandatory program without a commitment to monitoring. It has also criticised the lack of detail on how all of this might be communicated to the public.

But Stanley is more optimistic. "I think every state and territory minister is committed to monitoring. When you think of the data, almost all the things we want to monitor are collected anyway." So far, ministers have sent encouraging signs that fortification is imminent. In a communique released last month members of the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council reinforced their commitment to mandatory fortification "as quickly as possible". However, they delayed their decision for six months, asking FSANZ to review its plan to add folic acid to bread, rather than bread-making flour - a recommendation that has bread manufacturers fuming.

Despite last month's communique, the federal Government has signalled there might be more to the decision than ironing out these technical hurdles. Parliamentary secretary for health Christopher Pyne says any arguments over ongoing monitoring of folate levels are "jumping the gun" because a decision is yet to be made on fortification. "Some of the jurisdictions have raised concerns about the effectiveness of the policy given the cost to industry of implementing it," he says. "I think it would be inaccurate to say it was done and dusted. "There are other concerns with respect to whether bread is the best method to deliver folate because it would not deliver the daily intake required, and women would still be needing to take supplements."

The fact that women in the target group would not meet their daily requirements from fortified bread alone has been described as a serious flaw by critics of the national plan. They say that, rather than medicating 20 million Australians for the benefit of a small population, targeted education campaigns for women at risk would be a better use of public funds. But Stanley says there are a few holes in this argument. "If you shift the whole population distribution of folate intake you are going to make a difference," she says, even if a woman doesn't reach her recommended daily intake of 400 micrograms through eating bread. And the problem with targeted education campaigns is that they don't get optimal results.

Stanley was involved in a WA campaign to encourage women to eat more folate, but despite also having a policy of voluntary fortification, neural tube defects dropped by 30-40 per cent over 10 years rather than the 70 per cent she knew was possible. "We found it was the groups at highest risk we were not getting to - the Aboriginal women, the poor, the very young and the unplanned pregnancies," she says.

More than 40 countries have introduced mandatory fortification, but there has been resistance in Europe and the UK is expected to make a decision next year. "This is a global issue," Lawrence says. "Is exposing the whole population for the benefit of one target group an appropriate public health response?" Stanley, though, is firmly convinced that the risks are being overblown. "The one thing that worries me about any public health intervention is 'first do no harm'. We would not be pushing this if we were not very happy that this was an important intervention."

Source

Medicating an entire population for the benefit of one very small subgroup seems a bit loony. And doing it before the research is in is just plain irresponsible. There have already been far too many iatrogenic disasters



Surprisingly "healthy" foods

You might be able to claim virtue according to the prevailing religion yet



Eating healthy may be virtuous, but it just doesn't seem like that much fun. Truth is, most of us prefer the taste of French fries over that of oat bran. A glass of Burgundy sounds more tantalizing than a cup of wheat grass juice. And while a nice piece of fruit is no punishment, chocolate is exceedingly more tempting.

The good news: Not all of those seemingly unhealthy choices actually are. Cheese fries may never be a part of your recommended diet, but Russet potatoes alone are nothing to fear. In fact, they're full of disease-fighting antioxidants. Eating the whole box of chocolates still isn't a good idea. A square a day, however, may help prevent cancer and stave off weight gain.

If you're confused, we're not surprised. There's never been more information available on how to eat right. Books, food labels, Web sites--fast food restaurants even provide nutritional information for their meals. But it's hard to draw any simple conclusions from it all. Are carbs good or bad? How many calories are too many? What causes cancer now? No wonder dieticians say people tend to see healthy choices as too much trouble.

"We are in such a hurry, we're so busy multitasking that eating is no longer a solo event," says David Grotto, spokesperson for the Chicago-based American Dietetic Association. "It's an inconvenience. We have hunger, and we need to squash it. We need to wolf down some food. You're lucky if you remember what you ate the day before."

A recent ACNielsen study of how habits of eating and drinking outside the home develop offers a glimpse into what's going on. About 82% of consumers acknowledged that individuals are the most responsible for weight gain in the U.S. population. Only 6% place the biggest blame on fast food joints and 2% on food companies. Of those surveyed, 18% said the main factor leading to weight gain is that modern life is too easy for people to make an effort to be healthy.

Elisa Zied, author of So What Can I Eat?! and a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, says people are frustrated by the conflicting research studies and news reports about what can harm or benefit them. Typically, they just want practical advice on what to eat. They're also unknowingly making bad choices. Most people know that soda and candy contain a lot of sugar. But they don't always realize that low-fat flavored yogurt, salad dressing and Chinese food (think chicken with broccoli), can too. Because of the new obsession with lowering our intake of trans fats, which food labels must now list, some people are consuming more saturated fats, she says.

Deepak Varma, senior vice president of customized research for ACNielsen, says consumers fall into "autopilot" mode, not really thinking about what they're buying or eating until they have a moment of truth in the form of a medical checkup or wanting to get in shape for an upcoming marriage. People also get in the habit of having larger portions because they want to get good value for their money, he says. Unfortunately, there is no cure all when it comes to waking up and taking control of your health. Grotto, who is writing a book about making friends with food, suggests viewing meals as both sources of sustenance and enjoyable experiences. To make that process a little easier, we asked dieticians to recommend a number of foods with surprising health benefits. Chocolate and bruschetta, anyone?

Once you incorporate these tips into your eating habits, try tackling more challenging ones. Jennifer Nelson, director of clinical dietetics at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., says another way we can start to change is by asking restaurants for more healthy options and smaller portion sizes. Define value by the quality of your food, not its "supersize." "Small indiscretions can create bigger health issues," Nelson says. "The good news is that small attempts, the more we chip away at it--we can get big results, too."

Click here for the slideshow

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



14 November, 2006

DRUGGED-UP BRITISH KIDS



This summer, the influential European Medicines Agency (EMEA) officially advocated the prescription of the antidepressant Prozac within the EU for children from the age of eight upwards, reinforcing a similar recommendation made last year by the UK's Nice (the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence), despite the known dangerous side effects of the drug on children and adolescents.

The nub of the medical authorities' argument is that there are mental conditions that only Prozac or Prozac-type drugs can reach. Prozac (or fluoxetine) came off patent five years ago, prompting the manufacture of a number of generic drugs of essentially the same chemical compound. As for the side effects, which include the risk of suicide, everything depends, the medical authorities advise, on the circumstances and care with which the Prozac-type drug is prescribed and monitored.

The EMEA and Nice have insisted that treatment with fluoxetine should be preceded and attended by psychotherapy. But Sane, the mental-health charity, and YoungMinds, the childhood mental-illness watchdog, are concerned about the lack of adequate resources in the National Health Service for the provision of psychotherapy for children.

Nor is there legislation in place that prevents doctors from prescribing fluoxetine to children without the recommended safeguards. There is ample evidence that some doctors have been prescribing the drug "off licence" to toddlers - in other words, they are doling them out outside of recommended usage, as an antidote to infant "agitation". A study made by a pharmacology unit at Southampton University recently surveyed a small sample of 100 general practices in the UK, and found that 19 children - whose ages range from 1 to 12 - were on fluoxetine.

Against the background of the huge increase in the use of the amphetamine-like drug Ritalin for attention-deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD), especially for middle-class children, there are fears, says Professor David Healey of the University of North Wales, that Prozac could follow a similar pattern of rapidly expanding usage as a quick fix for children deemed to be "low" or depressed. "Companies have been enabled to medicalise childhood distress, and as the rapidly changing culture surrounding the management of such problems indicates, companies have the power to change cultures and to do so in astonishingly short periods of time." According to Department of Health (DoH) figures, the past 10 years have seen a tenfold increase in prescriptions for Ritalin in Britain to combat a range of perceived childhood and adolescent problems - from restlessness to lack of concentration in class.

According to the DoH, an estimated 30,000-40,000 children and teenagers are already being prescribed antidepressants in Britain (off licence in the case of pre-puberty children), and about half of those are treated with fluoxetine or Prozac. In total, the UK Prescription Pricing Authority reports a rise in courses of Prozac-type drugs from 3.7m in 2000 to 4.4m last year. No figures are as yet available for 2006 following the recommendation of Nice, and the authority offers no breakdown for prescriptions for children anyway. But prescriptions for children are clearly set to rise despite serious doubts about fluoxetine that have persisted ever since the drug first reached our pharmacies in the mid-1980s.

The debate over all antidepressants and children has been especially fierce in the US, where a federal panel of drug experts last year found a proven link between antidepressants and suicide in children and teenagers. The risk, according to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is high when the course of treatment starts, or when there is a change of dosage, or sudden withdrawal. Last year an American teenager, Jeff Weise, shot dead nine men, women and children before committing suicide at Red Lake high school, Minnesota. His aunt Tammy Lussier told journalists that he first attempted suicide after he went on Prozac. After that, he was taking increased dosages, she said: "I can't help but think it was too much, that it must have set him off."

Fluoxetine is a compound designed to combat low activity of a natural brain chemical called serotonin - a condition associated with depression and obsessive-compulsive disorders, such as nonstop hand-washing. Problems begin, say neuropharmacologists, when serotonin is absorbed too speedily into the billions of minuscule "receptor sites" at the synapses - the contact points between brain cells. Fluoxetine latches onto the receptors like a key in a lock, to switch off serotonin absorption, or "serotonin reuptake", thus increasing the presence and action of this vital natural chemical in the brain. Hence, Prozac is known as an SSRI -a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor - which, scientists claim, elevates the mood of the depressed and increases "impulse control".

Questions have been raised, however, as to whether an individual, with paranoid fantasies that have been rendered inactive in the depths of depression, gains impetus as a result of fluoxetine to fulfil a murderous fantasy rather than control the impulse. This was the explanation proposed in a civil action in America following 47-year-old Joe Wesbecker's shooting spree in 1989. He shot 20 of his co-workers at the Louisville Courier-Journal printing plant, killing eight of them, before killing himself. He had been on Prozac for one month.

The SSRI strategy is based on the belief that there is a direct link between the state of our brain molecules and our moods. The co-inventor of Prozac, the late Dr Ray Fuller, once told me during the Wesbecker trial that the SSRI proceeds from the principle that "behind every crooked thought there lies a crooked molecule".

Three years ago, the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) issued warnings about most antidepressants for children, specifically including SSRIs, on the grounds of risk of suicide. The view was based on a review by a group of medical experts studying all available evidence of clinical trials on both sides of the Atlantic.

The MHRA asserted that the benefits of treating under-18s with any SSRI, except one, Prozac, were outweighed by the risks of side effects. The drugs mentioned were paroxetine (Seroxat), sertraline (Lustral), citalopram (Cipramil) and fluvoxamine (Faverin).

Fluoxetine alone was judged on statistical evidence, and in strict specific circumstances (of which more later), to have a positive balance of risks versus benefits in the treatment of the most severe forms of depression in the under-18s. In other words, when risk of suicide, for example, is so great and persistent that it outweighs the worst-case-possible side effects of the drug.

But the gap between an 18-year-old and an eight-year-old is huge in brain-developmental terms. And Prozac itself has been associated with suicidal patients of all ages, as well as side effects such as stunted growth and deleterious effects on the sexual organs of children. SSRIs have been associated with atrophy of gonadal tissue in boys, indicating future problems with puberty and sexual activity later in life.

It is still not known whether there could be a deleterious effect on a girl's ovaries. Two years ago, researchers at Columbia University in New York found that young mice exposed to fluoxetine and other SSRIs were prone to abnormal brain development; the drugs appeared to be inhibiting normal neural growth factors. Animal studies have claimed that SSRIs weaken bone growth. There are also addiction issues, as yet unexplored in children owing to lack of longitudinal studies.....

Philosophy and sentiment apart, the neurophysiological unknowns are substantial. The American professors of psychology Alison Gopnik and Andrew Meltzoff claim in their book How Babies Think that typically by the age of three "the number of synapses reaches its peak when there are about 15,000 synapses for each brain cell, which is actually many more than in an adult brain". They argue that children have brains that are "literally more active, more connected, and much more flexible than adult brains". So under what conditions could a child, still subject to rapid neurobiological development, show signs of clinical depression comparable to an adult, or even an adolescent, so as to be a suitable case for treatment with powerful mind-altering drugs?

More here



Australian Feds on the evils of fizzy drinks

No mention that milk is even more calorific

Health Minister Tony Abbott has flagged a government campaign to make Australians aware of the dangers of soft drink. "I think that soft drinks, other than as an occasional treat, can be very, very harmful," Mr Abbott said. But he stopped short of promising tighter regulation around the sale and advertising of soft drink. "I'm not saying it should be banned, but I do think that it should be something which people buy for the occasional treat, not as a regular part of their kid's diet," Mr Abbott said. "What the government ought to do is help get the message out there."

Speaking at a global forum on diabetes in indigenous people, Mr Abbott said consuming soft drink as part of a regular diet was dangerous and could lead to obesity in children. "It's distressing that soft drinks are overwhelmingly the biggest single sellers in our supermarkets right around Australia." Mr Abbott said that unless children matched their soft drink consumption with regular exercise, they were at risk of childhood obesity.

"The problem with soft drink is that it's basically water spoilt," he said. "A small can of Coke contains something like 160 calories, it's a good half hour's walking to burn up that kind of energy. "So, as a matter of course, kids that have a couple of cans of Coke a day, obviously they've got to get that much more exercise if they're going to avoid the problem of childhood obesity."

International Diabetes Federation president-elect Professor Martin Silink said governments globally needed to take a stronger stand on soft drinks. "While they provide calories, they provide very little nutritional value," he said. "There was recently a study, for instance, in NSW that indicated infants are being given soft drinks and biscuits - these are not infant foods." But Mr Silink said it was too simplistic to lay the blame on parents, adding there was a broader societal responsibility to ensure diabetes is screened for, particularly in indigenous people.

Diabetes Australia national president Peter Little said having a labelling system for soft drinks displaying calorie content would be effective. "It's probably reasonable to educate people to link that energy value to how much exercise you have to do," he said. "In my view those energy labels would become de facto warning labels. "That sort of labelling system would be really simple and I think that's an excellent idea."

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



13 November, 2006

Hilarious: Diet products "boost appetite"



Diet products make people eat more, says nutritional toxicologist Peter Dingle. He said some sweeteners in diet products were linked with stimulating appetite. "Aspartame, commonly known as the sweetener NutraSweet, is a neuro-stimulant linked with stimulating appetite, so it can make you hungry," Prof Dingle, associate professor in health and the environment at Murdoch University, said. "Diet stuff doesn't satisfy hunger like conventional food, because hunger is linked to certain texture and taste sensations. If you don't get them, you don't feel satisfied -- you don't have the feeling 'I've had enough, I'm full'."

He said people also ate more because they felt they had "done something healthy" by having diet products. "Then they tend to consume just as much, if not more, than before," he said. "There is little research to show that these foods have great benefit for long-term weight control. "Long-term weight control is about eating good, healthy, nutritious foods, combined with a positive lifestyle, which includes keeping fit."

He said people focused on calories instead of nutrition. Rather than diet food, people should eat healthier, with fewer processed grains and more "super foods" such as beans, nuts, vegetables and omega-3 oils, Prof Dingle said. Instead of diet or soft drinks, people should drink water, which was healthier. "Parents give their kids two cans a night and then they complain they can't sleep," he said.

The Aspartame Information Center website says scientific evidence overwhelmingly shows aspartame is safe and not associated with adverse health effects.

Source



Lunch-box dictators in Australia

A Victorian primary school is cracking down on all packaged and processed foods in children's lunches. Teachers at St Thomas' Primary School in Sale are inspecting lunch boxes to discourage unhealthy eating. They have asked parents of grade 3-4 students not to provide any packaged foods for lunch. Food deemed off-limits includes snacks such as BBQ Shapes, chips, cereal bars, crackers and biscuits.

The Bracks Government recently announced restrictions on selling junk food at canteens. But the school is taking healthy eating one step further by hoping to change what kids bring in their lunch boxes. Grade 3-4 teacher Rose Lee said they took action after seeing the amount of processed food brought to school. "There was always so many packets of BBQ Shapes, chips and LCMs (cereal bars)," she said. "There never seemed to be any fresh stuff."

Ms Lee said they sent a note home to parents about their decision to focus on healthy food. "We asked them to support us by not including any packaged or processed foods," she said. Ms Lee said the kids were initially shocked. "We had a meeting with our grade 3-4 saying we don't want them to bring in packaged food and they were absolutely horrified," she said. "They thought we were the meanest teachers in the school!"

But she said that four weeks later the students were loving it. "The kids are remarkable," Ms Lee said. "Now they are the ones who are inspiring us to eat healthy food." Ms Lee said the policy was not a ban, but they did inspect lunch boxes. "I do check lunches," she said. "And you make an almighty fuss about those that have packaged foods."

But Ms Lee said most students now brought fresh food by choice. "We thought it was going to be really tough, but it hasn't been at all. They are not bringing the packaged food in," she said. Ms Lee said the school also incorporated healthy eating in every class. She said the students were learning how to read nutritional information, to cook and also going for 1km runs. Ms Lee said only grade 3-4 students were involved in the initiative but they might expand it to the rest of the school.

Obesity expert Prof John Dixon applauded the healthy eating move. "This is just what we need. Clearly, parents and schools are incredibly concerned about obesity," he said. Prof Dixon, from Monash University's Centre for Obesity Research and Education, said it was great to see action at a grassroots level. "If communities wake up to it, they can make decisions that are positive for their kids," he said. Victorian Parents Council head Jo Silver also welcomed the crackdown on lunchbox junk. "We need to encourage our children to eat healthily," she said

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



12 November, 2006

Kiddy speech: A finding that is less strange than it seems

Below is a recent journal abstract:

Mother and father language input to young children: Contributions to later language development

By Nadya Pancsofar & Lynne Vernon-Feagans

There has been little research comparing the nature and contributions of language input of mothers and fathers to their young children. This study examined differences in mother and father talk to their 24 month-old children. This study also considered contributions of parent education, child care quality and mother and father language (output, vocabulary, complexity, questions, and pragmatics) to children's expressive language development at 36 months. It was found that fathers' language input was less than mothers' language input on the following: verbal output, turn length, different word roots, and wh-questions. Mothers and fathers did not differ on type-token ratio, mean length of utterance, or the proportion of questions. At age 36 months, parent level of education, the total quality of child care and paternal different words were significant predictors of child language. Mothers' language was not a significant predictor of child language.

So the mothers do the talking but it is dads who influence the speech skills of their children. Wacky? Yes. But there was a confounding variable that was apparently not measured: IQ. I suspect that it was only the high IQ fathers who talked much to their kids and, given that IQ is highly heritable and highly involved in verbal skills, their kids showed best language development. Political correctness causes most medical researchers to ignore influences like intelligence and social class, thus leading to many weird "findings" and a grave loss of understanding about what is actually going on



Obesity masks the big picture

(A moderate view from an Australian GP -- from "The Australian" of Nov. 4th, 2006)

By Simon Cowap

"Oh well,doc," said my dejected patient "my weight is 80kg, my BMI is 30 and my waist circumference is 98cm. I guess that makes me just another statistic in the obesity epidemic."

Stories about obesity abound. There are dire predictions for what this means in terms of increased rates of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, sleep apnoea, osteoarthritis and certain cancers. We hear a lot about how it is affecting our children. with 19.5 per cent of boys and 21 per cent of girls being classified as obese. Interestingly though, 20 per cent of women and 9 per cent of men aged 18-24 attending GPs are actually underweight. The obesity epidemic is perhaps a bit oversold.

The more frightening statistics usually refer to "the overweight and obese". People are classified as overweight if they have a Body Mass Index - weight in kilos divided by their height in metres squared - of between 25 and 30. Those who are are obese have a BMI rating of more than 30. Overweight Australians usually greatly outnumber the obese, and there is a big difference between the health impact of a BMI of 27 and one of 35.

Weight is a significant personal and public health issue. But our response often seems to be either working ourselves up into a frenzy without really knowing where to go next, or to become rather punitive in a way that risks increasing that already high proportion of young women who are underweight. While being concerned about obesity, we need to be realistic, and the reality is that achieving durable weight loss is difficult. We are fighting against powerful neuroendocrine mechanisms that defend body fat stores, an evolutionary adaptation to the scarcity of pre-history. Weight loss programs are regarded as a success if they achieve weight loss of 3 to 5 kg, or 5 to 7 per cent of body mass, for a year or more.

Drugs like the currently heavily promoted orlistat (Xenical) produce a mean weight loss at one year of approximately 2.9kg. Diet and exercise remain the cornerstone of weight control for most people. The best composition of weight loss diets remains controversial, but the bulk of evidence supports either high carbohydrate/low fat or high protein/moderate carbohydrate diets. Very low calorie meal replacements can be used to augment the effect of diet. Exercise is an important component, and most successful regimes include 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise daily. As most of us expend only 5 to 10 per cent of our daily energy intake on exercise, even doubling it does not have an enormous impact. Even if weight is unchanged though, increasing exercise is still very effective in reducing cardiovascular and diabetic risk.

Likewise, not all kilojoules are created equal. A diet high in vegetables, pulses, grains and fish - the `Mediterranean diet' - may be good for your health independently of any effect on weight. Given that focusing purely on weight, waist circumference and BMI can be rather demoralising, it is important to remain aware of the global health impact of any lifestyle changes you make.

Even weight loss medications work best in conjunction with diet and exercise. Only silbutramine and orlistat are used as long term agents here. They are suitable for people with BMI above 30 and those with a weight-related disease. Taking silbutramine in additional to modifying diet and exercise provides a weight loss of about 4.5kg at one year. For very obese people, with a BMI of more than 35, a form of surgery known as laparascopic adjustable gastric banding is a more effective means of weight loss. Weight is a serious health issue. But it's not the only one. I'd rather be slightly overweight, eating well and exercising than smoking and sedentary with a BMI of 25.



Europeans fat too

Europeans think there are more obese adults and children today than there were five years ago, according to a new poll by the European Union. However the proportion of people who consider themselves overweight, at 38%, is roughly the same as in 2002. An average EU citizen now weighs 72.2kg (11st 5lb) and is 1.7m (5ft 7in) tall. About one in five have changed their eating habits in the last year, with most of these trying to eat more fruit and vegetables, and less fat.

More than 80% of those polled totally agreed or tended to agree that obesity was on the increase, and felt that governments should do more to tackle the problem. Some 55% thought their weight was about right. The proportion of people considering themselves overweight varied from country to country - from 25% in Slovakia to 50% in Luxembourg. In the UK the figure was 41% - 5% down on 2002. Women were more likely than men to consider themselves overweight - 44% compared with 32%.

On average, respondents said they spent more than six hours a day sitting down. Only 22% said they had performed a lot of physical activity in the seven days before they took part in the poll. One in three, on average across the EU, said they had performed no physical activity in their leisure time. Just over half of respondents said they did not have enough time to take advantage of the facilities for physical activity in the area where they lived. People from Hungary, Luxembourg and Denmark were heaviest for their height, and Italians and French were the lightest. People in Luxembourg were on average 2.7kg (6lb) heavier than in 2002, while in the Netherlands they were 0.8kg (1.75lb) lighter. People in the UK were 0.2kg (0.4lb) lighter.

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



11 November, 2006

Trans Fat Hysteria Could Be Lawsuit Bonanza

The takeover of Congress by Democrats could result in a big payday for trial lawyers at the expense of the feckless food industry. Food companies like McDonald's, KFC and IHOP recently announced their intent to stop cooking their foods in trans fats -- industrially-produced vegetable oils used in a variety of food products for their cooking, preservative and cost benefits. The companies are reacting to widely publicized claims that trans fats cause heart disease and more than 1-in-5 heart attacks.

Emanating from a decade-long campaign launched by a small group of Harvard University researchers, anti-trans fat hysteria has been so "successful" that New York City and Chicago have announced moves to ban restaurant use of trans fats. The Washington Post cheered such news in an editorial this week, hoping that it "inspires the federal Food and Drug Administration to catch up" -- more on the significance of this comment later.

The rush to judgment on trans fats is amazing given the "science" used to power the anti-trans fat bandwagon. Consider the most recent review of trans fats research published in the New England Journal of Medicine (April 13, 2006). The review was co-authored by Harvard's Walter Willett, one of the researchers leading the anti-trans fat campaign. Willett's primary claim about trans fats is that they "appear to increase the risk of coronary heart disease more than any other macronutrient." Willett cites three large studies as "the strongest epidemiologic [real-world] evidence" for this assertion. Let's look closely at these studies.

In the so-called "Health Professional Follow-up Study," more than 43,000 male health professionals were studied for six years to examine the association between dietary fats and heart disease. Although the "raw" results indicated positive correlations between trans fat consumption and heart disease, when other confounding risk factors for heart disease were considered, the correlation with heart disease became statistically insignificant and the correlation with fatal heart attacks became inverted - that is, trans fat consumption slightly reduced the risk of fatal heart attack!

In the "Alpha-Tocopherol Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention Study," the intake of trans fats was studied in almost 22,000 male smokers. The study did not report a statistically significant association between trans fat intake and non-fatal heart attack, and only reported a questionable weak statistical association between very high trans fat intake and fatal heart attacks. But given that the typical lifestyle characteristics of smokers compared to non-smokers - lower income, more stressful lives, worse diet, higher alcohol consumption, and less exercise - tend to significantly impact heart disease risk, the men in this study are probably not good subjects for an evaluation of trans fats in the first place.

In the third study, known as the "Nurses Health Study," 80,082 female nurses were followed for 14 years to study the relationship between dietary intake of different types of fats and heart disease. No overall association was reported between trans fat intake and heart disease, although a weak statistical association was reported for women in the top quintile of trans fat intake. But the size of that statistical association (53 percent), however, renders it quite dubious. As the National Cancer Institute has publicly stated, "In epidemiologic research, [increases in risk of less than 100 percent] are considered small and usually difficult to interpret. Such increases may be due to chance, statistical bias or effects of confounding factors that are sometimes not evident."

So there you have it. Those flimsy-to-exculpatory study results are what Harvard's Willett considers (as of April 2006) to be the "strongest epidemiological evidence" supposedly linking trans fat consumption with heart disease. But if Willett's claims about trans fats were true, wouldn't there be a substantial body of consistent and convincing evidence indicating that trans fats intake causes actual harm among real people? After all, we've only been consuming trans fats since Crisco was commercialized in 1908 - almost 100 years.

So what's all this got to do with this week's elections and trial lawyers? So far, there have been several lawsuits filed against food companies (like McDonald's and KFC) concerning trans fats. None of this has been personal injury or class action litigation, however, which is where the big bucks are for trial lawyers. Despite all the trans fat scaremongering - aided in part by food companies caving in to trans fat-free alarmism by reformulating cooking processes or selling trans fat-free products - the Food and Drug Administration still classifies all uses of trans fats as "generally recognized as safe." This classification obviously serves as a roadblock to successful personal injury litigation. How long trans fats will maintain their "GRAS" status is anyone's guess.

However, the Democrat takeover of Congress raises concerns because trial lawyers are historically among the Democrats' biggest financial supporters - almost 10 times greater than the food industry in 2006 ($65 million vs. $7 million). While Congress has no direct authority over the FDA and its staff, Congress may pressure the FDA and its leadership to change the GRAS status of trans fats in other ways -- such as through its investigative, appropriations and legislative powers. A change in the status of trans fats would clear the way for personal injury lawyers to sue (perhaps on a class action basis) and start collecting big bucks for the alleged 1-in-5 heart attacks that the Harvard cabal blames on trans fats. It could be a multi-billion dollar payday that ranks among the most lucrative personal injury litigation for the lawyers.

Source



GOOGLE MAY BE SMARTER THAN YOUR DOCTOR

If in doubt, Google it, doctors puzzling over a diagnosis have been told. The internet search engine used by millions of people to find a plumber or discover what their house is worth is also pretty handy when it comes to putting a name to unusual ailments. Embarrassing as it may seem to professionals trained for many years in medicine, Google can often come up with the right answer.

In one case described in The New England Journal of Medicine, a doctor astonished her colleagues, who included an eminent professor, by correctly diagnosing Ipex (immunodeficiency, polyendocrinopathy, enteropathy, X-linked) syndrome. It just "popped right out" after she entered the salient features into Google, she admitted. Two Australian doctors have now put Google to a sterner test, using 26 cases from the case records section of the journal. This is a regular feature in which the symptoms of a tricky case are described and readers are asked to come up with a diagnosis. Hangwi Tang and Jennifer Hwee Kwoon Ng, doctors at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, in Brisbane, simply entered words from the case records into Google. The words reflected the symptoms described, and for each case they picked between three and five. They then looked at the first three pages of the Google output - thirty items - and chose what seemed to be the most plausible of the diagnoses offered. In 58 per cent of the cases, Google came up with the right answer, or at least the same answer as given in the journal.

For example, when the case involved a 48-year-old man with multiple spinal tumours and skin tumours, the doctors searched Google by entering the words "multiple spinal tumours" and "skin tumours". Google responded with items suggesting the man had neuro-fibromatosis type 1, the correct diagnosis. In another case, a man lost consciousness while jogging. A search under "cardiac arrest", "exercise", and "young" produced the diagnosis of hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy, which was also right. Other conditions that were diagnosed successfully included Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, gastrointestinal bleed, amyotrophy (a neurological disorder) and encephalitis (inflammation of the brain).

There were some errors. A condition deduced to be graft versus host disease turned out to be West Nile fever - quite a big difference. But the two doctors conclude that Google is well worth trying. "Useful information on even the rarest medical conditions can now be found and digested within a matter of minutes," they say. "Our study suggests that in difficult diagnostic cases it is often useful to `Google for a diagnosis'. "Web-based search engines such as Google are becoming the latest tools in clinical medicine, and doctors in training need to become proficient in their use."

Irritating medical television series such as House, in which a grumpy know-it-all physician played by Hugh Laurie astonishes his colleagues by his remarkable diagnostic skills, will never seem quite so impressive. How long before he is upstaged by Google? And GPs who grumble when their patients turn up with printouts from the internet claiming that they have some obscure disease will have to be more circumspect. Having access to Google, the patients might just be right.

The doctors started their research after examining a 16-year-old water polo player with a blockage in a vein, and explaining that the cause was uncertain. His father immediately interrupted to say: "But of course he has Paget-von Schroetter syndrome." He had successfully Googled the symptoms and proceeded to give the doctors a mini-tutorial on the cause of the condition - huge neck muscles compressing the axillary vein - and the correct treatment.

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



10 November, 2006

Inexplicable long lives

An older Australian (born in 1951) reflects:

The way the world is run, it seems extraordinary that anybody over the age of 60 is still upright. They should be dead. Consider what they have had to survive to get this far. These people, in fact anybody over 30, went to school during very dark days indeed.

They were days when the canteen sold doughnuts, pies and chips to anybody who wanted them.

They drank carbonated water with weird flavors and absurdly mixed full-cream ice cream in it at times to make something called a "spider".

There were no teachers searching for contraband chocolate in school lunch boxes and no self-righteous doctors from VicHealth explaining impressive charts about childhood obesity.

How did anybody survive past puberty without a fridge and cupboard full of things labelled "lite" or "low fat"? How could life exist and thrive when nobody had the faintest idea what "low GI" meant?

But it did. These baby boomers ate fried dim sims and potato cakes with salt, gulped down bags of lollies, and considered Twisties a health food.

Red meat was served at one meal a day, not one meal a week.

Fish had to be cooked before you ate it, preferably in batter and boiling oil.

Tofu, if ever considered, would have been considered revolting.

Today's food police would have locked up the entire generation. So, how did that generation of boomers survive long enough to become a financial problem important enough to agitate Peter Costello? Of course, the threat was not restricted to killer food. That's only one of the social evils now identified and attacked. Most of the boomers also managed to survive other people's cigarettes.

They went to football games where fans were allowed to smoke in the grandstand in the belief the smoke would blow away.

They travelled on trains with carriages marked "smoking" and "non-smoking", in the belief people could make a choice about their own lives.

They even experimented with 10-to-a-pack cigarettes that were almost certainly designed as starter kits for kids. Yet most of them still developed the good sense to give up smoking.

But how did they survive such a dangerous social life? How did they eat in restaurants where the bloke on the next table would light up an after-dinner smoke with his coffee? Why are so many still alive after spending years drinking more than 4.3 standard drinks a day in bars where smokers were not treated like dangerous criminals? Again, it is probably my approaching birthday, but modern history seems to have thrown up so many questions and so few answers.....

Think about germs, too. A smelly old horse with a smelly old driver used to deliver bread and milk to the front door before dawn.

How did people survive drinking milk that wasn't straight out of the refrigerator and eating bread that wasn't so tightly sealed it could be opened only by laser beam?

And speaking of bread, how did generations thrive while eating bread that wasn't bursting with Omega 3, calcium and a dozen other additives nobody is sure exist?

How could young women still manage to look so attractive 20 years ago without a scientifically designed uplifting device guaranteed to deceive nature and gravity?

Who sorted out the rubbish in those days when it was placed in only one bin? How did households survive without three colour-coded monsters and an army of bin police likely to lay charges if a chicken bone is inadvertently re-cycled?

But perhaps the greatest question of all is this: Why did a generation that spent the first half of its adult life dedicated to excess, independence, freedom and loud music decide to spend the second half of its life writing rules that tell everybody else how to live?

Source



'Dry air' device kills head lice



A hairdryer-like device can rid children of head lice by exterminating the eggs and lice, work shows. Test results published in Pediatrics journal show one 30-minute treatment with the device is enough to eradicate infestations by drying the invaders. The LouseBuster is being developed commercially by a University of Utah spin-off company Larada Sciences. Patents are pending but the developers hope their non-chemical product will be on the market within two years.

Head lice are a common problem, particularly among schoolchildren, with some classes suffering multiple outbreaks of the condition, pediculosis, in a single school year. A single louse can lay dozens of eggs, called nits, in the hair at the rate of three a day. Lice cannot fly or jump and rely on direct hair-to-hair contact to pass from host to host, although they can be transferred by head contact with contaminated bedding or furniture.

While their bloodsucking activities do cause itching, the infestation is not dangerous in itself, although the host's scratching around can lead to secondary infections of raw areas of scalp.

There are chemical shampoos available to treat the condition, but resistance to these has been steadily increasing over recent years. Regular head combing is recommended by many experts, although this will not prevent reinfection.

The LouseBuster's co-inventor, Dr Dale Clayton, explained that the device worked by drying the nits and lice out, not by heating them. He urged parents not to try to do the same at home with a hairdryer. "We don't want kids getting burned by parents who think it is the heat. "This thing is actually cooler than a hairdryer, but requires twice as much airflow, and the special hand piece is critical because, unless you expose the roots of the hair, it doesn't work. "It's difficult to do that with a regular comb," he explained.

In the Pediatrics study showed how best to use the device to exterminate the nits and lice. When used with a plastic hand piece with 10 coarse teeth, the LouseBuster killed 80% of hatched lice and 98% of louse eggs. This was enough to eliminate entire infestations.

As many as 3 million people a year in the UK catch head lice. The National Public Health Service for Wales has undertaken research into treatment of head lice in schoolchildren, particularly looking at patterns of resistance to chemical shampoos. Dr Richard Roberts, Consultant in Communicable Disease Control, Wales, said that work suggested products containing malathion were most likely to be effective. "High levels of resistance were seen in pyrethroid containing products," he added. He said wet combing could work for those able to follow the rigorous regime it involves.

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



9 November, 2006

FOOD DICTATORSHIP GROWS

So much easier than tacking the real causes of being overweight -- such as school bans on kids running around in the name or saferty -- or feminist propaganda that has convinced many slim middle-class women that a "career" is more rewarding than children

Marketing strategies that feature SpongeBob SquarePants or use the latest adventure game for PlayStation to sell junk food to children will face increased scrutiny from the federal government next year. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is preparing to collect information from the parent companies of fast-food restaurants and beverage manufacturers for detailed information on their marketing activities and spending targeted at children. The informational requests will go out to about 50 companies, which are required by law to respond. The companies are not identified, but those likely to receive the requests sell or make children's food products such as breakfast cereals, snack foods and sodas.

The information the FTC receives will be used for a report that will examine the different types of advertising tactics, such as the use of popular children's characters or video games, for children's food products. The report is the latest effort in a broad push to limit the food industry's marketing and labeling of its products. Last month, former President Bill Clinton struck a deal with major snack-food manufacturers to sell healthier snack foods to students.

Some companies, such as Kraft Foods, already have scaled back their advertising to children, potentially to avoid the growing number of lawsuits against companies for selling unhealthy foods. Kraft has set national standards for products it will market to children ages 6 to 11 and will not advertise to those younger than 6. The Walt Disney Co. has recently established standards for the type of food products its characters may be used to advertise.

In addition to the FTC report, the Federal Communication Commission and Sen. Sam Brownback, Kansas Republican, are creating a task force of government officials, television programmers and marketers to study the media's impact on childhood obesity next year. Many observers are comparing the movement toward healthier snacks and oversight of marketing practices to the lawsuit against tobacco companies in the mid-1990s. "Like the tobacco [issue], there is a steady increase of attention being given to healthy food products. As a result, there will be more self-regulation, but to what extent the government gets involved will depend on the public's attitude toward these companies and medical studies that show the effects of childhood obesity," said Ron Urbach, a lawyer with Davis & Gilbert and co-chairman of the advertising, marketing and promotions department at the law firm.

The rate of obesity in children and adolescents has more than tripled from less than 5 percent in the 1980s to about 16 percent today, according to federal data. Critics of the food industry's marketing practices say commercials and Internet ads, on which the industry spent an estimated $10 billion to $12 billion last year, aggressively target children. "Our nation is confronted with a childhood-obesity epidemic that is getting worse," said Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa Democrat, who ordered the FTC to look into the issue. "We must take steps to protect our children's health. Parents are being undermined by the junk-food culture that is increasingly promoted to our kids on TV."

Lawyers monitoring the issue are concerned the FTC's increased vigilance on marketing toward children could lead to enforcement. "When the federal government starts looking for and getting marketing information, they begin to learn about different forms of advertising and might want to make a statement," said Tony DiResta, an FTC regulatory specialist at the Washington law firm Reed Smith. "Enforcement action for deceptive advertising is a possibility."

But if history is a guide, the FTC may urge companies to "self-regulate" themselves rather than take up the lengthy process of issuing new regulations restricting the type of advertising companies can direct toward children. "In the middle 1990s when the FTC was going after violence of TV, they decided it would be more effective for companies to self-regulate," Mr. Urbach said. "Taking a self-regulating path is more effective because government regulations take so long, by the time they are in place, the issues are different."

New guidelines for marketers of children's food products from the Children's Advertising Review Unit, a unit of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, are being revised after the group announced in February that it would conduct a complete review of the existing guidelines. The new guidelines may go beyond their current focus of protecting children's privacy and preventing youths from seeing messages intended for adults to adding minimum nutrition standards or restrictions on targeting children with promotions for unhealthy food.

Source



A bit of rare good sense from a medical writer:

Health times are changing. Eggs are again a healthy food. Avoiding cholesterolladen eggs won't solve elevated-cholesterol problems for most people. Salt intake, however, can lead to high blood pressure, and thereby perhaps threaten cardiovascular health. Except, maybe eggs are not so healthy, possibly because of their high levels of saturated fat. And the threat from salt intake seems only true for certain people who are sodium sensitive. Butter is full of saturated fat, so you should switch to margarine. Wait. Margarine, containing hydrogenated oils, is loaded with trans fatty acids, which makes it a poor alternative to butter. Try the new and expensive kind of cholesterol-lowering margarine.

Where does all of this conflicting health advice come from? Some of this changing advice results from new scientific discoveries. New studies constantly address a piece of the puzzle of the development of chronic illness. Since cardiovascular disease is by far the greatest killer in the Western world, it and its risk factors (serum cholesterol, blood pressure, diet, stress) receive lots of research attention, usually fragmentary. Another part of this contradictory advice results from clinicians and reporters who overstate their findings. Individual studies are rarely multi-faceted, long-term, and definitive. So as each finding emerges, it receives more attention than justified; then later, another, different piece of the picture is revealed. But part of the confusion results from scientists who misunderstand their findings. It is this scientific mis-step that is the subject of this chapter.

In 1989 I wrote a book entitled The Self-Healing Personality. I wrote: "Since eggs are high in cholesterol, some scientists have urged people to make drastic changes in their diets -- avoid all eggs. However, cholesterol does not go directly from our stomachs into our blood. The human body processes the cholesterol in food and makes its own cholesterol. The level of cholesterol in our blood is affected by hereditary factors, by the amount of fat (especially saturated fat) in the diet, by exercise, and by stress. It is also affected by other, as yet unknown, factors. Avoiding eggs will by itself have little or no effect on blood cholesterol in most people.

Many products on the supermarket shelves are now advertised with the ridiculous slogan, `No cholesterol!' Believe it or not, I recently purchased a bunch of bananas that had a `No cholesterol' sticker attached to them. This labelling indicates a grave public misconception of the best ways to promote health.

For a whole host of reasons, it is healthy to eat lots of fruit and vegetables. Bananas do fall into this category, but no scientist really knows all the exact details of why fruits and vegetables are good to eat. Certainly a lot more than cholesterol content is involved . . .

How many people are now feeling guilty when they eat a steak? The guilt is likely a greater problem than the steak. It is true that there is substantial evidence that high animal fat intake is unhealthy. At a restaurant near my home, I observed a fat man devour a huge fatty chunk of prime rib. He concluded the meal with a large piece of chocolate cake a la mode. If he does this often (as he evidently did), his arteries may pay the consequences. But people who occasionally enjoy eating a trimmed piece of broiled steak as part of a varied diet are giving themselves an excellent source of protein and minerals".

Now, more than a decade later, both the popular and scientific literatures are filled with articles questioning the "ban" on eggs and steak. They claim there is "new research" (e.g., "Eat your heart out: Forget what you know about eggs, margarine and salt", Time magazine, 1999). So how could I presciently write those words so long ago? All I had to do was read the scientific literature and think about its full context. There was never any convincing study even remotely indicating that eliminating high-cholesterol eggs from breakfast would improve the health of the population. Similarly, eating an occasional steak (full of essential proteins and minerals) was never shown to be worse for one's arteries than many other common foods, including drinking milk. But scientists misunderstood their own findings.

As we shall see, our health promotion efforts and our public health systems are too often built around a pathology model, derived from traditional conceptions of "treating" disease. These approaches often ignore the social context of people's lives, and the psychosocial influences that push and pull them in healthy or unhealthy directions across time. In the scientific arena, this orientation often means that each result from a particular scientific study is seen as an important and direct causal step on the road to disease. Anything that seems to be associated with an increase in a risk factor is a threat! Thus we encounter a litany of health advice -- do's and don't's -- sometimes relevant to the proximal causes of ill health but ignorant of the long-term causal patterns. Furthermore, such advice appears in isolation, disease by disease. All together, in the popular arena, this faddish approach produces people who have had it up to their noses with conflicting medical advice. They have had their fill of half-baked baloney casseroles. So they junk all the advice and return to eating junk food. They say, "The heck with the Surgeon General!" The truth be told, this exclamatory subtitle is not original. Rather, it was stolen from a huge billboard on the highway between San Diego and Riverside. The huge letters proclaim, "The heck with the Surgeon General." This is followed by the phrase "Inhale a big juicy star." It is an advertisement for Carl's Junior star hamburgers. Forget about warnings, and inhale loads of fatty hamburgers! Millions do. The burgers are accompanied by fries and shakes.

A study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association documented this backlash against promulgated nutritional advice (Patterson et al., 2001). This research used a random digit telephone survey of residents of Washington state, weighted to be representative of the population. More than two-thirds of the respondents asserted that the government should not tell people what to eat, and many complained about low-fat diets. More importantly, people evidencing high "nutrition backlash" ate more fat and fewer servings of fruits and vegetables. The causal direction of these associations with nutrition backlash is not established. Patterson et al. (2001) concluded that it is likely that people who are annoyed with constant government and media harping on low-fat diets are more likely to disregard the advice altogether, and eat a fat-laden and low-fruit diet. The government advice backfires. This is also the prediction of psychological reactance models, which forecast that threats to one's personal freedom produce negative reactions that increase one's resistance to persuasion. This reactance against health advice may be especially true among people concerned with control issues (Rhodewalt and Davison, 1983). It is also the case that people may generally see themselves as less susceptible to such influence when the persuading entity is an irrelevant "outgroup" such as the government (Terry et al., 1999).

On the other hand, social psychological theory and research on cognitive consistency predicts that people who know they are eating high-fat, low-fruit diets will be more likely to evidence this "nutrition backlash" when asked about their diet. That is, if one is eating French fries, pork chops, and ice cream on a regular basis, then one is unlikely to assert that the government is doing a fine job in warning people about the health risks of such diets. Such thoughts and behaviors would be inconsistent, dissonant, and unperceptive. In this case, it is not annoyed people who ignore health advice, but rather misbehaving people who become annoyed with the advice (Abelson et al., 1968).

It is likely, however, that both sorts of causal directions account for the association between poor dietary habits and dissatisfaction with government preaching and scientific reversals. Some people will not attend to health messages, will not believe them if they hear them, and will not change their behaviors even if they hear and believe the message. Various cognitive, emotional, and informational processes are at work. On the other hand, other people will form unhealthy habits and behave in unhealthy ways for a variety of interpersonal and situational reasons, and they then will form negative attitudes about health promotion as a function of these behaviors (Rodin et al., 1990).

The Skinny on Fat

Human beings have evolved to enjoy eating fat. In fact, people cannot live without fat in their diets. There are many different types of fats. There are fats from dairy products and fats from meats, there are artificial fats from food processors, and there are fats from produce ranging from soy and nuts to olives and avocados. There are fat people who do not eat much fat, and there are skinny people who eat a lot of fat. Many people gain weight as they age, but many do not. Although it is known that some people who eat a lot of saturated fat will raise their cholesterol levels, a subsequent long-term causal link to all-cause premature mortality from this single behavior has not been directly documented as a major risk to the population.

Medical advisors who recommend addressing high serum (blood) cholesterol in people at high risk for cardiovascular disease through dietary changes in fat intake are piecing together different sorts of findings. But it has always been controversial whether simple diet-based attempts (such as avoiding eggs) at serum cholesterol reductions are needed for healthy young or middle-aged adults, especially given the often minimal or unexpected effects on serum cholesterol and health of moderate dietary changes (Kaplan et al., 1992; Taubes, 2001; Taylor et al., 1987). Further, any beneficial effects preventing deaths from cardiovascular disease might be offset by increased risk from other diseases. Fat and carbohydrate metabolism in the body is complicated, and it is not clear that a high carbohydrate diet is especially healthy as a replacement. Add in considerations of physical activity, stress, alcohol, and culture, and the complexity multiplies dramatically (Epel et al., 2001). Note that during the years since the government and some health advisors have begun preaching fat intake reduction, the incidence of obesity among Americans has increased dramatically.

More here

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



8 November, 2006

Jellyfish for heart trouble?

Australian scientists will study whether toxins from several species of deadly jellyfish could be used to help treat heart complications. Jellyfish expert Jamie Seymour said today the world-first study would attempt to extract various compounds from the venom of the box and irukandji jellyfish, which could be used for human medication. Dr Seymour, from James Cook University in Cairns, said it was possible a non-addictive painkiller could be extracted from jellyfish venom similar to one found in the cone snail. "It is likely that novel toxins will be found that may be useful as pharmacological tools or even for treatment as drugs," Dr Seymour said. "In fact (in) some of the initial results ... we've isolated a compound from the box jellyfish venom which actually kills bacteria that's resistant to a lot of the medications presently used."

It was still unknown exactly what type of ailments jellyfish venom could treat. "But given that the venom is predominantly a heart venom, so it kills the heart, it wouldn't surprise me if there's compounds in there that we can use for various heart complications," Dr Seymour said.

Dr Seymour will carry out the study with three other scientists as part of a grant of $280,000 over three years from National Health and Medical Research Council. Dr Seymour said the money would also help investigate treatment strategies for box and irukandji jellyfish stings. He said little was known about jellyfish toxins and how they worked in the human body. "We have a small understanding of what's going on but certainly for things like big box jellyfish, how the venoms operate and why they work, it's very hard to work it out in humans because people die so quickly," he said.

Dr Seymour said a large box jellyfish could kill its victim within minutes by inducing cardiac arrest. He said up to 150 people were stung each year in Australia by jellyfish, threatening Australia's image as a safe tourism destination. "From November through to May everybody's forced to swim inside nets on the coasts. That changes the entire way the beach is used up here," Dr Seymour said.

Source



Duct tape no magical cure for warts, study finds

A larger sample might have shown some significant effect of the duct tape but it is in any case obviously no magic bullet

Duct tape does not work any better than doing nothing to cure warts in schoolchildren, Dutch researchers reported on Monday in a study that contradicts a popular theory about an easy way to get rid of the unattractive lumps. The study of 103 children aged 4 to 12 showed the duct tape worked only slightly better than using a corn pad, a sticky cushion that does not actually touch the wart and which was considered to be a placebo. "After 6 weeks, the warts of 8 children (16 percent) in the duct tape group and the warts of 3 children (6 percent) in the placebo group had disappeared," the researchers wrote in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. They said this difference was not statistically significant. In addition, some of the children who wore duct tape reported itching, rashes and other effects, although none of the children who wore corn pads did.

The researchers, led by Dr. Marloes de Haen of Maastricht University, expressed disappointment with their findings. Warts are caused by a virus in the skin, and often clear up on their own. They can also be frozen off in a treatment called cryotherapy, or burned off chemically using a strong formulation of salicylic acid. "Considering the serious discomfort of cryotherapy and the awkwardness of applying salicylic acid for a long time, simply applying tape would be a cheap and helpful alternative, especially in children," de Haen's team wrote.

In 2002, Dr. Dean Focht of Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington and colleagues reported in the same journal that using duct tape on warts worked better than cryotherapy. The idea of using duct tape to treat warts quickly became common wisdom and is advocated widely on the Internet. The Dutch researchers said that Focht's team did not actually examine their patients to determine if the warts had disappeared, but called them on the telephone to ask.

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



7 November, 2006

Beware of toxic carrot juice!

One "healthy" choice that wasn't so healthy

Carrot juice which was withdrawn from the market late last month is thought to be responsible for the illness of two Canadians who are paralyzed and are severely ill in hospital. According to public health officials the Toronto residents drank carrot juice that has since tested positive for a botulism toxin. The juice is said to be the same carrot juice which was recalled late in September and was one of the three brands recalled. The juice, produced by Bolthouse Farms in Bakersfield, California was taken off North American store shelves after four cases of botulism in the United States were linked to toxic carrot juice.

One woman from Florida remains in hospital and has been unresponsive, since mid-September while three people in Georgia who suffered respiratory failure after drinking the carrot juice have been on ventilators for a month.

Botulism, though rare is a potentially fatal form of food poisoning and can cause general weakness, dizziness, double-vision and trouble with speaking or swallowing. Difficulty in breathing, weakness of other muscles, abdominal distension and constipation may also be common symptoms and people experiencing these problems should seek immediate medical attention. In severe cases, the paralysis can restrict breathing, forcing patients on to ventilators.

The Canadian public has been warned to avoid drinking three brands of carrot juice, Bolthouse Farms 100% Carrot Juice, Earthbound Farm Organic Carrot Juice and President's Choice Organics 100% Pure Carrot Juice. Bolthouse Farms bottles the three brands and all are sold in one-litre and 450-millilitre containers. Products with a "best by" date up to Nov. 11 have been recalled. Consumers are advised to discard the products and the suggestion is that improper refrigeration has caused the problem and as carrot juice is low in acids, and bacteria will grow unless it's kept below 7 C.

This latest food scare comes after California-grown spinach tainted with a potentially deadly strain of E. coli is suspected to have caused three deaths in the U.S.and sickened people across the nation. Only last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced it was safe to eat U.S.-packaged spinach again, but Canadian health officials have not yet followed suit and now green leaf lettuce produced by the Nunes Company, also in California's Salinas Valley, has been voluntarily recalled because of concerns about E. coli contamination.

The Bolthouse Farms recall is also voluntary and the farms processing facilities were examined closely by internal auditors and the FDA, and have been given the all clear. Their carrot Juice is distributed to 50 states in the U.S. along with Mexico and Canada. The FDA says carrot juice, like other low acid products, must be kept refrigerated to ensure product safety and properly refrigerated carrot juice poses no risk to consumer health. However, says the FDA, all fresh carrot juice, has the potential to harbor Botulism if improperly refrigerated or exposed to elevated temperatures for extended periods of time.

Source



Divorce is bad for your health

Not a very well-controlled study below but that divorced women experience more stress than happily married ones is not terribly surprising. And stress does affect physical health

A 10-year study by researchers at Iowa State University has revealed that women who divorce give up more than just a husband. Divorced women may also lose some of their good health compared to those who remain married.

In a study which focused on what happens to rural women's health after their marriage ends, compared with women who stay married, Fred Lorenz and colleagues found that though the act of divorce created no immediate effects on physical health it did affect the women's mental health.

Lorenz, a co-author of the study, says ten years down the line those effects on mental health had led to effects on physical health. The researchers collected data on over 400 rural Iowa women, who were each interviewed in the early 1990s, and interviewed again in 2001. When the study began approximately one-fourth of the women were recently divorced; all were mothers of adolescent children. In interviews taken shortly after the divorce, the women reported a 7 percent higher level of psychological distress than married women but there were no differences in physical health recorded.

However, a decade later, the divorced women reported 37 percent more physical illnesses than the married women surveyed but no difference in psychological stress that could be directly linked to the divorce. The women in the study marked off illnesses from a list of 46 choices ranging from the common cold and sore throat to heart conditions and cancer.

Lorenz said it appears there is a link between the higher number of physical illnesses and the different stresses associated with divorce, including financial problems, demotions, layoffs and parenting problems. He says that divorced women, especially in rural areas, have poor job opportunities and fewer support systems. The authors say the women also suffer stress from having to make changes in housing, insurance, transportation and spending time with children.

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



6 November, 2006

Are our fish dinners about to vanish?

With the usual Green/Left faith in lies, the latest report (see below) offers the total absurdity that "Our children will see a world without seafood if we don't change things". Australia alone controls huge areas of ocean by virtue of being an island continent and the Australian navy already energetically polices its heavily regulated fisheries, regularly seizing illegal fishing boats and fishermen from other countries. It does not catch them all but there is no doubt that its activities do preserve the fisheries concerned. The illegal fishermen would not take the big risks of being there except that there are lot of fish there. And the EU and the USA also have many legal measures to preserve their fisheries from overfishing. Such government actions are not nearly as effective as privatizing the fisheries would be but they avert any real disasters. That many fisheries worldwide are being grossly overfished is undoubted but telling gross lies about the situation is more likely to induce skepticism than sensible action. The most effective measure towards preserving fisheries would probably be to ban seafood imports from third-world countries that do not effectively manage their fisheries but you will see no mention of that in the report below. Asking campaigning Greenies to take national differences into account when they make their pronouncements and recommendations is too much to ask, of course. From the Zero Population Growth follies of the 60s onward, their crazed minds have always tended to see the world as an undifferentiated featuresless gruel. Simplistic theories rather than the complexities of reality are all that they seem capable of handling

An international group of ecologists and economists warned yesterday that the world will run out of seafood by 2048 if steep declines in marine species continue at current rates, based on a four-year study of catch data and the effects of fisheries collapses. The paper, published in the journal Science, concludes that overfishing, pollution and other environmental factors are wiping out important species around the globe, hampering the ocean's ability to produce seafood, filter nutrients and resist the spread of disease. "We really see the end of the line now," said lead author Boris Worm, a marine biologist at Canada's Dalhousie University. "It's within our lifetime. Our children will see a world without seafood if we don't change things."

The 14 researchers from Canada, Panama, Sweden, Britain and the United States spent four years analyzing fish populations, catch records and ocean ecosystems to reach their conclusion. They found that by 2003 -- the last year for which data on global commercial fish catches are available -- 29 percent of all fished species had collapsed, meaning they are now at least 90 percent below their historic maximum catch levels. The rate of population collapses has accelerated in recent years. As of 1980, just 13.5 percent of fished species had collapsed, even though fishing vessels were pursuing 1,736 fewer species then. Today, the fishing industry harvests 7,784 species commercially. "It's like hitting the gas pedal and holding it down at a constant level," Worm said in a telephone interview. "The rate accelerates over time."

Some American fishery management officials, industry representatives and academics questioned the team's dire predictions, however, saying countries such as the United States and New Zealand have taken steps in recent years to halt the depletion of their commercial fisheries. "The projection is way too pessimistic, at least for the United States," said Steven Murawski, chief scientist for the National Marine Fisheries Service, which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "We've got the message. We will continue to reverse this trend."

The National Fisheries Institute, a trade group representing seafood producers as well as suppliers, restaurants and grocery chains, said in a statement that most wild marine stocks remain sustainable. The group's spokeswoman, Stacey Viera, added that because the global demand for seafood has already outstripped the amount of wild fish available in the sea, her group's members are meeting the need in part by relying on farmed fish. "To meet the gap between what wild capture can provide sustainably and the growing demand for seafood, aquaculture is filling that need," she said.

But several scientists challenged that prediction and questioned why humanity should pay for a resource that the ocean had long provided for free. "It's like turning on the air conditioning rather than opening the window," said Stanford University marine sciences professor Stephen R. Palumbi, one of the paper's authors. Oregon State University marine biologist Jane Lubchenco said the study makes clear that fish stocks are in trouble, even though consumers appear to have a cornucopia of seafood choices.

More here

The Journal abstract for the above report

Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services

By Boris Worm et al.

Human-dominated marine ecosystems are experiencing accelerating loss of populations and species, with largely unknown consequences. We analyzed local experiments, long-term regional time series, and global fisheries data to test how biodiversity loss affects marine ecosystem services across temporal and spatial scales. Overall, rates of resource collapse increased and recovery potential, stability, and water quality decreased exponentially with declining diversity. Restoration of biodiversity, in contrast, increased productivity fourfold and decreased variability by 21%, on average. We conclude that marine biodiversity loss is increasingly impairing the ocean's capacity to provide food, maintain water quality, and recover from perturbations. Yet available data suggest that at this point, these trends are still reversible.



The complete list of things that give you cancer (according to epidemiologists)

Acetaldehyde, acrylamide, acrylonitril, abortion, agent orange, alar, alcohol, air pollution, aldrin, alfatoxin, arsenic, arsine, asbestos, asphalt fumes, atrazine, AZT, baby food, barbequed meat, benzene, benzidine, benzopyrene, beryllium, beta-carotene, betel nuts, birth control pills, bottled water, bracken, bread, breasts, bus stations, calcium channel blockers, cadmium, captan, carbon black, carbon tetrachloride, careers for women, casual sex, car fumes, celery, charred foods, chewing gum, Chinese food, Chinese herbal supplements, chips, chloramphenicol, chlordane, chlorinated camphene, chlorinated water, chlorodiphenyl, chloroform, cholesterol, low cholesterol, chromium, coal tar, coffee, coke ovens, crackers, creosote, cyclamates, dairy products, deodorants, depleted uranium, depression, dichloryacetylene, DDT, dieldrin, diesel exhaust, diet soda, dimethyl sulphate, dinitrotouluene, dioxin, dioxane, epichlorhydrin, ethyle acrilate, ethylene, ethilene dibromide, ethnic beliefs,ethylene dichloride, Ex-Lax, fat, fluoridation, flying, formaldehyde, free radicals, french fries, fruit, gasoline, genes, gingerbread, global warming, gluteraldehyde, granite, grilled meat, Gulf war, hair dyes, hamburgers, heliobacter pylori, hepatitis B virus, hexachlorbutadiene, hexachlorethane, high bone mass, HPMA, HRT, hydrazine, hydrogen peroxide, incense, infertility, jewellery, Kepone, kissing, lack of exercise, laxatives, lead, left handedness, Lindane, Listerine, low fibre diet, magnetic fields, malonaldehyde, mammograms, manganese, marijuana, methyl bromide, methylene chloride, menopause, microwave ovens, milk hormones, mixed spices, mobile phones, MTBE, nickel, night lighting, night shifts, nitrates, not breast feeding, not having a twin, nuclear power plants, Nutrasweet, obesity, oestrogen, olestra, olive oil, orange juice, oxygenated gasoline, oyster sauce, ozone, ozone depletion, passive smoking, PCBs, peanuts, pesticides, pet birds, plastic IV bags, polio vaccine, potato crisps (chips), power lines, proteins, Prozac, PVC, radio masts, radon, railway sleepers, red meat, Roundup, saccharin, salt, selenium, semiconductor plants, shellfish, sick buildings, soy sauce, stress, strontium, styrene, sulphuric acid, sun beds, sunlight, sunscreen, talc, tetrachloroethylene, testosterone, tight bras, toast, toasters, tobacco, tooth fillings, toothpaste (with fluoride or bleach), train stations, trichloroethylene, under-arm shaving, unvented stoves, uranium, vegetables, vinyl bromide, vinyl chloride, vinyl fluoride, vinyl toys, vitamins, vitreous fibres, wallpaper, weedkiller (2-4 D), welding fumes, well water, weight gain, winter, wood dust, work, x-rays.

(List compiled by Prof. Brignell)

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Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



5 November, 2006

IMPLICATIONS OF THE TRANS FATS FURORE

What pros and cons will fill the media? In general, the debate swings between two extremes. Advocates for the ban present evidence that trans fats clog arteries, cause death and cost billions in tax dollars in medical care each year. Civil libertarians accuse advocates of promoting a nanny state - that is, an intrusive government that dictates the minutia of how people may live under the guise of taking care of them.

The push to legally prevent individuals from having a french fry "their way" is likely to prevail.if not in New York, then elsewhere - and soon. It is too potent a mixture of dire health alerts, politics and ethical judgements. If so, it will prevail over two values that have defined the American character: personal freedom and rugged individualism.

Compared to Europe, America is relatively new to "nanny" measures. For example, the right to educate your own children (homeschooling) is illegal in many European nations like Germany, but commonplace in America.

Traditionally, the question of what you choose to eat has been discussed outside the American framework of politics and ethics. Generally speaking, American politics and ethics have not dealt with how you prepare french fries, but with how you relate to other people; do you lie, defraud, or physically harm others. Nutrition might have been a health concern and a discussion in classrooms, but it did not stir political and ethical interest within the broader society. Personal eating preferences were considered just that: personal preferences.

Society has changed in several ways. For one thing, both public and private health care have become increasingly expensive, with both taxpayers and insurance premium payers subsidizing the so-called bad health choices of others. In consequence, the general public feels a greater right to prevent others from making bad health decisions at their expense. Thus, if studies prove that trans fats clog arteries and cause heart disease and premature deaths, then calls for legislation often follow. Such calls ignore several factors.

First, although trans fats may very well pose the health dangers claimed, medical studies in general are notoriously unreliable. The July 2005 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), contained an article by Dr. John P. A. Ioannina entitled "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False." It reviewed "all original clinical research studies published in three major general clinical journals or high-impact-factor specialty journals in 1990-2003," each of which had been "cited more than 1000 times" in subsequent literature. In short, it reviewed 'the best'. 32 percent of the studies were subsequently refuted; 44 percent could not be validated; 11 percent remained unchallenged and, so unvalidated.

Moreover, even a reliable study does not always establish causality. An excellent and non-hysterical exposition of true death risks is provided by Bernard Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Pittsburgh, in his 1991 "Catalog of Risks" (large pdf). Cohen uses solid statistical definitions and methods to evaluate the probable loss of life expectancy (LLE) from various activities. He also answers such nontrivial questions as "premature by how much" and "compared to what?" For example, the LLE from jogging is "1.7 days per year." Cohen balances that against the fact "jogging is usually viewed as a measure of preventing heart disease" which has a far higher LLE; this makes jogging beneficial overall. Trans fats are unlikely to be nutritionally beneficial, but whether using them in cooking should be outlawed is a different issue entirely.

Unfortunately, in past decades, food has become a political and ethical flash point, with voices of reason being shouted down. Accusations have taken over. If you eat meat, then you violate animal rights. Feed your child sugar and you are guilty of abuse. Buy inexpensive food from Wal-Mart and you are complicit in labor exploitation. The United Nations has suddenly switched from alarm bells about starvation to ones about obesity.

Food is the new political chic; eating is the new morality. Unhappily, this trend is why I think trans fats bans are likely to succeed In North America. "What's the big deal?" readers may ask. "We're only talking about a french fry." Well, viewed from one perspective, words are only 'puffs of air,' but that doesn't diminish the importance of free speech. The idea of government micro-managing personal choice and freedom down to the level of a french fry is a very big deal.

Source



The tired doctor problem

Sadly, regulations against overworking doctors may mean no doctor at all for many patients

When I was working on my PhD my wife would ring me from work. She wanted me to come and pick her up from the hospital because she was too tired to drive home. I was happy to do that. But I started to wonder. If my wife was too tired to drive - a relatively simple and straightforward task - how could she be alert enough to care safely for patients?

That question was the impetus for a personal journey and a research program looking at working hours and fatigue over the next 15 years. At the time the answer to this question seemed self-evident - how can the traditional 36-hour shifts be safe? Surely it must compromise patient safety. We wouldn't let a truck driver or a pilot operate a vehicle for more than 12 hours. How can we possibly let our doctors provide continuous patient care for 36 to 48 hours? After years of research and a lot of soul searching, I have come to the conclusion that the answer is not simple or obvious.

There is no doubt that doctors have traditionally worked long hours, and 24- to 36-hour shifts are part of the way we train them. The long shifts are, anthropologically speaking, most probably an initiation ceremony or rite-of-passage. They demonstrate one's dedication and commitment to patients and the "elders" of the profession. Despite a clear lack of evidence, extended working hours continue to be justified using the rhetoric of patient safety, continuity-of-care and the need for relentless experience.

There is also no doubt that the research data on the effect of extended working hours was unequivocal, and confirmed what we all knew only too well from personal experience. Tired people don't perform as well as alert ones and extended working hours result in reduced attention, poor decision-making and mood changes that potentially compromise patient safety. This line of research probably reached its zenith in a paper published in the journal Nature in 1997. This paper showed that the cognitive and psychological effects of a single night of sleep loss were broadly comparable to the effects of moderate alcohol intoxication, equivalent of 0.05 per cent blood alcohol level. Given that many of our doctors worked up to 48 hours with little or no sleep, the conclusion was obvious - long working hours impaired performance and should be restricted in the interest of patient (and doctor) safety.

Over the past seven or eight years there has been a lot of discussion of this paper and the implications for policy and regulation on doctors working hours. In much of the English-speaking world we have seen significant pressure to use the recent research on sleep loss and cognitive performance to argue for the introduction of working hour restrictions. Recently, the US medical profession has recommended a nominal 80-hour maximum working week for junior doctors. Several years ago, the Australian Medical Association introduced a set of "safe working hours" guidelines which have been recently updated. There has been significant community discussion about the importance of reducing or restricting doctors' hours to improve overall patient safety in the community. As a researcher who has been working to raise community awareness of the risks associated with fatigue this would seem an important vindication of a 15-research program.

Unfortunately this is not the case. While I am grateful for the increased community awareness of fatigue-related risk, I am less optimistic about the way regulators and community groups have approached the issue of risk reduction. Indeed, I am reminded of the famous aphorism of H.L. Mencken who once famously noted "that for every complex question there is a simple solution and it is usually wrong!"

I understand the intuitive appeal of their approach. If doctors work excessively long hours they get tired. If we limit doctor's hours we will reduce fatigue-related risk and our hospitals will be safer. Unfortunately it is not that easy. Policy responses need to be formulated in a context beyond the confines of the laboratory. For example, if we restrict doctors' working hours we potentially reduce the supply of medical care to the community. A reduction in available medical care may produce a bigger problem than we set out to solve. In simple terms, sometimes a tired doctor will be better than no doctor at all. In fact, most of the time - since fatigue-related errors are relatively infrequent.

From a strictly scientific perspective, policy-makers need to demonstrate that the reduction in risk associated with restricted working hours is greater than the increase in risk associated with the reduction in available medical care. Until we can do this with a degree of certainty, policy-makers should approach fatigue risk management cautiously and avoid knee-jerk policy responses.

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



4 November, 2006

Chronic fatigue triggered by other illness

Sex, age or mental health have nothing to do with who gets chronic fatigue syndrome, researchers have found. The condition was most commonly triggered by an acute illness such as glandular fever, and it was the severity of that illness that determined whether patients developed chronic fatigue, scientists from the University of Sydney and the University of NSW (UNSW) found. "The sicker you are at the beginning of the infection, the more likely it is to result in a prolonged illness," said UNSW infectious diseases specialist Andrew Lloyd. "As far as we can see this is the only determinant of who is likely to get it."

The research team made its discovery by tracking the long-term health of individuals infected by three infections - the mosquito-borne Ross River virus, Q fever bacterial infection and Epstein-Barr virus in the NSW city of Dubbo. "These three different bugs trigger this fatigue in 10 per cent of people from moment one, of day one, of the acute infection," Prof Lloyd said. In these people, the acute infection had a 'hit and run' effect on the brain that took some time to repair.

After a year only 5 per cent had the condition, and about 99 per cent were better within two years without medical intervention. "While that's still not good, there's a notion in the community that people with chronic fatigue never get better," he said. The scientist said the research, published in the British Medical Journal, dispelled several myths about the condition. "We looked at age, sex, education, personality style, and psychiatric health and it turns out that none of those things predict the outcome," he said.

"It's commonly believed that more women get it than men and that these people are neurotic, obsessive and unduly focused on symptoms and this is their problem, not chronic fatigue. "We found no evidence to support any of this," Prof Lloyd said.

The syndrome was misunderstood because sufferers commonly delayed seeking help for a year, by which time several other secondary problems like weight gain, depression and marital difficulties had set in.

Source



BACTERIA CAUSE AT LEAST SOME OF IRRITABLE BOWEL SYNDROME

And a helpful antibiotic has been found

Journal Abstract:

The Effect of a Nonabsorbed Oral Antibiotic (Rifaximin) on the Symptoms of the Irritable Bowel Syndrome

By Mark Pimentel et al.

Background: Alterations in gut flora may be important in the pathophysiology of the irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

Objective: To determine whether the nonabsorbed antibiotic rifaximin is more effective than placebo in reducing symptoms in adults with IBS.

Design: Double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study.

Setting: 2 tertiary care medical centers.

Participants: 87 patients who met Rome I criteria for IBS and were enrolled from December 2003 to March 2005.

Interventions: Participants who met enrollment criteria were randomly assigned to receive 400 mg of rifaximin 3 times daily for 10 days (n = 43) or placebo (n = 44). Eighty participants completed rifaximin therapy or placebo, and follow-up data were available for at least 34 participants per study group at any time point thereafter.

Measurements: A questionnaire was administered before treatment and 7 days after treatment. The primary outcome was global improvement in IBS. Patients were then asked to keep a weekly symptom diary for 10 weeks.

Results: Over the 10 weeks of follow-up, rifaximin resulted in greater improvement in IBS symptoms (P = 0.020). In addition, rifaximin recipients had a lower bloating score after treatment.

Limitations: The major limitations of the study were its modest sample size and short duration and that most patients were from 1 center.

Conclusions: Rifaximin improves IBS symptoms for up to 10 weeks after the discontinuation of therapy.

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



3 November, 2006

BRITAIN: "HEALTHY" FOOD NO DIFFERENT

Fitness fanatics eat them for a quick breakfast and parents choose them for children's lunchboxes. Yet despite their wholesome image, many cereal bars contain so much sugar that they would qualify for red "junk food" alerts on packs under the traffic-light labelling system devised by the Food Standards Agency.

A survey of 20 well-known cereal bars by the consumer watchdog Which? found that each one would be classified as "high in sugar" and would require a red warning logo. More than half the bars also contained high levels of saturated fat that would require a red alert. A Kellogg's Fruit 'n' Fibre Bar, for example. contained 10g of sugar, more than a McVities Penguin bar, with 9.7g, and not far off a Nestl‚ two-finger KitKat. Jordans Original Crunchy Honey & Almond Bar contained the most fat overall, 6.8g. But the bars with the most saturated fat were the Nesquik Cereal & Milk Bar and the Nestl‚ Golden Grahams Cereal & Milk Bar, each with 2.1g of saturated fat. These contain more saturates than a Mr Kipling Almond Slice cake.

Researchers at Which? magazine decided to investigate cereal bars after a study in July found that three quarters of 275 breakfast cereals contained high sugar levels. Weetabix Weetos 20g Cereal Bars contained 8.2g of sugar and Kellogg's Coco Pops Cereal & Milk Bars 8g of sugar, both more than the sugar in two McVitie's HobNobs biscuits.

Neil Fowler, the editor of Which?, said: "Although the packs are plastered with wholesome images and claims, the 20 bars scrutinised were all high in sugar and more than half were also high in saturated fat "These findings are worrying given the recent report that showed that obesity in Britain is more prevalent than in many other European countries." The bar with the least sugar (5.6g) and least fat (1.6g) was Nestle's Fitnesse Original. This and Jordans Frusli Raisin and Hazelnut bar came out best for saturated fat, at 0.7g per bar.

In a statement in the Which? report, Kellogg said that it had been assumed "that eating cereal bars as a snack is a problem when, in fact, the consumption of high carbohydrate snacks between meals has been shown to lower overall daily calorie intake and helps reduce hunger". Nestle said it had been cutting saturated fat in its cereal and milk bars and planned further cuts. The Nesquik bar now has 2g of saturates and Golden Grahams 1.9g per bar. The company said that both provided important nutrients. Jordans said that to cut the fat level it would have to use artificial additives, which was against its policy of using only natural ingredients. It added that 87 per cent of the fat was from oats and nuts, which were "good" fats essential for health.

Source



Holy Grail discovered: A life-prolonging drug

A bit pesky for the do-gooders when they see what it is, though

A compound found in red wine reverses the damaging effects of a high-fat diet in mice and can extend their life, scientists have found. Resveratrol is produced by grapes and other plants, and its effects seem to mimic the life-prolonging effects of a very low-calorie diet.

In the experiments, reported in the journal Nature, mice were split into three groups: one given a normal diet, one a high-fat diet, and the third a high-fat diet with resveratrol. After 114 weeks, 58 per cent of the high-fat only group had died whereas only 42 per cent had died in the other groups. Giving resveratrol to the high-fat group reduced their risk of death by 31 per cent, about the same as for those on a normal diet. David Sinclair of Havard Medical School, who led the research, said that the resveratrol mice were also leading more active lives.

A drug company has started trials of a resveratrol drug in people with type 2 diabetes.

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



2 November, 2006

THE LULU OF THE WEEK: BREAD GIVES YOU KIDNEY CANCER

Journal abstract below:

Food groups and renal cell carcinoma: A case-control study from Italy

By Francesca Bravi et al.

Although nutrition and diet have been related to renal cell carcinoma (RCC), the role of specific foods or nutrients on this cancer is still controversial. We evaluated the relation between a wide range of foods and the risk of RCC in an Italian case-control study including 767 patients (494 men and 273 women) younger than 79 years with incident, histologically confirmed RCC, and 1,534 controls (988 men and 546 women) admitted to the same hospitals as cases for a wide spectrum of acute, non-neoplastic conditions, not related to long term diet modifications. A validated and reproducible food frequency questionnaire, including 78 foods and beverages, plus a separate section on alcohol drinking, was used to assess patients' dietary habits 2 years before diagnosis or hospital admission. Multivariate odds ratios (OR) were obtained after allowance for energy intake and other major confounding factors. A significant direct trend in risk was found for bread (OR = 1.94 for the highest versus the lowest intake quintile), and a modest excess of risk was observed for pasta and rice (OR = 1.29), and milk and yoghurt (OR = 1.27). Poultry (OR = 0.74), processed meat (OR = 0.64) and vegetables (OR = 0.65) were inversely associated with RCC risk. No relation was found for coffee and tea, soups, eggs, red meat, fish, cheese, pulses, potatoes, fruits, desserts and sugars. The results of this study provide further indications on dietary correlates of RCC, and in particular indicate that a diet rich in refined cereals and poor in vegetables may have an unfavorable role on RCC.

(From International Journal of Cancer, 2006)

There appears to have been no control for socioeconimic status so at a quick guess I suspect that the authors have simply shown once again that the poor have poorer health. I don't know a lot about Italian dietary habits but I suspect that the poor eat more bread and the rich eat more meat. The journal must be very careless of its reputation to publish such rubbish.

Statistical note: The use of odds ratios and reliance on extreme quintiles can obscure that fact that the differences in the means were very small and may obscure not-uncommon curvilinear relationships. I would hazard a guess that if the relationship had been expressed as a biserial correlation between bread consumption and patient group the relationship would have been shown as very weak indeed. And weak relationships tend to be poorly replicable



Root cause of cot death found?

Genetics again!

Scientists believe that they have found the underlying cause of cot death, a condition that claims the lives of hundreds of babies every year. Research into dozens of fatalities identified as the result of sudden infant death syndrome showed that the victims had a brain abnormality that prevents the detection of insufficient oxygen levels in the body. As a result, babies with the condition can be smothered in their bedclothes, especially if sleeping on their fronts. The researchers said yesterday that this was the strongest evidence yet of a common cause for cot death, and that it opened up the possibility of detecting those at risk and treating them.

Three hundred babies died of cot death in Britain last year, a 16 per cent fall compared with 2004. The decrease is credited to greater alertness among parents and better ways of determining causes of death, resulting in fewer cases classified as cot death.

The US team, led by David Paterson, of Boston Children's Hospital, examined postmortem samples from the brainstems of thirty-one babies who had suffered a cot death, comparing them with ten babies who had died of other causes. They were following up research suggesting that cot-death babies had an innate difference in the brainstem, the part of the brain responsible for controlling breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, temperature and arousal.

Three studies had found that cot-death babies had a reduced ability to use and recycle serotonin, a chemical best known for regulating mood but which has other roles. Scientists said the new study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, offered the most convincing confirmation yet of the link.

The babies examined had twice as many brain cells that either manufacture or use serotonin as did those of the babies who died of other causes. But the cells that use serotonin also had significantly fewer binding sites - places on the outside of the cells where serotonin "docks" and acts as a signalling chemical.

Dr Paterson said that the group's hypothesis was that they were observing a "compensation mechanism". He said: "If you have more serotonic neurons, it may be because you have less serotonin and more neurons are recruited . . . to correct this deficiency." Strikingly, boys who had died of cot death had significantly fewer serotonin receptors than girls, a finding that would be consistent with the fact that cot deaths are more common among boys.

Hannah Kinney, the paper's senior author, said: "These findings provide evidence that sudden infant death syndrome is not a mystery but a disorder that we can investigate and some day may be able to identify and treat." The study suggests that the slight abnormalities in the brainstem may impair a baby's ability to sense high carbon dioxide and low oxygen levels. This would increases the risk that a baby will inhale its own exhaled breath and become deprived of oxygen. "A normal baby will wake up, turn over, and start breathing faster when carbon dioxide levels rise," Dr Kinney said. But in babies who die from sudden infant death syndrome, defects in the serotonin system may impair these reflexes.

Such circumstances are far more likely to arise if a baby is placed face down in the cot. Campaigns to put babies on their backs have had great success, halving the numbers of cot deaths in the past decade.

The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths called the findings important and said that they were unlikely to be due to chance or sampling error. The Scottish Cot Death Trust, which part-funded the new research, said: "It looks like a really interesting piece of work and we welcome it as a way of starting to sift out the many possible factors in cot death."

Marian Willinger, of the US National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which funded the study, said that putting babies to sleep on their backs was important but as yet doctors could not target high-risk infants because of problems identifying them. Dr Willinger said that the research improved the understanding of the process that underlay cot death, and the chances of helping at-risk infants. However, George Haycock, scientific adviser to the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths, added that a brain abnormality was unlikely to be the sole cause."Much more research is needed to understand and, ultimately, to prevent these tragedies," he said.

Source

****************

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************



1 November, 2006

The bottled water craze

The article below is from a Leftist source so it claims that the bottled water nonsense is an evil corporate plot rather than many people's everlasting superstitiousness about what they put into their mouths -- but it covers the facts pretty well

When Antonia Mahoney moved to Boston from her native Puerto Rico 35 years ago, the first thing she noticed was how much better the water tasted. Over the years, however, the water she was receiving from her tap began to lose its appeal. "Little by little, the taste changed," says the retired schoolteacher, who eventually gave up tap water altogether and began paying over $30 a month to get bottles of Poland Spring water delivered to her house.

Walking through Boston's Copley Square on a sunny day last month, however, she was intrigued by a banner advertising something called the "Tap Water Challenge." As she approached the table, a fresh-faced activist behind it told her the "challenge" was a blind taste test to see if passersby could tell the difference between bottled water and tap water. Mahoney turned her back while four water samples were poured into small paper cups -- two of tap water from Boston and a nearby suburb, and one each of Poland Spring and Aquafina.

"That's tap water," Mahoney declared after draining the first cup. "That tastes just like what I drink at home." Her confidence faded, however, as she downed the next three, which all seemed to taste the same. When the cups were turned over, it turned out that what she thought was tap water was actually Aquafina -- and what she thought was Poland Spring was actually the same Boston tap water she gets at home for free. "I couldn't believe it, I couldn't believe it," she says later. "You know I pay so much for that water. Now I am thinking to stop the Poland Spring."

Mahoney wasn't alone in that decision. A student from Connecticut who attends Massachusetts College of Art says that she has cartons of bottled water stocked in her dorm room, because she doesn't want to chance city tap water. After taking (and flunking) the test, she says now she'll start drinking from the faucet. "It tastes the same as the tap water I drink at home in Connecticut, and I drink that all the time," says the student, Katey vanBerkum. "Why spend your money on bottled water if you don't have to."

The two are among the many who have been converted across the country over the past year by the taste test, which, if not quite as ubitquitous as the Pepsi Challenge, is equally surprising in its results. Of the hundreds of people who have participated in the Tap Water Challenge in cities including Austin, Baltimore, Minneapolis, and Philadelphia, few of them were able to identify all the samples correctly, says Gigi Kellett, who is doling out water samples this afternoon. "It's usually those who are the most die-hard or committed to a certain brand who are most surprised when they realize they can't tell the difference," she says.

Kellett is associate campaigns director at Corporate Accountability International (CAI), a nonprofit formerly known as Infact, which is best-known for its relentless crusade against tobacco companies in the 1990s. Now, the group has started a campaign to blow away perceptions that bottled water is somehow better-tasting or purer than good old H2O from the tap. At stake, they say, is the increasing commodification of a resource that should be a basic human right, not a product on sale for $1.50 at the local convenience store.

In the past decade, the bottled water market has more than doubled in the United States, surpassing juice, milk, and beer to become the second most popular beverage after soft drinks. According to a 2003 Gallup poll, three in four Americans drink bottled water, and one in five drink only bottled water. Together, consumers spent some $10 billion on the product last year, consuming an average of 26 gallons of the stuff per person, according the Beverage Marketing Corporation. At the same time, companies spend some $70 million annually to advertise their products. Typical are Aquafina's ads advertising the beverage as "the purest of waters," Dasani's ads contending the water is "pure as water can get."

In fact, says Kellett, not only does tap water often taste the same as bottled water, but it is also often safer to drink as well. "They are spending tens of millions of dollars every year to undermine our confidence in tap water," she says, "even though water systems here in the United States are better regulated than bottled water." That's because tap water is regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which imposes strict limits on chemicals and bacteria, constant testing by government agencies, and mandatory notification to the public in the event of contamination.

Bottled water, on the other hand, is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which according to federal law is technically required to hold itself to the same standards as the EPA. The devil is in the details, however, since FDA regulations only apply to water that is bottled and transported between states, leaving out the two-thirds of water that is solely transported within states. State laws, meanwhile, are inconsistent, with some mirroring the FDA standards, some going beyond them and some falling far short of the national regulations. What's more, FDA regulations rely on companies to do their own testing, and perform voluntary recalls if products are found to be in violation of standards (if a company fails to do so, the Justice Department can order a seizure of products).

A 1999 study by the National Resources Defense Council of more than 1,000 bottles of water found that, while most bottled water was safe, some brands violated strict state standards on bacterial contamination, while others were found to contain harmful chemicals such as arsenic. The report concluded that bottled water was no safer than water taken from the tap.

In fact, many times bottled water is tap water. Contrary to the image of water flowing from pristine mountain springs, more than a quarter of bottled water actually comes from municipal water supplies. The industry is dominated by three companies, who together control more than half the market: Coca-Cola, which produces Dasani; Pepsi, which produces Aquafina; and Nestle, which produces several "local" brands including Poland Spring, Arrowhead, Deer Park, Ozarka and Calistoga (a fact that itself often surprises participants in the Tap Water Challenges). Both Coke and Pepsi exclusively use tap water for their source, while Nestl‚ uses tap water in some brands.

Of course, Coke and Pepsi tout the elaborate additional steps they take that purify the water after it comes out of the tap, with both companies filtering it multiple times to remove particulates before subjecting it to additional techniques such as "reverse osmosis" and ozone treatment. Reverse osmosis, however, is hardly state of the art -- essentially consisting of the same treatment applied through commercially available home tap water filters, while ozonation can introduce additional problems such as the formation of the chemical bromate, a suspected carcinogen. In March 2004, Coca-Cola was forced to recall nearly 500,000 bottles of Dasani water in the United Kingdom due to bromate contamination that exceeded the U.K. and U.S. limit of 10 parts per billion. This past August, three grocery stores chains in upstate New York who all used local company Mayer Bros. to produce their store brands issued recalls after samples were found contaminated with more than double the bromate limit; in some cases, contaminated water was apparently sold for five weeks before the problem was detected.

Water originating with groundwater sources, meanwhile, can have its own problems. Citizens in states including Maine, Michigan, Texas, and Florida have all fought against Nestle, whom they accuse of harming the environment by depleting aquifers and damaging stream systems with extractions of massive amounts of water though their local bottling affiliates, for which they pay next to nothing in fees and then sell at a huge markup. In 2003, Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation (MCWC) won a landmark court victory shutting down a Nestle plant that was taking water from a stream that fed a wildlife refuge, sensitive marshland and several lakes....

Kay questions the idea behind the Tap Water Challenges, saying that consumers have chosen bottled water not only for its consistency and taste, but also for its convenience. It isn't competing so much against tap water, he says, as it is against other beverage options. "If consumers are in a convenience store and they want a beverage without calories, caffeine, or sugar, it's just ready to go," he says. "In this era of obesity, it's irresponsible to try and sway consumers away from a healthful beverage choice."

While he allows that some tap water might taste as good as bottled water, he says, not all water users are so lucky. In some parts of the country, water is tinged with a sulphurous taste or suffers from a noticeable taint of chlorine. Indeed, at the Tap Water Challenge in Boston, one participant, Leila Saba, says she drinks tap water in Boston but chooses bottled water when she visits her parents at home in South Florida, where the water has an unpleasant taste. "I think tap water is always safe to drink," she says, "but they could make an effort to make the water taste better."....

Source



QUACK MEDICINE OK IN BRITAIN

Lives will be put at risk by a controversial law which allows homeopathic medicines to make unproven scientific claims, leading doctors have warned. More than 700 medics, scientists and members of the public have signed a statement criticising a new law which they say makes a mockery out of conventional medicine. The Government's medicines safety watchdog says the change gives patients clearer information. But critics fear that giving legitimacy to pills and potions that are based on 'magic' rather than science will cost lives. One expert likened the change to categorising Smarties as a medicine, on the basis that chocolate makes you feel better.

Homeopathy, which has won the backing of Prince Charles, claims to prevent diseases such as malaria by using dilute forms of herbs, minerals and other materials that in higher concentrations could produce the symptoms of the condition. Popular treatments include arnica, a plant-based remedy used to treat cuts and bruises, and malaria nosode, anti-malaria tablets made from African swamp water, rotting plants and mosquito eggs and larvae. However, a recent study published in the Lancet suggested that the benefits of homeopathy are all in the imagination, with alternative remedies performing no better than dummy pills in clinical trials.

Until recently, homeopathic medicine manufacturers were banned from claiming new products could treat specific ailments. But regulations introduced last month by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency allow the manufacturers to make such claims, as long as they can prove the remedy is safe. Unlike conventional medicines, they do not have to show that the remedies actually work. Instead, they only have to show that the remedy has a history of being used to treat an illness.

The change has so angered the medical establishment that hundreds of doctors and scientists have signed a statement drafted by the charity Sense About Science to oppose the new labelling system. Yesterday afternoon, the House of Lords debated the issue. The critics fear that the new system could lead to life-threatening illnesses going undiagnosed, or to people binning the tablets prescribed by their GP in favour of an unproven alternative. Edzard Ernst, professor of complimentary medicine at Exeter University, said it could cost lives. "makes a mockery out of evidence- based medicine," he said. "I feel very strongly that this is a very serious mistake. If there are claims being made, there has to be evidence for them. "Constipation could be a sign of bowel cancer and if somebody that has a treatable bowel cancer goes out and buys a homeopathic medicine, they might be untreatable tomorrow. Taken to the extreme, this regulation could cost lives."

Michael Baum, professor of surgery at University College London, accused the homoepathy industry of playing on people's beliefs in magic and superstition. He said: "Homeopathy websites advocate using mistletoe to treat breast cancer. The proving for mistletoe is that it grows on the bush in a way like cancer grows in a person. It is utterly barmy." Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris, a former hospital doctor, said: "It is an extremely retrograde step for our medical regulator to decide a medicine can be licensed without proper evidence." Professor Adrian Newland, president of the Royal College of Pathologists, said he was "deeply alarmed" by the change, which could "encourage patients to use them as an alternative to conventional treatments".

Catherine Collins, chief dietician at St George's Hospital in London, said those who believe homeopathic medicine work are being misled by the "placebo effect", in which any benefit comes for the patient's expectations, rather than from the treatment itself. She said: "The only plausible explanation for any objectively determined benefit of homeopathy is the placebo effect. "I assume that the regulations would therefore legitimately be extended to cover Smarties used for similar 'treatment' purposes?"

The MHRA said the new regulations, which only apply to remedies aimed at minor ailments such as headaches, stomach pains and insomnia, provide customers with more information about the range of products available. A spokesman said quality and safety were tightly controlled, adding: "The label and/or packaging must have a clear statement of the homeopathic nature of the product, with a statement instructing the patient to consult their doctor if symptoms persist." The Society of Homeopaths said its members are bound by a code of ethics designed to protect patients. Spokesman Melanie Oxley stressed that the new rules only apply to remedies bought in chemist and health food shops and used to treat minor conditions. She added: "For treatment of a serious illness, we would hope a patient would approach a registered homeopath or their doctor."

Source

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Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter? It is just about pure fat. Surely it should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). For a summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and no lasting harm from them has ever been shown.

*********************