Stoned kids do better - study

Looks like some sort of social class effect again. Controls for class would have been a big help. My guess is that Swiss middle class kids are more likely to use MJ and all the other relationships observed among MJ users reflect their class origin

A STUDY of more than 5000 youngsters in Switzerland has found those who smoke marijuana do as well or better in some areas as those who don't. But the same was not true for those who used both tobacco and marijuana, who tended to be heavier users of the drug, said the report by Dr J.C. Suris and colleagues at the University of Lausanne. The study did not confirm the hypothesis that those who abstained from marijuana and tobacco functioned better overall, the authors said.

In fact, those who used only marijuana were "more socially driven ... significantly more likely to practice sports and they have a better relationship with their peers" than abstainers, it said. "Moreover, even though they are more likely to skip class, they have the same level of good grades; and although they have a worse relationship with their parents, they are not more likely to be depressed" than abstainers, it said. It did not explain the reasons behind the apparent effect.

The study, published in the November issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, was based on a 2002 survey of 5263 Swiss students aged 16 to 20, of whom 455 smoked marijuana only, 1703 who used both marijuana and tobacco and 3105 who abstained from both. The report said that while marijuana use had declined among US adolescents, it had increased in recent years among the same age group in Switzerland and other European countries. The study said that while one theory held that using legal drugs like nicotine and alcohol opened the door to marijuana and other illegal drug use, recent research also had found marijuana might come first and it "may reinforce cigarette smoking or lead to nicotine addiction ...".

In the study, about half of the tobacco and marijuana group had used the latter drug 10 times or more in the previous month. That compared to 56 per cent in the marijuana-only group who had used the drug only once or twice in the same time period. "These findings agree with previous research indicating that (tobacco) smokers were significantly more likely to be heavy cannabis users than nonsmokers," the study concluded. In addition, those who use only marijuana were less likely to have started using that drug before the age of 15 compared to tobacco users, and the tobacco-marijuana group was more likely to have abused alcohol, the study said.

Source





Fast food stereotypes challenged

TWO South Australian researchers are not swallowing the stereotype view that people who often eat fast-food are from poor families. Fast-food customers are from all ages and backgrounds, say Adelaide University PhD researchers Emily Brindal and Kirsten Dunn. They have presented findings on attitudes and behaviour of customers at major fast-food outlets to the "Shape of Things to Come" obesity conference at the Adelaide Town Hall.

Ms Dunn has found half the respondents who eat fast food once a fortnight are not young, single students but time-poor people aged over 38. Her study of 66 people also showed those aged 38 ate almost as much fast food as younger people. About 60 per cent of people under 38 ate takeaway meals once to three times a week - compared with 50 per cent aged over 38.

Ms Dunn conducted a second study of 404 people in which two-thirds knew frequently eating fast food was poor nutrition. Meanwhile, Emily Brindal, says her on-line survey of 528 people aged 14 to 74 revealed diverse fast-food patronage but similar behaviour.

People who eat fast food apparently watch more television and eat less vegetables, Ms Brindal says. "And yes, people who eat more fast food gain weight," she says. [People who eat more of anything gain weight]

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].

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

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FAT WOMEN GET MORE CANCER -- Or so they say again

The medical researchers are always trying to prove it and some British statisticians have come up with some statistical jiggery-pokery that seems to indicate it. Report and abstract below.

For a start, what is NOT mentioned is very interesting: That fat women get LESS breast cancer overall and that it is people of middling weight who live longest overall. The latter finding is what statisticians call a curvilinear relationship and should in the circumstances have been tested for in the study below. That seems not to have been done. I suspect that the effects were too weak to allow for it.

At any event, if fatties DO get more cancer, they must get less of other things in order to live longer. No mention of THAT, of course.

But I suspect that the whole report is nonsense, anyhow. In order to get some detectable effect, they somehow put their women into groups of ten -- "relative risk per 10 units". What was wrong with just listing average mass indices in victim versus non-victim groups? I think I know: Minuscule differences. Grouping your data is ALWAYS bad statistics. It throws away information. So the professional female statisticians who did this study were very lax to do so. Such laxity had to be motivated.

Women who are overweight are at a greater risk of contracting a wide range of cancers, a study has shown. The authors calculate that 6,000 cancers a year - 5 per cent of all cancers in women - can be attributed to being overweight or obese.

The effect is greatest in cancers of the oesophagus (gullet) and endometrium (lining of the womb), where the risks are more than doubled. But there are also significant increases in the risks of contracting kidney cancer, leukaemia, multiple myeloma, pancreatic cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, ovarian cancer, breast cancer in older women and colorectal cancer in younger ones.

The team, led by Gillian Reeves of the Cancer Epidemiology Unit at Oxford, analysed data from the Million Women Study. This is the largest study of the cancer risk for women, funded by Cancer Research UK. It involved 1.2 million women who were aged between 50 and 64 when they joined the study between 1996 and 2001, and who were monitored for an average of more than five years.

Information provided by the women at the start of the study included their height and weight, There were more than 45,000 cases of cancer and 17,203 deaths. The data allowed correlations to be observed between body mass index and cancer risk. The report, published in the British Medical Journal, showed that greater weight increased the risk of ten of the 17 cancers studied. It was calculated that an increase of 10 in the BMI measure - from 25 to 35, say - increased the risk of all cancers combined by 12 per cent. It almost tripled the risk of endometrial cancer and more than doubled that of oesophageal cancer.

Dr Reeves said: "Based on our findings, we estimate that being overweight or obese accounts for around 6,000 out of a total 120,000 new cases of cancer each year among middle-aged and older women in the UK. "Our research also shows that being overweight has a much bigger impact on the risk of some cancers than others. Two thirds of the additional 6,000 cancers each year due to overweight or obesity would be cancers of the womb or breast."

In some cases, the effect depends on the age of the woman. For example, being overweight only increases the risk of breast cancer after the menopause and the risk of bowel cancer before the menopause.

Sara Hiom, of Cancer Research UK, said: "This research adds to the evidence regarding the impact of being overweight or obese on developing cancer and dying from the disease. While most people readily associate carrying extra weight with being a general health risk, many do not make a specific link with cancer. These findings need to be taken into consideration alongside the established strong relationships between body fatness and other common illnesses, such as diabetes and heart attacks."

The link between cancer and being overweight is not new, but this is among the strongest evidence yet gathered in support of it. The study does not address reasons for the link, but a strong possibility is that extra fat generates greater quantities of the hormones that feed cancer. Excess body fat is not simply padding but active tissue producing hormones, so someone who has more of it runs a higher risk of cancer than a person of normal weight. In addition, overweight people are less likely to have healthy lifestyles. A healthy diet and regular exercise are acknowledged as factors that lower the risk of all cancers.

Source

Journal abstract:

Cancer incidence and mortality in relation to body mass index in the Million Women Study: cohort study

By Gillian K Reeves et al.

Objective: To examine the relation between body mass index (kg/m2) and cancer incidence and mortality.

Design: Prospective cohort study.

Participants: 1.2 million UK women recruited into the Million Women Study, aged 50-64 during 1996-2001, and followed up, on average, for 5.4 years for cancer incidence and 7.0 years for cancer mortality.

Main outcome measures: Relative risks of incidence and mortality for all cancers, and for 17 specific types of cancer, according to body mass index, adjusted for age, geographical region, socioeconomic status, age at first birth, parity, smoking status, alcohol intake, physical activity, years since menopause, and use of hormone replacement therapy.

Results: 45 037 incident cancers and 17 203 deaths from cancer occurred over the follow-up period. Increasing body mass index was associated with an increased incidence of endometrial cancer (trend in relative risk per 10 units=2.89, 95% confidence interval 2.62 to 3.18), adenocarcinoma of the oesophagus (2.38, 1.59 to 3.56), kidney cancer (1.53, 1.27 to 1.84), leukaemia (1.50, 1.23 to 1.83), multiple myeloma (1.31, 1.04 to 1.65), pancreatic cancer (1.24, 1.03 to 1.48), non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (1.17, 1.03 to 1.34), ovarian cancer (1.14, 1.03 to 1.27), all cancers combined (1.12, 1.09 to 1.14), breast cancer in postmenopausal women (1.40, 1.31 to 1.49) and colorectal cancer in premenopausal women (1.61, 1.05 to 2.48). In general, the relation between body mass index and mortality was similar to that for incidence. For colorectal cancer, malignant melanoma, breast cancer, and endometrial cancer, the effect of body mass index on risk differed significantly according to menopausal status.

Conclusions: Increasing body mass index is associated with a significant increase in the risk of cancer for 10 out of 17 specific types examined. Among postmenopausal women in the UK, 5% of all cancers (about 6000 annually) are attributable to being overweight or obese. For endometrial cancer and adenocarcinoma of the oesophagus, body mass index represents a major modifiable risk factor; about half of all cases in postmenopausal women are attributable to overweight or obesity.

BMJ 6 November 2007




Blood transfusion row in Britain

People are focusing on one case where refusal of a transfusion appears to have caused death. What they are NOT mentioning is that in MOST cases refusal of a transfusion has a BETTER outcome than accepting it. And the reason why is now fairly clear. Blood loses its oxygen-carrying capacity shortly after donation. So even WITH a transfusion the woman would probably have died

A Jehovah's witness died shortly after giving birth to twins because her faith prevented her from having a blood transfusion. Emma Gough, 22, began haemorrhaging but because her beliefs did not allow her to receive blood she slipped into unconsciousness and died. As she suffered severe blood loss and her life ebbed away, medical staff urged her husband, Anthony, and her parents, all of whom follow the same faith, to overrule her decision and allow a transfusion which could have saved her, but they refused.

She gave birth naturally and all appeared well as she cuddled her baby son and daughter, but she suddenly began to haemorrhage. Her condition was complicated by the fact she was anaemic.

Mrs Gough signed a form prior to giving birth making it clear she should not be given blood in the event of an emergency, which also confirmed she understood the risks of her decision. But it is understood her family were unhappy with the hospital because they felt Mrs Gough should have been given a Caesarean section but was left to give birth naturally.

Mr Gough, 24, a central heating engineer who has been left to bring up the children, said: "We are coping the best we can. There will be an inquest and issues will arise from that." Mrs Gough, who died on October 25th, was cremated at Telford Crematorium on Monday.

She and Mr Gough, who married in Barbados in December 2005, were devout Jehovah's witnesses, as were their families, and they all worshipped in Telford, attending the Kingdom Hill halls. Peter Welch, who was the couple's best man, said: "Everyone is devastated by what has happened. We can't believe she died after childbirth in this day and age, with all the technology there is. "What makes it even more sad is Emma had time to hold and start to bond with her twins before complications set in."

The couple, who lived in Dawley, Telford, have been together since they were teenagers and friends said Mrs Gough, who worked at the town centre's Next, was "ecstatic" to be having twins. Mrs Gough always dreamed of a Caribbean wedding and Mr Gough organised it as a surprise, the couple marrying in the grounds of the Tamarind Grove Hotel in front of 30 family members and friends.

Jehovah's witnesses insist that passages from the Bible ban them from taking blood. The collection, storage and transfusion of blood are all forbidden. A member of the Kingdom Hill congregation in Telford, Shrops, who asked not to be named, said: "The basis of the faith is that we follow commands from the scriptures and it is a scriptural command to abstain from blood. "It is one of a number of things contained in the Scriptures about things you can and cannot do. It is, of course, up to the individual to decide how strongly to follow these requirements. I accept that the faith will receive criticism over this. Some of our beliefs do attract criticism."

He denied Mrs Gough was being selfish by putting her own beliefs before the needs of her children, adding: "Children are always a priority. We respect life. We seek the best medical attention we can get but the requirement we have is that we do so without receiving blood. It is very sad and there is a lot of support for the family." ....

A spokesman for the Shrewsbury coroner said that the cause of death was recorded initially as complications of profound anaemia due to haemorrhage and complications of twin delivery. An inquest has been opened and adjourned and investigations are continuing.

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].

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

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The breastfeeding crusade continues

Whoopee! A study that DOES consider social class. Sometimes lots of nagging does get results. It seems reasonable that breast is best -- if the mother finds it easy -- but proving it is another matter. Since social class is likely to influence who breastfeeds, it is important to separate out class effects from effects of feeding per se. The study below uses education as a proxy for class -- which is a good start. But education does not correlate strongly with other class indices -- and even the link to IQ usually covers only about 50% of the variance -- so the question still invites the old Scottish verdict of "not proven".

Another reason for skepticism is that the incidence of breast feeding was assessed by self-report rather than by observation. That invites a whole range of possible distortions. It is undoubted that some mothers might for various reasons distort the amount of breastfeeding they did -- and what are the characteristics of such women? I could go on to multiply hypotheses -- particularly with reference to the fact that breastfeeding was rather out of fashion at the time the adults concerned were born -- but what's the point? We just have an unknown

Breast-fed babies are less likely to be obese or have heart disease in later life than those who were bottle-fed, say researchers. In a large US study, middle-aged adults who were breast-fed as infants were found to be 55 per cent more likely to have high levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), the so-called "good" cholesterol that protects against cardiovascular disease (CVD).

They also had a lower average body mass index (BMI) score - 26.1 kg/m2 compared with 26.9 - than those who were not breast-fed. A BMI score of more than 25 is considered to be overweight and a risk factor for heart disease. "This was a modest reduction in BMI, but even a modest reduction leads to a significantly reduced risk of cardiovascular disease-related death," the researchers say.

The study, reported yesterday at a meeting of the American Heart Association in Orlando, Florida, included 393 mothers enrolled in the continuous Framingham Offspring Study and 962 of their offspring. The average age of the offspring was 41 and 54 per cent were women. Although previous studies have hinted that breast-feeding produces health benefits in later life, much of the existing research was limited by a lack of adjustment for other factors, such as socioeconomic status.

Britain has one of the lowest breast-feeding rates in the industrialised world. Initiation rates currently stand at 76 per cent, meaning that a quarter of infants receive no breast milk at all.

Nisha Parikh, who led the latest study at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre, in Boston, Massachusetts, said that having been breast-fed in infancy was associated with longer-term health benefits "even after accounting for personal and maternal demographic and CVD risk factors that could influence the results". Research also suggests that babies who are not breast-fed have a higher risk of infection.

Dr Parikh said that she had the idea for the study after returning from maternity leave. "The benefits of breast-feeding in infancy and childhood are well established. But I wondered if it were as helpful for health in adulthood," she said. For the study, mothers reported whether they breast-fed each of their children and for how long. Overall, 26 per cent of the participants' offspring were breast-fed.

After adjustment for factors including use of blood-pressure-lowering medication, maternal education, smoking and body mass index, breast-fed offspring had higher than average HDL-cholesterol levels in adulthood: 56.6 mg/dL compared with 53.7 mg/dL for the bottle-fed participants. HDL bonds with and transports cholesterol particles in the blood stream, and as such protects against heart disease and stroke by preventing blood vessels from becoming blocked and furred up (atherosclerosis). Lower HDL-borne cholesterol levels are known to increase the risk of heart disease.

"The findings show that early environmental exposures have long-term health effects," Dr Parikh added. "They also underscore that atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease are life-course diseases that have their roots early in life." Rosie Dodds, policy researcher for the National Childbirth Trust, said that the findings concurred with the World Health Organisation's own research into the long-term effects of being breast-fed as a child. "This study provides more evidence of the difference breast-feeding makes to blood pressure, obesity, diabetes and cholesterol levels," she said. "Women should be free to choose whether they breast-feed or not, but they should also have access to good information and support about their options. At the moment, that is what they are not getting in this country."

Source





Genes and breastfeeding

This could be a rather pesky finding for the breastfeeding enthusiasts. Its conclusion is that breastfeeding is helpful in only some cases. And it does appear to be a very well-controlled study. The abstract is here. The authors do however rather overgeneralize the significance of their findings. The last sentence of their abstract is particularly silly. It is: "It also shows that genes may work via the environment to shape the IQ, helping to close the nature versus nurture debate". Nobody has ever questioned that IQ is a product of both genes and the environment -- but you do have to have the right genes to start with for an optimal result. The study would in fact appear to have identified one of the genes concerned

Children who are breast-fed go on to have slightly higher IQs than those who are not, but only if they carry a particular genetic variant, a British-based research team has found. The findings, from a group at King's College London, also provide new evidence that breast milk's nutritional content has a positive effect on infants' intellectual development, if only in those whose DNA lets them benefit.

While previous studies have linked higher IQ to being breast-fed as a baby, questions have been raised as to whether breast-feeding itself is responsible for the increase. Mothers who themselves have higher IQs are more likely to breast-feed in the first place, creating the possibility that genes that directly influence intelligence explain the link.

The new research, led by Professors Terrie Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi, makes it more likely that the nutritional content of breast milk has an active role, as it reveals a physiological mechanism that could account for the effect. The genetic variant carried by children whose IQ is improved when they are breast-fed is known to improve the way in which the body processes fatty acids that are critical to early brain development.

The findings suggest that a combination of the variant and breast-feeding increases the supply of these key acids to the brain, leading on average to greater intelligence. Without breast-feeding, or without the beneficial genetic variant, there is no effect. "Our findings support the idea that the nutritional content of breast milk accounts for the differences seen in human IQ," Professor Moffitt said. "But it's not a simple all-or-none connection: it depends to some extent on the genetic make-up of each infant. "There has been some criticism of earlier studies about breast-feeding and IQ, that they didn't control for socioeconomic status, or the mother's IQ or other factors. But our findings take an end-run around those arguments by showing the physiological mechanism that accounts for the difference."

The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, adds to the consensus that genes and the environment rarely work in isolation, but often combine to influence human development.

A separate study yesterday suggested that women who continued to drink alcohol during pregnancy would have badly behaved children. Brian D'Onofrio, of Indiana University, said that the children of mothers who drank less than once a week during pregnancy had virtually no behavioural problems, but women who drank on more than five days a week were storing up trouble for the future.

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].

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

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Avoiding chocolate is a bad move for dieters

Struggling to resist a chocolatey treat may do women more harm than good. Psychologists have found that suppressing the desire leads to a "rebound" effect in which a woman simply eats more when she gives in. Scientists at the University of Hertfordshire in Britain believe their findings may help explain why some women are prone to binge eating after cutting back. Their research reveals that women who were asked to suppress their thoughts about chocolate consumed 50 per cent more when offered it, compared with women who were told to express their feelings about chocolate.

Psychologist James Erskine believes the findings may help people who are struggling to give up unhealthy foods or smoking. "The act of avoidance appears to completely backfire," Erskine says. "The most harmful thing you can do is to tell people not to think about eating chocolate. We have to tackle behaviour itself by giving women alternatives instead of making them abstain."

Erskine studied 130 volunteers who were asked to eat chocolate after being told either to suppress or to express their thoughts about chocolate by talking aloud. Women who tried to suppress their feelings showed a clear rebound effect. Men who took part in the study were less prone to the effect, instead eating more when told to express their feelings about chocolate.

Erskine has also carried out similar research in people trying to give up smoking and found similar results in women that prove they are more vulnerable to rebound if they are trying to give up something they crave. He is now conducting research to try to understand why women are more prone to this rebound effect. "The rebound effect seems to be most prevalent when people are trying to suppress something that they see as problematic," he says. "It could just be that women see eating chocolate as more problematic than men do. We now need to find new ways to help women change their behaviour rather than just telling them not to eat things."

Lyzette Barnard, 36, a confessed chocoholic and a member of Weight Watchers, spent years as a yo-yo dieter fighting her cravings. "I have a real weak spot for chocolate," she says. "I would try to go without it but then when I caved in I would end up eating a whole bar rather than just a few pieces. "Diets make me think I can't eat chocolate any more but it just makes me want it more. I have found the best way is to find other things to replace chocolate so I don't get any cravings."

Diet specialists insist that the research supports evidence that eating sensibly rather than trying to eliminate "sinful" foods helps people to control their weight. Emma Hetherington, the head of program development at Weight Watchers UK, says: "We know if you set yourself an unrealistic goal such as 'I'll never eat chocolate again' or 'I'll never have a glass of wine', automatically that is all you will think about. It then becomes more likely that you give in to these cravings. "We advocate getting plenty of variety in your daily diet - that means all food groups - and this keeps you interested and focused and therefore maintains your weight loss."

Source




Sleeping pill Zolpidem awakens girl from coma

A girl who has spent six years in a coma is showing signs of life after taking a sleeping pill. Amy Pickard, 23, had lain in her bed, unable to eat or breathe for herself since falling unconscious in 2001. But after being enrolled in a study of the side-effects of the sleeping pill Zolpidem, her eyes have begun to sparkle and she has even managed to stand.

Amy's mother, Thelma Pickard, 54, has visited her every day at the Raphael Medical Centre in Tonbridge, Kent, and claims that she can see her "feisty and determined" daughter fighting her way to recovery. She reacts to strong-tasting foods, can breathe unaided, focus on objects in her room and is beginning to formulate words. When she takes the pill, I see her face relax and the old sparkle return to her eyes. It truly is remarkable," said Mrs Pickard.

Amy, who is the subject of a BBC1 documentary The Waking Pill to be broadcast tonight, was 17 and studying for her A-Levels at Filsham Valley School in East Sussex when she was persuaded to inject heroin by her then boyfriend. She is one of 360 people taking part in a worldwide trial of Zolpidem as a treatment for people in comas. Sixty per cent of patients taking part in the study have started showing signs of life.

The drug's side-effects were first discovered after a 24-year-old South African cyclist suffered a serious brain injury after being hit by a lorry in 1994. Doctors told his parents that he would never regain consciousness. Five years after his accident, nurses noticed he was involuntarily grabbing at his mattress and gave him Zolpidem to help him sleep more deeply. Instead, just 25 minutes later, he sat up in bed and said: "Hello, mummy."

The British firm ReGen Therapeutics began a trial and, as one of those involved, Amy's mother was flown to South Africa to meet other patients who had tried it. She said: "I've had so many disappointments in my life, so I didn't set my expectations too high. When I came back from South Africa, I was exhausted, but the hope in my heart was intense. "But the more I saw, the more I heard and the more I experienced, the more I realised Amy must try this new treatment."

Barely four weeks after taking her first pill, Amy, who has an older brother David, 27, is making good progress. Doctors have warned Mrs Pickard it could take months for a breakthrough, but she believes her daughter is already on the road to recovery. "When I look at her now I can see the old Amy coming through, fighting to get out. It's a day-to-day waiting game to see what will happen next, but I just know she's going to speak any day," she said. "Every day she takes the tablet, it gives me more and more hope. My life is better now than it's ever been over the past six years."

The story echoes the plot of the film Awakenings, which stars Robert de Niro and Robin Williams. It is based on real events, in which a research physician uses an experimental drug to "awaken" the catatonic victims of a rare sleeping sickness.

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].

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

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

Food Nannies' Halloween Cancer Scare

From what I can gather, the comments below by Steven Milloy are a more detailed critique of a study that I laughed at on Nov. 2nd..

The latest food scare was announced, appropriately enough, on Halloween. But the science behind the scare is about as believable as are ghosts and goblins. "Landmark Report: Excess Body Fat Causes Cancer; Panel Also Implicates Red Meat, Processed Meat and Alcohol" blared the media release about a new report from the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR).

The massive 537-page tome "assembled over five years by nine independent teams of scientists, hundreds of peer reviewers and 21 international experts who reviewed over 7,000 large-scale studies" purports to be the "most comprehensive ever published on the evidence linking cancer risk to diet, physical activity and weight." "The most striking finding in the report is that excess body fat increases risk for numerous cancers... Even small amounts of excess body fat, especially if carried at the waist, increase risk," proclaimed the media release.

The report advises limiting the intake of hamburgers, French fries, milk shakes, pastries and soft drinks. It says that there is "no safe level of consumption" of processed meats a hysterical claim that is not even true for the most poisonous substances.

This certainly is a landmark report never before have so many scientists labored so long to embarrass themselves and their academic disciplines. There's not enough room in this column to debunk each and every claim made in the AICR report, but we'll look at some examples after considering some fundamental facts and principles.

First, scientists don't really understand carcinogenesis very well. It's known that the risk of cancer increases with age possibly because of the deterioration of DNA repair mechanisms and a few well-documented risk factors, such as family history of cancer, heavy smoking, and exposure to certain viruses and some exposures to radiation. Outside of those and perhaps a few other risk factors, the occurrence of cancer is largely inexplicable. Significantly, not a single case of cancer among the tens of thousands studied in the "7,000 large-scale studies" was definitively linked with any specific dietary factor. The AIRC report's claim to link diet with cancer largely amounts to post-facto guesswork abetted by statistical hijinks and imagination run amok.

A cardinal principle of epidemiology is that it is a very useful methodology when looking for linkage between high rates of rare diseases the sort of relationship classically found, for example, in outbreaks of food poisoning. But epidemiology is wholly incapable of identifying low risks of relatively common diseases or conditions, such as most cancers. The reason for this is simple: the margin of error in study data due to inaccurate and incomplete data collection is typically far greater than the size of any statistical relationship that may exist or be detected.

Accordingly, the rule of thumb in epidemiology, as famously espoused by the National Cancer Institute, is that, "In epidemiologic research, [increases in risk of less than 100 percent] are considered small and usually difficult to interpret. Such increases may be due to chance, statistical bias or effects of confounding factors that are sometimes not evident." Further, just because a reported risk is greater than 100 percent, that does not necessarily indicate a cause-and-effect relationship. Such reported risks may be statistically insignificant (indicating they could have occurred by chance) or have wide margins of error (indicating flaky data). And, of course, for any statistical risk to have meaning, it must be backed up by biological plausibility. With these concepts in mind, let's consider the AICR report.

The vast majority of the results from individual studies between every type of food and every type of cancer cited in the report are either significantly below 100 percent and/or statistically insignificant. The relatively few cited risks that exceed 100 percent are typically not statistically significant or have wide margins of error. Consider the data presented for processed meat, which the AICR report claims to be too dangerous to eat.

Of the 17 study results concerning processed meat and colon cancer comparing high consumption to low consumption 15 are way below, and one is at the 100 percent-risk threshold. Thirteen studies aren't statistically significant. Not only is the lone study claiming a risk above 100 percent (a reported 250 percent increase in risk) barely statistically significant, it has a margin of error four times the size of the reported risk.

Of the seven studies reporting a cancer risk per serving of processed meat, all reported risks are substantially below the 100 percent threshold. Four results are clearly not statistically significant and two are borderline insignificant. On the basis of these dubious statistical results, the AICR report concludes that "processed meat is a convincing cause of colorectal cancer." This is an appalling and unsupported conclusion.

In the end, the AICR report isn't really science at all it's more of bloody crime scene where science got violently mugged by hoods costumed as health and nutrition experts and wielding statistical pepper spray. In some ways, this shoddy science isn't surprising when one considers that the AICR also pitches cranberry recipes and other culinary snake oil as a means of reducing cancer risk.

The AICR advocates against consuming fat, salt, sugar and alcohol-- an agenda worth $37 million in charitable donations in 2006. So we shouldn't be surprised when the food police issue a "report" advancing such a lucrative agenda.

Source





Humans go into heat after all, strip club study finds

Mammals go into heat. Except for humans, of courseit's just for animals. Right? That conventional wisdom seems to be wrong, a group of researchers has found.

The scientists collected evidence from some locales where sexual heat is most regularly on display, strip clubs. And they measured it with a tool that rarely lies in gauging the value people place on things: money.

Heat, or estrus, is a regularly recurring time period during which females are most sexually receptive and attractive to males, corresponding with the time at which they're most capable of conceiving. Human females have no obvious estrus, leading to biologists' traditional assumption that it was lost during human evolution.

But in a study published the Oct. 27 issue of the research journal Evolution and Human Behavior, the investigators found that such a cycle does continue in us. Surveying strip-club lap dancers, who perform erotic dances for for cash, they found that tips vary by an average of 45 percent depending on the time of the month, corresponding to the length of the ovulatory cycle. That's the onemonth cycle in which a ripe egg is released from the ovary, becoming available for fertilization.

During peak times of the cycle lap dancers made $335 per five-hour shift on average, compared to $260 during typical periods, the researchers found. During menstruation, the women made only $185 on average. The peak earnings during a crucial phase of the cycle could only lead to one conclusion: females were in heat, the investigators said.

"These results constitute the first direct economic evidence for the existence and importance of estrus in contemporary human females, in a realworld work setting," wrote the researchers, Geoffrey Miller of the University of New Mexico and colleagues. By comparison, they found, dancers using contraceptive pills, which suppress ovulation, showed no earnings peak.

The team collected its information through a website where 18 dancers recorded their menstrual periods, work shifts, and tip earnings for 60 days -- a total of 5,300 "lap dances."

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].

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

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

Supermouse now: Superhumans soon?

This will undoubtedly be seized on by some government as a way to produce super-soldiers. Rather worrying. But their hyperactivity and hyperaggression could be their undoing too. Would they kill one-another before they got into the field? And their overall energy intake would probably need to be very high -- meaning that they could easily be starved. Second-guessing the tradeoffs nature has made is unlikely to be very smart

A genetically engineered "supermouse" has stunned scientists with its physical abilities. The mouse can run up to six kilometres at a speed of 20 metres per minute for five hours or more without stopping, British newspaper The Independent reports. Scientists say that's the equivalent of a man cycling at speed up an Alpine mountain without a break.

The engineered mouse also lives longer, has more sex and can breed well into old age, and eats more without getting fat, the paper reports. The "supermouse" is the creation of American scientists who are working to create a community of 500 of the rodents.

Scientists say the super abilities came about from a standard genetic modification to a single metabolism gene shared with humans. The genetic alteration to a gene involved in glucose metabolism appears to stimulate the efficient use of body fat for energy production, The Independent reported, citing a study published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Also, the mice don't suffer from a build up of lactic acid which causes muscle cramps.

Richard Hanson, professor of biochemistry at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio said the physical performance of the supermouse can only be compared to supremely fit athletes, such as cyclist Lance Armstrong, who won the Tour de France seven consecutive times from 1999 to 2005. "They are metabolically similar to Lance Armstrong biking up the Pyrenees. They utilise mainly fatty acids for energy and produce very little lactic acid," the newspaper quoted him as saying. "They are not eating or drinking and yet they can run for four or five hours. "They are 10 times more active than ordinary mice in their home cage. "They also live longer - up to three years of age - and are reproductively active for almost three years. "In short, they are remarkable animals." But he said the supermouse was "very aggressive" and scientists weren't yet sure why.

Prof Hanson said humans had the same gene that had been manipulated in the mice, but trying similar experiments on humans would be wrong. However, it may be possible for pharmaceutical companies to use the findings to develop new drugs that enhance muscle performance, which may benefit certain patients.

Prof Hanson said the mice were not intentionally bred to have "super" capabilities, but it was clear soon after they were born that they were different. "We could spot them at just a few weeks after birth," the paper quoted him as saying. "They popped around the cage like popcorn. "We found that they were about 10 times as active as ordinary mice."

Source




POORER HEALTH AND LOWER SOCIAL CLASS: MUST NOT MENTION GENETICS

The association between poor health and lower social class has often been documented. But what causes it? Is it something to do with the lifestyles of the poor? The article below uses education as a social class proxy and offers some pretty strong proof that lifestyle is not the cause of the association between class and health. So what are we left with? Are both poverty and ill health produced by less felicitous gene combinations? Could one cause the other or both have a common cause? I suppose that will be condemned as a "Nazi" suggestion but what if it is true? Very bright people DO live longer and ever since the longditudinal studies of high IQ kids by Terman and Oden (beginning in the 1920s) we have known that high IQ tends to indicate a syndrome of generally good biological functioning. So it is no surprise that the opposite is found too. This article shows that people who are less well-functioning socially also have poorer health. It is in any case hard to dispute that genetics is the key to longevity. How often have we read interviews with centenarians whose lifestyle reports are not at all recognizable as particularly healthy?

Education and dementia: What lies behind the association?

By T. Ngandu et al.

Background: Low education seems to be associated with an increased risk of dementia and Alzheimer disease (AD). People with low education have unhealthier lifestyles and more cardiovascular risk factors, but it is unclear how this affects the association between education and dementia.

Methods: Participants of the Cardiovascular Risk Factors, Aging and Dementia (CAIDE) study were derived from random, population-based samples previously studied in a survey in 1972, 1977, 1982, or 1987. After an average follow-up of 21 years, 1,449 individuals (72%) aged 65 to 79 participated in a re-examination in 1998.

Results: Compared to individuals with formal education of 5 years or less, those with 6 to 8 years of education had OR of 0.57 (95% CI 0.29 to 1.13), and those with 9 years of education or more had OR of 0.16 (95% CI 0.06 to 0.41) for dementia. The corresponding ORs for AD were 0.49 (0.24 to 1.00) and 0.15 (0.05 to 0.40). The associations remained unchanged after adjustments for several demographic, socioeconomic, vascular, and lifestyle characteristics. The results were similar among both men and women. ApoE4 did not modify the association, but the risk of dementia and AD was very low among ApoE4 noncarriers with high education.

Conclusions: The association between low education and dementia is probably not explained by the unhealthy lifestyles of the less educated compared with higher educated persons. Higher educated persons may have a greater cognitive reserve that can postpone the clinical manifestation of dementia. Unhealthy lifestyles may independently contribute to the depletion of this reserve or directly influence the underlying pathologic processes.

NEUROLOGY 2007;69:1442-1450

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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].

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

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

Australia: Trials begin on 'perfect tan in two days' pill



A pill that gives a perfect tan in two days [As above?] and may prevent skin cancer could be available within two years. A Melbourne biotech company is exploring the use of the drug CUV1647 to fight skin cancer as a way of convincing medical regulators to licence the compound. Trials of the drug will begin at Royal Melbourne Hospital from today to determine if its tanning properties protect transplant patients, who are among the most at risk of contracting skin cancer.

A pill the size of a grain of rice placed under the skin stimulates the body to produce more of the pigment melanin, producing sun-blocking tan from the inside out that lasts two months. While the tanning effect of the drug has been known since it was first developed in the US in 1995, cosmetic applications have not been enough to gain a regulator approval to market the product. But Clinuvel managing director Dr Philippe Wolgen said the medical applications of the treatment were more important than the cosmetic by-products. "There is clearly a great need to develop better protection against UV and the sun, especially in the changing environment of recent years," he said.

The trial will involve 150 kidney and heart transplant patients from Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide and Europe using CUV1647 for the next two years in two-monthly doses. Fair-skinned patients who have received organ transplants are up to 100 times more likely to contract skin cancer because of the immune suppressive drugs they must take every day. Trials to see if the sun-blocking drug can also protect against sun poisoning disease polymorphous light eruption (PLE) and a rare sun intolerance condition are also being conducted in Europe.

Source




Interesting new quick test for MS

Diagnosis of MS can be difficult in the early stages so this could be a big help

MRI brain scans have been used to calibrate and corroborate the results of a new eye-scanning technique that can diagnose multiple sclerosis in a few minutes. The technique, optical coherence tomography (OCT), scans the layers of nerve fibres in the retina to reveal nerve damage associated with the disease. The quick test will ultimately complement more detailed MRI studies of the brain should nerve damage be found.

Neurologist Peter Calabresi of Johns Hopkins University and his colleagues studied forty patients with multiple sclerosis using a desktop machine similar to a slit-lamp to carry out the simple and painless OCT tests. By focusing on retinal nerve fibres, which have no myelin sheath, they could make a specific assessment of the patients' status without turning to a brain MRI scan, which would reveal an array of different types of tissue processes in the brain.

The team calibrated their OCT results with accepted norms for retinal fibre thickness and then compared to an MRI of each of the patients' brains. In a subset of patients with relapsing-remitting MS, the most common form of the disease, the correlation coefficient between OCT and MRI results was as high as 0.69, suggesting a strong association between the retinal measurements and brain shrinkage, or atrophy, associated with MS.

"This is an encouraging result," says Calabresi, "With OCT we can see exactly how healthy these nerves are, potentially in advance of other symptoms." The test makes it possible to focus solely on nerve damage, which is not possible with MRI. Calabresi adds that OCT scans take just a few minutes rather than an hour or two and so provide results at less cost and more quickly in tracking the effectiveness of new treatments for MS.

Calabresi adds that many of the disabilities suffered by MS patients - numbness, tingling, visual impairment, fatigue, weakness and bladder function disturbance - are the result of nerve cell degeneration, so a test that specifically measures nerve cell health is potentially the clearest picture of the status of the disease. He cautions, however, that optic nerve damage can point to a number of diseases and is not a unique diagnostic tool for MS.

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].

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

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

Here we go again

Another "expert panel", would you believe -- with TOTALLY predictable conclusions. The medical establishment has reasserted its current beliefs. A pity they regularly retreat from previous "wisdom", though. One has to laugh about the report being based on the "best 7,000" studies. Studies with pesky conclusions were no doubt excluded from being "best". The repeated finding that it is people of middling weight who live longest was obviously not "best", for instance

Being even slightly overweight can increase the risk of a range of common cancers including breast, bowel and pancreatic cancer, a landmark study has found. The largest review of links between diet and cancer, incorporating more than 7,000 studies, concludes that there is convincing evidence that excess body fat can cause at least six different types of the disease. The researchers give warning that everyone should be at the lower end of the healthy weight range.

Their recommendations include avoiding processed meats such as ham, bacon, salami or any other meat preserved by smoking, curing or salting; only consuming small amounts of red meat; moderate consumption of alcohol; and avoiding junk food and sweet drinks.

Professor Sir Michael Marmot, who chaired the expert panel assembled by the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) to review evidence on the dietary causes of cancer, said he had been shocked to find that weight was so important. A report by the fund published ten years ago linked only one cancer to being overweight. Professor Marmot said the evidence now showed that at least six - cancers of the oesophagus, pancreas, bowel, breast postmenopause, kidney and endometrium (womb lining) - were linked and that the risks were increased by even quite modest weight gains. The finding is particularly alarming, given the expanding girth of the British population. An official report last month gave warning that by 2050, 60 per cent of men, 50 per cent of women and a quarter of all children could be clinically obese. A healthy weight is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) below 25; BMI is calculated by dividing an individual's body weight in kilograms by the square of the height in metres.

Picture of a Marmot above. Is that you, Sir Michael?

Sir Michael said: "A BMI of 25 is fine, but it would be a bit finer if it was lower. The healthiest thing is to be as low as possible within the normal range." The report suggests moderation in the consumption of red meat, suggesting a limit of 500g (18oz) per person per week. A total avoidance of processed meats is recommended because of convincing evidence that eating meat increases the risk of colon cancer.

The WCRF report emphasises the benefits of exercise, for its direct effects on some cancers, and because it helps to prevent becoming overweight or obese. It made ten recommendations which do not, save in one case, conflict with advice given for the avoidance of other common causes of death, such as heart disease. The exception is alcohol, which Professor Marmot said had been shown to cut the risk of heart disease. For cancer prevention the optimum level is zero, but for heart disease it is two units a day for men and one for women, he said. The panel agreed that the levels set for minimum heart risk should be accepted.

The report is based on an analysis of cancer studies from around the world dating back to the 1960s. The initial trawl produced half a million studies, which was pared down to the best 7,000. The results were analysed by nine teams and then presented to a panel of twenty-one leading scientists for their recommendations. They looked at cancers at 17 different sites in the body and at a wide range of factors, mostly dietary, that can affect risk of developing the disease.

Professor Marmot said: "We are recommending that people aim to be as lean as possible within the healthy range, and that they avoid weight gain throughout adulthood. This might sound difficult but this is what the science is telling us more clearly than ever. The fact is that putting on weight can increase your cancer risk, even if you are within the healthy range."

Dairy foods, cheese, butter, coffee and fish get a clean bill of health. But sugary drinks - including fruit juices - can increase weight and are therefore not recommended. Nor are fast foods because they are energy-dense and lead to excess weight or obesity, which in turn increase cancer risks.

Professor Martin Wiseman, the project director, said: "This report's recommendations represent the most definitive advice on preventing cancer that has ever been available anywhere in the world."

Breast-feeding has a double benefit, the report says, protecting mothers against breast cancer and their babies against obesity. Mothers were advised to breastfeed exclusively for six months and to continue with complementary breastfeeding after that.

Dietary supplements for cancer prevention were not recommended, since there was evidence that at high doses they could have adverse effects. But selenium, in the diet or as a supplement, did appear to have benefits against lung, colon and prostate cancer.

Professor Mike Richards, the Government's clinical director of cancer, said: "The WCRF report is the most authoritative and exhaustive review done thus far on the prevention of cancer through food, nutrition and physical activity. For those of us wanting to lower our risk of developing cancer, it provides practical lifestyle recommendations."

Karol Sikora, Professor of Cancer Medicine at Imperial College School of Medicine, said: "The educational message for the public should be that there are healthy diets and unhealthy diets, but we should keep everything in perspective and not suggest rigid avoidance. Alcohol, red meat and bacon in moderation will do us no harm, and to suggest it will is wrong."

Chris Lamb, consumer marketing manager at the British Pig Executive, said that people should continue to eat bacon "in a responsible way as part of a balanced diet". Cancer was a "complicated subject" and could not be prevented simply by reducing intake of meat. "Two thirds of all cancers are not caused by diet. Just by addressing the meat issues, you are not necessarily going to prevent cancer," he said. Mr Lamb said that the average consumption of red meats was less than 500 grams per week in any case, so many people did not need to change their eating habits at all. He added that there were concerns amongst farmers that sales of processed meats could fall as a result of the report. "That is obviously a potential at the end of the day, but we're hoping that consumers will think about being responsible in overall terms.

Source






It's time to stand up to birth correctness

WHEN are the birth police going to stop making pregnant women feel guilty for using modern medicine to bring their baby into the world? Yesterday, we woke up to news from the British Medical Journal that women who have caesareans double the risk of death and illness to themselves and their baby. And this week, British home-birth guru Sheila Kitzinger is in Australia to scare pregnant women across the country into believing that only a "natural" birth is a good birth, and the best birth is at home.

Let's take the study first. I would have thought it was pretty obvious that women who have caesareans have more problems. That's the whole idea of caesareans. Most women end up having a caesarean because their planned vaginal birth went horribly wrong and the doctor needed to get the baby out - now. That sort of drama does tend to double the risk of death and illness to mother and baby. It's hardly rocket science. Women who opt for caesareans for social rather than medical reasons areas, the too-posh-to-push brigade, are the very, very small minority.

But I'm sure the Kitzinger devotees will seize on this study as yet another reason to blame evil doctors for wanting to cut babies out of their mothers so they can make their Wednesday golf game. Many women have been brainwashed into feeling traumatised and unable to bond with their babies because they didn't slip out with just the help of aromatherapy oil massages and deep breathing.

I was once under the spell of this cult. I believed with a religious intensity that I had to have a drug-free, natural birth. In my first pregnancy, I read every Kitzinger book and wrote out a drug-free birth plan that would guarantee me Earth Goddess bragging rights among my friends. Unfortunately, the baby hadn't read it and got awkwardly stuck after I'd laboured 18 long hours the Kitzinger way. When the anaesthetist arrived to give me an epidural for the dreaded "intervention" I felt a failure as a mother. If I couldn't even give birth right, how was the poor thing going to survive the next 20 years?

Luckily, once I saw the baby, I saw the light. Who cares how he came out? He was there, he was healthy and it was bloody fantastic. Nothing else mattered.

But ask around any new mother's group and you'll hear still hear plenty of victim stories. "I felt so violated when I had to have a caesarean"; "I felt a failure when they had to use the forceps", and all said while they bounce their healthy babies on their knees. Don't these women put two and two together?

Maybe some doctors do opt for a caesarean a little earlier than they used to. But no wonder they err on the side of caution when so many people are so quick to sue unless the end result is a perfect baby. It's time we pushed out a new birth message to counteract the zealots, who want to take us back to the good old days when everyone gave birth naturally and lots of women and children died. A successful birth is when mother and child are healthy. Period.

How the baby came out, and what the mother used to deal with the pain, are irrelevant. It's just one day, for goodness sake. Get it into perspective. There are so many opportunities to feel real guilt when you are a mother. Don't start feeling guilty on your first day on the job.

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].

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

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CHINESE HERBS TRUMP WESTERN MEDICINE?

I hate to be skeptical of the study below. Where I grew up, if you were sick, you went to the doctor but if you were really sick you went to the Chinese herbalist. So I am not prejudiced against Chinese herbalism. I once used a Chinese herbal medicine to apparent good effect myself. And the study below is a Cochrane product so deserves some respect for that.

But having said all that, the reasoning below is peculiar. We are asked to believe that something of unknown and probably quite variable composition is more therapeutically efficient and side-effect-free in the given application than any known molecule. Even if true, that does not tell us much, as far as I can see. That users of Chinese medicines exhibit a particularly strong placebo effect would be my provisional interpretation of the results below. That would also explain the low rate of side-effects. I hope I will not be abused for suggesting that menstrual discomfort (which is what was studied) could be quite susceptible to placebo effects. I could only check my interpretation by re-doing the whole Cochrane study, however.

Since the authors themselves acknowledge "the poor methodological quality of the included trials", however, I doubt that anyone needs to do that. Not much to hang your hat on there at all. Rather surprising to see it under the Cochrane aegis. Even the Cochrane project is not immune from Leftist fantasies about the wonders of non-Western cultures, it would seem. Abstract follows:

Chinese herbal medicine for primary dysmenorrhoea

By X Zhu et al.

Background: Conventional treatment for primary dysmenorrhoea (PD) has a failure rate of 20% to 25% and may be contraindicated or not tolerated by some women. Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) may be a suitable alternative.

Objectives: To determine the efficacy and safety of CHM for PD when compared with placebo, no treatment, and other treatment.

Search strategy: The Cochrane Menstrual Disorders and Subfertility Group Trials Register (to 2006), MEDLINE (1950 to January 2007), EMBASE (1980 to January 2007), CINAHL (1982 to January 2007), AMED (1985 to January 2007), CENTRAL (The Cochrane Library issue 4, 2006), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI, 1990 to January 2007), Traditional Chinese Medicine Database System (TCMDS, 1990 to Dec 2006), and the Chinese BioMedicine Database (CBM, 1990 to Dec 2006) were searched. Citation lists of included trials were also reviewed.

Selection criteria: Any randomised controlled trials (RCTs) involving CHM versus placebo, no treatment, conventional therapy, heat compression, another type of CHM, acupuncture or massage. Exclusion criteria were identifiable pelvic pathology and dysmenorrhoea resulting from the use of an intra-uterine contraceptive device (IUD).

Data collection and analysis: Quality assessment, data extraction and data translation were performed independently by two review authors. Attempts were made to contact study authors for additional information and data. Data were combined for meta-analysis using either Peto odds ratios or relative risk (RR) for dichotomous data or weighted mean difference for continuous data. A fixed-effect statistical model was used, where suitable. If data were not suitable for meta-analysis, any available data from the trial were extracted and presented as descriptive data.

Main results: Thirty-nine RCTs involving a total of 3475 women were included in the review. A number of the trials were of small sample size and poor methodological quality. Results for CHM compared to placebo were unclear as data could not be combined (3 RCTs). CHM resulted in significant improvements in pain relief (14 RCTs; RR 1.99, 95% CI 1.52 to 2.60), overall symptoms (6 RCTs; RR 2.17, 95% CI 1.73 to 2.73) and use of additional medication (2 RCTs; RR 1.58, 95% CI 1.30 to 1.93) when compared to use of pharmaceutical drugs. Self-designed CHM resulted in significant improvements in pain relief (18 RCTs; RR 2.06, 95% CI 1.80 to 2.36), overall symptoms (14 RCTs; RR 1.99, 95% CI 1.65 to 2.40) and use of additional medication (5 RCTs; RR 1.58, 95% CI 1.34 to 1.87) after up to three months follow up when compared to commonly used Chinese herbal health products. CHM also resulted in better pain relief than acupuncture (2 RCTs; RR 1.75, 95% CI 1.09 to 2.82) and heat compression (1 RCT; RR 2.08, 95% CI 2.06 to 499.18).

Authors' conclusions: The review found promising evidence supporting the use of CHM for primary dysmenorrhoea; however, results are limited by the poor methodological quality of the included trials.

Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2007, Issue 4. Art. No.: CD005288




TONSILLECTOMY COMEBACK?

Tonsillectomy was once a very common "solution" to recurrent respiratory tract infections in childen but was largely superseded by antibiotics and by a better understanding of the function of tonsils. It still however has some use where the tonsils are clearly chronically infected. The article below puts forward another possible indication for tonsillectomy in some rare cases.

It must be noted however, that the evidence presented below is seriously defective. Mothers who put their kids through a rather nasty operation said that it had done their kids good? Big surprise! Some allowance for a placebo effect should have been made. The results do record a substantial change but could still be within the range of a placebo effect

Improved Behavior and Sleep After Adenotonsillectomy in Children With Sleep-Disordered Breathing

By Julie L. Wei et al.

Objective: To determine changes in behavior and sleep in children before and after adenotonsillectomy for sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) using the validated Pediatric Sleep Questionnaire (PSQ) and Conners' Parent Rating Scale-Revised Short Form (CPRS-RS).

Design: Prospective, nonrandomized study.

Setting: Ambulatory surgery center affiliated with an academic medical center.

Patients: A total of 117 consecutive children (61 boys and 56 girls) (mean [SD] age, 6.5 [3.1] years) who were clinically diagnosed as having SDB and who had undergone adenotonsillectomy. Complete follow-up data were available in 71 of 117 patients (61%).

Interventions: Parents completed the PSQ and CPRS-RS before surgery and 6 months after surgery.

Main Outcome Measures: Changes in age- and sex-adjusted T scores for all 4 CPRS-RS behavior categories (oppositional behavior, cognitive problems or inattention, hyperactivity, and Conners' attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [ADHD] index) were determined for each subject before and after surgery. Changes in PSQ scores from a select 22-item sleep-related breathing disorder subscale were also determined.

Results: Preoperatively, the mean (SD) T scores on the CPRS-RS for oppositional behavior, cognitive problems or inattention, hyperactivity, and ADHD index were 59.4 (13.7), 59.5 (13.6), 62.0 (14.4), and 59.9 (13.4), respectively. A T score of 60.0 in any category placed a child in the at-risk group. Postoperatively, T scores for each category were 51.0 (9.6), 51.2 (8.8), 52.4 (10.52), and 50.6 (7.8), respectively. All changes were statistically significant (P < .001) and clinically significant by approximating a change of 1 SD from the baseline score. For the PSQ, the preoperative and postoperative mean (SD) scores were 0.6 (0.1) and 0.1 (0.1), respectively, on a scale of 0 to 1, with scores higher than 0.33 suggesting obstructive sleep apnea. Correlations between sleep and behavior scores were statistically significant before surgery (P = .004 for ADHD index and cognitive problems, P = .008 for oppositional behavior) and after surgery (P = .049 for cognitive problems, P = .03 for oppositional behavior). Higher baseline T scores for the CPRS-RS were associated with larger changes in T scores for the CPRS-RS in all 4 domains (oppositional behavior, cognitive problems or inattention, hyperactivity, and ADHD index).

Conclusions: Children diagnosed as having SDB experience improvement in both sleep and behavior after adenotonsillectomy. The PSQ and CPRS-RS may be useful adjuncts for screening and following children who undergo adenotonsillectomy for SDB.

Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2007;133:974-979

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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].

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

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