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31 October, 2006

Amusing: Australian hospital meals carry more fat 'than fast food'

Most traditional home-cooked dinners would too. They are the source of hospital "cuisine"



Public hospitals serve meals that contain more fat, salt and calories than McDonald's burgers. The Sunday Times obtained a Royal Perth Hospital hot meal and sent it to a laboratory for testing. The analysis revealed that the chicken and vegetable dinner had more fat, sodium and energy than a Big Mac or Quarter Pounder, and nearly as much as a burger and french fries combined.

But this meal is far from the worst that is often on the menu for patients. The Sunday Times is aware that fatty pork chops in sauce and sausages and bacon are also served. "The pork chops are horrible, they must be about 50 per cent fat," one hospital worker said.

Prominent dietitian Margaret Hays said patients should get a selection of food, but the Government also had a responsibility to offer healthy choices in hospitals -- especially considering the obesity epidemic. "With such a huge number of Australians being overweight, or having heart conditions or diabetes, I'd expect that hospitals, of all places, should be paving the way to healthy eating and setting standards," she said.

The lab results showed the hospital meal contained 28.4g of artery-blocking fat, 1208mg of high-blood pressure-friendly sodium and 625 calories. This compared with a Big Mac's 25.5g of fat, 846mg of sodium and 480 calories. A Quarter Pounder has 20g of fat, 690mg of sodium and 460 calories. Grab a McChicken burger and fries, with 944mg of sodium, and you still get more salt in the hospital meal. There's also not much more fat and energy in the burger and fries, at 33.5g and 672 calories respectively.

Hospital workers said there were "boring" healthier choices, such as cold meat and salad, and cereal. But people often opted for "greasy hot stuff", such as roast beef swimming in gravy.

Ms Hays said healthy food did not have to be bland, nor would it cost more for hospitals. Tasty casseroles and soups, using plenty of vegetables and lean meat, were among many cheap and healthy options. Australian Medical Association president Geoff Dobb said unhealthy meal options should eventually be phased out in all hospitals. Opposition health spokesman Kim Hames said with obesity now the major cause of health problems, it was disgraceful that there was still hospital food that was less healthy than burgers. The Health Department refused to comment.

Source



NEW YORK NONSENSE GETTING UP STEAM

There are plenty of things in Kentucky Fried Chicken that are bad for your health - cholesterol, saturated fat and salt, to name a few. But only one has the potential to get the colonel's recipe banned in New York City. That ingredient is artificial trans fatty acids, which are so common that the average American eats 4.7 pounds a year, according to the Food and Drug Administration. City health officials say these so-called trans fats are so unhealthy they belong in the same category as food spoiled by rodent droppings.

On Monday, the Board of Health will hold its first public hearing on a proposal to make New York the first U.S. city to ban restaurants from serving food containing artificial trans fats. Eateries are scrambling for ways to get trans fats out of their food. KFC Corp. said it was planning a "major announcement" in New York on Monday about a change coming to all 5,500 of its U.S. restaurants. Franchise owners told several newspapers and magazines that KFC would stop using partially hydrogenated vegetable oil - the primary source of artificial trans fats.

Representatives of the company and its parent, Louisville, Ky.-based Yum Brands Inc., declined to comment, but the possible switch was applauded by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which sued KFC in June over the trans fat content of its chicken. "Assuming KFC goes through with it, it would be a tremendous improvement for the nutritional quality of their foods," said the center's executive director, Mike Jacobson.

Invented in the early 1900s, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil was initially believed to be a healthy substitute for natural fats like butter or lard. It was also cheaper, performed better under high heat and had a longer shelf life. Today, it is used for deep frying and as a shortening in baked goods like cookies and crackers.

Ironically, many fast food companies became dependent on hydrogenated oil about 15 years ago when they were pressured by health groups to do something about saturated fat. McDonald's emptied its fryers of beef tallow in 1990 and filled them with what was then thought to be "heart healthy" partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.

Trans fats significantly raise the level of so-called "bad" cholesterol in the blood, clogging arteries and causing heart disease. Researchers at Harvard's School of Public Health estimated that trans fats contribute to 30,000 U.S. deaths a year. "This is something we'd like to dismiss from our food supply," said Dr. Robert H. Eckel, immediate past president of the American Heart Association.

Wendy's, the national burger chain, has already switched to a zero-trans fat oil. McDonald's announced in 2003 that it intended to do so, but has yet to follow through.

If approved, New York's ban would only affect restaurants, not grocery stores, and wouldn't extend beyond the city limits. But experts said the city's food service industry, with 24,600 establishments, is so large that any rule change is likely to ripple nationwide. "It's going to be the trendsetter for the entire country," said Suzanne Vieira, director of the culinary nutrition program at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I.

Richard Lipsky, a spokesman for the Neighborhood Retail Alliance, said many New York eatery owners rely on ingredients prepared elsewhere, and aren't always aware whether the foods they sell contain trans fats.

Consumer reaction remains to be seen. New Jersey state Sen. Ellen Karcher said her office was flooded with threatening phone calls after she proposed a similar trans fat ban in early October. A proposed ban in Chicago was ridiculed by some as government paternalism run amok.

Source

See point 9 in red below to learn all you need to know about trans-fats

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

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.

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



30 October, 2006

INNATE DIFFERENCES IN FOOD CRAVING



Scientists have discovered why some people's brains are particularly vulnerable to food advertising and product packaging, putting them at risk of overeating and becoming overweight. The research provides fresh insight into one of the neurobiological factors underlying obesity by showing how some people are more attracted to the prospect of being rewarded with tasty food than others. The findings from a group of scientists at the Medical Research Council's Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge led by Andy Calder and Andrew Lawrence are published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Different people have higher or lower reward sensitivity, a personality trait that reflects a general desire to pursue rewarding or pleasurable experiences. The research shows that individuals with higher reward sensitivity, show increased activity in the parts of the brain implicated in motivation or reward when simply looking at pictures of appetizing food.

Previous research has shown that people with high reward sensitivity have stronger food cravings and are more likely to be overweight, but until now, the biological basis of this effect was unknown. This new research identifies how this relationship operates in the human brain, resulting in greater susceptibility to food advertising.

The study used the latest technology in brain imaging. The researchers showed people pictures of highly appetizing foods (e.g. chocolate cakes), bland foods (e.g. broccoli), and disgusting foods (e.g. rotten meat) while measuring brain activity using an fMRI scanner. After testing, the study participants completed a questionnaire that assessed their general desire to pursue rewarding items or goals. The results showed that the participant's scores on the reward sensitivity questionnaire predicted the extent to which the appetizing food images activated their brain's reward network.

"Previous studies in this area have assumed that brain activation patterns are similar in all healthy individuals. But the new findings demonstrate that even in healthy individuals some peoples' brain reward centers are more sensitive to appetizing food cues. This helps explain why some individuals are more vulnerable to developing certain disorders like binge-eating," said Dr John Beaver, lead author of the study. "This is particularly pertinent in understanding the rapidly increasing prevalence of obesity, as people are constantly bombarded with images of appetizing food items in order to promote food intake through television advertising, vending machines, or product packaging."

According to Dr Beaver the findings may also have broader implications for understanding vulnerability to multiple forms of addiction and compulsive behaviors.

"Research demonstrates that an individual's reward sensitivity may also relate to their vulnerability to substance abuse, and the brain network we have identified is hyper-responsive to drug cues in addicts," he said.

Source



Obesity = Can't Work = Social Security Payments!

Well, this is great. Now you can make yourself too fat to work, and you get Social Security, as if it is a disability. Kind of like a few years when back parents made their children take Ritalin or other such drug, or just claimed the kids are hyper-active and they get all sorts of social welfare benefits. In this case, they did not have to even really be fat, just claimed it. No wonder Social Security is running out of money. The good news is that they got caught. How many of you knew you could get money for being fat, or just claiming it? Since when did this become an entitlement? This is just one example of the abuse of the system. I won't even mention the massive abuses by illegal aliens, while local, state and Federal governments will do nothing to stop.

Years ago President Carter wanted to create a new budget system call "Zero Based Budgeting" The purpose was that each year every dollar had to be proved to be needed. The current system starts with last years appropriation and then adds a percentage to it, whether it is needed or not, or whether the money was wasted this year. Audits takes years to do and fraud, waste and corruption are found years after the perpetrators are gone. In this case, Carter was right. Welfare programs, Social Security need constant monitoring to see if the procedures and protocols are right. Having a medical condition that could last over one year is so broad that most anyone with high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis, etc could qualify. Social Security, created as a simple retirement program (not to pay for all retirement needs) has made Americans lazy about saving for old age and creative in ways to sucker the system. Those truly in need get harmed and the system is burdened by esoteric rules, regulations and interpretations.

Just as the tax system needs a complete overhaul and make it simplistic, so should Social Security. Did you know that there are attorneys that specialize in getting you the most Social Security benefits possible-this is a speciality? Why is the system so complicated that you need attorneys and accountants? Have you ever been to the headquarters of Social Security, in Baltimore? At one point in my life I was a lobbyist, working to get Social Security to cover some dental procedures. So I went to Baltimore on several occasions. The "campus" is at least four times the size of Dodger Stadium and all of the parking-it is massive. What do you think? Should we keep our system that allows "obesity", true or not, receive benefits? Is government out of control?

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].

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



29 October, 2006

Curry good for your brain?

Since I am a keen curry-eater, I like this study

Eating curry may keep the brain active, a study of elderly Asians suggests. Consumers of curry were found to have sharper brains and better cognitive performance than those who never or seldom ate it. The magic ingredient may be curcumin, found in the curry spice turmeric, which possesses potent antioxidant and anti- inflammatory properties, say the authors of the study, led by Tze-Pin Ng from the National University of Singapore.

It is known that long-term users of anti-inflammatory drugs have a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer's, while antioxidants, such as vitamin E, have been shown to protect brain cells in laboratory experiments but have had limited success in alleviating cognitive decline in dementia patients.

In their study the team compared scores on the Mini-Mental State Examination for three categories of regular curry consumption in 1,010 Asians who were between 60 and 93 years old in 2003. Most of them ate curry at least occasionally (once every six months), 43 per cent ate it often or very often (between monthly and daily) while 16 per cent said that they never or rarely ate it.

The team report in the American Journal of Epidemiology that people who consumed curry "occasionally" and "often or very often" had significantly better MMSE scores than those who "never or rarely" ate it

Source



Walking stops colds?

It seems unlikely that the control group got the same amount of total exercise

Half an hour's exercise a day cuts the risks of catching colds in half, a new trial suggests. Brisk walking is all that is needed, and the longer that you continue to exercise daily the greater the benefit. The trial recruited 115 older women from Seattle, Washington state. All were sedentary and either overweight or obese. For a year they were asked either to exercise daily or take part in a 45-minute stretching class once a week.

The women were randomly allocated to one or other of these groups, and every quarter were asked to fill in questionnaires asking them whether they had suffered colds or other upper respiratory infections in the previous three months. The results, published in The American Journal of Medicine, show that the daily exercise group had only half as many colds as the weekly stretch-class group. Over the final three months of the study the gap was even wider, with the stretchers suffering three times as many colds as the exercisers. "This adds another good reason to put exercise on your to-do list," said Cornelia Ulrich, the paper's senior author and an associate member of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre's public health sciences division in Seattle.

But moderation was the key. Other studies had shown that excessive exercise could increase the risk of colds. She said that the likeliest cause of the benefit, if it proved to be real, was the enhancement of the immune system.

More here



Perfect smile dangerous



In the quest for the perfect Hollywood smile, they provide an instant and cheap makeover for the mouth. But the teeth-whitening kits used by thousands of Britons who want polished molars can cause permanent damage, according to dentists. Super-strength whitening kits that promise to create brighter smiles by bleaching teeth with high levels of hydrogen peroxide dye can lead to chemical burns and aggravated gum disease, the British Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry (BACD) announced yesterday. The do-it-yourself kits, on sale over the counter in Britain for as little as 10 pounds, are in demand as an alternative to surgical bleaching treatments offered by dental clinics at a cost of between 300 and 1,300 pounds.

Yet some kits available online are 250 times more concentrated than the legal limit and can cause damage or over-bleaching, resulting in so-called "fridge door teeth", clinicians claim. At worst, they may exacerbate gum disease, leading to tooth loss. Private dental clinics are burgeoning, with the market for cosmetic dentistry in Britain now said to be worth 1 billion. More than a quarter of Britons have had cosmetic dental work, including caps and braces. However, whitening treatments are the most popular, according to a recent survey. James Goolnik, a dentist and board member of the BACD, said that the kits offering a "cheap, quick fix" were ineffective and offered a false economy.

"Whitening is a bit like a facial in that it helps to unlock pores in your tooth so that stains are gently removed leaving teeth cleaner and brighter," he said. "All whitening is based on a hydrogen peroxide solution; the only difference in the hundreds of systems out there is the concentration and the way the solution is applied to your teeth. Not all of them are safe. "By law, shop-bought kits in the UK can't have a hydrogen peroxide concentration level more than 0.1 per cent. But other countries have no regulations at all."

Dr Goolnik said that take-home kits should be used with caution since they involved using poorly moulded mouth guards, often worn overnight, allowing leakage of gel or solutions containing hydrogen peroxide, a chemical typically associated with hair colourings, into the mouth. "If the gel goes on to the gums, it can cause blistering. In someone who has got irritation or decay, it can accelerate the process," he said. Dr Goolnik said that the kits with high levels of hydrogen peroxide were designed to be used by professional dentists, painted directly on to the teeth while the gums were protected. He said: "We are seeing more and more people coming in with damage caused by whitening kits . . . They go to the supermarket and see whitening toothpastes. There is no evidence they can actually whiten teeth and people might not see a difference, so they want the next thing up. At best they get no result, and at worst they get permanent sensitivity. "It is essential to invest, at a bare minimum, in going to see your dentist before you use one of these kits, but you don't want to spend money on whitening for no effect and only a dentist can get your teeth to the maximum whiteness."

A spokesman for the General Dental Council, which regulates dentistry in Britain, said: "Tooth-whitening products contain bleach and need to be handled with caution. Only registered dentists are permitted to apply materials and carry out procedures designed to improve the aesthetic appearance of teeth." Carmel McHenry, a spokeswoman for the British Dental Association said: "Liquids that discolour teeth will darken them again over time." She recommended a full dental assessment before the procedure.

A spokesman for Boots the Chemist, which sells its own brand of whitening kits, said: "People with sensitive teeth or gums are advised to talk to a dentist before using whitening kits, and all users are advised to pay careful attention to the detailed instructions on the packaging. Our own-brand kit uses a non-peroxide formula and has been extensively tested and passed as safe to use."

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].

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



28 October, 2006

Ritalin junkies warning

Prescribing Ritalin to children could be breeding a generation of junkies. The drug, commonly used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), may be wiring children's brains for amphetamine addiction later in life.

Addiction expert Andrew Lawrence, from Melbourne's Howard Florey Institute, has found that amphetamines given to adolescent rats put them at greater risk of addiction in adulthood.

This means the 50,000 Australian children who take Ritalin -- an amphetamine-like stimulant with a similar chemical structure to cocaine, may be at risk. "We found that when a teenage rat is given amphetamines and then, after abstinence, has the drug again as an adult, they have a more sensitised reaction, opening the door for addiction," he said.

The researchers found adult rats became more susceptible to heart attack after this pattern of drug-taking. This year it was reported that children as young as five had suffered heart attacks after taking Ritalin.

The above article appeared in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on October 22, 2006



Meat good for you, say Australian science experts

The first edition of the CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet has knocked The Da Vinci Code and Harry Potter off the top of the Australian bestseller list. Its sequel, launched yesterday, is expected to be as popular. A feature of the revised scientific diet book, which recommends a high-protein meat diet, is a comprehensive six-week exercise program.

The sequel was launched in Sydney by Federal Minister for Education, Science and Training Julie Bishop and CSIRO chief executive Dr Geoff Garrett, who spoke about his own weight loss after using the book's methods. Mrs Bishop said Australians had a long way to go in terms of getting fit. She said 30 per cent of Australians under 25 had high blood pressure and more than half the population was overweight. "Sixty per cent of an adult population [being overweight] in a country like Australia with magnificent weather and the opportunity to be outdoors and be physically fit is just not acceptable," Mrs Bishop said. She said insufficient physical activity caused about 8000 preventable deaths annually and cost the health budget $400 million each year.

The authors of the book, which recommends a 12-week eating plan, Dr Manny Noakes and Dr Peter Clifton, warned Australia would struggle to deal with a looming health crisis. Dr Grant Brinkworth, who developed the exercise regime, demonstrated stretches to be used in conjunction with the diet tips.

Criticisms that the first book recommended a diet that was overly based on red meat are answered in a chapter titled "Is red meat a risk factor for colorectal cancer". "The evidence that eating red meat, or any single food, is a risk for colorectal cancer is weak at best, compared to the proven negative effects of being overweight and inactive," the book states.

Recipes range from corn fritters with smoked salmon and spinach to lamb biryani.

Source



Youth obesity blamed on lack of exercise

The federal government has accused schools of contributing to child obesity by cutting back on physical education. State governments claimed federal parliamentary secretary for health Christopher Pyne was trying to shift the blame when he called on them to reintroduce compulsory sport in schools. They said sport and physical education were already mandatory at primary and secondary school level.

But Mr Pyne accused the state Labor governments of being "cute" in defining sport and said they were not promoting inter-school competition and after-school practice. "Their definition of what they regard as compulsory school sport is different to the traditional inter-school sporting competition and after-school activity," Mr Pyne said. "Some schools include drama, human movement and dance in their physical activity. "And if what the states are doing is adequate, why has the federal government had to introduce a $90 million after-school-hours activity program in state schools?"

Mr Pyne said the states' assessment of their commitment to school sport should not include the two hours of physical activity they must prove their schools are doing to qualify for commonwealth funding. Speaking at a Committee for Economic Development of Australia conference in Sydney, he said the state Labor governments had been misdirecting the blame for the obesity problem. "Labor has been diverting the blame, pointing the finger at fatty foods while slashing funding to exercise programs in schools and moving away from compulsory physical education as part of the curriculum," he said. "We need to bring back school sports and compulsory physical education."

NSW Education Minister Carmel Tebbutt said her state's schools were playing their part, but she used the commonwealth's two-hour minimum as the benchmark. "It is mandatory for primary school students to complete 120 minutes of planned physical activity each week and students in Years 7 to 10 complete an estimated 80 minutes a week," Ms Tebbutt said. "Students in Years 7 to 11 also participate in 80 to 120 minutes of school sport each week." Queensland Premier Peter Beattie said Mr Pyne's comments were another example of shifting blame to the states. He said Queensland was doing more than any other state to tackle childhood obesity through its Eat Well and Get Active programs. Rather than blaming states for not doing enough, the federal government should legislate to restrict television advertisements for junk food, he said. "Instead we have a federal government pointing the finger at everybody else," Mr Beattie said. A Victorian government spokesman said sport and physical education had been in the curriculum at government schools for several years. And in the Northern Territory, Education Minister Paul Henderson said students spend about half-an-hour exercising each day.

Federal opposition health spokeswoman Julia Gillard, also speaking at the CEDA conference, responded to Mr Pyne's claims that Labor was focusing on food rather than exercise in typical schoolyard style. "Well, der, of course it's both," Ms Gillard 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].

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



27 October, 2006

EGGS GOOD FOR YOUR EYES

The two very small studies below should only be seen as preliminary support for the theory

Two randomized clinical studies published this week in the Journal of Nutrition found that eating an egg daily helps to promote eye health without raising cholesterol levels.

Eggs provide two powerful antioxidants that have been shown to protect the retina and reduce the risk of cataracts and age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of age-related blindness. AMD affects more than 13 million Americans or 5 percent of people ages 65 and older.

Both studies looked at the antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin, which are part of the carotenoid family (like beta-carotene in carrots) and are the only carotenoids found in the eye. People can't make these antioxidants on their own and must get them from foods such as egg yolks, fruits and green-leafy vegetables. Previous research has shown that the lutein in eggs may be better absorbed by the body than it is from other sources such as dietary supplements or spinach.

"The two studies published this week on lutein and zeaxanthin provide further validation that eggs provide important eye health benefits for baby boomers and aging adults," said Donald J. McNamara, Ph.D., executive director of the Egg Nutrition Center. "They also support the 30 plus years of research that show people can enjoy an egg or two a day without negatively impacting blood cholesterol levels, something that has been misunderstood by both health professionals and the public."

What the Science Says

In one of the studies published in the Journal of Nutrition, 24 women ages 24 to 59 were randomly assigned to one of three groups: a group that consumed a sugar pill daily or one of two egg groups(2). Women in both egg groups ate six eggs a week for six weeks. The eggs contained either 330 micrograms (EGG 1) or 960 micrograms (EGG 2) of lutein and zeaxanthin. Zeaxanthin levels significantly increased for both egg groups and lutein levels increased for the women in the EGG 1 group. What's more, the eye pigments that help protect the retina by blocking out harmful light significantly increased in both egg groups. Interestingly, cholesterol levels significantly increased in the group that consumed the sugar pill but did not increase in either egg group. [Wacky!]

The other randomized control trial published this week provided further support that eating an egg a day significantly increases lutein and zeaxanthin levels without raising cholesterol levels. Thirty-three men and women over the age of 60 participated in each phase of this four-phase study. Lutein and zeaxanthin levels increased by 26 percent and 38 percent, respectively, after participants ate an egg a day for five weeks. There was no increase in levels of these nutrients during a five-week period when participants ate egg substitutes (which lack the antioxidants) daily, nor during two three-week periods when no eggs or egg substitutes were consumed. Cholesterol levels did not differ during any phase of the study.

"Many people think they are doing themselves a favor by only consuming egg substitutes or egg whites," said Marcia Greenblum, a registered dietitian. "But the fact is, many of an egg's nutrients are found in the yolk including most of the choline and vitamin B12, and about 40 percent of the protein."

Source



But eggs could kill you

Is the all-clear on eggs all over? A new Japanese study breaks through the promising news on eggs. Eating eggs every day increases a woman's risk of dying young, it says. The report appears this month in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The 14-year study shows that women who ate one egg a day were more likely to die during those 14 years compared with women who ate one to two eggs a week.

It stirs up an old argument -- whether the egg yolk's 200 mg of cholesterol contributes to health problems like heart disease. Two years ago, a study published by the American Heart Association found that up to one egg per day did not have a significant impact on risk for heart disease or stroke. The AHA now recommends eating less than 300 mg per day on average. People with high cholesterol should eat no more than 200 mg per day. ...

The study involved more than 9,000 Japanese men and women whose egg consumption, cholesterol levels, and deaths were documented from 1980 to 1994. Women who ate an egg daily were more likely to die early than women who ate one or two eggs per week. Total cholesterol level among the frequent egg eaters was on average 6 mg/dL higher than less-frequent egg eaters.

For men, frequent egg eating seemed to pose no problems to total cholesterol. Fewer men ate eggs every day, for one thing. And men who were daily egg eaters had no higher risk of early death than women.

More here



CHEFS RESISTING FOOD CORRECTNESS

If you don't pay attention to calories when deciding how much of something to eat, you might want to know that the chefs serving it to you don't either. A survey of 300 restaurant chefs around the country reveals that taste, looks and customer expectations are what matter when they determine portion size. Only one in six said the calorie content was very important and half said it didn't matter at all.

While it may make diners happy to get piles of pasta and mountains of meat, they'll pay the price in pounds, said doctors at the annual meeting of the Obesity Society, where the survey was presented Saturday. Chefs agreed that big servings encourage people to eat too much, but said it's up to the diner to decide how much to consume - and how much to take in a doggie bag.

Portion sizes have bloated during the last few decades, a trend that worries doctors because two-thirds of Americans eat at least one meal a week at restaurants, which increasingly offer a dizzying array of diverse and fattening cuisine. "As you increase portion sizes or the variety of meals served, people are going to consume more calories," said Thomas Wadden, president of the Obesity Society and director of the Center for Weight and Eating Disorders at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

He had no part in the study, which was led by Barbara Rolls, an obesity researcher at Pennsylvania State University. She and others gave questionnaires to chefs attending culinary meetings last year. More than 400 responded, and 300 who gave complete answers formed the final sample.

Two-thirds were executive chefs at fine or casual dining restaurants, and the rest were assistant or kitchen chefs. Most had worked at least 20 years, and three-fourths had a degree in culinary arts. Chefs said these factors strongly influence portion size: food presentation (70 percent), cost (65 percent) and customer expectations (52 percent). Only 16 percent said calories were a big influence. "Most of them thought they were serving regular-sized portions," Rolls said, but four out of five gave more than the recommended 2 ounces for pasta and 3 ounces for strip steak. If they were worried about competitor restaurants, they served more pasta and steak and used bigger plates, researchers found.

Portions are a touchy subject for many restaurants and some chains outright refused to discuss it. But at Cheesecake Factory Inc., "we're known for our generous portions" and the value they offer, said Howard Gordon, a senior vice president of the chain whose signature dish is dozens of varieties of cheesecake, the ultimate sin dessert. "There is a 'wow' factor in the way that it looks," he said of the food. The chain doesn't provide information on calories and customers ask for it "very, very rarely," he said. "I've rarely seen a person eat a whole slice of cheesecake. They share," and a whopping 80 percent take doggie bags from their meals, Gordon said. "It's a splurge."

Steps from Boston's Hynes Convention Center where the obesity meeting was being held, Eric Bogardus, executive chef at Vox Populi, a trendy American bistro-style restaurant, uses a sort of contentment index when setting portions. "When I look at a dish, the first thing I think about is, is this going to be the right portion to make somebody happy when they leave ... content without feeling full or hungry," he said.

Too-large portions "corner people" into eating too much of one dish, he said, so he keeps his on the small side. But he doesn't hesitate to adjust when he feels a dish demands it, like serving half a duck instead of the duck breast that most restaurants serve. "In general that's quite a bit of meat," Bogardus said. "But to me, if you're going to have a duck, you have to have a leg. That's where the flavor is." Chefs, after all, are cooks - not diet coaches.

Source



Pill for infertile men 'doubled' pregnancy rates

The studies relied on for the claims below would again seem to be very small

An Australian scientist has developed a revolutionary pill for men, which has doubled the pregnancy rates of infertile couples. The capsule, Menevit, containing seven antioxidants and minerals, will be available next year. "The results have been miraculous, better than we ever expected," said inventor Kelton Tremellen, an Adelaide fertility specialist. Dr Tremellen will announce the findings of his research at the Fertility Society of Australia Conference in Sydney tomorrow.

Fertility Society of Australia chair Dr Anne Clark said the findings would have wide-ranging implications for men around the world. "To have a method of treating sperm issues rather than their partner having to go through a fertility treatment is fantastic," Dr Clarke said. She believed it would prove an effective "preventative medicine" to tackle the decline in male fertility.

Menevit is to be sold through international drug company Bayer and follows three years of intensive research including two trials. The most recent involved 60 couples, two thirds of whom were given the tablet daily. Of those who took Menevit, 17 babies were conceived, compared to four babies from couples who had the placebo.

The new pill is aimed at attacking free radicals, such as smoking, obesity and exposure to chemicals, which damage sperm. Dr Tremellen said the results suggest the pill reduces sperm DNA damage and improves embryo quality. "The men gave very positive feedback," he said. "They often feel powerless as they watch their wives going through all the injections in IVF."

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].

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



26 October, 2006

VEGEMITE REPRIEVED!

Australians travelling to the US can breathe easy. So can the 100,000 or so Australian expatriates living in America. The US Government today dismissed media reports it had banned Vegemite. "There is no ban on Vegemite," US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) spokesman Mike Herndon said.

Media reports at the weekend claimed American border officials were confiscating Vegemite from Australians as they entered the US. The FDA, charged with policing America's food supply, has not issued an "import alert" to border officials to halt the import of Vegemite. Mr Herndon said the FDA was surprised by the media reports.

The controversy centres on folate, an ingredient in Vegemite. Under US regulations, folate can be added only to breads and cereals. "One of the Vitamin B components (in Vegemite) is folate," Mr Herndon said. "In and of itself, it's not a violation. If they're adding folate to it, boosting it up, technically it would be a violation. "But the FDA has not targeted it and I don't think we intend to target Vegemite simply because of that."

Joanna Scott, spokesperson for Vegemite's maker, Kraft, reportedly has said, "The Food and Drug Administration doesn't allow the import of Vegemite simply because the recipe does have the addition of folic acid". But Mr Herndon said, "Nobody at the FDA has told them (Kraft) there is a ban". To eradicate any grey areas or potential regulation breaches, Mr Herndon said, Kraft could petition the FDA, something other food manufacturers have done.

While many Aussies living in the US rely on visiting Australian relatives and friends to bring them a jar or two of Vegemite from Australia, the product is available in some US supermarkets. The price slapped on Vegemite, however, is tough to swallow. A tiny, four ounce jar of Vegemite sells for around $US4.80 ($6.33) in US supermarkets.

Source



Lack of sunlight causes asthma?

That does fit with the apparent upsurge in asthma in recent years

Sunshine could be a saviour for asthma sufferers, according to world-first Australian research suggesting rays can relieve symptoms. But the team at Perth's Telethon Institute for Child Health Research warns against sunbaking to reap the benefits before a safer therapy is developed.

Scientists used mice to test the effects of ultraviolet light on the development of asthma-type signs such as inflamed airways and lungs. Preliminary results show that if the animals had a 15 to 30-minute dose of light before being exposed to a common allergen, their chance of developing symptoms was "significantly reduced". Research leader Professor Prue Hart said UV exposure produced a cell type in a mouse that, when transferred into other mice, suppressed the immune reaction and halted symptoms. She said the research was the first to prove sunlight was among the environmental and genetic factors that influenced the disease.

Source



BEER RULES!

Beer-loving blokes of the world, rejoice - three pots a day could put you at far less risk of a heart attack than staying teetotal. A new study, confirming what many experts have been telling us for years, suggests that not only is a daily tipple good for the heart but abstinence could be harmful to your health. The American survey charting the health of nearly 9000 men over 16 years revealed that risk of heart attacks was lowest among healthy men who drank moderately - up to three drinks a day. A standard drink is measured as a pot of full-strength beer, a stubby of medium-strength beer or a spirit nip.

Published today in Archives of Internal Medicine, the study showed that of the 106 men who had heart attacks, eight consumed 1.5 to three standard drinks a day compared with 28 who drank no alcohol. All men in the study - conducted by doctors at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre in Boston - were between the age of 40 and 75, took regular exercise, did not smoke and had a balanced, nutritious diet.

The results show that those who drank no or very limited amounts of alcohol were more likely to suffer heart problems - 34 men who drank half a standard drink or less suffered heart attacks and 27 who drank between half and 1« were afflicted. Only nine men who drank more than three drinks had heart attacks. Researchers believe the results can be explained by increased levels of "good" cholesterol in the blood.

VicHealth chief executive Rob Moodie said the results should be viewed with caution. "Socially and from a health point of view moderate drinking in this case looks to be beneficial but the problem is over-consumption," he said. "Managing it socially and in moderation is great, but drawing the line between the two is the big issue and as a society we're not doing that at all well because year on year we're seeing rises in binge drinking."

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].

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



25 October, 2006

THIS HAS TO BE THE SCARE OF THE DAY

Men who are heavy users of mobile phones have significantly lower sperm counts than those who are not, according to research that suggests radiation from handsets could be damaging male fertility. Both the quantity and quality of a man's sperm decline as his daily mobile phone use increases, a study of 361 infertility patients in the United States indicates. The greatest effects were seen among very heavy users who talked on a mobile phone for more than four hours a day. They produced about 40 per cent less sperm than men who never used a mobile phone at all. Smaller falls in sperm count were also found among those who used the phones less frequently.

The findings, from a team led by Ashok Agarwal, of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, could indicate that the electromagnetic fields generated by mobile phone handsets are interfering with sperm production. Previous studies have shown that close and heavy exposure to this form of radiation damages sperm in the laboratory, though an effect has never been demonstrated convincingly outside this environment.

Other researchers, however, cautioned that the study showed only an association between mobile phone use and sperm counts, but established no causal link. It was more likely that heavy phone use was linked to another factor, such as stress or obesity, which was responsible for the effect, they said. "The findings seem pretty robust, but I can only assume that mobile phone use is a surrogate for something else," said Allan Pacey, senior lecturer in andrology at the University of Sheffield. "If you are holding it up to your head to speak a lot, it makes no sense it is having a direct effect on your testes. "Maybe people who use a phone for four hours a day spend more time sitting in cars, which could mean there's a heat issue. It could be they are more stressed, or more sedentary and sit about eating junk food getting fat. Those seem to be better explanations than a phone causing the damage at such a great distance."

Dr Agarwal, who presented the results yesterday at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine conference in New Orleans, said that they were worrying because of the wide extent of mobile phone use. "Almost a billion people are using cell phones and the number is growing in many countries at 20 to 30 per cent a year," Dr Agarwal said. "People use mobile phones without thinking twice what the consequences may be. It is just like using a toothbrush but mobiles could be having a devastating effect on fertility. It still has to be proved, but it could have a huge impact because mobiles are so much part of our lives."

In the study, 361 men whose sperm was being analysed before fertility treatment were asked about their mobile phone use, and split into four groups: those who never used a phone, those who used a phone for less than two hours, two to four hours, and more than four hours a day. Median sperm counts were measured at 85.89 million per millilitre for non-users, 69.03 million for the second group, 58.87 million for the third and 50.30 million for the fourth. Sperm motility, or swimming ability, also fell as phone use increased, as did other measures of quality. "The main finding was that on all four parameters - sperm count, motility, viability and morphology - there were significant differences between the groups," Dr Agarwal said. "The greater the use of cell phones, the greater the decrease in these four parameters. That was very clear and very significant."

The results are similar to a previous study by researchers at the University of Szeged, in Hungary, which suggested a 30 per cent reduction in sperm count among men who kept a mobile phone on standby in their trouser pockets. The research, however, failed to control for lifestyle. Such controls are important because sperm production is sensitive to a number of factors, including obesity and heat: lorry drivers and travelling salesmen, for example, tend to have low sperm counts because the long hours that they spend sitting increases the temperature of their testes.

Dr Agarwal said that if the effect was caused by mobile phones, several explanations were possible. Studies have shown that electromagnetic fields can damage Leydig cells in the testes, and mobile phones are also known to cause a heating effect on tissue that may be hazardous to sperm. Both phenomena occur over short distances, so holding a phone to the head while speaking should not be dangerous.

Source

The obvious explanation -- that infertile men need more social support -- seems not to have been considered



BRITISH FOOD NOT SO BAD?

I remember vividly the first time I offended an American. I was living in New York at the time and feeling a bit homesick, so I dragged the US citizen in question to an expat fish’n’chip shop in Greenwich Village. There, I ordered the homesick Northerner special: a chip butty, smothered in a thick curry sauce — just like the butties I used to inhale at the bus stop in Alnwick on a school night.

My friend thought this was all very cute and, like, totally British, until she realised exactly what I was eating. “You put the French fries . . . in a bread roll?” she asked, her throat tightening. “And then you pour Indian sauce all over it?”

Through molten, brownish-green mouthfuls, I mumbled something about the Queen. “That might be okay in Britain, but it’s definitely not okay here,” she choked. “You have to get rid of it. Now.” When I realised she wasn’t joking — she began to dry retch loudly — I threw the butty away, half eaten.

It’s been a hard few years for us butty lovers in America. Not only have we had to contend with the Americans’ general lack of respect for British food — they’ll happily eat a Spanish empanada, but will vomit on command at the thought of a Cornish pasty — but we’ve also had to deal with the low-carb fad that has essentially outlawed the very staples of the British diet. Fancy a pub lunch of lasagne and chips? Not a chance.

A move from New York to Los Angeles simply made it worse. I found myself eating soyburgers with alfalfa sprouts, and drinking low-calorie lager, which, to quote the great Eric Idle, is like making love in a canoe: f*****g close to water.

It is, therefore, with a happy (but not necessarily healthy) heart that I bring you news of a breakthrough. Yes, carbs are back. A nutritionist from New Zealand has found that feasting on potatoes, rice and white bread at bedtime does not necessarily make you put on weight. Meanwhile, the US Department of Agriculture has tweaked its food pyramid to allow 9oz of various grains per day (and 3.5oz of veggies, which can include white potatoes). What’s more, the return of the carb has been trumpeted on this season’s trend-setting television show, Ugly Betty. Bread consumption, which suffered a 7.5 per cent decline between 1997 and 2003, is already on the rise.

The press, naturally, has gone wild. Profiles have been written about John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, who created the British lunch when he was too busy gambling to stop for a meal (he asked instead to be served roast beef between two hunks of bread). Other publications have invited Americans to dust off their bread-making machines and start baking their own carbs, using everything from leftover vegetables to overripe fruit for extra flavour.

Nothing, however, prepared me for the reaction of The Los Angeles Times, which put together a full-page feature telling gourmands where to find the most carbtastic British treats. It recommended no fewer than 36 British themed pubs across LA, including joints called Scotland Yard, the Beckham Grill (it has wing back chairs!) and Lucky Baldwin’s, which is patronised by the rocket scientists of Nasa’s jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena.

The best-known pubs of the bunch, however, are Ye Olde King’s Head in Santa Monica, where the paparazzi go drinking, and the Cat & Fiddle on Sunset Boulevard, where the same Ladies and Gentlemen of the British press play darts and eat Yorkshire puddings. The LA Times declared the Fiddle’s Scotch egg to be “iconic” and “hilarious but delicious with beer”. It also raved about the English bangers and the meat-filled pies. What it should have said, of course, is that it all tastes better when you’re cross-eyed and dribbling.

I’m hoping this is the start of a wider trend. After carbs, what else can make a comeback? Cigarettes? Snuff? Tinned meatballs? But I fear that our culinary heritage will be forever changed by the embrace of the carb loving Americans. The Whale & Ale pub in Long Beach, for example, is already serving a bastardised version of steak pie, filled instead with oysters. Inevitably, we will soon have to call this kind of thing “British-American” food.

As for the chip butty, I remain confident that there is absolutely nothing about this delicious abomination that can be tweaked to make it acceptable to LA yuppies. Which is probably why I haven’t been able to buy one since leaving New York.

Source



Veggies good, fat good, fruit bad

I can't be bothered to poke holes in this bit of silliness

Vegetables are brain food, according to new US study showing vegies can help prevent cognitive decline in the elderly. "Compared to people who consumed less than one serving of vegetables a day, people who ate at least 2.8 servings of vegetables a day saw their rate of cognitive change slow by roughly 40 per cent," study author Martha Clare Morris of Rush University Medical Centre in Chicago said. "This decrease is equivalent to about five years of younger age."

Researchers followed the eating habits of 3718 senior citizens over a six-year period and found that consumption especially of green leafy vegetables were linked to a slowing of cognitive decline. They also found that the older the person, the greater the impact of eating more than two servings of vegetables a day.

Researchers said they were surprised that fruit showed no link to reducing memory loss. "This was unanticipated and raises several questions," said Ms Morris. "It may be due to vegetables containing high amounts of vitamin E, which helps lowers the risk of cognitive decline. Vegetables, but not fruits, are also typically consumed with added fats such as salad dressings, and fats increase the absorption of vitamin E. Further study is required to understand why fruit is not associated with cognitive change.

The study is published in the October 24 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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].

********************* 24 October, 2006

PETER SINGER'S FOOD GOSPEL

A review of "Eating: What we eat and why it matters", by Peter Singer and Jim Mason, Arrow Books, 2006

The news that the Pope is thinking about abandoning limbo, the place to which the souls of unbaptised babies who have never heard the message of Christian salvation have been consigned over the centuries, must have been a big disappointment to Peter Singer, the philosopher champion of animal rights, and Jim Mason, his journalist collaborator.

Limbo would seem to be the ideal fate for the family from blue collar Mabelville, Arkansas, whose commitment to the `standard American diet' is subjected to detailed analysis and withering moral scrutiny in Eating. They eat cheap chicken, meat, eggs and milk, shop at Wal-Mart and eat out at McDonalds. Their diet is judged to be damaging to their family's health and to render them complicit in the cruelty of factory farming, environmental destruction, pollution and the exploitation of workers at home and abroad. But like those benighted pagans who never have heard the word of Jesus, these decent American citizens are considered to be in a state of primeval innocence: `nothing in the television they watch or the newspapers they read suggest that there is anything unethical about the choices they are making. Doesn't all of America shop at Wal-Mart? How can it be wrong to do as everyone else does?'

If limbo is the destiny of the blamelessly ignorant, hell is for fat people, for whom there can be no escape from righteous condemnation. Singer and Mason demand the restoration of the `deadly sin' status accorded to gluttony in the traditional catechism of the Catholic Church: `along with the old-fashioned virtue of frugality, the idea that it is wrong to be a glutton is in urgent need of revival.'

Purgatory would appear to be the appropriate place for the subjects of Singer and Mason's second case study: a family of `conscientious omnivores' from affluent Fairfield, Connecticut. This family buys organic food from local farmers' markets and tries to use its consumer power to uphold `fair trade' and `workers' rights'. Though they eat meat `only when it satisfies certain ethical standards', they are found to be at fault in buying seafood (which the authors consider should be avoided on the grounds of sustainability and cruelty - with the exception of sustainably obtained simple molluscs). But these earnest environmentalists are spared the wrath of Singer and Mason, who proclaim, with truly divine forbearance, that `it seems more appropriate to praise the conscientious omnivores for how far they have come, rather than to criticise them for not having gone further'.

Heaven is reserved for the vegans, such as the family living in the prosperous suburbs of Kansas City, who provide the third case study. Vegans, of whom there are more than one million in the USA, refuse all animal products, and are regarded by Singer and Mason as paragons of individual and environmental virtue. Their lifestyle `completely avoids participation in the abuse of farm animals' and they act as beacons of integrity and incorruptibility in a world of moral turpitude. For example, if people inquire why they are refusing to eat meat, `that often leads to conversations that influence others, so that the good that we can do personally by boycotting factory farms can be multiplied by the number of others we influence to do the same'.

Sensitive to contemporary hostility towards fundamentalism, the authors conclude with a section entitled `ethical not fanatical' which demonstrates their capacity to apply what appears to be a rigid doctrinal code with a spirit of flexibility. They are keen to reassure the faithful that `a little self indulgence, if you can keep it under firm control, doesn't make you a moral monster'. (One is reminded of St Augustine: `give me chastity and continence - but not just yet!') Combining the dogmatism and authoritarianism of old style Catholicism with the slack relativism of contemporary Anglicanism, Singer and Mason are the self-appointed high priests of the twenty-first century environmentalist cult.

`We don't usually think of what we eat as a matter of ethics' declare Singer and Mason in their introduction. This is true: in the past, ethics has been largely concerned with questions of how we behave in relation to other people. Eating has generally been regarded as largely a matter of biological survival, an activity of some anthropological concern, but of little philosophical or political interest. The elevation of eating to become a major focus of individual and social attention implies reducing the scope of human endeavour to the level of biology. While seeking to raise the status of animals, by making the banal activities required to maintain the integrity of the human body the central preoccupation of personal and family life, these authors degrade humanity.

The elevation of a priestly hierarchy over a society of individuals preoccupied by the quest for basic biological survival should alert us that modern society is in danger of retreating into the clerical obscurantism of the pre-modern era.

Source



THE LATEST ATTACK ON TV WATCHING

A new study claims to have found "strong support" for the theory that too much television for small children may trigger autism. The study - which has sparked an angry debate in America, where it was carried out - found a correlation between the number of hours that children younger than three spend watching television and the rates of autism in a county-by-county analysis of four states. [Cause or effect?]

The study provides the latest controversial theory to explain the estimated 10-fold rise in reported cases of autism over the past 30 years. There are now approximately 90,000 British children with autistic disorders. Other hypotheses have included a largely discredited claim by Dr Andrew Wakefield, a British researcher, that the onset of autism may be caused by the measles, mumps and rubella vaccination.

The American researchers - led by Michael Waldman, an economics professor at Cornell University - admit that their findings are not "definitive evidence" because they could find only indirect evidence of the amount of time that autistic children spend viewing television. In the report Does Television Cause Autism? the researchers claim to have found a significant link between rates of rainfall, which is presumed to have kept children indoors, the spread of cable television networks with round-the-clock children's programming and the level of autism diagnoses.

The researchers say their figures are so closely correlated that they "indicate that just under 40% of autism diagnoses in the three states studied (California, Oregon and Washington) is the result of television watching due to precipitation". They also found that 17% of the growth in autism cases in two of the states in the 1970s and 1980s might be due to television watching.

While television has long been regarded as potentially harmful for under-threes, most research has found only limited links between viewing and child development problems. However, many parents have reported that the behaviour of autistic children is affected adversely by television. Lisa Jo Rudy, mother of a nine-year-old autistic boy and a consultant on child behaviour, was critical of the Cornell theory, saying the "really bad science" was likely to "dig ever deeper into the morass of guilt that seems to surround the diagnosis of autism".

Meanwhile, a study by Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, of 743 families, in which 1,200 members were diagnosed with autism, has found evidence of a mutated gene that is involved in brain development, the immune system and the gastro-intestinal system - all of which may be damaged in autistic 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].

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



23 October, 2006

Australia's national sandwich-spread now banned in the USA

The fact that generations of Australians have grown up on it does not matter to America's food-freaks. And note what the "illegal" ingredient is: A vitamin!



The United States has slapped a ban on Vegemite, outraging Australian expatriates there. The bizarre crackdown was prompted because Vegemite contains folate, which in the US can be added only to breads and cereals.

Expatriates say that enforcement of the ban has been stepped up recently and is ruining lifelong traditions of having Vegemite on toast for breakfast. Former Geelong man Daniel Fogarty, who now lives in Calgary, Canada, said he was stunned when searched while crossing the US border recently. "The border guard asked us if we were carrying any Vegemite," Mr Fogarty said. "I was flabbergasted." Paul Watkins, who owns a store called About Australia in San Antonio, Texas, said he had been forced to stop importing Vegemite six months ago. "We have completely stopped bringing it in," he said. "(US authorities) have made a stance and there is nothing that can be done about it."

Source



GOAT IS GOOD FOR YOU (MAYBE)

The life expectancies of goat-eating populations (in Africa etc.) are not very encouraging but such populations do have other problems

Janet Street-Porter may be able to take some of the credit for introducing goat meat to the British. The broadcaster extolled the meat’s low-fat virtues to a group of dieters on the Gordon Ramsay programme The F-Word, on Channel 4, and demand has soared.

Goat is the world’s most popular meat, with about 500 million animals reared for the table each year. Yet in Britain it has eluded the average dinner table, although it is a favourite for curry among the Afro-Caribbean community.

The increased demand means that there are not enough goats to slaughter. Most of the UK’s 100,000 goats are reared to produce milk and cheese. Some go into the food chain at the end of their productive life, but their meat tends to be tough. The push is on to expand the herd of British boer goats, which provide quality meat and are reared specifically for the table. There are just 1,000 boer goats in Britain, but the British Boer Society is building up its herds. Peter Bidwell, its chairman, who farms near Stanely, Co Durham, sells 300 goats a year but hopes to increase that number to 1,000 within two years. He has had inquiries from suppliers for Asda and Sainsbury’s.

But until the meat goat herd has developed, keepers are unable to provide the volumes required to satisfy retail buyers. This gap in the market has triggered a scam being investigated by trading standards officers in which some farmers sell skinny sheep and label the meat as goat. Mr Bidwell said: “We have never had so many inquiries but we just don’t have the volume. There is a butcher in Newcastle who would like to take 5,000 goats a year. We can’t do that.”

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? [/sarcasm].

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



22 October, 2006

How ice kills your brain

Yet doctors and schools hand out similar drugs to kids willy-nilly



A shocking look inside an ice user's head has revealed the frightening brain-shrinking effect of the drug which, experts say, is making people behave like animals. Vast red patches on a scan of an ice addict's brain have revealed sections controlling memory and decision-making shrink by up to five per cent. Researchers are blaming the terrible stress an ice high causes, which has been likened to a brain marathon and at worst can cause psychosis.

Psychopharmacy Professor Iain McGregor from Sydney University said addicts' behaviour begins to resemble that of animals as brain neurons, which transmit signals around the brain, are lost. "You show problems with decision making, long term planning, more aggression and act more like an animal more than a human,'' Prof McGregor said yesterday.

Ice also causes havoc with levels of the brain chemical dopamine, which motivates people to get out of bed in the morning. Prof McGregor likened use of ice to asking the brain to run a marathon with neurons in heavy users eventually dying. He said the loss of neurons is what causes the brain to shrink but Prof McGregor said the changes had only been noted in heavy users.

The two crucial areas affected are the frontal cortex, which controls decision making and long term planning, and the hippocampus, which is key for memory. "Basically when you take methamphetamine you're making neurons take marathons, for the users the world seems more interesting and exciting because the brain is working so hard,'' he said. "In the long term the neurons become exhausted, they drop dead.'' It can lead to addicts becoming depressed and rob them of all motivation and enjoyment of life.

Prof McGregor said in animal studies the changes to the brain appeared permanent but human studies are yet to to determine whether the brain can recover. CEO of Life Education Jay Bacik said he first saw the images of ice affected brains at a conference in Edinburgh. He said Life Education, which teaches children everything from road safety to warning them about drugs, was ready to deal with queries from students. "We are fully able to deal with the issue,'' he said. "At a private school in Sydney that issue came up recently because everyone is talking about it.''

Paul Dillon from the national drug and alcohol research centre at the University of NSW said ice use needed to be looked at in context. "Ice is a unique drug with unique qualities but we need to remember no one really uses drugs in isolation,'' he said. "We tend to get stuck on the drug instead of a lifestyle. Most ice users also drink, many also use heroin.'

Source



Fat chance of solving obesity

As a species, you know you are riding high when the biggest threat to your health comes from some informed overindulgence. You also know you're more selfish than smart when you blame others for voluntary and informed mistakes that you choose to make. Welcome to Australia 2006.

It is time that as a community we stopped whingeing about the obesity epidemic and started accepting a few home-cooked truths about ourselves. We should be rejoicing in the fact that our insatiable appetite for fast food is becoming the biggest heath epidemic of our time. It could be a tad worse. As we are piling on the kilos, more than 30,000 people are dying of starvation or readily preventable illness each day in Africa. This is despite the fact that there is enough grain alone produced to make every person in the world fat. Better our way than theirs.

Despite this, hardly a week goes by when medical, social science or economic gurus don't roll out some alarmist statistic about how fat we are getting. The most recent anti-contribution to the "crisis'' came this week from Access Economics, which said the health costs of obesity last year were $3.8 billion and the costs associated with lost productivity and wellbeing were a further $17.2 billion.

Good for us - that's what we've chosen. The obesity epidemic has been big news for over a decade now. Diet books have dominated the bestseller list and the weight loss industry has grown exponentially during this time. During the same period we have continued to get progressively fatter. We're gluttons. We prefer short-term pleasures to long-term health benefits. We prefer to a live a slightly shorter, indulgent lifestyle than a robotic, disciplined constant grind.

This is a perspective that is lost on the do-gooder, paternalistic, self-proclaimed lifestyle gurus who keep trying to stuff obesity statistics down our throats. The expanding nature of our waistline is one health problem that we don't need to be constantly lectured about. One difference between obesity ill-health and other forms of self-indulgent health problems is that it is a problem for which we assume almost total responsibility.

So does this mean no interventions are appropriate in response to our fat binge? Not quite, but they should be measured. There are certain foods that are significantly richer in calories than others. This is not always self-evident. The appropriate regulatory response is to require fast-food companies to provide nutritional information on their products. Once reforms like this are introduced, we have ourselves to blame if our waistlines continue to bulge.

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? [/sarcasm].

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



21 October, 2006

SLIMMING DRUG NOT MUCH HELP

From the Cochrane Library

Background
Worldwide, the prevalence of obesity and overweight in industrialized countries and in a substantial number of developing countries is increasing at an alarming rate. Rimonabant is a selective cannabinoid-1 receptor antagonist that has been investigated for its efficacy in reducing body weight and associated risk factors in obese people. Phase III trials are now under way to test the use of rimonabant for long-term weight-loss. Given the prevalence of overweight and obesity, it is important to establish the efficacy and safety of rimonabant.

Objectives
To assess the effects of rimonabant in overweight and obese people.

Search strategy
MEDLINE, EMBASE, The Cochrane Library, LILACS, databases of ongoing trials and reference lists were used to identify relevant trials. The last search was conducted in June 2006.

Selection criteria
Randomised controlled trials comparing rimonabant with placebo or other weight loss interventions in overweight or obese adults.

Data collection and analysis
Two reviewers independently assessed all potentially relevant citations for inclusion and methodological quality. The primary outcome measures were weight loss change, morbidity and adverse effects occurrence.

Main results
Four studies evaluating rimonabant 20 mg versus rimonabant 5 mg versus placebo in addition to a hypocaloric diet lasting at least one year were included. Compared with placebo, rimonabant 20 mg produced a 4.9 kg greater reduction in body weight in trials with one-year results. Improvements in waist circumference, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglyceride levels and systolic and diastolic blood pressure were also seen. However, the results with rimonabant 5 mg demonstrated a weight reduction which was only 1.3 kg greater when compared with placebo. No clinically relevant effects on plasma lipids and blood pressure were found. Rimonabant 20 mg caused significant more adverse effects both of general and serious nature, especially of nervous system, psychiatric or gastro-intestinal origin. Attrition rates were approximately 40% at the end of one year.

Authors' conclusions
The use of rimonabant after one year produces modest weight loss of approximately 5%. Even modest amounts of weight loss may be potentially beneficial. The observed results should be interpreted with some caution, though, since the evaluated studies presented some deficiencies in methodological quality. Studies with longer follow-ups after the end of treatment and of more rigorous quality should be done before definitive recommendations can be made regarding the role of this new medication in the management of overweight or obese patients.



SOY MILK NO SAFER THAN COWS' MILK

From the Cochrane Library

Background
Allergies and food reactions in infants and children are common and may be associated with a variety of foods including adapted cow's milk formula. Soy based formulas have been used to treat infants with allergy or food intolerance. However, it is unclear whether they can help prevent allergy and food intolerance in infants without clinical evidence of allergy or food intolerance.

Objectives
To determine the effect of feeding adapted soy formula compared to human milk, cow's milk formula or a hydrolysed protein formula on preventing allergy or food intolerance in infants without clinical evidence of allergy or food intolerance.

Search strategy
The standard search strategy of the Cochrane Neonatal Review Group was used. Updated searches were performed of the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL, The Cochrane Library, Issue 1, 2006), MEDLINE (1966 - March 2006), EMBASE (1980 - March 2006), CINAHL (1982 - March 2006) and previous reviews including cross references.

Selection criteria
Randomised and quasi-randomised trials that compare the use of an adapted soy formula to human milk, an adapted cow's milk or a hydrolysed protein formula for feeding infants without clinical allergy or food intolerance in the first six months of life. Only trials with > 80% follow up of participants and reported in group of assignment were eligible for inclusion.

Data collection and analysis
Eligibility of studies for inclusion, methodological quality and data extraction were assessed independently by each review author. Primary outcomes included clinical allergy, specific allergies and food intolerance. Where no heterogeneity of treatment effect was found, the fixed effect model was used for meta-analysis. Where significant or apparent heterogeneity was found, results were reported using the random effects model and potential causes of the heterogeneity were sought.

Main results
Three eligible studies enrolling high risk infants with a history of allergy in a first degree relative were included. No eligible study enrolled infants fed human milk. No study examined the effect of early, short term soy formula feeding. All compared prolonged soy formula to cow's milk formula feeding. One study was of adequate methodology and without unbalanced allergy preventing co-interventions in treatment groups. One study with unclear allocation concealment and 19.5% losses reported a significant reduction in infant allergy, asthma and allergic rhinitis. However, no other study reported any significant benefits from the use of a soy formula. Meta-analysis found no significant difference in childhood allergy incidence (2 studies; typical RR 0.73, 95% CI 0.37, 1.44). No significant difference was reported in one study in infant asthma (RR 1.10, 95% CI 0.86, 1.40), infant eczema (RR 1.20, 95% CI 0.95, 1.52), childhood eczema prevalence (RR 1.10, 95% CI 0.73, 1.68), infant rhinitis (RR 0.94, 95% CI 0.76, 1.16) or childhood rhinitis prevalence (RR 1.20, 95% CI 0.73, 2.00). Meta-analysis found no significant difference in childhood asthma incidence (3 studies, 728 infants; typical RR 0.71, 95% CI 0.26, 1.92), childhood eczema incidence (2 studies, 283 infants; typical RR 1.57, 95% CI 0.90, 2.75) or childhood rhinitis incidence (2 studies, 283 infants; typical RR 0.69, 95% CI 0.06, 8.00). One study reported no significant difference in infant CMPI (RR 1.09, 95% CI 0.45, 2.62), infant CMA (RR 1.09, 95% CI 0.24, 4.86), childhood soy protein allergy incidence (RR 3.26, 95% CI 0.36, 29.17) and urticaria. No study compared soy formula to hydrolysed protein formula.

Authors' conclusions
Feeding with a soy formula cannot be recommended for prevention of allergy or food intolerance in infants at high risk of allergy or food intolerance. Further research may be warranted to determine the role of soy formulas for prevention of allergy or food intolerance in infants unable to be breast fed with a strong family history of allergy or cow's milk protein intolerance.

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

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? [/sarcasm].

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



20 October, 2006

ADHD drug risk for kids

Makers of drugs used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder have been ordered to strengthen risk warnings after some child users suffered heart problems and depression. The Senate has heard that the Therapeutic Goods Administration received more than 200 complaints about medications including Ritalin, Strattera and dexamphetamine. The TGA responded by asking manufacturers to include more information with medications and in information sheets sent to doctors.

In March, The Australian revealed that children as young as five had suffered strokes, heart attacks, convulsions and hallucinations from taking ADHD medication. In an answer to a question on notice tabled in the Senate, Health Minister Tony Abbott revealed the TGA had received 123 reports of adverse reactions involving ritalin, including complaints that it caused headache, nausea, anorexia, somnolence and depression. There were 23 reports about atomoxetine, sold under the brand name Strattera, including four of aggression in users. There were 60 reports about dexamphetamine, including seven of agitation, five of tachycardia (rapid heartbeat) and four reports each of hypertonia (abnormally tight muscles), hyperkinesia (muscle spasm) and insomnia.

Mr Abbott said the Government was funding work by the Royal Australasian College of Physicians to update the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Guideline (1996).

Source



Danes now protected from a mythical danger

Who cares if the food is dearer and spoils more quickly?

Two years ago Denmark declared war on killer fat, making it illegal for any food to have more than 2 percent transfats. Offenders now face hefty fines - or even prison terms. The result? Today hardly anyone notices the difference. The french fries are still crispy. The pastries are still scrumptious. And the fried chicken is still tasty. Denmark's experience offers a hopeful example for places like Canada and the U.S. state of New York, which are considering setting limits on the dangerous artery-clogging fats.

Transfatty acids are typically added to processed foods such as cookies, margarine and fast food. They are cheaper to produce than mono-saturated fats, and give a longer shelf life to the foods they are added to. Producers also argue that removing transfat from processed food will change certain tastes and textures beloved by consumers. But they have been called the tobacco of the nutrition world. They lower good cholesterol while raising bad cholesterol. Even consuming less than five grams of transfat - the amount found in one piece of fried chicken and a side of french fries - a day has been linked with a 25 percent increased risk of heart disease. "No other fat at these low levels of intake, has such harmful effects," said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist at Harvard's School of Public Health.

It is still too early to tell if removing transfat from food in Denmark has improved the country's health. Although the Danish health ministry reports that cardiovascular disease has dropped by 20 percent in the last five years, similar reductions have been reported in other countries that are making an effort to combat heart disease by measures such as regulating the food and tobacco industries, and by educating the public about the need to exercise. In countries that are making no effort to regulate the amount of transfat in food, such as Hungary and Bulgaria, heart disease rates have continued to climb. Denmark is the only country to have outlawed the fat, passing a law in June 2003 that made it illegal for any food to contain more than two percent of transfat.

For Danes like Troels Nyborg Andersen, the government's decision means he feels less guilty about his fast-food habit. "I know transfats are bad, but you don't think about that when you're hungry," said the 27-year-old Copenhagen native, chomping a hamburger. "It's good that the Danish government got rid of transfats so that I don't have to worry about it." That was the rationale that motivated the transfat ban.

"We wanted to protect people so that they would not even have to know what transfat was," said Dr. Steen Stender, one of the leading Danish experts who lobbied for the anti-transfat law.

Though obesity rates are rising in Denmark, they are far below those of most countries: just 11.4 percent of the Danish population was obese in 2005, less than half of Britain's obesity rate, estimated at 23 percent.

When faced with the prospect of a transfat ban, industries typically rebel. Other countries in the European Union initially objected to Denmark's ban, arguing it would be economically unfair since their foods could not be legally imported into Denmark. Many producers were also concerned about the possible change in texture and taste without the additives.

Preserving the delicacy of the traditional Danish pastries was a major concern at Copenhagen's famed La Glace cafe, renowned for its pastries and cakes. When the transfat law kicked in, its bakers began experimenting. "There was a bit of a crisis," admitted Marianne Stagetorn Kolos, La Glace's owner. The first attempts were disastrous. The transfat-free margarines melted too soon, destroying the flakiness of the 81-layered pastries. "Everything was flat," Stagetorn said. Luckily, the problem was solved by switching margarine suppliers.

Customers like Anne Petersen haven't noticed. The pastries "taste just as good as they always did," said the 59-year-old sales assistant, who favors the raspberry pastry. "If it wasn't for the law, I never would have known that there wasn't any transfat."

Stender and other health experts say Denmark's transfat ban should be adopted worldwide. "There's no reason it cannot be done elsewhere," he said, explaining that the food in Denmark is not markedly different from food anywhere else. "If you removed transfat from the planet, the only people who would feel the difference are the people who sell the transfat."

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? [/sarcasm].

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



19 October, 2006

Disney joins the fat frenzy

Disney has joined the healthy eating revolution by banning junk food at its theme parks in Europe and the United States. The entertainment giant said that it would also veto any plan to use its characters to promote unhealthy food or drinks. The move comes after the ending this year of a decade-long deal with McDonald's to promote its films with Happy Meals. Cars and Pirates of The Caribbean II were used to promote the burger firm this summer.

Robert Iger, the Disney chief executive, said that the move came in response to comments from parents about the eating habits of their kids. The company was "well aware of the huge responsibility we have, given our reach and our ability to impact people's behaviour and opinions", he said. "It was the right thing to do."

Under the proposals, the company's theme parks, including Disneyland Paris, Disneyland and Disneyworld in Florida, will no longer sell burgers or chips. They will instead start to serve vegetables and fruit juice or low-fat milk, rather than soft drinks. Mr Iger said that Disney was considering the licensing of characters to producers of healthier food. The company was also planning more storylines featuring healthy eating and exercise.

However, one American consumer group said that the moves did not go far enough, particularly with television commercials on the Disney Channel. Other critics said that companies such as Disney were trying to avoid lawsuits and possible federal regulations over childhood obesity.

Several other large US companies have taken measures in recent years to promote healthier food choices. McDonald's has added sliced apples and entree-sized salads to its menu and scrapped super-size portions for French fries and soft drinks. At the same time, firms such as Kraft Foods and Pepsi have removed transfats from their products and introduced more products aimed at health-conscious consumers.

Source



Australian Leftists revel in the obesity war

More Medicare funding for people trying to lose weight was needed to battle the obesity crisis, Labor said today.

Access Economics is to release a study today showing obesity costs Australia $21 billion a year. The study will also show that in 20 years time, nearly a third of Australians will be obese.

Labor health spokeswoman Julia Gillard said Labor would consider introducing policies banning junk food advertising on children's television if it won government. The party could also impose tough health labelling laws on food. She said Labor was waiting on the outcome of a Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) audit of junk food advertising before finalising its obesity policies. "We are certainly concerned about the impact of junk food commercials on children's pester power in the supermarket trying to make parents buy unhealthy food," Ms Gillard said. "This is a huge health crisis for this country, but (Health Minister) Tony Abbott ... is consistently on the public record as saying it's nothing to do with him and nothing to do with this Government," Ms Gillard said. "Tony Abbott refuses to do anything substantial to deal with this looming health epidemic."

She acknowledged that there was a large element of personal responsibility involved in obesity, but said the Government could still do more. Preventative obesity advice from doctors was covered by Medicare only if the patient was in their mid-40s and they already had a risk factor. "You should be able to get that advice throughout your life," Ms Gillard said. [You need a doctor to tell you to eat les??]

Government Senator Guy Barnett said Australians must change their lifestyles to avoid an obesity "tsunami". "What the figures show is that it should make all of us review our lifestyle choices for us in Australia and it also shows that these costs are getting bigger not smaller," Senator Barnett said on the Nine Network. "We've got a tsunami coming towards Australia in terms of a health crisis and it's going to swamp us if we stay the same course."

Source



Obesity obsession 'makes problem worse'

Which is worse: The fatties or the thinnies? The thinnies are in much bigger danger of ruining their health

Fears that Australia's obesity debate may overshadow the problem of eating disorders have prompted the federal Labor MP Anna Burke to invite a body image expert to address politicians in Canberra today. Ms Burke said eating disorders were on the rise, particularly among school-aged children. "We can't allow this trend to continue," she said. "For too long eating disorders have been ignored at a national level."

An Access Economics report into the effects of obesity in Australia is due to be released today, measuring the lost productivity, quality of life and health costs of the condition, which afflicts 3.24 million Australians.

The federal member for Chisholm in Melbourne told smh.com.au it was important to discuss obesity, but this should not overshadow other body image debates. "There are also fears that the intense focus on obesity is actually exacerbating the problem of eating disorders - we are now hearing about kids in primary school going on starvation diets in an attempt to look thinner."

A University of Canberra psychology lecturer, Vivienne Lewis, will address a group of federal politicians at Parliament House today. Dr Lewis said politicians needed to pay more attention to anorexia and bulimia. The academic said while the incidence of eating disorders in Australia had remained relatively stable recently, the number of people worried about their bodies was on the rise. "Even though this doesn't necessarily lead them to disordered eating, it still affects their wellbeing," Dr Lewis said. "When people's wellbeing is affected, that affects their day-to-day life, it affects their work and relationships."

She also pointed to an increase in body image concerns among men, saying the rise of the fit, slim metrosexual ideal was a huge factor. "Gone are the days where the male is promoted as this big, strong masculine figure. "Now it's actually someone who's really well toned and probably is on a diet like women are." Dr Lewis called for early primary school programs promoting positive body image, improved support for intervention programs for people with eating disorders and changes to media portrayals of healthy weight. "That's a huge task," she said.

Ms Burke said Australia needed a national code of conduct on body image to ensure that the media, advertisers and the fashion industry portrayed a more healthy and diverse range of role models.

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? [/sarcasm].

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



18 October, 2006

COKE IS BAD FOR OLD LADIES: ROTS THEIR HIPBONES

Journal abstract below:

Colas, but not other carbonated beverages, are associated with low bone mineral density in older women: The Framingham Osteoporosis Study

By Katherine L Tucker et al.

Background: Soft drink consumption may have adverse effects on bone mineral density (BMD), but studies have shown mixed results. In addition to displacing healthier beverages, colas contain caffeine and phosphoric acid (H3PO4), which may adversely affect bone.

Objective: We hypothesized that consumption of cola is associated with lower BMD.

Design: BMD was measured at the spine and 3 hip sites in 1413 women and 1125 men in the Framingham Osteoporosis Study by using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Dietary intake was assessed by food-frequency questionnaire. We regressed each BMD measure on the frequency of soft drink consumption for men and women after adjustment for body mass index, height, age, energy intake, physical activity score, smoking, alcohol use, total calcium intake, total vitamin D intake, caffeine from noncola sources, season of measurement, and, for women, menopausal status and estrogen use.

Results: Cola intake was associated with significantly lower (P < 0.001-0.05) BMD at each hip site, but not the spine, in women but not in men. The mean BMD of those with daily cola intake was 3.7% lower at the femoral neck and 5.4% lower at Ward's area than of those who consumed <1 serving cola/mo. Similar results were seen for diet cola and, although weaker, for decaffeinated cola. No significant relations between noncola carbonated beverage consumption and BMD were observed. Total phosphorus intake was not significantly higher in daily cola consumers than in nonconsumers; however, the calcium-to-phosphorus ratios were lower.

Conclusions: Intake of cola, but not of other carbonated soft drinks, is associated with low BMD in women. Additional research is needed to confirm these findings.

Source

Comment: The effect was very small and the blame the researchers attach to phosphorous appears to be contradicted by their finding: "Total phosphorus intake was not significantly higher in daily cola consumers than in nonconsumers". Losing bone mass in the hip but not the spine is also strange. The researchers' failure to control for any measure of social class is also deplorable. Maybe it is evil of me to mention it, but poorer people tend to drink more Coke and to have poorer health. Where a middle-class person gets his/her caffeine fix from his/her barista, a working class person gets his/her caffeine fix out of a can. I suspect that the present findings simply confirm that poor people have poorer health. Definitely a case of "more research is needed"



FISH ARE GOOD FOR YOU, BAD FOR YOU, GOOD FOR YOU, BAD FOR YOU .......

Pregnant women have been warned against consuming too much oily fish, as scientists believe it may increase the risk of delivering the baby too early. Researchers told New Scientist magazine the harm is probably caused by high mercury levels in oily fish such as mackerel, salmon and sardines. However, experts warn that it is still important to eat at least two portions of fish a week. Indeed, studies indicate that eating enough fish can boost the birth weight and brainpower of babies and help prevent premature labour in pregnant women.

Species, such as shark, marlin and swordfish should be avoided though, because they are particularly high in mercury and other pollutants, according to a BBC report. Girls, women who are breastfeeding and those trying for a baby should eat two portions of oily fish per week, and other women, men and boys, can eat up to four portions.

The latest work in New Scientist, also published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, looked at 1,024 pregnant women living in Michigan, the US. Dr Fei Xue and colleagues measured the amount of mercury these women had in their hair and compared this with the date that the women delivered their babies. The women who gave birth more than two weeks early were three times as likely to have double the average mercury level in their hair samples. On the whole, these women also tended to eat more oily fish, and particularly canned fish. Only 44 of the women gave birth prematurely, however, and the researchers said more work was needed to corroborate their findings.

They also pointed out that the women were asked to recall how much fish they had eaten, which might be inaccurate. It is also possible that the women could have been exposed to mercury from other sources too, they said.

Source

("If ifs and ans were pots and pans, there'd be no room for tinkers". I hope there are still some people who understand that old saying. No product of a "modern" education would, of course)

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

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? [/sarcasm].

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



17 October, 2006

MORE ON BRITISH FAT FASCISM

So we are the fattipuffs of Europe. Somebody had to be. The British, among their many other hobbies and extraordinary attributes, obviously enjoy overeating. And it appears that nothing - no television diet guru examining our excretions, no Messiah-like chef tossing buckets of undigested fat in front of us, no bossy government leaflets imploring us to eat more vegetables - is going to change that. Does it matter? Not to the fattipuffs, clearly, or they would do something about it. Not to the rest of the British public either. Or if it does, it really shouldn't. It is none of our business. I just wish someone could persuade this irritating government that it's none of its business either.

Fat fascists and government spokespeople, when voicing their peculiar disapproval of other people's body mass index (BMI), often come up with spurious figures regarding the cost of obesity to the National Health Service. Apparently if you include the wear and tear on hospital lavatory seats, the stress on nurses at having to deal with such irresponsible patients and so on, this extra cost can spiral into billions. Fat people get ill more, so the argument goes, and since we taxpayers have to pay for the consequences, we have every right to bully fat people into getting thin again.

It is a loathsome argument: the same one that is used when trying to control smokers and drinkers. No doubt it will be used against people who slouch too much in front of their computers, or who take exercise without stretching first or who choose, against all advice, to look directly at the sun. Extend the argument still further and there is no reason why it couldn't be used to enforce the screening of unborn children: hell, we could get shot of the duffers before they were even fully formed. Why not? Imagine all the taxpayers' money that could be saved.

The NHS, it should never be forgotten, is a service run by the government but paid for by the people. It is not, and was never intended to be, a tool with which to control us. Also (although I'm loath to indulge this line of argument), it's clearly a nonsense to pretend that fat people, in the long run, cost the public purse any more than the rest of the population. If fat people get ill more, the chances are they are going to die earlier, too.

So while the rest of us health freaks mince around on Zimmer frames, demanding expensive drugs for the other debilitating diseases waiting to take us out, the fat people will already be dead. No requests from them for geriatric medical care, free bus passes and measly pensions. With obesity rates rising at the rate that we're told they are, the public purse ought soon to be positively bulging.

But never mind all that, never mind the logic of it: that was never the point. This government simply can't resist an opportunity to nag. If it's not about fatness, it's about thinness; it's about our liquid intake during heatwaves, our alcohol intake over Christmas, the temperature of our baths, the frequency of our lavatory flushing, the hoods on our sweatshirts, the veils on our faces. It will come up with a guideline for anything to keep its stultifying presence on the front pages. Anything to show us it cares.

This week, in response to the wretched fatness survey, it has truly excelled itself. Healthy diet has been the subject to worry about, and even the chancellor of the exchequer has felt inspired to contribute to the debate. He has let it be known (in case we were wondering) that he "always" has two portions of vegetables at lunch and that he can often be seen "munching an apple or an orange" around the office. A spokesman for Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary (who, it is claimed, eats "infinitely more" than the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables a day), has released the news that she enjoys "very, very regular bowel movements". Which is marvellous, but perhaps a case of too much information.

If we are to believe their spokespeople, government ministers are an example to us all, only ever enjoying the occasional glass of wine, always eating up their greens and often having rowing machines in their offices. If only we could be more like them. Thankfully Caroline Flint, our new minister for fitness, has announced a new initiative to help us to catch up. She wants to impel supermarkets to offer lessons in how to eat fruit and vegetables because, she says, there are people out there who find fresh fruit and vegetables "scary". Ho hum. An example of a new victim group cleverly unearthed by sensitive ministers or just one more case of an exhausted government dribbling into its geriatric bib? I almost feel sorry for them.

Then there are the thinnifers. Another problem, another call for a ban. Why do so many people think banning things is the only answer? I refer to the banning of very thin people from the catwalk, a place which we know to be their historical home. A collection of doctors and other eating disorder experts have joined together to make a formal request to the fashion industry not to employ models below a certain weight. It has been mooted that London Fashion Week should have its subsidies suspended (all in favour of that) if it refuses to comply.

Having struggled for years with the problem in my teens and early twenties, I have some inkling of the madness which settles in an anorexic's head. Of course I can't speak for them all, but I can speak from experience. And to suggest that the banning of models with the wrong BMI might in some way alter an anorexic's approach to her own body, or to flesh in general, seems pretty facile to me. Young women starve themselves for all sorts of reasons but mostly, I think, as a muddle-headed response to their own internal chaos: body weight is one of the few aspects of life which feels controllable. The truth is that you could put anyone you wanted on the catwalk - put Dawn French up there - but I don't believe it would change a thing. Anorexics see the world through different eyes.

I used to look in near revulsion at supermodel Cindy Crawford, a woman who, at the peak of my madness, was lauded as one of the most desirable women on earth. I couldn't comprehend it. I used to be disgusted by the gargantuan size of her thighs. When people said she looked wonderful, I thought they were the mad ones; either that or they were lying. The fashion industry is being asked to present a more realistic image of women to the world. But fashion isn't about realistic images, it's about fantasy - and art. There's something pretty wrong with a society that wants to ban that

Source



Australian school canteens to impose fatty food ban

Victorian school children will be allowed to eat fatty junk food only twice a term under strict new canteen rules to be imposed next year. For the first time, school tuckshops will be told what they can and cannot sell to the state's 540,000 school students. Chips, potato cakes, dim sims, battered sausages, cakes and ice cream are on the hit list.

The Bracks Government is expected to reveal the latest crackdown today to try to halt the obesity crisis. It is believed the new rules will apply to Victoria's 1600 state primary and secondary schools. Independent and Catholic schools will be encouraged to adopt the new rules. Food will be divided into three groups - everyday, select and occasional - dictating how often it can be sold. Food listed as "occasional" is defined as having high fat, sugar or salt content and will be restricted to twice a term, or eight times a year. Deep-fried food, ice cream, icy poles, croissants and commercially produced cakes and sweet biscuits will be on the "occasional" list. Goodies listed under "select" will have some nutritional value and will be sold irregularly - potentially once a week. This will include party pies, sausage rolls and low-fat ice cream.

Schools will be told to try to sell as much "everyday" food as possible - which includes items with high nutritional value. Fresh fruit and vegetables, wholegrain bread and cereals and salads are in this category. Pikelets, crumpets, baked potatoes and frozen yoghurt will also be available daily. The new rules will apply to school canteens and lunch orders provided by outside caterers and shops. The Government is believed to have taken a different approach to chocolates and lollies [candy] in schools.

It is believed schools will be given information on how to introduce the new rules, which will begin next year. This includes advice on how to make healthier versions of popular food, for example, replacing commercially made pizza with home-made healthier versions. Activities for the classroom, promotional posters, a website and other material will also be available.

The Bracks Government introduced canteen guidelines in 2003 and this is believed to be the next step in the fight against obesity. It is believed the Government wants to send a healthy-eating message to students, who get about a third of their food at school. Many schools have already adopted healthy eating in their canteens, with restrictions on junk food. The tough new rules come after a ban on sugar-loaded drinks at schools and an investigation into restrictions on chocolates and lollies.

Drinks with more than 300 kilojoules a serve will not be sold at canteens or in vending machines. This means sport drinks and mineral water could face the axe. A spokesman for Education Minister Lynne Kosky would not confirm details of the new rules. "While many schools already offer healthy food to their children, the Government feels there is more to do," he said. About 30 per cent of Australian children are overweight or obese.

Source

The confident denunciation of "fatty" foods above is amusing. I reproduce below a recent post of mine from elsewhere which suggests that the epidemiological evidence for the denunciation is very shaky

ESKIMOS, FAT AND FOOD SUPERSTITIONS

As most readers here will be aware, the extraordinary degree of misinformation about food and health that we read in the MSM has caused me to do a daily blog on the latest health scares and enthusiasms. It is extraordinarily sad how much energy many people put into going along with the nonsense they read. The longevity studies all tend towards showing that NOTHING in the way of diet or lifestyle change will lengthen your life but many people don't want to believe that so they follow any pied piper who comes along with a promise to lead them to the promised land of longer life. And the media simply pander to that.

One of the most persistent themes that you read in health advice these days is that animal fat is bad for you. A diet rich in animal fat is said to doom you to heart disease, cancer and diabetes. I was rather persuaded of that myself at one stage as there seemed to be some epidemiological evidence for it. Now that I am a health blogger, however, I do a bit more background reading in these things than I used to do and something I found while doing such reading was sufficiently amusing for me to put it up here rather than on my more specialized blog.

The eskimos are of course renowned for eating large amounts of meat and fat. They once ate little else (vegetables don't grow well in the Arctic!) and to this day that remains the mainstay of their diet. And the eskimos have always had a shorter life expectancy than inhabitants of less dangerous climates. But is that shorter life expectancy due to their diet? There is much to say that it is not. They have extraordinarily high rates of suicide, smoking and other behavioural pathologies, for instance.

The interesting thing about Eskimos, however, is WHAT they die of. With their huge intake of animal fats they should be dropping like flies of heart disease, cancer and diabetes, according to the conventional wisdom. But that is precisely what they do NOT die of. They have always had very LOW rates of those diseases. No doubt there is much more that could be said about the matter but when the facts on the ground are the OPPOSITE of what the conventional wisdom would predict, should it not make us just a little skeptical about the conventional wisdom?

I did not keep any links from my reading in the above matters but it should be no trouble to google up lots on the subject.

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

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? [/sarcasm].

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



16 October, 2006

THE "MEN'S HEALTH" PANIC IN BRITAIN

Yes: The panic is more dangerous than the disease

Michael Baum is in fighting form. The emeritus professor of surgery at University College London, and leading expert on cancer, says he would like to give the `self-appointed custodians of men's health' a `bloody nose'. He's talking about those men's health groups, men's health magazines and men's health officials in the pay of the government, who are constantly advising men - through TV ads, glossy posters in GPs' waiting rooms, information-laden beermats, drop-in advice centres at football grounds or celeb-backed `awareness campaigns' - to get in touch with their bodies and their wellbeing. `You know what they're doing, don't you?' he says. `They are trying to make men into women. They are trying to whip up the same kind of hysteria about health that bugs women amongst men as well.'

Men's health has become big business in recent years. Who are these people? Well, there's the Men's Health Forum (MHF), founded in 1994, which works for the `development of health services that meet men's needs and enable men to change their risk-taking behaviours'. MHF is funded by the UK Department of Health (to the tune of around 200,000 pounds a year) and has also, a bit bizarrely, received money from the Kent Police Service (10,000 for the year 2004/2005), British Telecom (9,375 for 2004/2005), Sport England (10,000 for 2004/2005) and numerous others. Its patrons include the bicycle-riding liberal's favourite newsreader, Jon Snow, TV presenter Lynn Faulds-Wood and celebrity doctor Mark Porter. MHF is currently `devising interventions' in British schools to encourage young boys to think more about their health and enable them to `take control and seek help'

There is Men's Health Week, kickstarted by MHF in 2002 and supported by the DoH, which raises awareness about a different aspect of men's health each year. This year - 12 to 18 June - it was mental health, because apparently men `often find it hard to discuss their feelings and can be reluctant to seek professional help for emotional or mental health problems'. Then there is Everyman, a wing of the Institute of Cancer Research, which seeks to inform the male public about testicular and prostate cancer. It runs numerous advertising campaigns, gimmicks and stunts - most recently the `TacheBack 2006' initiative in September, which encouraged men to sponsor each other to grow moustaches (the `mark of a REAL superhero', apparently) in order to raise money for Everyman (3). It also launched the `Notice your nuts' campaign, with a TV advert featuring men with massive fake testicles hanging out of their flies and the slogan: `Make your balls a bigger part of your life.' Everyman is sponsored by Asda, Virgin, Butlins and Topman, the cheap and cheerful clothes-store for blokes which has produced t-shirts that say `I love my balls' and `Bollocks to cancer' and underwear that come with instructions on how to examine yourself for signs of testicular cancer printed on the inside.

There is Check-Em, an offshoot of Everyman, which as its name suggests is about encouraging young men to check `them' - that is, their testicles. Its website uses cod-ladspeak to encourage young men to practice testicular self-examination (TSE) every month. `Check your nuts!! A hands-on guide as to what to look for.' says a headline, while underneath a cartoon nurse in kinky white boots, suspenders and a tight white leather top (because men don't pay attention to matters related to health unless there's a scantily-clad nurse involved) explains how you should roll each testicle in search of lumps, bumps and other abnormalities (5). There is also the Orchid Cancer Charity, which has sent its self-help video `Know Your Balls: Check `Em Out', featuring celebs like Chris Evans, Jonathan Ross and Steve Davis, to 5,000 schools - and the Prostate Cancer Charity, which during its awareness week in 2005 distributed thousands of beermats to pubs around the country warning men about the dangers of prostate cancer.

Even football stadiums are being colonised by the men's health industry. During last year's Men's Health Week, MHF and government officials launched the `Football and Health' initiative, aimed at `harnessing the mass appeal [of football] to help reinforce and promote healthy living'. Announcing plans to set up drop-in health centres and organise leaflet and advice distribution at football grounds around the country, government minister Caroline Flint declared: `Football is an important part of many people's lives, and with its family-friendly policies including smoke-free grounds, family enclosures and football-in-the-community work carried out by club players, it provides great opportunities to get across key messages about healthy, active lives..'

From schools to pubs, from TV ads to the footie, there seems to be no respite from the `self-appointed custodians of men's health'. Baum is irritated by this burgeoning industry for two reasons: first, it can actually do more harm than good; and second, it takes officialdom's intervention into our private lives to `quite frightening new levels', he says.

Baum says the constant imploring of men to check themselves for testicular cancer, or to submit to prostate specific antigen tests (PSAs) for signs of prostate cancer, really is potentially harmful. `To promote testicular self-examination without evidence.well, it suggests we are not learning from the mistakes of the past', he says. `There are actually no data to support the idea that detecting testicular cancer by self-examination improves on the mortality for testicular cancer; that is just an assumption, but there is no evidence to support that assumption.'

`Testicular cancer is a relatively rare cancer, whereas testicular lumps are quite common', he continues. `So if we encourage young men to check their testes, their chances of finding a benign abnormality are considerably more than their chances of detecting cancer. So what you have is a lot of false alarms, with young men queuing up to see their doctors convinced they have TC when in fact they don't. And the real downside to all this is that if testicular cancer is suspected then the treatment is orchiectomy [the surgical removal of a testicle]. You don't biopsy a testicular cancer, you remove the testicle. And with all this heightened awareness of testicular cancer, with all these young men checking themselves for lumps and convinced that something benign is something really bad, I can see a situation where men will have unnecessary orchiectomies.'

One of the strangest things about the incessant campaigning around testicular cancer, which is targeted at young men aged 15 to 24 in particular, is that the disease is rare and very curable. There are around 1,900 cases of TC in Britain each year, which accounts for about one per cent of all cancers - and approximately 95 per cent of these cases of TC are cured. Last year there were 67 deaths from testicular cancer among men of all age groups in England and Wales. Among youthful men aged 15 to 24 - those who tend to be in those schools and colleges bombarded with know-your-balls propaganda - six men died from testicular cancer in 2005. The same number of 15- to 24-year-olds died from liver cancer, while four times that number - 25 - died from cancers of the brain. Strikingly, more men died from breast cancer in 2005 than died from testicular cancer: 82 men in all age groups died from breast cancer, compared to 67 for testicular cancer. Why aren't there campaigns instructing men on how to check their breasts for lumps? Why aren't young men warned about the tell-tale signs of brain cancer? Why the obsessive focus on testicles, with hundreds of thousands of pounds spent on encouraging young men to monitor their balls for a disease that is very rare and often not life-threatening?

Baum says it sums up the men's health brigade: `They are grabbing us by the balls, where it hurts.' When he says that those promoting testicular self-examination have not learned from `the mistakes of the past', he is referring especially to `the constant promotion of breast self-examination'. `As all the experts now know, that was a bad thing', he says. `It did more harm than good.'

As co-author of Breast Cancer and co-editor of History and Advancement of Anastrozole in the Treatment of Breast Cancer, and chair of the Psychosocial Oncology Committee at the National Cancer Research Institute, Baum knows his stuff. `In breast cancer, the mantra has always been "catch it early and you'll save your life" or "Your life in your hands", cliches like that. This hypothesis, that women who regularly practise breast self-examination will have a lower mortality for breast cancer than those who don't, has been tested - and it doesn't hold up. There have been three large-scale trials - one in Shanghai, one in Petersburg, another in the UK - where they compared the outcome of women who had been trained and monitored in breast self-examination with those who had been left alone. And as far as breast cancer mortality was concerned, there was no difference. But there was twice the number of unnecessary surgical interventions among the women who practised breast self-examination, among those who were more "aware", more cautious. `This provoked the publication of the Canadian Medical Association to publish a paper and a leader which argued that as far as public health is concerned, breast self-examination has now been downgraded from Category C - unproven - to Category D: proven to be harmful.'

Now Baum fears that similar harm may come to men who practise testicular self-examination or demand PSAs for prostate cancer. He argues that the endless promotion of awareness about prostate cancer - which is leading more men to ask for PSAs - is `especially worrying'. `There is a potential risk of overdiagnosing a latent pathology which if left alone would not threaten a man's life, yet if detected, and acted upon, might threaten his continence and his performance, if you see what I mean. Promoting PSA in the absence of evidence that PSA testing stops men dying from prostate cancer is foolish and dangerous.' Indeed, numerous studies have confirmed that widespread testing for prostate cancer can be bad news. Earlier this year a US taskforce that investigated the efficacy of PSA testing was only the latest to find that `screening is associated with important harms, including frequent false-positive results and unnecessary anxiety, biopsies and potential complications of treatment of some cancer that may never have affected a patient's health'.

Who'd have thought it - the men's health industry is potentially bad for men's health. However good and noble their intentions might be, male health activists and their funders and supporters in government, business and the media are causing anxiety amongst men of all ages and possibly even giving rise to surgical interventions that are unnecessary, uncomfortable, unhelpful and harmful. `Men are living longer and healthier lives', says Baum. `And there is no evidence that this obsession with health improves length and quality of life - in fact it can actually detract from both. Men should ignore these health zealots.'

Baum argues that the men's health industry is social engineering dressed up as caring awareness. `This is about trying to manipulate behaviour. It is about trying to brainwash people into unnatural ways of behaving, getting men to be more meek and obedient. It is symptomatic of the kind of social engineering we have today. We have a quite extraordinary situation in this country at the moment. On what we might call the left-leaning side of society there is a flight from rational belief towards alternative medicine - and then on the right-leaning side of society there is the transformation of health into a kind of social engineering project. I really think we should tell both sides to get a grip.'

As young men feel up their testicles (after a bath is best, apparently, when the scrotum is soft and shrivelled) and older men have their rectums penetrated by a doctor's digit, could there be a more fitting image of the emasculation of the contemporary male? In the rise of the men's health industry, which treats men as passive victims who must be prodded and studied for signs of distress and disease, we can glimpse the demise of old ideas of manhood - of men as active, strong-willed, ambitious and independent. Nothing better sums it up than the know-your-balls agenda. In Ancient Rome and other societies the testicles were seen as symbols of virility and strength, the source of man's power; today they are seen as symbols of victimhood and sickness, potentially the source of man's downfall. Baum has a message for the testicle-squeezers of the men's health lobby: `Keep you nose out of my anus and keep your hands off my balls - and stop interfering in my life.'

Source



Vaginal orgasms recognized again

Vaginal orgasms are back in the news. New research is about to be published revealing previously unknown sexual pathways: research that threatens the clitoral orthodoxy that has long dominated debate over female sexual pleasure. Women's orgasm has long been captured by ideology, with competing factions fighting over the true nature of women's pathway to sexual bliss.

Thirty years ago, American feminist Shere Hite laid claim to female orgasm as a watershed issue in women's liberation. Women were oppressed and exploited by the "pattern of sexual relations predominant in our culture", she wrote in The Hite Report, referring to the common or garden bonk. She dismissed Freudian notions that sexual maturity brought a shift from clitoral to vaginal orgasm, declared clitoral orgasm was the "real orgasm" and suggested women who claimed to regularly climax during intercourse had to be deluding themselves.

There began the era of clitoromania. Vaginas were declared dead in the water and the clitoris was firmly established as the gold standard of female sexual pleasure. Intercourse might be the real thing for men but the new view was that it left most women cold. The women who claimed to climax easily during coitus were dismissed as a tiny minority who managed miraculously, in a new twist on the princess and the pea, to get off on the crumbs of indirect clitoral stimulation that resulted when the vagina was enjoying a workout. The clitoral clamour reached new heights when Melbourne urologist Helen O'Connell's work on clitoral anatomy provided fresh evidence that the clitoris was not just a tiny button near the vaginal opening but a huge expanding structure.

The vaginally orgasmic women Freud saw as the epitome of sexual maturity came to be seen as aberrant. And those seeking advice about climaxing during coitus were told it wasn't likely to happen. Think clitoris, the therapists said, suggesting vaginal orgasm was a myth detracting women from the true source of their pleasure.

But now the vagina is making a comeback, with the fascinating discovery that some women with severed spinal cords still experience orgasm despite losing the clitoris-brain nervous connection. This led Rutgers, New Jersey, professors Barry Komisaruk and Beverly Whipple to spend the past few years tracking brain activity during sexual stimulation. The results are in their new book, The Science of Orgasm, to be published by Johns Hopkins University Press in November. Here they detail the extensive literature that shows three additional pairs of nerves convey orgasm-producing sensations to the brain from the vagina, cervix and uterus, namely the pelvic, hypogastric and sensory vagus nerves.

So, during intercourse, it isn't simply the clitoris lighting the sparks. Deep pressure sensations on and through the walls of the vagina, particularly in G-spot territory, plus movement of the cervix and uterus, add to the intensity through their own nerve pathways. That's big news. It's news that should inspire gynaecologists to sit up and take notice. It explains why there have always been women claiming to lose sexual pleasure following hysterectomy and removal of the cervix. With this new bunch of nerves shown to transfer sexual stimulation, gynaecological surgery needs to follow a new road map to avoid critical damage. The plot is thickening. Hopefully it will bring an end to the blinkered clitoral obsession and encourage women to keep their options open.

Sure, direct clitoral attention will remain the surest route to quick bliss for most women. But the new research shows the vagina is far from dead wood, but rather richly innervated and capable of detecting vibration, touch and pressure changes, particularly deep pressure. It seems women who climax regularly in intercourse are likelier to tune into these sensations: researchers at the University of Amsterdam have found that these women are more aware of blood flow in vaginal tissues. Women brought up to believe the vagina is insensitive may miss out on the delights it has to offer.

That's the irony. Hite claimed women were exploited by being forced to endure the old in-and-out when it did nothing for them. But her efforts to normalise women who need clitoral attention silenced others who enjoyed traditional coupling. The oppressed became the oppressors, which is why it has taken so long for the vagina to regain its place in the sun.

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? [/sarcasm].

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



15 October, 2006

LSD helps alcoholics put down the botttle: "A single dose of the hallucinogenic drug LSD is an effective treatment for alcoholism -- according to research led by a British doctor more than 40 years ago. Studies on thousands of alcoholics treated with the drug in the early 1960s -- before it became popular as a psychedelic street drug -- showed it helped trigger a change in mental attitude leading drinkers to quit. But, in spite of its promise, the therapeutic potential of the drug has been ignored since it was banned worldwide in the late 1960s as a threat to public safety. Now a historian who unearthed the research, led by British psychiatrist Humphrey Osmond and carried out in Canada, has interviewed the participants four decades on and says the results are dramatic."



Apples now bad for you: "An apple a day may not always keep the doctor away. An Australian researcher has found foods high in fructose, like apples, pears, mangoes, watermelon, pawpaw and honey, can trigger irritable bowel syndrome in some people. Patients with the often debilitating condition complain of symptoms such as stomach pain, bloating, gas, nausea, diarrhoea, constipation or a combination of both. Dietitian Sue Shepherd, of Melbourne's Box Hill Hospital, said she had scientifically shown some people with irritable bowel syndrome suffered from fructose malabsorption, which could be treated by eliminating certain foods from their diet. She presented her findings this week at the Australian Gastroenterology Week conference in Adelaide."



Low birth weight has permanent ill-effects: "Birth weight could affect more than the pain of labour - new research in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine shows that low-birthweight infants are more likely to have mental and physical problems as adolescents compared to their normal-birthweight counterparts. Researchers studied 474 non-disabled adolescents who were born between 1984 and 1987 and weighed less than 2kg at birth. Participants had an average age of 16 at the time of the study, and underwent intelligence and physical tests in their homes. Compared to a reference group of normal birth weight adolescents, those born small had more problems with their motor skills. Their IQ scores were within the normal range, but were significantly lower than the average for their age group. Motor difficulties were more likely in boys, and in those who spent more time on a mechanical ventilator as an infant. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 2006;160:1040-1046 (Whitaker AH, et al)



Prostate differences: "Prostate cancer becomes even more life-threatening when it spreads to other parts of the body, and now researchers at the Garvan Institute in Sydney have discovered a new marker that could identify which prostate cancers are most likely to spread. Led by associate professor Susan Henshall, researchers examined prostate biopsies from 228 prostate cancer patients, looking for a protein called zinc-alpha2-glycoprotein (AZGP1). They found that men who have low levels of AZGP1 in the prostate when it's removed have a 4.8-fold increased chance of their cancer spreading, compared to those with higher levels. Those with low levels of AZGP1 could benefit from more aggressive treatment such as radiotherapy or chemotherapy at the time of surgery, say the authors. And men with higher levels of the marker may be able to delay further treatments that could have a negative impact on their quality of life. J Natl Cancer Inst 2006;98:1420-1424 (Henshall SM, et al)

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

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? [/sarcasm].

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



14 October, 2006

PERVASIVE BRITISH FOOD HECTORING

Fat maps, Labour's latest wheeze, reveal that the Department of Health will go to extraordinary lengths to preach their healthy-eating message. We must all be kept in line and patronised as inadequates who don't know how to feed ourselves. Caroline Flint, the self-righteous Public Health Minister, has even suggested that supermarkets show us how to eat and cook fruit and vegetables.

One way that the DoH has taken to crusading is through third-party "agents of persuasion". After all, it is not a given that the nanny state should have an automatic right to micromanage its citizens' most intimate activities, from how many pieces of fruit they eat a day to what they put in their children's lunchboxes. It is no surprise, then, that the department has a head of broadcasting strategy, and that a new phenomenon - "policy placement" - is ever more apparent on our television screens.

Take a cursory look at the TV schedules and you will find they are littered with programmes that uncritically regurgitate government messages on public health. Scaremongering about the supposed obesity epidemic, while challenged by many researchers as over-hyped, is accepted as a given in programmes such as Supersize Kids on Channel 4, Fat Families on ITV or Chubby Children on Living TV.

But the doyen of all of them is St Jamie Oliver. The DoH must adore him. I rather agreed with Boris Johnson's swipe at the TV chef. I also cheered when a couple of mums from Rotherham rebelled and told Salad Boy to stop telling the nation's children (and their parents) what not to eat. The great and the good of politics, however, flocked to Jamie's defence. Perhaps one reason why a TV pundit seems to have become such an untouchable Messiah is because he - and a new breed of lifestyle "experts" - have become the saleable face of "health correctness" and the unwitting popularisers of the nanny state.

You can see why politicians enjoy the prospect of outsourcing their policy messages to TV presenters. Arguments that, when presented by politicians, might be unappetising become pukka when pushed by a trendy campaigning chef. Ms Flint could not get away with deriding ordinary parents as "f***ing tossers", even though this is the implicit message behind so many of new Labour's health promotion initiatives.

But while all governments use whatever means necessary to get their policy priorities into the nation's living rooms, broadcasters seem blind to the way their programmes mesh with Government propaganda. The BBC's recent Fat Nation, a "fully integrated pan-platform campaign" across television, radio and online services, admitted that, although "the nation is bombarded by messages . . . from the Government", too many individuals have concluded that the obesity warnings do not affect them personally. Therefore Fat Nation offered to help, presenting itself as a "motivational service" aiming "to provide guidance and raise the nation's awareness of the issues; to change attitudes of people . . . and to motivate them to change their behaviour through diet and exercise over an extended period".

In the commercial sector, the Government regulator, Ofcom, now run by Tony Blair's former media adviser, Ed Richards, is threatening draconian bans on advertisements for "junk food" aimed at children. This is despite Ofcom's own research indicating that such advertisements have only a "modest direct effect on children's food choice". Ironically, while there is no shortage of programmes about unhealthy kids, according to the TV industry's campaign Save Kids TV, the ban means that fewer programmes will be made for children because of the loss of income from advertising. Apparently children's creative undernourishment is unimportant as long as they get the right messages about fatty foods.

While there is a fashionable queasiness about the big bad corporations influencing children to adopt unhealthy lifestyles, there is little queasiness about TV delivering the Government's messages. Celebrity endorsements of crisps, cola and sugary food by the likes of Gary Lineker are denounced as a shocking manipulation of children's minds. But somehow it is not shockingly manipulative when the Food Standards Agency advocates that broadcasters use - guess what - celebrities and cartoon characters to sell children 5 A DAY (five portions of fruit or vegetables a day) messages.

BBC Worldwide uses CBBC characters such as the Teletubbies and the Frimbles to brand food products deemed nutritionally sound. It appears that Ofcom's problem is not about using cartoon characters or celebrities to influence children's diet or lifestyle per se. Rather, if they are to be used, they have to endorse the right diet and lifestyle. And what is "right" is increasingly dictated by the State.

Policy placement threatens journalistic integrity and political accountability. When policy issues are the focus of current affairs programmes, the journalists must adhere to strict guidelines of veracity. The Paxmans and Snows keep a rein on the wilder claims of politicians. Such stringent broadcasting criteria do not apply when policy messages are delivered through entertainment formats. Kris Murrin, presenter of the misanthropic Honey We're Killing the Kids, can get away with terrifying hapless parents into believing they are poisoning their offspring by letting them munch on a bag of crisps, without any cross-examination of her "facts". Where is the evidence to back up Sainsbury's poster boy's litany of ill-founded contemporary prejudices against modern food? Shouldn't St Jamie be challenged to explain how our digestive systems distinguish between the nutritional content of ciabatta with a drizzle of olive oil versus bread and dripping?

Policy placement is not just about diet. Just when Tony Blair focuses the domestic agenda on "the politics of behaviour", we have a flurry of reality TV shows about changing people's behaviour. The message is that private lives need mentoring and monitoring by third party "experts". The TV equivalent of the Government's Sure Start and Every Child Matters policies include Nanny 911 or Supernanny. As for the preoccupation with yobbish behaviour, Channel 4 has commissioned both Mind Your Manners and The Nightmares Next Door.

As Boris Johnson has found to his cost, challenging orthodoxies can get you into trouble. But it's time to drag the politicians out from behind the celebrity TV stars and hold both to account for the policies they peddle

Source



Walnuts 'combat unhealthy fats'

What next?



Eating walnuts at the end of a meal may help cut the damage that fatty food can do to the arteries, research suggests. It is thought that the nuts are rich in compounds that reduce hardening of the arteries, and keep them flexible. A team from Barcelona's Hospital Clinico recommend eating around eight walnuts a day.

The study, which appears in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, also showed walnuts had more health benefits than olive oil. The researchers recruited 24 adults, half with normal cholesterol levels, and half with levels that were moderately high to the research, which was partly funded by the California Walnut Commission. Each was given two high-fat salami and cheese meals, eaten one week apart. For one meal, the researchers added five teaspoons of olive oil. For the other, they added eight shelled walnuts.

Tests showed that both the olive oil and the walnuts helped to reduce the sudden onset of harmful inflammation and oxidation in arteries that follows a meal high in saturated fat. Over time, this is thought to cause the arteries to start to harden - and increase the risk of heart disease and stroke. However, unlike olive oil, adding walnuts also helped preserve the elasticity and flexibility of the arteries, regardless of cholesterol level. Arteries that are elastic can expand when needed to increase blood flow.

Lead researcher Dr Emilio Ros said eating high fat meals disrupted production of nitric oxide by the inner lining of the arteries, a chemical needed to keep blood vessels flexible. Walnuts contain arginine, an amino acid used by the body to produce nitric oxide. The nuts also contain antioxidants and alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), a plant-based omega-3 fatty acid with health giving properties.

Dr Ros is starting a new trial to see whether the ALA in walnuts can help people with abnormal heart rhythms. He warned against people assuming they can eat what they like so long as they accompany it with walnuts. "Instead, they should consider making walnuts part of a healthy diet that limits saturated fats."

Professor Robert Vogel, of University of Maryland in Baltimore, said: "This demonstrates that the protective fat from walnuts actually undoes some of the detrimental effects of a high-saturated-fat diet, whereas a neutral fat, such as olive oil, does not have as much protective ability. "This raises a very interesting issue because many people who eat a Mediterranean diet believe the olive oil is providing the benefits. "But this research and other data indicate that's not true. "There are probably other factors in the diet, including that it is a relatively rich source of nuts. "This is not to say that olive oil is bad, but it's not the key protective factor in the Mediterranean diet."

Source



American walnuts good for you too!

They have shown that eating lots of nuts changes your blood chemistry. The net effects of that are however speculative



A new research study from Loma Linda University (LLU) shows that adding just a handful of pecans to your diet each day may inhibit unwanted oxidation of blood lipids, thus helping reduce the risk of heart disease. Researchers suggest that this positive effect was in part due to the pecan's significant content of vitamin E. "Plant foods, including pecans, are rich sources of phytochemicals that can have a unique effect on the body," says LLU researcher Ella Haddad, DrPH, associate professor, department of nutrition, School of Public Health.

Pecans contain different forms of vitamin E - known as tocopherols - which protects fats from oxidation. Pecans are especially rich in one form of vitamin E - gamma tocopherol. "We found that eating pecans increased levels of gamma tocopherol concentrations in the blood and subsequently reduced a marker of lipid oxidation," adds Dr. Haddad. Oxidation of fats in the blood - a process akin to rusting - is detrimental to health. When the "bad" cholesterol becomes oxidized, it is more likely to build up and result in arteriosclerosis.

These latest research findings on pecan's healthfulness were published in the latest issue of Nutrition Research, just released this week. They are from the second phase of a research project designed to evaluate the health benefits of pecans, according to Dr. Haddad. She analyzed blood samples from study participants (a total of 23 men and women between the ages of 25 and 55) who ate two diets: one that contained pecans and one that did not. Participants were randomly placed on either the American Heart Association's Step I diet or a pecan-enriched version of the Step I diet. (The pecan-enriched diet was similar to the Step I diet but replaced 20 percent of calories with pecans). After four weeks on one diet, they then switched to the other diet.

In the laboratory analysis of blood samples from the research subjects, Dr. Haddad's team found that the pecan-enriched diets significantly reduced lipid oxidation (by 7.4 percent) versus the Step I diet. Oxidation levels were evaluated using the TBARS test, which measures oxidation products. The researchers also found that blood levels of tocopherols were higher after participants were on the pecan diet. Cholesterol-adjusted plasma gamma-tocopherol in the study participants' blood samples increased by 10.1 percent (P < .001) after eating the pecan diet. The researchers concluded that these data provide some evidence for potential protective effects of pecan consumption in healthy individuals.

Another key research finding, beyond the reduced level of blood lipid oxidation, was that the various phytochemicals found in pecans seem to be protective of the pecan's high levels of unsaturated fat. All unsaturated fats in foods can be prone to oxidation themselves (which some may describe in foods as rancidity). So, did eating pecans lead to an increased risk of oxidation? No, according to this analysis, which found that pecans, while high in unsaturated fat, are "self-protective" due to their vitamin E content (tocopherols) and relatively high content of complex phytonutrients, some of which have been identified as proanthocyanidins, or condensed tannins, which are recognized for their ability to slow the oxidation process. "We concluded that even though the pecan diet was high in unsaturated fats, which one may think would increase blood oxidation, that did not happen. We found the opposite result: the pecan diet showed reduced oxidation of blood lipids," states Dr. Haddad.

The dramatic initial research findings from this research project were published earlier in The Journal of Nutrition by LLU's Joan Sabate, MD, DrPH, professor and chair, department of nutrition, School of Public Health. He found that the pecan-enriched diet lowered levels of LDL cholesterol by 16.5 percent - more than twice as much as the Step I diet. Similarly, the pecan-enriched diet lowered total cholesterol levels by 11.3 percent (also twice as much as the Step I diet).

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? [/sarcasm].

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



13 October, 2006

ECCENTRIC PROFESSOR CAUTIOUSLY DEFENDS MACCAS AND GM FOODS!

And points out the follies and dubious ethics of the Greenie "food mile" brainstorm



'I want a pig that's had a happy life," a gourmet friend of mine declared to a local butcher recently. Like him, you are probably concerned about your family's health and aware of your food shopping's impact on the environment. You dip into farmers' markets and buy organic. You are suspicious of GM crops and worried about food miles. Peter Singer has a term to describe you: conscientious omnivore. With his new book, Eating: What We Eat and Why it Matters, the Australian philosopher also brings a challenge. As a conscientious omnivore you are a little like McDonald's: you have improved your food habits a bit but you could do an awful lot more.

Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton University in the US and author of Animal Liberation, the seminal treatise that sparked the animal rights movement more than 30 years ago, has written, with co-author Jim Mason, not about healthy eating but the ethics of eating. The pair examine how the purchases made by three American families (a price-conscious family of supermarket shoppers, a middle-class family of conscientious omnivores and a family of vegans) affect the people, animals and the environment from which the food came.

Beginning as a familiar - if powerful - critique of industrial farming and the "fallacy" of cheap food, Singer and Mason provide unusually forthright guidance for consumers struggling with the ethical minefield that is the modern food shopping trip [How pathetic! How about the ethical minefield of pandering to vicious Islamics?]. Confusing labels, disingenuous producers, conflicting research and the lack of any kind of system to weigh up the merits of, say, food miles versus organic: the time-poor consumer can easily be overwhelmed by the effort of right-thinking. Singer, who became vegetarian after meeting a graduate who refused spaghetti bolognaise in an Oxford University canteen 36 years ago, says the first ethical step meat-eaters should take is to buy organic. With US consumers spending 6% of their income on groceries compared with 17% 50 years ago, everyone should pay more for their food, he says.

"Food is absurdly cheap by all historical standards," he says. "There has never been an era in human history when people have been able to feed themselves for so few hours of work as we can today in the developed world. That cheapness has come at a price. It has imposed costs on animals, on the environment and on workers in the food industry."

Eating is not a rant against big corporations. Singer's arguments are a challenge to knee-jerk antiglobalisation campaigners for whom McDonald's is an unmitigated evil. Trapped in a small town and forced to choose an independent takeaway or the golden arches, Singer would plump for the latter (as his book points out, in the US, McDonald's has insisted its eggs come from hens given more space than the legal minimum, among other "ethical" innovations). "The fact that a big chain has a national and international reputation to protect means they need to be a bit more cautious about what they are doing than someone who has no brand and is not going to suffer from any kind of disclosure," he says. In this country, Singer dishes out praise for Marks & Spencer and Waitrose for banning battery eggs from their shelves. Big corporations are not intrinsically unethical. "I see big corporations as following what consumers will buy. If you have sufficiently educated consumers, you can get ethical food from big corporations."

Singer makes a compelling argument against cheap food. But what about time? Trapped in market capitalism, don't we simply lack the hours to source our food ethically? He thinks we can choose to spend more time on food shopping and says the growth of farmers' markets shows that some people are treating it as "a recreational activity". While recent reports have exposed fraudulent mislabelling of meats and other produce on farmers' markets, Singer is a big fan and sees them as a chance to chat to producers and even perform your own farm inspection. "You can say, 'Can I come and see your farm?' and if they say no you should be suspicious. If they say yes, that's a good sign but you should try and take them up on it." He accepts, however, that consumers cannot do it all themselves and must be helped by a tough regulatory framework.

He offers some sharp thinking on issues that have traditionally bamboozled conscientious omnivores. Genetically modified crops are not dismissed as evil foods. "I don't have a general ideological objection to GM. I don't think there is anything intrinsically wrong with altering the genetic nature of beans," he says, accepting there are hazards but arguing it is not always best to apply the precautionary principle. "The difficulty here is that some of the benefits that advocates of GM talk about are significant. They may benefit developing countries. And they may lead to ways of reducing pesticide use."

On the fashionable preoccupation with food miles, Singer also offers some clear - and sometimes surprising - guidance. He argues that it is better at times to support agriculture in developing countries than "selfishly" protect local farmers. "Not all miles are the same. Miles by ship are not nearly as bad as miles by truck, and miles by truck are not nearly as bad as miles by plane. Something to be said in favour of supermarkets and centralised distribution systems is you can make one trip to the supermarket and buy your stuff there. If you are going to drive around the countryside in your four-wheel drive to pick up a dozen free-range eggs here and then pick up a lettuce there, you have probably run up more miles than a truck would." Is it better to support developing economies over the local economy? "I don't see why we should favour British farmers over Kenyan farmers just because they are British. We should favour farmers who most need economic support to make a living, and that's likely to be developing-world countries."

More alfalfa male than alpha male, Singer makes clear that the red-blooded west's hunger for meat cannot be replicated globally. A carnivorous lifestyle is unsustainable: there isn't enough land to farm meat for all. One moral rule he suggests is to eat meat only from a farm you have visited. Most people would therefore conclude it is simpler to avoid meat. Is Singer arguing that, ultimately, veganism is the only ethically defensible position? "I wouldn't phrase it in such absolute terms. It's pretty difficult to be a conscientious omnivore and avoid all the ethical problems, but if you really were thorough-going in eating only animals that had had good lives, that could be a defensible ethical position. It's not my position, but I wouldn't be critical of someone who was that conscientious about it."

When he is visiting London, as he is now, Singer enjoys dining at the (modest) Soho vegetarian restaurant Govindas. Is dining in a fancy restaurant ever ethically OK? "I don't think there is something objectionable as such to eating out. It is good to talk to the people in the restaurants about where their food comes from and let them know their customers are interested in whether it is organically produced." Do people eat out too much? "Yes. A lot of fine dining is really a kind of gluttony or status-seeking. When people go out for a meal and spend something that could have fed a family in Africa for three months that strikes me as something that is not defensible." So is eating for pleasure ever defensible? Singer smiles. "I'm not that much of a puritan. Gee, I think pleasure is a good thing. I just wish that everybody, animals included, could experience more pleasure in their lives and less suffering"

Source



RED WINE BEATS ALZHEIMERS

Being very partial to a good Australian red, I won't criticize this study!

A little red wine every day could be exactly what the doctor ordered. A new study reveals moderate consumption of Cabernet Sauvignon actually prevents an Alzheimer's-like disease in mice. Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York wanted to know if the FDA's recommended servings of red wine per day, approximately one glass for women and two glasses for men, would have the same effect on health previous studies and surveys of populations have shown in the past. "We wanted to get as close as possible to the human condition," says researcher Giulio Maria Pasinetti, M.D., director of the Neuroinflammation Research Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He and his colleagues gave mice that mimic Alzheimer's disease the equivalent of once glass of Cabernet Sauvignon a day.

What the researchers discovered was that one glass of red wine a day was all the mice needed to get significant brain-protecting benefits. "Moderation is the key word, otherwise you lose all the benefit," says Dr. Pasinetti.

Researchers also report that they now have a better idea of what in the wine is so good for us. It's all thanks to the effects the chemicals in wine have on amyloid precursor protein, which is the stuff that hardens into plaques in the brain, causing Alzheimer's. The red wine chemicals seem to keep that from happening. "One of the mechanisms that red wine might have in attenuating memory function is indeed through this kind of mechanism by preventing the formation of more complex structures of soluble structures," says Dr. Pasinetti. Which means red wine can even help prevent or lessen age-related memory loss in people without Alzheimer's. That's because the amyloid precursor protein is in everyone's brain. Any time it comes together in any kind of structure, the brain works less efficiently.

The Cabernet Sauvignon used in this study, however, is no ordinary wine. Food science and human nutrition researcher Susan Percival at the University of Florida in Gainesville created a special Cabernet Sauvignon in the lab. Because the wine from any old vineyard can change from vintage to vintage, she created a wine that would remain consistent for lab studies like Dr. Pasinetti's.

Dr. Pasinetti says with this research scientists are one step closer to understanding the exact molecule that is responsible for protecting memory ... and closer to synthesizing that molecule in a lab where it can be used to create drugs that would prevent or even cure Alzheimer's.

Source



The incorrectness of Coke again: "There was something oddly edifying about showing up to the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) dual protest of a Starbucks and Landmark Cinema in Berkeley, Calif., last month, and being instantly recruited to help hoist the Dignity and Respect for the Working Class banner. "Your Fellow Worker's arm is tired," one of the black-clad protestors implored me and I answered the call. How could I not? It had that "Wow, political romantics don't immediately recognize you as a killjoy" ring to it. A reach for a revitalizing swig of Diet Coke, however, almost brought solidarity to a crashing end. One of my fellow sign holders literally gasped. I might as well have shown up to a Christian Coalition meeting with a bag full of recently aborted fetuses. "You buy that?" he asked accusingly, sighing to someone behind him when I nodded, "Get him some literature." Moments later a Killer Coke handbill-"Murder...It's the Real Thing"-was thrust into my hand. A couple dirty looks confirmed that whatever sheen I may have had was significantly dulled"

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

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? [/sarcasm].

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



12 October, 2006

Anti-Alzheimers diet?

The sample of sufferers was small and atypical (drawn from "2,258 community-based nondemented individuals in New York") so one can only hope that the Alzheimer's claims for the Mediterranean diet are better founded than the longevity claims

Earing a Mediterranean diet and cooking with olive oil can help to prevent Alzheimer's disease, scientists say. Those who eat lots of fruit, vegetables, whole grains, fish and drink a moderate amount of red wine are 68 per cent less likely to suffer Alzheimer's than those who do not. The findings add to the growing evidence that Mediterranean food is good for health.

The diet has already been associated with a longer life [See below] and can help to stave off cancer, obesity and coronary heart disease, but its effect against Alzheimer's appears to work independently, scientists at the Columbia University Medical Centre, New York, said. About 500,000 people in Britain suffer from Alzheimer's disease, which causes memory loss, mood changes and death.

The Columbia team studied nearly 1,984 adults, checking them for signs of dementia every 18 months and assessing their eating habits. At the start, 194 had Alzheimer's and by the end 89 more had developed the disease. The participants, whose average age was 76, were given a score between 0 and 9 on how closely they stuck to a Mediterranean diet, and were divided into three groups according to their score. Those in the top group, who stuck most closely to a Mediterranean diet, were 68 per cent less likely to get the disease compared with those in the bottom third. Those in the middle group were 53 per cent less likely to get Alzheimer's than the bottom third.

Writing in Archives of Neurology, a journal of the American Medical Association, the scientists said that for each additional point scored, the risk of Alzheimer's decreased by 19 to 24 per cent. The trends held true even after taking into account the participant's age, gender, ethnic background, weight and smoking history. The diet's effect on individuals with vascular diseases - such as stroke, heart disease and diabetes - suggested that it might work through specific pathways to reduce Alzheimer's disease.

The Mediterranean diet was first claimed in the 1950s to be behind the long life expectancy of southern Europeans. In 2004 a team of Dutch researchers found that among the elderly, the diet was linked with a 23 per cent lower risk of death over ten years. Statistics from the European Union say that Greeks stick most closely to the ideal Mediterranean diet, followed by the Spanish, Italians and French. Britons came fifth, ahead of Danes and Germans

Source

Australia is a long way from the Mediterranean and so is the typical Australian diet (hamburgers, steak, sausages, Coke, chips, meat-pies etc.). So it is odd that the life expectancy of Australians is 75.6 for men and 81.3 for women. In good old Mediterranean Greece it is a MUCH longer: 76.3 for men and 81.6 for women. Less than a year's difference in both cases. And asserting that the small difference is solely due to diet would be sheer dogmatism. For a start, Greeks are much more rural than Australians -- who are overwhelmingly big-city dwellers -- and country lifestyles are often associated with longevity. The journal abstract follows:

Mediterranean diet and risk for Alzheimer's disease

By: Scarmeas, N et al.

OBJECTIVE: Previous research in Alzheimer's disease (AD) has focused on individual dietary components. There is converging evidence that composite dietary patterns such as the Mediterranean diet (MeDi) is related to lower risk for cardiovascular disease, several forms of cancer, and overall mortality. We sought to investigate the association between MeDi and risk for AD.

METHODS: A total of 2,258 community-based nondemented individuals in New York were prospectively evaluated every 1.5 years. Adherence to the MeDi (zero- to nine-point scale with higher scores indicating higher adherence) was the main predictor in models that were adjusted for cohort, age, sex, ethnicity, education, apolipoprotein E genotype, caloric intake, smoking, medical comorbidity index, and body mass index.

RESULTS: There were 262 incident AD cases during the course of 4 (+/-3.0; range, 0.2-13.9) years of follow-up. Higher adherence to the MeDi was associated with lower risk for AD (hazard ratio, 0.91; 95% confidence interval, 0.83-0.98; p=0.015). Compared with subjects in the lowest MeDi tertile, subjects in the middle MeDi tertile had a hazard ratio of 0.85 (95% confidence interval, 0.63-1.16) and those at the highest tertile had a hazard ratio of 0.60 (95% confidence interval, 0.42-0.87) for AD (p for trend=0.007).

INTERPRETATION: We conclude that higher adherence to the MeDi is associated with a reduction in risk for AD.

MORE BRITISH PISSING INTO THE WIND

They prohibit or prevent almost all outdoors activity at schools on "safety" grounds so that the kids get no exercise -- and then they think that can all be fixed by handing out free vegetables!! It's like a comic opera!

Vouchers for milk, fruit, vegetables and vitamins are to be handed out to pregnant women and the parents of young children as part of moves to improve the health of the nation. The scheme, announced yesterday, replaces an initiative introduced during the Second World War under which young children were given free milk.

It came as a report released by the Department of Health revealed that Britain is the fattest country in Europe, with one in seven children obese. Caroline Flint, the Public Health Minister, announced the voucher scheme as she issued a statistical profile of England designed to highlight health blackspots. The profile breaks England into regions and shows a strong North-South divide on health, with people in the North East dying two years earlier on average than those in the South West. Vouchers are to be distributed from next month to parents on benefits to encourage them to give their children healthier diets. Ms Flint hopes that this will make it easier for the poorest sectors of society to buy fruit and vegetables.

The Government is already campaigning for people to eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. Fewer than a quarter do so and the consumption of healthy food in Britain is below the European average. A pilot voucher scheme carried out in Devon and Cornwall found that fruit and vegetable intake increased and the range of products stocked by rural grocers improved. Ms Flint said: “It’s a reinvigoration of the Welfare Food Scheme. Since the Second World War, vouchers for milk have been available. Now the vouchers can be used for milk, fruit, vegetables and vitamins. “We’ve found parents are buying the fruit and vegetables and small retailers in rural parts are bringing in more fruit and vegetables.”

Under the scheme, pregnant woman will receive 2.80 pounds a week. Parents will receive 5.60 a week for each child under a year old and 2.80 for each child aged 1 to 5. The vouchers will be redeemable at a range of grocery stores and supermarkets.

Ms Flint said that obesity was the largest problem faced by public health professionals, with 14.3 per cent of children aged 2 to 10 classified as obese. She suggested that supermarkets could help to improve the national diet by showing customers how to cook and eat more unusual fruit and vegetables.

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? [/sarcasm].

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



11 October, 2006

BREAST FEEDING STOPS OBESITY?

Breast-feeding may be another weapon in the war against childhood obesity. New research in the journal Diabetes Care shows that children who are breast-fed as infants are less likely to become obese as they get older, regardless of whether their mothers are overweight or diabetic. The study included 15,253 boys and girls aged 9 to 14. Children and their mothers were surveyed to determine current height and weight, as well as the method of feeding used in the first six months of life.

Overall, 6.7 per cent of the children were overweight and another 13.4 per cent were considered "at risk" for becoming overweight. Compared with the exclusive use of formula, exclusive breast-feeding in the first six months reduced the risk of childhood obesity by 34 per cent. This reduction was seen even if the mother was overweight or diabetic.

Journal abstract follows. It may be noted that the weight averages for the various groups of children are not given -- suggesting to a skeptic that the differences were small or inconsistent:

Breast-Feeding and Risk for Childhood Obesity

By Elizabeth J. Mayer-Davis et al.

OBJECTIVE— We sought to evaluate whether maternal diabetes or weight status attenuates a previously reported beneficial effect of breast-feeding on childhood obesity.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS— Growing Up Today Study (GUTS) participants were offspring of women who participated in the Nurses’ Health Study II. In the present study, 15,253 girls and boys (aged 9–14 years in 1996) were included. Maternal diabetes and weight status and infant feeding were obtained by maternal self-report. We defined maternal overweight as BMI of ~25 kg/m2. Childhood obesity, from self-reported height and weight, was based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention definitions as normal, at risk for overweight, or overweight. Maternal status categories were nondiabetes/normal weight, nondiabetes/overweight, or diabetes. Logistic regression models used generalized estimating equations to account for nonindependence between siblings.

RESULTS— For all subjects combined, breast-feeding was associated with reduced overweight (compared with normal weight) in childhood. Compared with exclusive use of formula, the odds ratio (OR) for exclusive breast-feeding was 0.66 (95% CI 0.53–0.82), adjusted for age, sex, and Tanner stage. Results did not differ according to maternal status (nondiabetes/normal weight OR 0.73 [95% CI 0.49–1.09]; nondiabetes/overweight 0.75 [0.57–0.99]; and diabetes 0.62 [0.24–1.60]). Further adjustment for potential confounders attenuated results, but results remained consistent across strata of maternal status (P value for interaction was 0.50).

CONCLUSIONS— Breast-feeding was inversely associated with childhood obesity regardless of maternal diabetes status or weight status. These data provide support for all mothers to breast-feed their infants to reduce the risk for childhood overweight.

U.K.: FOOD FADDISTS HURT CHILDREN'S TV

Is independent children's television about to be starved out of existence by a ban on junk-food advertising? I have come to that high temple of British television - the BAFTA building in central London - to talk to Anna Home, award-winning children's TV producer and now leading light of the Save Children's TV campaign.

The home of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), near Piccadilly Circus, looks like it could do with some junk-food advertising revenue of its own. If it endorsed a few Big Macs it might look a little less shoddy. The brown checked carpets clash with the marbled walls, which clash with the white porthole lights and the MFI fixtures and bamboo shutters. The shiny, silver elevator shouts at the gold-coloured handrails, greasy with fingerprints. On the first floor there's a videogame convention, which means that fresher's fayre-style direction boards litter the hallways and game-dignitaries are wandering around wearing red necktags. Perhaps this distinct lack of flash, dazzle and glitz at the heart of British TV suggests why independent TV producers and junk-food advertisers have been roundly trounced by the food lobby in the battle for the soul of kids' television: they're just not coordinated enough.

Anna Home, a BAFTA-winning producer and former head of Children's BBC, sits in the middle of the caf‚. She is coordinated: a haven of good sense and quiet expertise, resolutely refusing to be enticed into sensationalism. For example, does she agree with Jonathon Peel of Millimages UK, that the `difficulty with the food lobby is it's a bit like the Taliban. You can't really talk to them, they have just one view and there's no negotiation'? Her reply is tempered: `I think [the anti-junk food lobbyists] are a very efficient group of people. They're professional lobbyists and within the broadcasting industry, we are not. Behaving like the Taliban is perhaps a little extreme..

`I don't think any of us want our kids to grow up on junk food. On the other hand, if you're going to take away an important source of funding, and take it away very fast, then I think you've got to think about what you're going to do to replace it. If it could be phased out gradually - like tobacco advertising was - and give people time to think about how to find alternative funding, that would make a lot more sense.'

The Save Children's TV campaign is a coalition of parents, producers, artists, educators and others who are `concerned about screen-based media for children in the UK'. Their aim is to get both the government and broadcasting regulators to recognise and acknowledge that good children's TV programming is important and valuable - and encourage them to devise new forms of funding to replace the `revenue which will be lost if advertising is restricted'. Because what those Taliban-esque - sorry, efficient lobbyists against junk-food advertising seem not to understand, is that their campaign against such advertising may ostensibly shield children's eyes from apparently evil ads for Happy Meals, but it will also end up shielding them from any British-made programming. As revenue falls, fewer new and independent productions will be made, and children's TV will no longer be taken very seriously.

Home has no illusions about what is going on at ITV, which recently declared that it will massively cut its children's programming. `It's not a terribly happy scenario', she says. `The [advertising] ban gives ITV even more reason not to commission children's television.' She points out that ITV hasn't commissioned a new programme `for over a year', and, as a result, `children's commissioning has gone downhill smartly'. She believes that the lapse in ITV's output `is having a very serious impact on the balance of children's programming and on the industry as a whole, in terms of those independent producers who make children's programmes. It means there's only one real outlet: the BBC, which still makes a lot of its own programmes in-house. And [the BBC's] commissioning budgets are going down as well.'

Is Home worried that the BBC, without the old competition from ITV, will go further down the route of producing government-friendly children's programmes that communicate `correct' messages on everything from environmentalism to healthy eating? Already, programmes like Newsround and Blue Peter seem to come saturated with `save the environment' initiatives and Jamie Oliver-sounding items on what sort of food children should be eating.

`There has always been a tendency for that', says Home. `When we first started Grange Hill it was perceived as very dangerous, very anti-authority, anti-teacher, all those kinds of things. But gradually, when it became successful, people became aware of how many kids it was getting to, and getting to in their own terms. You could feel pressure coming to run certain kinds of storylines.'

Blue Peter and suchlike have `always run campaigns, it's part of their ethos', she says: `But I think it's certainly not something you want to overdo. I don't think you should be getting children to spend their lives being worthy.. And I think that some broadcasters have put on healthy programmes in an attempt to validate themselves.' This, she says, often does not make for very good television.

At the BBC Home started out as a researcher on a programme `which eventually became Playschool' in 1965. From there she developed Jackanory, before moving into children's drama and commissioning many award-winning and enduringly popular shows, including Grange Hill. She moved to ITV for six years in the 1980s before returning to the BBC as head of Children's TV, when she commissioned a revival of the Sunday teatime `classic' in the shape of The Chronicles of Narnia. Just before her retirement she commissioned Teletubbies, to the chagrin of some parents who wanted their children to be taught to speak by the TV set, but to the delight of the nation's tots and skiving teenagers. Teletubbies, of course, became both a national and international smash. Home describes it as `very exciting. it was a completely new breakthrough in kid's programming'.

Some criticised Teletubbies for explicitly targeting very young children. Was it right to expose toddlers to the apparently toxic effects of TV? Shouldn't they `watch with mother' rather than watching weird creatures on their own? The notion that independent viewing is new is misleading, says Home. `Children have always watched television on their own. Yes, the set was in the living room and you had this concept of all the family watching together.but children used to watch children's programmes, adults used to watch adult programmes. Children now have TV sets in their bedrooms and so adults know less what's going on than they did, but even so, I don't think it's changed that much.'

Home admits that not everything currently produced in children's TV is high-quality, but a little junk is no sinister thing, she says. `There's always been dross. There's a great children's writer called Peter Dickinson, who made a terrific speech at a children's literary conference called "In defence of rubbish". He said that in every child's diet of reading, there is a place for rubbish. And I think that's true of television. After all, grown-ups are allowed to enjoy rubbish television - why shouldn't kids?'

The same, perhaps, could be said of the junk food that has precipitated the crisis in the first place: a little bit of junk food is no sinister thing, either. Does she think the proposed bans on junk-food advertising will stop kids consuming junk food? `No.'

Unfortunately, she will not be drawn to comment further. The most persuasive thing about Home is her directness, her brevity, her lack of flurry. `I don't ever want programmes to be "good" for children. That's not what it's about. When I was a programme maker or commissioner, I didn't think it was part of my job to do "good" TV, but TV they would enjoy. Yes, what would expand their minds, what would give them new ideas and new visions, but not necessarily something that was "good" for them.'

So, what does she think will be the future of children's TV in Britain? `In the next 10 years..' She pauses. `We could have some terrific mixed-quality channels including the best of British and from abroad - or you could have North American-dominated, virtually non-stop, nothing but cartoons.' If the former is to win out against the latter, people will need `to become aware that there is a great value not in doing "good" TV, but a value for children's media as a "good thing" in and of itself.'

Ultimately, Home thinks we should `set a balance': `I'm all for [children] having freedom, which at the moment is increasingly limited because of the climate we live in.where parents are very frightened of allowing kids to run free. But I don't think they should be out with bare knees and pullovers all day and all the time, and I think television is good because it gives children, who are increasingly confined, a window on other worlds. And, also, it can talk to them about their own society in their own terms.'

Source



Dangerous lettuce now! "Less than a week after the Food and Drug Administration lifted its warning on fresh spinach grown in the Salinas Valley in California, a popular brand of lettuce grown there was recalled on Sunday over concerns about E. coli contamination. The lettuce does not appear to have caused any illnesses, said the president of the grower, the Nunes Company. The recall comes amid warnings that some brands of spinach, bottled carrot juice and recent shipments of beef could cause health risks. Executives ordered the recall after learning that irrigation water may have been contaminated with E. coli, said Tom Nunes Jr., president of the company. The company has not found E. coli bacteria in the lettuce itself, Mr. Nunes said. “We’re just reacting to a water test only,” he said. “We know there’s generic E. coli on it, but we’re not sure what that means."

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

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? [/sarcasm].

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



10 October, 2006

Mums who sell junk food? Arrest them

In London last night, mayor Ken Livingstone outlined his radical agenda for punishing parents who dare to eat 'unethical food'.

"If I was running the schools, you’d have had all that crap out of the schools right away. They’d have had good healthy food. And you’d arrest the mums passing junk food through the school fence"

This was not some crank caller to a radio phone-in, but London mayor Ken Livingstone speaking last night at the Hay Festival event ‘The Ethical Food Debate’ at London’s Garrick Theatre. Even more disturbingly, he was wildly applauded. This could only laughably be described as a ‘debate’, since all four panellists – and most of the audience – were quite in agreement about the need to protect the environment, eat organic, avoid chemicals and reduce ‘food miles’.

Despite the title, the debate wasn’t particularly about food. Led by Sheila Dillon, presenter of BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme, it was really all about education, markets, transport, obesity and GM crops – and what policies would be needed to foist the prejudices of the gathered company on to the population at large, who apparently must be saved from themselves.

While Ken was saving the kids, Keith Abel – co-founder of organic food delivery company Abel & Cole – thought it was the Third World that needed rescuing from agribusiness. ‘There are currently around one-and-a-half billion subsistence farmers in the world, who are being told by the chemical industry that they need to either adopt their GM crops or start covering them in artificial fertilisers so they can all move into shanty towns and live as prostitutes.’ So if you think that Third World farmers might actually be keen to modernise their farming methods, and in the process make their lives a bit easier and more fruitful, think again. According to Abel, modernisation is a risky business and agribusiness companies are the moral equivalent of people-traffickers.

Abel argued that kids here at home need protecting, too. ‘I’ve got two little monkeys of primary-school age.… I think there are a number of very straightforward things we can do to prevent these vulnerable little beings being taught the wrong way.’ Specifically, he called for junk food advertising aimed at young children to be banned.

Meanwhile, Jenny Jones, Green Party councillor and former deputy mayor, argued that the main challenges are how to reduce London’s ‘ecological footprint’ and also reduce food poverty. She claimed that six per cent of Londoners go to bed hungry. That may be true, but perhaps they might be better served by better pay and benefits rather than Jones running a mission to provide them with organic vegetables, locally sourced.

The fourth member of the panel, former Masterchef winner Thomasina Miers, didn’t seem to be terribly well-informed or insightful. Her main policy suggestion was that the government should ‘do something’. But then, being ill-informed didn’t seem to be much of a barrier to participating in this debate.

Livingstone, for example, showed that he was a dab hand at elevating personal prejudice into established scientific fact. His opening statement, on why he thought food was an ethical issue, was a list of deeply dubious ‘facts’ that encapsulated every green scare of our time. There was his claim that ‘the smallest amount of artificial or toxic substances can cause all sorts of problems, not just cancers but everything else’; his comments that pollution was much worse today because ‘I grew up in the postwar world where it was heavy, dirty old soot you could wash away – now it’s particulates and nitrous oxoids [sic] which are just getting worse and worse’; and his assertion that all this ‘goes a long way to explaining the huge increase in kids in asthma and eczema and hayfever’.

In truth, very small amounts of chemicals are harmless. Even deadly poisons in the quantities in which pesticide residues occur – parts per million – would cause no injury. But pesticides are not deadly poisons; they are selected because they are harmful to pests rather than humans. We consume far more naturally-occurring poisons than pesticides or other manmade chemicals. As Bruce Ames and Lois Swirsky Gold note elsewhere on spiked ‘The natural chemicals that are known rodent carcinogens in a single cup of coffee are about equal in weight to a year’s worth of ingested synthetic pesticide residues that are rodent carcinogens.’ (1) And London’s air used to be thick with particulates at levels more than 10 times greater than today before first smokeless fuels and then alternative forms of heating were introduced. During the Great Smog of 1953 they were 1,000 times their normal levels today (2).

Livingstone also claimed that the ‘tipping point for irreversible climate change is most probably four or five years away at most’, which apparently means we need to crack down on agribusiness now, because agribusiness is a ‘disproportionate’ generator of carbon emissions and ‘food miles’.

Normally, I don’t like to criticise people for their backgrounds; after all, they can’t help it, and I prefer to challenge their ideas. But when audience members like Rosie and Henrietta joined with Thomasina to tell us how ‘we’ – the decent right-thinking middle classes – could protect the poor, the blacks and the children, it was more than I could stomach. Panellists and audience members seemed to believe that the masses are too stupid to treat junk-food advertising with a pinch of salt, and too feckless to feed their children properly. The proper approach to food, as exemplified by Livingstone, is to wrap yourself up in ethical knots about which food has the least-worst balance of food miles and pesticides while still being ‘fairtrade’ and avoiding supermarkets.

Fortunately, I am a man of direct action. So after the insufferable non-debate finished, my partner and I adjourned to a nearby pizza chain for mass-produced convenience food, the ingredients of which may well have been produced in pesticide-soaked fields and flown thousands of miles to my plate.

Source



A myth that deceived Britain's out-of-touch Leftist elite

Nursing Standard magazine has revealed how Caroline Flint, the Public Health Minister, told a fringe meeting at the Labour conference that pregnant teenagers now smoke to try to reduce the size of their babies, in order to make delivery less painful. This has sparked up an earnest debate, with Ms Flint saying that young women must be educated to learn that “smoking is not the answer, pain relief is” (she might try teaching that to the “natural birth” zealots among Britain’s midwives).

Ms Flint admitted she had heard these horror stories only “anecdotally”. Anybody with an ear in the real world would surely have known straightaway that such tales are an urban myth. Presumably these girls who smoke to shrink their babies are the same ones who get pregnant from toilet seats and forcefeed their toddlers chips through a teat.

Worse, this story is, literally, a joke. My wife reports that, ever since health warnings about having a fag while having a baby began, pregnant women whom she knows have been joking with each other about taking up smoking to make childbirth less painful. No doubt you have to be there, in full hormonal bloom, to see how funny it is. Call it labour-ward humour.

This is a sign of how far out-of-touch ministers and health experts are with those whom they patronise as “ordinary people”. Behind all their touchy-feely talk of “inclusion”, these social engineers retain a deeply contemptuous view of young working-class women as the fag-end of society.

The chief executive of the National Childbirth Trust responded to Ms Flint’s claim by saying, presumably with a straight face: “We are bringing up our young women very fearful of labour.” Those who retain a sense of humour on this subject can fill in your own punchline.

Source



Treatment 'to neutralise all flu'



Scientists say they are developing an entirely new way of providing instant protection against flu. In preliminary tests, it was found to protect animals against various strains of the virus - and may also protect against future pandemic strains.

University of Warwick researchers used a flu virus naturally stripped of some genetic material to compete with other invading flu viruses. This slowed the rate of infection so much the body could fight it off. In effect, the invading virus became its own vaccine by triggering an immune response sufficiently powerful to neutralise it before it could gain a strong enough foothold.

The Warwick team plan to develop the treatment as a nasal spray. Experts warned much more testing was required. However, they said the development of the vaccine was timely, amid concerns the H5N1 bird flu strain circulating in south east Asia could mutate into a pandemic strain which would put millions of lives at risk.

Existing vaccination methods depend on stimulating the body's immune system, so that white blood cells produce antibodies that attach to the surface of the virus and start the process of killing it. This works well for many diseases, such as smallpox, polio and measles, but is much less effective with flu, as the coat of the flu virus is continually changing. Vaccination against one strain of flu is totally ineffective against another.

Professor Nigel Dimmock has spent more than two decades developing the new approach. The "protecting virus" with which he worked had naturally lost around 80% of the genetic material of one of its eight RNA constituent segments. This deletion makes the virus harmless and prevents it from reproducing by itself within a cell, so that it cannot spread like a normal influenza virus. However, if it is joined in the cell by another influenza virus, it retains its harmless nature but starts to reproduce - and at a much faster rate than the new influenza virus. This fast reproduction rate - spurred by the new flu infection - means that the new invading influenza is effectively crowded out. This vastly slows the progress of the new infection, prevents flu symptoms, and gives the body time to develop an immune response to the harmful new invader.

The Warwick team believes its research indicates the protecting virus would have the same effect regardless of the strain of flu infection. This is because the coat of the virus is irrelevant to the protection process - the effect works on the virus genes inside the cell. In addition it protects instantly, whereas protection generated by conventional flu vaccination takes two to three weeks to become fully effective. Experiments so far show that a single dose of protecting virus can be given six weeks before, and 24 hours after an infection with flu virus and be effective.

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? [/sarcasm].

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



9 October, 2006

New brain injury drug

A sleeping pill credited with the miraculous recovery of comatose patients overseas is giving new hope to victims in Australia. The drug zolpidem, marketed in Australia as Stilnox, is commonly prescribed as a treatment for insomnia. But after several bizarre cases, where a drug that should make people fall asleep instead roused them from a deep coma, it is being hailed as a "miracle pill".

The first case involved a car accident victim in South Africa, who amazed doctors in 1999 when he awoke from a five-year coma after his GP prescribed zolpidem as a sedative to treat persistent bouts of restlessness. Several similar cases have since been recorded in South Africa and a clinical trial is under way, with the drug given to almost 200 patients with varying degrees of brain injury. It is thought that when used on coma patients, zolpidem may activate dormant brain tissue next to damaged brain tissue, leading to patients waking up.

Australian brain-injury surgeons, support groups and patients' families are pushing for Australian research to assess for use on coma patients. Brisbane-based neurosurgeon Terry Coyne said the drug had the potential to help a huge number of coma patients. "There are a lot of people who survive brain injuries and remain in a persistent vegetative state, so there is a potential target population if there is a proven benefit from the treatment and no adverse affect," Dr Coyne said. "It is something that is promising . . . and it could be great."

Brain Injury Association of Queensland spokesman John Dickinson said the latest discovery had given hope to victims' families. "Every day, you stand vigil over your son or daughter, waiting for them to wake up," Mr Dickinson said. "The emotional cost to the family is enormous. The level of stress and anguish is unimaginable, so any medication that would assist somebody to wake up earlier, for that reason alone, there is a lot to be gained by pursuing it."

The drug has been shown to significantly improve speech, motor functions and concentration in stroke victims, head injury victims and oxygen-deprived patients, such as near-drowning cases.

The father of one coma patient in Brisbane, who asked not to be named, said anything to end the agony of the daily vigil to his son's bedside was a "fantastic" prospect. He said his family was devastated after his son received severe brain injury three months ago in a traffic accident in Brisbane. "It is gut-wrenching and incredibly sad," he said. "I didn't know it was possible for a bloke over 50 to cry so much. "I am absolutely in favour of any sound research in anything that will help brain-injured people."

Source



"Healthy" diet does no good

With more than 160,000 participants, the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) tracked postmenopausal women for seven to 12 years looking at, among other things, the value of menopausal hormone therapy, a low-fat diet, and calcium and vitamin D supplements. UCLA participated in the study under the direction of Howard Judd, M.D., now professor emeritus of obstetrics/gynecology.

Some of the still-emerging results have been stunning. In 2002 and 2004, the WHI abruptly halted its two hormone studies after concluding that the risks- including breast cancer and stroke-outweighed the possible benefits in preventing heart disease.

Other conclusions have been less momentous. One finding suggests that a diet lower in total fat did not significantly reduce the incidence of breast cancer, heart disease or stroke, nor reduce the risk of colorectal cancer in healthy, postmenopausal women. As for calcium and vitamin D, WHI findings suggest that these supplements in healthy postmenopausal women provide modest benefits in preserving bone mass and preventing hip fractures in certain groups of women, but do not prevent other types of fractures or colorectal cancer.

Should women throw away their hormone therapy (as many abruptly did), eat all the fat they want, and chuck the calcium? Not so fast, experts say. Seeking guidance from a personal physician, who can interpret the findings and apply it to a woman's needs and risk factors, is the sensible road to take. UCLA geriatrician Elizabeth Whiteman, M.D., notes, "We look at the data and really try to individualize the information for that specific woman-what are her risk factors and goals? "It's key for patients to talk to their doctor about any family history of dementia, stroke, colon cancer and heart disease."

Source



'Diet' cocktails more intoxicating: "Having your alcohol with a sugar-free artificially sweetened mixer may cut calories, but it will also make you drunker, a study suggests. The problem, Australian researchers found, is that drinks made with "diet" mixers pass through the stomach more rapidly and, therefore, make blood alcohol levels spike particularly high. The findings, published in the September issue of the American Journal of Medicine and reported earlier this year at a medical conference, are based on an experiment with eight healthy young men. The volunteers had their blood alcohol levels measured repeatedly in each of two conditions: once after having a vodka beverage made with a sugary mixer, and once after drinking the same amount of vodka with an artificially sweetened mixer.... The difference in peak blood alcohol levels was "striking," the researchers said, and showed that a drink's alcohol content wasn't the only factor people should consider. In general, women's blood alcohol levels soar higher than men's after drinking the same amount alcohol, and the rsearchers warned women might be particularly drawn to diet mixers in order to cut calories."

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

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? [/sarcasm].

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



8 October, 2006

Exercise fails to cut obesity

When will people admit that a fat body is mostly the outcome of a genetic tendency towards overeating?

Giving young children more physical exercise does not stop them becoming obese, a study has shown. The Glasgow University study, based on work with more than 500 four-year-olds, counters the assumption that in an age dominated by television and computer games, children could slough off the pounds if they exercised more. The study, published in the British Medical Journal, set out to establish whether greater physical activity would prevent children from becoming overweight. They recruited 545 children in their last year at 36 nursery schools.

Half the schools instituted three extra half-hour sessions of physical play and activity every week, and parents were given information packs encouraging them to give their children more activity and less television. The other half had no extra activity or information. All the children were regularly weighed and measured and their body mass index (BMI - the relationship between weight and height used to check for obesity) was calculated. There was no difference between the groups. "We found no significant effect of the intervention on physical activity, sedentary behaviour or body mass index," wrote the researchers. Nor did the children show less tendency to sit about or more inclination to run around. The only positive finding was that the more active children had better motor and movement skills, which may make them more confident about doing physical activity in the future.

The authors say the study is one of the few into the prevention of obesity in children. Yet the problem is serious: in Scotland in 2001 at least 10 per cent of children aged four to five and 20 per cent aged 11 to 12 were obese. The researchers wrote: "Successful interventions to prevent obesity in early childhood may require changes not just at nursery, school and home but in the wider environment. Changes in other behaviours, including diet, may also be necessary."

The British Heart Foundation, which part-funded the study, accepted the research was solid, but said it did not mean it was not necessary to encourage children to run around and play. "It's absolutely vital for young children to be active," said prevention and care director Mike Knapton. "Although this study suggests that the benefits of a small amount of extra exercise for nursery children are not visible immediately, we know it's crucial to encourage good exercise habits from an early age. Children get less active as they get older so it's vital that youngsters get regular physical activity to lay the foundations for good health as they grow up."

Source



Black tea 'soothes away stress'



Scientists have proved what many tea drinkers already know - a regular cuppa can help you recover more quickly from the stresses of everyday life. A team at University College London found black tea helps to cut levels of the stress hormone cortisol circulating in the blood. They found people who drank tea were able to de-stress more quickly than those who drank a fake tea substitute. The study appears in the journal Psychopharmacology.

In the study, 75 young male regular tea drinkers were split into two groups and monitored for six weeks. They all gave up their normal tea, coffee and caffeinated beverages, and then one group was given a fruit-flavoured caffeinated tea mixture made up of the constituents of an average cup of black tea. The other group was given a caffeinated placebo identical in taste, but devoid of the active tea ingredients.

All drinks were tea-coloured, but were designed to mask some of the normal sensory cues associated with tea drinking (such as smell, taste and familiarity of the brew). This was designed to eliminate confounding factors such as the 'comforting' effect of drinking a cup of tea. Both groups were subjected to challenging tasks, while their cortisol, blood pressure, blood platelet and self-rated levels of stress were measured.

In one task, volunteers were exposed to one of three stressful situations (threat of unemployment, a shop-lifting accusation or an incident in a nursing home), where they had to prepare a verbal response and argue their case in front of a camera. The tasks triggered substantial increases in blood pressure, heart rate and subjective stress ratings in both of the groups. However, 50 minutes after the task, cortisol levels had dropped by an average of 47% in the tea-drinking group compared with 27% in the fake tea group. Blood platelet activation - linked to blood clotting and the risk of heart attacks - was also lower in the tea drinkers. In addition, this group reported a greater degree of relaxation in the recovery period after the task.

Researcher Professor Andrew Steptoe said: "Drinking tea has traditionally been associated with stress relief, and many people believe that drinking tea helps them relax after facing the stresses of everyday life. "However, scientific evidence for the relaxing properties of tea is quite limited." Professor Steptoe said it was unclear what ingredients in tea were responsible. He said it was very complex, and ingredients such as catechins, polyphenols, flavonoids and amino acids had all been found to affect neurotransmitters in the brain. Nevertheless, the study suggests that drinking black tea may speed up our recovery from the daily stresses in life. "Although it does not appear to reduce the actual levels of stress we experience, tea does seem to have a greater effect in bringing stress hormone levels back to normal. "This has important health implications because slow recovery following acute stress has been associated with a greater risk of chronic illnesses such as coronary heart disease."

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? [/sarcasm].

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



7 October, 2006

How Jamie and school meal fascists turn kids into junk food addicts



Her words are enough to make Jamie Oliver tear his hair out. Joanne, 14, a pupil at a large comprehensive in London, is sucking her Triple Power Push Pop as she explains to me why she insists on stuffing her mouth with such sweets.

"I don't buy any of the stuff in the canteen, it's disgusting,' she says. "The drinks are vile - there's no sugar in them. And as for the food, well, it's all salads and vegetables and stuff - and I don't like that.

"So I stock up before school on crisps and lollipops and chews, then at lunchtime I go and eat them where none of them nosy teachers is looking."

Joanne's friends laugh and agree. They say that since the school got 'sick-bag food', they never go to the canteen. They much prefer to munch their sticky, fatty snacks in secret where no 'health police' can find them.

It's not quite what the Government intended when it set up the healthy food initiative. New legislation, which came into effect three weeks ago, demands that school caterers ensure pupils are provided with 'high-quality meat, poultry or oily fish on a regular basis' and that a 'minimum' of two portions of fruit and vegetables accompany every meal.

Prompted by the wrath of celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, who highlighted the horrors of junk-food school meals in his School Dinners programmes last year, the Government has pumped hundreds of millions of pounds into providing healthy school meals.

I am staggered by the change I have seen in my own secondary school canteen. I have always quite liked the food there but this term I have found it to be of a much higher quality - the pasta and rice dishes, in particular, are delicious.

In common with all state schools, sweets, chocolates and crisps have been taken out of the vending machines and off the meal counters. Bowls of fresh fruit have replaced racks of doughnuts with jugs of water and sugar-free drinks being served in place of bottles of fizzy pop.

But the Government overlooked one crucial point when it instituted these changes - and that is that changing the law doesn't change children's minds. Any teacher will tell you that children don't learn much when they're being taught by fascists. While children's food intake is very heavily policed in school, outside the gates they are free to do what they want.

Sweet shop owners around the country must be rubbing their hands with glee. Where I live, shopkeepers tell me of a huge upsurge in business before and after school. They're raking in money by the bucket load but the school canteen coffers are virtually empty.

One school caterer I know called Jane, said: "It's a real disaster for us. We're losing 70 pounds a day compared with last year."

Explaining that the new guidelines mean food preparation is much more labour intensive than before, she added: "I've had to hire more staff to make the food but the kids are just not coming along. The canteen is half-full at lunchtimes. I feel in a state of despair."

So where are the children? At Rawmarsh Comprehensive in South Yorkshire, they have been pressing against the school railings every lunchtime reaching for chips, burgers and fizzy drinks that two enterprising but misguided mothers have been serving to them in an attempt to give them what they want to eat.

In many other schools, where headteachers have taken the hardline decision to ban pupils from bringing sweets and chocolates on to the premises, the rebellion against healthy eating is much more secretive and I have heard about a number of pupils who are buying junk food before they come to school and, like Joanne and her friends, consuming it where they cannot be seen by the teachers.

Some 16-year-old pupils I have heard about are even running a thriving black market in mini-cans of fizzy drinks at their school in Surrey. "The drinks are c*** and expensive in school so you can make quite a killing if you buy a batch of pop wholesale and flog it at 30p a shot," one budding entrepreneur told me.

But not all children are sugar junkies. Many others are in favour of the changes. Their only problem is the price - they simply can't afford it, with the new regulations adding up to 40p to the price of a canteen meal.

As a consequence of the higher prices and dubious popularity of school meals, many parents have started providing packed lunches for their children. This has set the noses of the control freaks twitching and their fingers pointing accusingly at packed lunches which aren't healthy.

Shelley, a parent I spoke to in Bristol, said that her daughter's primary school had been hijacked by 'food fascists' - teachers who remove the chocolate biscuits and fizzy drinks from her daughter's lunchbox and reprimand her for attempting to eat such 'junk food'. Shelley was furious because she had supplied the drink and biscuits as a treat - normally her daughter eats healthy foods.

Other schools are even using computers to monitor each child's daily intake. Heywood Community High School in Lancashire logs what pupils choose for their dinner and a summary of their intake is included in their end-of-year report. Each pupil is identified by means of a biometric thumbprint scanner. This is really scary stuff.

The problem is that the whole initiative was started by Jamie Oliver, who gave the Government a very big kick up the backside when his Channel 4 programmes highlighted how school kitchens had been neglected for decades. But while Oliver may know how to cook, he certainly doesn't know how to educate.

His yobbish style and approach has cowed and influenced many politicians, educators and bureaucrats throughout the country and his abrasive imperatives have been adopted by the food police in our schools and our Government.

While these people stop short of calling parents 'tossers' and effing and blinding at anyone who disagrees with them - as Oliver does - their sanctimonious injunctions are eerily similar to his.

As any good teacher will tell you, knee-jerk reactions, rigid rules and blind dogma are not good educational tools. Issuing orders is not the way to win over reluctant children. Such pupils need to be coaxed into eating healthily in a careful, caring fashion. They should be introduced to eating vegetables and fruit gradually.

A chilling doomsday scenario could unfold if the Government isn't careful - the canteens could go bankrupt and close down, leaving all pupils to munch on whatever they like.

If this happens, many pupils will not even get a glimpse of healthy food. The whole initiative would have then produced exactly the opposite effect of what it intended - there will be a total free-for-all, with our schools becoming awash with sugary sweets and fat-filled fodder.

It is time the Government stopped reaching for quick fixes and taking orders from yobs such as Jamie Oliver before our school canteens close down and chaos descends. There are already major warning signs with many canteens heavily in debt and children surreptitiously chomping on goodness-knows-what at lunchtime.

It is time the food fascists were knocked off their self-satisfied perch and some real educators were called in to rescue the situation.

Source



Breast milk 'does not boost IQ'

Breastfed babies are smarter because their mothers are clever in the first place, not because of any advantage of breastfeeding itself, a study suggests. Researchers found breastfeeding mothers tended to be more intelligent, more highly educated, and likely to provide a more stimulating home environment. However, they stressed that there were still many advantages to breastfeeding.

The British Medical Journal study was carried out by the Medical Research Council and University of Edinburgh. Lead researcher Geoff Der said: "This question has been debated ever since a link between the two [high IQ and breastfeeding] was first discovered in 1929. "Breastfed children do tend to score higher on intelligence tests, but they also tend to come from more advantaged backgrounds."

The researchers analysed data from more than 5,000 children and 3,000 mothers in the US. They found that mothers who breastfed tended to be more intelligent, and when this fact was taken into account, most of the relationship between breastfeeding and the child's intelligence disappeared. The rest was accounted for by other aspects of the family background.

The researchers also looked at families where one child was breastfed and another was not. This confirmed the earlier results - the breastfed child was no more intelligent than his or her sibling. Putting the results together with other studies that measured the mother's IQ confirmed this pattern. Mr Der said: "This research shows that intelligence is determined by factors other than breastfeeding. "But breastfeeding has many benefits for both mother and child. It's definitely the smart thing to do."

Breastfeeding has been linked to a range of health benefits. Just one day of breastfeeding is thought to be enough to stabilise a baby's blood sugar levels, and provide natural antibodies against disease. Breastfed babies have been shown to be less prone to diarrhoea, vomiting, and respiratory infections. Breastfeeding may also have a long impact on reducing blood pressure and obesity.

Rosie Dodds, of the National Childbirth Trust, said the study was not conclusive. She said a study in the Philippines - where, unlike the West, poorer women are more likely to breastfeed - showed that breastfed children were likely to be more intelligent. However, she added: "Women do not breastfeed because of any benefit to their baby, they do it because it feels like the natural thing to do. "It is important that women make a decision that is right for them, and their family, and they should not be pressurised either way, but we would like to see more support for women who do decide they want to breastfeed."

Source



Atkins gives you bad dreams: "Slimmers might lose weight on the Atkins diet but the controversial high-fat plan will make you moody, tired and a slave to vivid bad dreams. Research by the University of Sydney has found that the once-popular meaty fad diet has a serious short-term impact on wellbeing. During a three-day stint on the high-protein, low-carb plan, dieters had more deep sleep - 18 per cent compared with 14 per cent on a normal diet. This is because the high quantity of fat in the body stimulates the release of the hormone cholecystokinin, which brings on tiredness. But while participants slept more deeply, their sleep was punctuated with frequent waking as the body struggled to break down hard-to-digest foods. They also had vivid bad dreams ... and more of them, with the number of dream recalls rising from 20 per cent on a normal diet to 53 per cent for Atkins dieters. "Some people didn't remember much about their dreams but they definitely remembered that they were unpleasant," said lead researcher Chin Moi Chow. "Others reported being chased or experiencing nasty stresses related to their daily lives." Things don't get better once they're out of bed, with dieters far more prone to daytime tiredness, moodiness, irritability and poor concentration. The Atkins diet was developed by Robert Atkins in the 1970s as a radical departure from prevailing diet theories of the time." [It would be interesting to know what the control groups were]

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

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? [/sarcasm].

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



6 October, 2006

ANOTHER ALLERGY CURE

If you think small, non-random samples tell you anything

A new DNA-based allergy vaccine can offer long-lasting relief to hay fever sufferers after just six injections, American scientists have claimed. Patients receiving the experimental vaccine showed an average 60 per cent reduction in typical allergy symptoms, such as sneezing, runny nose, watering eyes and itching for at least two years, compared with those receiving a placebo. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in Baltimore, Maryland, believe that a six-injection treatment with the new vaccine, known as AIC, could offer a significant improvement over traditional allergen immunotherapy, which can require several years of weekly or bi-weekly injections.

AIC contains a short piece of DNA known as an "immunostimulatory sequence" that can modify immune system reactions and reduce the typical symptoms of ragweed allergy, more commonly known as hay fever. The experimental therapy also holds the promise of one day eliminating the need for traditional allergy medicines such as nasal steroids and antihistamines. The study, published today in The New England Journal of Medicine, was conducted during two hay fever seasons using 25 volunteers, aged 23 to 60, with a demonstrated history of ragweed allergy.

Fourteen people received the vaccine, administered as six weekly injections, while eleven others received placebo injections. During the test period, allergic symptoms were monitored and recorded, down to how often volunteers' noses ran and how many times they sneezed. Relief from allergic symptoms was as pronounced in the second year as in the first, even though no more vaccine was administered.

Hay fever is estimated to affect more than seven million Britons. Like other allergies it is caused by an overreaction of the immune system to an otherwise harmless substance, such as tree and plant pollens. In allergic individuals, antibodies known as IgE are responsible for mediating the allergic response.

In the current study, the researchers found that, like standard immunotherapy, AIC blocks the seasonal rise in ragweed-specific IgE in people who are allergic. Investigators at the University of California, in San Diego, had observed previously that a particular sequence of DNA, derived from bacteria, shuts down a T-helper cell (Th2) involved in the body's inflammatory response. It is thought that the vaccine lessens the immune system's excessive reactions to inhaled allergens by stimulating protective cells that turn off the Th2 helper cells. Together, the researchers believe, these results hint that AIC is successfully reprogramming the immune system to tolerate the presence of allergen, without overreacting.

Peter Creticos, medical director of the Johns Hopkins Asthma and Allergy Centre, said that the vaccine worked by suppressing acute allergic reactions such as sneezing, and by helping the body better regulate the chronic inflammation that causes itchy eyes and a runny nose. "Long-lasting relief can be achieved with a concise, six-week injection regimen, as opposed to the current, tedious, four to five-year course of treatment with allergen immunotherapy," Dr Creticos said. "And we're not just treating the symptoms, we're targeting the fundamental defects in the immune system that cause allergy."

Further studies are under way to examine the drug's lasting effects in a larger group of participants. "Our hope is that we can one day provide a long-term cure for hay fever and other chronic inflammatory diseases," Dr Creticos said.

Source



Overeating 'like drug addiction'

An attempt to demonize people who enjoy their food

For obese people overeating is akin to drug addiction, research suggests. Scans on seven overweight people revealed the regions of the brain that controlled satiety were the same as those in drug addicts craving drugs. The US team who carried out the research said the findings could potentially help to uncover new treatments for obesity. The work, led by a New York scientist, is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers looked at brain impulses in seven overweight individuals. [Wow! What an impressive sample-size! And carefully randomized too, of course] They had all been previously fitted with a weight-reduction device called an implantable gastric stimulator (IGS). The implant sends electronic signals to the vagus nerve which then relays messages of satiety to the brain, thus reducing the desire to eat.

To study the interaction between the stomach and the brain, the volunteers received two brain scans spaced two weeks apart, one when the implant was turned on and the other while it was switched off. While the volunteers were feeling full and the implant was turned on, the scan revealed an increased metabolism in the hippocampus, an area of the brain associated with emotional behaviour, learning and memory, the orbitofrontal cortex and the striatum.

Lead researcher Dr Gene-Jack Wang, at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York, said: "As soon as we saw these scans, immediately it reminded me of what we had studied in drug abuse when people were under a craving situation - the same areas in the brain lit up." He said this supported the idea that there were commonalities in the brain circuitry that underlay food intake and compulsive drug intake. Although the study was small, he added, it would help to further understand the desire to eat and obesity. "It gives us another channel to understand how to treat or prevent obesity."

Professor Jimmy Bell, of the molecular imaging group at Hammersmith Hospital, said: "This is a very interesting paper. "There is a lot of research going on around the world looking for biomarkers - anything that will tell you directly what is going on in a biological process - to understand the relationship between appetite, satiety and emotional factors that control what we eat, and when we eat and how much we eat. "I do not think it is surprising they have found a link between drug addiction and overeating. In a way you can think of eating as a 'necessary addiction' - if we were not addicted to eating, most of us would stop eating."

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? [/sarcasm].

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



5 October, 2006

"Prohibition" returning?

What if restaurants throughout this country were too scared of a lawsuit to sell foods deemed fattening? It's not a far-fetched possibility, at least if a misguided gaggle of lawyers, legislators and researchers get their way.

Chicago is the latest focal point in a movement to create a slimmer America. Alderman Edward Burke this June proposed a citywide ban on the use of cooking with oils containing artificial trans fatty acids in restaurants that do at least $20 million a year worth of business. Establishments not in compliance would face fines ranging from $200 to $1,000 per day.

"We have to be very careful when we start telling everybody how to live their lives," cautioned Mayor Richard M. Daley. The mayor perhaps is making up for keeping a low profile in the face of recent bans enacted by the Board of Aldermen on smoking in restaurants and bars and on the selling of foie gras (a liver delicacy).

Elsewhere, dozens of states either have introduced or passed legislation aimed at curbing obesity. Measures include restricting advertising to children; requiring schools to provide parents with information about student body mass index; requiring schools to provide diabetes screening; mandating insurance coverage for obesity prevention and treatment; and establishing nutrition education programs. A University of Baltimore-affiliated think tank, the Schaefer Center for Public Policy, has created an annual "Obesity Report Card" to keep the heat on states to do more.

Granted, there never will be a shortage of people who, lacking in impulse control, prefer to gorge themselves without regard to health consequences. But to use that as a pretext to limit the range of pleasures available to all of us has an unpleasant ring of familiarity. Prohibition operated on this very premise: Let us combat the temptation to take an activity to excess by banning the activity outright. Don't bother telling our latter-day Prohibitionists about the necessity of self-control. Whether the object of their wrath is food or alcohol, such talk merely serves as a cover for the irresponsible pursuit of profit.

For a good decade or more, Kelly Brownell, a paunchy Yale psychologist and top adviser to the deceptively effective Washington, D.C.-based Center for Science in the Public Interest, has called for punitive taxes on unhealthy food. "I recommend we develop a militant attitude about the toxic food environment, like we have about tobacco," he has written in CSPI's Nutrition Action Healthletter.

The plaintiff's bar, ever searching for victims to represent, has been exercising its own militancy. In August 2002, lawyers for Ashley Pelman, an overweight adolescent girl from the Bronx, N.Y., and other class-action plaintiffs, sued McDonald's, charging the corporation with deceptive marketing and advertising of "addictive" food. U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet dismissed the case early the following year, arguing, "If customers know the risks, they cannot blame McDonald's if they, nonetheless, choose to satiate their appetite with a surfeit of supersized McDonald's products." If only he had left things at that.

Unfortunately, Judge Sweet also offered the plaintiffs advice on how to remedy their suit, emphasizing that McDonald's customers should have access to more thorough information. Predictably, Pelman's lawyer, Samuel Hirsch, two years later filed an amended complaint, albeit on narrower grounds. John "Sue the Bastards" Banzhaf, a renowned George Washington University law professor and adviser to the plaintiffs, is hopeful Hirsch will discover documents embarrassing to the corporation.

For the record, in a separate case several years ago some of Banzhaf's students took McDonald's to court, winning a $12.5 million judgment from the company, plus a public apology for claiming its french fries were cooked in pure vegetable oil. He knows which side his bread is buttered. Such outcomes suggest almost limitless opportunities for creative pleading. Why, after all, stop at punishing the sale of fatty foods? Why not prohibit any activity that contributes to obesity?

New York State Assemblyman Felix Ortiz (D) already has this bright idea. A few years ago the Brooklyn legislator proposed six separate bills that would have slapped high taxes on the sale of fatty foods, movie tickets, video games, DVD rentals and other items ostensibly promoting sedentary living. The projected extra $50 million a year in revenue, he argued, could be earmarked for public exercise and nutrition programs.

In the face of such zealotry, thankfully, are signs of resistance. Nearly a year ago the House of Representatives passed the Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act (H.R. 554). This measure would shield food distributors and restaurants from civil liability for obesity-related claims. The Senate, with typical glacially-paced deliberation, has yet to act on its own companion measure (S. 908). More promisingly, roughly two dozen states to date have banned obesity lawsuits against restaurants.

Few would dispute obesity is a real and growing problem. The Centers for Disease Control has estimated that 44 million Americans were clinically obese in 2001, a 74 percent increase over the figure for 1991. And the U.S. Surgeon General estimated early this decade that nearly 10 percent of the nation's health care expenditures -- $117 billion annually -- are attributable to obesity and/or physical inactivity. The public tab for treating diabetes, heart disease, stroke, kidney failure and other obesity-related complications is enormous, especially for patients without insurance.

But instead of getting people to slim down by discovering villains, there's a better avenue for action. It's called the market. People, by nature, tend to want to live as long as they can. And they have a tendency to seek information enabling them to do this. In recent decades, there has been a welcome explosion of preventive health care information available through magazines, the Internet, diet books, exercise courses and employer-sponsored wellness programs. Smart consumers tend to read up on these things.

Restaurants know it's a different world, too. That's why family-style chains such as Applebee's and T.G.I. Friday's have devoted parts of their menus to accommodating the calorie-conscious. Fast-food chains such as Subway and Baja Fresh openly tout themselves as healthy low-fat alternatives to their competitors. Even big, bad McDonald's has adjusted to the new realities, phasing out its supersized portions and introducing items such as salads and yogurt parfaits.

The campaign to punish purveyors of "toxic" foods, however, works against such tendencies. John Banzhaf, Felix Ortiz, Kelly Brownell and like-minded activists might deny it, but they harbor a deep mistrust of most people's ability to exercise sound judgment. The "social responsibility" they would impose upon restaurants and other food retailers is a pricey ticket to individual irresponsibility.

Source



When Moms Work, Kids Get Fat

An incendiary new explanation for childhood obesity

The Western world is, famously, full of fat kids. It is not clear why. Could it be because of the insidious power of advertising? Or the fear of traffic and kidnappers, which persuades parents to keep their children indoors? Or should we just blame the steady spread of fast food? All three, it seems, are guilty-or so say economists, who in recent years have started publishing a bewildering array of explanations for the obesity epidemic.

Shin-Yi Chou, Inas Rashad, and Michael Grossman have recently published research pointing at the effect of fast-food advertising. The difficulty of any such research project is the tangle of causal factors. A child who is watching Ronald McDonald cavort around with Hamburglar on television is a child in easy reach of snack food, a child who is not playing football in the street, and, perhaps, a child with parents who lack the inclination or time to help the him stay healthy. Or perhaps the child is simply watching television in the first place because he's too fat to enjoy playing outside.

Chou, Rashad, and Grossman nevertheless think they have found a clear effect by looking at local variations in advertising across the United States. They believe that if a given child watches an extra 30 minutes of fast-food advertisements a week, he or she will get fatter, with an increase in body mass index of about 1 percent. For adolescents the effect is twice as big, which sounds plausible given that they are likely to have more control over what they eat than younger children do.

That is all very interesting, but it does beg the question of why things are getting worse. Another trio of economists-Patricia Anderson, Kristin Butcher, and Phillip Levine-has suggested that two-income families may be producing the problem. They find that children are fatter if their mothers work longer hours. This is true even within families: The sibling who spent more time as a latchkey child will tend to be the fatter one, perhaps because the mother is less able to supervise outdoor play or has less time to cook and therefore buys more fast food. Unfortunately for working mothers who are already struck by guilt, the effects are pretty substantial. A mere 10 hours at work raises the chance of childhood obesity by 1.3 percentage points, which is about 10 percent.

Despite all the concerns about childhood obesity, most of the fat people in the world are old enough to look after themselves. So, what's going on? Here, traditional economics seems to offer a perfectly straightforward pair of explanations. First, the cost of exercise has risen: Most of us used to be paid to burn off calories in physically demanding jobs, after all. It is hard to undercut a form of exercise that pays you, and modern gyms haven't tried.

Second, food technology has tipped the balance in favor of more snacking. Think of the humble potato, once consumed in bland form, boiled or in stews: It was messy and time-consuming to make fries. But industrial processing, freezing, and vacuum-packing now make fries and chips easy to enjoy at home or in a fast-food joint. It is not just that potato chips are more calorific than boiled spuds, but that they can be conveniently eaten at any time of day. Despite the attention devoted to "supersize" portions, the calories consumed at main meals have actually declined.

Three Harvard economists, David Cutler, Edward Glaeser, and Jesse Shapiro, argue that food technology has dramatically lowered the cost in time and money of grazing on junk food all day. Judging by the ever-expanding waistlines of the developed world, that seems to be an opportunity many of us have seized upon hungrily.

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? [/sarcasm].

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



4 October, 2006

Should kids stop eating crisps?

Panic: `The pack-a-day habit threatening our kids' health,' intones the British Heart Foundation (BHF) to promote its Food4Thought campaign. According to the BHF, eating one pack of crisps per day will lead children to consume almost five litres of cooking oil in the course of a year. Their press release notes that half of British schoolchildren `admit' to eating a pack of crisps everyday while almost one-in-five eat two packs or more.

Other nutritional shockers include the finding that three quarters of mothers feed their children ready meals or takeaways more than three times a week and only 13 per cent of boys and 12 per cent of girls reported eating the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables daily.

Don't panic: This campaign is as heavily laden with spin as the crisps are with oil. The reference to consuming a `pack-a-day' has a strong whiff of cigarettes about it. Since in the popular imagination, `cigarettes=death', the implication is that eating so many crisps will have a similar impact. Yet, while the picture of a little girl pouring a gallon container of oil down her throat looks repulsive, the comparison is no less grotesque.

Oil is a perfectly normal and healthy part of the diet. Eating nothing but crisps would be quite likely to produce a greasy and rather anaemic looking child, but as long as there is some variety in children's diets (and not just between cheese and onion and smokey bacon), there shouldn't be a problem.

Another way of putting that `almost five litres of oil' figure would be that children consume about two-and-a-half teaspoons of oil per pack. In energy terms, the oil contributes about 100 calories. Not exactly devastating. But the ruse of adding up a year's consumption is ludicrous. For example, if a child drinks a litre of water per day, that means they consume 365 litres per year - enough to fill four baths. If they attempted to drink all of it at once they'd certainly drown. Yet no-one is suggesting that drinking water is bad for you.

There is no such thing as `bad' foods, only bad diets. Even then, the link between eating fat and ill-health has never been backed up by the evidence. When major studies have been conducted into the effect of changing diet to a low-fat or low saturated fat intake, the results have been extremely disappointing for those seeking to establish such a link. Rather than targeting health campaigns at children which cause unnecessary worry, finding the root causes of heart disease and better ways to treat it more effectively would be the right path to take. Unlike our children's diets, it's always proven to be more fruitful.

Source



Limiting Fast Food

By Belle Waring. Post lifted from Crooked Timber

New York City Councilman Joel Rivera (representing the Bronx) wants to change the zoning laws to restrict the number of fast food restaurants. The Times notes that Calistoga, CA has a similar law on the books banning chain restaurants from its historic downtown, for aesthetic reasons. Mr. Rivera’s reasoning may be aesthetic as well, though he would surely defend it as hygenic: he thinks New Yorkers are too fat. He’s probably right about that, but his proposed solution seems of dubious utility, in addition to being a gratuitous restriction of his constituents’ right to do what they please. And now let’s hear one of the least compelling defenses of the nanny state ever offered by a well-intentioned politician:

“We have 8 million people, and 8 million people should have options,” said Mr. Rivera, 27, who at age 22 became the youngest elected official in city history. “Right now, there’s a lack of options in a lot of communities.”

So, by restricting their options, we’ll deal with that pesky lack of options that—what now? All right, it’s easy to laugh at this, but…but…hmm, my powers of higher Broderism are fading in and out. (I hope John didn’t bring that damn red kryptonite paperweight home again, because it puts a real cramp in my otherwise nigh-invincible Silver Age blogging powers.) No, here we are, an actual question: are restaurants that offer healthy alternatives undercut pricewise by fast food restaurants, in reality? (I am setting aside the question of whether it’s a good idea to force poor people to pay more for food; the answer is “no”, by the way.) I could imagine that they are, as the economies of scale available to McDonald’s enable them to offer food very cheaply. Additionally, fresh vegetables are perishable in a way that the fixings of a Big Mac are not.

The most obvious response to this type of dietary do-goodery is to say that people just don’t want to buy these purported healthy alternatives, because if they did, there’d be somebody selling them to them already. The fact that mom-and-pop restaurants in many poor neighborhoods run overwhelmingly to the “Chinese food, wings and pizza” type confirms this notion. The only reason I have any sympathy at all for the impulse behind this (obviously stupid and illiberal) idea is that people in poor neighborhoods are subjected to paying more money for worse produce than people in richer ones. Crappy supermarkets with sad carrots and iceberg lettuce, or expensive bodegas with limited selection: these are not good choices, and do seem like a market failure. To this end, the attempt to move farmer’s markets into poorer neighborhoods seems good, as does the idea that opposition to big grocery stores in urban neighborhoods should be dropped.

It isn’t healthy to eat fast food all the time, but it’s not the government’s job to tell people what to eat. Them’s the breaks. Also, America, those jeans make you look fat.

Radley Balko comments:

Waring touches on what I've been saying for some time. If, as the public health activists suggest, the problem is that low-income people don't have access to cheap, fresh produce, the answer is to allow into urban areas businesses that have figured out how to deliver fresh produce to low income people. And no one has that business model down better than Wal-Mart. What's fun is watching the generally socialist public health crowd squirm when you point this out to them. I don't have philosophical objections to community farmer's markets. But it's delusional to think they're capable of putting good food in the homes of poor people on any significant scale. If access to fresh, unprocessed food is your concern, I hate to tell ya', but you're going to have to embrace a little capitalism.

I think it's also important to point out the condescending, classist position one has to adopt in order support these types of policies. The argument, basically, is that poor people don't know what's best for them. They are incapable of making their own decisions about what they eat, and what they feed their kids. They're mentally weak, and overly succeptible to advertising. Therefore, all-knowing public health activists ought to be able to right laws that make these types of decisions for poor people. Or, put another way, "poor people don't eat artichokes."

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

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? [/sarcasm].

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



3 October, 2006

Fake sugar kills dogs: "Keep those sugarless treats out of Fido's reach. Veterinarians warned on Friday that a commonly used sweetener might cause liver failure in dogs, and perhaps even kill them. Their report in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association appears to strengthen the suspected link between the sugar substitute xylitol, thought to make dogs sick, and possible liver failure. Xylitol, a naturally occurring product, is found in many sugar-free chewing gums, candies, baked goods and toothpastes. Researchers Sharon Gwaltney-Brant and Eric Dunayer with staff at a poison unit of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Urbana, Illinois, gathered information on eight dogs treated between 2003 and 2005 after eating products containing xylitol. Each dog became ill, and five died or had to be put down because of liver failure, possibly from ingesting xylitol. One dog who had to be euthanized had eaten four large, chocolate-frosted muffins containing about 1 pound (0.45 kg) of xylitol. "People don't think sugar-free gum can kill their dog. I didn't before I got into this. But this is something people should be aware of," Gwaltney-Brant, who co-authored the study with Dunayer, said in a statement".



Painting bad for kids? "Men who paint for a living may be placing their unborn children at increased risk of birth defects and low birth weight. A study of construction workers in the Netherlands, conducted in part by the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, links low birth weight and birth defects to paternal, airborne exposure to organic solvents such as paints, thinner and cleansers. The study, although preliminary in its parent-reported assessment of birth outcomes and small numbers of reported cases, is the first of its kind to link concentrations of solvents in the air to these health outcomes, said Dr. Igor Burstyn, a University of Alberta professor of occupational and environmental health, who co-authored the study with researchers from Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre in the Netherlands. "This is the first time we have good exposure data in such a study, but more robust investigations are needed to guide policy-makers," Dr. Burstyn said." [The journal abstract is here. The sample size is of course absurd]



Steroids shrink your brain: "Steroids that help athletes to enhance their physique may also cause their brains to waste away, research suggests. Large doses of steroids are known to boost levels of the male hormone testosterone and cause a condition known as hyperexcitability, characterised by heightened aggression and suicidal tendencies. Anger brought on by steroid use is well known in the bodybuilding world, where it is known as “roid rage”. Professor Barbara Ehrlich, of the Yale School of Medicine, said that hyperexcitability could be evidence of impaired brain function. She said: “Next time a muscle-bound guy in a sports car cuts you off on the highway, don’t get mad, just take a deep breath and realise that it might not be his fault.”

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

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? [/sarcasm].

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



2 October, 2006

Diabetes, not obesity, increases risk of developing critical illness and early death

Diabetes puts people at risk of developing critical illness and dying early, but obesity without diabetes does not. A study published today in the open access journal Critical Care reveals that individuals suffering from diabetes are three times more at risk of developing critical illness and dying young than individuals who do not have diabetes. Obese individuals who do not have diabetes, by contrast, have the same risk of dying or of falling critically ill as non-obese patients who do not have diabetes. These results are surprising, as obesity is linked to diabetes. The authors of the study conclude that the relationship between obesity, diabetes and critical illness is complex and that obesity, per se, does not predict poor outcomes.

Katarina Slynkova and colleagues from the University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital collaborated with colleagues from Emory University School of Medicine to analyse data from 15,408 subjects aged 44 to 66, coming from four different US communities, who had originally been studied between 1986 and 1989. The authors analysed the subjects' body mass index (BMI), presence of diabetes (either type 1 or type 2) and the subjects' history of critical illness (acute organ failure) and mortality within 3 years.

Slynkova et al.'s results show that, in the absence of diabetes, obese individuals do not have an increased risk of suffering from acute organ failure, and of dying from acute organ failure, than non-obese individuals. By contrast, patients with diabetes are three times more likely to become critically ill with acute organ failure and they are three times more likely to die from acute organ failure, or from any cause, than patients who do not have diabetes, regardless of their BMI. Slynkova et al. conclude that diabetes is a strong independent predictor of acute organ failure and subsequent death, or death from any cause.

Source

Journal abstract follows:

The role of body mass index and diabetes in the development of acute organ failure and subsequent mortality in an observational cohort

By: Katarina Slynkova , David M Mannino , Greg S Martin , Richard S Morehead and Dennis E Doherty

Introduction

Several studies have shown a correlation between body mass index (BMI) and both the development of critical illness and adverse outcomes in critically ill patients. The goal of our study was to examine this relationship prospectively with particular attention to the influence of concomitant diabetes mellitus (DM).

Methods

We analyzed data from 15,408 participants in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study for this analysis. BMI and the presence of DM were defined at baseline. We defined acute organ failure as those subjects who met a standard definition with diagnostic codes abstracted from hospitalization records. Outcomes assessed included the following: risk of the development of acute organ failure within three years of the baseline examination; in-hospital death while ill with acute organ failure; and death at three years among all subjects and among those with acute organ failure.

Results

At baseline, participants with a BMI of at least 30 were more likely than those in lower BMI categories to have DM (22.4% versus 7.9%, p < 0.01). Overall, BMI was not a significant predictor of developing acute organ failure. The risk for developing acute organ failure was increased among subjects with DM in comparison with those without DM (2.4% versus 0.7%, p < 0.01). Among subjects with organ failure, both in-hospital mortality (46.5% versus 12.2%, p < 0.01) and 3-year mortality (51.2% versus 21.1%, p < 0.01) was higher in subjects with DM.

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that obesity by itself is not a significant predictor of either acute organ failure or death during or after acute organ failure in this cohort. However, the presence of DM, which is related to obesity, is a strong predictor of both acute organ failure and death after acute organ failure.

Source

VITAMIN K BEATS OSTEOPOROSIS?

A recent study suggests thwarting vitamin K's function could hinder bone health and contribute to the development of osteoporosis, results that call into question a need for increased vitamin K supplementation. The University of Michigan School of Nursing study found that typical intake of vitamin K may in fact not be enough to support bone health in the perimenopausal years. The finding could spur formulators to more actively promote vitamin K for pre-menopausal women, although the ingredient can cause complications for those on blood thinners.

Vitamin K is found in green and green leafy vegetables as well as vegetable oils, however most individuals do not consume sufficient amounts to promote bone health. Few multivitamins contain vitamin K, and those that do have minimal amounts of the nutrient. According to lead author Jane Lukacs, the current intake is recommended to be 1 ug/kg/d, based on Vitamin K's influence on blood clotting. "What is becoming apparent, is that what is adequate for blood clotting may not be adequate for bone health," said Lukacs .

In the UK, the average age at which women reach menopause is 51 years, according to the National Osteoporosis Society. Menopause is characterized by a loss of oestrogen production, which accelerates bone loss. At worst, this can lead to osteoporosis, a disease characterized by brittle bones.

The study, published in the current issue of the journal Menopause (13(5):799-808, September/October 2006), noted that one of the early effects of declining oestrogen is the impairment of vitamin K function in bones even before bone loss from menopause can be measured. Fifty-nine healthy women participated in the study funded by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. The women were divided into three groups: 19 women aged 40-52; 21 women aged 20-30; and 19 untreated women between 40-52 years. The study included blood tests, interviews and food frequency quesionnaires to determine dietary habits, calculation of the body mass index as well as measurement of bone mineral density of the lumbar spine and the non-dominant hip.

"Our study suggests that the generally accepted level of vitamin K in healthy women is inadequate to maintain bone health just at the onset of menopause," said lead author Jane Lukacs, she did not express an opinion on optimum vitamin K intake.

With the help of vitamin K, the protein osteocalcin can bind to calcium in the bone. This protein becomes part of the bone structure when it is chemically modified to bind to calcium through a carboxylization. In the study, the percentage of undercarboxylated osteocalcin was higher in the untreated early postmenopause cohort compared with all the other women (21.9+/-1.7 percent vs 17.4+/-0.9 percent, n=40; P = 0.02). This implies these women were deficient in vitamin K.

"Percentage of undercarboxylated osteocalcin may be a specific bone marker of the early postmenopause in healthy women," concluded the study. Lukacs said it is necessary to explore whether vitamin K supplementation in the early postmenopause will offer an additional intervention for women concerned about their future risk of fracture. Those who take anticoagulant medicine for hypercoagulation however are generally advised not to take vitamin K because it is thought to play a role in blood clotting.

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.

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1 October, 2006

Big Brother Is Weight Watching

"Big Brother," "Orwellian," "Nanny state"--all those words were on the lips of New Yorkers this week after the local Board of Health proposed banning most so-called trans fats from the city's more than 20,000 eateries. The targeted fatty acids are produced when vegetable oil is solidified with hydrogen--for frying foods or making baked goods, among other things. They can raise levels of "bad" cholesterol. Even health officials can't honestly claim that trans fats are a major cause of heart and artery problems. They are the demon du jour, however, and the overlords of New York seem bent on saving us from them.

If the current proposal actually becomes law, every outlet from the fanciest restaurant to the smallest pizza parlor will have 18 months to find substitutes for trans fat-producing hydrogenated oils. These oils figure in thousands of recipes, in part because they produce familiar good tastes and textures but also because the oils don't get rancid quickly.

Once the city fathers are done telling restaurants what they can serve, though, who is to say that they won't come after us by a more direct route? The idea is not that far-fetched. Early this year, the city quietly added diabetes, a chronic, noninfectious condition, to a list of communicable diseases that it tracks, such as syphilis.

Now, when labs detect a high blood-sugar level in a sample, they are required by law to report that finding to officials. If you thought the results of a diabetes test were between you and your doctor, think again. The city records the fact that you, personally, have developed diabetes, and authorities are empowered to monitor your treatment and even to conduct what it calls "interventions." Perhaps you will soon get a knock on the door from a city worker wanting to know if you are sticking to your prescribed regimen for dealing with a host of chronic conditions.

Undeniably New York, like other cities, is worried about the cost--in health-care bills and social problems--of an explosion of diabetes cases, which are often linked to obesity. Authorities are casting about for ways to make potential patients look after themselves. This month, Mayor Michael Bloomberg endorsed a formal report from a city commission suggesting that New York consider offering money to poor people who make regular visits to a doctor, as an incentive for them to stay healthy.

At least no one would be forced to take the money, and the proposal has the whiff of a market solution. The market is at least no worse at getting people to do things than government is. If we ask for "health food"--organic, low in sodium, high in antioxidants, whatever--someone will make it. If manufacturers tout their food as healthier, somebody will buy it.

The trouble is that few foods are healthy if you eat too much of them. The label "no cholesterol" or "low fat" is not the ticket to dietary success that many of us want to believe. The best way to eat healthy is to count calories. But reducing one's intake of trans fats is so much easier--especially if no one is allowed to serve them--that it's tempting for everyone, including consumer health groups, to focus on this sort of fad and not on the boring old adage about doing everything in moderation.

Yet calorie counting has stood the test of time. A sad sidebar to the New York story is that when health activists targeted saturated fats in the 1980s, food purveyors replaced things like beef tallow with vegetable oils, and everybody cheered. Who knew that today, hydrogenated oils and their trans fats would be labeled toxic killers?

Source



U.S. food advertisements to be officially censored

Concerned that a steady diet of TV ads is putting too many pounds on American children, the Federal Communications Commission plans to study links between the ads, viewing habits and the rise of childhood obesity. "Small children can't weed out the marketing messages from their favorite shows," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said Wednesday at a news conference. "Especially when the marketing campaigns feature favorite TV characters like SpongeBob or Scooby-Doo." Martin cited reports showing the average child watches 2 to 4 hours of TV per day and views about 40,000 TV ads every year, most of them for cereal, candy, toys and fast food.

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., said he urged the commission to form the task force, which will include FCC officials, members of the food, television and advertising industries, along with consumer advocacy groups and health experts. "Judging by the sheer volume of media and advertising that children consume on a daily basis, and given alarming trends in childhood obesity, we're facing a public health problem that will only get worse unless we take action," Brownback said. The task force will begin meeting early next year and issue a report with recommendations on how industry and media can work to reduce the childhood obesity rate.

Earlier this month, the Institute of Medicine found that one-third of American children are either obese or at risk for becoming obese. At the same time, American companies spend about $15 billion a year marketing and advertising to children under age 12. Some children's advocacy groups have called for a ban on junk food marketing to children, but Brownback and Martin said they want to reach common ground with advertisers instead of creating new regulations. "If we start down the road of saying we're going to limit everything and we're going to do it with a regulatory regime, I think you get everybody in a quick adversarial relationship," Brownback said. He said a number of food companies have indicated they want to work with government to help address the issue, though none attended the press conference Wednesday. "We urge their participation and we would love to have them participate in the process," Brownback said.

Groups already involved with the task force include the Sesame Workshop, the Walt Disney Co., and the Parents Television Council, a conservative media-watchdog group.

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.

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