ANOTHER BORING OBEISANCE TO THE CHOLESTEROL RELIGION

The usual epidemiological crap. We read that people with lots of "good" cholesterol heal better after stroke. Why? The authors below appear just to assume that the relationship is a cause-effect one. It might not be. I will use my usual example of why not but that is only one possibility:

That middle class people for a variety of reasons might be more virtuous in the cholesterol department does not seem to be considered. And middle class people have better health for various reasons too. So are we just looking at a class effect? Who knows? Epidemiological correlations are basically uninformative by themselves. They are only useful for hypothesis formation. The fact that blacks did less well may however reinforce the social class explanation

Association of diabetes, homocysteine, and HDL with cognition and disability after stroke

By George C. Newman et al.

Objective: To delineate factors associated with cognitive function following stroke and test the hypothesis that vascular risk factors associated with oxidative stress impair recovery.

Method: We performed a post hoc analysis of the extensive longitudinal database from the 3,680 subjects (over 35 years old) entered between 1996 and 2003 into the Vitamin Intervention for Stroke Prevention trial using a linear mixed effects model. The primary outcome variables were scores on the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and modified Rankin Scale (mRS).

Results: MMSE and mRS gradually improved during the 2-year follow-up period. Increased age and nonwhite race, recurrent stroke, diabetes mellitus, left hemisphere cortical lesions, and values of high-density lipoprotein and homocysteine were independent predictors of less successful cognitive recovery. A strong interaction between homocysteine and age indicated a threshold effect beginning in the late 50s. No vitamin treatment effects were identified. Similar factors were identified for recovery of disability as assessed by the mRS, although there were qualitative and quantitative differences.

Conclusions: The finding that diabetes, high-density lipoprotein, and homocysteine predict poorer cognitive function and greater disability after stroke is consistent with the hypothesis that metabolic stress plays a significant role in the poststroke period.

NEUROLOGY 2007;69:2054-2062




Prawns offer hayfever hope

VOLUNTEERS are wanted to trial a world-first treatment for hayfever made from prawn shells which researchers say is showing promising signs of success. Sydney-based company Novotech is seeking hayfever sufferers aged 15 to 60 who are otherwise healthy to be volunteers to trial a nasal spray made from natural ingredients derived from prawn shells. The trial involves the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research along with six other centres in Queensland, NSW and Victoria, with trials are being conducted in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.

More than three million Australians are affected by hayfever. Melbourne doctor Stephen Hall said the spray encouraged the body's immune system to have a less exaggerated response to allergens such as grass and pollen. He said the potential for side effects was low because the treatment was inhaled. Dr Hall said early signs were promising and if this continued, a decision on the treatment's public availability may be known mid-next year. "We're hopeful if all goes well that we have good data and quick recruitment, we'll be in a position to know by June or July," Dr Hall said.

Among the volunteers is Carol Jenkins, 52, of Glen Iris in Melbourne, who has suffered hayfever since she was a teenager. She spends each November to February nursing hayfever symptoms that cause her tiredness and sleepless nights and is hopeful of a cure. "I've had my medication over the years. But nothing cures it," she said. "It's constant sneezing and thinking twice before going outdoors. "It's debilitating."

Source

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

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Holy Grail' of cancer treatments expected within two years

QUEENSLAND scientists expect to start clinical trials within two years on what has been described as the "Holy Grail" of cancer treatments. Dr Ming Wei from the University of Queensland Department of Medicine says he is "very confident" of success in developing the treatment, which uses bacteria from kangaroos to attack tumours. The world-first therapy could save millions of lives each year.

Professor Ian Frazer, who developed a cervical cancer vaccine, has hailed the work of his Queensland colleagues. "The Holy Grail of cancer treatments is to come up with treatments which can deal with the tumours without harming the patient," he said.

Starting next month, Dr Wei will lead a team of 10 scientists genetically modifying a common bacterium from kangaroos to develop a product that is expected to be effective in combating up to 90 per cent of cancers. "It will work on any solid tumours anywhere in the body," said Dr Wei, who is based at the Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane.

The bacterium will be injected into tumours, releasing special enzymes which liquefy the cancer mass, shrinking it, and stimulating the body's natural immune forces. "Most people with cancer die from the spread of the tumour, not the primary tumour mass itself," Dr Wei said. One in four Australians dies from cancer.

The bug being developed by Dr Wei's team also occurs in humans, cattle and soil but the form found in the stomachs of eastern-grey kangaroos contains more protein-digesting enzymes. "It's an anaerobic bacterium, which means it doesn't need oxygen to multiply. It can multiply much faster than the tumour cells, effectively starving the tumour of the 'food' it needs to grow," Dr Wei said. The scientists will genetically engineer the bacterium to boost its cancer-busting power even further.

The potential of the bacterium in curing cancer was first identified by doctors in Germany nearly 100 years ago when they noticed that some patients spontaneously recovered after suffering a bacterial infection and fever. The UQ team has been experimenting on human tumours in rats, with a 60 to 65 per cent success rate and Dr Wei said it would be "no more than two years before we can bring this into clinical trials". A product could be ready to market within five years.

Source





Warning: Congress May Be Hazardous to Your Health

It has given the FDA an impossible and destructive burden

Since 1906 we've entrusted Food & Drug Administration (FDA) to ensure the safety of our vital food and drugs. Foolishly, we've also entrusted Congress and successive administrations to provide appropriate oversight and management of the agency. Now, after a century of Washington-style bureaucracy-building, America is stuck with an FDA that's unequivocally incapable of safeguarding either our food or our drugs.

This isn't just some uninformed opinion. The past year's flood of news stories about fatal food contamination - including spinach and peanut butter - are there for all to see. But it's also the official finding of the FDA's own blue-ribbon advisory group, the Science Board, which recently issued a damning report titled "FDA Science & Mission At Risk." The report notes that "the Agency suffers from serious scientific deficiencies and is not positioned to meet current or emerging regulatory responsibilities." Gail Cassel, a co-author of the report, said, "The wheels are coming off. In fact, I would say they're off. They're already off."

In 1990, the report says, Congress added pre-market approval for disease prevention and nutrient descriptor claims for food products. And in 1994 it added pre-market review for newly marketed dietary supplements. This sort of mission creep "has made it increasingly impossible for FDA to maintain its historic public health mission."

Indeed, the litany of FDA deficiencies is breathtaking in scope: Inadequate inspection of manufacturers, a "badly broken" food import system, a food supply "that grows riskier each year", a "dearth" of scientists trained in emerging technologies, an "obsolete" information-technology system and more. Warnings of the potential collapse of the FDA have been around for years and the FDA's own Science Board says the crises predicted earlier "are now realities, and American lives are at risk."

When a $2 billion-a-year federal agency crashes and burns, it's fair to ask, "Who's at fault?" Beyond the bureaucrats themselves, responsibility lies with Congress and the many administrations who have failed to hold legislators in check. The new FDA Science Board report underscores the damage done by decades of expanding regulatory mandates by Congress with very little oversight - just the sort of irresponsible headline-making legislative action which plays well among constituents but fatally undermines the agency's ability to fulfill its core mission.

The critical question today is: Will this startling analysis have any affect on Congress? We'll know soon enough. The House Energy & Commerce Committee will soon vote on H.R. 1108, a bill which could well put the final nail in the FDA's coffin. The bill would saddle the agency with new regulatory responsibility for the entire tobacco industry - a task which is beyond the FDA's charter, beyond its expertise, and beyond all reason. It is unnecessary, untimely and unworthy of congressional action. All this bill does is pander to a bunch of vocal anti-tobacco zealots.

This is a moment when the Energy & Commerce Committee should step back and reconsider the wisdom of piling yet another regulatory burden onto FDA's already full plate. Instead, it should focus on paring the agency's agenda back to an affordable, rational and narrowly focused food and drug safety program. Either that or slap a huge warning label across the Capitol dome: "Warning: Congress May Be Hazardous to Your Health."

Source

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

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New breast cancer drug offers long protection with fewer side-effects

Get it while you can. Good drugs often get taken off the market because of very rare apparent adverse side-effects. A drug with no side-effects will have no main effects

A new drug for breast cancer is better than the treatments that are already widely available and can prevent the disease returning for up to eight years, researchers say. Anastrozole, marketed as Arimidex, is thought to have set a new bench-mark for treating early stage breast cancer in postmenopausal women whose disease is fuelled by oestrogen.

The latest study confirms that the drug produces better results than tamoxifen, which has been a preferred treatment for more than 20 years. The study, published in The Lancet Oncology medical journal, suggests that the drug continues to work even after a patient stops taking it, with a greater chance that tumours will not return or spread.

Although tamoxifen is credited with saving the lives of 20,000 women since the 1980s, it is estimated that 23,000 new breast cancer patients a year could benefit from anastrozole and related drugs, known as aromatase inhibitors.

Anastrozole was approved for use on the NHS in August and has been prescribed to patients with breast cancer since November. Continuing trials are also investigating whether the treatment should be offered as a preventive therapy to women whose genes put them at particular risk of developing the disease. About four in five of the 41,000 women found to have breast cancer each year have passed the menopause and 70 per cent of these have cancers that are exacerbated by oestrogen.

Anastrozole acts by cutting the level of oestrogen circulating in the blood-stream, reducing the cancer risk in so-called receptor-positive cancers. The study looked at the safety and effectiveness of anastrozole compared with tamoxifen, which is sold as Nolvadex, Istubal and Valodex. Researchers followed the progress over five years of postmenopausal women with hormone-sensitive early breast cancer who were randomly assigned to either treatment or a combination of the two.

In a previous study, the chances of surviving for more than 68 months (5½ years) were 15 per cent greater for those on anastrozole than for those taking tamoxifen. In addition, the amount of time that passed before the breast cancer recurred rose by 25 per cent, and there was less cancer spread.

In the latest update on the trial after 100 months (just over eight years), researchers noted that the benefits of anastrozole were maintained even after the treatment was completed. Furthermore, the differences between the two groups in the time it took for the cancer to recur, if it did, increased. The study also suggested that there was no significant difference in the threat of heart disease between the treatment groups – an area of previous concern. Although anastrozole can cause loss of bone density and increase the risk of fractures in women taking the drug, a common osteoporosis drug can help to prevent this side-effect, experts say.

The authors concluded: “The findings of this report extend the previously reported superior efficacy of anastrozole over tamoxifen at 68 months of follow-up to 100 months. We also show a carry-over benefit for recurrence in the hormone-receptor-positive population which is larger than that shown for tamoxifen.”

Margaret Coulton, 61, a retired office worker from Hesketh Bank, near Preston, had surgery to remove a tumour in September 2003 and has been taking anastrozole for nearly four years as part of a clinical trial after initially taking tamoxifen. Switching to anastrozole banished the symptoms she was getting, such as hot flushes, tiredness and nausea, and allowed her to stop taking drugs for depression, another side-effect of tamoxifen, she said.

Cancer charities welcomed the latest results. Emma Pennery, a nurse consultant at Breast Cancer Care, said: “From our contact with hundreds of people living with breast cancer we know that many will be delighted to see this latest evidence of success.”

Source






Official "obesity" deception

'One in four Australian children and one in two adults are already overweight or obese," the Minister for Health, Nicola Roxon, told a conference of obesity experts this week. Where are they, minister? In the past fortnight, I've been in the centres of Sydney and Melbourne, in Newcastle and Katoomba, and in Sydney suburbs including Maroubra, Gladesville and Parramatta. I've seen plenty of fat adults but nothing like one in two. I've seen thousands of children, but were a quarter of them fat? No way. So we have to ask again, where are they? Either Australia's fat people are hiding, too scared to come out and incur the wrath of the Health Minister, or else something fishy is going on. As fishy as Roxon's other claim, that obesity is costing the economy $21 billion a year.

The claims were made this week to justify the Government's absurd plan to have every four-year-old weighed before they go to school, starting next year. This will add a quarter of a million extra tasks to the workload of our general practitioners and health clinics. This is ridiculous.

"It's totally inappropriate," says Professor Jan Wright from the University of Wollongong's faculty of education. Wright, a co-author with Michael Gard of the book Obesity Epidemic: Science, Ideology And Morality, says there are "many pieces of work in research literature regarding the horrendous experiences" of children who have gone through this sort of thing. "The fact the child is weighed and assessed and there's a report to the parents, it's a kind of surveillance expected of parents that is horrendous."

We have to fight back. If this is the first step in the introduction of a Rudd Labor nanny state, it is necessary to make a stand now. The obesity epidemic is a myth created by the pharmaceutical and health industries, and we don't have to accept their nonsense. There are three main points to be made about fat. First, it is not nearly as extensive as claimed. Second, being a bit overweight is not as bad as most people believe. And third, there's not much you can do about it anyway.

The first step in this is to separate the terms "overweight" and "obese", which are hugely different but are always lumped together to increase the size of the alleged problem. When we do this we will find that the weight of the general population has not increased dramatically in recent decades.

Patrick Basham is a co-author, with John Luik, of Diet Nation, a sceptical look at weight issues around the First World. He says: "The average person is not getting significantly fatter. Where there has been significant weight gain, it is not amongst most people but among people who were already obese."

A study of 8500 Australian children was reported by Adele Horin in the Herald in October. Jenny O'Dea, an associate professor of nutrition and health education at the University of Sydney, said the study found obesity in children was concentrated in poor families and certain ethnic groups. She said the suggestion that all children were at risk of obesity had "been blown out of the water by this research". O'Dea said: "We want to avoid stigmatising already socially marginalised groups", so Labor's plan to weigh every child starting school, which had already been declared, would be a "disaster".

Basham says 1 or 2 per cent of the population of a country such as Australia has a real obesity problem and needs to be helped. But pretending everyone is at risk of obesity and should be monitored and even assisted is a misuse of resources.

Even if one believes the general population is fatter than it once was, we should be cautious about assuming this is a bad thing. A recent major study published in The Journal Of The American Medical Association found that overweight people have a lower death rate than people who are normal weight, underweight or obese. The study was carried out by Katherine Flegal and other federal government researchers at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Being up to nearly 14 kilograms overweight reduces by 40 per cent your chance of dying from a range of common diseases and risks, not least because it improves your chances of recovering from surgery, injury and infections.

The findings have outraged many health experts, and in response they have made some good points. These include the fact that being overweight does increase the chance of death from some illnesses, even if it reduces the chance of death from many others. It has also been pointed out that health is about more than whether you die.

But it is important to note that worrying about being overweight is rarely useful. Dale Atrens, a reader emeritus in psychobiology at the University of Sydney, has made an extensive study of scientific literature in this area. He says, "The injunction to lose a little weight is probably the most common medical prescription. It is given to untold millions each day through both official and unofficial channels. Globally, the weight loss industry is approaching a trillion-dollar turnover. This is astonishing in light of the fact that there is no systematic evidence that any of the weight loss schemes (except surgery) have any more than transient effects." The next time someone, even a health minister, tries to make you feel guilty about carrying a few extra kilos, just say no.

Source

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

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On The "Benefit" of Fruits And Veggies In Cancer

Although a low-fat, high-fiber diet rich in fruit and vegetables has been associated in some studies with decreased cancer risk, findings published in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggest that adding more produce to one's diet may not offer a corresponding benefit. In the study conducted at University of California, San Diego, by John P. Pierce, PhD, and colleagues, among survivors of early stage breast cancer, adoption of a diet that was very high in vegetables, fruit, and fiber and low in fat did not reduce additional breast cancer events or mortality during a 7.3-year follow-up period:

[...] ... women in the early stages of breast cancer who ate substantially more than five servings a day of fruit and vegetables did not have an advantage over their counterparts who followed the five-a-day plan when it came to progression of the disease: The aim of the study, which was carried out at the University of California, San Diego, was to determine whether a diet very high in veggies, fruit and fiber and low in fat would lower three types of risk among women who had been treated for early stage breast cancer:

* risk of recurrence

* risk of new primary breast cancer

* risk of death from all causes

John P. Pierce, PhD, of UCSD and colleagues conducted the randomized controlled trial with 3,088 women between 18 and 70 years old who were previously treated for early stage breast cancer.

About half the women participated in a program that included phone counseling, cooking classes and newsletters that advocated daily targets of five vegetable servings plus 16 oz. of vegetable juice; three servings of fruit; 30 grams of fiber; and 15 percent to 20 percent of energy intake from fat. The other half received printed information describing the "five a day" diet.

During the four-year span of the study, the group that received the extra intervention ate 65 percent more vegetables, 25 percent more fruit, 30 percent more fiber and 13 percent less fat than the comparison group. Both groups of women received similar clinical care.

Breast cancer events occurred in 518 study participants during the study period -- 256 in the intervention group and 262 in the comparison group. Deaths numbered 315, with 155 occurring in the intervention group and 160 in the comparison group.

The results suggested no significant advantage in preventing the recurrence of breast cancer based on demographics, earlier dietary patterns, type of tumor or type of treatment. Researchers followed the women in the study group for 7.3 years and found no evidence that the low-fat diet extra high in fruit, vegetables and fiber was any more helpful in preventing cancer recurrence or death than the five-a-day diet.

Source





SOME LIES FROM TWO ANTI-FAT IDEOLOGUES

The study immediately above is one of many showing that type of diet does not affect cancer. See also here, for instance. But what about total calorie intake? Do fatties get more cancer? We might think so from the article below. There is a lot of weasel wording in the article but one is still left with the impression that fat ladies get more breast cancer. That is an absolute lie. It has been known for some time that they get LESS breast cancer

Diet and breast cancer risk reduction

By Linos E & Willett WC.

The association between diet and breast cancer risk has been investigated extensively and has led to some recommendations for prevention. Research suggests that maintaining a healthy weight may reduce the risk for breast cancer after menopause. Additionally, alcohol increases the risk for breast cancer even at moderate levels of intake, and women who drink alcohol also should take sufficient folate, which can mitigate this excess risk. Interesting questions for future research include the role of soy products, red meat, energy balance, and vitamin D, with particular attention to timing of exposure in early life. Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease, and dietary factors may differentially affect certain breast cancer subtypes; future studies should therefore attempt to characterize associations according to tumor characteristics.

J Natl Compr Canc Netw. 2007 Sep;5(8):711-718

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

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

KETCHUP IS GOOD FOR YOU

Only if you accept the cholesterol religion, though. High correlations in tiny samples don't mean much anyway. I once had a correlation of .808 obtained on a small group go to zero when I tested the same hypothesis on a larger and more diverse group. A pity the study isn't more substantial. I am sure that the food freaks must frown on ketchup. Abstract below:

Tomato juice decreases LDL cholesterol levels and increases LDL resistance to oxidation

By Marja-Leena Silaste et al.

High dietary intakes of tomato products are often associated with a reduced risk of CVD, but the atheroprotective mechanisms have not been established. This study was conducted to investigate the effects of increased dietary intake of tomato products on plasma lipids and LDL oxidation. The diet intervention included a baseline period, a 3-week low tomato diet (no tomato products allowed) and a 3-week high tomato diet (400 ml tomato juice and 30 mg tomato ketchup daily). Twenty-one healthy study subjects participated in the study. Total cholesterol concentration was reduced by 5.9 (sd 10) % (P = 0.002) and LDL cholesterol concentration by 12.9 (sd 17.0) % (P = 0.0002) with the high tomato diet compared to the low tomato diet. The changes in total and LDL cholesterol concentrations correlated significantly with the changes in serum lycopene (r 0.56, P = 0.009; r 0.60, P = 0.004, total and LDL, respectively), beta-carotene (r 0.58, P = 0.005; r 0.70, P < 0.001) and gamma-carotene concentrations (r 0.64, P = 0.002; r 0.64, P = 0.002). The level of circulating LDL to resist formation of oxidized phospholipids increased 13 % (P = 0.02) in response to the high tomato diet. In conclusion, a high dietary intake of tomato products had atheroprotective effects, it significantly reduced LDL cholesterol levels, and increased LDL resistance to oxidation in healthy normocholesterolaemic adults. These atheroprotective features associated with changes in serum lycopene, beta-carotene and gamma-carotene levels.

British Journal of Nutrition (2007), 98:1251-1258




DOES THE FOLLOWING STUDY IN THE LANCET TELL YOU ANYTHING?

Yes. It tells you what the authors' assumptions were. It is just a modelling exercise -- not research. You can be sure that there was no mention of this

Chronic disease prevention: health effects and financial costs of strategies to reduce salt intake and control tobacco use

By Perviz Asaria et al.

Summary

In 2005, WHO set a global goal to reduce rates of death from chronic (non-communicable) disease by an additional 2% every year. To this end, we investigated how many deaths could potentially be averted over 10 years by implementation of selected population-based interventions, and calculated the financial costs of their implementation. We selected two interventions: to reduce salt intake in the population by 15% and to implement four key elements of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). We used methods from the WHO Comparative Risk Assessment project to estimate shifts in the distribution of risk factors associated with salt intake and tobacco use, and to model the effects on chronic disease mortality for 23 countries that account for 80% of chronic disease burden in the developing world. We showed that, over 10 years (2006-2015), 13.8 million deaths could be averted by implementation of these interventions, at a cost of less than US$0.40 per person per year in low-income and lower middle-income countries, and US$0.50-1.00 per person per year in upper middle-income countries (as of 2005). These two population-based intervention strategies could therefore substantially reduce mortality from chronic diseases, and make a major (and affordable) contribution towards achievement of the global goal to prevent and control chronic diseases.

Source

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

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE LUNCH-BAG POLICE – COMING TO A SCHOOL NEAR YOU

Six children who attend St. Stephen’s Catholic Elementary School in Woodbridge Ontario, just northwest of Toronto, are taking their school to the Ontario Human Rights Commission. For six years the school had a voluntary program that monitored all kids’ lunches. Teachers would check the students’ lunches to make sure that they didn’t contain such things as peanuts or egg products; ingredients that can pose a danger to children with allergies. The York Catholic District School Board ended the program last year. Maurice Brenner, who is assisting the little litigants, claims that these children suffer disabilities and therefore are entitled to protection from the human rights body.

It is amazing how human rights tribunals that were created to ensure that everyone in society had the same rights regardless of race, religion, creed, etc. are now instrumental in depriving people of what few rights are left in a society run by ever intrusive governments. If this application is successful, students entering the school will be once again subject to their lunches (which presumably will be eaten) searched by teachers acting as the lunch police.

In recent years teachers have become notorious for whining and complaining at contract negotiation time about how overworked they are despite of the fact that they get two months off in the summer and other holiday breaks that others can only dream about. If it ends up that they will be required to sift through lunches and take on the role of the peanut police, perhaps they will have a point about being overworked and underpaid.

Brenner claims that he just wants the school to reinstate the program and claims that he’s not looking for a province wide law. But if the Ontario Human Rights’ Commission upholds the complaint, it is difficult to see how the procedures will not have to be implemented on a province-wide basis. There is nothing different about these particular students at this particular school. Surely these students will not be granted “rights” that other kids do not have. And Dalton McGuinty and his government will be only too happy to have everyone’s lunches inspected; no right is too important to not be taken away; for the good of the children of course.

It’s true that exposure to certain foods can cause serious illness and even death. But as the family and friends of the late Jordan Manners discovered, bullet wounds can be fatal and being within the walls of a school offers no protection from the gun violence that has become rampant in recent years. So let’s not just protect these children; let’s protect all of them.

If it is permissible to comb through a student’s lunch on the grounds that it might contain harmful substances, then students, teachers and everyone else who enters a school building should be searched for guns and anything else that can be used as a weapon. It is hard to believe that 15-year-old Jordan Manners will be the last student to be shot or attacked with a weapon within our school system. All children deserve to be protected; not just those who suffer from serious allergies.

This will never happen of course. It simply isn’t politically correct to deprive students of their privacy rights by searching them for weapons rather than peanut butter. While there will be a lot of support for lunch police in certain circles, the thought of conducting weapons searches will be met with cries of fascism, Nazism, Mike Harrisism and a whole slew of “isms”. In this politically correct world, the rights of certain members of society always trump the rights of others.

If there is any certainty, it will be that those who proclaim about rights the loudest will have no objection to students’ lunches being frisked on a daily basis. And it will only be a matter of time before these searches become province-wide.

Source




Drunk? It's in your genes

THE US ARMY has helped discover a gene that dictates how much booze mice will consume - but it is unsure if humans have the same one. Researchers working with the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), a joint venture of the US Army and the National Institute of Health, discovered a gene variant which helps brain cells communicate with each other. The researchers said that mice with a variant of the Grm7 gene consumed more alcohol than other mice during experiments.

According to the NIAAA, scientists had already discovered that genes played a part in alcoholism, but it was not known which ones. NIAAA director Dr Ting-Kai Li said that finding link between the Grm7 and alcohol consumption was a breakthrough. "This is a noteworthy contribution, particularly since identifying genes that predispose to alcohol-related behaviours is such an arduous task," Dr Li said.

One of the researchers, Professor Csaba Vadasz from New York University's School of Medicine, said that if a similar gene variant was found in humans, new drugs could be developed to fight alcohol dependence.

Source

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

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Red meat sheds men's dangerous belly fat

What "incorrect" advice!

A DIET rich in red meat can help overweight men shed layers of dangerous tummy fat. The findings from the CSIRO study suggest high protein intake effectively strips abdominal weight, but opponents of the diet say eating extra meat comes with its own risk, cancelling out the benefits. The study compared a diet high in protein, red meat and fibre with one high in carbohydrate and fibre. Trials on more than 100 overweight and obese men found that both diets led to similar weight losses but the high protein diet was more effective at reducing abdominal fat levels.

"Abdominal fat is a key risk factor for men for a range of diseases including colorectal and other cancers," CSIRO dietitian Dr Manny Noakes said. "The results also show that a range of indicators of bowel, kidney and bone health showed no difference between the high protein diet and the high carbohydrate diet."

Independent nutritionist Rosemary Stanton warned the diet was a double-edged sword. A [fraudulent] report released last month by the World Cancer Research Fund showed a higher incidence of many cancers, including colorectal cancer, with a high meat diet. "You need to balance any short term effects on abdominal fat with the long term risk of increasing the risk of cancer," she said. "When you do that you have to wonder whether it's worth the risk."

Source




Leftist nutters Blast McDonald's Report Card Advertising

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood is demanding that McDonald's immediately stop advertising on children's report cards. Last week, students in Seminole County, Florida received their report cards in envelopes adorned with Ronald McDonald promising a free Happy Meal to students with good grades, behavior, or attendance. "This promotion takes in-school marketing to a new low," said Susan Linn, director of CCFC and a psychologist at Judge Baker Children's Center. "It bypasses parents and targets children directly with the message that doing well in school should be rewarded by a Happy Meal."

The advertisement appears on report cards envelopes for students in kindergarten through fifth grade. The envelopes are used to transport report cards to and from home throughout the school year.

"My daughter worked so hard to get good grades this term and now she believes she is entitled to a prize from McDonald's," said Susan Pagan, an Orlando parent. "And now I'm the "bad guy" because I had to explain that our family does not eat at fast food chains. I'm outraged that McDonald's is trying to exploit my daughter's achievement - and that the Seminole County School Board would help facilitate this exploitation."

While McDonald's has pledged to only advertise its healthier options to children under twelve, the Happy Meal promotion explicitly mentions cheeseburgers, French fries, and soft drinks as options. Happy Meals featured on the report card can contain as many 710 calories, 28 grams of fat, or 35 grams of sugar. McDonald's has also pledged to stop advertising all food or beverage products in elementary schools. Added Dr. Linn, "Turning report cards into ads for McDonald's undermines parents efforts to encourage healthy eating."

Source

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

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fitness `is more important than beating obesity in middle age'

This sounds more like the truth but it is probably still exaggerated. Genes are the big factor. The "findings" below are based on self-reports, with all the doubts inherent in that. It is a study of what people say, not of what they do. Psychologists are well aware of the gap between those two things -- which is why we try to validate our tests against actual behaviour

Fitness is more important than thinness in retaining mobility, strength and balance in old age. Middle-aged people who do half an hour's vigorous activity three times a week are half as likely as the sedentary to suffer physical decline and impaired mobility as they get older. "Use it or lose it" was the message, said Dr Iain Lang, of the Peninsula Medical School in Plymouth, who, with collaborators in the United States, studied data on more than 10,000 people aged between 50 and 69 for up to six years.

Importantly, he said, the benefit of exercise was enjoyed regardless of body mass index. All groups roughly halved their risks of physical decline by doing exercise - so that a fit obese person did as well, or better, than a thin, unfit one. "Some people take up exercise and then give up when they don't lose weight," Dr Lang said. "This research shows that you get important benefits from exercise even if it doesn't help you lose weight."

The research was carried out using data from two ongoing studies, the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing and the US Health and Retirement Study. Both are long-term studies of the changes that take place as middle-aged people move into old age. Both groups - 8,692 in the US, and 1,507 in England - were asked at the start if they did any vigorous exercise. This could include sports, heavy housework, mowing the lawn, sweeping up leaves, or any job that involves physical labour and would make a participant feel out of breath or sweaty. The team worked out from the answers how many of the participants did at least 30 minutes of this type of exercise at least three times a week. They then compared this with the experience of physical decline in the participants.

They conclude in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society that those who maintained a reasonable level of physical activity were more likely to be able to walk distances, climb stairs, maintain their sense of balance, stand from a seated position with their arms folded, or sustain their hand grip as they got older. Across all weight ranges, the rate of decreased physical ability later in life was twice as high among those who were less physically active. Being overweight or obese was linked with an increase in disability, but much of that increased risk could have been eliminated by keeping fit.

As examples, 21.1 per cent of English people of normal body mass index (20-24.9) became physically impaired over the course of the study if they did no exercise; only 12.4 per cent of them did if they were active. Among the obese (BMI 30 or over), 31.6 per cent of the English participants became physically impaired if they did no exercise, while only 15.4 per cent of the active ones did. Indeed, being physically active almost eliminated the difference in deterioration otherwise noticed between the obese and those of normal weight. The American data showed similar, if less striking, results.

"There are three truly interesting results from this research," Dr Lang said. "The first is that our findings were similar from the US and the UK, which suggests that they are universal. The second is that exercise in middle age does not just benefit people in terms of weight loss - it also helps them to remain physically healthy and active later in life. And the third is that, in terms of results from activity, weight does not seem to be an issue."

Source




Alternative medicines a `health risk'

The unregulated sale of alternative medicines was putting the public at risk, a fatal accident inquiry was told. Elaine Ferrie said an over-the-counter medical supplement was to blame for the death of her brother. She told Perth Sheriff Court that Norman Ferrie, 64, was a "strong, healthy man who never needed to go to the doctor".

Mr Ferrie, of Invergowrie, died from liver failure in 2004, two months after he began taking glucosamine tablets to counter joint pain in his knee. His doctor said that he appeared to have developed an allergic reaction to the medicine.

Ms Ferrie, 59, said: "There should be testing similar to that for prescription medicines to ensure they are manufactured safely." Glucosamine is a chemical that occurs naturally within the joints and is one of the most popular treatments for joint pain.

Source

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

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The vitamin D scare again

They already put the stuff in butter and margarine. If there really is a problem let them put a bit more in

MILLIONS of Australians are living with dangerously low levels of vitamin D, putting them at risk of developing fractures, bone disease and deadly illnesses. A quarter of a century after the Slip, Slop, Slap skin-cancer campaign was launched, several prominent endocrinologists, orthopedic specialists and other experts say the message to cover up has led to vitamin D deficiencies in between 30% and 70% of the population.

While no one disputes the potentially fatal consequences of too much sun exposure, health experts say some safe time in the sun each day is essential for maintaining healthy levels of vitamin D, a crucial bone-strengthening nutrient produced when skin is exposed to sunlight. Endocrinologist Professor Peter Ebeling, head of Osteoporosis Australia, has linked the low levels of vitamin D to a massive increase in the number of people being treated in hospitals with osteoporosis-related broken bones — up from a daily average of 177 to 262 — in the past six years. It costs the health system $1.9 billion a year to treat them.

Professor Ebeling said a study earlier this year showed more than three-quarters of general patients presenting at the Royal Melbourne Hospital had lower than recommended levels. "It's very serious," he said. "A lot of us have been worried about if for a long time but have just realised how widespread it is over the last five to 10 years."

Recent research in Geelong, south-east Queensland and Tasmania found about 40% of residents had insufficient vitamin D levels. During winter, the number of women in Geelong with low levels rose to 54%. Emerging evidence has also linked deficiencies in vitamin D to colon, breast and prostate cancer, diabetes, multiple sclerosis and other diseases. [Note that this article found that vitamin D had NO overall effect on cancer deaths. See also here]

Source




Studies show how fruit, veges reduce cancer

The research results described below do not yet appear to have made it into journal publication so cannot be critically evaluated as yet. The results among humans were probably all just a social class effect, however. Middle class people are healthier and also more likely to report that they eat raw broccoli (whether they do or not). Amusing that you have to eat your vegetables raw, though

JUST three servings a month of raw broccoli or cabbage can reduce the risk of bladder cancer by as much as 40 per cent, researchers report. Other studies show that dark-colored berries can reduce the risk of cancer too - adding more evidence to a growing body of research that shows fruits and vegetables, especially richly coloured varieties, can reduce the risk of cancer.

Researchers at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York, surveyed 275 people who had bladder cancer and 825 people without cancer. They asked especially about cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and cabbage. These foods are rich in compounds called isothiocyanates, which are known to lower cancer risk.

The effects were most striking in non-smokers, the researchers told a meeting this week of the American Association of Cancer Research in Philadelphia. Compared to smokers who ate fewer than three servings of raw cruciferous vegetables, non-smokers who ate at least three servings a month were almost 73 per cent less likely to be in the bladder cancer group, they found.

Among both smokers and non-smokers, those who ate this minimal amount of raw veggies had a 40 per cent lower risk. But the team did not find the same effect for cooked vegetables. "Cooking can reduce 60 to 90 per cent of ITCs, (isothiocyanates)," Dr Li Tang, who led the study, said.

A second team of researchers from Roswell Park tested broccoli sprouts in rats. They used rats engineered to develop bladder cancer and fed some of them a freeze-dried extract of broccoli sprouts. The more they ate, the less likely they were to develop bladder cancer, said Dr Yuesheng Zhang, who led the research. They found the compounds were processed and excreted within 12 hours of feeding. That suggests the idea that compounds are protecting the bladder from the inside, Dr Zhang said. "The bladder is like a storage bag, and cancers in the bladder occur almost entirely along the inner surface, the epithelium, that faces the urine, presumably because this tissue is assaulted all the time by noxious materials in the urine," Dr Zhang said.

In a third study, a team at The Ohio State University fed black raspberries to patients with Barrett's esophagus, a condition that can lead to esophageal cancer. Black raspberries, sometimes called blackberries or blackcaps, are also rich in cancer-fighting compounds. Ohio State's Laura Kresty and colleagues fed 32 grams of freeze-dried black raspberries to women with Barrett's esophagus and 45 grams to men every day for six months.

They measured urine levels of levels of two compounds - 8-isoprostane and GSTpi - that indicate whether cancer-causing processes are going on in the body. Kresty said 58 per cent of patients had marked declines of 8-isoprostane levels, suggesting less damage, and 37 per cent had higher levels of GSTpi, which can help interfere with cancer causing damage and which is usually low in patients with Barrett's.

Source

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

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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