I love the last sentence of this report: "Would you pay $175 for a pound of coffee beans which had passed through the backside of a furry mammal in Indonesia? . . . Kopi Luwak beans from Indonesia are rare and expensive, thanks to a unique taste and aroma enhanced by the digestive system of palm civets, nocturnal tree-climbing creatures about the size of a large house cat. . . . Despite being carnivorous, civets eat ripe coffee cherries for treats. The coffee beans, which are found inside of the cherries, remain intact after passing through the animal. Civet droppings are found on the forest floor near coffee plantations. Once carefully cleaned and roasted, the beans are sold to specialty buyers. . . . So far, most of the orders have been from California". 9:43 AM
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Whooping cough makes resurgence: "Pertussis, the highly contagious disease also known as whooping cough, has become a growing problem in adolescents in recent years despite its history as primarily a disease of infants and young children, federal data show. 'Even though the highest rate of pertussis is still among children under 6 months of age, the highest proportion of cases is now among adolescents,' said Dr. Amanda Cohn, an epidemic intelligence service officer for the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Dr. Cohn is one of the authors of a report titled 'Pertussis -- United States, 2001-2003,' published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report that was released last week. The study showed that reported cases of pertussis increased from a historic low of 1,010 in 1976 to 11,647 cases in 2003. 'A large increase in reported cases has occurred among adolescents' as vaccinations they received as young children have lost effectiveness, the authors wrote." 9:57 AM
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Good old vitamin D stops cancer!: "A large daily dose of vitamin D can lower the risk of developing common cancers by as much as 50%, scientists said yesterday. Researchers found the natural form of the vitamin, known as D3, can reduce the chances of developing breast, ovarian and colon cancer, as well as others. Taking 1000 international units (0.025mg) of the vitamin each day could halve an individual's cancer risk, they said. Vitamin D is normally produced in the skin by the action of sunlight but is also obtained from certain foods. Dietary sources are limited, however. A glass of milk, for instance, contains only 100 IU of the vitamin. The team of US researchers carried out a systematic review of 63 studies, looking at the relationship between blood levels of vitamin D and cancer risk. The papers, published worldwide between 1966 and 2004, included 30 investigations of colon cancer, 13 of breast cancer, 26 of prostate cancer and seven of ovarian cancer. Their analysis, published in the American Journal of Public Health, showed that, for at least some cancers, the vitamin D factor could not be ignored... However, the team warned taking high doses of vitamin D - more than 2000 IU a day (0.05mg) - could cause serious damage to the liver and kidneys. Excess Vitamin D is stored in the liver, where it can promote dangerously high levels of calcium uptake."" 9:58 AM
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Tyrannical (and job destroying) NSW occupational health & safety act: "If you think the proposed [Australian] sedition laws are tough, spare a thought for a piece of legislation that makes them look almost benign. Under this law, there is a presumption of guilt, the trial occurs before a tribunal and there is no appeal to a real court, and 96 per cent of those accused are found guilty. Plus the party bringing the case gets to keep half the fine. It's a package Philip Ruddock can only dream of. The law is the NSW Occupational Health and Safety Act 2000, under which hundreds of managers and companies are prosecuted every year". 11:08 AM
Fat soldiers now OK: "Australia's military may soon be led by overweight officers with poor eyesight and asthma under a radical proposal to tackle a recruitment crisis within the Defence Force. The army, navy and airforce are considering plans to relax eyesight and weight criteria for officer recruits in an effort to fill recruitment quotas and accept more of the 10 per cent of applicants who fail on health grounds. The chiefs of Australia's three military services have ordered a review of the once-strict eligibility criteria in the face of falling numbers of recruit applications and government moves to expand the size of the Defence Force amid current global instability". 9:59 AM
Friday, December 23, 2005
Chocolate is now good for you: "Lovers of dark chocolate have been given the perfect excuse to indulge -- it is good for the heart. A study has found that eating a few squares a day could help prevent problems with blood flow. This is because chocolate contains high quantities of antioxidants called flavonoids, which prevent arteries hardening. These benefits are not shared by milk chocolate, possibly because the milk interferes with the effect of the flavonoids. In the study, published in the journal Heart, tests were carried out on 20 smokers, chosen because they have an increased risk of hardened arteries and heart disease. Asked not to eat anti-oxidant rich foods, they were then fed 57g of different types of chocolate. After two hours, those who had eaten dark chocolate, with 74 per cent cocoa solids, had "significantly improved" blood flow." 10:00 AM
Paracetamol causes headaches!: "Popular painkillers such as aspirin and paracetamol may cause the headaches they are supposed to treat. A paper published in the latest issue of the medical journal Australian Prescriber claims the recommended daily dose of some over-the-counter medications can cause headaches. "Medication-overuse headache is estimated to be responsible for 30 per cent of chronic daily headache and accounts for 10-60 per cent of patients attending specialist headache clinics," said David Williams, director of neurology at John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle. "The prevalence of medication-overuse headache is high and the condition is usually present for a long time before it is recognised and treated." Dr Williams said the body adapted to regular use of painkillers and became less responsive to medication. "When people stop taking the substance, the body suffers withdrawal symptoms," he said. "And the main symptom of withdrawal of analgesics is headache". 10:01 AM
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Now brandy is good for you: "Drinking a shot of brandy this Christmas could benefit your health, Monash University researchers have found. A School of Physics researcher in Melbourne, Dr Gordon Troup, said that, in moderation, brandy had been shown to have medicinal qualities, thanks to its antioxidants. "A 30ml shot of brandy gives you enough antioxidants to kill as many free radicals as your daily requirement of vitamin C," he said. And the better quality the brandy the greater the benefit. "So when you are enjoying a slice of brandy-infused fruit cake or a drink of good-quality brandy over Christmas you can put your mind at rest that this amber liquid isn't too bad for you at all."" 10:02 AM
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Whoopee! Fibre diet 'doesn't prevent cancer': "A comprehensive study challenges the one accepted truism of dietary research since the 1960s. Eating lots of fibre may do little to protect against colon cancer, the latest analysis of evidence has found. While people who eat the most fibre - in the form of cereals, vegetables and fruit - are slightly less likely to get colon cancer, the association is weak and disappears altogether when other factors are taken into account, according to an international team in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The research undermines one of the greatest of dietary shibboleths, first enunciated by the British physician Denis Burkitt in the 1960s. Working in Africa, he noticed that rates of colon cancer were low, and put it down to the fibre-rich diet of local people". 10:04 AM
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Britain: 'Fresh' apples could be a year old: "Apples are being sold in supermarkets up to a year after harvesting. The "freshly-picked" fruit - stocked by chains including Sainsbury's - is treated with a chemical gas that stops it ripening during storage. The process allows produce to be sold two to three seasons after being harvested. Agrofresh, the US firm behind the SmartFresh chemical as it is known, says it locks the taste in the apples, preserving the quality. However critics insist stores should stock fresh local fruit.... The treatment, which is used in more than 25 countries, stops apples producing ethylene, the natural ripening agent that softens fruit before it rots. The nutritional content of fruit is also preserved during storage... Producers using it include Domex, which ships American apples to Britain.... Year-old apples are common in US supermarkets but it is thought that most apples on sale in Britain are no more than six months old.... The chemical is also used on bananas, melons, tomatoes and avocados, but only extends their shelf-life by days or weeks". 10:05 AM
A number of readers have however written to me who agree with the "expert" -- usually taking the trouble to tell me also how their own diet of fruit and nuts (or whatever) has benefited them.
So I think I may have been a bit unfair to the "expert". I suspect that in current American usage "nutrition" means "food that I approve of". Being a straight-talking Australian, that caught me by surprise. 12:47 AM
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Tea stops cancer! "Women who consume two or more cups of tea daily over a period of time may lower their risk of ovarian cancer compared with women who never or seldom consume tea, according to a study published in the December issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. "We observed a 46-per-cent lower risk of ovarian cancer in women who drank two or more cups of tea per day compared to non-drinkers," Susanna Larsson and Alicja Wolk of the National Institute of Environmental Medicine in Stockholm, Sweden, said. The study found that each additional cup of tea consumed a day was associated with an 18-per-cent lower risk of ovarian cancer in study participants. The researchers examined the association between tea consumption and the risk of ovarian cancer in 61,057 women between 40 and 76 years of age". 10:06 AM
The organic food market is growing and according to some studies this demand is being driven by increasing consumer resistance to genetically modified foods. This resistance in turn is driven by anti-GM campaigning. In Australia, state government bans on GM food crops prevent the planting of GM corn, soybeans and canola, varieties grown overseas, including in the US.
During the past two weeks the Australian organics industry has sponsored a lecture tour by anti-GM advocate and US-based consultant Charles Benbrook. As part of this tour, Benbrook has made several claims, such as GM crops have been a failure in the US and herbicide use, particularly for GM soybeans, is at record levels. This story was picked up and run by numerous media outlets, including ABC radio. The only problem is that what Benbrook has said is not supported by the available evidence.
Information on herbicide use is available at the US Department of Agriculture website. This data shows that during the past 10 years the area planted with GM soy has increased and that overall herbicide use has remained steady. Last year 87 per cent of the total area planted to soybeans in the US was planted with GM varieties. Yield was a record high, at 42.5 bushels per acre, while herbicide use was equivalent to 1996 levels, the year the first GM variety was planted. In fact soybean production in 2004 totalled 3.14 billion bushels, making it the largest soybean crop in US history. It is difficult to reconcile these statistics with an out-of-control weed problem as claimed by Benbrook. While the statistics indicate that herbicide use has not declined in soybeans, there has been an almost complete shift to the more environmentally friendly herbicide glyphosate. In this regard the GM technology has been spectacularly successful.
Earlier this week a report from the US National Centre for Food and Agricultural Policy sang the praises of GM technologies, claiming that GM varieties increased yields, decreased production costs, and provided $2.3 billion in additional revenue to US farmers.
Interestingly Australia was the first country to release a GM organism, the crown gall bacterium, in 1988. Since then we have made only one other release, GM cotton, first planted in 1996. Now grown on 90 per cent of cotton farms, the latest GM varieties have reduced pesticide use by an average 88 per cent, allowing beneficial insects to return to fields and reducing the risk of pollution.
About 35 per cent of the vegetable oil we consume in Australia is from cotton seed. Most of the rest of our vegetable oil is from canola. A Greenpeace anti-GM campaign deceptively targeted GM canola as the first GM food crop and ignored GM cotton as an existing source of vegetable oil. This campaign led to the state bans on GM food crops, with only cotton exempt on the basis it is grown primarily for fibre.
Incredibly, in Australia we have banned GM varieties that could help us reduce our ecological footprint, through the use of more environmentally friendly herbicides in the case of soybeans and canola. Ironically, while the Victorian Government has banned GM food crops, Victorian farmers import large quantities of GM soybeans from the US to feed their dairy cows. Europe is supposedly GM free but imported $858 million worth of GM soy last year, also from the US.
Benbrook's tour has added to the confusion and fear and included claims at odds with the official statistics. The misapprehension is likely to reinforce opposition to GM technologies and increase market share for organic farmers. The Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics has reported that failure to commercialise GM crops will cost Australian agriculture $3 billion by 2015. Executive director Brian Fisher has said growth in GM crops overseas will disadvantage Australian grain and oilseed producers as non-GM varieties are more expensive to produce. Furthermore, he has said present bans are harming innovation and research in Australian agriculture.
Misinformation from anti-GM campaigning comes at a significant economic and environmental cost. Benbrook and the organic food industry may unintentionally be playing an expensive game with Australian agriculture.
Olive oil could save your sex life: "A pill made from olive oil and herbs could dramatically reduce a man's chances of developing prostate cancer. A trial at Columbia University in the US revealed the herbal supplement can reduce the rate at which prostate cancer cells grow and spread by nearly 80 per cent. The results, published in the medical journal Nutrition And Cancer, appear to confirm anecdotal evidence that the herbal mixture has powerful anti-cancer properties. Called Zyflamend, the supplement is based on olive oil and ten different herbs. It is already widely used as an alternative to prescription drugs in conditions such as arthritis. This is because it appears to reduce inflammation that causes painful, swollen joints. Available through health food suppliers and costing around 25 pounds for 60 capsules, Zyflamend attracted the attention of researchers at Columbia University after tests showed it stopped cancer cells multiplying. But after testing the pill on almost 50 men, the team admitted they had not expected it to have such a potent effect. "These results were particularly surprising and show greater promise in the fight against prostate cancer," said Dr Debra Bemis, who led the study". 10:07 AM
British broccoli mania: "Your genes could mean that eating broccoli to help protect against cancer may not be enough - what you need is "super-broccoli." Researchers have found around half the population don't have the right genes to fully benefit from eating the green vegetable. They retain the cancer fighting chemical sulforaphane for only a few hours. But they could compensate for the difference in their genetic make-up by eating the super variety, with higher levels of the active plant chemical sulforaphane. "Super-broccoli" is currently being developed and may not be in the shops for another three years. In the meantime researchers from the Institute of Food Research (IFR) say that eating larger portions may be the best way to compensate. Lead scientist Professor Richard Mithen said: "Eating a few portions of broccoli each week may help to reduce the risk of cancer". And pigs might fly 10:07 AM
Thursday, December 08, 2005
The "alcohol is good/bad for you" merrygoround continues: "Those who drink in moderation may have a significantly lower risk of obesity, suggests a new study published online in BMC Public Health. The study found those who drank one or two drinks a day had a significant lower risk of obesity compared to non-drinkers, while heavy drinkers and binge drinkers are at a higher risk. In the study, a drink is defined as a 12-oz beer, 4-oz glass of wine, or an ounce of liquor. For the study, Ahmed A Arif from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and James E Rohrer from Mayo Clinic Family Medicine Program analyzed data from 8,236 non-smoking respondents who participated in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The drinking habits were surveyed and body mass indexes were measured. The study was to explore, "association between obesity and alcohol consumption in the non-smoking U.S. adult population." The researchers found, "the odds of obesity among current drinkers were 0.73 times lower than the odds among non-drinkers. Significantly greater odds of overweight and obesity were observed among those engaged in binge drinking." "Similarly, those who reported drinking four or more drinks per day had 30 percent greater odds of being overweight and 46 percent greater odds of obesity," the authors wrote in their article. "However respondents who reported drinking one or two drinks/day had significantly lower odds of obesity."" 10:08 AM
What Adam Smith said was that businessmen "seldom gather together except to conspire against the public interest." And getting governments to make rules that squash your competition is as old as the hills. 12:50 AM
If something is high in calories, then it is also high on nutrition. Calories are a measure of how much nourishment a food contains. So the above statement is just politically correct nonsense. What they presumably mean is that advertised foods are TOO nutritrious. There is so much nutrition in them that they make you fat. So we have yet another abuse of language from our would-be dictators.
And they have the gall to tell people to do something while at the same time admitting that they have no evidence for what they say! And since what is supposedly good and bad for you keeps changing, the chance that they ever will have such evidence is remote. 12:49 AM
Booze not good for you after all: "After years of telling us that a couple of drinks were good for us by reducing the risk of heart attacks, one team of experts have changed their minds. The team led by Dr Rod Jackson and three colleagues from the University of Auckland in New Zealand, suggest that the apparent protective effect of alcohol may be largely due to confused research. Writing in The Lancet medical journal, they maintain that any benefit from light to moderate drinking is probably small and unlikely to outweigh the harm to health caused by alcohol. If anything, they say the evidence of heart protection is more convincing for heavy drinkers, though the dangers greatly outweigh this benefit. The Auckland team point out that earlier studies were not randomised to avoid confounding errors. For instance, people who stop drinking because of heart problems may be included in studies and misclassified as "never drinkers" in studies. This would lead to the impression that small amounts of alcohol protect against heart disease". 10:10 AM
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Boozing really does rot your brain: "Middle-aged adults who binge drink may face a heightened risk of dementia later in life, a study has suggested. Researchers found even among adults who usually drank moderately, those who occasionally binged were more likely than their peers to develop dementia over the next 25 years. Overall, middle-aged adults who binged at least once a month - downing, for instance, five bottles of beer or a bottle of wine in one sitting - had a three times greater risk of developing dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. The findings were published in the medical journal, Epidemiology. Study co-author Jaakko Kaprio of the University of Helsinki, Finland, said it was not surprising binge drinking was related to a higher dementia risk. But the risk had not been well documented before, he said". 10:11 AM
Friday, December 02, 2005
Fast food tells all: Washington Times by Elizabeth M. Whelan "McDonald's has decided it's time to tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the caloric content and nutritional value of the burgers, fries, chicken nuggets and other delectables they serve at 13,000 establishments around the country. Starting next spring, the leading fast-food chain will print in clear, basic language and symbols the fat, calorie, carbohydrate, and sodium count -- right on the wrapper. This is both a good move for consumers (it will help them make informed food choices) and for McDonald's (by protecting the company from legal charges of withholding information from consumers, causing them unwittingly to get fat). The new full-disclosure policy could be seen as successful industry 'self-regulation' -- where progress is made without the heavy hand of government regulatory involvement. But instead of extending wholehearted congratulations to the Mcfolks in Oakbrook, Ill., the regular suspects -- specifically, the Center for Science in the Public Interest 'food police' -- complain that McDonald's has not gone far enough." 10:23 AM
The place of liberty among political desiderata is a matter of philosophical dispute. No doubt, we must occasionally curtail liberty in pursuit of other ends; but I nevertheless find alarming the creeping authoritarianism of the medical journals, which seldom recognize liberty as an end worthy of the slightest consideration in the making of public policy.
The British government is proposing to ban smoking in all pubs that serve food but not in those that don't. You might think this a sensible compromise, allowing for separate public places for smokers and non-smokers. But a recent paper in the British Medical Journal attacks the proposals, on the grounds that they might well increase the differential in the life expectancy between the rich and poor, which has stubbornly refused to yield to 60 years (so far) of profound social engineering.
The reason the proposals, if implemented, might increase the differential is that there are more pubs that don't serve food in poor areas than in rich, so the poor would be subjected to more passive smoking in pubs than the rich. The authors therefore propose a total rather than a partial ban of smoking in pubs. For them, a widening of the differential would be undesirable, even when everyone's life expectancy was rising.
Now clearly there exist threats to public health so severe that we must curtail liberty to meet them, as with quarantines. Whether passive smoking is such a threat that it justifies such curtailment is a matter of opinion and not yet susceptible to definitive answer supported by a knockdown argument. But the authors of the article in the British Medical Journal do not even recognize the need to justify their proposal to curtail liberty, because they do not value liberty.
Perhaps it is only natural that considerations of public health should seem all-important to public health doctors (the authors), such that anything that will lengthen the public's life span appears to them justified without further argument. But I still find it disturbing that they should be unaware of other desirable ends other than health and a prolonged life span that is equal between all social classes. Monomania is never good.
Besides, in practice not every activity that threatens the public health leads to a call by public health doctors for prohibition. The British Medical Journal once published a news item stating that 17 million sports injuries occurred in Britain every year-17 million! They ranged from the trivial to the fatal, of course; but no public health doctor called for the prohibition of sport to protect human life and to avoid the waste of medical resources on what were essentially self-inflicted injuries.
This is because they regard sport as morally good, while smoking is the nearest people can come these days to sin. I hasten to add that I have no shares in tobacco companies, and I abhor tobacco smoke. 10:22 AM
