Town planning blamed for obesity (!)

Poor town planning which limits opportunities for children to take exercise has been blamed for fuelling an increase in obesity. Leading US paediatrician Professor Richard Jackson called for a rethink in the way towns and cities are developed. He said living in a walkable neighbourhood helped people keep off an average of seven pounds (3.17kg). Professor Jackson made his comments at a lecture at London's Institute of Child Health.

He said humans were so adaptable that they quickly adjusted to the environment in which they found themselves. However, while this was an advantage in evolutionary terms, it spelled bad news when that environment provided little opportunity for exercise. Humans were designed to keep active, he said, and they were not designed for the modern, sedentary lifestyle that had become the norm. He said the environment should support people to make healthy choices, but increasingly children were not given the option of walking. "Prescribing a minimum of physical activity is useless if there is nowhere to exercise," he said. "How a neighbourhood is designed dictates how people get around, for example walking or bicycling versus automobile use."

Professor Jackson, who is professor in both public health and urban design at the University of California at Berkeley, said technology had brought both "good" and "bad" news. He said: "Technology has eliminated a lot of the really backbreaking labour from our lives. "But we have also "designed" a lot of incidental exercise out of our lives, such as walking. "In 1969, 48% of American students (90% of those who lived within a mile) walked or bicycled to school. "In 1999, only 19% of children walked to or from school and 6% rode bicycles to school."

Dr Ian Campbell, medical director of the charity Weight Concern, said Professor Jackson was "absolutely right". He said: "The development of obesity in the past 30 years is a direct result of environmental change. "The fact that environment sustainability and health are inextricably linked needs to be recognised by politicians and public health officials and definitive action taken. "Then, and only then, will we see decreases in levels of childhood obesity in this country."

Source






Trans fat frenzy in NYC too

Three years after the city banned smoking in restaurants, health officials are talking about prohibiting something they say is almost as bad: artificial trans fatty acids. The city health department unveiled a proposal Tuesday that would bar cooks at any of the city's 24,600 food service establishments from using ingredients that contain the artery-clogging substance, commonly listed on food labels as partially hydrogenated oil.

Artificial trans fats are found in some shortenings, margarine and frying oils and turn up in foods from pie crusts to french fries to doughnuts.

Doctors agree that trans fats are unhealthy in nearly any amount, but a spokesman for the restaurant industry said he was stunned the city would seek to ban a legal ingredient found in millions of American kitchens.

"Labeling is one thing, but when they totally ban a product, it goes well beyond what we think is prudent and acceptable," said Chuck Hunt, executive vice president of the city's chapter of the New York State Restaurant Association. He said the proposal could create havoc: Cooks would be forced to discard old recipes and scrutinize every ingredient in their pantry. A restaurant could face a fine if an inspector finds the wrong type of vegetable shortening on its shelves.

The proposal also would create a huge problem for national chains. Among the fast foods that would need to get an overhaul or face a ban: McDonald's french fries, Kentucky Fried Chicken and several varieties of Dunkin' Donuts. Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden acknowledged that the ban would be a challenge for restaurants, but he said trans fats can easily be replaced with substitute oils that taste the same or better and are far less unhealthy. "It is a dangerous and unnecessary ingredient," Frieden said. "No one will miss it when it's gone."

A similar ban on trans fats in restaurant food has been proposed in Chicago and is still under consideration, although it has been ridiculed by some as unnecessary government meddling. The latest version of the Chicago plan would only apply to companies with annual revenues of more than $20 million, a provision aimed exclusively at fast-food giants.

A few companies have moved to eliminate trans fats on their own. Wendy's announced in August that it had switched to a new cooking oil that contains no trans fatty acids. Crisco now sells a shortening that contains zero trans fats. Frito-Lay removed trans fats from its Doritos and Cheetos. Kraft's took trans fats out of Oreos. McDonald's began using a trans fat-free cooking oil in Denmark after that country banned artificial trans fats in processed food, but it has yet to do so in the United States. Walt Riker, vice president of corporate communications at McDonald's, said in a statement Tuesday that the company would review New York's proposal. "McDonald's knows this is an important issue, which is why we continue to test in earnest to find ways to further reduce (trans fatty acid) levels," he said.

New York's health department had asked restaurants to impose a voluntary ban last year but found use of trans fats unchanged in recent surveys. Under the New York proposal, restaurants would need to get artificial trans fats out of cooking oils, margarine and shortening by July 1, 2007, and all other foodstuffs by July 1, 2008. It would not affect grocery stores. It also would not apply to naturally occurring trans fats, which are found in some meats and dairy. The Board of Health has yet to approve the proposal and will not do so until at least December, Frieden said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration began requiring food labels to list trans fats in January. Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard University School of Public Health, praised New York health officials for considering a ban, which he said could save lives. "Artificial trans fats are very toxic, and they almost surely causes tens of thousands of premature deaths each year," he said. "The federal government should have done this long ago."

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.

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

"Healthy" food turns out to be pretty ordinary



Children would be better off sitting down to a big fry-up for breakfast than eating some commercially produced muesli bars, so loaded are they with fats and sugars. A test found seven were so laden with kilojoules that a Mars Bar presented a healthier breakfast alternative.

The analysis of more than 150 different cereal bars by Choice magazine found that seven - including three types of Kellogg's K-time muffin bars - contained more kilojoules than the much-maligned Mars Bar. Two varieties of muesli slices produced by Sunibrite contained more saturated fat than a breakfast of two bacon rashers. Many others, including a range of Uncle Toby's muesli bars and a collection of cereal bars with the words healthy, fit or natural featuring prominently in their names, were at least 20 per cent sugar.

Of the bars tested, only 13 met all the analysts' healthy nutrition requirements, based on kilojoules, sugar, saturated fat, dietary fibre and wholegrain content. On the other end of the scale, the Nice & Natural yoghurt natural nut bar met none of the requirements.

While the healthy connotations associated with the words cereal and muesli were dubious in many of the bars, the definition of fruit in others was also suspect. "The fruit often found in some bars was more likely to have come from a laboratory than an orchard," said Choice's media spokeswoman, Indira Naidoo. She said parents should think again if they thought their children were getting part of their daily serving of fruit by unwrapping a bar containing what appeared to be dried strawberries, apples, pears or plums. The chances are that they are snacking instead on maltodextrin, glucose, fructose, humectant, vegetable fat, modified maize starch, flavours, colours, vegetable gum, food acid, firming agent and emulsifier.

The findings led Choice's analysts to conclude that despite often being labelled with "healthy" names, many of the bars really belonged in the supermarket confectionery aisle. Ms Naidoo said that rather than snacking on cereal bars, children would be better off eating an apple, which gave plenty of fibre, less sugar, and no fat.

Source





TANNING NOW UNDER FIRE

Here come the health police. First they came for the cigarettes. Then they came for the sodas. Now it's the tanning salons. The cigarette war is winding down, as one country after another bans public smoking. A week ago, the top three soft-drink makers surrendered the first big battle of the junk-food war, agreeing to remove sodas from elementary and middle schools. A few days later, spooked by the outcry against fast food and childhood obesity, Disney fled an advertising deal with McDonald's. Nobody wants to be the new Joe Camel. But somebody will be. Look out your window: Summer is coming. Teens are getting ready for their proms. It's tanning season-time to stretch out on the beach, or under an ultraviolet lamp, and soak up a nice, warm dose of lethal radiation.

If you've had trouble seeing Cokes or cheeseburgers as the moral equivalent of cigarettes, brace yourself for the next public health menace: the sun. You thought it was our smiley-faced friend? Think again. Skin cancer rates are soaring. We're basking outside too long and with too little protection. The health cops want us to stop, but regulating a ball of fire 1 million times the size of Earth is somewhat more difficult than regulating corn chips. So, they're going after the radiation source they can get their hands on: tanning salons. A bill in Congress would stiffen health warnings on tanning machines. The American Medical Association is asking lawmakers to put these machines off-limits to anyone under 18, and the American Academy of Dermatology wants to outlaw them altogether.

About 30 million Americans use tanning salons. At least one of every four teenage girls, and nearly one of every two girls aged 18 or 19, has tanned indoors at least three times. Why? According to this month's Archives of Dermatology, "[ultraviolet] radiation, a classified carcinogen, is commonly and specifically marketed to adolescents through high school newspaper advertising" by salons. Why do kids keep coming back? A study in the current Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology suggests "frequent tanning is driven by an opioid-dependent mechanism." In other words, it's a physical addiction. It even has a street name: tanorexia. Harmful, addictive, marketed to kids-that's the three-count indictment that brought down tobacco and soft drinks.

Like the tobacco companies, the salons live in a bubble of denial that cries out for oversight. Last year, in a survey by Consumer Reports, one of every three salons denied that tanning could cause skin cancer or would age a client's skin. Their lobbying arm, the Indoor Tanning Association, asserts that "your body is designed to repair any damage to the skin caused by ultraviolet light exposure"-as though nobody ever died of melanoma-and hilariously suggests that exposing adolescents to the summer sun for two or three more hours per day would eliminate most cases of multiple sclerosis.

Still, there's something misguided about the crusade against tanning salons. Actually, two things: liberal bias against industry, and conservative bias against sensuality. Liberal bias puts too much scrutiny on indoor rather than outdoor tanning. Seeing nature as good and industry as evil, we treat salons as though they've perverted sunshine into a carcinogen. Politicians and medical associations say indoor tanning is worse because it cooks you faster and its risks are harder to recognize. That's exactly wrong. Outdoors, you have no clue how much radiation you're getting. Your estimate, based on the season or hour, is pure guesswork. You probably never think about altitude. You mistakenly assume that clouds, your white T-shirt, or being underwater are shielding you from more than a fraction of ultraviolet rays. You have no idea that the "SPF" factor advertised on your sunscreen tells you nothing about whether it blocks the rays that cause melanoma.

Yes, an indoor lamp can cook you faster. But you can choose the cooking rate, and knowing that rate, you can control the dose and customize it to your skin type. You can even regulate the composition of the light, avoiding rays that cause sunburns. A salon operator can program her machines to shut off after 20 minutes. Try shutting off the sun.

Conservative bias, meanwhile, puts too much emphasis on abstinence rather than moderation. Health advocates, determined to convince the public that tanning isn't risk-free, have simplified their message to the point of untruth. Even Cosmopolitan has suddenly gone prude. "A suntan is actually just as destructive to your skin as a raw, pink sunburn," the magazine warns in its May issue. Wrong again. The most thorough review of data, issued five months ago by a European Commission science panel, found clear correlations between sunburns and skin cancer, but no such clarity in studies of tanning salons and skin cancer. That's because a sunburn conveys how much radiation you got; a salon doesn't. The less often you tan, the softer the light, and the shorter your exposure, the lower your risk. It isn't the degree of risk that drives doctors crazy. It's that people are taking that risk, as the AAD puts it, "solely for cosmetic reasons." Pleasure! Superficiality! Yuck!

Listen to the arguments against tanning, and you'll hear echoes of the arguments against premarital sex. "Just one time in a tanning bed has the potential to cause harm," warns Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., co-author of the federal bill to regulate salons. The AAD says you should wear a broad-brimmed hat and long pants, apply sunscreen half an hour before you go out and again every two hours, and stay out of the sun until 4 p.m. You might as well be in a chador. As for the idea of getting a "base tan" to prevent sunburn, dermatologists protest that this flimsy shield will only embolden you to persist in risky activity. Sounds like the case against condoms, doesn't it?

Part these clouds of bias, and the truth shines through. You can't stop tanning; the best you can do is help people control it. Toward that end, the industrialization of ultraviolet light is a blessing. It gives us the power to clarify, modulate, and customize dosage. Salons need oversight to make sure they help clients understand and manage this power. But if you shut them down or lock out teenagers, be prepared to enforce a dawn-to-dusk curfew or face an epidemic of skin cancer. If you liked back-alley abortions, you'll love backyard tanning.

Technology without guidance can be dangerous. The emerging peril in the tanning world isn't staffed salons; it's coin-operated, unsupervised machines, already proliferating in Europe, in which kids can toast themselves for lunch money. But with guidance, technology often solves its own problems. It won't be Congress that stops teens from cooking their skin. It'll be tanning sprays and lotions, which continue to improve in appearance, durability, and popularity. And guess who's going to lead the way? Salons.

Source






Hay fever cure? "Allergies could soon be treated using new drugs that trick the immune system into thinking that it is under attack, according to scientists. Allergic reactions occur when the body's defences react to harmless substances, such as pollen, and research suggests that diverting the immune system could be a successful way of preventing them. Cytos Biotechnology, a company based in Zurich, Switzerland, has developed an experimental drug that fools the immune system into thinking that it is under attack from a germ called mycobacteria, found in dirt, and early results suggest a benefit for hay fever. When 10 people suffering from hay fever were injected with the drug, CYT 003-QbG10, their sensitivity to grass pollen was reduced by a factor of 100, New Scientist magazine reports. Cytos said that the patients remained symptom-free for up to eight months, but it is not yet known whether the results are permanent. A previous study indicated similar benefits for patients allergic to dust mites. They are symptom-free a year on. Cytos has begun a study on more than 100 people with hay fever, dust mite allergy and atopic dematitis. Mycobacteria, also found in soil, are pathogens to which people are exposed at much lower levels than in the past. Artificial exposure may "reboot" the immune system."

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

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.

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

Fatties suffer 'discrimination, depression'

And constant government condemnation of them does not exactly help. Why are fatties the only ones you are allowed to condemn these days? What about Muslims? Let us hear more governments condemning them. They certainly do more harm to others than fatties do

Depression, discrimination and humiliation, not just excess weight, are burdens for people who are obese, a Melbourne professor said today. Monash University Professor Paul Komesaroff is leading a study into the emotional burdens of being overweight. He said the physical risks of obesity were well known, but little had been done on how overweight people felt about themselves and society's attitudes to them. "Overweight people are often reviled and humiliated their whole lives," Professor Komesaroff said. "Public debates and comments often don't help ... they project an image of overweight people as lazy, fat slobs who, if they used some willpower, would not be overweight," he said. "The reality is that obese people often battle with weight their entire lives."

Professor Komesaroff said that overweight people often suffered depression. He said the study would also examine the nature of the relationships that developed between people living with obesity and their health professionals. The outcomes of the study would be used to develop new public health and clinical strategies to combat depression in obese people.

Researcher Dr Samantha Thomas said the study would initially involve interviewing 100 Victorians who were overweight, but may eventually be expanded nationally. "This research will give them the opportunity to tell their stories about what it is like to be overweight in Australia today," Dr Thomas said. Bellberry Ltd, a not-for-profit human research ethics company, has contributed $40,000 to the research.

Source





BENEDICTINE SCAPEGOAT IN SCOTLAND



A sleepy community of Benedictine monks in south Devon is the latest, and perhaps most unlikely, target in the battle against binge drinking. Alcopops come and go, but Buckfast wine is a perennial favourite among young drinkers keen to test their alcohol limit. Now the tonic wine produced by the Benedictine monks of Buckfast Abbey, Devon, has fallen foul of law makers, who believe it has much to answer for. Scottish health minister Andy Kerr is the latest politician north of the border to express concerns about the effects of the drink commonly known as Buckie - citing its link to binge drinking. "There's something different about that drink," says Mr Kerr, calling it "seriously bad".

Buckfast Tonic Wine originates from Roman Catholic monks - not a group traditionally associated with the drunken masses - and was first produced by them more than 100 years ago, using a recipe brought from France. It is red wine-based, with a high caffeine content. Tellingly, the label on the bottle reads "the name tonic wine does not imply health giving or medicinal properties." It is sweet and viscous. At 5 pounds for a 750ml bottle, it is cheap but powerful - alcohol content is 15% - and considered a rite of passage by many an ambitious young drinker. "It tended to precede a rather spectacular night, because it's horribly potent," recalls Paul, a former student at Manchester.

But it is the drink's prevalence in the so-called Buckfast Triangle - an area east of Glasgow between Airdrie, Coatbridge and Cumbernauld - that has raised concerns. It even spawned its own episode of the Scottish TV comedy Rab C Nesbitt and is known locally by several pet names: Buckie Baracas, a bottle of "what the hell are you looking at?", Wreck the Hoose Juice and Coatbridge Table Wine. More seriously, there have been calls to have it sold in plastic bottles, because of the mess created by broken ones on the street, and, in court, it has been implicated, along with vodka, in one car crash death in Doune, north of Stirling.

David, a Glasgow pub manager, confesses to having enjoyed Buckfast in his formative drinking days, and perceives a strong social stigma linked to its abuse. "There's a huge problem with it in the streets," he says. "Fifteen and sixteen-year-olds drink Buckfast and they'll have no qualms about tooting someone over the head. It all stems from boredom. They'll have two to three bottles and it's like lighting a touch-paper, they go wild." But the drinks industry, and Buckfast's maker, say it is being made a scapegoat for what is a wider social problem of alcohol abuse. Spokesman for distributors J Chandler & Co (Buckfast) Ltd, Jim Wilson, points out that Buckfast trails other drinks, like whisky, in sales. It has only a half a per cent of the total alcohol market and does not feature in the top 100 brands.

Of its £30m annual turnover, 10% is sold in Lanarkshire and much exported to Spain, Australia, and the Caribbean - where its not blamed for a society's ills, says Mr Wilson. At the request of the monks, Buckfast is not advertised in areas perceived to have difficulties, no two-for-one or 20p off offers here. Talks between the distributor and Mr Kerr have been slated for 30 October. "The problem with anything alcoholic is if it's abused," says Mr Wilson. "Why target Buckfast? If your policies aren't working, and you're looking for a scapegoat, have a go."

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.

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

Frankenfood linked to E. coli deaths!



Not really. But imagine if the spinach believed to be behind the outbreak of deadly E. coli had been genetically modified spinach. Of course the "green" opponents of genetic engineering would have a field day with it. It would be trumpeted all over the world how GM food was "killing" people. But the spinach linked to this outbreak was organic and the "greens" love organic so they are deathly silent in this case.

Now I have nothing against organic though I won't eat it myself. I find it too pricey and know that there are no additional health benefits from eating it. I won't begrudge others the right to eat it if they wish provided they respect my right to eat frankenfoods if I wish.

The number infected in this outbreak is now up around 130. The rise should slow significantly and stop any hour now. And we are lucky that only one person died from this outbreak (that I know about). But one television station is reporting that the federal government has said this outbreak of E. coli is the 20th such since 1995 which is linked to lettuce or spinach. I hope that figure is wrong. And I feel sorry for the farmers here, especially the ones who had nothing to do with the spinach in question, who are hurting. Some, no doubt will go out of business.

But I also remember the environmental extremists who made up the Alar scare with bogus science and lies to push their agenda. No one got sick from the use of alar which was a preservative, not a pesticide like some anti-science green groups claimed. Apple producers suffered because of an orchestrated media campaign that scared consumers with lies. No one had got sick. No one died. Unlike the E. coli outbreak we have just seen. People lost their jobs, businesses went under because of the alar fraud. The problem exists because organic food requires manure. Some is applied directly and some through composting. Composting usually kills the E. coli bacteria. But it doesn't always. And some new strains of E. coli are heat resistant so the composting process may not kill it especially as routinely applied.

So what should we do? First, don't apply the daft "precautionary principle" which says don't act unless something is proven safe. Organic food will never been proven "safe" all the time. Nothing is. That is something the "greens" need to learn. Everything has risks. Organic has risks and so do regular foods.

Use a "cost/benefit" perspective instead. For the vast majority of people, over the majority of time the benefits from eating vegetables far outweigh the risks. This is true for conventionally grown crops and equally as true for organic crops. Neither has the benefit over the other except the cost advantage for conventional foods.

Don't buy the bullshit that "natural" is good for you. Sometimes it is and sometimes it most certainly is not. E. coli is very natural. Using man-made fertiliser has some risks and so does using manure. Over all I think the risks are less with man-made. If you think otherwise fine for you -- buy the more expensive stuff. I don't mind.

Remember that what is true about organic and convention crops is also true for genetically modified crops. There is no health risk from GM foods. If a food were genetically modified and grown with manure it would present exactly the same risks as that of organic foods grown in the same manner or for conventional produce using manure.

Remember that eating vegetables saves lives. For one poor woman her vegetable killed her due to unusual circumstances not routine circumstances. Even with 20 outbreaks of E. coli since 1995 we are talking about something that causes problems for a very small number of people nation-wide. And the lives saved by eating vegetables, especially due to their anti-carcinogenic properties, well outweigh their risks. When health experts say the crisis is over eat your veggies. It will be good for you and help get an industry back on it's feet where it should be.

And in the future don't pass judgement on the eating preferences of others. Don't try to ban conventional, organic or GM products. Don't assume that one is better than the other. If you are convinced one is better then go with it but leave others free to make their own choices as well. In this panic we need to keep perspective and use common sense. But that is the very opposite of what "greens" advocate when it comes to genetic modification.

Source





Jamie Oliver: what a 'tosser' [jerk]

St Jamie's school-dinners crusade returns tonight, providing yet another unhealthy serving of food fears with a side order of parent-bashing bile.

The man in the checked shirt wobbles towards the bus, ice-cream cone in hand, not sure whether to keep licking or run faster. Then disaster strikes: he drops the cone. As he looks down in horror, the bus pulls away. Unperturbed, the fat feckless f*** scoops up the ice-cream from the ground and stuffs it in his mouth.

The man in the checked shirt is Jamie Oliver, all padded up in a fat suit. And the scene is the trailer for the latest phase in his ‘school meals revolution’, Jamie’s Return to School Dinners, which airs tonight on Channel 4. The implication is that unless we all respond to Jamie’s call to arms, we’re ignorant scum condemning many of today’s children to a life of disabling obesity and chronic ill-health.

Giving children the option to eat relatively fresh and nutritious food during the school day is an attractive one. But Oliver’s crusade is based on distortions about the quality and importance of children’s diets, and a contempt for any parent who doesn’t fit in with his idea of how they should be raising their kids.

This contempt no doubt extends to Julie Critchlow and Sam Walker, two mums who have started a ‘junk food’ run for kids at a school in Rotherham, northern England. They’re taking orders and cash through the school fence and returning with food from local takeaways. ‘This is all down to Jamie Oliver. I just don’t like him and what he stands for’, Walker told the Sun. The Sun, never afraid to take a cheap shot, described the women as ‘junk mothers’ who exhibit ‘the kind of feeble parenting that turns kids into fat, lethargic burger addicts in the first place’ (1). Oliver is not the only one who thinks that parents who won’t toe the line are neglecting their kids.

In tonight’s programme, Oliver doesn’t hold back. ‘I’ve spent two years being PC about parents. It’s kind of time to say if you’re giving very young kids bottles and bottles of fizzy drink you’re a fucking arsehole, you’re a tosser. If you’ve giving bags of shitty sweets at that very young age, you’re an idiot.’

The programme demonstrates that running a one-man revolution is hard work. In Lincolnshire (a relatively poor farming county) he discovers that many children aren’t offered hot meals at all because school kitchens were closed under the last Conservative government. He tries to get local businesses to fill the gap – and then discovers that even those model ‘healthy schools’ he set up down south are running into problems. Kidbrooke School in the London borough of Greenwich, the place where it all started in the first series of Jamie’s School Dinners, is losing thousands of pounds because it no longer sells crisps, chocolate and fizzy drinks at break times. The kids buy their treats on the way to school, handing their money to local shops rather than the school. The extra government money provided after the last series is insufficient to cover the shortfall.

Oliver seems to spend his whole time firefighting. Up in Lincolnshire, he arranges for a local pub to provide meals to nearby primary schools. That means mass catering in a totally unsuitable kitchen before parents and taxi drivers deliver the food to the schools. Unsurprisingly, hygiene standards at the pub are well below what would be expected in a school, the food quality suffers as the chef tries to eke out a profit, and parents drop out as their initial enthusiasm fades. In the end, the pub pulls out, no doubt thinking they needed the whole loss-making operation and bad publicity like a hole in the head.

Oliver makes his life a lot harder by his prejudices about processed food and local production. Why a Panini filled with meat and a couple of sprigs of basil is any better in terms of nutrition than a ham sandwich made with white sliced bread is never explained. He insists on emphasising small and local provision – even when it is clearly unsuitable – over trying to persuade the big caterers with their economies of scale to alter what they provide. The whole operation is doomed to be unprofitable, so businesses quickly lose interest. His schemes only keep going because dinner ladies work unpaid overtime – which they eventually tire of, considering that even when they’re getting paid, it is only the measly minimum wage.

So Oliver’s tone becomes increasingly intolerant. He is unable to comprehend why others are not as motivated as he is. ‘This is not the Jamie Oliver show, this is not a fucking pantomime.… I’m here because I truly care. I’ve got other shit to do’, he says. When a mother drops out of the Lincolnshire pub scheme because her little boy isn’t keen on the pasta and rice served up, Oliver suggests dismissively that they have a chat with the nutritionist who came up with the menus, implying that she was letting her son down. And when a young teacher is found with some junk food ‘contraband’ in her bag, he charmingly suggests: ‘That’s no way to live, darling. You’ve got to have some pride in yourself.’

Oliver’s crusade is the product of the panic over obesity and children’s diets and his campaign only helps to stoke these fears further. Far from being an unwelcome critic, he is helpfully touting the New Labour line on food, health and the inadequacies of parents. No wonder that when he meets Tony Blair at the end of the latest programme, Blair says he will happily extend the increased funding for school dinners for another three years. Oliver leaves triumphant, perhaps forgetting that at the start of the show he was moaning that the same amount of money was inadequate.

If we were facing an impending health disaster, changing the kind of meals children are served during the school year would make little impact. But in fact, as we’ve noted elsewhere on spiked, no such disaster looms. A diet of Turkey Twizzlers, chips and beans is not perfect, but it is perfectly adequate. Oliver’s horror stories about children vomiting their own faeces and dying en masse before their parents have no basis in reality.

As for adult eating habits, they are not determined in the school canteen. Children have always been rather conservative eaters who prefer all the ‘wrong’ foods, yet experience shows that they still grow up healthy and that their tastes mature. If our childhood eating habits mattered that much, most of us would have long since perished. What Oliver fails to comprehend is that he could provide haute cuisine and lots of kids would still refuse. Rejecting school meals in favour of bunking off down the chip shop is just another minor act of teenage rebellion.

While Oliver has been received with almost universal praise in the media, there are signs of a backlash from catering staff sick of working longer hours and parents sick of being lectured on how to bring up their kids. If the Rotherham example is anything to go by, maybe eating junk food will become more than teenage rebellion – perhaps it’s a way for parents to tell the patronising ‘tosser’ where to go, too.

Source





Vitamin D wins again: "Taking vitamin D tablets may almost halve the risk of developing pancreatic cancer, finds a study in the latest issue of Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention. The study used information from two large, long-term American health surveys, including 46,771 men aged 40 to 75 and 75,427 women aged 38 to 65. Between the two studies there were 365 cases of pancreatic cancer. By examining diet records, researchers found that taking vitamin D supplements at the recommended daily intake of 400 International Units (IU) reduced the risk of pancreatic cancer by 43 per cent compared to not taking vitamin D supplements. Those who took a lower dose of 150 IU per day had a 22 per cent reduced risk of pancreatic cancer. But there was no added benefit from taking more than the recommended daily intake of vitamin D."


Aspirin stops miscarriages: "Women who have experienced several unexplained miscarriages have a better chance of delivering a live baby if treated with aspirin or another blood thinner to prevent blood clots. The formation of blood clots, thrombosis, is considered one possible cause of recurrent miscarriage. However, it's not known whether the prevention of thrombosis could increase live birth rates. Researchers from the Sheba Medical Centre in Israel compared the effect of preventing blood clots with aspirin or enoxaparin - a form of heparin - in 104 pregnant women with a history of unexplained recurrent miscarriages. The live birth rate was over 81 per cent in both groups, exceeding the expected live birth rate of 40 per cent to 60 per cent among women with recurrent miscarriages."

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

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.

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

GENETIC ENEMY OF VEGETABLES

It's the perfect excuse for any child - some of us are born with a dislike of vegetables. Studies have shown that having a taste for bitter greens is in our genes. Those who baulk at the very thought of broccoli are born with taste buds which are highly sensitive to sharp tastes, while those who love the vegetable find it hard to register the bitterness.

The U.S. scientists said an aversion to vegetables may be the body's way of keeping us healthy. It is known that the chemicals behind the bitter taste stop iodine from working properly in the body. But iodine, found in seafood and some vegetables and processed by the thyroid gland, is crucial for growth and mental and sexual development. People living in areas where iodine levels are low may have evolved a dislike of foods that prevented them from making use of what little iodine there was.

The researchers from the Monell Chemical Sciences Centre in Philadelphia asked volunteers to rate a range of vegetables for bitterness. Each participant was then tested for variations of the genes which govern sensitivity to the bitter taste. There are two versions of the gene, one sensitive and one insensitive. Everyone has two of the genes, and those with a pair of the sensitive type found broccoli horribly bitter and cabbage and Brussels sprouts not much better. Those with two insensitive ones enjoyed eating the veg while volunteers with one of each type of gene fell somewhere in between.

The same genes are responsible for developing our taste, or otherwise, for watercress, turnip and horseradish. The experts believe, however, that it is possible for sensitive people to develop a taste for such vegetables as they grow older.

Source






Fast food gets a tick

Not all fast food is bad for you. In fact some of the most common types of frozen and canned vegetables, such as peas and tomatoes, are packed with as many vitamins and minerals as fresh varieties. Nutritionist Susie Burrell said working parents were often stressed about providing healthy meals for their children but they should not feel guilty about stocking the freezer with frozen vegetables. "Freezing vegetables is done by snap-freezing, which means they retain all of their original nutritional value," said Ms Burrell, nutrition writer for The Courier-Mail's new cooking liftout Simply Food. "For busy people who struggle to get to the supermarket, they are a great option because it allows them to always have a back-up supply for quick, convenient and healthy meal options."



Brisbane mother Belinda Pearse, 24, said frozen and canned vegetables were a convenient and nutritious way to feed her 13-month-old daughter Elizabeth, and husband James, 39. "Fresh vegetables tend to go off quickly. It's easier to throw in a handful of pre-prepared veges than spend all evening cutting and peeling," she said.

Source




Liver cure: "British scientists have discovered a drug that could cure liver disease, even in alcoholics who continue drinking. The medicine, found by a team of doctors and scientists at Newcastle University, could become a potential alternative to liver transplants. Until now cirrhosis of the liver, caused by alcohol, obesity or the hepatitis C virus, was considered incurable in all but the rarest of cases. The only option for patients in the final stages of liver disease was to wait for a liver transplant. However, because of organ shortages many die while on the waiting list. Clinical trials of the drug Sulphasalazine are expected to begin in Britain next year. If these prove successful, the drug could be used to treat heavy drinkers, whose plight was recently illustrated by George Best, the former Manchester United footballer who died from liver disease last year. Sulphasalazine, which already has a licence to treat arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease, acts by preventing scarring from developing on the liver."


Weightlifting sends you blind: "Weightlifting causes a temporary increase in pressure within the eyes, and may be a risk factor for the eye disease glaucoma. In a new study in the Archives of Ophthalmology this week, researchers examined 30 men aged 18 to 40 without glaucoma. Participants performed two rounds of a bench press exercise, with four repetitions each time. In the first round, pressure was measured in the right eye and the weightlifters held their breath during the last repetition. In the second round, pressure was measured in the left eye and participants breathed normally throughout. During the first round, when the breath was held, pressure inside the eye increased in 90 per cent of the participants, by an average of 4.3mm of mercury. In the second round, eye pressure increased in 62 per cent of participants by an average of 2.2mm of mercury. The authors note that a type of glaucoma (normal-tension glaucoma) is more common in people who have frequent changes in eye pressure and can lead to blindness."


HRT sends you deaf: "Hormone replacement therapy could do more than simply ease the symptoms of menopause. New research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found that women taking the most common form of HRT - the hormones estrogen and progesterone - have accelerated hearing loss compared to women on estrogen alone or those not taking any hormones. On average, women who took progesterone had the hearing of women five to 10 years older. Scientists assessed the hearing of 124 healthy women aged 60 to 86, half of whom had been on HRT for between five and 35 years. They were divided into three groups - 30 women taking estrogen alone, 32 women taking both estrogen and progesterone and 62 women who had never been on HRT. Women whose HRT included progesterone had hearing that was 10 to 30 per cent worse than the other groups. They not only had problems in the inner ear, but also in the parts of the brain used for hearing."

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

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.

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

Rebel mothers interviewed

Julie Critchlow, housewife turned Antichrist, is standing outside Chubby's sandwich bar drawing angrily on a cigarette and glaring at the secondary school opposite. Her children - Rachel, 15, and Steven, 11 - are coming home for lunch so she is buying crisps and pop. Although Chubby's is less than 200 yards from her front door, Critchlow has brought the car. Still, it's an improvement of sorts. This time last week she was in the graveyard over the road, with fellow "sinner ladies" Sam Walker and Marie Hamshaw, posting burgers and chips through the school fence to a throng of mutinous sugar-deprived schoolchildren. Pictures of the scene - which looked like some grotesque Little Britain sketch - were splashed across the newspapers and Critchlow was called "the worst mum in Britain".

The trouble began at the start of term when Rawmarsh community school in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, banned pupils from leaving the premises during their lunch break. Even more incendiary, the school then started peddling a Jamie Oliver-inspired school dinner menu of "healthy" fare, such as ratatouille pancakes and salad. Unlike the grateful urchins who feature on Jamie's School Dinners (Oliver's fiercely popular television crusade for better food in schools), the Rawmarsh children came home complaining of overpriced baked potatoes, yucky tomatoes and not enough chips. Some of the mothers began delivering them fast food in the lunch hour, first to their own children, then to 60 or more of their friends. The school freaked out and tried to ban the mums. The mums screamed bloody murder. The police were called and, last Monday, a very uneasy peace was reached.

To an outsider, Rawmarsh sounds like hell; a place where fat stupid mothers fight for the right to raise fat stupid children. Did these women care nothing for St Jamie, terrifying obesity rates or early onset diabetes? Did they not read the daily horror statistics? Only last week it was revealed that children who eat a packet of crisps a day end up drinking more than five litres of cooking oil a year. A first glance at the town suggests that the answer to all that is "nope". Rawmarsh is Jamie's worst nightmare; shop shelves lined with cherry colas, toddlers eating Monster Munch in the street and the locals either bandy-legged twigs or, more often, fat - really, really fat in some cases. Some aren't even ashamed of it: one fat man has taken his shirt off to eat a battered sausage in the afternoon sun.

Surprisingly, Critchlow, 43, having refused all other interview requests, invites me to join Walker, 39, and Hamshaw, 44, in her front room. As the place fills with fag smoke and cackling laughter, it seems impossible to imagine three women more at odds with the current trend for health obsessed parenting. Critchlow's favourite adjective is disgusting. This is how she describes the food that the school is now serving and "totally disgusting" is what she calls John Lambert, the headmaster. "None of this would have happened if he hadn't locked these kids up," she says. "I don't have a problem with the school not selling them fatty food. My problem is that some of these kids are 16 and they're not allowed to choose what they eat for lunch." "Next they'll be going through our cupboards telling us what we can feed them at home," says Hamshaw, who has two children, aged 13 and 16, at the school. "But we know how to give our children a proper meal better than any school."

Er, weren't you taking them chips every day for lunch? "That is such a lie," says Critchlow. "We were taking all sorts - baked potatoes, salads, tuna sandwiches. You try getting teenage girls to eat a hamburger every day. Most of them won't touch the things." "There were a few chips," admits Walker, mother of an 11-year-old and 16-year-old, "but any nutritionist will say that a little bit of fat now and then isn't the end of the world." "But Lambert labelled us junk food pushers," says Hamshaw, "We're not stupid, though. I saw Supersize Me. No one in their right mind would feed their children fast food every day."

In fact, they say, the school's food laws are promoting bad habits. "All kids are fussy eaters," continues Hamshaw. "If they don't like something they won't eat it, so lots of the kids take one look at what's on offer at lunch and then eat crisps. "Every mother knows that it's an art to get your kids to eat good food, like I know my Gary won't eat greens but will eat carrots. This `we know best', one-size-fits-all attitude they've got at the school definitely means he ends up eating more rubbish. "But Jamie Oliver has come in his shiny armour and people think everything he says is right," says Walker, "like calling parents names if they let their kids have a can of Coke. Life isn't that simple though, Jamie. It's always a compromise." "You have to be clever," says Critchlow. "Kids have got their own minds and sometimes all you can do is try and persuade them to do the right thing."

Who could have expected such wisdom? While the mums don't have an A-level between them, when it comes to child rearing they've got more than 60 years' experience. "I don't want to sound hysterical," says Hamshaw, "but Adolf Hitler tried putting kids into summer camps to create perfect children and he faced the same problem this government is going to face - there is no such thing as a perfect child. You can't make carbon-copy kids who all love tomatoes. Schools should stick to educating children, not trying to raise them."

The school is not backing down, saying that for the children's safety they must stay in at lunch (unless collected by parents). The headmaster, uncharacteristically taciturn, declined to speak to me but released a statement to say he has now met the mums and progress was being made.

Sonia Sharp, of Rotherham council, insisted that the food at the school is very nice and cheaper than anything else on offer, and pointed out that uptake of school meals has risen from 350 to 600. She conceded that this might have something to do with the fact that the school has now got a captive audience.

More than food, what grates upon the Rawmarsh mums is the feeling that their choices as parents are being undermined by their government. "This country is turning into big brother," sighs Hamshaw, "and it's not like we need a nanny state. We nanny our kids quite enough on our own." The women nod gravely and light more cigarettes. "This battle," says Critchlow, "has only just begun."

Source






Another regulatory failure seen in British drug trial disaster

A "reckless" mistake apparently overlooked by government regulators lay behind the drug trial disaster that saw six young volunteers badly injured by an experimental medicine. Confidential documents obtained by The Sunday Times and Channel 4's Dispatches programme reveal the drug was administered on average 15 times more quickly to the volunteers than to monkeys in earlier safety studies. The possibility that such a crude error led to the disaster is likely to raise questions over whether the government's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) scrutinises trials adequately and protects the public from the risks of new medicines.

After the "Elephant Man" trials at Northwick Park hospital, London, in March, which left two men fighting for their lives and all six in intensive care, the agency said the reactions resulted from an "unexpected biological effect". However, experts say the drug, TGN1412 - one of a new generation of "magic bullet" treatments targeting the immune system - was infused so quickly into the volunteers that the potential for life-threatening problems was foreseeable. "When you give an antibody . . . the quicker you put it in, the more likely you are to get an infusion reaction," said Professor Terry Hamblin of Southampton University, a leading authority on monoclonal antibodies, the family of drugs to which the trial medicine belonged.

The volunteers were given TGN1412 in only three to six minutes. "To quickly infuse it over three to six minutes in six individuals I think is . . . reckless," said Hamblin. Ryan Wilson, 20, a former apprentice plumber, who suffered total organ failure, was the most seriously injured. He was given the drug in just four minutes. The monkeys, by contrast, received the antibody by a one-hour "slow infusion".

Hamblin's judgment is backed by other experts, including Dr David Glover, formerly chief medical officer of Cambridge Antibody Technology. He concludes: "The drug was given too quickly."

The speed at which the monkeys received TGN1412 was set out in the application to the MHRA for permission to carry out the trial. This was submitted by Parexel International, a contract research company, on behalf of TeGenero, a tiny German drug developer. But the paperwork did not explicitly detail how quickly the volunteers would be given the drug, although this could be calculated from the information given.

Professor Kent Woods, the agency's chief executive, said this weekend the results of the monkey trial had reassured his staff that the human project should be allowed to go ahead. "They did not show toxicity and the dose was 500 times higher on a weight-for-weight basis than that first used at Northwick Park," said Woods. "That is the key issue."

There was another apparent oversight in the agency's scrutiny. Parexel's paperwork did not include data on test-tube experiments designed to show the drug's effect on human cells. One specialist said she was "pretty astonished" this was left out, although it is unlikely the data could have predicted the disaster. This omission was only revealed after an appeal by The Sunday Times and Dispatches under the Freedom of Information Act for the reinstatement of paragraphs cut from documents released by the MHRA.

While the agency suggests in its assessment of the trial that the problems could not have been foreseen, experts say the reactions to TGN1412 - pain, vomiting and organ failure - have long been linked to first doses of monoclonal antibodies, and in previous incidents infusion time has been a critical factor.

Parexel declined to comment, and in Thursday's Dispatches the company's chairman, Josef von Rickenbach, takes refuge in a hotel lavatory.

Wilson has severe injuries. He has had his toes and sections of his feet amputated. Parts of his fingers have dropped off; others have died and are hard as wood to the touch where the blood supply was cut off as his body reacted to the drug. He is the worst afflicted of the victims from the tests on March 13, but all suffered life-threatening injuries. For development of new medicines, it was the worst calamity since the 1960s Thalidomide disaster.

Source






"Organic": Nobody can tell the difference



Australia's peak consumer watchdog has called for urgent government action to stop what it claims is a multi-milliondollar organic food rort [racket]. The Australian Consumers' Association has accused the Federal Government of "dragging its feet" while consumers are being misled. The organic food industry is worth an estimated $450 million a year in Australia, and is one of the fastest-growing food sectors worldwide. Association spokeswoman Indira Naidoo said consumers were being ripped off. "There is no government regulation about what defines organic food," she said. "Consumers, in most cases, aren't getting what they pay for."

In many cases, they were paying two or three times as much as the cost of "ordinary" produce. "We are calling for a national government guideline that defines what standards organic food should meet. "Given the amount of organic products being consumed and the number of people being misled by incorrect labelling, we think it's an urgent priority. "We feel the Government has been dragging its feet on this issue. It's very misleading. It's definitely a rort."

Organic food labelling is controlled by the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service. The self-regulatory system has seven private organic certifying groups in Australia plus several overseas groups. They are all accredited by AQIS, but there are variations on what is accepted as organic. There are also products on the market claiming to be organic that aren't associated with any certifying body. But Organic Federation of Australia chairman Andre Leu disputed the claim consumers were being misled. "I would challenge the ACA very strongly on that," he said. "The vast majority of organic food is reputable. If there's fraud, it's negligible. "I would say to consumers: If food is not accredited, we cannot guarantee it is produced according to our standard. Stay away from products that don't have certifying logos."

Standards Australia is developing a standard for organic food, but the ACA said this needed to be supported by tougher government guidelines. "While an Australian Standard is a step in the right direction, it isn't necessarily mandatory," Ms Naidoo said. "We would like to see it referenced in the Food Standards Code to give it the force of law. "It's very important people know what they are consuming is legitimately labelled organic."

However, Food Standards Australia New Zealand spokeswoman Lydia Buchtmann said the Food Standards Code was not the right place to define "organic". "The Food Standards Code is about ensuring food safety and not so much for descriptions," she said. "We are working with Standards Australia to define organic food, and we feel that is being addressed appropriately."

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.

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

A sobering truth

A call to put warnings on alcoholic drinks may be the first shot in a new public health battle

Not so many years ago, the attitude of many towards alcohol was that if you weren't actually straining metal cleaner into a cup through a cloth, or could refrain from reaching for the whisky bottle before about lunchtime, then you probably didn't have too much to worry about on the health front. Even perpetual drunkards came to be referred to from about the middle of the 19th century by the term "lush", which implies more exoticism than disease. Associations in the public's mind between all but extreme alcohol intake and ill-health have traditionally been weak, reflecting its importance in many social and even religious rituals.

Could this status be under threat? A call this week by the Salvation Army for tougher rules on alcohol suggests the intoxicant might be about to follow tobacco in being targeted as a public health enemy. This Christian charity released a research finding that 61 per cent of Australians did not know that alcohol increased the risk of various cancers, including cancer of the breast, larynx and even the liver - despite the well-known association between heavy drinking and liver cirrhosis. Although alcohol is listed as a group 1 carcinogen - the highest rank - by the Cancer Council of Australia for the development of cancers of the mouth, pharynx, larynx, oesophagus and liver, only 12 per cent of Australians surveyed were definite that a link did exist.

And the Salvos said it was "high time clear warning labels in large type" were placed on drink cans and bottles "to spell out the dangers". The charity's suggested wordings for warning labels include the following: "alcohol can increase the risk of getting cancer including breast cancer and liver cancer"; "alcohol is a drug, you can become dependent on it", and the bald "alcohol can cause brain damage". "What is of such concern is that people don't know the facts - and they need to," says the Salvation Army's Gerald Byrne. "The Cancer Council Australia recommends that to reduce the risk of cancer alcohol consumption should be limited or avoided. The World Cancer Research Fund says even low levels of alcohol increase the risk of colorectal and breast cancer. The Cancer Council NSW says alcohol is a known risk factor for cancer . . . What we say is, why aren't people being told?"

Other experts concede the public is mostly ignorant of the added cancer risk caused by alcohol, but some are slightly more cautious about jumping in with warning labels. The Cancer Council Australia's CEO Ian Olver says the council is all for getting the risk message across, but warnings are only one method: "We haven't done any work about whether the best way to deliver that information is via warnings on bottles, and we'd probably want to do that before we looked at a specific strategy. But it's a strategy that clearly works with other products like cigarettes." At least the message with cigarettes has been consistent: for the sake of your health, quit.

For alcohol, however, things aren't that simple. To borrow the line from the public awareness campaign, every cigarette, even one, is doing you damage, but the picture for alcohol is muddied by the fact that at low levels any increased risk of cancer has to be offset against a probable health benefit in the form of lowered mortality from cardiovascular disease.

What this means, unfortunately, is that some of the messages being fed to the public about alcohol are contradictory. Australia's peak source of medical information and health guidelines, the National Health and Medical Research Council, issues official alcohol guidelines that set a general recommended limit of four standard drinks per day for men, and two for women (lower limits apply in some cases, for example pregnant women, pilots and people operating heavy machinery).

This is not a great deal of alcohol. As just 100ml of wine is about one standard drink, one glass of the size many people pour themselves for dinner or on arriving home from work can easily be twice this amount. But another set of guidelines put out by a separate NHMRC committee - the Dietary Guidelines for Australian Adults - say even this four and two-drink limit is too much, and recommend people drink half those amounts: just two standard drinks a day for men and one for women. (As a standard drink is defined as containing 10g of alcohol, the 100ml of typical-strength wine that that translates to equates to one middy of full-strength beer or a schooner of light beer.)

Olver defends the lower recommended alcohol intakes backed by the Cancer Council, saying they are appropriate because "the (cancer) risk starts with any alcohol consumption, and gets worse as you go on". According to figures on the Cancer Council NSW website, previous studies have established a link between alcohol and specific cancers, in some cases a strong link (see table). For cancers at all sites, the risk was unchanged for someone drinking less than 25g of alcohol a day, but increased by about 22 per cent if someone drank between 25g and 50g. For anyone drinking over 100g a day - 10 standard drinks - the cancer risk was nearly doubled. "We've got an overall figure (for how much alcohol increases cancer risk)," Olver says. "The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare put out a figure that in terms of the incidence of cancer, alcohol was a risk factor in 3.6 per cent of all cancers. They are 2001 figures." As there are about 88,000 cancers diagnosed a year, that means that in 2001 there were thought to be about 3168 people diagnosed with a cancer probably caused, or partially caused, by excessive alcohol.

"This needs to be put into proportion," Olver adds. "In that same (AIHW) document, smoking was a factor in 21.6 per cent of cancers. We don't want to get the message out of whack - alcohol's a risk factor, but it's nothing like the risk factor of cigarettes." Olver is cautiously supportive of warning labels on drinks, but only in the wider context that it's a good idea to get this health message out there. "I think it's important that all the risk factors are understood by the public - the public make lifestyle choices, just as they do with diet, and they can't make lifestyle choices if they don't know," he says. "We don't have a lot of evidence about which is the best way of doing it, but all we can say is that it's certainly worked in tobacco control. It's not an inappropriate method at all."

Stephen Leeder, professor of public health and community medicine at the University of Sydney and director of the Australian Health Policy Institute, says there is "no question that alcohol abuse represents a major public health problem. If you had to nominate major public health problems, if alcohol wasn't in someone's top three or four, you'd want to know what kind of book the person had been reading," he says. "It's a major problem." But Leeder says while the the "draconian" measures used to discourage tobacco use are not appropriate for alcohol - because unlike tobacco, moderate alcohol use is not associated with great harm - other measures may be. "There's a role for reminding people of the risks, if they can be expressed simply and clearly. I've no objection to that at all - people don't have to read them if they don't want to." Alcohol is thought to wreak its carcinogenic effects indirectly - either by interacting with tobacco, and increasing the damage tobacco's ingredients can wreak on tissues, or by making it easier for other cancer-causing compounds to pass through cell membranes.

Another alcohol expert, professor Paul Haber, says he thinks the NHMRC's Alcohol Guidelines - the ones that recommend up to four drinks a day for men and two for women - are the more relevant for Australians seeking overall health guidance. "It is clearly true that there are conflicting NHMRC-sponsored guidelines concerning alcohol use at present," says Haber, director of the Drug and Alcohol Service at Sydney's Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, who supports warning labels. "The key reason for this that I can identify is that differing health authorities consider issues from a sectarian approach: the cancer people think about alcohol and cancer, the nutritionists think about alcohol and nutrition, and the general people take an overall view. "Guidelines that focus on the risk of cancer alone will recommend that no one drinks. That is because alcohol does not protect against any form of cancer. "Alcohol promotes some cancers in a dose-dependent manner, and it not relevant to the causes of others. Therefore, the more you drink the higher the overall risk of cancer. With low levels of alcohol, the increased risk of cancer is tiny, and in many studies it may be so low that it cannot be discerned from zero risk."

Haber and the cancer gurus agree that excessive alcohol is harmful, that the risks include cancer, and the more you drink, the greater the risk. "The point of difference is whether a woman can drink one drink safely a day or two," Haber says. "Close to the border of safety, if there is an excess risk, it is very small and therefore difficult to measure confidently. Large studies, at high cost, are required to resolve these remaining doubts."

Source




Calcium supplements useless

While calcium supplements have been touted to prevent broken bones in adults, providing them to children may not help prevent fractures as they age, Australian researchers report. "At two of the areas where we worry about fractures in later life ""the spine and the hip "" the giving of calcium supplements had no effect on bone health in children," said study lead author Dr. Tania Winzenberg, a musculoskeletal epidemiologist at the Menzies Research Institute, in Tasmania. "It had been thought that calcium supplements would be more helpful than that in children," she said. "So, giving calcium supplements to children has little effect on fractures, and fractures is what we worry about."

Her team's report is published in the Sept. 16 edition of the British Medical Journal. In their review, the researchers analyzed data collected from 19 different studies. The studies included nearly 2,900 children between three and 18 years of age, and focused on the benefits of calcium supplementation lasting at least three months. The studies tracked bone outcomes after at least six months of follow-up.

Winzenberg's team found only a small effect of supplementation on total-body bone mineral content and upper arm bone density. Children taking the supplements only had 1.7 percent better bone density in their upper arms compared to kids not taking the supplements. The team also found no effect on the rate of fractures seen later in life among people given calcium supplements as children. This was particularly true for common fracture sites, such as the hip and lumbar spine.

Based on the findings, Winzenberg's group recommends other approaches to improving kids' bone health, especially increasing vitamin D intake and eating more fruit and vegetables. Vitamin D is sourced mainly from exposure to sunlight, and is essential to the intestinal absorption of calcium.

The findings don't apply to children who may have significant problems with their bones or who can't eat dairy products, Winzenberg said. For healthy children, calcium remains an important part of the diet, she noted.

One expert agreed that calcium supplementation probably doesn't benefit healthy children. "Healthy children, with an adequate diet, may have all the calcium they need to build bone," said Dr. David L. Katz, an associate professor of public health and director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine. "Growing bone might need a combination of materials, such as calcium combined with vitamin D, to grow stronger," he said. This study does not exclude a possible benefit of calcium supplementation for children with low intake of dietary calcium, or children with certain health problems, Katz said. "But it does indicate that calcium supplementation in healthy children is a questionable practice," he said. "For now, the tried-and-true approach to the early prevention of osteoporosis remains a healthful, balanced diet, and plenty of exercise," Katz said.

Source

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Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BRAIN EXCERCISE?

The giant Nintendo store in Manhattan was swarming with silver-haired citizens and their grandchildren. The elders, gathered on a recent Saturday, weren't there to spoil the kids, however. Nintendo was hosting a video game competition to determine the "Coolest Grandparent," and the aging gamers in the store were competing for a Nintendo DS handheld game player. They weren't playing Super Mario Bros. either, but a product called Brain Age, a mind challenger targeted at one of the fastest-growing segments of the game market: people over 40 worried about losing their mental edge.

Meanwhile, at The Hallmark retirement community in Chicago, 16 residents just completed a complex memory training program developed by neuroscientist Michael Merzenich of the University of California at San Francisco. While Brain Age advertises that it can "train your brain in minutes a day," the Brain Fitness Program, marketed by Merzenich's Posit Science Corp., is a computer-based set of exercises that a user must sit down with an hour a day for eight weeks.

Posit executives are emphatic that their programs are not video games, and the company published a scientific study in August that lays out the memory-enhancing bona fides of Brain Fitness. Hallmark resident Sadelle T. Greenblatt, age 85, is already convinced. After going through the Brain Fitness course she says "my memory, I think, is in some ways better. When I play bridge now, I can always remember if all the trumps are out."

Nintendo and Posit are both profiting from the memory decline that is one of the more disquieting markers of aging. As baby boomers march toward senior citizenship, hiding their mental age may prove as important to them as concealing their gray hair. Nintendo says its recent emphasis on what it calls "gray gamers" already pushed second-quarter profits up eightfold.

The industry must face down one potentially large obstacle, however. There is no empirical proof that brain teasers, crossword puzzles, or any of the other mental exercises out there will slow mental decline, or thwart Alzheimer's disease.

Efforts to improve the aging mind are one of the more contentious areas of science. Shelf after shelf of books call on seniors to "use it or lose it," arguing that brain activity will prevent cognitive losses. So far, it's only a catchphrase. Last spring, University of Virginia neuroscientist Timothy A. Salthouse analyzed a large number of studies meant to show that mental challenges arrest brain decline. He found none that proved its thesis. So far, he concluded, "the mental-exercise hypothesis is more of an optimistic hope than an empirical reality."

"LITTLE EVIDENCE"

Salthouse discovered that most brain-training studies suffer from a "chicken or the egg" problem. It could be that people who performed well in studies involving mental exercises were more mentally agile to begin with. It is true that practice makes perfect, says Matthew L. Shapiro, a neuroscientist at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. "The more you try to remember, the better your skill at remembering." Still, he says there is little evidence that those improvements will lead to overall mental improvement, and a brain disease "will ultimately overwhelm any efforts to better your skills."

The most skillful game-playing grandparents at the Nintendo event were proof that practice pays off. Lynn Lipton, a 66-year-old retired teacher from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., says she has been an avid video gamer since Pong was introduced some 30 years ago. "I don't have the data to prove that it helps my memory, but I know it helps me to read faster. It keeps me sharp," she says.

Not everyone can make that claim at 66, which is why brain training is getting so much attention. The human brain reaches its maximum weight by the age of 20 and then slowly starts shrinking. By age 50 or so memory formation usually slows down, and by 70 some 12% of the population suffers from mild cognitive impairment (MCI), characterized by frequent short-term memory lapses. People with MCI are three to four times more likely than their peers to develop Alzheimer's disease.

For decades, researchers thought that little could be done once the brain started to decline. But in the early 1990s Merzenich and others discovered that the brain remains plastic throughout life. With training, it can be rewired to learn new skills. From this discovery grew the belief -- now an industry -- that the aging brain can be taught to be young again.

Nintendo is quick to disavow any scientific claims for its Brain Age games, which cost $19.95 each. "We're in the entertainment business," says Perrin Kaplan, head of marketing for Nintendo's U.S. operations. But Nintendo does boast that Brain Age was developed with the help of Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, a respected Japanese neuroscientist whose face pops up at the start of every game. Kawashima believes brains can be kept young and nimble through the rapid repetition of simple mental challenges. The game is wildly popular in Japan, and 4 million copies have been sold worldwide since Brain Age was introduced 15 months ago.

Posit, founded by Merzenich in 2003, is all about the science. He lends the company plenty of scientific street cred; he made some of the key early findings about brain plasticity, helped pioneer cochlear ear implants, and developed well-regarded training programs for children with learning disabilities. He says his $395 Brain Fitness program is grounded in hard data.

This summer Posit released two studies that Merzenich says prove its worth. One, involving 182 healthy people 60 and over, assigned half the group to Posit's brain exercises for eight weeks. The rest were asked only to watch educational DVDs. The researchers found that 93% of the Brain Fitness group significantly improved their memory function, while the control group did not.

In a second study released this summer, Posit's program was tried on 45 people diagnosed with MCI. PET scans of the brains of 15 participants were taken before and after the study. There was some evidence of memory gains in the Brain Fitness group, and the PET scans revealed a decline in brain activity in those who did not use the brain exercises. Brain activity held steady for the rest. "We've seen 80-year-old people improve from being sluggish and slow to having the mental performance level of a 35-year-old," says Merzenich.

Whether these people will be able to stave off further cognitive decline remains to be proven. Salthouse, at the end of his paper debunking such efforts, wrote that there's no harm in trying. Even if there is no beneficial evidence, he wrote, engagement in such mentally demanding activities at least serves as proof of existence: "If you can still do it, then you know that you have not yet lost it."

Source





The latest wonder food: "An alternative to white sugar that is about to become more widely available could help slimmers to lose weight. Agave nectar, a honey-like liquid derived from the same plant as tequila, is 25 per cent sweeter than sugar. More importantly, it helps to burn rather than store fat and is thought to reduce the craving for sweet foods. Its high fruit sugar content is absorbed by the body more slowly than white sugar, and does not need insulin to break it down. Agave nectar, which can be used in tea and coffee and to bake with, is usually sold in health food shops but Tesco is about to become the first big supermarket chain to stock it." [We'll be hearing that it gives you either cancer or heart attacks in a few years time]


Surgery hope for paralysed: "A new treatment to repair damaged nerves could help thousands of patients regain movement in their arms and legs. Using a finely woven plastic tube, surgeons will regrow and reconnect severed nerves in road and work accident victims. The neural prosthesis is attached to the ends of the damaged nerve and acts as a scaffold to aid repair. Victorian doctors say the advanced surgical technique is more effective than nerve grafts and will restore sensation in the limbs of victims. St Vincent's Hospital neurosurgeon Assoc Prof Michael Murphy said the device was a vast improvement. "You can't stretch severed nerves," he said. "You can do a graft, taking nerves from elsewhere in the body, but the end result is poor. "If the tubular scaffold works, it will speed up repair and improve the outcome." Chemicals in the polymer tube accelerate regrowth of nerve cells, allowing the nerve to grow up to 4mm a day."

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

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.

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

VINDICATION FOR THE ATKINS DIET?

There is a very good reason the Mormon crickets of western North America keep advancing, like a well-rehearsed marching band, across the landscape. These crop-eating insects are driven by a need to consume a fixed amount of protein. And the best source is the cricket in front of them. "Stop, and you get eaten," says Professor Stephen Simpson, a Federation Fellow at the University of Sydney. Cannibalistic crickets may appear to have little to do with the world's obesity epidemic. But Simpson's research on these pests, as well as on locusts, cockroaches, rats, minks - and human volunteers kept in a Swiss chalet for almost a week - suggests people have a similar need for protein.

Ballooning waistlines are the result of consuming too much low-protein, high-energy, processed foods in a bid to get our daily dose, he says. Simpson's research on caterpillars, on the other hand, shows that today's high-fat, high-carbohydrate diet may not always make us overweight. Our species could eventually evolve, like the caterpillars in the lab, to become less prone to obesity. This would occur if those with a propensity for stacking on the kilograms cannot reproduce or they have less healthy children, while the lean survive to pass on their skinniness genes.

Signs of this are emerging. Children are developing type 2 diabetes. Overweight women are having difficulty conceiving. "For the first time we are seeing obesity-related health problems affecting significant numbers of reproductive aged and pre-reproductive aged humans," Simpson says. Fat people now outnumber the world's starving. Studying why insects, with brains the size of a pinhead, are better than humans at balancing their food intake has given Simpson a fresh perspective on the issue.

He hit on the importance of protein after finding that insects given a diet low in protein but high in carbohydrates gorged themselves until they reached their protein target. With colleague Professor David Raubenheimer, of the University of Auckland, he devised an experiment to find out if humans did the same. "We incarcerated 10 people in a chalet for six days." For the first two days they could eat what they wanted from a buffet. For the next two days, one group was restricted to high-protein foods, such as chicken and meat, the other to fatty, sugary, low-protein foods, such as croissants. The first group consumed exactly the same amount of protein as on the first two days. "The second group went way off the mark and just kept on eating until eventually, through their over-consumption of carbohydrate-rich foods, they managed to fill their protein intake."

Source. For more on the wicked Atkins, see here.




Coffee 'doesn't deserve bad rap'

Bad for the heart, heavy on the stomach and even cancer-causing - coffee has been the target of years of negative press, but scientists now say many of those criticisms are unfair. Not only are some health fears misguided but coffee can actually reduce the chances of developing illnesses such as Parkinson's disease or diabetes, a meeting of the International Association on Coffee Science was told in Montpellier, France. Up to six mugs of the beloved pick-me-up beverage a day will not in fact lead to heart or digestive damage in a healthy person, experts say.

The myriad misunderstandings about coffee stem from the fact that for nearly two centuries, medical studies about it have been confined to the effects produced by a key component - caffeine. "For a long time research has been too simplistic, by largely being centred on just caffeine, while coffee is an extremely complex drink," said Astrid Nehlig, a leading French specialist on the link between coffee and health.

The drink's benefits far surpass the lift it brings to the morning routine of its devotees, experts believe. Coffee contains chlorogenic acids and melanoids which trap so-called free radicals, or atomic particles which damage DNA, and are also powerful antioxidants, involved in the prevention of cellular damage. Coffee can also cut the risks of cirrhosis by up to 80 per cent, according to Carlo La Vecchia, of the Milan-based Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research.

Bertil Fredholm, of Stockholm's Karolinska Institute, highlighted at the conference,which wraps up today, "strong epidemiological evidence" that coffee consumption can prevent Parkinson's disease in men. And diabetes expert Jaakko Tuomilehto, from Helsinki University, said the risk of type 2 diabetes, linked to poor eating habits and a lack of exercise, can be halved by drinking five to six cups of coffee daily. Indeed, 10 cups a day - nothing unusual in Finland which tops the world's coffee consumer list - can cut the risk by 80 per cent. Coffee is more efficient than fruit and vegetables in preventing the oxidation of DNA, the source of a number of serious illnesses, especially cancers, notes Siegfried Knasmueller of the Medical University of Vienna.

But, at the same time, coffee harbours a number of potentially carcinogenic substances. US toxicology consultant James Coughlin has recorded about 30 such substances, though no study has so far established a definitive link between coffee and cancer. While research has tended to measure coffee consumption, it has been unable to distinguish what kind of coffee is being drunk, or, often, how it is taken - with or without sugar, milk, or even caffeine. Most of the studies presented here were based on an American-style cup of coffee, corresponding to trends in northern Europe and the United States, with 600 millilitres a day considered a reasonable amount.

Epidemiologist Cuno Uiterwaal, of the University Medical Centre of Utrecht, has studied the risk of heart attacks in coffee-drinkers and believes that based on current knowledge, a heavy consumer can safely continue to indulge. But he is less willing to suggest a recommended amount. "It's always very difficult to translate observational results into medical advice," he says.

Source





WARNING: Living can increase the risk of cancer

With the latest calls by the Salvation Army to label another one of life's little pleasures with a grim caveat, perhaps it's time we just accepted this fact. Then I suggest we all have a quiet drink and get on with enjoying life. Because while I generally consider the Salvos to be a top bunch, on their latest campaign, I wish they'd just put a cork in it. They have called for warning labels on alcohol because, according to a study they've done, more than 60 per cent of Australians didn't know that drinking can increase the chances of breast, liver and larynx cancers. At the risk of proving their point, since when?

The last thing I remember reading about alcohol was that the odd glass or two could lower the risk of dementia. There was another report which said it could lower the risk of developing heart disease. Or something like that. Their call for the warnings comes as part of their latest alcohol awareness campaign, which also targets binge drinking and other forms of alcohol abuse. It has jumped on the findings of the World Cancer Research Fund that show even low levels of alcohol consumption can increase the risk of breast cancer and colorectal cancer.

The Salvation Army says about 3000 people die each year through excessive drinking and an estimated 65,000 people are hospitalised each year because of alcohol abuse. Alcohol is also a factor in about one in six fatal car crashes and it fuels violent crime. But that's alcohol abuse, not use, and it's hardly cause for a constant cancer scare every time, on those rare occasions, when I reach for a cold one.

The Australian Medical Association, while supporting the Salvation Army's calls to a degree, has no formal position on the connection between alcohol and cancer. The Cancer Council NSW recommends that to reduce the risk of cancer, avoid or limit alcohol consumption. Hardly a deafening condemnation from either body about the demon drink. So until there's a unanimous verdict, I'd like my cheeky chardies fear-free, thanks all the same. I've already reluctantly given up two of my favourite pastimes thanks to doomsaying medicos: Smoking and endless hours of sunbaking - which, when carried out simultaneously, would induce a state of bliss - are, sadly, habits of the past. I've been convinced that although both of those occupations are thoroughly enjoyable, even a small amount of either can give you cancer. Growing old also increases the risk of getting cancer, yet no one seems to be advising against that

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.

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