© Carbouval | Dreamstime.com

So, back into the archives yet again, but hey, recycling is IN, right? We’re all about doing the right thing here at Left-Handed Complement, and in that spirit we’re recycling some of yr (justifiably) humble svt‘s favorite electrons.

I hereby stop apologizing for observing the prime directive of blogging: Thou Shalt Blog Daily!

And, I’m guessing that most of you weren’t here nine months ago. As one of my favorite paper publications used to say as they flogged unsold back issues: “If you haven’t read it yet, it’s new for you!”

Blast from the Past!

A post we really, really loved to write, and read, and re-read…

From last fall, and always in season, one of my first Sandy Szwarc posts, originally posted October 26, 2007, and titled “mm177: Healthy eating — Overrated!”

MUDGE’S Musings

Sandy Szwarc has, at least twice this month, provided health related stories that I’ve seen no where else, in her blog, Junkfood Science.

In a previous post, I highlighted her evaluation of recent under-reported studies showing counterintuitive results: that fat people survive cardiac episodes better than thin ones!.

She even responded politely to the post, even though I thoroughly and consistently misspelled her name! How embarrassing for MUDGE! Sorry, Sandy Szwarc!

She toppled my world again last week. She writes about a gigantic study launched in 1993 to pursue the relationship between what’s been known forever as healthy eating, and good health.

Remember reading about this study? I don’t.

Guess why. Because, once again, the results were startling.

As she writes,

Everybody knows what it means to eat healthy. We’ve heard about healthy foods and the importance of eating right our entire lives: “To be healthy and prevent heart disease, cancers and other chronic diseases of aging — and to maintain a slim, “healthy” weight — we should eat a low-fat and high-fiber diet with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains.” This advice comes from respected doctors and health officials and we hear it everywhere, so it is unfathomable that these dietary beliefs have never actually been clinically tested…until recently.

So to rectify the lack of hard evidence a seriously mammoth study was created. Sandy Szwarc reports,

According to the National Institutes of Health, it was “one of the largest studies of its kind ever undertaken in the United States and is considered a model for future studies of women’s health.” It was a major undertaking, costing $415 million and was conducted at 40 medical centers across the country. It was a well-designed and carefully conducted study and researchers were confident this would prove the rightness of eating “right.”

The comparison, among over 48,000 post-menopausal women (the age group most at risk for heart disease and cancer) divided the group by diet:

The women in the healthy eating intervention group cut their total fat intakes down to 24% of their calories and 8% saturated fat the first year — well below the control group eating about 38% total fat and nearly 40% more saturated fats. By the end of the study, the “healthy eaters” were still averaging 29% fat, compared to 37% in the control group. The “healthy” dieters also ate about 25% more fruits and vegetables, grains and fiber than the typical American diet of the control group.

By now, you see where this is going. In the four major areas of concern, the results of years of study showed:

Cardiovascular disease (the biggest cause of death as we age): Healthy eating proved to have no effect on cardiovascular disease….

Breast cancer: Healthy eating proved to have no effect on breast cancer incidences….

Colorectal cancer: Healthy eating proved to have no effect on colon or rectal cancers….

Body Weight: Not only that, but the women following a “healthy” diet for 8 years didn’t end up thinner….

These results only hit the news in “spun” form, because the health establishment refuses to be confused by the facts. Turns out that the conventional wisdom is more properly characterized as unsupported by clinical findings conventional wis-dumb.

Sandy Szwarc says this much more eloquently than I can. Take a look:

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Junkfood Science: Junkfood Science Exclusive: The big one — results of the biggest clinical trial of healthy eating ever

One has to wonder: what have I been doing beating myself up all these years? Hating myself for not eating healthy; despising my inability to keep discipline and lose all that ugly fat once and for all; feeling certain that I’ll die before my time and they’ll have trouble finding a casket that fits.

And all that self-denial leads to… nothing? No substantive difference?

I’ll repeat Sandy Szwarc’s final graf:

Health is not evidence of moral character and pristine diets. Don’t let anyone try to scare you, threaten you, or get you to believe that if you don’t eat “right” (whatever their definition) you’ll get fat, cancer, heart disease, or die sooner. There is simply no good evidence.

Be sure to check out part 2 of her blockbuster report, reporting on analyses of the findings in relationship to cancer.

Junkfood Science is a wonderful blog.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

Well, today was that Thursday that actually began at 10:00pm last night, flowing seamlessly from Wednesday, and save for about two hours between the end of one meeting at 2am and the preparation for the next at 5:15am, sleep for yr (justifiably) humble svt has been as scarce as home buyers.

So, we’re on a reduced blogging schedule, with just enough energy to faithfully observe the Prime Directive: Thou Shalt Blog Daily.

As we’ve opined in the past (recently, actually) one of our favorite bloggers regardless of topic is Sandy Szwarc.

The first time we found her was last October. Enjoy!

Blast from the Past!

A post we really, really loved to write, and read, and re-read…

From last fall, and always in season, originally posted October 8, 2007, and originally titled “mm165: Junkfood Science: Obesity Paradox No. 13 — Take heart.”

MUDGE’S Musings

Welcome to one of the newest members of the Left-Handed Complement blogroll, Junkfood Science.

Sandy Szwarc seems to have the credentials, and she has a point of view.

Points of view are not lacking in the blogosphere (although credentials may be!), but I was attracted to hers immediately.

Anyone glancing at the rendition of Yr (Justifiably) Humble Svt that graces the top of the sidebar of this nanocorner of the ‘Sphere© can probably tell that one might charitably describe MUDGE as horizontally challenged.

Fat.

Obese even.

A war fought over all but six decades. Oh, a battle won here or there, but the trend is lousy. And, the implicit message has always been: get skinny or die early.

Well, heredity and Snickers bars have long impaired my ability to do the former.

And over the past decade, the promised life-shortening chronic diseases have appeared as threatened: diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, all controlled as well as can be expected through (to some extent diet, but mainly) the wonders of the pharmaceutical arts, which is pretty well indeed.

This past summer, a promising exercise program that played to the only exercise MUDGE can comfortably handle (other than blogging!), walking, turned into Achilles tendinosis, and the pounds lost so arduously over the past four years are packing on again, as the recreational and therapeutic walking halted while various medical professionals in MUDGE‘s life attempt to figure out how to end the annoying ankle pain.

Then, the other day, thanks I believe to reddit.com, I encountered Sandy Szwarc.

For the first time in MUDGE‘s time in the ‘Sphere was I tempted to write: “WTF!” But I won’t.

Take a look:

What is most amazing is how long it has been known that body fat doesn’t cause heart disease or premature death, yet how vehemently people hold onto this belief. “The notion that body fat is a toxic substance is now firmly a part of folk wisdom: many people perversely consider eating to be a suicidal act,” wrote Dr. William Bennett, M.D., former editor of The Harvard Medical School Health Letter and author of The Dieter’s Dilemma. “Indeed, the modern belief that body fat is a mortal threat to its owner is mainly due to the fact that, for many decades, the insurance companies had the sole evidence, and if it was wrong they would presumably have had to close their doors.” That can still be said today, although the obesity interests have since grown considerably larger.

But the evidence that fatness is not especially harmful has been shown from research that dates back to the 1950s — more than a half a century ago. While many remain incredulous, the soundest body of evidence has shown, and continues to show, that being fat is not a risk factor for heart disease or a cause of premature death, even controlling for the effects of smoking or cancer.

The people of the U.S. are simultaneously getting fatter, and living longer.

Well, knock me over with a feather (not too likely in practical terms; you probably would be more successful doing so with a 3,000-pound bale of feathers).

Quoted is Dr. William Bennett, former editor of the Harvard Medical School Health Letter:

“Detailed epidemiological studies, too, show no impressive connection between obesity and cardiovascular disease.

The occasion for Szwarc‘s article is another new, very underreported study, published in the current issue of the American Journal of Medicine, led by cardiologist Dr. Seth Uretsky, M.D., at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York, showing the same counterintuitive findings: fat people survive cardiac episodes better than thin ones!

Take a look at the full story:

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Junkfood Science: Obesity Paradox #13 — Take heart

Is it really possible that I’m supposed to be losing this lifetime battle against obesity?

And if so, why have I been lied to– er, misled all of these years?

Bears researching further I’m thinking, and Sandy Szwarc‘s Junkfood Science blog will now become a regular read.

Because, funny thing: Except for this pesky ankle, I feel pretty good.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

© Simone Van Den Berg | Dreamstime.com

MUDGE’s Musings

Summertime. People are vacationing. The weather, here in the Northern Hemisphere, at least (reportedly quite chilly in Oz, sorry guys!) is excessively hot and humid. The beach beckons.

News is sparse, but the need to sell the advertisers’ wares means that the 24-hour news cycle keeps on spinning.

Thus a story in the New England Journal of Medicine received undue prominence this week: a report on a clinical study of a comparison of two popular diet programs, the Atkins diet (once a tool of yr (justifiably) humble svt) vs. the Mediterranean diet (a favored tool of an official brother of y[j]hs). So it was all over the headlines for a day or so, midweek, filling those column inches and 30-second sound bites during the summer doldrums and of more than a little personal interest.

This was a 2-year study, and the weight loss reported was depressingly small. What was going on?

I turned, as often I do when trying to dig beneath the headlines on medical issues, to Left-Handed Complement‘s favorite authority on such medical studies, especially as regards weight loss, Sandy Szwarc, writing in her amazingly wise blog, Junkfood Science. Here are some previous occasions when she cut through the jargon and the statistical distortions for us.

Sure enough, yesterday’s Junkfood Science post provided a thorough analysis, detailed but not excessively technical, of the study. Were you aware, for example, that it was partially funded by the Atkins people?

Round eleventy-seven in the diet wars

Junkfood Science | Sandy Szwarc | July 19, 2008

Here we go again in the battle of the diets. Another weight loss study was published this week. This one, partly funded by Atkins Research Foundation, pitted a low-fat diet against a Mediterranean diet against an Atkins-like diet. The news has either declared Atkins the winner, or that they all worked, or that they all failed.

This study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, actually confirmed everything already known about weight loss diets. The quickest post would be to simply refer you here, here and here and say “step and repeat.” But new readers might not like that.

So, at the risk of boring regular readers with a rehash of diet study fallacies, here’s a quick rundown.

Overview

This trial was conducted in 2005-2007 in Dimona, Israel. It was registered as a phase 1 trial (ClinicalTrials.gov registration #NCT00160108), explained here. Given its size and duration, though, it appears more a combined phase 1 and 2, designed to evaluate the safety and note the effects of the dietary interventions on weight loss.

The objectives of this 2-year randomized trial were to evaluate not just the safety and weight loss effectiveness of the three diet plans, but also to test the effectiveness of a workplace weight loss program.

For most people, diets just don’t work on any long-term basis. Weight lost by reducing calories, carbohydrates, fats, whatever, eventually comes back. And this two-year study, despite some chartmanship that Szwarc clarifies for us, proves this disappointing law of nature yet again.

Since the first low-calorie diet book was published nearly a century ago, diet doctors have come up with every imaginable gimmick for reducing calories, manipulating macronutrients in every conceivable way. If anything was truly effective, after nearly a century, there would be no diet industry and everyone would be slim. Any contrivance to cut calories works to enable most everyone to lose some weight… but only temporarily… and only to a point. Then, those homeostatic metabolic adjustments work to return body weights to their genetically-determined setpoint range, in both naturally obese and nonobese bodies. These biological adjustments are so powerful, as much as a four-fold increase in metabolic efficiency, that to keep weight off below one’s natural range, or to try to lose more, requires increasing severe caloric restrictions, not optimal for nutritional health or wellbeing.

Diets. Just. Don’t. Work.

Junkfood Science: Round eleventy-seven in the diet wars

One of her most intriguing points is that there was no attention given in the analysis of the data to any medical outcomes: was heart disease risk lessened? Did any pre-diabetic conditions fail to become diabetes as a result of the diets?

This was dieting for the sake of dieting (okay, to lose some weight), but the clinicians were apparently disinterested in whether the weight loss experienced by the study participants had any positive therapeutic value.

Looking better (at least for a few months) in their Speedos at the beach (this was an Israeli study after all) doesn’t seem sufficient, does it?

5-1/2 years ago, I bravely embarked on the Atkins program, with some excellent early results. Of the ultimately nearly 50 pounds lost, in the past year about 15-20 have returned, but I’m “guilty with an excuse.” My level of exercise was slashed due to the pesky Achilles tendinosis issue that, nearly a year along, still bedevils and restricts activity. And of course, as the weight started coming back, the rigidity about the virtual carb-free daily choices disappeared; four years of denial needed to rebound, and did. Sigh.

Am I better off 30-35 pounds down? Yes. Have I any confidence in my ability to get that pesky 15-20 back off, not to speak of the further 40 or 50 beyond that my BMI says I need to lose. None whatsoever.

Diets. Just. Don’t. Work.

But, as always, I appreciate Sandy Szwarc’s careful reading and literate daylighting of what most of us take at face value, because we are all too willing to let the MSM do our chewing and digesting for us, with the expected results.

Mainstream media is the medical reporting equivalent of a Hostess Twinkie, absolutely empty calories.

Sandy Szwarc’s Junkfood Science is the high fibre, whole grain, naturally sweetened, real deal.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

While puttering around doing the formatting and graphics hunt for today’s effort, discovered that, without really being specifically aware of it, MUDGE has devoted at least 30 posts to issues relating to health. That’s a sizable chunk of time and attention.

But, why not? As we’ve noted frequently, the oldest of the Boomer cohort of which I am nearly a charter member is 62 years old, eligible to retire (and, indeed, a number of MUDGE’s friends have already done so). And, regardless of age, for at least the past 25 years we Boomers have paid outsized attention to health issues.

This year alone at Casa MUDGE, while dealing with the Achilles tendon partial tear that has been a pest for way too long and my wife’s rotator cuff issue (after the last cortisone injection, doing very well thank you), we continue our concern with our Los Angeles daughter’s Crohn’s disease (current treatment seems to be helping, thank goodness, although there’s a health insurance battle brewing), and my dear mother’s recent diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia (she’s fighting it tenaciously).

Not to mention, of course, our various chronic conditions for which our monthly pharmaceutical expense is ever increasing.

So, health is on our mind, all of the time. Fortunately, there is never a lack of news.

In that spirit, to conclude setting the table for today’s health post, here’s a link table of our most important posts on the topic.

Our first story is rather unusual, in that the topic is what I would characterize as “science-plus:”

1. … and this is your brain on nirvana

A Superhighway to Bliss

By LESLIE KAUFMAN | Published: May 25, 2008

JILL BOLTE TAYLOR was a neuroscientist working at Harvard’s brain research center when she experienced nirvana.

Dr. Taylor says the right, creative lobe can be used to foster contentment.

But she did it by having a stroke.

On Dec. 10, 1996, Dr. Taylor, then 37, woke up in her apartment near Boston with a piercing pain behind her eye. A blood vessel in her brain had popped. Within minutes, her left lobe — the source of ego, analysis, judgment and context — began to fail her. Oddly, it felt great.

The incessant chatter that normally filled her mind disappeared. Her everyday worries — about a brother with schizophrenia and her high-powered job — untethered themselves from her and slid away.

We found this story extraordinarily fascinating, not the least because, before we’d read it last night we watched the DVD of the extraordinary film, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” the 2007 Cannes Film Festival award winner.

We don’t, as a rule, review films in this nanocorner of the ‘Sphere©, for the very good reason that, aside from finding all too few that are aimed at our cohort, we hardly are qualified by training or education to do so. That said, the timing of seeing this film, juxtaposed against encountering this NYTimes story is remarkable, as the film’s topic is an unexpectedly moving depiction of a true story, that of a 42-year old French magazine editor suddenly felled by a stroke, and the amazing story he somehow manages to tell. [Unscholarly recommendation: RENT THIS DVD! Truly breathtaking filmmaking.]

The difference, of course, is that Dr. Taylor has been able to frame her observations informed by her background as a neuroscientist.

In February, Dr. Taylor spoke at the Technology, Entertainment, Design conference (known as TED), the annual forum for presenting innovative scientific ideas. The result was electric. After her 18-minute address was posted as a video on TED’s Web site, she become a mini-celebrity. More than two million viewers have watched her talk, and about 20,000 more a day continue to do so. An interview with her was also posted on Oprah Winfrey’s Web site, and she was chosen as one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world for 2008.

TED is one of my favorite sites — don’t get there often enough, and indeed, I missed Dr. Taylor’s video. But, through the magic of linking, faithful reader doesn’t have to.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

A Stroke Leads a Brain Scientist to a New Spirituality – NYTimes.com

I’d prefer not to achieve spiritual peace in that same manner, thankyouverymuch!

2. A progressive understands being outnumbered

Bacteria. We’ve been educated to believe that bacteria are harmful. We wash our hands frequently. More and more of our hand soaps and even our dishwashing soap is often labeled anti-bacterial.

It’s a losing battle, people! Bacteria outnumber the number of our own cells in our body by an order of magnitude. Fortunately, bacteria can be good for you, such as the six tribes of bacteria found on the skin of your inner elbow. Six tribes? One million bacteria per square centimeter? Read on:

Bacteria Thrive in Inner Elbow; No Harm Done

By NICHOLAS WADE | Published: May 23, 2008

The crook of your elbow is not just a plain patch of skin. It is a piece of highly coveted real estate, a special ecosystem, a bountiful home to no fewer than six tribes of bacteria. Even after you have washed the skin clean, there are still one million bacteria in every square centimeter.

But panic not. These are not bad bacteria. They are what biologists call commensals, creatures that eat at the same table with people to everyone’s mutual benefit. Though they were not invited to enjoy board and lodging in the skin of your inner elbow, they are giving something of value in return. They are helping to moisturize the skin by processing the raw fats it produces, says Julia A. Segre of the National Human Genome Research Institute.

Dr. Segre and colleagues report their discovery of the six tribes in a paper being published online on Friday in Genome Research. The research is part of the human microbiome project, microbiome meaning the entourage of all microbes that live in people….

Since humans depend on their microbiome for various essential services, including digestion, a person should really be considered a superorganism, microbiologists assert, consisting of his or her own cells and those of all the commensal bacteria. The bacterial cells also outnumber human cells by 10 to 1, meaning that if cells could vote, people would be a minority in their own body.

This is one of those really intriguing stories that one can be sure will be updated frequently, as the analysts and their tools get better at their jobs.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

6 Tribes of Bacteria, the Good Kind, Found to Be at Home in Inner Elbow – NYTimes.com

You’ve undoubtedly heard it before, that the wide spectrum antibiotics we take so profligately, and that self-same anti-bacterial soap we use so automatically (clean = good!), are probably counterproductive. They may kill off as many useful bacteria as dangerous ones, and their widespread use will only cause their targets to mutate into more resistant strains.

But, consider again. Six tribes! One million bacteria per square centimeter!

Ain’t science grand?

But statistics, that’s another story entirely. Read on.

3. Yet another case of misplaced priorities

Faithful reader knows exactly what I think of Sandy Szwarc, whose blog, Junkfood Science is what yr (justifiably) humble svt‘s Left-Handed Complement blog would be had I education, wisdom and a highly informed point of view. Well, one can aspire, anyway. But Ms. Szwarc’s blog is the real deal.

At least six of the links in the table above relate to her politely ferocious media hype-busting and statistical-bubble bursting white papers (blog posting simply doesn’t do justice to the knowledge and preparation that are reflected therein).

Since I know that you didn’t click all 30 links above, here are Sandy Szwarc’s again.

I saw one of those Washington Post stories she criticizes; the childhood obesity epidemic is regularly news.

Not so fast, she says:

Misplaced priorities for the children

Sandy Szwarc, BSN, RN, CCP | Junkfood Science | May 21,2008

Mass emailings went out around the country yesterday with a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation press release, praising the Washington Post for making its childhood obesity agenda front page news all week. While massive governmental and medical programs are being proposed — to address the young people who fall at the 95th percentile on revamped BMI growth charts, despite the fact that today’s children are healthier than ever and living longer than ever in our country’s history — about 13 million children in our country currently don’t have enough to eat. And their numbers are growing. Little attention has been given to these young people whose lives and futures are endangered now, today, and for real.

Creating an epidemic

Instead, everyone’s focus has been directed towards childhood obesity. It’s been frighteningly easy to get people to believe in a crisis and an epidemic of childhood obesity.

So while everyone wrings hands over what Szwarc so effectively skewers as a total non-crisis, millions of children are much more quietly starving.

So, this week, while the Post hypes an exaggerated childhood obesity crisis, a few news outlets have been reporting on a returning crisis of hunger like this country hasn’t seen in generations, and food banks unable to keep up with the growing numbers needing help. If we want to do something to help children and ensure their health and futures, perhaps our eyes might be better focused on this story.

Virtually all food banks (98.9%) report they’ve had increased numbers of hungry people and families coming to them for food. The rising costs of fuel and food are the primary contributing factors, followed by rising unemployment and underemployment. Even food stamps don’t stretch with the higher prices of food experienced this year. According to Second Harvest’s data gathered from 180 food banks across the country from April 28th through May 2nd of this year, 81.11% can’t meet the need for foods and are having to reduce the amount of food or their services.

In a so-called land of plenty, surely it’s outrageous that so many children go to bed hungry every night. And still more ghastly is how little national visibility this desperate endangerment of our precious human capital has managed to acquire, as opposed to the “epidemic” of childhood obesity that has been distorted and hyped so egregiously.

Take a look at the statistics on hunger and the effects of malnutrition that Ms. Szwarc presents.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Junkfood Science: Misplaced priorities for the children

Please donate your time, or treasure, or canned and packaged shelf stable food to a food bank near you. Or, do what Mrs. MUDGE and I did last week, help to prepare (Mrs. M) and serve (both of us) a meal at a soup kitchen.

These places exist near you, even in your particular blessed corner of opulence, folks — search them out, and support our next generation.

And, keep reading Junkfood Science.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

The ‘Sphere is full of fulminating amateurs. Take yr (justifiably) humble svt, for example. When it comes to blogging, amateur. Maybe a little talented. Maybe.

Then there are the well informed, insightful, professionals, with credentials and research chops, who could be writing anywhere, but, I’m guessing, have found in the blogosphere the editorial freedom that might be lacking in the constrained world of the mainstream media.

One such genius has been admired in this space many times.

This past weekend Ms. Szwarc took on the top of the respected television news pyramid: “60 Minutes.” Now, that’s a contradiction in terms if ever one was coined: respected television news. But, millions of people watch it, and have done so for 40 or more years.

And when “60 Minutes” recently presented a glowing report on gastric bypass surgery, Ms. Szwarc says that they left the realm of news far, far behind.

The other side of the story — Part One

Sandy Szwarc, BSN, RN, CCP | April 26, 2008

Medical news stories on television serve one purpose: to air entertainment of sufficient shock and awe value to generate the most viewers and advertising income for the networks. The lure of advertising dollars, and efforts to please advertisers, has led to content that is little more than infomercials.

Viewers who forget this fact and believe that these stories are anything other than fiction and marketing can put themselves in danger. When viewers think they are getting accurate presentations of medical research, balanced portrayals of risks and benefits, and of reality — because these news stories look like credible medical investigative reports — and use them to make health decisions, television can become life-threatening.

This danger was best exampled on Sunday when CBS 60 Minutes aired a special claiming that gastric bypass surgery cures diabetes and cancer.

As always, Sandy Szwarc is thorough where mainstream media is cursory; she digs deep into the statistics to get the truth, rather than accept the superficial gloss published by those with a sales agenda.

After you read part one, click Home, or back here, and find part two; it’s a lengthy read, but if you or a loved one has ever considered bariatric surgery (me! me!), the time spent will be not much more than the few minutes of CBS’s distorted presentation. The letters from the patient and his fiancée are gripping, heart-breaking and frightening.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Junkfood Science: The other side of the story — Part One

Junkfood Science: The other side of the story — Part Two

As alluded to above, I once sought out a surgeon to discuss the gastric bypass option for me. It was interesting to me that that office scale registered, but just barely, that I was a legitimate candidate (showing a higher weight than I’d ever seen for me at that time). That took me aback; I felt that I was being hard-sold. Rather disconcerting for a medical office, part of a group in which I’d been a satisfied patient for many years.

So, I went home and discarded the idea. And, that was long years before I knew of Sandy Szwarc and her relentless, in-depth research. For example, here’s a statistic that 13.6 million people did not hear on 60 minutes:

These death rates were compared to actual U.S. National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data on matching Americans of the same age and BMI. By best estimates, bariatric surgeries likely increase the actual mortality risks for these patients by 7-fold in the first year and by 363% to 250% the first four years.

I think that I dodged a bullet. Wish I weighed less every day, but bariatric surgery will not be in my future.

Thanks, once again, Sandy Szwarc, for digging in, and finding the truth, or at least a “truer” truth, amidst the fog of professional medical and media obfuscating.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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We’ve written previously (here and here, for two examples) of our awed admiration for Sandy Szwarc, whose blog, Junkfood Science is in yr (justifiably) humble svt‘s humble opinion, one of the absolute gems of the ‘Sphere.

Her furious concerns include the wrongheaded, conventional wisdom “obesity crisis,” and the distressingly distorted reporting of much medical research.

Last week, she published a simply dazzling comprehensive analysis of the implications of Google Health.

For a useful summary of Google’s bland announcement of this latest “beta” product, check out this story in Information Week.

Now, let’s hear what Sandy Szwarc has learned.

Google Health update — A new Google World

…. This is not about our health or convenience. This is a vast private-government partnership to create the world’s largest ever database of genetic, medical and personal lifestyle information, that can and will be used against us.

I’ve just grabbed that paragraph — it got my attention; I hope it’s awakened your curiosity. Go spend a few minutes with Sandy Szwarc; you won’t be sorry.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Junkfood Science: Google Health update — A new Google World

It’s bad enough that interviewers judge employment candidates on superficialities like appearance, gender, and age.

The thought that they (or one’s current employer — you folks with jobs are just as much at risk too, especially if your employer subsidizes your health insurance — HIPAA doesn’t seem to be very protective after all) will have access courtesy of Google Health to your genetic data that might possibly indicate a propensity for an expensive disease, is infuriating, wrong, perhaps criminal.

And the $zillion might of Google, Michael Milken, et. al. are hard at work to make this felonious nightmare a reality.

Thanks, Sandy, for this brilliant exposé.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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As a charter member of the Boomer cohort, health issues are never far from top of mind.

Embarrassed to admit that, at dinner with the closest of friends the other night, our various afflictions comprised the sum total of the conversation for the two hours the four of us were together.

Not our kids (except relating to their health); not politics (what presidential election?); just visits to this chiropractor (by now a virtual member of our friends’ family); that specialist; these MRI results. Ugh.

Never again, that!

But, typical.

Imperceptibly, somehow when I wasn’t paying attention I joined that group of health-obsessed codgers that I used to make such cheerful fun of. Anyone have a pill to treat depression stemming from participation in excessive health-related conversation?

–Coming right up, sir!

Meanwhile, some interesting health topics hit the news this week. And some struck entirely too close to home for comfort.

Diet soda: bad!

Vital Signs

Symptoms: Metabolic Syndrome Is Tied to Diet Soda

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR | Published: February 5, 2008

Researchers have found a correlation between drinking diet soda and metabolic syndrome — the collection of risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes that include abdominal obesity, high cholesterol and blood glucose levels, and elevated blood pressure.

So, long ago yr (justifiably) humble svt switched away from the sugared stuff, but have become accustomed to the off-putting taste of soda (that’s “pop” where I come from) made with sugar substitutes. Those have improved over the years, although controversy remains over the health implications of consuming the ersatz sugar itself. And now, maybe there’s some fire to go with the smoke.

But the one-third who ate the most fried food increased their risk by 25 percent compared with the one-third who ate the least, and surprisingly, the risk of developing metabolic syndrome was 34 percent higher among those who drank one can of diet soda a day compared with those who drank none.

The short article does not speculate on the possible origin (the sweetener? what else would not be present in sugared soft drinks?) of the agent of metabolic change.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Symptoms: Metabolic Syndrome Is Tied to Diet Soda – New York Times

As a person long pharmaceutically treated for various metabolic syndromes (diabetes mellitus, high blood pressure, dyslipidemia), and an enthusiastic (in industrial strength quantities) consumer of highly caffeinated diet soda (for the lift, and the appetite suppression) it’s hard to know what is cause and what is effect.

After all, until the adult onset diabetes was diagnosed, I almost never imbibed diet soda.

Diet drinks tasted horrible (until NutraSweet and Splenda came along).

Read an amusing science fiction novel many years ago where the person who caused the banning of calcium cyclamate (a much better tasting alternative 30-40 years ago to the than prevalent saccharin sugar substitute) was consigned to the lowest, most fiery, ring of hell.

But that was then, now, bring on that diet brew!

But it’s disturbing. Am I working against my pharmaceutical cocktail by consuming Pepsico’s finest?

Does the study reported on here suffer from the same kinds of distortion and inexactitude in reporting so frequently exposed by Sandy Szwarc in Junkfood Science?

(BTW, more from there soon!)

But, if you think I’m grumpy now, just try taking away my Diet Mountain Dew!

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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Fat Tuesday

This headline just popped out at me today:

Fat People Cheaper to Treat, Study Says

So I took a look, and after reading a couple of paragraphs, as I’ll suggest you do, I asked myself a question.

Fat People Cheaper to Treat, Study Says

By MARIA CHENG | AP Medical Writer | 4:00 PM CST, February 5, 2008

LONDON – Preventing obesity and smoking can save lives, but it doesn’t save money, researchers reported Monday. It costs more to care for healthy people who live years longer, according to a Dutch study that counters the common perception that preventing obesity would save governments millions of dollars.

“It was a small surprise,” said Pieter van Baal, an economist at the Netherlands’ National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, who led the study. “But it also makes sense. If you live longer, then you cost the health system more.”
In a paper published online Monday in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal, Dutch researchers found that the health costs of thin and healthy people in adulthood are more expensive than those of either fat people or smokers.

I asked myself: “This is prime Sandy Szwarc territory; I wonder what she thinks of this research?”

Sure enough, her highly informed take was featured on her wonderful blog, Junkfood Science.

So, knowing when I am overmatched, here are two links: first, the original story, from the AP by way of Chicago Tribune.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Fat People Cheaper to Treat, Study Says — chicagotribune.com

And now, for an expert’s take, Sandy Szwarc’s Junkfood Science:

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Junkfood Science: Calling for a cease-fire

Skyhawks

The more buttoned up our world becomes; the more pervasive the propensity of those in power to exercise it grotesquely, as with the Star Chamber that is Guantanamo; the more habeas corpus and other birthrights disappear; the more depressed we become about the state of our nation, its institutions, and the future of democracy and liberty in this country and the world.

Then, I see a story like this one, from today’s NYTimes.

Satellite Spotters Glimpse Secrets, and Tell Them

By JOHN SCHWARTZ | Published: February 5, 2008

When the government announced last month that a top-secret spy satellite would, in the next few months, come falling out of the sky, American officials said there was little risk to people because satellites fall out of orbit fairly frequently and much of the planet is covered by oceans.

But they said precious little about the satellite itself.

Such information came instead from Ted Molczan, a hobbyist who tracks satellites from his apartment balcony in Toronto, and fellow satellite spotters around the world. They have grudgingly become accustomed to being seen as “propeller-headed geeks” who “poke their finger in the eye” of the government’s satellite spymasters, Mr. Molczan said, taking no offense. “I have a sense of humor,” he said.

These satellite spotters are pretty good at their hobby, which in the story they liken to that of guys, like yr (justifiably) humble svt, who love to watch trains.

Trainspotting (a Britishism, and a whopper of a movie a few years ago) can sometimes get in the way of the railroads, in this country mostly corporate enterprises who vigorously defend their turf with fences and private police.

Satellite spotters regularly get in the way of the governments that launch most of the birds. No fences work, and so far, no police.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Satellite Spotters Glimpse Secrets, and Tell Them – New York Times

And therein lies the glow one gets from this story. Some secrets aren’t meant to be kept, not if a determined guy on a balcony (doggedly pursuing his hobby, in much the same way, albeit far more comfortably, that MUDGE pursues this one) can point a hobbyist’s telescope toward the sky and find a $zillion spy satellite, and, through the wonders of the Internet, easily and instantly make it known to the world.

Before, the free press was mainly free only for the guy who owned it.

Today, just by harnessing some electrons, the truth gets out there.

It’s how we know much more about distorted mainstream medical reporting, thanks to the electrons harnessed by Sandy Szwarc and others.

And how we know about the retired spy satellites threatening to ruin our day, or our lawn, as they topple out of the heavens.

Don’t know about you, but I like knowing when to duck!

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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As yr (justifiably) humble svt trudges around this excessive winter in his oh-so-elegant cam-boot (complete with exposed sock — wow! is it cold!), nursing his partially torn Achilles and worrying that his odd appliance-forced gait is causing new compensatory aches and pains in his lower back, health is very much on his mind.

And as a charter member of the Boomer cohort, one would expect no less. And since we are such a huge demographic, health news, never in short supply, can now be, appropriate to the season, officially classified as a blizzard.

A blizzard of health related news. This nanocorner of the ‘Sphere© proudly brings you its all-health news SASB©.

©

Caffeine: Villain yet again

If it’s Tuesday, caffeine must be good for you. Oops – full moon: caffeine is bad!

Must be that full moon.

Caffeine May Hamper Diabetes Control

January 30, 2008,  10:52 am

Caffeine may make it tougher for people with diabetes to control their blood sugar, a new study shows.

The finding, published in February’s Diabetes Care, adds to the confusion about the role coffee plays in diabetes risk. Although caffeine has consistently been shown to affect blood sugar levels, several studies have shown that coffee drinkers are at lower risk for diabetes.

The latest findings about caffeine come from a small study by Duke University researchers who set out to determine if caffeine consumption can undermine a patient’s effort to manage diabetes. The researchers studied the effects of caffeine in 10 patients with Type 2 diabetes. The patients were already regular coffee drinkers and were trying to manage their diabetes without using insulin.

I am not the scientist or the fluent statistician; I’ll leave the brilliant analysis to Sandy Szwarc in her superlative blog, Junkfood Science (sorry, Sandy, if I missed your coverage of this), but a 10-person study does not prove anything, except researchers have a publishing schedule, and NYTimes has space to fill or the advertising looks naked. 10 patients. Sigh.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Caffeine May Hamper Diabetes Control – Well – Tara Parker-Pope – Health – New York Times Blog

Not compelling, unless one is shorting Starbucks (SBUX) or Pepsi (PEP).

©

Cholesterol: Is it the villain?

Fascinating opinion piece appeared in NYTimes this past Sunday. The writer, Gary Taubes, is well known for questioning the medical establishment.

What’s Cholesterol Got to Do With It?

By GARY TAUBES | Published: January 27, 2008

THE idea that cholesterol plays a key role in heart disease is so tightly woven into modern medical thinking that it is no longer considered open to question. This is the message that emerged all too clearly from the recent news that the drug Vytorin had fared no better in clinical trials than the statin therapy it was meant to supplant.

Medicine has been convinced for many years that cholesterol is intimately related to heart disease, that implacable killer.

Taubes writes very convincingly that our assumptions of that causal relationship are flawed at best.

The other important piece of evidence for the cholesterol hypothesis is that statin drugs like Zocor and Lipitor lower LDL cholesterol and also prevent heart attacks. The higher the potency of statins, the greater the cholesterol lowering and the fewer the heart attacks. This is perceived as implying cause and effect: statins reduce LDL cholesterol and prevent heart disease, so reducing LDL cholesterol prevents heart disease. This belief is held with such conviction that the Food and Drug Administration now approves drugs to prevent heart disease, as it did with Zetia, solely on the evidence that they lower LDL cholesterol.

But the logic is specious because most drugs have multiple actions. It’s like insisting that aspirin prevents heart disease by getting rid of headaches.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

What’s Cholesterol Got to Do With It? – New York Times

Taubes has defended the Atkins diet, and questioned the value of exercise for weight loss – a man MUDGE must get to know better!

©

Fat the villain? Or is it your doctor?

Horizontally challenged folk such as your correspondent grow accustomed to the casual bias of the general population against those of our size.

But that population apparently includes our medical professionals:

Weighty Assumptions

Doctors Too Quick to Blame Obese Patients’ Ills on Fat, Studies Suggest

By Roni Caryn Rabin | Special to The Washington Post

Tuesday, January 29, 2008; Page HE01

After a car accident mangled her right foot, requiring five operations and a bone graft from her hip, Lynn Behnke was in so much pain that she had a hard time sitting or sleeping and often had to call in sick. But when she went back to her surgeon, his advice surprised her.

He told her to go on a diet.

Behnke was livid. “If a skinny person came in with that kind of pain, they would have been given pain medication,” said the 44-year-old Fairfax resident, who then weighed 200 pounds — enough, at 5 feet 6 inches tall, to be considered obese….

Several obese patients said in interviews that they went to see a doctor only when it was unavoidable and often left feeling that they hadn’t gotten the help they needed.

“It’s like they make the diagnosis as soon as they see you walk through the door,” said Miki Merritt, 42, of Grasonville, Md., vice president of the local chapter of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance ( http://www.naafa.org). In her case, she said, doctors incorrectly ascribed a painful rash to poor circulation they blamed on her weight. (At 5-3 and 220 pounds, she has a body mass index of 39; 30 or higher qualifies as obese.)

A Johns Hopkins-trained dermatologist later diagnosed the rash as a symptom of sarcoidosis, an inflammatory disease that can affect multiple organs and is believed to be an autoimmune disorder. He treated Merritt with steroids, which suppress the immune system, and, Merritt said, she has not had a flare-up since.

A researcher at Yale developed a program for doctors to educate them about weight bias.

The training program asks doctors to question their own assumptions and ask themselves, “Do I consider all of the patients’ presenting problems, in addition to weight?”

“It’s not a black-and-white issue,” said Cathy Grinels, a 55-year-old teacher from Alexandria who is obese. “I don’t want a doctor who is going to ignore my size. But if I come in with an ear infection, I don’t want it attributed to my weight.”

Amen.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Weighty Assumptions – washingtonpost.com

It must be hard-wired in the genes: not the obese part; don’t know about that. No, I mean the superficial judgements we all make about people based only on what we see.

One needn’t be a bleeding heart politically correct left-handed person to understand how wrong those snap judgements are.

Well, so much for today’s edition of

Short Attention Span Health Blogging©.

Maybe we all learned something new today about assumptions. And villains.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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Short and sweet for a football Saturday:

Daily, the media reveals the results of some important new medical study. Daily, the survey results seem to be spun out of all recognition of what are the true implications of the research.

Sandy Szwarc blog, Junkfood Science, punctures the preconceptions and the distortions by actually reading the studies, cutting through the spin and reporting to her growing audience the truth. We’ve highlighted some of her recent work here and here, and our Drafts folder of our Windows Live Writer has the makings of a future such post, pending suitable long attention.

This week, Sandy Szwarc marked the first anniversary of her extraordinary effort, Junkfood Science.

A cupcake for each of you

It’s Junkfood Science’s first birthday. While I can only share a cyber-cupcake with each of you in celebration, it comes with thanks and a note to let you know how terrific you all are! Readers have grown in numbers, without hit gimmicks or paid media connections, to nearly 1 million. We’re mere days away to the millionth reader.

Regular readers get what this blog is all about, too. It’s not trying to sell you anything; market some politician or agenda; promote some health and wellness program, diet or pill; or scare you. Of course, that’s the fastest, surest way to make one unpopular among all those who are. Despite what some may believe or claim, there is no money in the truth and speaking out for scientific integrity, either, which is probably why we so rarely hear it. But you deserve better than the nonstop “the sky is falling” drumbeat we get everywhere.

Happy blogversary, Sandy Szwarc! You remain a glowing example of the power of the blogosphere to inform and educate.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Junkfood Science: A cupcake for each of you

Some of our highest highs and lowest lows are the result of our enjoyment of Patrick Smith’s Ask the Pilot column at Salon.com. Highs, because he writes so compellingly as a working commercial airline pilot about his profession and the ailing industry.

Highs, because our posts referring to his stories are among the most read at this nanocorner of the ‘Sphere©.

Lows because my derivative howbeit well-intentioned blogging efforts came to the attention of Salon’s lawyers. Oh, well, the day one stops learning is the day one stops.

Patrick’s column this week takes an interesting swipe at that Apple iPhone television commercial we’ve all seen.

Not buying it when the pilot tells you weather is holding up your flight? iPhone to the rescue!

Nov. 16, 2007 | If you’ve been watching TV at all, you’re by now familiar with Apple’s iPhone blitz. You know the campaign I’m talking about. Each ad stars this or that insufferably regular Joe who proceeds to share some touchy-feely tale of how his iPhone all but saved the nation from calamity. As a rule, I don’t like talking about television, especially commercials, but I’m obliged to address the iPhone spot featuring the pilot.[...]

Alas, not everyone is wisely skeptical, and the first time I saw the ad, I flicked off the set and offered up a silent prayer for pilots and flight attendants the world over. Thanks to this half-minute charade, they must now contend with legions of smart-aleck iSleuths gullible enough to believe what they’re told by a commercial.

So I guess today’s potpourri has some commonality after all. Most weeks Patrick Smith, and all of Sandy Szwarc’s posts, skewer the assumptions we’re fed by what many of my colleagues in the ‘Sphere contemptuously refer to as MSM, the mainstream media.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Ask the pilot, Patrick Smith, iPhone | Salon Technology

For some, for these two certainly, blogging is so much more than a hobby or creative outlet. Patrick Smith and Sandy Szwarc are both listed on the L-HC , and MUDGE is grateful for their hard, always illuminating work.

Since as a typical guy, MUDGE is fascinated by planes, trains and automobiles (and in some lighting [all right, any lighting] might even distressingly resemble a very much shorter John Candy, sorry to admit), our last segment is an editorial from the NYTimes this week.

The Prince and the Plane | Published: November 14, 2007

On Monday, a Saudi billionaire, Prince Walid bin Talal, placed an order with Airbus for his new private plane, the A380. That superjumbo will be the largest private jet on the planet. No hard figures were mentioned, but the asking price for an A380, which weighs 200 tons more than a Boeing 747 and has a floor space of about 6,000 square feet, is around $300 million. That is for the raw plane itself, hull, wings, engines, etc. — nothing to distinguish its interior from the hold of a cargo plane. But even unfurnished, the purchase of this Airbus offers some interesting numbers to think about.

For instance, the average-size house in America — about 2,300 square feet — would cost $106,812,000 at the price per square foot that Prince Walid paid. Even in California, this is a lot.

Notwithstanding the fact that the Times editorial gave us an always welcome excuse to include an aircraft photo, and even lets us remind you that Patrick Smith believes the A380 to be the ugliest aircraft ever placed into commercial service, this is a salutary reminder of the wretched excess that our insatiable appetite for Saudi oil makes possible. A comparatively benign example at that.

Sigh.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

Sandy Szwarc has, at least twice this month, provided health related stories that I’ve seen no where else, in her blog, Junkfood Science.

In a previous post, I highlighted her evaluation of recent under-reported studies showing counterintuitive results: that fat people survive cardiac episodes better than thin ones!.

She even responded politely to the post, even though I thoroughly and consistently misspelled her name! How embarrassing for MUDGE! Sorry, Sandy Szwarc!

She toppled my world again last week. She writes about a gigantic study launched in 1993 to pursue the relationship between what’s been known forever as healthy eating, and good health.

Remember reading about this study? I don’t.

Guess why. Because, once again, the results were startling.

As she writes,

Everybody knows what it means to eat healthy. We’ve heard about healthy foods and the importance of eating right our entire lives: “To be healthy and prevent heart disease, cancers and other chronic diseases of aging — and to maintain a slim, “healthy” weight — we should eat a low-fat and high-fiber diet with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains.” This advice comes from respected doctors and health officials and we hear it everywhere, so it is unfathomable that these dietary beliefs have never actually been clinically tested…until recently.

So to rectify the lack of hard evidence a seriously mammoth study was created. Sandy Szwarc reports,

According to the National Institutes of Health, it was “one of the largest studies of its kind ever undertaken in the United States and is considered a model for future studies of women’s health.” It was a major undertaking, costing $415 million and was conducted at 40 medical centers across the country. It was a well-designed and carefully conducted study and researchers were confident this would prove the rightness of eating “right.”

The comparison, among over 48,000 post-menopausal women (the age group most at risk for heart disease and cancer) divided the group by diet:

The women in the healthy eating intervention group cut their total fat intakes down to 24% of their calories and 8% saturated fat the first year — well below the control group eating about 38% total fat and nearly 40% more saturated fats. By the end of the study, the “healthy eaters” were still averaging 29% fat, compared to 37% in the control group. The “healthy” dieters also ate about 25% more fruits and vegetables, grains and fiber than the typical American diet of the control group.

By now, you see where this is going. In the four major areas of concern, the results of years of study showed:

Cardiovascular disease (the biggest cause of death as we age): Healthy eating proved to have no effect on cardiovascular disease….

Breast cancer: Healthy eating proved to have no effect on breast cancer incidences….

Colorectal cancer: Healthy eating proved to have no effect on colon or rectal cancers….

Body Weight: Not only that, but the women following a “healthy” diet for 8 years didn’t end up thinner….

These results only hit the news in “spun” form, because the health establishment refuses to be confused by the facts. Turns out that the conventional wisdom is more properly characterized as unsupported by clinical findings conventional wis-dumb.

Sandy Szwarc says this much more eloquently than I can. Take a look:

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Junkfood Science: Junkfood Science Exclusive: The big one — results of the biggest clinical trial of healthy eating ever

One has to wonder: what have I been doing beating myself up all these years? Hating myself for not eating healthy; despising my inability to keep discipline and lose all that ugly fat once and for all; feeling certain that I’ll die before my time and they’ll have trouble finding a casket that fits.

And all that self-denial leads to… nothing? No substantive difference?

I’ll repeat Sandy Szwarc’s final graf:

Health is not evidence of moral character and pristine diets. Don’t let anyone try to scare you, threaten you, or get you to believe that if you don’t eat “right” (whatever their definition) you’ll get fat, cancer, heart disease, or die sooner. There is simply no good evidence.

Be sure to check out part 2 of her blockbuster report, reporting on analyses of the findings in relationship to cancer.

Junkfood Science is a wonderful blog.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

Welcome to one of the newest members of the Left-Handed Complement blogroll, Junkfood Science.

Sandy Szwarc seems to have the credentials, and she has a point of view.

Points of view are not lacking in the blogosphere (although credentials may be!), but I was attracted to hers immediately.

Anyone glancing at the rendition of Yr (Justifiably) Humble Svt that graces the top of the sidebar of this nanocorner of the ‘Sphere© can probably tell that one might charitably describe MUDGE as horizontally challenged.

Fat.

Obese even.

A war fought over all but six decades. Oh, a battle won here or there, but the trend is lousy. And, the implicit message has always been: get skinny or die early.

Well, heredity and Snickers bars have long impaired my ability to do the former.

And over the past decade, the promised life-shortening chronic diseases have appeared as threatened: diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, all controlled as well as can be expected through (to some extent diet, but mainly) the wonders of the pharmaceutical arts, which is pretty well indeed.

This past summer, a promising exercise program that played to the only exercise MUDGE can comfortably handle (other than blogging!), walking, turned into Achilles tendinosis, and the pounds lost so arduously over the past four years are packing on again, as the recreational and therapeutic walking halted while various medical professionals in MUDGE‘s life attempt to figure out how to end the annoying ankle pain.

Then, the other day, thanks I believe to reddit.com, I encountered Sandy Szwarc.

For the first time in MUDGE‘s time in the ‘Sphere was I tempted to write: “WTF!” But I won’t.

Take a look:

What is most amazing is how long it has been known that body fat doesn’t cause heart disease or premature death, yet how vehemently people hold onto this belief. “The notion that body fat is a toxic substance is now firmly a part of folk wisdom: many people perversely consider eating to be a suicidal act,” wrote Dr. William Bennett, M.D., former editor of The Harvard Medical School Health Letter and author of The Dieter’s Dilemma. “Indeed, the modern belief that body fat is a mortal threat to its owner is mainly due to the fact that, for many decades, the insurance companies had the sole evidence, and if it was wrong they would presumably have had to close their doors.” That can still be said today, although the obesity interests have since grown considerably larger.

But the evidence that fatness is not especially harmful has been shown from research that dates back to the 1950s — more than a half a century ago. While many remain incredulous, the soundest body of evidence has shown, and continues to show, that being fat is not a risk factor for heart disease or a cause of premature death, even controlling for the effects of smoking or cancer.

The people of the U.S. are simultaneously getting fatter, and living longer.

Well, knock me over with a feather (not too likely in practical terms; you probably would be more successful doing so with a 3,000-pound bale of feathers).

Quoted is Dr. William Bennett, former editor of the Harvard Medical School Health Letter:

“Detailed epidemiological studies, too, show no impressive connection between obesity and cardiovascular disease.

The occasion for Szwarc‘s article is another new, very underreported study, published in the current issue of the American Journal of Medicine, led by cardiologist Dr. Seth Uretsky, M.D., at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York, showing the same counterintuitive findings: fat people survive cardiac episodes better than thin ones!.

Take a look at the full story:

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Junkfood Science: Obesity Paradox #13 — Take heart

Is it really possible that I’m supposed to be losing this lifetime battle against obesity?

And if so, why have I been lied to– er, misled all of these years?

Bears researching further I’m thinking, and Sandy Szwarc‘s Junkfood Science blog will now become a regular read.

Because, funny thing: Except for this pesky ankle, I feel pretty good.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

Technorati Tags: health, blogosphere, medicine, weight loss, Sandy Szwarc, Junkfood Science, obesity, fat