The original version of this blog is HERE. Dissecting Leftism is HERE (and mirrored here). The Blogroll. My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here. Other mirror sites: Greenie Watch, Political Correctness Watch, Education Watch, Recipes, Gun Watch, Australian Politics, Tongue Tied, Immigration Watch and Socialized Medicine. For a list of backups viewable in China, see here. The archives for this site are here or here. (Click "Refresh" on your browser if background colour is missing)


A major cause of increasing obesity is certainly the campaign against it -- as dieting usually makes people FATTER. If there were any sincerity to the obesity warriors, they would ban all diet advertising and otherwise shut up about it. Re-authorizing now-banned school playground activities and school outings would help too. But it is so much easier to blame obesity on the evil "multinationals" than it is to blame it on your own restrictions on the natural activities of kids

NOTE: "No trial has ever demonstrated benefits from reducing dietary saturated fat".

"What we should be doing is monitoring children from birth so we can detect any deviations from the norm at an early stage and action can be taken". Who said that? Joe Stalin? Adolf Hitler? Orwell's "Big Brother"? The Spanish Inquisition? None of those. It was Dr Colin Waine, chairman of Britain's National Obesity Forum

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



21 November, 2007

Health Fascism in America

Scores of grumbling parents facing a threat of jail lined up at a courthouse today to either prove that their school-age kids already had their required vaccinations or see that the youngsters submitted to the needle. The get-tough policy in Prince George's County was one of the strongest efforts made by any U.S. school system to ensure its youngsters receive their required immunizations.

Two months into the school year, school officials realized that more than 2,000 students in the county still didn't have the vaccinations they were supposed to have before attending class. So Circuit Court Judge C. Philip Nichols ordered parents in a letter to appear at the courthouse today and either get their children vaccinated on the spot or risk up to 10 days in jail. They could also provide proof of vaccination or an explanation why their kids didn't have them.

By about 8:30 a.m., the line of parents stretched outside the courthouse in the county on the east side of Washington. Many of them complained that their children already were properly immunized but the school system had misplaced the records. They said efforts to get the paperwork straightened out had been futile. "It was very intimidating," Territa Wooden of Largo said of the letter. She said she presented the paperwork at the courthouse today and resolved the matter.

"I could be home asleep. My son had his shots," said Veinell Dickens of Upper Marlboro, who also blamed errant paperwork. Aloma Martin of Fort Washington brought her children, Delontay and Taron, in 10th and 6th grade, for their hepatitis shots. She said she had been trying to get the vaccinations for more than a month, since the school system sent a warning letter. She had an appointment for Monday, but came to the courthouse to be safe. "It was very heavy handed," she said of the county's action. "From that letter, it sounded like they were going to start putting us in jail."

School officials deemed the court action a success. School system spokesman John White said the number of children lacking vaccinations dropped from 2,300 at the time the judge sent the letter to about 1,100 Friday. After today's session, 172 more students were brought into compliance, including 101 students who received vaccinations at the courthouse and 71 whose records were updated. That still left more than 900 students out of compliance with vaccination requirements, White said. "Obviously, we still have some more work to do," he said.

Any children who still lack immunizations could be expelled. Their parents could then be brought up on truancy charges, which can result in a 10-day jail sentence for a first offense and 30 days for a second. Prince George's State's Attorney Glenn Ivey couldn't say today whether he would prosecute parents who fail to comply. "We have to sit down with school and health services," he said. "We haven't ruled anything out. We need to figure out where we stand."

White said the school system, with about 132,000 students, has been trying for two years to get parents to comply with state law. That law allows children to skip vaccines if they have a medical or religious exemption. It was unclear how many medical or religious exemptions were involved.

Maryland, like all states, requires children to be immunized against several childhood illnesses including polio, mumps and measles. In recent years, it also has required that students up to high school age be vaccinated against hepatitis B and chicken pox.

Nichols said nobody actually came before him today, but he was there if any parent asked to see him. The judge noted the unhappy looks of some of the kids in line waiting for vaccinations. "It's cute. It looks like their parents are dragging them to church," Nichols said.

Several organizations opposed to mass vaccinations demonstrated outside the courthouse. While the medical consensus is that vaccines are safe and effective, some people blame immunizations for a rise in autism and other medical problems. "People should have a choice" in getting their children immunized, said Charles Frohman, representing a physicians' group opposed to vaccines.

Source




Parents no longer needed

Comment on the story above. Excerpt:

"An incredible story in the The Washington Post reports that the parents of around 2,300 Maryland suburban students who failed to get needed vaccinations may now face a $50 a day fine and up to 10 days in jail if their children fails to meet the state's immunization requirements. ...

My wife and I would not allow our doctor to stick a needle into our two little girls with hepatitis B vaccine, not because we're anti-vaccine, but because we deemed this vaccine unnecessary at such a young age. But even if Prince George parents are wrong about the shots effectiveness and worth, are we now a country where an attorney general coerces parents to inject pharmaceuticals into their children? If parents fail to walk lockstep will they now regularly be threatened with prison?"

Source




A Lesson in economics for the food freaks

Boulder Weekly covers the city public schools' burgeoning black market in ... wait for it ... candy. Black market in candy? Yep -- it's all courtesy of a new school district policy "that has removed all unhealthy, sugar-laden snacks and sodas from vending machines in schools. The new policies are part of a national trend, in which foods are forbidden at schools if they don't meet strict nutritional criteria that limit calories coming from sugar and fat."

How restrictive is the policy? Boulder's new policies apply to vendors of food services, snack and beverage vending machines, student stores, fundraisers and "any regularly offered food during a child's school day." The policy allows water and seltzers, low-fat milk, fruit juice (no less than 50 percent real juice), and electrolyte sports drinks with 42 grams or less of added sweetener per 20-ounce serving. Allowed snack items include nuts, seeds, dairy products, fresh fruits and vegetables, dried fruits and vegetables, and some packaged fruits. Other food items are allowed only if calories are comprised of 35 percent or less fat, 10 percent or less of saturated fat plus trans fat, and if sugar comprises 35 percent or less of the total weight of the product.

All very well-intentioned, I'm sure. But school administrators clearly forgot one of the iron laws of economics: If you ban it, they will come ("they" being underground entrepreneurs, of course).

The money to be made sounds pretty impressive. The story details kids buying iPods and new clothes -- and even taking their own parents out to dinner -- from the profits made off marking up candy bought in bulk at Costco. At least one set of parents actually bankrolled their entrepreneurial offspring.

The laws of economics rule across the board, of course. Profit margins have apparently drifted down because of the influx of competition from other kids who have turned their lockers into convenience stores. Unsurprisingly, similar black markets have appeared elsewhere when school administrators imposed nutritional restrictions that ran contrary to consumer tastes. Huh. These modern kids have it so easy. In my day, we had to sell dope to make a buck between classes.

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 and margarine? They are just about pure fat. Surely they should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). And how odd it is that we never hear of the huge American study which showed that women who eat lots of veggies have an INCREASED risk of stomach cancer? So the official recommendation to eat five lots of veggies every day might just be creating lots of cancer for the future! It's as plausible (i.e. not very) as all the other dietary "wisdom" we read about fat etc.

10). And will "this generation of Western children be the first in history to lead shorter lives than their parents did"? This is another anti-fat scare that emanates from a much-cited editorial in a prominent medical journal that said so. Yet this editorial offered no statistical basis for its opinion -- an opinion that flies directly in the face of the available evidence.

Even statistical correlations far stronger than anything found in medical research may disappear if more data is used. A remarkable example from Sociology:

"The modern literature on hate crimes began with a remarkable 1933 book by Arthur Raper titled The Tragedy of Lynching. Raper assembled data on the number of lynchings each year in the South and on the price of an acre’s yield of cotton. He calculated the correla­tion coefficient between the two series at –0.532. In other words, when the economy was doing well, the number of lynchings was lower.... In 2001, Donald Green, Laurence McFalls, and Jennifer Smith published a paper that demolished the alleged connection between economic condi­tions and lynchings in Raper’s data. Raper had the misfortune of stopping his anal­ysis in 1929. After the Great Depression hit, the price of cotton plummeted and economic condi­tions deteriorated, yet lynchings continued to fall. The correlation disappeared altogether when more years of data were added."

So we must be sure to base our conclusions on ALL the data. But in medical research, data selectivity and the "overlooking" of discordant research findings is epidemic.

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



20 November, 2007

Talking to blondes makes you dumb?

According to the study reported below, men know less after talking to a blonde woman. Those of us who have been married to a blonde lady sure must have had a tough time in life! I am not going to question the findings at this stage as the article had not yet appeared in the online version of the journal at the time of writing, but if it is like most articles in the journal, it is not based on a representative sample of any known population so has no known generalizability. The people studied appear to have been French but it may not even apply to all Frenchmen.

What I DO want to do, however, is highlight the fallacy of the explanation given. The explanation in terms of stereotypes accepts the old view that stereotypes are in some way imprisoning. Studies of stereotyping have however long ago shown just the opposite: that stereotypes are highly flexible and responsive to new information. See here and here.

That some psychologists still believe the old myths about stereotyping is true to form, however. Psychologists tend to live in an eternal present with very little awareness of the research literature on the subjects they discuss. See here.

A more plausible explanation would be that brown-haired people are very often blonde in childhood so blonde is a signal of childhood and we have evolved to interact differently with children. But the best explanation should I think be obvious: For whatever reason, blondes are seen as more sexually attractive and sexual arousal is notorious for addling the brain -- particularly among Frenchmen, perhaps?

When men meet fair-haired women they really do have a "blonde moment". Scientists have found that their mental performance drops, apparently because they believe they are dealing with someone less intelligent. Researchers discovered what might be called the "bimbo delusion" by studying men's ability to complete general knowledge tests after exposure to different women. The academics found that men's scores fell after they were shown pictures of blondes.

Further analysis convinced the team that, rather than simply being distracted by the flaxen hair, those who performed poorly had been unconsciously driven by social stereotypes to "think blonde". "This proves that people confronted with stereotypes generally behave in line with them," said Thierry Meyer, joint author of the study and professor of social psychology at the University of Paris X-Nanterre. "In this case blondes have the potential to make people act in a dumber way, because they mimic the unconscious stereotype of the dumb blonde." The research adds to a body of evidence that people's behaviour is powerfully influenced by stereotypes. Previously scientists have found that people walk and talk more slowly in front of the elderly, while other studies have revealed that unconscious racial assumptions and prejudices emerge in written tests.

Researchers believe that blondes have been particularly vulnerable to stereotyping over the past century. The image of the dizzy blonde came to prominence in the 1925 Anita Loos novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Film stars including Marilyn Monroe, Suzanne Somers and Goldie Hawn further popularised the "dumb blonde". The persona has more recently been boosted by celebrities such as Paris Hilton, the member of the hotel family nicknamed the "heirhead", and Jessica Simpson, the singer.

Others believe its origins go far deeper. According to researchers at St Andrews University, north European women evolved blonde hair and blue eyes at the end of the Ice Age to make them stand out from their rivals at a time of fierce competition for scarce males.

Psychologists have suggested that because white babies are often born blond, there is a primal association between blondness and childhood, encouraging people to admire and fawn over the pale-haired.

The new peer-reviewed study, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, was based on two trials. In all cases those participants exposed to images of blondes recorded the lowest scores.

Source




FAT GENE DISCVERED

A gene that contributes to obesity has been identified for the first time, promising to explain why some people easily put on weight while others with similar lifestyles stay slim. People who inherit one version of the FTO gene rather than another are 70 per cent more likely to be obese, British scientists have discovered. One in six people have the most vulnerable genetic makeup and weigh an average of 3kg more than those with the lowest risk. They also have 15 per cent more body fat.

The findings provide the first robust link between any common gene and obesity, and could eventually lead to new ways of tackling one of the most significant causes of ill health in developed countries such as the UK. One in four British adults is now classified as obese, and half of men and a third of women are overweight. Obesity is a major cause of heart disease, cancer and type-2 diabetes, and an adviser to the Government's health spending watchdog described it recently as a bigger national hazard than smoking, alcohol or poverty. If the biological function of the FTO gene can now be understood, it could become possible to design drugs that manipulate it to help people to control their weight.

"Even though we have yet to fully understand the role played by the FTO gene in obesity, our findings are a source of great excitement," said Professor Mark McCarthy of the University of Oxford, who led the research. "By identifying this genetic link, it should be possible to improve our understanding of why some people are more obese, with all the associated implications such as increased risk of diabetes and heart disease. New scientific insights will hopefully pave the way for us to explore novel ways of treating this condition."

While it has long been understood from family studies that obesity is heavily influenced by genetics, scientists have struggled to pin down individual genes that are involved. A handful of serious genetic mutations that cause rare obesity disorders such as Prader-Willi syndrome have been found, but the search for common genes that affect ordinary people's risk of becoming obese or overweight has remained elusive.

The effect of FTO emerged from a major study of the genetic origins of disease funded by the Wellcome Trust known as the Case Control Consortium, in which 2,000 people with type-2 diabetes had their genomes compared to 3,000 healthy controls. Scientists from Oxford and the University of Exeter first found that certain versions of the FTO gene were more common among people with type-2 diabetes, but that the effect disappeared when the data were adjusted for obesity. This led them to wonder whether FTO actually influenced obesity instead, and they followed up their theory in a further 37,000 people.

FTO comes in two varieties or "alleles", and everyone inherits two copies of the gene, one from each parent. The team found that people who inherit two copies of one variant - 16 per cent of white Europeans - were 70 per cent more likely to be obese than those who inherited two copies of the other allele. The 50 per cent of subjects who inherited one copy of each FTO variant had a 30 per cent higher risk of obesity. Those in the highest risk group weighed an average of 3kg more and those at medium risk were an average of 1.2kg heavier. In each case, the extra weight was entirely accounted for by more body fat, not greater muscle or extra height. The results, which are published in the journal Science apply to both men and women, and to children as young as seven.

FTO will not be the only gene that influences obesity, and inheriting a particular variant will not necessarily make anyone fat. "There are going to be lots of slim people with two copies of the bad allele, and if people who have the more favourable version overeat or don't exercise they are still going to become obese," Professor McCarthy said. "This is not a gene for obesity, it is a gene that contributes to risk." The biological function of FTO remains unknown, and the scientists now plan to study this by creating genetically modified mice in which the gene is knocked out.

Professor McCarthy said the gene is highly active in the hypothalamus, a part of the brain involved in appetite control, suggesting that one potential way it might have its effect. The gene could also influence how readily fat cells are laid down.

The research involved too many people to control for exercise and diet, so it is not yet known whether FTO affects how much people eat or how active they are. Andrew Hattersley, who headed the Exeter group, said it might nevertheless explain how people with apparently similar lifestyles differ in their propensity to put on weight. "Our findings suggest a possible answer to someone who might ask: `I eat the same and do as much exercise as my friend next door, so why am I fatter?'" he said. "There is clearly a component to obesity that is genetic."

Professor McCarthy played down the idea of screening people for FTO, so they can change their diet or exercise habits if they are found to be at higher risk. "We are not pushing genetic testing here. A 3kg increase is significant, but it is not 30kg, and there are always going to be other genes and environmental factors involved. The best way of predicting who is becoming obese is to weigh them."

Independent obesity experts said the discovery was highly significant. Susan Jebb of the MRC Human Nutrition Unit said: "This research provides clear evidence of a biological mechanism which makes some people more susceptible to gaining weight in a world where food is plentiful and sedentary lifestyles the norm. By studying the action of this gene we may learn more about the detailed causes of obesity."

Professor Steve O'Rahilly of Cambridge said: "It is unlikely to be the only such genetic variant, but it is the first to be discovered. Unfortunately we have no idea what this gene actually does to alter our degree of fatness. It is made in every cell in the body and doesn't look like any genes whose functions we understand so we have very few clues as to how it might affect a person's risk of obesity. This is a very exciting first step but there is much work still to do."

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 and margarine? They are just about pure fat. Surely they should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). And how odd it is that we never hear of the huge American study which showed that women who eat lots of veggies have an INCREASED risk of stomach cancer? So the official recommendation to eat five lots of veggies every day might just be creating lots of cancer for the future! It's as plausible (i.e. not very) as all the other dietary "wisdom" we read about fat etc.

10). And will "this generation of Western children be the first in history to lead shorter lives than their parents did"? This is another anti-fat scare that emanates from a much-cited editorial in a prominent medical journal that said so. Yet this editorial offered no statistical basis for its opinion -- an opinion that flies directly in the face of the available evidence.

Even statistical correlations far stronger than anything found in medical research may disappear if more data is used. A remarkable example from Sociology:

"The modern literature on hate crimes began with a remarkable 1933 book by Arthur Raper titled The Tragedy of Lynching. Raper assembled data on the number of lynchings each year in the South and on the price of an acre’s yield of cotton. He calculated the correla­tion coefficient between the two series at –0.532. In other words, when the economy was doing well, the number of lynchings was lower.... In 2001, Donald Green, Laurence McFalls, and Jennifer Smith published a paper that demolished the alleged connection between economic condi­tions and lynchings in Raper’s data. Raper had the misfortune of stopping his anal­ysis in 1929. After the Great Depression hit, the price of cotton plummeted and economic condi­tions deteriorated, yet lynchings continued to fall. The correlation disappeared altogether when more years of data were added."

So we must be sure to base our conclusions on ALL the data. But in medical research, data selectivity and the "overlooking" of discordant research findings is epidemic.

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



19 November, 2007

IS KINDERGARTEN GOOD FOR BEHAVIOUR PROBLEMS?

Popular summary followed by journal abstract below. The conclusions below meet conventional expectations but they conflict with other findings (e.g. here) showing that kindergarten INCREASES aggressive behaviour in children. There are however lots of problems with the study. The effect found was very weak; Reports by the mother again seem to be relied on; The aggregation of care at kindergarten with care by relatives is stupid etc. There would surely be large differences between care given by relatives and care given by teachers. So why did the researchers aggregate them? No mystery. There would have been NO visible effect if they had been treated separately

Children of mothers with a low education level may be less likely to have behavioural problems if they receive regular care from other adults during pre-school years. In the Archives of General Psychiatry this week, a new study has found that non-maternal care -- including centre-based childcare and family arrangements -- can reduce physical aggression problems in these children.

Researchers followed 1691 children from age five months to five years. Mothers were interviewed at regular intervals about their children's behaviour, including frequency of hitting, kicking, biting and bullying. Overall, 17.5 per cent of mothers had not finished high school. Among their children, those who started regular childcare before the age of nine months were 80 per cent less likely to have high levels of aggression compared to those who did not receive such care.

Source

The Role of Maternal Education and Nonmaternal Care Services in the Prevention of Children's Physical Aggression Problems

By Sylvana M. Cote et al.

Context: Physical violence is an important health problem, and low maternal education is a significant risk for the development of chronic physical aggression (PA). We hypothesized that nonmaternal care (NMC) services could prevent the development of childhood PA problems, depending on the age at which the services are initiated.

Method: Children who followed a trajectory of atypically frequent PA between 17 and 60 months of age among a population sample of 1691 Canadian families were identified. Maternal education and NMC were considered in predicting group membership while controlling for confounding family characteristics.

Results: Children of mothers with low education levels (ie, no high school diploma) were less likely to receive NMC. Those who did receive such care had significantly lower risk of a high PA trajectory. Results from logistic regressions indicated that NMC reduced the risk of high PA, especially when initiated before age 9 months (odds ratio, 0.20; 95% confidence interval, 0.05-0.90). Children of mothers who graduated from high school were less at risk of PA problems, and NMC had no additional protective effect.

Conclusions: Nonmaternal care services to children of mothers with low levels of education could substantially reduce their risk of chronic PA, especially if provided soon after birth. Because children most likely to benefit from NMC services are less likely to receive them, special measures encouraging the use of NMC services among high-risk families are needed.

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2007;64(11):1305-1312.




Apparently everyone in our society is vulnerable and millions are harming the health of others. Really?

Forget about the hypothetical risks of a human bird flu epidemic or terror attacks on cinemas. The scariest thing I saw this week was the demand from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics for more “coercive” public health policies to protect “vulnerable people”. The influential Nuffield experts propose the sort of measures once considered the preserve of “health fascists”: even higher taxes on alcohol, shorter licensing hours, a ban on smoking in your home, denying or delaying health treatment for unrepentant smokers and drinkers, compulsory food labelling, even anti-obesity architecture. Their report confirms that public health policy now means not just providing clean air or water, but policing personal behaviour.

Worse, they justify this as the “liberal” approach - a word that, like the “public” in public health, now seems to mean its opposite. The Nuffield report rejects the old “nanny state” label and champions a “stewardship model”. The job of the steward State should be to “reduce the risks of ill-health that people might impose on each other”, and “pay special attention to the health of children and other vulnerable people”.

Unless you really are a health fascist - and bioethicists are no Nazis - there are limits to what you can make people do “for their own good”. Thus the report concedes that the State should “not attempt to coerce adults to lead healthy lives”. But the trick is that, by adopting the stewardship model, it can coerce us not to lead lives that are deemed risky to the health of others.

The illiberal liberals even wheel on J.S.Mill to support coercion. The summary claims that Mill's “classic harm principle” (I thought his classic principle was liberty, but still), backs state intervention “where an individual's actions affect others”. It is hard to think of any non-hermit who does not “affect others”. In fact, what Mill said in On Liberty - quoted in the full report - was that to justify compulsion, an individual's conduct “must be calculated to produce evil to someone else”. It seems that the definition of calculated evil is now to smoke in your living room, feed your family burgers or drink more than a couple of glasses of wine.

And who are the vulnerable people that the steward State must protect? More to the point, who aren't they? Those labelled “vulnerable groups” now include children, women, the elderly, ethnic minorities, disabled people — in short, most people. So, we supposedly live in a society where almost everybody is vulnerable, and millions are harming the health of others. No matter that we are actually living longer and healthier lives than ever before.

As a man of the libertarian Left who believes that autonomy and freedom from coercion are the basis of a healthy society, I recall how that passage in Mill's On Liberty ends: “Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.” Bioethicist, steward thyself.

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 and margarine? They are just about pure fat. Surely they should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). And how odd it is that we never hear of the huge American study which showed that women who eat lots of veggies have an INCREASED risk of stomach cancer? So the official recommendation to eat five lots of veggies every day might just be creating lots of cancer for the future! It's as plausible (i.e. not very) as all the other dietary "wisdom" we read about fat etc.

10). And will "this generation of Western children be the first in history to lead shorter lives than their parents did"? This is another anti-fat scare that emanates from a much-cited editorial in a prominent medical journal that said so. Yet this editorial offered no statistical basis for its opinion -- an opinion that flies directly in the face of the available evidence.

Even statistical correlations far stronger than anything found in medical research may disappear if more data is used. A remarkable example from Sociology:

"The modern literature on hate crimes began with a remarkable 1933 book by Arthur Raper titled The Tragedy of Lynching. Raper assembled data on the number of lynchings each year in the South and on the price of an acre’s yield of cotton. He calculated the correla­tion coefficient between the two series at –0.532. In other words, when the economy was doing well, the number of lynchings was lower.... In 2001, Donald Green, Laurence McFalls, and Jennifer Smith published a paper that demolished the alleged connection between economic condi­tions and lynchings in Raper’s data. Raper had the misfortune of stopping his anal­ysis in 1929. After the Great Depression hit, the price of cotton plummeted and economic condi­tions deteriorated, yet lynchings continued to fall. The correlation disappeared altogether when more years of data were added."

So we must be sure to base our conclusions on ALL the data. But in medical research, data selectivity and the "overlooking" of discordant research findings is epidemic.

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



18 November, 2007

PREGNANCY AND ALCOHOL REVISITED YET AGAIN

We must stop the peasants from drinking! Popular summary below followed by Abstract. This is in most ways an unusually high-quality study. They actually made an attempt at community sampling and controlled for a few obvious things! Wow! Most unusual in the medical literature. But the heading on the journal article rightly shows an awareness that the causal inferences are still a problem.

The findings about attention deficit disorders are particularly interesting. What looks at first like an alcohol effect was shown on closer examination to be a family effect. Conduct problems generally, however, could not be ruled out as a family effect. This fits in with a view that attention-deficit syndrome is more strongly genetically determined than are conduct problems generally.

A major weakness of the study, however, is its reliance on maternal reports. This makes it particularly important that there was a failure to control for many possibly relevant psychological variables in the mother. To expect that there are not important psychological differences between mothers who drink daily and mothers who do not drink at all would be naive in the extreme -- yet it seems primarily to be the difference between the children of those groups of mothers upon which the researchers hang their hat.

It could be asserted, for instance, that neurotic (or depressed, or introverted or abused or ....) mothers were both heavier drinkers and more likely to report problem behaviour in their children. In that case, the alcohol would NOT be the causal variable in the observed correlation. Only a study that used direct observation of behaviour could rule out such possibilities -- though use of a comprehensive personality inventory would go some way towards alleviating doubts.

It may be worth noting that the conclusions below do not necessarily conflict with the recent study that found binge drinking to be harmless -- as the study below focuses on chronic alcohol use. The contrast with the findings of the binge-drinking findings does however suggest that the generalizations permitted by the study below may be too crude to be useful. The question clearly now is HOW MUCH and WHEN drinking is harmful and the study below lacks the detail that would enable an answer to that

In the Archives of General Psychiatry this week, researchers report that women who drink alcohol during pregnancy increase the chances of their children having conduct problems. The study involved 4912 mothers and 8621 of their children. Mothers were surveyed about their substance use during each of their pregnancies, with average intakes ranging from zero to six standard drinks per day. Children were assessed every second year between ages 4 and 11 for behavioural problems.

For each additional day per week that mothers drank alcohol during pregnancy, their children showed a significant increase in conduct problems. And the findings held true even after accounting for other factors, including the mothers' drug use during pregnancy, education level and intellectual ability.

Source

Causal Inferences Regarding Prenatal Alcohol Exposure and Childhood Externalizing Problems

By Brian M. D'Onofrio et al.

Context: Existing research on the neurobehavioral consequences of prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) has not adequately accounted for genetic and environmental confounds.

Objective: To examine the association between PAE and offspring externalizing problems in a large representative sample of families in the United States using measured covariates and a quasi-experimental design to account for unmeasured genetic and environmental confounds.

Design: This study combines information from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The analyses statistically controlled for measured characteristics of the mothers and families and exposure to other prenatal psychoactive substances. In the primary analyses, siblings differentially exposed to prenatal alcohol were compared.

Setting and Participants: Women were recruited from the community using a stratified and clustered probability sample and were followed longitudinally. The sample included 8621 offspring of 4912 mothers.

Main Outcome Measures: Maternal report of conduct problems (CPs) and attention/impulsivity problems (AIPs) during childhood (ages 4-11 years) using standardized assessments related to psychiatric diagnoses.

Results: There was an association between PAE and offspring CPs that was independent of confounded genetic and fixed environmental effects and the measured covariates. The CPs in children of mothers who drank daily during pregnancy were 0.35 SD greater than those in children whose mothers never drank during pregnancy. Although AIPs were associated with PAE when comparing unrelated offspring, children whose mothers drank more frequently during pregnancy did not have more AIPs than siblings who were less exposed to alcohol in utero. Additional subsample analyses suggested that maternal polysubstance use during pregnancy may account for the associations between PAE and AIPs.

Conclusion: These results are consistent with PAE exerting an environmentally mediated causal effect on childhood CPs, but the relation between PAE and AIPs is more likely to be caused by other factors correlated with maternal drinking during pregnancy.

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2007;64(11):1296-1304




A bit more support for the expected influence of caloric restriction in humans

Eating little may help people live longer, a study has found, offering support for an idea that has tantalized scientists for decades.

Researchers have long known that cutting animals' food supply to nearstarvation levels gives themfor reasons still unclearlonger lives and healthier old age. Studies have found that in humans, too, sharply reduced eating is associated with healthier aging, as long as nutritional balance is maintained.

But whether this practice could actually lengthen our lives has remained uncertain.

Some scientists have argued that it's doubtful, because humans already live unusually long. Only one small past study in humans offered weak evidence that people eating less lived longer, according to its authors, who were also involved in the new research.

The new study is the first to probe the claim by comparing human populations, wrote the American and Japanese scientists in a report on their findings.

Moreover, they added, it's "the first study that has shown extended average and maximum life span in a human population that is potentially due to" reduced eating. The practice is known as caloric restriction.

The researchers studied residents of the Japanese island of Okinawa, known through much of the last century both for exceptionally longlived inhabitants and for very spare, though balanced diets. The investigators said they found evidence that the two things are at least partially related.

Although that conclusion might seem obvious to somegiven the past researchthe scientists wrote that to reach it, they had to account for some factors that had hampered systematic analysis. For one, Okinawan diets have changed, becoming richer since about the end of the 1960s. Also, it wasn't clear how to best assess historical dietary intake and compare it to that of other populations.

The findings, by Bradley Willcox of the Pacific Health Research Institute and John A. Burns School of Medicine in Honolulu and colleagues, appear in the November issue of the research journal Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

Animal tests have found that the extreme dieting of caloric restriction entails cutting some 40 percent of calories to get the strongest lifeextending effects. Animals placed on such regimens live up to 40 percent longer than normal, as long as the diet remains nutritionally balanced. (Some scientists proposeagain based mostly on animal teststhat taking a substance called resveratrol may replicate caloric restriction's benefits, without the unpleasantness.)

Willcox and colleagues found that at least from the mid20th century through the 1960s, the Okinawan diet was about 11 percent short of what would normally be recommended to maintain body weight. As of 1995, the average Okinawan lived about five years longer than the average American, and about 18 months more than the average Japanese.

The islanders' spartan diets may have been a legacy of "periodic crop failures that occurred in Okinawa in the early 20th century and a long history of marginal food supply," the researchers wrote.

The study had some weaknesses, they added; for instance, it couldn't rule out that Okinawans lived longer because of the types of nutrients they ate, rather than the amount. Nonetheless, the "tentative" findings fit with a broad array of animal studies, and point to a need for still more research, Willcox and colleagues wrote.

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 and margarine? They are just about pure fat. Surely they should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). And how odd it is that we never hear of the huge American study which showed that women who eat lots of veggies have an INCREASED risk of stomach cancer? So the official recommendation to eat five lots of veggies every day might just be creating lots of cancer for the future! It's as plausible (i.e. not very) as all the other dietary "wisdom" we read about fat etc.

10). And will "this generation of Western children be the first in history to lead shorter lives than their parents did"? This is another anti-fat scare that emanates from a much-cited editorial in a prominent medical journal that said so. Yet this editorial offered no statistical basis for its opinion -- an opinion that flies directly in the face of the available evidence.

Even statistical correlations far stronger than anything found in medical research may disappear if more data is used. A remarkable example from Sociology:

"The modern literature on hate crimes began with a remarkable 1933 book by Arthur Raper titled The Tragedy of Lynching. Raper assembled data on the number of lynchings each year in the South and on the price of an acre’s yield of cotton. He calculated the correla­tion coefficient between the two series at –0.532. In other words, when the economy was doing well, the number of lynchings was lower.... In 2001, Donald Green, Laurence McFalls, and Jennifer Smith published a paper that demolished the alleged connection between economic condi­tions and lynchings in Raper’s data. Raper had the misfortune of stopping his anal­ysis in 1929. After the Great Depression hit, the price of cotton plummeted and economic condi­tions deteriorated, yet lynchings continued to fall. The correlation disappeared altogether when more years of data were added."

So we must be sure to base our conclusions on ALL the data. But in medical research, data selectivity and the "overlooking" of discordant research findings is epidemic.

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



17 November, 2007

Why poor kids may make sicker adults

I had a little bet with myself when I saw this article that it would not mention genetics. I was right. The article essentially explains nothing. It just confirms that poor people are in general less healthy

Scientists have long known that the poor suffer worse health and shorter lives than the rich. Now, researchers have identified what they say are key mechanisms in 13-year-olds that may help explain why this occurs. The longer 13-year-olds have lived in poverty, the less efficient their bodies become in handling environmental demands, investigators found in a new study.

This "may be related to the fact that children who grow up in poverty have a steeper life trajectory of premature health problems than other children," regardless of later successes in life, said Gary Evans of the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University in New York. The study, coauthored by Evans and Cornell graduate student Pilyoung Kim, appears in the November issue of the research journal Psychological Science.

"Muted responses of stress regulatory mechanisms, which are part of the cardiovascular system, not only compromise the ability of the adolescents' bodies to respond to such stressors as noise, poor housing and family turmoil but also indicate they are suffering from more stress-induced physiological strain," said Evans. "It's very costly to society that low-income children end up getting sick prematurely and die younger."

Evans and Kim assessed markers of stress regulatory systems by measuring overnight levels of a stress hormone, cortisol, and blood pressure reactivity and recovery after a stressor -- being asked unexpectedly to do mental math problems. The assessments were conducted in 217 low and middle-income white adolescents at age 9 and again at 13 in rural New York.

The researchers assessed cumulative physical and social risk exposure by measuring crowding, noise and housing quality along with maternal and youth reports of family turmoil, separation from family and exposure to violence. "The study provides yet another piece of evidence that poverty and other chronic risk factors induce physiological changes that appear to be related to longterm health problems," said Evans. He also summarized his findings and made policy recommendations before the planning committee of the Robert W. Johnson Foundation Commission to Build a Healthier America on Oct. 17 at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

Source




Alzheimer's "vaccine" seen to help mice

It's a long way from specially-bred mice to people but the longest journey starts with one step

A vaccine might blunt or even prevent the deadly, memory-robbing devastation of Alzheimer's disease, a study has found. Scientists immunized mice with a molecule thought to play role in the illness. The treated mice, they said, showed better cognitive performance than unvaccinated mice, and a significant reduction in the buildup of protein plaques believed to cause brain cell death and dysfunction in Alzheimer's. "These results are extremely exciting," said Jordan Tang of the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, a nonprofit research institute, who led the study. The findings appear in The Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

Alzheimer's gradually ravages victims' memories and personalities by killing brain cells. The disease affects more than 5 million Americans, including nearly half the population over 85, according to the Alzheimer's Association.

Tang and colleagues previously had identified a moleculean enzyme called memapsin 2that cuts a protein into fragments which, in turn, are believed to cause Alzheimer's. In the new study, the group used memapsin 2 as a vaccine for mice genetically engineered to develop Alzheimer's symptoms. The mice "developed 35 percent fewer plaques," said Tang.

Tang's previous work also has led to the creation of an experimental drug that would treat Alzheimer's by inhibiting memapsin 2. Human clinical trials on that began last summer. Tang said a vaccine would be a supplement to, not a substitute for, other treatments of this nature. "Alzheimer's is a complicated, multifaceted disease," he said. "We cannot rely on a `onesizefitsall' strategy, because what works in one patient will not necessarily work in another."

Vaccination strategies, designed to stimulate the immune system to fight the plaques, have been considered a promising way forward, but their success has been limited, Tang said. In 2002, for example, the pharmaceutical company Elan halted trials of a different vaccine after 15 patients suffered swelling of the central nervous system.

But the new vaccine "stimulates the immune system more gently than previous Alzheimer's vaccines, so we are optimistic about its prospects," said Stephen Prescott, president of the foundation in Oklahoma city. The next step, said Tang, will be to progress toward human trials. "There currently is no effective treatment for Alzheimer's disease," he noted, "so we must explore every possible option."

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 and margarine? They are just about pure fat. Surely they should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). And how odd it is that we never hear of the huge American study which showed that women who eat lots of veggies have an INCREASED risk of stomach cancer? So the official recommendation to eat five lots of veggies every day might just be creating lots of cancer for the future! It's as plausible (i.e. not very) as all the other dietary "wisdom" we read about fat etc.

10). And will "this generation of Western children be the first in history to lead shorter lives than their parents did"? This is another anti-fat scare that emanates from a much-cited editorial in a prominent medical journal that said so. Yet this editorial offered no statistical basis for its opinion -- an opinion that flies directly in the face of the available evidence.

Even statistical correlations far stronger than anything found in medical research may disappear if more data is used. A remarkable example from Sociology:

"The modern literature on hate crimes began with a remarkable 1933 book by Arthur Raper titled The Tragedy of Lynching. Raper assembled data on the number of lynchings each year in the South and on the price of an acre’s yield of cotton. He calculated the correla­tion coefficient between the two series at –0.532. In other words, when the economy was doing well, the number of lynchings was lower.... In 2001, Donald Green, Laurence McFalls, and Jennifer Smith published a paper that demolished the alleged connection between economic condi­tions and lynchings in Raper’s data. Raper had the misfortune of stopping his anal­ysis in 1929. After the Great Depression hit, the price of cotton plummeted and economic condi­tions deteriorated, yet lynchings continued to fall. The correlation disappeared altogether when more years of data were added."

So we must be sure to base our conclusions on ALL the data. But in medical research, data selectivity and the "overlooking" of discordant research findings is epidemic.

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



16 November, 2007

Here we go again: Binge-drinking 'may not hurt the unborn'

Is there ANY medical "wisdom" that does not get reversed sooner or later?

PREGNANT women can indulge in binge-drinking without doing any harm to their unborn child, new research suggests. Oxford University's Jane Henderson and Ron Gray, along with the Danish researcher Ulrik Kesmodel from the University of Aarhus, argued that there was not enough evidence linking alcohol to fetal problems.

In their Systematic review of the fetal effects of prenatal binge drinking report published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, the researchers said that they examined thousands of papers on the subject. A number of studies have linked heavy drinking on a regular basis during pregnancy to stunted growth, birth defects and brain development problems. Less clear is the effect of occasional binge drinking, which amounted to about five drinks in one session in the studies Mr Gray and his team reviewed.

The researchers initially identified more than 3500 scientific papers between 1970 and 2005 looking at pregnancy and alcohol, which they winnowed down to 14 focusing on binge-drinking. They found little substantive evidence binge drinking once in a while caused problems such as miscarriage, stillbirth, abnormal birth weight, or birth defects such as fetal alcohol syndrome. But one study suggested binge-drinking could damage brain development resulting in reduced verbal IQ, learning problems and poorer academic performance. "However, this study only counted women as bingers if they binged throughout pregnancy, not just on a single occasion," the researchers wrote.

Animal studies had shown harmful effects from binge-drinking, which meant pregnant women should still take care no matter how much they consumed, Mr Gray said. At the same time, until researchers had more evidence, women who binge-drink on occasion should not fret unnecessarily about potential harm they were causing to their fetuses, he said. "When pregnant women report isolated episodes of binge-drinking in the absence of a consistently high daily alcohol intake, as is often the case, it is important to avoid inducing unnecessary anxiety as, at present, the evidence of risk seems minimal," the researchers wrote.

Adelaide-based National Organisation for Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Related Disorders (NOFASARD), pregnant women should not drink at all, let alone go on a binge. "The alcohol will reach your unborn baby within one minute and she/he will have exactly the same blood alcohol content as you do (and) the alcohol also stays in your baby longer than it does in you," the NOFASARD said. "Your baby's brain is developing before you are sure you are pregnant, the whole way through your pregnancy and continues to develop after it has been born. "Because researchers are not sure how much alcohol might cause harm most say it's safest not to drink any alcohol during this time."

Source




HOW TO STUDY CANCER WITHOUT STUDYING CANCER

There is a fuller description of the study summarized below here -- showing that the researchers' theories were not fully confirmed. Some types of cell were affected by administration of a derivative of vitamin A called retinoic acid but others were not. The important point to note, however, is that no actual cancer cells seem to have been detected. So the results are interesting but nothing more. Somewhat amusing that there is in the same issue of the journal an article about vitamin D and cancer. Vitamin D is much favoured by the antioxidant freaks. The article found that vitamin D had NO overall effect on cancer deaths

Lung cancer in former smokers could be prevented by a form of vitamin A called retinoic acid, concludes a study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute this week. Former smokers remain at increased risk for lung cancer even after quitting, as lung cells that were damaged during years of smoking may continue to grow and become cancerous many years later. Researchers recruited 225 former heavy smokers and randomly assigned them to receive a daily oral dose of retinoic acid alone, retinoic acid plus vitamin E, or a placebo for three months. Small pieces of lung tissue were collected from participants before and after treatment, and examined for lung cell growth. Compared to placebo, both treatments reduced lung cell growth, suggesting that they could be beneficial for former smokers at increased risk of lung cancer.

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 and margarine? They are just about pure fat. Surely they should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). And how odd it is that we never hear of the huge American study which showed that women who eat lots of veggies have an INCREASED risk of stomach cancer? So the official recommendation to eat five lots of veggies every day might just be creating lots of cancer for the future! It's as plausible (i.e. not very) as all the other dietary "wisdom" we read about fat etc.

10). And will "this generation of Western children be the first in history to lead shorter lives than their parents did"? This is another anti-fat scare that emanates from a much-cited editorial in a prominent medical journal that said so. Yet this editorial offered no statistical basis for its opinion -- an opinion that flies directly in the face of the available evidence.

Even statistical correlations far stronger than anything found in medical research may disappear if more data is used. A remarkable example from Sociology:

"The modern literature on hate crimes began with a remarkable 1933 book by Arthur Raper titled The Tragedy of Lynching. Raper assembled data on the number of lynchings each year in the South and on the price of an acre’s yield of cotton. He calculated the correla­tion coefficient between the two series at –0.532. In other words, when the economy was doing well, the number of lynchings was lower.... In 2001, Donald Green, Laurence McFalls, and Jennifer Smith published a paper that demolished the alleged connection between economic condi­tions and lynchings in Raper’s data. Raper had the misfortune of stopping his anal­ysis in 1929. After the Great Depression hit, the price of cotton plummeted and economic condi­tions deteriorated, yet lynchings continued to fall. The correlation disappeared altogether when more years of data were added."

So we must be sure to base our conclusions on ALL the data. But in medical research, data selectivity and the "overlooking" of discordant research findings is epidemic.

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





15 November, 2007

THE GOOD OLD RED WINE STORY -- NOT SO GOOD THIS TIME?

As a frequent drinker of Australia's excellent wines, I am strongly disposed to believe good things about wine. But the story sure is not straightforward. The study below looks at blood vessel growth (angiogenesis) and shows that chemicals similar to those found in wine have very complex effects when administered to rats. Low doses promote healing generally but leave you more open to cancer. But high doses slow down both cancer and healing. So which way do you jump? I guess if you have cancer you booze like mad and hope you don't get any other problem that requires healing. It seems, however, that the average guy should AVOID wine -- as it may make it easier for cancer to attack you. Nasty! It does seem to be something of a boot in the rump for the antioxidant believers.

As it is only a rat study and did not use actual wine, however, we should not jump to conclusions yet. It should also be noted that the doses used were fairly extreme. One wonders why. Is is because doses in the normal range have no effect? Popular summary below followed by journal abstract

Chemicals found in red wine, fruits, vegetables and green tea may prevent both cancer and heart disease, depending on the dose, claims a new study in the FASEB Journal this week. Red wine in particular contains high levels of these chemicals, called antioxidant polyphenols. By studying the effects of polyphenols on rats, scientists discovered that very high doses could prevent the formation of new blood vessels, while very low doses increased blood vessel growth. So high doses of polyphenols -- which could be given in tablet form -- have the potential to shut down the growth of cancerous tumours by reducing their blood supply. And low doses of polyphenols, equivalent to one of a glass of red wine per day, could be beneficial for those with diseased hearts and circulatory systems.

Source

Effects of red wine polyphenols on postischemic neovascularization model in rats: low doses are proangiogenic, high doses anti-angiogenic

By Celine Baron-Menguy et al.

Polyphenols, present in green tea, grapes, or red wine, have paradoxical properties: they protect against cardiac and cerebral ischemia but inhibit angiogenesis in vitro. So we investigated the effects of polyphenols in vivo on postischemic neovascularization. Rats treated with low (0.2 mg kg-1 day-1) or high (20 mg kg-1 day-1) doses of red wine polyphenolic compounds (RWPC) were submitted to femoral artery ligature on the left leg. Two wks after ligature, high doses of RWPC (i.e., 7 glasses of red wine) reduced arterial, arteriolar, and capillary densities and blood flow in association with an inhibition of a PI3 kinase-Akt-endothelial NO synthase (eNOS) pathway, decreased VEGF expression, and lower metalloproteinase (MMP) activation. Low doses of RWPC (i.e., 1/10th glass of red wine) increased the left/right (L/R) leg ratio to control level in association with an increased blood flow and microvascular density. This angiogenic effect was associated with an overexpression of PI3 kinase-Akt-eNOS pathway and an increased VEGF production without effect on MMP activation. Thus, low and high doses RWPC have respectively pro- and anti-angiogenic properties on postischemic neovascularization in vivo. This unique dual effect of RWPC offers important perspectives for the treatment and prevention of ischemic diseases (low dose) or cancer growth (high dose).

FASEB Journal. 2007;21:3511-3521




ANOTHER NASTY ONE FOR THE BREASTFEEDING LOBBY

Journal abstract here. The study summarized below looks pretty bad. It says that asthmatic mothers permanently damage the breathing of their children if they breastfeed. As some degree of asthma is pretty common, that throws a lot of mothers onto the bottle. I am a bit skeptical about the study, however. It relies on self-report of breastfeeding and who knows how accurate that is and which social classes are more likely to distort it? Breastfeeding was not as fashionable 16 years ago (the period studied) so maybe the long breastfeeders were working class and the health effect seen is simply a class effect. Who knows? But it does sound a note of caution to those who tyrannize women who use the bottle from an early age. It looks like the tit can pass on bad things as well as good things

Breastfed babies breathe better in later childhood, except when mum has asthma, concludes a study in the latest issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. The study involved 679 children who performed lung function tests at ages 11 and 16. Compared to children who stopped exclusively breastfeeding before two months of age, those breastfed for four months or more had increased lung capacity. But this was only true in the children of non-asthmatic mothers. Babies with asthmatic mothers showed no improvement in lung capacity with longer breastfeeding. In fact, the children of asthmatic mothers showed a significant reduction in lung airflow if they were breastfed for four months or more. The authors stress, however, that more research is needed before changing breastfeeding recommendations, especially considering the many health benefits of breast milk.

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 and margarine? They are just about pure fat. Surely they should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). And how odd it is that we never hear of the huge American study which showed that women who eat lots of veggies have an INCREASED risk of stomach cancer? So the official recommendation to eat five lots of veggies every day might just be creating lots of cancer for the future! It's as plausible (i.e. not very) as all the other dietary "wisdom" we read about fat etc.

10). And will "this generation of Western children be the first in history to lead shorter lives than their parents did"? This is another anti-fat scare that emanates from a much-cited editorial in a prominent medical journal that said so. Yet this editorial offered no statistical basis for its opinion -- an opinion that flies directly in the face of the available evidence.

Even statistical correlations far stronger than anything found in medical research may disappear if more data is used. A remarkable example from Sociology:

"The modern literature on hate crimes began with a remarkable 1933 book by Arthur Raper titled The Tragedy of Lynching. Raper assembled data on the number of lynchings each year in the South and on the price of an acre’s yield of cotton. He calculated the correla­tion coefficient between the two series at –0.532. In other words, when the economy was doing well, the number of lynchings was lower.... In 2001, Donald Green, Laurence McFalls, and Jennifer Smith published a paper that demolished the alleged connection between economic condi­tions and lynchings in Raper’s data. Raper had the misfortune of stopping his anal­ysis in 1929. After the Great Depression hit, the price of cotton plummeted and economic condi­tions deteriorated, yet lynchings continued to fall. The correlation disappeared altogether when more years of data were added."

So we must be sure to base our conclusions on ALL the data. But in medical research, data selectivity and the "overlooking" of discordant research findings is epidemic.

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





14 November, 2007

British Nanny State on the march

Higher alcohol taxes, halting 24-hour drinking, banning smoking in people’s homes and adding fluoride to water supplies are justified intrusions to improve public health, senior academics said yesterday. A report by the well-respected Nuffield Council of Bioethics concludes that the Government and industry are not doing enough to prevent binge drinking or obesity and should promote healthy lifestyles through stricter measures and deterrents.

The authors, a group of doctors, lawyers, philosophers and other experts, argue that the much-maligned “nanny state” should be replaced by a new, more sensitive idea of “stewardship”. Campaigners described the report as a potential manifesto for a bully state and industry groups bristled at the prospect of tighter regulation.

The council, which considers ethical questions raised by advances in medical research, looked at alcohol, obesity, smoking, infectious disease and fluoridation of water. It identified alcohol consumption as a huge public health problem and said that the Government could do more. “Increasing tax on alcohol and restricting hours of sale have been shown to be effective in reducing alcohol consumption,” its report states. “Yet the Government’s alcohol strategy has focused on public information campaigns and voluntary labelling schemes, measures that have been shown not to be effective.”

Lord Krebs, who chaired the report committee, said yesterday: “People often reject the idea of a nanny state but the Government has a duty to look after the health of everyone and sometimes that means guiding or restricting our choices.”

The central concept of stewardship differed from the nanny state by being “more sensitive to the balances between public good and individual freedom,” he said. The report concludes: “The stewardship model provides justification for the UK Government to introduce measures that are more coercive than those which currently feature in the National Alcohol Strategy.”

Lord Krebs said that ministers should revisit the decision to introduce 24-hour licensing laws in 2005. At a briefing yesterday in London, he said: “The Government should implement tougher measures to tackle excessive drinking. There is also an urgent need for an analysis of the effect of extended opening hours on levels of alcohol consumption, as well as on antisocial behaviour.”

He added: “When 24-hour drinking was introduced, it was suggested to create a continental-style café culture. If you walk down any of the main streets of Oxford at 11 o’clock — one is known as ‘Vomit Alley’ — we all see a conspicuous absence of continental café culture.”

The report, in preparation since February last year, recommends that producers and sellers of alcohol should take more responsibility for preventing harm to health. It also says that the arguments used to justify banning smoking in enclosed public spaces would “also apply to banning smoking in homes”. This would be extremely difficult to enforce, but local authorities and the courts could preside over exceptional cases where children with a respiratory illness could be at such a risk that intervention may be ethically acceptable.

The Nuffield report comes as a coalition of 21 organisations headed by the Royal College of Physicians prepare to form a new Alcohol Health Alliance, which plans to lobby for a 10 per cent rise in alcohol taxes and tighter regulation of the drinks industry. Details of the Alcohol Health Alliance are expected to coincide today with a conference organised by the college on reducing the harm caused by alcohol.

The UK Public Health Association welcomed the report, saying that it represented an evidence-based approach that could counter health inequalities, but Simon Clark, director of the smokers’ lobby group Forest, said: “Politicians should take care not to overindulge in social engineering. Potentially, this report is a manifesto for a bully state in which people are increasingly forced to behave in a manner approved by politicians and evangelical health campaigners who want unprecedented control over our daily lives.”

Jeremy Beadles, from the Wine and Spirit Trade Association, added: “The people clamouring for an increase in taxes and regulation on the drinks industry ignore the fact that alcohol consumption is actually falling. Increasing the cost of alcohol will just hit the vast majority of people who enjoy a drink in moderation.”

Dawn Primarolo, the Health Minister, said that the Government’s strategy to tackle harmful drinking was comprehensive and included an independent review of alcohol pricing.

Source




Brown's 'get fit' towns: Kim Jong-il would be proud

With its new towns that will force people to keep fit, Britain's New Labour is pushing an authoritarian health agenda that will be the envy of tinpot dictators

Gordon Brown's UK government will now try to design urban areas that force us to exercise more - and that's official. To tackle obesity with what he called a `large-scale' approach `across the whole community', Brown's health secretary Alan Johnson has said that he wants to `make physical activity a normal part of everyday life'. (1) So before you go to work, school or your leisure destination, remember that your personal trainer, Alan, has instructed you to walk, run or pedal there.

Johnson's `fit towns', as they have been called, are enough to leave you breathless. Yet although his announcement was picked up by mass media as far afield as China and India (2), it was - like so much of Labour policy - not entirely new. As spiked pointed out nearly six months ago, when Brown announced his plans for five eco-towns, the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) had committed itself to urban growth based on public transport, cycling, walking and a reduced need to travel, `especially by car' (3). Moreover the CLG's July Eco-towns Prospectus registered a desire to `deliver physical and mental health benefits', offer `choices for healthy living', and go about `encouraging healthy behaviours' (4). So what has Johnson added? You could say that he has formally medicalised urban design, annexing it as a Department of Health issue, and you'd be right. But the real novelty of Johnson's innovation is his drive to get us stretching our limbs at Labour's behest.

Barely two weeks ago, Johnson insisted that Britain's potential obesity crisis is one that's on the same scale as the crisis of climate change. That comparison was ridiculous enough (5). Now, he has said that both Labour's eco-towns and other urban areas should be adapted to improve people's health. Through their layout, facilities and construction, eco-towns could also be `healthy towns'. If successful, such an approach `could also apply to areas undergoing housing growth and renewal' (6).

This is a regime for national fitness worthy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Not for nothing has Johnson claimed a past allegiance to Stalinism (7). In an absolutely illiberal and inhumane manner, Johnson wants urban areas designed so that people's behaviour cannot at all consist of their own freely decided `choices'. Instead, behaviour will be relentlessly controlled by the state. What the Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov did to salivating dogs, or the stimulus-response experiments conducted by US psychologist BF Skinner did to hungry rats, Johnson wants to do to us. Johnson's view of human freedom is degraded. The confusions within Labour's urban policy, and the logic of Johnson's approach, make his proposal ludicrous and unworkable. But that should not blind us to his authoritarianism.

For some time now, Labour has crammed what few new houses it has built into the same fenced-in urban areas, so as to keep the masses in their place, protect Britain's rural spaces and lower vehicle emissions as a means of saving the planet. And Labour's brownfield brutalism does not stop there. So ludicrously convinced is Johnson that architectural space really does determine physical slimness, we might expect him to contradict his boss, Gordon Brown, sooner or later.

When Brown first floated the idea of eco-towns, he said that their homes, roads and bus routes should be constructed `in the most environmentally sustainable way' (8). But if obesity is, as Johnson says, on a par with climate change, then dispensing with roads and public transport altogether would be the best way to reduce people's waistlines. And why doesn't Johnson decree that the whole of Britain become a TV-free zone, too? After all, TV supposedly encourages us to be couch potatoes, so giving the National Health Service more fatties to treat.

In the walk-to-work office blocks of Johnson's vision, perhaps there should be no lifts. Lifts would only encourage sloth - especially among slackers who are over 60. And surely doorways should be specially narrow, so as to encourage dietary restraint?

In announcing his intellectual breakthrough, Johnson made much of the flab-fighting successes of cities in Australia, Finland and especially France. Yet in fact Obesogenic Environments: Evidence Review, a highly relevant and recent report commissioned by the Foresight programme of the UK Office of Science and Innovation, makes no mention of either Finland or France. The report records that in Perth, Western Australia, there is evidence that, `after adjustment for confounding factors', being overweight is associated with living on a highway and living on streets with no pavements and with a perceived lack of paths within walking distance. Being obese in Perth is likewise associated with perceived lack of paths within walking distance, poor access to four or more recreational facilities, and with a lack of pavements or shops within walking distance. But that's about it. Indeed with regard to obesity, the report concludes that, `influences of the environment are probably small and mechanisms remain unclear. At present, there is scant evidence on whether the environment might have different effects on people with contrasting levels of physical activity and body weight.' (9)

Clearly Johnson can't be bothered with such a careful analysis. His intent, rather, is simply to stigmatise those who cannot afford to eat well and subject them to a kind of sweaty urban treadmill. The government's attempt to make us live zero-carbon, zero-carbohydrate lifestyles squeezes two ridiculous aims into a failed policy - housing. Recently, Labour has engineered a decline in the number of new homes built in Britain; but its ambitions to police us all through social engineering know no limits. The construction of towns around the tyranny of health is a frightening new departure. Yet we have not heard the last of the Johnson doctrine. Britain's 2012 Olympics doesn't just advertise itself as a low-carbon affair, but insists that it will increase Britons' `awareness' of cycling and walking as healthy means of travel (10). In Labour's camp, no aspect of our public or private lives escapes the government guards - or Alan Johnson, the demented doctor.

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 and margarine? They are just about pure fat. Surely they should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). And how odd it is that we never hear of the huge American study which showed that women who eat lots of veggies have an INCREASED risk of stomach cancer? So the official recommendation to eat five lots of veggies every day might just be creating lots of cancer for the future! It's as plausible (i.e. not very) as all the other dietary "wisdom" we read about fat etc.

10). And will "this generation of Western children be the first in history to lead shorter lives than their parents did"? This is another anti-fat scare that emanates from a much-cited editorial in a prominent medical journal that said so. Yet this editorial offered no statistical basis for its opinion -- an opinion that flies directly in the face of the available evidence.

Even statistical correlations far stronger than anything found in medical research may disappear if more data is used. A remarkable example from Sociology:

"The modern literature on hate crimes began with a remarkable 1933 book by Arthur Raper titled The Tragedy of Lynching. Raper assembled data on the number of lynchings each year in the South and on the price of an acre’s yield of cotton. He calculated the correla­tion coefficient between the two series at –0.532. In other words, when the economy was doing well, the number of lynchings was lower.... In 2001, Donald Green, Laurence McFalls, and Jennifer Smith published a paper that demolished the alleged connection between economic condi­tions and lynchings in Raper’s data. Raper had the misfortune of stopping his anal­ysis in 1929. After the Great Depression hit, the price of cotton plummeted and economic condi­tions deteriorated, yet lynchings continued to fall. The correlation disappeared altogether when more years of data were added."

So we must be sure to base our conclusions on ALL the data. But in medical research, data selectivity and the "overlooking" of discordant research findings is epidemic.

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





13 November, 2007

Health checkups not such a good idea

Britons now spend a staggering 99million pounds a year on DIY diagnostic kits (home-use tests that can 'detect' diseases such as diabetes), a rise of 30 per cent over the past five years. But it's not just the cheap end of the market that's flourishing; more people than ever are now undergoing CT and MRI scans. Once the preserve of patients with serious illnesses such as cancer, these scans can cost up to 3,000 a time, yet companies that offer them report a major surge in demand.

Some experts are worried that these health tests are causing unnecessary anxiety - a health problem in itself. They are also concerned that the tests can lead to people having further investigations they don't need, and that these tests also pose an unnecessary risk. 'It's certainly true that we are more anxious than ever about our health because we feel more vulnerable than we used to,' says Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, a London GP and author of a book on public fears about health.

Part of the blame lies with health promotion campaigns - and the growing phenomenon of 'awareness' weeks, he says. 'With last month's breast cancer month, for example, you have girls in their teens and 20s coming to see you, terrified that they have it, when there's more chance of them being struck by lightning.' The availability of information is also fuelling this anxiety, says Professor Michael Hyland, a professor of health psychology at the University of Plymouth. 'We have always been a nation of worried well, but now technology means we have a lot more access to information about disease that only medics had access to previously - and people worry about it.'

Younger patients in particular are becoming 'health obsessed', says Dr Fitzpatrick. 'In the past ten years, the number of fit and healthy 25-year-old men demanding a "full health check-up" has soared - but they need nothing of the sort,' he says. 'They should be enjoying themselves, not testing their cholesterol.'

One issue is the quality of some DIY tests - talk to most specialists and they'd argue it's always better to have a proper medical test than to spend 10 pounds on a home test with questionable results. GPs are seeing an influx of people after self-diagnosis who are worried about their results when there is no need for them to be, says Dr Vivienne Nathanson, head of science and ethics at the British Medical Association. The other concern is that home testing kits only encourage 'preoccupation with health that isn't conducive to good health,' says Dr Fitzpatrick. 'Personally, I wouldn't do any of this sort of testing or screening - it's unnecessary. These companies are feeding off people's anxieties and making a vast income from something of dubious value.'

However, the greater concern, say some experts, are body scans. Typically these use MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), although you can also have CT scans, which involve a powerful beam of X-rays over the body. These scans are used to identify health problems such as heart disease or tumours - sometimes before symptoms have developed.

Dr Sebastian Kalwij, a GP in Central London and doctor at Prescan, a private clinic where body scans are offered, says demand is rising. 'I used to see two or three patients a week at the beginning of this year but it's now around two or three a day,' he says. 'We find life-threatening health abnormalities in around two per cent of patients and, for the rest, the scan puts their mind at rest that there is nothing sinister going on inside.' Prescan's typical customer, he says, is someone who wants to take control of their own health. 'They may not like their GP, or can't face the long NHS waiting lists, or want their results quickly. Either way, they can afford not to have this frustration.'

But while it's important we take an interest in our health, these tests 'very rarely' pick up anything significant, says Dr Vivienne Nathanson. 'More often, people are just left worried by them. We must understand the limitations of these tests - MRI and CT scans are brilliant when you have some idea what is wrong with you and are looking for an abnormality which has caused a symptom. 'But these scans also pick up a lot of abnormalities which we class as unimportant and as posing no danger to your health - such as cysts and blood vessels taking an abnormal route, which would be simply regarded as not relevant. 'The danger then is that people start worrying about things which are just natural variations in how we're made up and looking for diseases and symptoms which aren't there. 'This leaves them open to physical risks - if they have further examinations such as exploratory procedures like a colonoscopy - and higher financial costs, as well as more emotional worries about their future health.'

There are risks with unnecessary exposure to radiation during CT scans, she adds. 'Radiation is like a poison - the level of risk is associated with the dose. When you expose yourself to radiation unnecessarily, you start to reduce the amount you can have safely at other times when you really need it, say, in hospital.'

GPs are often left picking up the pieces. 'Some people are told there could be something wrong with them but are then given no treatment plan or advice.' This, in turn, creates its own anxiety, suggests Professor Paul Salkovskis, the director of the Maudsley Hospital Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma. 'Telling someone they are "probably okay", as these places sometimes do - because there is never any guarantee that you are 100 per cent okay - is not reassuring, so people go on to pursue their potential problem further. This is often counterproductive and makes people anxious.'

Source




Noise just sickening

SICK to death of noisy neighbours? More than you realise, probably. Researchers have linked exposure to chronic noise with a range of serious ailments including sleep disorders, learning difficulties, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and depression. Griffith University School of Environment lecturer Deanna Tomerini said it was clear from the Environmental Health Council of Australia study that "unwanted sound" was as detrimental to public health as air and water pollution, and that the problem was growing. "Higher-density living, population growth, the increase in road and air traffic - it's evident noise problems are increasing. More people are being affected by noise," she said.

Ms Tomerini warned that governments could expect health problems to increase as noise problems worsened. "Noise should be given the same priority as any other health issue," she said. "Noise just has to be up there at the same level. We need to identify the extent of the problem now. Many of the things to be done to prevent noise need to be done at the planning stage."

Inner-city resident Marion Brown, 59, said there was no doubt her health had suffered after two years of enduring the "neighbours from hell". She said she regularly experienced chronic headaches and anxiety and was now set to sell her house to escape. "It's got to the point where I've been so tired from being unable to sleep because of their noise, I've slept in the car," she said. "I didn't want to sell, but I felt like I had no other choice."

Ms Tomerini said Ms Brown's case highlighted the frustration people had with noise and their reluctance to report it. "Sometimes people don't complain about noise because they think nothing will be done, or they get passed from agency to agency," she said. Ms Tomerini said it would be helpful to have a more integrated approach, including a single agency to receive complaints.

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 and margarine? They are just about pure fat. Surely they should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

9). And how odd it is that we never hear of the huge American study which showed that women who eat lots of veggies have an INCREASED risk of stomach cancer? So the official recommendation to eat five lots of veggies every day might just be creating lots of cancer for the future! It's as plausible (i.e. not very) as all the other dietary "wisdom" we read about fat etc.

10). And will "this generation of Western children be the first in history to lead shorter lives than their parents did"? This is another anti-fat scare that emanates from a much-cited editorial in a prominent medical journal that said so. Yet this editorial offered no statistical basis for its opinion -- an opinion that flies directly in the face of the available evidence.

Even statistical correlations far stronger than anything found in medical research may disappear if more data is used. A remarkable example from Sociology: "The modern literature on hate crimes began with a remarkable 1933 book by Arthur Raper titled The Tragedy of Lynching. Raper assembled data on the number of lynchings each year in the South and on the price of an acre’s yield of cotton. He calculated the correla­tion coefficient between the two series at –0.532. In other words, when the economy was doing well, the number of lynchings was lower.... In 2001, Donald Green, Laurence McFalls, and Jennifer Smith published a paper that demolished the alleged connection between economic condi­tions and lynchings in Raper’s data. Raper had the misfortune of stopping his anal­ysis in 1929. After the Great Depression hit, the price of cotton plummeted and economic condi­tions deteriorated, yet lynchings continued to fall. The correlation disappeared altogether when more years of data were added." So we must be sure to base our conclusions on ALL the data. But in medical research, data selectivity and the "overlooking" of discordant research findings is epidemic.

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





12 November, 2007

Flabby claims about food and cancer

A widely publicised report says that having a 'spare tyre' and consuming anything from bacon to milkshakes could increase your risk of cancer. Fat chance. Professor Patrick Basham and Dr John Luik, authors of "Diet Nation: Exposing the Obesity Crusade", pick apart two deliberately misleading reports on food and cancer that hit the headlines around the world last week. They reinforce what has already been said on this blog about the reports concerned

Scientists find link between body fat and cancer risk', declared the UK Independent. `Cancer study sparks bacon sandwich backlash', said the Melbourne Herald Sun. `To avoid the Big C, stay small', warned The Economist. Publications around the world summarised the findings of the latest report on cancer to tell us that bad diets and expanding waistlines are a public health disaster.

But before committing ourselves to a dietary life of little red meat or alcohol, and few fizzy drinks, milk shakes, crisps or other such `bad' foods, let's look behind the scary headlines and ask whether the scientific evidence really supports these cancer truths. The catalyst for these stories was the World Cancer Research Fund's new report, "Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity and the Prevention of Cancer: A Global Perspective". The report proclaims three truths about cancer, fat and food. First, being fat increases our risk for cancer; second, eating certain foods gives us cancer; and third, cancer is `mostly preventable'.

The report's authors tell us they looked at over half a million studies, and then concentrated on the 7,000 that were most relevant. That is not quite true, for they actually reference slightly fewer than 2,500 studies on diet and disease. More importantly, they conveniently omit many major studies that don't support their three truths theory.

Crucially, they almost exclusively reference epidemiological studies, which inherently cannot establish that being fat or that eating red meat gives you cancer, as that's not what this type of study does. Instead, such studies look for associations between various factors and the risk of disease. For example, this report was interested in whether the variation in people's weights or their diets were correlated with the development of cancer. But the very nature of epidemiological studies means that the margin of error arising from the nature of the data almost invariably exceeds the supposed relationships that the study has found. Only in a very few cases - like the link between active smoking and lung cancer - is the association between a lifestyle factor and disease strong enough for us to be reasonably sure that one causes the other.

What about the headline-grabbing claim that being fat gives you cancer? The report actually claims that being overweight or obese increases your risk for six cancers - cancers of the oesophagus, pancreas, colon/rectum, breast, endometrium (the inner lining of the womb), and kidney. However, when you look at the report's support for this conclusion, the evidence is extremely thin.

Take pancreatic cancer, for example. The report cites 20 case control studies. (These are studies where groups who already have a disease are compared to reasonably matched people who do not, in order to look for possibly significant differences. Case control studies have a greater risk of bias than cohort studies.) Only three of these studies show a statistically significant association between obesity and pancreatic cancer. Similarly, of 42 cohort studies (where you start with a group of healthy people and see who develops the disease) on colorectal cancer, only 13 show a link with obesity.

Of the 16 studies that the report documents on the relationship between breast cancer and obesity, only three are statistically significant, while eight actually show a decreased risk between breast cancer and obesity. Even for oesophageal cancer, the increased risk was largely confined to the morbidly, as opposed to the moderately, obese. With endometrial and kidney cancers, the relative risks were below two. According to the US National Cancer Institute, such risks are so small that they may be due to `chance, statistical bias or the effects of confounding factors'. Such results should be treated with extreme caution.

The just-published Million Women Study from the UK, which examined the evidence for a link between 17 of the most common cancers and Body Mass Index (BMI), the conventional yardstick for measuring overweight and obesity, found a similar pattern of results. In this study, 10 of the cancers do not show a statistically significant association with either higher levels of overweight or obesity. Of the remaining seven cancers, the association between overweight and the cancer is non-significant in four, and where the results are significant, the risks (except for endometrial and oesophagal cancer) are never stronger than two, except among the obese. [See the comments about weak statistical relationships in the above study made here on 8th]

A new study from the National Cancer Institute and the US Centers for Disease Control also contradicts the obesity-cancer link. This study found that being overweight was not associated with those cancers previously considered obesity-related. The study found `little or no association of excess all-cancer mortality with any of the BMI categories'. Indeed, the study suggests that overweight might in fact be protective against cancer.

Is the second truth in the World Cancer Research Fund's report - that eating certain foods increases our risk for cancer - really true? Of the 17 cancers discussed in the report, virtually all have statistically non-significant associations with every type of food, which means that they provide no evidence of a link between a particular food and a particular cancer. For example, of the 17 studies cited which assessed the link between colon cancer and processed meat, 13 are not statistically significant. Despite those scary headlines about red meat, the report concludes that `there is limited evidence.suggesting that red meat is a cause of oesophageal cancer'. Again, `there is limited, inconsistent evidence.that grilled.or barbecued animal foods are causes of stomach cancer'. And `there is limited evidence suggesting that processed meat is a cause of stomach cancer'. Given the limited nature of this evidence, it is difficult to see how the report authors justified the advice to avoid red and processed meat.

Are these anomalous findings? On the contrary. Consider, for example, the American Cancer Society's 2001 study of diet and stomach cancer, which looked at 436,000 men and women and found no increased risk of stomach cancer associated with eating processed meats. What that study did find, however, was an increased risk of stomach cancer with women who consumed more vegetables!

What of the report's claim that cancer is `mostly preventable'? This is perhaps the most curious claim since there is massive evidence of the best kind that suggests that it is simply not true. The Women's Health Initiative Dietary Modification Trial is the most recent, and one of the largest and most expensive, randomised controlled studies of the effect of diet and weight on breast cancer, colon cancer, heart disease and stroke. It studied 49,000 American women over an eight-year period. The women in the intervention group ate diets that were low fat and high fibre with six servings of grains and five servings of vegetables and fruits per day.

There were no statistically significant differences between the intervention group and the control group in the incidence of breast cancer, colon cancer, strokes or heart attacks. Ironically, the women following the `healthy' diet designed to reduce cancer and heart disease didn't even weigh less than they did at the beginning of the study, or less than the women in the control group who continued to eat as they always had. Unlike the epidemiological studies cited in the World Cancer Research Fund report, this gold standard, randomised, controlled intervention found no evidence to support the claim that there is a connection between eating certain foods and being a certain weight and preventing cancer.

This study is not unique. A newer one, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute analysed data from 14 studies involving 756,000 men and women who were followed from six to 20 years. The study found that fruit and vegetable intake was not associated with a reduced colon cancer risk. Some cancer prevention! Contrary to recent media headlines, the World Cancer Research Fund report does not prove there is a causal connection between cancer and being fat, or cancer and eating certain foods, or diet and cancer prevention. Rather, the report merely demonstrates that, as epidemiologist Petr Shrabanek observed, `people who eat, die'.

Source




Curvy women are cleverer too

This I believe. It is just natural selectio