Bilingualism delays dementia?

Do bilinguals differ from monolinguals only in being bilingual? Unlikely. So the generalizations below are suspect. The effects claimed could be due to other factors associated with bilingualism -- such as higher IQ. Low IQ people would seem much less likely to develop substantial bilingualism

After school, Carlos and Carmen Nguyen shuttle between two sets of grandparents in happy bursts of English, Spanish, Tagalog and Vietnamese. Their parents love the way languages open their children's eyes to the family's heritage and to other cultures. Yet when they began their multilingual journey, they never imagined that Carlos and Carmen, now 6 and 9, also might be developing brains especially good at ignoring distractions and better able to withstand aging. "This is incredible," said the children's mother, Irene Bersola-Nguyen, a child development lecturer at California State University, Sacramento, who has been trading delighted e-mails with friends and colleagues about the latest study on the bilingual brain.

A team of Canadian researchers who studied people being treated for dementia found that those who regularly used two languages reported their first symptoms of a fading mind about four years later than those who used only one language. That work, published in February's edition of the journal Neuropsychologia, follows a 2004 study that found older bilingual people were better at paying close attention despite distractions. "Language pays off big time," said Ellen Bialystok, lead researcher on both studies and a scientist with the Baycrest Research Centre for Aging and the Brain in Toronto.

Bialystok and others cautioned that so many factors contribute to healthy aging, it would be premature to say language skills definitely delay dementia. Still, growing indications that bilingualism may deliver lifelong benefits in cognition have captured the attention of educators and researchers. "Ellen Bialystok is a pioneer in this field, and she's generating quite a buzz," said Tamar Gollan, a University of California, San Diego, psychiatry professor who studies bilingualism. "People all over the world are replicating her findings for some of her earlier work."

Few places in the United States have more at stake in understanding the bilingual brain than California, where a staggering 42 percent of people age 5 and older speak a language other than English at home. In Sacramento County, it's 29 percent. With the immigrant population and the proportion of those who are fully bilingual both expected to grow, California could be a living laboratory for examining the impact of what we gain -- and lose -- from speaking more than one language.

There are clearly losses as well as gains, said Gollan, whose own research probes the subtle deficits of bilinguals. Yet when she weighed them, she came down soundly on the side of raising her own small children with two languages.

Bialystok, who began studying bilingual kids decades ago, believes one key to their special brainpower lies in the way they must constantly decide which language to use and which to suppress. For people who use two languages daily, "every time you want to speak one language, the other language is activated" in the brain as well, she said. "That means you need a mechanism so that you're only drawing from the right pool (of words). It's going be a mechanism that works extremely fast ... while you're producing sentences. It's way below your radar for detecting what's happening." So bilinguals get far more practice than monolinguals in using the part of the brain that focuses our attention, helping us sort through conflicting information and ignore distractions. Using two languages seems to bolster rapid decision-making, multi-tasking and perhaps memory.

To measure the effect in older adults, Bialystok used one of the many psychological tests designed to confound us, because we have to respond to information with conflicting cues. It may be a picture that requires you to move your left hand, which shows up on the right side of a computer screen. Or it may be the word "green," written in red letters. In such tests, bilingual people in their 70s did noticeably better than monolingual people. With lots of practice, the one-language speakers eventually caught up.

Fergus Craik, a senior scientist at Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute who collaborates with Bialystok, said ongoing research seems to point to memory advantages. Bilingualism may bolster the kind of memory that lets us recall specific things that happened to us or recognize a person out of context, Craik said.

Both researchers suspect that bilingualism may delay dementia in the same way that other intense mental activity is believed to, whether it's playing an instrument or solving puzzles. Not everyone is convinced the "use it or lose it" strategy for maintaining a healthy brain has been proven, but it's something "we're all thinking about," said Dr. Charles DeCarli, a UC Davis neurology professor who heads the UCD Alzheimer's Disease Research Center.

Source





Implantable pacemaker the future of weight loss?

DIETS and exercise may not be the future for weight loss. A pacemaker-like device, which blocks hunger nerves, has been successfully trialled at Adelaide's Flinders Medical Centre, with stunning results. The first person to be implanted with the device lost 20 kilograms in a year without changing her dietary habits or exercise regime. The Adelaide medical centre was one of three in the world to trial the new device, developed by EnteroMedics Inc.

Flinders' Professor of Digestive Surgery James Toouli (Toouli) said the instrument was placed under the abdominal skin and powered by parts worn outside the body. The device then intermittently blocked hunger signals carried by vagus nerves - two large cables which go from the brain to the gastrointestinal tract. "The vagus are the most important nerve that go to the digestive system," Prof Toouli said today. "These nerves control the movement of the stomach and they control some of the secretions used for digestion, and by blocking these intermittently, what it does is it slows downs the aching of the stomach so consequently people don't feel as hungry."

The theory of blocking the hunger nerves came from clinical observations from past surgery where patients had the nerves divided. "It was noted in those people if they were overweight, they actually would lose weight," Prof Toouli said. "Instead of dividing the nerves we now block them with this pacemaker-type device. "And the reason why this is better than dividing them ... is the body always recuperates if we do something permanent and those nerves do regenerate in time. "So if you can just block them intermittently but not destroy them, then the effects are most likely to last for a long time."

Flinders trialled the device on 10 people including 32-year-old Sarah Polkinghorne, who lost 20kg in a year after having her vagus nerves blocked for a total of 12 hours a day. The group was told not to alter their exercise or dietary habits. A smaller improved version of the device is now being trialled. "The idea is that this will be implantable, the whole thing," Prof Toouli said. "At the moment what we call the neuroregulator is implantable but the person has to actually apply an external device in order to send messages to the nerves. "Ultimately what we are working towards is a fully implantable thing just like a pacemaker so it would be put in and left there for a number of years with a rechargeable battery.

"These early trials are geared towards trying to work out the dosage and how often this thing needs to be turned on so that it will optimise the fully implantable device, which is still very much in a prototype stage." Prof Toouli hoped the device would be widely available in the future. "That is certainly our view," he said. "As always with these things, cost comes into it and these things have not been worked out yet, but it's really very promising."

Source

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Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trans fats:

For one summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and the evidence of lasting harm from them is dubious. By taking extreme groups in trans fats intake, some weak association with coronary heart disease has at times been shown in some sub-populations but extreme group studies are inherently at risk of confounding with other factors and are intrinsically of little interest to the average person.

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

Cloning madness

California politics lately seems a parody of itself. Starting in February, San Francisco will become the first city in the country to require employers to give paid sick leave to their workers - full- and part-time, permanent and temporary. They will be able to miss work even when they aren't sick, but wish to stay home (ostensibly) to help a domestic partner or a family member. Then there is legislation soon to be introduced into the State Assembly that would criminalize the spanking (or slapping or whacking) of children under four. The coup de grace, however, is a Senate bill that would require the labeling of meat and milk obtained from cloned animals if such products are approved for human consumption.

This last proposal is not only unwise and unwarranted, but is also almost surely unconstitutional. Introduced by Senator Carol Migden (D-San Francisco), it comes several weeks after the U.S. FDA made public a preliminary decision to permit the consumption of food from cloned animals.

The FDA's decision was based on voluminous - and incontrovertible - scientific data. Scientists have known for years that the clones are indistinguishable genetically, biochemically and nutritionally from the parent. As one farmer who owns a pair of clones of a prize-winning Holstein cow observed, they are essentially twins of "a cow that was already in production."

Cloning technology of one sort or another is widely applied to a variety of foods that we consume routinely and uncontroversially. As the authoritative journal Nature Biotechnology observed in a January 2007 editorial:

"The irony in all this is that food from clones has been a part of our diet for years. Many common fruits (e.g., pears, apples, oranges and lemons) and several vegetables (e.g., potatoes and truffles) are clones. And most of us have probably ingested meat and dairy products from livestock cloned by natural reproduction (monozygotic siblings), mechanical embryo-splitting or even nuclear transfer from an embryonic donor cell into an enucleated oocyte. Regulators traditionally paid scant attention to clones as a group-and rightly so."

What of Senator Migden's attempt to require labeling of products derived from cloned animals or their offspring? She needs to do some research. The Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act requires that food labels be truthful and not misleading, and federal law prohibits label statements that are likely to be misunderstood by consumers even if they are, strictly speaking, accurate. For example, although a "cholesterol-free" label on a certain variety or batch of fresh broccoli is accurate, it could run afoul of the FDA's rules because it could be interpreted to as implying that broccoli usually does contain cholesterol, even though in fact it does not.

Analogously, instead of educating or serving a legitimate consumers' "right to know" certain information, mandatory labels on food from cloned animals would imply a warning, or at least would be misconstrued by some consumers as a suggestion that food from cloned animals differs in an important way (such as safety or nutrition) although it does not. The FDA's current approach to labeling, which has been dubbed "need to know," has been upheld both directly and indirectly by various federal court decisions.

In the early 1990s, a group of Wisconsin consumers sued the FDA, arguing that the agency's decision not to require the labeling of dairy products from cows treated with a protein called bovine somatotropin, or bST, allowed those products to be labeled in a false and misleading manner. However, because the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate any material difference between milk from treated and untreated cows the federal court ruled that "it would be misbranding to label the product[s] as different, even if consumers misperceived the product[s] as different."

In another case, several food industry associations and firms challenged a Vermont statute that required labeling to identify milk from cows treated with bST. The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a labeling mandate grounded in consumer perception, rather than in a product's measurable characteristics, raises serious constitutional concerns. The court held that food labeling cannot be mandated simply because some people would like to have the information, and ruled both the labeling statute and companion regulations unconstitutional because they forced producers to make involuntary statements contrary to their views when there was no material reason to do so.

Because the State of Vermont could not demonstrate that its interest represented anything more than satisfying consumer curiosity, it could not compel milk producers to include that information on product labels. In the words of the decision:

"We are aware of no case in which consumer interest alone was sufficient to justify requiring a product's manufacturers to publish the functional equivalent of a warning about a production method that has no discernable impact on a final product. . . . Absent some indication that this information bears on a reasonable concern for human health or safety or some other sufficiently substantial governmental concern, the manufacturers cannot be compelled to disclose it."

The overarching issue here is important: There exists no consumers' "right to know" obscure information about food. "Were consumer interest alone sufficient," said the court, "there is no end to the information that states could require manufacturers to disclose about their production methods."

Source




Australia: "Healthy" food a hard sell for school canteens

School canteens are struggling to break even after banning the sale of high-fat and pre-packaged foods in order to comply with state government guidelines on healthy eating. A study backed by the Australian Research Council has found that many canteens could be forced to close unless federal and state governments provide extra funding to help carry through healthy eating guidelines.

Researcher Claire Drummond, who is undertaking a national study on canteen food services and healthy eating, said government schools that had introduced healthier foods were finding it difficult to make a profit by selling salads, baguettes and fruit. "A lot of the canteens need to make a profit just to survive," Ms Drummond said. "Something is going to have to give and the Goverment is going to have to provide a lot more support or funding, otherwise they're going to fail."

Healthy eating guidelines have been introduced to schools in NSW and Queensland and will be mandated in South Australia by the end of the year. While the guidelines are working well, Ms Drummond said some government high schools were struggling because they lacked volunteer support. Without volunteers, schools have been forced to pay for additional staff or outsource services. A lack of volunteers means there is little time to prepare healthy meals. "The high schools are completely worried about that because they can't get volunteers and primary schools are going that way as well," she said. "(And many) canteen managers have basically come from being a parent to a manager and a lot of them don't have the skills, the dietary background."

The University of South Australia PhD candidate said some high schools were struggling to replace vending machines, chocolate drives and barbecue fundraisers. "They're everywhere in high schools, they're a great source of revenue when the school canteen is closed," she said.

Ms Drummond called for a national approach to provide additional funding. The federal Government last year provided one-off $1500 grants to schools to buy ovens and establish vegetable patches to help them implement the strategies, but Ms Drummond said that had not been offered this year.

At St Peter's Woodlands Grammar School at Glenelg, in Adelaide's west, canteen manager Wendy Manning has introduced low-fat alternatives to pies and pasties. But many children would rather buy high-fat foods than salad rolls. "Lollies are cheaper than fruit at the moment," Ms Manning said.

Source

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

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trans fats:

For one summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and the evidence of lasting harm from them is dubious. By taking extreme groups in trans fats intake, some weak association with coronary heart disease has at times been shown in some sub-populations but extreme group studies are inherently at risk of confounding with other factors and are intrinsically of little interest to the average person.

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

Cheap, safe drug kills most cancers -- but being held up by the need for regulatory approval

New Scientist has received an unprecedented amount of interest in this story from readers. If you would like up-to-date information on any plans for clinical trials of DCA in patients with cancer, or would like to donate towards a fund for such trials, please visit the site set up by the University of Alberta and the Alberta Cancer Board. We will also follow events closely and will report any progress as it happens.

It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their "immortality". The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe. It also has no patent, meaning it could be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly developed drugs.

Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and his colleagues tested DCA on human cells cultured outside the body and found that it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but not healthy cells. Tumours in rats deliberately infected with human cancer also shrank drastically when they were fed DCA-laced water for several weeks.

DCA attacks a unique feature of cancer cells: the fact that they make their energy throughout the main body of the cell, rather than in distinct organelles called mitochondria. This process, called glycolysis, is inefficient and uses up vast amounts of sugar.

Until now it had been assumed that cancer cells used glycolysis because their mitochondria were irreparably damaged. However, Michelakis's experiments prove this is not the case, because DCA reawakened the mitochondria in cancer cells. The cells then withered and died (Cancer Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.ccr.2006.10.020).

Michelakis suggests that the switch to glycolysis as an energy source occurs when cells in the middle of an abnormal but benign lump don't get enough oxygen for their mitochondria to work properly (see diagram). In order to survive, they switch off their mitochondria and start producing energy through glycolysis.

Crucially, though, mitochondria do another job in cells: they activate apoptosis, the process by which abnormal cells self-destruct. When cells switch mitochondria off, they become "immortal", outliving other cells in the tumour and so becoming dominant. Once reawakened by DCA, mitochondria reactivate apoptosis and order the abnormal cells to die.

"The results are intriguing because they point to a critical role that mitochondria play: they impart a unique trait to cancer cells that can be exploited for cancer therapy," says Dario Altieri, director of the University of Massachusetts Cancer Center in Worcester.

The phenomenon might also explain how secondary cancers form. Glycolysis generates lactic acid, which can break down the collagen matrix holding cells together. This means abnormal cells can be released and float to other parts of the body, where they seed new tumours.

DCA can cause pain, numbness and gait disturbances in some patients, but this may be a price worth paying if it turns out to be effective against all cancers. The next step is to run clinical trials of DCA in people with cancer. These may have to be funded by charities, universities and governments: pharmaceutical companies are unlikely to pay because they can't make money on unpatented medicines. The pay-off is that if DCA does work, it will be easy to manufacture and dirt cheap.

Paul Clarke, a cancer cell biologist at the University of Dundee in the UK, says the findings challenge the current assumption that mutations, not metabolism, spark off cancers. "The question is: which comes first?" he says.

Source





A Clarion Call for Health Independence

Lorenzo's Oil (1992) is one of the best movies you've never seen. This incredible drama hit the big screen for two seconds before skidding into rental stores, where it failed to find the wider audience it deserves. Lorenzo's Oil is a compelling reality-based story of parental devotion and the triumph of truth over authority. It is a beautifully acted and skillfully directed tribute to the power of love to prevail, it seems, over death itself.

The movie opens in 1983. Augusto (Nick Nolte) and Michaela (Susan Sarandon) Odone watch in horror as their only son, Lorenzo, rapidly degenerates from a disease so rare that no one is pursuing a cure. Indeed, at first, no one knows what is happening to the five-year-old. Lorenzo is ultimately diagnosed with adrenoleukodystrophy. ALD is an inherited, sex-specific genetic disorder passed from mother to son in which the myelin sheaths - the fatty coverings that surround and protect nerve cells in the brain - deteriorate, resulting in physical and mental breakdown. (As a disease, it is related to multiple sclerosis.) In more practical terms, the breakdown means that Lorenzo dissolves from being a precocious and delightful child into a violently disturbed boy who is finally unable to perform simple biological functions such as swallowing.

The boy is going to die and soon; that is the consensus of every doctor and scientist whom the Odones consult. Lorenzo is going to live; that is the quest of his parents. They have no medical or scientific training. Augusto is an Italian economist; Michaela is an Irish-American linguist. Nevertheless, as Augusto states, "When you are in a strange country, you learn the language." At first, the Odones speak the language (medicine) in a conventional manner. Because ALD is both a newly discovered disease and a rare one, there is little hard data or funding available. At first, they accept the experimental treatments, the need for control-group research, and other standard slow-moving approaches. But Lorenzo does not have the luxury of time.

Soon the Odones are ransacking medical libraries and pursuing every footnote on human or animal research that bears even remotely upon ALD. They pursue information from doctors and researchers with a passion commonly associated with stalkers. Eventually, the Odones organize an international symposium to discuss ALD. A division of labor emerges through which Augusto becomes the primary researcher and Michaela the caregiver, but each participates equally in the crusade to save Lorenzo.

Many doctors are hostile, not helpful. Clearly, they are annoyed and offended by aggressive lay people who do not accept their authority but, instead, have the audacity to seek a cure. Even some members of a support group for parents of ALD boys condemn the Odones for not facing the reality of their son's impending death. Alone and racing against death, the Odones persist for three years before finding the clue that leads them not to a cure but to a treatment; oleic acid can destroy the fatty acids that are destroying Lorenzo's brain. Augusto develops a formula he calls "Lorenzo's Oil" - a combination of two fats extracted from olive oil and rapeseed oil. The formula proves remarkably effective in presymptomatic boys with the ALD gene because of its ability to halt the body's production of the specific acids that attack the myelin sheaths.

Dr. Hugo Moser, the world's foremost authority on ALD, subsequently conducted a 10-year study in which 120 presymtomatic boys with the gene for ALD were given Lorenzo's Oil. Eighty-three of them remained disease-free. From the data, Moser concluded Lorenzo's Oil reduced the onset of disease by half. Augusto later received an honorary Ph.D. for his work.

For Lorenzo himself, however, the discovery came too late. The treatment could not repair the extensive damage to his brain. The real life Augusto shifted his attention to research on the regeneration of brain tissue. The movie ends with a 12-year-old Lorenzo who has improved significantly enough to be able to communicate through sign language. Today, Lorenzo is 28 years old. Although he has little body function, his mind is alert and he is reported to enjoy music and listening to books.

Several factors combine to make Lorenzo's Oil a superb film. The acting is exquisite. Saradon, of whom I am generally not a fan, received a well-deserved Oscar nomination for her role. The director and co-author, George Miller, whose credits include Mad Max and The Witches of Eastwick, produces a near-flawless movie that is brilliantly edited. He also provides a fine emotional balance. A medical doctor himself, Miller does not demonize the experts who obstruct the Odones' quest. He condemns the mechanistic approach now prevalent in medicine without condemning the people who employ it. To this end, Peter Ustinov is perfectly cast as a sympathetic, well-meaning doctor who simply cannot help as long as he stays within protocol. Miller's background also imbues the movie with a medical accuracy that is disturbing and difficult to watch but never gratuitously so. You hate to see Lorenzo suffer but his suffering, after all, is the crux of the film.

The movie's themes are haunting. Perhaps the most obvious one is the power of parental love. This theme is best captured by Sarandon's fierce portrayal of Michaela, which reveals a maternal devotion that is literally frightening in its intensity. The power of marriage is an equally strong theme. It is inconceivable that the Odones could have endured Lorenzo's illness, their financial difficulties, and the scorn of the world without having each other. Especially today when marriage (or partnership) is often viewed as disposable, it is heartening to view a family who will never abandon or give up on itself.

On a more political level, the overriding theme is "Question Authority." Early in Lorenzo's Oil, Augusto requests medical material to better understand what is happening to his son. Without meaning offense, a doctor assures Augusto that he could not make possibly make sense of the studies. The Odones do not stop questioning even when the responses are openly hostile. Their willingness to tolerate both unlikely theories and the skepticism those theories elicit is precisely what leads them to the source of an effective treatment: olive oil. It is not merely that experts are shown to be fallible and constrained by narrow thinking. It is that ordinary people are shown to be capable of realizing their own self-interest even in "expert only" areas.

Finally, Lorenzo's Oil is a counterargument to the assumed need for government funding and law to regulate all things medical in order to ensure progress and quality care. The movie is a clarion call for individuals to take control of their own bodies and their own medical well being. It is the triumph of personal responsibility over bureaucracy, the individual over the system.

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].

Trans fats:

For one summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and the evidence of lasting harm from them is dubious. By taking extreme groups in trans fats intake, some weak association with coronary heart disease has at times been shown in some sub-populations but extreme group studies are inherently at risk of confounding with other factors and are intrinsically of little interest to the average person.

The use of extreme quintiles (fifths) to examine effects is in fact so common as to be almost universal but suggests to the experienced observer that the differences between the mean scores of the experimental and control groups were not statistically significant -- thus making the article concerned little more than an exercise in deception

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

Want greens with that? Hearty McDonald's gets tick of health approval

Health experts have confirmed what kids have been telling their parents for years: McDonald's really is good for you. In what is being touted as a world first, the local arm of the giant fast food chain that feeds 1 million Australians a day has earned the approval of an independent health organisation. The National Heart Foundation yesterday confirmed it would bestow its distinctive red tick of approval on a range of modified McDonald's meals, some of which include the standard hamburger, chicken burger and even the inscrutable chicken nugget. But there is a catch. You can't have fries with that. Or a fizzy drink. And there will be no option for substitution or supersizing.

McDonald's Australia has been working with the Heart Foundation for the past 12 months, modifying its recipes to reduce the levels of salt, saturated fat and kilojoules, virtually eradicate its trans fat use and add more vegetables to each approved meal. The salt content in the chain's deli-style bread rolls had to be cut by more than 40 per cent. And after what the foundation described yesterday as a rigorous system of trial, test and rejection, nine meal combinations eventually met the tick's demands: less than 2 per cent saturated fat, virtually no trans fat, and a minimum 75-gram serve of vegetables in every meal, which in itself must not provide more than a third of an adult's daily energy needs.

Monique Blunden, the communications manager for the foundation's tick program, said the ingredient changes made to the new McDonald's menu, which will come into effect by the end of the month, meant that even the standard Big Mac, fries and soft drink would be marginally more healthy than the original. However, the real health benefits would come through convincing people to substitute this typical fast food order with, for example, the tick-approved meal of lean beef burger, garden salad and orange juice. This would result in a 70 per cent reduction in saturated fat, a third less salt and half the kilojoules. If just 10 per cent of customers make such a swap, collectively they will remove 294 tonnes of saturated fat from their diet each year, according to the foundation.

To maintain the integrity of the tick system, McDonald's will allow twice-weekly independent audits at randomly selected outlets. Ms Blunden said the foundation was not expecting other chains to immediately follow the lead of McDonald's. "Some were more interested than others," she said. "But it was McDonald's who took us seriously."

Source




Now shiftwork gives you cancer!

Theory runs wild

Shiftwork must be examined as a potential trigger of cancer in the wake of the cluster of cases at the ABC's Brisbane studios, experts say. Scientists looking into the breast cancer cluster at Toowong say shiftwork has the potential to disrupt body cycles, possibly triggering dangerous changes.

The call comes as the ABC is expected to officially call for expressions of interest this week to find a more permanent home after a fruitless search for space in Brisbane's record tight office market. The broadcaster was forced to abandon its headquarters last year due to concerns over the high frequency of cancer cases. Of the 10 women who developed invasive breast cancer while working at the Toowong site since 1994, three did shiftwork most of the time, six some of the time and one not at all.

A panel of experts put the likelihood of the cluster occurring by chance at a million to one, but no cause has been identified. However, population health experts said yesterday that shiftwork might be to blame. "There's certainly a biological rationale as to why shiftwork might cause breast cancer because it's related to the whole relationship of hormones in the body," said occupational cancer expert Lin Fritschi, of the Western Australian Institute for Medical Research. "Some of the interesting information has come from flight attendants who have very disrupted sleep/wake cycles."

If shiftwork does put women at heightened risk of breast cancer, many Australians may be affected. In November 2003, 12 per cent of full-time female workers and 14 per cent of part-timers had done shiftwork in the preceding month.

Eminent public health specialist, Professor Bruce Armstrong, said working in an illuminated environment over a long period of time led to suppression of the hormone melatonin. "There's evidence that the hormone melatonin has effects that reduce breast cancer risk," he told the ABC's Health Report. "If it is unusually suppressed then, in principle, the risk of breast cancer is increased." Professor Armstrong, who led the investigation into the ABC cluster, said that although research on female shift workers suggested an increased risk of breast cancer, it was "nothing like the six-fold" spike seen at the ABC.

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].

Trans fats:

For one summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and the evidence of lasting harm from them is dubious. By taking extreme groups in trans fats intake, some weak association with coronary heart disease has at times been shown in some sub-populations but extreme group studies are inherently at risk of confounding with other factors and are intrinsically of little interest to the average person.

The use of extreme quintiles (fifths) to examine effects is in fact so common as to be almost universal but suggests to the experienced observer that the differences between the mean scores of the experimental and control groups were not statistically significant -- thus making the article concerned little more than an exercise in deception

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

McDonalds vindicated: 'Supersize me' revisited under lab conditions

If you had bumped into nursing student Adde Karimi last September, he probably wouldn't have had much time to stop and chat. He was too busy stuffing his face with burgers, cola and milkshakes. It takes a lot of planning to get 6600 calories of junk food down you in a day, he explains. If you are not a born glutton, serious overeating also requires a high level of commitment. Karimi's motivation was commendable. "I did it because I wanted to hate this type of food," he says. He also did it for science.

Even if you have never tried to cure your cravings for fast food by overdosing on it, you may be getting a sense of deja vu. That's because Karimi was a volunteer in an experiment based on the 2004 documentary Super Size Me. In the movie, film-maker Morgan Spurlock spent 30 days eating exclusively at McDonald's, never turning down an offer to "supersize" to a bigger portion, and avoiding physical exertion. Karimi followed a similar regime, gorging himself on energy-dense food and keeping exercise to a minimum.

That is pretty much where the similarities end, though. By the end of Spurlock's McDonald's binge, the film-maker was a depressed lardball with sagging libido and soaring cholesterol. He had gained 11.1 kilograms, a 13 per cent increase in his body weight, and was on his way to serious liver damage. In contrast, Karimi had no medical problems. In fact, his cholesterol was lower after a month on the fast food than it had been before he started, and while he had gained 4.6 kilos, half of that was muscle.

The brains behind this particular experiment is Fredrik Nystrom from Linkoping University in Sweden. In the past year he has put 18 volunteers through his supersize regime, and what fascinates him most is the discovery that there was such huge variation in their response to the diet. Some, like Karimi, took it in their stride. Others suffered almost as much as Spurlock, with one volunteer taking barely two weeks to reach the maximum 15 per cent weight gain allowed by the ethics committee that had approved the study. We are used to being told that if we are overweight the problem is simply too much food and too little exercise, but Nystrom has been forced to conclude that it isn't so straightforward. "Some people are just more susceptible to obesity than others," he says.

Nystrom had been intrigued by Spurlock's experiment ever since seeing the movie when it came out, but was bothered by its unscientific nature. So when one of his PhD students unexpectedly quit, freeing up some research money, he decided to have a go at replicating it under clinical conditions.

Things got off to a good start. Following one of his regular lectures to medical students on the perils of obesity, Nystrom casually asked whether anyone would be interested in taking part in an experiment involving as much free food as you can eat. The response was very positive, he recalls. As it happened, most of the volunteers were male. "The boys are very committed," says Nystrom, "but it has been really tough to get girls to sign up." He wanted 10 of each, but in the end has had to settle for 12 men and six women.

Eat, drink and be lazy

The first batch of seven healthy, lean volunteers began their month-long challenge in February 2006. First Nystrom calculated their normal daily calorie intake and then asked them to double it in the form of junk food, while also avoiding physical activity as much as possible. Nystrom allowed them to do just 1 hour of upper body weight training per week. "I thought it would help some of the guys to stick to the diet if they believed that some of the extra weight could be in the form of muscle bulk," he says. Aside from that, though, they were encouraged to be as slothful as possible, and were issued with bus passes and pedometers to help.

In another difference from the movie, Nystrom didn't order his volunteers to eat only at McDonald's. They were also allowed to eat pizza, fried chicken, chocolate and other high-fat food whenever they could no longer stomach burgers.

During the experiment Nystrom's volunteers had weekly safety check-ups to monitor their health. In addition, they were subjected to a barrage of tests and examinations before starting the diet and again afterwards to find out what it had done to their physiology, metabolism and mental health. "We've done almost every test apart from a muscle biopsy," Nystrom says.

His team used a state-of-the-art X-ray technique called DEXA (dual energy X-ray absorptiometry) to measure body composition, including muscle, fat and bone density. They subjected the volunteers to glucose tolerance tests to look for early indicators of metabolic syndrome and diabetes, plus a new spectroscopy test to assess the amount of fat in the liver. They measured their basal metabolic rates before, after and during the experiment, using a standard measure of how much oxygen they inhaled and carbon dioxide they exhaled over a period at rest. They took blood samples and measured levels of hormones such as thyroxine that play a role in setting metabolic rate. And in a bid to work out exactly what metabolic changes occur in fat cells during a fatty diet, the researchers even screened mRNA, the molecule that acts as an intermediate between genes and the proteins they code for. "We looked at all proteins - that's around 30,000," says Nystrom.

Overeating has psychological effects too, so the students were also subjected to four questionnaires to assess how they were feeling before and after the experiment. Nystrom also kept a paternal eye on their welfare whenever they came to him for money. They were spending up to 300 kronor per week on food, he notes, so these meetings were quite regular. He now estimates the final cost for the experiment at around 100,000 kronor, none of which came from the food or restaurant industries.

Surprisingly, the volunteers' most common niggles were not about food at all, but about the lack of exercise. Although few were fitness freaks in their normal lives, it seems they missed cycling and walking more than they missed being lean. Another regular and surprising complaint was about feeling full all the time - clearly the sensation of hunger is something we don't appreciate until it has gone.

Nystrom cannot disclose the full results of his experiment until the study is published later this year. Even then it will take years of analysis to coax the detailed implications from all the data. However, New Scientist can reveal some unexpected early results.

I talked to volunteer Lotta Karlsson while she was in her final week of eating 5000 calories a day. She had already gained 9.1 kilograms, almost the maximum allowable increase over her starting weight of 60 kilos. "I feel [psychologically] very, very good," she said, "but the physical part is bad. I'm so clumsy and I don't like what I see in the mirror. It looks like I am four or five months pregnant."

Even Karimi, who seems remarkably immune to obesity, noticed some nasty side effects of his unhealthy diet. "I felt disgusting. Even if I washed my hands and face, I still felt dirty - as if there was grease all over me." He had previously been very fit, but describes how during the experiment just walking became a laborious process. "I had difficulty keeping up with the other guys. When I took 15 or 20 steps I started to sweat." Worse still, although his libido wasn't affected, his sexual performance was. "I just didn't have my usual stamina," he says.

Sweating it out

Many of the subjects were shocked at how difficult it was to eat enough calories each day. "They came up with some interesting tricks," Nystrom says. One male volunteer would regularly drink a milkshake fortified with a tub of cream. Another, who was particularly dedicated to the cause, found himself 1000 calories short one bedtime, so he just downed some olive oil. Karimi puts his success down to good planning. Karlsson resorted to adding cream to her meals and snacking on chocolate, cheese and high-calorie drinks between times. "I have to eat almost all the time," she said during the experiment.

Nystrom also has some initial results from the tests. Take the liver, for starters. When it is under stress it releases large amounts of enzymes into the bloodstream. Nobody is entirely sure why: maybe they are released by dying cells or perhaps produced by overworked cells. Either way elevated liver enzymes are a bad sign - and the main reason why Spurlock's doctor urged him to quit his binge. Yet none of Nystrom's first batch of volunteers had this problem, which initially led him to suspect that Spurlock might have had an underlying susceptibility to liver dysfunction.

Now that the Swedish experiment is complete, however, Nystrom has revised this opinion. "The liver enzymes did increase a lot in some of the last study subjects," he says. If he can find out what factors affect this variability, the supersize experiment may hold some vital clues for anyone hoping to understand and alleviate the growing problem of obesity-linked liver disease.

Then there is cholesterol. Over recent years it has become clear that it is very difficult to substantially change your cholesterol levels by changing your diet. Nystrom's findings push that notion to the limit. Not only did many of his subjects show very little change in the amounts of cholesterol and other fatty biomolecules circulating in their bloodstream, some of them even had less low-density lipoprotein - "bad cholesterol" - and an increase in the "good" form, high-density lipoprotein. It's not clear why a junk-food diet should improve your blood lipids, but it may be down to the precise composition of the diet. With receipts for all the food his volunteers bought, Nystrom has the means to find out whether there is any correlation between certain foods and blood fat levels.

The big mystery, though, is weight gain. Why do some people pile on so much more than others while consuming the equivalent amount of food? Nystrom's hunch is that it is down to variations in metabolism - some of us are simply better at handling calories than others. If you are lucky, your body can adapt to cope with an extra cream doughnut or even a blow-out dinner by burning off the excess energy in the form of heat. He suspects many of his volunteers fall into this category because they were all slim on their normal diet and because they often commented on feeling warm all the time while overeating. "They certainly looked hot and sweaty when they came to me for more money," he says.

Cold comfort

If Nystrom is correct, this is what makes his study so unusual and potentially valuable. Most research into obesity is done on people who are already overweight - in other words, those who are least resistant to calories. The ability to turn excess food into fat has been an adaptive advantage throughout most of human evolutionary history when our ancestors had to deal with alternating feast and famine. But the erratic availability of food has not been the only factor influencing the evolution of human metabolism.

"In cold areas people might have adapted more to cope with temperature and so be more likely to burn off excess calories as heat," says Nystrom. People with this type of metabolism seem better able to cope with today's "obesogenic" world, and Nystrom hopes that by studying them he will be able to identify new approaches to tackling the obesity epidemic. "Because we have such a huge amount of data we should be able to start teasing apart some of the influences that make some people more susceptible to obesity than others."

By now, Karlsson will be pedalling furiously on the exercise bike she has installed in her living room and Karimi will be pumping iron in the gym. When I spoke to him a month after finishing his blowout he had already lost 1 kilogram. He was still on six meals a day, but eating a much more healthy diet and enjoying being hungry. Best of all, the aversion therapy to fast food seemed to have worked. "I haven't touched a burger since I stopped. I don't think I will for a year," he says.

Downsize me

The study at Linkoping University in Sweden is the first to try to replicate Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me under laboratory conditions. The backlash against his film has, however, prompted several alternative experiments in the past couple of years designed to vindicate the fast food industry. You may question the funding, motivation and scientific credibility of these, but they do seem to confirm the simple truth that you can lose weight no matter what you eat, provided you consume fewer calories than you burn.

In 2004, Dutch journalist Wim Meij spent 30 days eating solely at McDonald's, but choosing mostly salads. He lost 6.5 kilograms.

Also in 2004, US documentary film-maker Scott Caswell lost 8.6 kilograms after a month of eating only at McDonald's. He charts his progress in a movie Bowling for Morgan, but gives no details about what he ate, except that he avoided supersize meals and drank only water or diet soda.

The 2005 film Me and Mickey D follows New Hampshire resident Soso Whaley as she spends three 30-day periods eating 2000 calories a day at McDonald's. She lost a total of more than 16 kilograms.

After 90 days eating only at McDonald's but limiting herself to a daily maximum of 1400 calories, North Carolina construction worker Merab Morgan claims she lost more than 16 kilograms. Following a similar regime but eating 2500 calories a day and sticking to diet drinks, Texan air force sergeant Deshan Woods claims to have shed around 6 kilos over 90 days.

To make the point that obesity is not so much a matter of what you eat but how much, James Painter from Eastern Illinois University got two students to eat fast food for a month in portions calculated as appropriate for their size. Both lost a little weight and their taste for fast food. Painter made a film of his experiment, Portion Size Me, which he hopes will be used by nutritionists to educate students' fast-food choices.

Source





NEW ANTI-CANCER DRUG IN AUSTRALIA

Women whose breast cancer has advanced despite all available treatments - including Herceptin - will have access to a new drug before it is approved for use in Australia. Tykerb was so successful in an international trial of women with late-stage or metastatic HER2 positive breast cancer, it has been made available through oncologists prior to approval by the Therapeutic Goods Association. It will be offered at 13 sites around Australia, including the Mater and St George hospitals in Sydney.

Tykerb gives fresh hope to women whose cancer has spread despite treatment with other therapies, including Herceptin. When taken in combination with chemotherapy drug Xeloda, it was shown the average delay in the time it took the cancer to progress was 36.9 weeks, compared with 19.7 weeks for patients treated with chemotherapy alone. Medicare data shows 52 per cent of women with end-stage breast cancer do not respond to Herceptin.

In addition, Tykerb, a once daily oral drug, substantially reduces the risk of HER2 cancer metastasising in the brain. Oncologist Professor Fran Boyle is already using the combination therapy on 10 patients at the Mater Hospital. "There has been a clear need for alternative treatments to help women with metastatic breast cancer in this advanced setting," she said. "This is a big deal for a small number of women."

Patients enrolled in the expanded access program will not have to pay for the drug, but it will be offered only to women who have tried other therapies without success. Once regulatory approval is gained, the program will end but women already being treated will continue to be provided with free treatment.

GlaxoSmithKline said clinical trials of the drug for early-stage breast cancer would begin this year. The company will eventually apply to put Tykerb on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Herceptin, which costs patients about $50,000 a year, was put on the PBS in October.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare predicts the number of Australian women diagnosed with breast cancer will rise from 13,261 in 2006 to 14,800 in 2011. Of these, about 25 per cent will have HER2 positive breast cancer, a more aggressive form of the disease.

Carol Galluzzi volunteered for the Tykerb trial at the end of last year after 10 months of Herceptin failed to reduce the size of the tumour in her breast. After paying more than $21,000 for seven Herceptin treatments, the trial was a welcome financial relief. She takes five tablets daily in addition to an oral chemotherapy drug and said her quality of life had improved greatly since switching treatments. "I can look after my grandkids now where before I just didn't have the energy - and there aren't as many side effects."

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].

Trans fats:

For one summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and the evidence of lasting harm from them is dubious. By taking extreme groups in trans fats intake, some weak association with coronary heart disease has at times been shown in some sub-populations but extreme group studies are inherently at risk of confounding with other factors and are intrinsically of little interest to the average person.

The use of extreme quintiles (fifths) to examine effects is in fact so common as to be almost universal but suggests to the experienced observer that the differences between the mean scores of the experimental and control groups were not statistically significant -- thus making the article concerned little more than an exercise in deception

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

Britain: Anti-obesity message 'is driving girls to anorexia'

Focus on food 'leads to bullying'; Health policy may have gone too far

Children are becoming obsessed with calorie-counting and face increased playground bullying about their weight as a result of the Government’s antiobesity campaign, experts said yesterday. Pupils are overloaded with information about healthy eating, which can lead to a preoccupation with food and fuel the development of eating disorders, according to the specialists.

Ministers have raised the spectre of an increasingly unhealthy society, citing the statistic that more than 13 per cent of British children are already obese and promising millions of pounds for nutritious school meals and cooking lessons. Obese children have been put on the child protection register, and the Department of Health has attempted to weigh every primary school child in England to assess the scale of the problem.

Susan Ringwood, chief executive of the Eating Disorders Association, told The Times that the focus on healthy eating has made life more difficult for many young people. “I am concerned that the emphasis on childhood obesity is having a backlash. We know people who are bullied about their shape are far more likely to develop eating disorders and there is now even more focus on overweight young people,” she said.

Health campaigners have pushed successfully for clearer nutritional labelling on food, but Ms Ringwood argued that for those vulnerable to eating problems, the prevalence of information on calories and fat content is unhelpful.

“Even things intended to be helpful, such as traffic lights for high-fat foods, play into the hands of people who are obsessed about eating. It gives them more to obsess about.”

She wants ministers to broaden their message to address the emotional relationship people have with food. “I can see why the Government had to go for a broad brush approach at first, but nothing so far has touched on the emotional aspects of eating,” she said.

“It’s all very well being able to count calories, but eating is an emotional experience too. As well as the advice on eating five fruit and vegetables a day, we should be helping people understand how food makes us feel. It is not just fuel.”

David Wood, consultant psychiatrist at the Ellern Mede Centre, a residential unit for children with eating disorders in North London, argued that there was a “cultural anxiety” about obesity which young people could latch on to. He also suggested that the pro-health message might have gone too far. “There are some important details about healthy eating that we should recognise but most of us, as long as we eat a balanced diet, can actually manage quite a few McDonald’s if we choose,” he said.

“There is a moralistic tone to the healthy eating agenda — but also about consumption more generally — which suggests that if you give in to ‘base’ desires such as eating chocolate and cream you are somehow weak.”

The focus on food, he argued, was part of a trend. He said: “It is about living in a highly-developed consumer society, where there is too much of everything, so that if you can restrain yourself are a superior being. And anorexia is all about self-regulation, and so its sufferers latch on to this message.”

Source





'Everyone our age thinks they eat badly'

For the inpatients at Rhodes Farm, a specialist residential centre in North London for children with eating disorders, the Government's constant mantra of obesity epidemics, nutritious school meals and five-a-day is weighing heavily on some very slight shoulders. "When I first started to lose weight, it was because I thought I ate unhealthily," says 17-year-old Helen. "Everyone our age thinks that they are eating unhealthily because they have chocolate. You're told no fat, no sugar...Then when you come here and you are made to eat it's even harder, because it goes against all the messages."

Claire, who at 12 is among the youngest of the 19 girls and one boy currently at the centre, agrees. "More and more people cut foods out - they think you can't eat things that are perfectly normal to have."

Dee Dawson, the medical director of Rhodes Farm, argues that the current healthy eating drive needs to be steered away from children. "A lot of the propaganda leads you to believe that if you keep cutting down you will keep getting healthier," she says. "I never hear about a bottom line, below which cutting down is a bad thing." She also worries that low-fat diets have become the ideal, rather than balanced eating, plus exercise. "Children need fat. If they run around and exercise, as they should, they burn a lot of calories.

"It's almost impossible these days for a child to get through school without her feeling like she should be dieting or eating something special. They have mums who jog and worry about carbs, Jamie Oliver telling them not to do things, notes home saying they shouldn't bring certain things in packed lunches, vending machines being taken out of schools. A child should not even be thinking about their diet, their weight."

She says that for boys and younger girls, "size zero" was not an issue. "Anorexic boys are usually athletes, who see thinness as the way to be successful and go too far. Girls at 12 don't want to look like Victoria Beckham - they' re too young. That becomes an issue when they get older and start to develop. And let's get things in proportion; these children have huge other problems too."

Source




BUSYBODIES CRITICIZING HEROIC MOTHER

When the kid grows up, what do you think he will say about the busybodies who said he should never have been born? He's living a "wrongful life" is he?

A 56-year-old woman who has given birth in a Brisbane hospital is believed to be the oldest IVF mother in Australia. The woman, who was 36 weeks' pregnant, gave birth last week after undergoing treatment at the Queensland Fertility centre. Sources said the woman was the recipient of a donor egg after raising three other children aged from their mid-teens to mid-30s. They said the mother also required treatment with the heart drug Digoxin following the birth at the Mater Hospital on Tuesday.

The mother has refused to comment on the case but The Sunday Mail has been told she was forced to move suburbs because of "negativity towards her pregnancy". Her husband is believed to be aged in his mid-30s.

The case is being investigated by the Fertility Society of Australia Reproductive Technology Accreditation Committee - which provides accreditation for IVF clinics - over whether it breached the self-regulating industry's code of practice. But because there are no age limits in the code, which stipulates only against any fertility treatment that may be harmful to the mother or baby, the body is unable to take any action against the clinic. "I am not aware of any older women than this," RTAC chairman Ossie Petrucco said yesterday.

It is the second time in two years the clinic has been targeted by RTAC. In 2005, founding QFG director Warren DeAmbrosis was scrutinised after he helped Brisbane woman Dale Chalk fall pregnant with her second set of quads - believed to be a world first. The high-powered IVF Directors Group, comprising medical directors from every IVF clinic in Australia and New Zealand, stopped short of punishing Dr DeAmbrosis but pushed for the industry to do everything it could to avoid such an outcome again.

According to the latest Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data, the success rate for women aged between 40 and 44, who had undergone fertility treatment, was 7.1 per cent, compared with 33.5 per cent for women aged 23 to 24 years. The average age of women undergoing treatment in 2004 in Australia and New Zealand was 35.4 and their partners were 37.8.

In 1998, an Adelaide woman, 53, gave birth to triplets after undergoing an IVF treatment with embryos she and her husband had stored years earlier. In January 2005, 66-year-old Romanian woman Adriana Iliescu became the world's oldest mother after giving birth to a daughter after conceiving through IVF with a donor egg.

Meanwhile, a simple test that more than doubles the chance of having a healthy baby could transform the IVF process. Scientists have found a way to test the genetic make-up of a woman's eggs, allowing the best to be chosen. A trial has produced more than 30 healthy babies and dramatically increased the success rate. Perfected by doctors in Las Vegas, comparative genomic hybridisation counts the number of chromosomes in an egg. Up to 75 per cent of miscarriages are thought to be due to embryos having the wrong number of chromosomes, with eggs from older women particularly likely to be defective.

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].

Trans fats:

For one summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and the evidence of lasting harm from them is dubious. By taking extreme groups in trans fats intake, some weak association with coronary heart disease has at times been shown in some sub-populations but extreme group studies are inherently at risk of confounding with other factors and are intrinsically of little interest to the average person.

The use of extreme quintiles (fifths) to examine effects is in fact so common as to be almost universal but suggests to the experienced observer that the differences between the mean scores of the experimental and control groups were not statistically significant -- thus making the article concerned little more than an exercise in deception

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

MOTHERS SHOULD GET PLENTY OF SALT

Otherwise the salt regulation in their babies appears to be damaged. Note that the sample for the study leaves a lot to be desired, however

Craving salty foods could be a sign that you didn't get enough salt in the womb. A new study in the American Journal of Physiology concludes that babies born with low salt levels in their blood are more likely to have a high-salt diet later in life, putting them at greater risk of adult obesity compared to those born with normal blood salt levels. The study included 41 children aged 8 to 15 years, with an average birth weight of 1.2kg (considered low birth weight).

They were given tomato soup with different concentrations of salt, and tea with a range of sugar levels, and asked to rate their preferences. The children and their parents were interviewed about their normal food and seasoning intake and the children were allowed to eat freely from a table of salty and sweet snacks. Children with the lowest blood salt levels at birth ate double the number of salty snacks, and ate an average of 1.7g more salt per day, compared to those with higher salt levels at birth.

Source

Journal abstract follows

LOWEST NEONATAL SERUM SODIUM PREDICTS SODIUM INTAKE IN LOW-BIRTHWEIGHT CHILDREN

Adi Shirazki et al

Forty-one children aged 10.5~0.2y (8.0-15.0), born with low birth weight of 1218.2~36.6g (765-1580) were selected from hospital archives on the basis of whether they had received neonatal diuretic treatment, or as healthy matched controls. The children were tested for salt appetite and sweet preference including rating of preferred concentration of salt in tomato soup (and sugar in tea), ratings of oral spray (NaCl and sucrose solutions), intake of salt or sweet snack items, and a food seasoning, liking and dietary questionnaire. Results showed that sodium appetite was not related to neonatal diuretic treatment, birth weight, or gestational age. However, there was a robust inverse correlation (r= -0.445, p<0.005) between reported dietary sodium intake and the neonatal lowest serum sodium level (NLS) recorded for each child, as an index of sodium loss. The relationship of NLS and dietary sodium intake was found in both boys and girls, and in both Arab and Jewish children, despite marked ethnic differences in dietary sources of sodium. Hence, low neonatal serum sodium predicts increased intake of dietary sodium in low birthweight children some 8-15 years later. Taken together with other recent evidence, it is now clear that perinatal sodium loss, from a variety of causes, is a consistent and significant contributor to long term sodium intake.

Source





DAIRY FOODS GET A REPRIEVE

By adding plant sterols to them. No doubt it will all be found to be a big mistake in 10 years time. Trans fats were a solution to high cholesterol once too. Now they are a villian

Dairy foods have traditionally been considered off-limits for people battling high cholesterol. But now some dairy products are part of the solution. Cholesterol-lowering plant sterols are being added to some low-fat milks and low-fat yoghurts for the first time in Australia. These new enriched products have the potential to lower blood cholesterol levels by up to 15 per cent in six to 12 weeks.

An estimated 6.4 million Australians, 51 per cent of the adult population, have high blood cholesterol, a major risk factor in stroke and heart disease. Diets high in fatty meats, full-fat dairy food, processed meats such as salami and sausages, snack foods such as chips, take-away foods, cakes, biscuits and pastries are often to blame. Alcohol, smoking and sedentary lifestyles are also factors.

But consuming 2-3g per day of plant sterols -- natural chemicals found in fruits, vegetables, nuts and cereals -- has been found to reduce absorption of LDL or "bad" cholesterol, which clogs and blocks the arteries with fatty deposits. Plant sterols have been added to margarines for several years but Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) ruled last November that low-fat milk, low-fat yoghurt and breakfast cereals could also be enriched with plant sterols.

Heart Foundation national nutrition manager Barbara Eden said the enriched products could have a significant impact on the health of people with high cholesterol. "Swapping from your regular milk, cereal or margarine to those which have plant sterols is an easy way to improve your risk of cardiovascular disease," she said. But Ms Eden said the product switch had to be part of a "suite of lifestyle changes people should be making if they have high blood cholesterol". "They might need to increase physical activity or decrease the amount of saturated fats in their diet and replace them with poly- and mono-unsaturated fats, or make sure they have more soluble fibre," she said.

Baker Heart Research Institute director Prof Garry Jennings said plant sterols worked differently to drugs that lower cholesterol, providing those on medication for the condition with an extra weapon. Under the FSANZ standard, products must state if they contain plant sterols and the amount contained per serving. Labels must also advise that plant sterols should be eaten as part of a healthy diet and that they are not suitable for children under five, pregnant women or breastfeeding mothers.

Dairy giant National Foods has already launched a plant sterol-enriched low-fat milk and low-fat yoghurt under the Heart Active label. Spokesman Rupert Hugh-Jones said people could get the suggested 2-3g by eating two to three serves of plant sterol-enriched food each day. "One serve is equal to a 250ml glass of milk or a 200g tub of yoghurt," he said. "This simply means enjoying plant sterol-enriched low-fat milk with cereal, in a latte, hot chocolate, as a smoothie or in cooking, or a tub of plant sterol-enriched low-fat yoghurt as a nutritious snack."

A survey by Galaxy Research, commissioned by National Foods, found diet was the most popular way to manage high cholesterol, used by 79 per cent of Australians aged 40-plus. Exercise was used by 64 per cent, medication by 39 per cent and herbal or natural remedies by 16 per cent. But only 51 per cent of those trying to manage their cholesterol had been able to lower it.

Source

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Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trans fats:

For one summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and the evidence of lasting harm from them is dubious. By taking extreme groups in trans fats intake, some weak association with coronary heart disease has at times been shown in some sub-populations but extreme group studies are inherently at risk of confounding with other factors and are intrinsically of little interest to the average person.

The use of extreme quintiles (fifths) to examine effects is in fact so common as to be almost universal but suggests to the experienced observer that the differences between the mean scores of the experimental and control groups were not statistically significant -- thus making the article concerned little more than an exercise in deception

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

BOYS GROW TITS

Could this be an alternative to boob jobs?

Boys have been warned against using oils or hair gels that contain lavender or tea tree oil after three reported cases of them growing breasts. Researchers in the US believe that the oils may have hormone-like properties that lead to gynaecomastia — the growth of breasts. When the boys stopped using the oils, the breasts disappeared. Writing in New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers say that the repeated use of such oils may disrupt hormonal function.

One of the boys was aged 4, and his mother said that she had applied a lavender-based “healing balm” to his skin. A 10-year-old had regularly used a styling gel containing lavender and tea tree oil, applying it to his hair and scalp. The third boy, who was 7, had used lavender soap and skin lotions. In all cases the problem was resolved within a few months of the boys giving up the products.

The researchers, at the US National Institutes of Health and the University of Colorado School of Medicine, say that the oils “may possess endocrine-disrupting activity that causes an imbalance in oestrogen and androgen pathway signalling”. They investigated this by growing breast cancer cells in test tubes and adding diluted extracts of lavender and tea tree oil. These experiments showed that the oils had activity that mimicked the female sex hormone oestrogen.

To have the effects found in the boys, the oils would need to have penetrated the skin, and the team did not investigate whether this was possible. They point out that the development of breasts is not uncommon during puberty in boys, but is extremely uncommon before puberty. There is no known physiological cause. Usually, exposure to an environmental chemical is identified as the cause. This can also happen, very occasionally, in older men, the researchers say. They say: “This report raises an issue of concern, since lavender oil and tea tree oil are sold over the counter in their ‘pure’ form and are present in an increasing number of commercial products, including shampoos, hair gels, soaps and body lotions.” Because of the small number of cases that were studied, further work was needed to confirm the link, they said.

Products that contain the oils are usually sold as “natural” aids to relaxation or skin care. Tea tree oil comes from the leaves of a plant called Melaleuca alternifolia, native to Australia. It is claimed to offer cosmetic and medical benefits, including combating bacterial and fungal infections. Lavender oil is used in aromatherapy and massage oils. Boots, the pharmacist, said that it sold pure lavender and tea tree essential oils, “but as with any essential oil we don’t recommend them for children or pregnant women”. The shop was not withdrawing products or issuing safety warnings because the chances of receiving sufficient doses to cause hormone imbalance through the skin was unlikely, the spokeswoman said. “This is a preliminary study. As long as customers follow advice about how to use cosmetics and medicines correctly, we regard our products as safe.”

Source




SLEEPING PILLS MAKE YOU FAT

Some users of a popular sleeping pill have been binge-eating while sleepwalking, leading to enormous weight gains. In one report lodged with the Federal Government's drug reaction committee, a woman put on 23kg over seven months while taking the powerful prescription drug Stilnox. It was only when she was discovered eating in front of an open fridge while asleep that the problem was resolved. In other reported cases:

ANOTHER user who had experienced mysterious weight gain was found by a relative taking food from a fridge and kitchen cupboards while asleep.

A WOMAN woke up with a paint brush in her hand, having painted her front door in her sleep.

TWO Australians claimed to have driven while asleep.

ONE user described walking around his house like a mad man while asleep.

SIXTEEN Australians were discovered exhibiting bizarre behaviour while sleepwalking.

The Adverse Drug Reactions Advisory Committee received 104 reports of hallucinations and 62 reports of amnesia since 2001 from users of Stilnox, the brand name for zolpidem. A 20-pill pack of Stilnox sells for $30 to $35. ADRAC yesterday warned users to be aware of potential side effects, but did not call for the medication to be stripped from shelves. The product remained on the market despite a 2002 ADRAC review which found about 75 per cent of the reports about the drug described one or more reactions, particularly hallucinations, confusion, depression and amnesia.

An ADRAC spokeswoman said it was imperative the drug remain available. "It is important for some people with insomnia to have it at their disposal," she said. "But even then we only recommend a person use it for less than four weeks due to tolerance and loss of effect with repeated use." The spokeswoman said ADRAC felt it was worth advising doctors that Stilnox should only be used as a last-resort drug.

Melbourne Health director of pharmacy David Ford said he had not met any patients with major side effects from Stilnox. "It seems like these cases reported to ADRAC are one-off events," Mr Ford said. Clinical trials of Stilnox had found no major side effects, with some of those involved reporting mild drowsiness, he said. "It would be interesting to see if those who experienced these extreme side effects had taken Stilnox with another prescribed drug, or even illicit drugs or alcohol, which may all exacerbate the effect," Mr Ford said.

Source

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Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trans fats:

For one summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and the evidence of lasting harm from them is dubious. By taking extreme groups in trans fats intake, some weak association with coronary heart disease has at times been shown in some sub-populations but extreme group studies are inherently at risk of confounding with other factors and are intrinsically of little interest to the average person.

The use of extreme quintiles (fifths) to examine effects is in fact so common as to be almost universal but suggests to the experienced observer that the differences between the mean scores of the experimental and control groups were not statistically significant -- thus making the article concerned little more than an exercise in deception

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

Los Angeles catches the Trans fat bug



Los Angeles County's 34,000 restaurants will be encouraged over the next 18 months to stop using trans fat under an incentive program announced Tuesday by city and county officials. Under the program, Los Angeles County restaurants that voluntarily stop using the partially hydrogenated oil will receive a decal that can be posted at the establishment based on certification by the Health Department. Health officials also plan to convene a task force to educate the public on the harmful effects of the substance, and instruct eateries in county buildings to limit the trans fat in food.

County officials had hoped to regulate whether eateries use trans fat, but a report by the Department of Public Health found only the state can regulate what eateries cook with. "We have to protect the citizens of Los Angeles County," said Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke. "They depend upon our public health facilities, they depend upon our ability to look at restaurants to make sure those restaurants are clean, but they also depend on us to develop the kind of guidelines that will ensure that when you go into a facility ... you know what you're buying."

The Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to support the voluntary effort, as did the Los Angeles City Council. "Trans fats are bad for us and they can and should be eliminated from our food," said Councilman Jose Huizar. "Scientific and health communities agree that trans fats are toxic. In fact, we know they contribute to high levels of bad cholesterol and low levels of good cholesterol."

Trans fat, often found in margarine, shortenings, baked goods and fried foods, is believed to increase the risk of coronary heart disease. It is also thought to increase a person's level of bad cholesterol. Butter and natural oils, such as soy, corn, peanut and olive, do not contain trans fat.

Trans fat intake contributes to 30,000 heart disease-related deaths in the United States every year, said public health director Dr. Jonathan Fielding. Replacing trans fat with another oil will not reduce the number of calories or fat in food, Fielding said. "This will have no impact on the greatest epidemic we have in Los Angeles County -- overweight and obesity," Fielding said. "What we're talking about with trans fat is substituting one fat for another and this really needs to be the beginning of a dialogue with consumers about reducing fat overall."

In response to the L.A. County report, Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally, D- Compton, drafted a bill that would give local governments the power to regulate eateries. The bill will likely be discussed by the Assembly in March, officials said. New York City, Philadelphia and Chicago have made similar attempts to ban or restrict the use of trans fat.

An effort to ban trans fat in New York City was unsuccessful, however the city has developed a plan to restrict the use of the partially hydrogenated oil. In New York, food items must contain less than 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving.

A spokesman for the California Restaurants Association said he supports the effort to replace ingredients with trans fat. "Our industry has been actively moving away from trans fat for quite some time now," said Andrew Casana with the Los Angeles Chapter of the California Restaurants Association. "I don't think a day goes by where we don't see a new chain say that they've found a new oil that is trans-fat-free."

Those food chains that have agreed to eliminate trans fat from their foods include Wendy's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell, Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Arby's, Ruby Tuesday, Chili's, Loews Hotels, Royal Caribbean International, Johnny Rockets and Starbucks.

Source





Nutty "ethical" worries about bottled water

I have a bottle on my desk, another in the cup holder in my car, still another rolling around in my gym bag and a case of them in my garage. I thought I was being health-conscious. But now I'm hearing that when it comes to the ethics of bottled water, the glass may be half empty.

The United Church of Canada urges people to refrain from purchasing bottled water, if possible. So do the National Coalition of American Nuns, a liberal group of about 1,200 sisters, and Presbyterians for Restoring Creation, a grass-roots environmental movement. In addition, the United Church of Christ and the National Council of Churches teamed up on a documentary decrying the dangers of water privatization. The fear: As water becomes a commodity instead of a natural resource, access will suffer - and so will those among us who can least afford to pay.

"The use of bottled water in the U.S. is more a lifestyle issue than a necessity," [Undoubtedly true. So lifestyle choice is bad?? I guess that to the Fascists it is] Sister Mary Ann Coyle, of the nuns' coalition, told The Christian Century magazine in a story this month. "In this country we should do more to push (avoidance of) bottled water unless we need it."

The U.S. leads the world in drinking bottled water, consuming more than 7.5 billion gallons in 2005, according to the bottled water industry, which thinks this campaign is wrongheaded. The real problem, that side argues, is getting clean water to everyone.

I e-mailed Mark Woods, a philosophy professor at the University of San Diego who specializes in environmental ethics. As it happened, he was traveling overseas after attending a conference. "I'm in Bombay, India, right now and there is a heated controversy over companies coming into villages, fencing off the communal water people have used for centuries, creating bottled water, and selling the water to the villagers at prices they can't afford," Woods wrote.

I e-mailed him again: Do you think it is unethical for Americans to drink bottled water? His response: "Given the fact that virtually all tap water in the U.S. is safe, yes it is probably unethical for Americans to drink bottled water when they have tap water options."

The reports I've read say this opposition is more a trickle than a flood - for now. "We're just beginning to recognize the issue as people of faith," Cassandra Carmichael, director of eco-justice programs at the National Council of Churches, told Religion News Service.

While we in this country are guzzling the bottled stuff, water is scarce for about a third of the world's population, according to RNS. "The moral call for us is not to privatize water," Carmichael said. "Water should be free for all."

I called Thomas English, who chairs the environmental task force at Solana Beach Presbyterian Church, and asked him about the issue. His response: "Why waste your money?" He thinks it's "kind of dumb" to pay for bottled water when you can get water from your spigot at home. So much to think about as I stare at my now-empty 16.9-ounce bottle, which I will recycle (I promise). Which leaves me with one final question: Got 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].

Trans fats:

For one summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here. Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and the evidence of lasting harm from them is dubious. By taking extreme groups in trans fats intake, some weak association with coronary heart disease has at times been shown in some sub-populations but extreme group studies are inherently at risk of confounding with other factors and are intrinsically of little interest to the average person.

The use of extreme quintiles (fifths) to examine effects is in fact so common as to be almost universal but suggests to the experienced observer that the differences between the mean scores of the experimental and control groups were not statistically significant -- thus making the article concerned little more than an exercise in deception

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