New life for vitamin C theory?

Case study "evidence" is pretty worthless. There are always a certain number of spontaneous remissions anyway. So we must await double blind studies at this stage

Three cancer patients who were given large intravenous doses over a period of several months had their lives extended and their tumours shrunk, doctors reported yesterday. A 49-year-old man diagnosed with terminal bladder cancer in 1996 was still alive and cancer-free nine years later, having declined chemotherapy and radiotherapy in favour of regular infusions of vitamin C.

A 66-year-old woman with an aggressive lymphoma who had a "dismal prognosis" in 1995 was similarly treated and is still alive 10 years later. A 51-year-old woman with kidney cancer that spread to her lungs diagnosed in 1995 had a normal chest X-ray two years later. The findings were confirmed by pathologists. Although they do not prove the vitamin cured the cancer they do increase the "clinical plausibility" of the idea, the researchers say.

Vitamin C therapy was first promoted by Linus Pauling, the Nobel prize winner, 30 years ago. Dr Pauling's claims sparked the continuing boom in sales of vitamin C, but attempts to confirm his findings failed and high-dose vitamin C became an "alternative" therapy.

The latest study, published in the Canadian Association's Medical Journal, could trigger renewed interest in Dr Pauling's claims. Studies show that vitamin C is toxic to some cancer cells but not to normal cells. The problem has been delivering a high enough dose.

The researchers say attempts to replicate Dr Pauling's work failed because they used oral doses of the drug which is rapidly excreted. However, injections achieve blood levels 25 times higher that persist for longer. At these very high doses, the blood level of vitamin C is high enough to selectively kill cancer cells. Several clinical trials of vitamin C therapy are about to start, including one at McGill University, Montreal, the authors say.

Source





More governmment health dictatorship for Britain?

Paternalistic plan to deter smokers: Permit to be required. Big Julian has been pushing this idea for some time

A ban on the sale of cigarettes to anyone who does not pay for a government smoking permit has been proposed by Health England, a ministerial advisory board. The idea is the brainchild of the board's chairman, Julian Le Grand, who is a professor at the London School of Economics and was Tony Blair's senior health adviser. In a paper being studied by Lord Darzi, the health minister appointed to oversee NHS reform, he says many smokers would be helped to break the habit if they had to make a decision whether to "opt in".

The permit might cost as little as 10 pounds, but acquiring it could be made difficult if the forms were sufficiently complex, Le Grand said last night. His paper says: "Suppose every individual who wanted to buy tobacco had to purchase a permit. And suppose further they had to do this every year. To get a permit would involve filling out a form and supplying a photograph, as well as paying the fee. Permits would only be issued to those over 18 and evidence of age would have to be provided. The money raised would go to the NHS."

Le Grand said the proposal was an example of "libertarian paternalism". The government would leave people free to make their own decisions but it would "nudge them" in the right direction. He said there was a parallel in pensions law. If workers were automatically enrolled in a pension scheme, few would choose to opt out. But if they had to make a conscious decision to opt in, most people would stay out. "Breaking the new year's resolution not to smoke would be costly in terms of both money and time ... [This] would probably have a greater impact on poor smokers than on rich ones, hence contributing to a reduction in health inequalities."

The paper, written by Le Grand and Divya Srivastava, an LSE researcher, acknowledges: "Administratively it would require addressing the problem of the existing black markets and smuggling in tobacco; but this should probably be done anyway." They add: "Politically, this might be viewed by some as giving people a 'licence' to smoke; and by full-blooded libertarians as a subtle and hence even more dangerous form of paternalism - paternalism squared. "On the other hand, the popularity even among smokers of the smoking ban in public places suggests that firm actions in this area can lead to political as well as health pay-offs."

The paper also proposes incentives for large companies to provide a daily "exercise hour" for employees and a ban on salt in processed food. A Department of Health spokeswoman said last night: "We will be consulting later this year on the next steps for tobacco control. Ministers are looking for input from a full range of stakeholders."

Source

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

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hilarious medical ignorance

Read the report below and see if you can see what these ivory-tower ignoramuses missed -- something that everyone in their job should have known. I give the answer at the bottom

The frustrating quest to develop a vaginal gel to prevent HIV infection was dealt a fresh blow as researchers said the first prototype to complete advanced clinical trials was ineffective. Carraguard, a candidate microbicide produced by the Population Council that had spent three years in large-scale "Phase 3" trials, was unable to prevent transmission of the AIDS virus, the investigators said.

But the gel was found to be safe for long-term vaginal use, a finding they described as extremely promising. "This is the first phase 3 microbicide efficacy trial to be completed with no safety concerns," said principal investigator Khatija Ahmed. "However, the study was unable to show Carraguard's efficacy in preventing male-to-female transmission of HIV."

The trial ran from March 2004 to March 2007 at three sites in South Africa among 6262 women. Half the volunteers were given the Carraguard gel and condoms, while the other half were given a placebo gel and condoms. All were given HIV education and safer-sex counselling. In the Carraguard group, 134 new HIV infections occurred, slightly fewer than the 151 in the placebo group. But Khatija Ahmed said the difference was not statistically significant and did not constitute evidence Carraguard was effective.

It is the third major setback in the seven-year-long drive to develop a vaginal microbicide, the term for a cream that would block or kill the AIDS virus during vaginal intercourse. Microbicides are one of the most eagerly-sought avenues in the war on AIDS, where at present there is neither a cure nor a vaccine and prevention depends on the condom or abstinence. Scientists are grappling for a means by which women, who are physically more at risk from AIDS infection than men, can protect themselves without having to rely on male consent to wear a condom....

South Africa has become a key testing ground for strategies against the global AIDS pandemic. It has 5.5 million people with HIV or AIDS, the highest number of any country in the world.

Source

What these politically correct South African megabrains missed is that AIDS is almost always transmitted via ANAL intercourse and anal intercourse is the traditional African method of contraception. The gel in the vagina didn't work because the black women got the AIDS through their ASSHOLES!






Bosses less likely to have cancer: Australian study

The stuff below is just a data dredging operation accompanied by a whole heap of speculation. Data dredging is when you look at a heap of data and highlight whatever differences you find there -- ignoring the fact that there will be a lot of differences there by chance alone. But that bosses are healthier is no surprise. That middle class people are healthier generally is a very common finding

Managers are less likely to have cancer, while shop assistants have a greater chance of suffering back pain and nurses have a higher rate of heart disease, according to a new Australian study. The survey, which is published Monday in the Medical Journal of Australia, analysed the records of more than 4,200 workers aged between 45 and 64 and found that about two-thirds had a medical condition.

It found that older workers with chronic conditions were more likely to be employed in certain industries such as retail, and health and community services, researcher Deborah Schofield said. "In the retail trade there was a significantly higher risk of musculoskeletal conditions -- so that's things like back injuries, or if you've injured your shoulder or arthritis," she told AFP on Sunday. "And then cardiovascular disease came out significantly higher in health and community services."

Schofield said that these findings jarred with the expectation that more muscle or bone injuries would be among construction workers or those in the transport, forestry or agriculture sectors where heavy lifting was required. "But, in fact, the reverse is what we found," she said.

"What we think happens is that retail, being part-time and not too heavy an occupation, that people, if they have those sort of injuries, (it means) they can remain in the workforce," she said.

Interpreting the data regarding cancer was also difficult. By occupation, the study found that the relative risk of a manager having neoplasms, or cancerous tumours, was found to be 0.25 compared to 0.40 for a tradesperson and 0.74 for labourers. "We don't know of any reason why they (managers) would be at lower risk as a result of being in that occupation," said Schofield, who is an associate professor at Sydney University, "What we think is that it may be that if you do have cancer that you're in secure jobs with very good sick leave arrangements so you're in a position to take time out of the workforce if you need to."

Schofield said it was possible that bosses sitting up in their corner offices were less exposed to carcinogens than other workers but this could not be proven. "So we don't think that you are necessarily, if you're in those jobs, less likely to get cancer. It's possibly more to do with your work arrangements when and if that does happen," she said.

Schofield said it was likely that illness forced people out of jobs, which resulted in lower rates of diseases in some industries. "This would seem to be the case for occupations such as tradespersons and labourers," which had low levels of all the medical conditions surveyed, she said.

Source.

More details here. Journal abstract here

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

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IS FOLATE GOOD FOR OLDIES TOO?

You might think so from the results below but look again. It appears that it was only CHANGES in folate that were correlated with dementia onset. Having low folate levels at the beginning was no problem. The inference is that folate levels and dementia have a common cause rather than one causing the other. Note also this recent expert comment about folates causing bowel cancer. And that this study showed that folate INCREASES dementia. So even if the results below were more positive, it would still be unwise for oldies to take folate. Abstract below:

Changes in folate, vitamin B12, and homocysteine associated with incident dementia

By Jae-Min Kim et al.

Objectives: Prospective findings have not been consistent for folate, vitamin B12 and homocysteine concentrations as predictors of dementia. This study aimed to investigate both baseline concentrations of folate, vitamin B12 and homocysteine and changes in these concentrations as predictors/correlates of incident dementia.

Methods: Of 625 elderly patients without dementia at baseline, 518 (83%) were followed over a 2.4 year period and were clinically assessed for incident dementia and Alzheimer's disease (AD). Serum concentrations of folate, vitamin B12 and homocysteine were measured at the baseline and follow-up assessments. Covariates included age, sex, education, disability, depression, alcohol consumption, physical activity, vascular risk factors, serum creatinine concentration, vitamin intake and weight change.

Results: Only baseline lower folate concentrations predicted incident dementia. The onset of dementia was significantly associated with an exaggerated decline in folate, a weaker increase in vitamin B12 concentrations and an exaggerated increase in homocysteine concentrations over the follow-up period. These associations were reduced following adjustment for weight change over the same period.

Conclusions: Incident dementia is more strongly associated with changes in folate, vitamin B12 and homocysteine than with previous concentrations. These changes may be linked to other somatic manifestations of early dementia, such as weight loss.

Source





SOME BUREAUCRATIC WISDOM EXPLODED

Effect of training and lifting equipment for preventing back pain in lifting and handling: systematic review

By Martimo KP et al.

OBJECTIVES: To determine whether advice and training on working techniques and lifting equipment prevent back pain in jobs that involve heavy lifting.

DATA SOURCES: Medline, Embase, CENTRAL, Cochrane Back Group's specialised register, CINAHL, Nioshtic, CISdoc, Science Citation Index, and PsychLIT were searched up to September-November 2005. Review methods The primary search focused on randomised controlled trials and the secondary search on cohort studies with a concurrent control group. Interventions aimed to modify techniques for lifting and handling heavy objects or patients and including measurements for back pain, consequent disability, or sick leave as the main outcome were considered for the review. Two authors independently assessed eligibility of the studies and methodological quality of those included.

For data synthesis, we summarised the results of studies comparing similar interventions. We used odds ratios and effect sizes to combine the results in a meta-analysis. Finally, we compared the conclusions of the primary and secondary analyses.

RESULTS: Six randomised trials and five cohort studies met the inclusion criteria. Two randomised trials and all cohort studies were labelled as high quality. Eight studies looked at lifting and moving patients, and three studies were conducted among baggage handlers or postal workers. Those in control groups received no intervention or minimal training, physical exercise, or use of back belts. None of the comparisons in randomised trials (17,720 participants) yielded significant differences. In the secondary analysis, none of the cohort studies (772 participants) had significant results, which supports the results of the randomised trials.

CONCLUSIONS: There is no evidence to support use of advice or training in working techniques with or without lifting equipment for preventing back pain or consequent disability. The findings challenge current widespread practice of advising workers on correct lifting technique.

Source

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

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Social class and cancer detection

By Dr. Syed Ashraf Imam

The Muslim guy writing below is not a very good researcher or he would not be peddling the old snake-oil about mammogram screening. Its utility is now regarded as dubious. In the circumstances, I don't think any of his other statements can be taken at face value either. My guess is that he is just another leech trying to bleed the taxpayer in the name of doing good

When I first joined the fight against breast cancer nearly 30 years ago, the tools we used were primitive. Mammography was very much in an experimental form and our diagnoses were often flawed. Even the treatments we used then seem primitive by today's standards. Fortunately, for most women, breast cancer is no longer a death sentence. Improvements in detection, treatment, education and our understanding of the disease have allowed us to take great leaps forward to eradicating it. However, those of us in the field are reminded every day that we are not there yet. In California alone, nearly 20,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer per year. And more than 4,000 women die from the disease.

Therefore, the mantra in our fight is early detection. And there's a reason for it. Women who discover breast cancer at an early stage have a better chance of surviving. Breast cancer at its early stage is more often detected in women in higher-income groups than those in lower incomes. Unfortunately, this disparity makes this disease deadly for the least fortunate among us.

The reality of early detection rarely has anything do with luck. The women who are diagnosed at an early stage are more often those with access to proper health care and an advanced awareness of the disease. They are more likely to receive appropriate treatment in time, and, therefore, more likely to survive. Their counterparts, who do not have access to information and care comprise the bulk of those women diagnosed with late stages of breast cancer, the life-threatening stage of the disease.

It's simple to see why this is the case. Among uninsured women over 40, only one-third have yearly mammograms. In contrast, 64 percent of women with health insurance received such an examination last year. With such obvious disparities, it would seem that a few easy remedies would be in order. First and foremost is giving more women access to health care in California. We're ranked 44th in the nation in providing women access to healthcare, with 21 percent of women without access. That ought to change.

Luckily, we have begun to move in the right direction in Sacramento. The California Department of Health Services' Every Woman Counts program has already invested millions of dollars in state funds toward increasing access to care for under-insured women. As a result, more women can get the screenings for the early detection of breast cancer and possibly treatment they wouldn't otherwise receive. Unfortunately, the program has the funding to provide health care for only one-fifth of the 1.2 million eligible women. As a result, the current level of available funds is far from being adequate.

We can do better than that. Los Angeles is joining the Komen Community Challenge - a national grassroots campaign to close the gaps in research, public policy and access to quality care. Susan G. Komen for the Cure is asking communities to rally together in order to close these deadly gaps. In California, it means asking state legislators to provide $12 million in funding for the State Department of Public Health Services' Every Woman Counts program, providing another 24 percent of eligible women access to care that could save their lives. If our leaders in Sacramento step up the plate, Every Woman Counts really will serve every woman who needs it - and no woman will ever be turned away.

As a researcher I recognize the important role of science in our fight to eradicate breast cancer. I also know that we can't just fight breast cancer in the laboratory alone. Let's come together and close the gaps that make breast cancer deadlier for some women than others. The past three decades have seen us greatly reduce the number of women who die from breast cancer.

Source




Study Links Diet, Activity to Lung Cancer Risk: Eat Your Veggies, Work Outside for Cancer Prevention

It's just another stupid study based on self-reports -- with no doubt the usual class bias of such studies. There was NO measurement of ACTUAL vegetable consumption

Eating four or more servings of green salad each week as well as working outside in the yard or garden a couple of times a week may significantly lower the chance of developing lung cancer in smokers and nonsmokers, according to a recent study. "The results are exciting because the study is applicable to everyone, and it may have a positive impact on the 15% of people who are diagnosed with lung cancer who are non-smokers," says Michele Forman, Ph.D., lead author on the study and a professor in M. D. Anderson's Department of Epidemiology. Forman adds that although this is a very preliminary analysis, the results give researchers important clues about how smokers and non-smokers might be able to reduce their risk of developing lung cancer. [Policy recommendations made on the basis of "a very preliminary analysis"??]

This study sought to determine if physical activity and diet have an impact on whether people develop lung cancer. Forman says frequency of eating salad is a marker of vegetable consumption. Gardening was chosen as a physical activity because a wide range of people can participate in it, and other physical activity did not appear to influence risk prediction. It is one of the few activities people with lung cancer report doing.

The investigators found that physical activity like gardening reduced the risk of developing lung cancer by: 45% in former smokers; 33% in smokers. Smokers who eat three servings or less of salad a week have double the chance of lung cancer compared to smokers who eat four or more salads weekly, according to the study results.

Researchers used a food-frequency questionnaire for participants to report about their diets during the previous year in healthy patients or the year before diagnosis of lung cancer in patients. Data was collected on: Cancer patients a year prior to diagnosis; Cancer-free individuals a year prior to interview. Participants also were asked about physical activity, including sports and other forms of exercise, throughout their adult years.

These findings are part of an ongoing study that is examining several risk factors for lung cancer. It matches people being treated for lung cancer at M. D. Anderson with cancer-free people who are patients at Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, a private physician group in Houston. More than 3,800 participants are involved in the study.

What's next? Forman says more research is needed on the connection between lifestyle and cancer. "We do not know yet whether these habits of eating well and exercising are markers for other lifestyle factors that might be even more important, such as lack of alcohol consumption," she says. "We have a lot of puzzles in the picture yet to analyze."

Source

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

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ho hum! A "new" but old THEORY: Too much junk food `raises the risk of cancer and dementia'

The idea that junk food leads to insufficient micronutrient intake is sure to be popular among the do-gooders but is unproven garbage. There are usually half a dozen different foods in a hamburger and all are common dietary constituents: Meat, bread, lettuce, tomato, pickle etc. If such foods are inadequate, we are all going to DIE!

And note again that Australians eat all the "wrong" foods in great quantities but have exceptionally long life expectancies. Pesky!

Eating too much junk food may contribute to cancer, dementia, stroke and other diseases through a lack of vitamins, minerals and other micronutrients in the diet, according to a new theory. Professor Bruce Ames, of the Children's Hospital of Oakland Research Institute, California, believes that many common disorders associated with ageing can be traced in part to poor diet earlier in life. The research that he presented to the conference yesterday suggested that taking regular multivitamin supplements could protect against some bad effects of micronutrient deficiencies.

This idea is contradicted by other studies that have shown little benefit to health in taking vitamin and mineral supplements, suggesting that they are no substitute for a balanced diet rich in fruit and vegetables.

Professor Ames emphasised that his idea was theoretical and he accepted that much more work into the effects of supplements was needed to provide sound medical advice. He said that shortages of 15 micronutrients, including magnesium and vitamin D, had been associated with greater levels of DNA damage to cells and a raised risk of cancers.

Fifty-six per cent of Americans obtained less than the recommended daily amount of magnesium from their diets; 12 per cent consumed insufficient zinc; and most African-Americans were deficient in vitamin D, which was mainly synthesised by exposure to sunlight and was often lacking in people with dark skins who were living at higher latitudes. "Most of the world's population, particularly the poor, has inadequate intake of one or more micronutrients that a varied and balanced diet should provide," he said. "Social concern is low because no overt pathology has been associated with these levels of deficiency."

Whereas serious vitamin or mineral deficiencies had symptoms, such as scurvy for vitamin C and ricketts for vitamin D, mild shortages generally had none. Professor Ames said that it was possible that the body compensated for such shortages by rebalancing metabolism, so that individuals stayed alive for the short term at the cost of their long-term health. "The consequences of this homoeostatic response are, for example, DNA damage (future cancer), adaptive immune dysfunction (future disease), and mitochondrial decay (future cognitive dysfunction and accelerated ageing)," he said. "Much evidence supports this idea that micronutrient shortages accelerate ageing."

Source





Herbal hope for Alzheimers?

A jar of browny-green goo is all it took to end Dr Stephen Minger's doubtsabout whether traditional Chinese medicine could teach anything to Western science. When a colleague walked into the leading stem cell scientist's lab at King's College London with a Chinese remedy that he believed could boost brain cell growth, and asked if he could test his theory on some neurons that Dr Minger had grown in his lab, he wasn't keen.

"My first thought was `you're not putting that on my cells'. But it turned out to be amazing stuff. It really stimulated the cells to grow; they grew like weeds," recalls Dr Minger, the ponytailed scientist who has has been in the spotlight since 2003, when his team created the UK's first lab-grown human embryonic stem cells. These are the "blank-slate" cells that have the power to turn into any cell of the body and may be key in producing more effective treatments for diseases such as diabetes and Parkinson's.

But for all of his scientific credentials, Dr Minger is about to step out of the conventional and into the alternative. At the time of the "green-goo" incident, neither he nor his colleague had the time or money to investigate further the ancient remedy that produced such an astonishing effect. But the experience stayed with Dr Minger and he began to view Chinese medicine in a different light. If its remedies could make brain cells grow, could they help to treat diseases that destroy the brain such as Alzheimer's?

Now the Government has asked him to head a two-year project aimed at strengthening links between UK and Chinese scientists. He immediately thought of using the project as a way of probing the ancient cures of traditional Chinese medicine, often referred to as TCM, to see if they can be converted into modern treatments.

The project starts this month. Dr Minger will fly to Shanghai to bring together Alzheimer's scientists in the UK with Chinese researchers in the hope of mining TCM for new medicines for the disease. He believes that the traditional system, based on energy flow in the body, yin and yang, anecdotal evidence and treatments made from ground-up plant and animal products, can help evidence-based Western medicine. So do many drug developers in the West who are turning their attention to TCM in the hope that the thousands of remedies in its armoury may have tangible biological and therapeutic effects. "I think there are clearly active ingredients in some of these plant extracts which have potent biological effects," says Dr Minger. "It's not that surprising when you look at the fact that Taxol, a cancer treatment, originally came from yew, and aspirin from willow. Assuming that this project works, TCM could represent a whole new class of drugs that no one has had access to before."

He believes that there is a pressing need for new Alzheimer's treatments. "It is such a huge healthcare burden; it's projected to bankrupt most Western countries in the next 50 years. There are almost no therapies and the existing ones work only on a subset of people. Plus, in most cases, they only slightly slow the progression of the disease." Rebecca Wood, the chief executive of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, agrees that looking for potential cures in Chinese medicine could open up new avenues of treatment. "It's always worth looking at the unusual. We shouldn't assume we've got all the answers here. Just because something is traditional doesn't mean that it doesn't have active compounds in it."

In fact, experts estimate that one in four prescription medications used in the UK was originally developed from plants. Dr Paul Francis, a neuroscientist at King's College London and one of the Alzheimer's researchers who will join Dr Minger in China, points out that even some of the conventional Alzheimer's medications prescribed in the UK started off as shrubs. "If you look at the three drugs currently available, one of them came from daffodils and snowdrops," he says. Further, many current conventional treatments are based on Chinese herbal remedies, including a possible treatment for dementia.

In recent years the Chinese Government has invested huge sums into investigating whether its vast library of traditional remedies can be converted into orthodox treatments. "The Chinese are very committed to this," says Dr Minger. "They have state-run labs that are doing nothing except investigate TCM."

But developing conventional drugs from these ancient cures is not an easy process as a single remedy can contain many different plant ingredients. How do you know which one is responsible for the curative effect, and is this effect due to one ingredient or a combination?

The process starts with scientists identifying a remedy that they think may have therapeutic potential. Using modern technology - and working by a process of elimination - they test each fraction of the remedy for biological activity, discarding the pieces that have no effect. They continue until they have sieved the remedy down to a point where only a few chemical constituents remain, which they deduce must be the ones that elicit the therapeutic effect. Artificial copies of the active chemical are then made and tested on patients in clinical trials.

But why can't they just give patients the traditional remedies in their native form? Because, Dr Francis says, they are not guaranteed to have any medicinal effect, and, more importantly, they may be dangerous. No two traditional remedies are the same, he says, unlike a pharmaceutical treatment where each pill has an identical composition. The remedies also need to undergo conventional scientific testing to make sure that they won't interact with other medication. This involves a barrage of safety tests, test-tube studies and, eventually, trials in patients. "Any chemical, even a natural chemical, can have side-effects," says Dr Francis.

Dr Minger, who believes that East-West scientific collaborations are the way forward for UK researchers, says that he may also use it to investigate whether TCM holds any potential treatments for cancer. "China is going like gang-busters, particularly if you're thinking in terms of medicine and pharmaceuticals. In many cases their labs are as good, if not better, than labs here or in the US. A lot of Chinese scientists also are moving back. When you ask them why, they say it's too good a place not to be right now."

Does Dr Minger anticipate any culture clashes? "Most of the Chinese guys are Western-trained so it's not that difficult to work together," he says. Plus, much of their science is regulated to the same level as UK science. The only potential problem he sees is the traffic. "It takes for ever to get anywhere. When you're scheduling something, you have to pack in so much extra time to get from one place to another." And he has learnt from the green goo incident how important it is to have no preconceptions. "I think it just takes a little bit of open-mindedness

Source

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

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Heart benefits from red wine no different from other alcohols

This is a VERY limited study but it is consistent with the fact that benefits have previously been found from various sources of alcohol intake (such as beer) -- but it is something of a poke in the eye for the resveratrol freaks

The potential health benefits of a single glass of polyphenol rich red wine are no different to any other alcoholic beverage, according to new research. Researchers at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre of the Toronto General Hospital conducted a study on thirteen volunteers to test whether red wine, proven to be high in polyphenols, differed to other alcoholic drinks in affecting heart health.

According to the research, red wine and alcohol consumption were found to have virtually identical impact on health, with one drink of either substance helping to reduce the work rate of the heart.

The findings, which are published in the February edition of the American Journal of Physiology, Heart and Circulatory Physiology, could challenge the perception that polyphenol content of red wine is responsible for cardiovascular benefits. Red wine has been linked to extended survival rates of mice and prevented the negative effects of high-calorie diets, in other testing, due to the presence of the polyphenol, resveratrol.

The study, supported by Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, was conducted therefore to better understand the link between health benefits and moderate red wine consumption. With population surveys linking lower levels of heart disease to European countries with high-fat diets that also regularly consumed red wine, researchers hoped the testing could better explain this so-called "French paradox."

An occasional single serving of red wine, like any other alcoholic beverage was found to improve heart health, according to the researchers. The study said this was the result of alcohol's relaxing affect on blood vessels. However, after a second drink the heart rate, amount of blood being pumped in the body, and sympathetic nervous system action all increased, the study said.

At this point, researchers said that blood vessels became less able to expand in response to increased blood flow, reversing any beneficial effects obtained by a consumer after a single serving of wine or alcohol. Researcher Dr. John Floras said that findings from the testing had thrown up some unexpected results.

"We had anticipated that many of the effects of one ethanol drink would be enhanced by red wine," he stated. "What was most surprising was how similar the effects were of red wine and ethanol."

Floras added that that the American Heart Association (AHA) did not recommend consuming a single red wine or alcoholic drink as a means of improving hearth health, as long-term affects of continued consumption were unknown.

"Our findings point to a slight beneficial effect of one drink - be it alcohol or red wine - on the heart and blood vessels, whereas two or more drinks would seem to turn on systems that stress the circulation," he stated. "If these actions are repeated frequently because of high alcohol consumption these effects may expose individuals to a higher risk of heart attacks, stroke or chronic high blood pressure."

All 13 participants in the study were aged between 24 to 47 years of age. These respondents, consisting of a group of seven males and six females, were all selected as healthy non-smokers, who were neither heavy drinkers or abstainers. The participants attended three separate morning sessions in which they consumed a set standard drink of red wine, ethanol or water on a random, single-blind basis, two weeks apart. The standard drink was a either a 4 ounce (120ml) serving of red wine or a 1.5 ounce (44ml) spirits shot.

The wine used in the trial was a moderately priced pinot noir with a verified high t-resveratrol content, selected by The Quality Assurance Laboratory of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, the researchers said.

Found in: American Journal of Physiology, Heart and Circulatory Physiology, Volume 294, Pages 605-612, doi:10.1152/ajpheart.01162.2007. "Dose-related effects of red wine and alcohol on hemodynamics, sympathetic nerve activity, and arterial diameter" Authors: John S. Floras, Jonas Spaak, Anthony C. Merlocco, et al.

Source





Sugary drinks (and fruit) increase the risk of developing gout?

The first thing to note about this garbagy study is that only 1.6% of the people surveyed got gout. What about the other 98.4% who did not get gout? Don't they prove that drinking pop does NOT give you gout? And even in the afflicted group there would have been many factors contributing to the problem. So this study leads to NO health recommendations at all. And I can't resist pointing out that by the same logic they found fruit and fruit juice to be bad for you! Popular summary followed by abstract below:

Sugary soft drinks could be harming more than our waistlines. In the British Medical Journal this week, a new study has found that men who drink sugar-sweetened soft drinks are more likely to develop gout -- an extremely painful joint disease caused by excess uric acid in the blood.

The usual dietary advice for gout sufferers is to restrict intake of meat and alcohol, but the authors suggest that soft drinks should now be added to the list. The study involved 46,393 men aged 40 years and over with no history of gout. At the start of the study, and then every two years, participants completed a dietary survey and were given a medical examination. Over the following 12 years, there were 755 cases of gout. The risk of developing the disease was 85 per cent higher among men who consumed two or more servings of sugar-sweetened soft drinks per day compared to those who consumed less than one serving per month. Diet soft drinks were not associated with an increased risk of gout.

Source

Soft drinks, fructose consumption, and the risk of gout in men: prospective cohort study

by: Hyon K Choi, Gary Curhan

Objective: To examine the relation between intake of sugar sweetened soft drinks and fructose and the risk of incident gout in men.

Design: Prospective cohort over 12 years.

Setting: Health professionals follow-up study.

Participants: 46,393 men with no history of gout at baseline who provided information on intake of soft drinks and fructose through validated food frequency questionnaires.

Main outcome measure: Incident cases of gout meeting the American College of Rheumatology survey criteria for gout.

Results: During the 12 years of follow-up 755 confirmed incident cases of gout were reported. Increasing intake of sugar sweetened soft drinks was associated with an increasing risk of gout. Compared with consumption of less than one serving of sugar sweetened soft drinks a month the multivariate relative risk of gout for 5-6 servings a week was 1.29 (95% confidence interval 1.00 to 1.68), for one serving a day was 1.45 (1.02 to 2.08), and for two or more servings a day was 1.85 (1.08 to 3.16; P for trend=0.002). Diet soft drinks were not associated with risk of gout (P for trend=0.99). The multivariate relative risk of gout according to increasing fifths of fructose intake were 1.00, 1.29, 1.41, 1.84, and 2.02 (1.49 to 2.75; P for trend <0.001).

Other major contributors to fructose intake such as total fruit juice or fructose rich fruits (apples and oranges) were also associated with a higher risk of gout (P values for trend <0.05).

Conclusions: Prospective data suggest that consumption of sugar sweetened soft drinks and fructose is strongly associated with an increased risk of gout in men. Furthermore, fructose rich fruits and fruit juices may also increase the risk. Diet soft drinks were not associated with the risk of gout

Source

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

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fast-food harms liver, but helps your heart

So if you are at risk from heart disease, eat at McDonalds! But sugar is bad for you! A rather silly study on the whole but fun nonetheless. What a study of force-feeding tells us, who could say? Note also that the preliminary report of this study reveals that the results were much more complex than described below

A month-long diet of fast food and no exercise led to dangerously high levels of enzymes linked to liver damage, in an unusual experiment inspired by the docu-movie "Supersize Me." But investigators, reporting their findings on Thursday, were also stunned to find that a relentless regimen of burgers, fries and soda also boosted so-called good cholesterol, seen as a key measure of cardiovascular health.

Researchers in Sweden asked 12 men and six women in their twenties, all slim and in good health, to eat two meals per day at McDonalds, Burger King or other fast-food restaurants over four weeks. The volunteers were also told to refrain from exercising. The goal was to increase body weight by 10 to 15 percent to measure the impact of an abrupt surge in calorie intake.

Blood samples were taken before, during and after the experiment to monitor levels of an enzyme called alanine aminotransferase, or ALT, a potential marker for liver damage often seen among heavy drinkers and patients with hepatitis C. Levels of ALT increased sharply after only one week, and quadrupled on average over the entire period, said lead researcher Frederik Nystrom, a doctor at the University Hospital of Linkoping. "The results scared me," he told AFP. "One of the subjects had to be withdrawn from the study because he had 10 times the normal ALT levels."

For 11 of the 18 subjects, ALT rose to levels that would normally reflect liver damage, even among individuals who did not drink any alcohol, although no such damage occurred, he said. Two of the individuals had liver steatosis, or fatty liver, in which fat cells build up dangerously in the liver, he said. Steatosis is associated with the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, which has taken on epidemic proportions, especially in industrialised countries.

Published in the British Medical Association's journal Gut, the study "proves that high ALT levels can be caused by food alone," said Nystrom. That signs of liver damage were linked to carbohydrates was another key finding, he said. "It was not the fat in the hamburgers, it was rather the sugar in the coke," he said.

But the most startling result implies that an intensive fast food diet might have some health benefits too, apparently from fat. "We found that healthy HDL cholesterol actually increased over the four-week period -- this was very counter-intuitive," Nystrom said. HDL, sometimes called "good cholesterol," seems to clean the walls of blood vessels, removing excess "bad cholesterol" that can cause coronary artery disease and transporting it to the liver for processing.

Nystrom has yet to publish the cholesterol findings, but said they were consistent with the so-called "French Paradox." For nearly two decades, scientists have wrestled to explain how the French can consume a diet rich in fats -- from abundant butter, cream, cheese and meat -- yet have generally low levels of heart disease and hypertension. "The study showed that the increase in saturated fat correlated with the increase in healthy cholesterol," he said.

The young Swedish guinea pigs ate at least two fast-food meals a day, and terminated the study once they had gained a maximum of 15 percent in weight. On average, they tipped the scales 6.5 kilos (14.3 pounds) more, but one ballooned by 12 kilos (26.4 pounds).

Nystrom got the idea for his study from the 2004 Oscar-nominated documentary "Supersize Me," in which filmmaker Morgan Spurlock asked doctors to monitor him over a 30-day period in which he ate at McDonalds morning, noon and night. Doctors were so alarmed by changes in his blood chemistry -- including skyrocketing levels of ALT -- that they begged him to halt his experiment. "I wasn't just inspired by the movie, I copied it to the best of my ability," said Nystrom.

The movie helped spur a change of tack by fast-food corporations to include healthier options on their menus. On their websites, McDonald's and Burger King highlight salads and low-fat products -- alongside the classic burgers and colas -- and offer guidance on balanced diets and a healthy lifestyle.

Source





Sitting down is now bad for you

But jogging is bad for you too because it crunches your joints. And swimming is bad because swimmers drown a lot. And walking outdoors is bad because you might get cancer from the sun. So just DIE!

SITTING down is about to join smoking and junk food on the list of vices that increase your risk of diabetes and heart disease. New Australian research shows that half-an-hour in the gym will not make up for the waist-expanding damage caused by spending the rest of the day sitting. But the good news is that pottering about the house or gently walking around the office while on the phone might be enough to keep you fit.

The study, which will appear in the April issue of Diabetes Care, joins the growing body of evidence suggesting too much sitting might undo the benefits of exercise. The study measured the intensity of physical activity in 168 subjects over seven days. It found that, regardless of how much moderate-to-vigorous exercise they did or their total sedentary time, those who took more breaks from sitting had lower waist circumferences, lower body mass indexes and lower levels of triglycerides and glucose in blood.

Higher levels of triglycerides, or blood lipids, have been linked to a heightened risk of heart disease and stroke. High blood glucose levels are linked to the development of diabetes, which itself is a major risk factor for heart disease. "What this shows is there are benefits in just getting up regularly and interrupting your sedentary time," principal researcher Genevieve Healy of the University of Queensland said.

Researchers behind the Stand Up Australia project have written to the Rudd Government requesting $3.5million for a two-year study into the impact of prolonged sitting on the health and productivity of workers. The study would also develop and test strategies for reducing sitting time on the job. The project is a a collaboration between the Baker Heart Research Institute and the International Diabetes Institute, which will merge this year, and the universities of Melbourne and Queensland.

The latest study builds on work that is shifting the health promotion focus from purposeful exercise, such as jogging or cycling, to lower intensity activity throughout the day.

The Australian research has been backed up by US studies, which show the sheer effort of standing up is enough to double the metabolic rate and the amount of calories burnt. "If you stand up, you are much more likely to end up pacing or pottering around and that seems to make a crucial difference," Professor Marc Hamilton from the University of Missouri told Britain's Daily Mail.

His studies found that the enzymes responsible for breaking down fat are suppressed when a person is sitting instead of standing. "To hold a body that weighs [77 kilograms] upright takes a fair amount of energy from muscles," he said. "There is a large amount of energy associated with standing every day that can't easily be compensated for by 30 to 60 minutes in the gym."

Studies by associate Professor David Dunstan, of the International Diabetes Institute, linked subjects who spent more time watching television with risk factors for diabetes and heart disease, regardless of their levels of moderate-to-vigorous exercise.

Source

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

Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Blue-collar workers have more illness

That there is an association between lower social class and more illness is very well-established and this article confirms that. The direction of causation given below is pure speculation, however. Even if all these guys had remained unemployed, they would probably still have more illness. People in poorer health and less fit people generally may often have to take more menial work. And picking out particularoccupations for more or less of some ailment is pure data-dredging. The occupations would be likely to differ purely on a random basis. Epidemiological studies are useful for hypothesis-testing or hypothesis-generating but they do not enable causative inferences by themselves

BLUE-collar workers such as cleaners, truck drivers, fruit and vegetable growers and meat processors are at higher risk of developing cancer than their office-based counterparts are, a new study warns. Hairdressers and sewing machinists were also found to be far more susceptible to bladder cancer than other workers.

Scientists believe exposure to potentially toxic chemicals, dyes, pesticides and viruses are causing spikes in job-related diseases.

The research from Massey University's Centre for Public Health Research in New Zealand - published in two international journals - revealed the full extent of modern occupational cancer risks.

Apple and pear growers have been singled out as five times more likely to develop non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, while plant nursery staff recorded a four-fold increased risk. "An elevated non-Hodgkin's lymphoma risk was observed for field-crop and vegetable growers and horticulture and fruit growing, particularly for women," the study author, Andrea 't Mannetje said. "Meat processors had an elevated risk, as did heavy truck drivers, workers employed in metal product manufacturing and cleaners."

Reasons for the higher risk include exposure to animal viruses, cleaning chemicals, petrochemicals, trace metals and lubricants. Farmers who spray pesticides manually are likely to be at greater risk than those who use machines, according to Dr 't Mannetje. The use of carcinogenic chemicals called aromatic amines is blamed for increased rates of bladder cancer in hairdressing and sewing machine work. While several forms of the chemicals are banned, similar substances are still used in common fabric and hair dyes.

Source





Australia: Bureaucrats ban the evil peanut

Peanut butter sandwiches have been banned from a Government building because of concerns the smell could trigger a deadly allergic reaction. The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission building in Sydney's CBD has outlawed all peanut products from the building for fear an employee could go into shock and die from the fumes. Taking the nanny state mentality to the extreme, the commission has begun erecting signs in hallways, kitchens and conference rooms declaring them a "Peanut Free Zone".

The ban, which came into effect this week, is believed to have followed a situation where a staff member became concerned after free peanut butter samples were handed out on Town Hall train station. An email to staff said: "You may have noticed the new peanut free zone posters we've just placed around the floor just to help us remember not to bring any peanut products to work. "For those who collected the freebie peanut butter samples from town hall (sic) this morning, please take these home as the smell will trigger a reaction."

As well as the peanut butter sandwiches, the ban prevents staff from eating chicken satay, Pad Thai, Snickers bars, Crunchy Nut Cornflakes and anything else containing peanuts at work. The email said the nut moratorium covers the entire floor of the building, which houses a total of seven government departments. They include the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commission, Asia-Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions, the Disability Discrimination Commission, Privacy Commission, Race Discrimination Commission and the Sex Discrimination Commission.

Staff said they were "bemused" by the new rule but were prepared to obey it to save a colleague's life. A Human Rights Commission spokesman said the ban was informal and was necessary because one staff member had such an acute allergy to peanuts they needed to constantly carry an adrenaline syringe in their pocket in case of a reaction. There was no enforcement process in place, and the signs were meant to inject humour into the situation.

Concerns about peanut allergies have grown after highly publicised deaths including Sydney schoolboy Hamidur Rahman, who died after being dared to eat peanut butter at a school camp. Royal Prince Alfred Hospital's Rob Loblay said it was impossible to trigger an allergic reaction from smell but a sufferer could become "extremely distressed and anxious".

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].

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

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

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

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

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

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

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