commentopia

MARCH 22, 2010 --  MARCH 28, 2010

GETTING THE LOWDOWN ON GOOD FAT, BAD FAT

The Surgeon General's original recommend-ations weren't to avoid saturated fat, but to eat less dairy and meat. The lobbyists didn't like this, so they helped to bend the recommend-ations away from actual foods (dairy & meat) into food components (saturated fat).

It's not the saturated fat that's killing us. It's eating too much animal products and not enough vegetables and whole grains. All these food science studies are just grasping for straws. Until we stop thinking about things in terms of "fats, carbs, & sugars", we'll never be healthy. Just like Pollan says: Eat food, not too much, and mostly plants.

Read the article NPR/Eat more fat, just make sure it's the right kind

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Stop it stop it stop it.

Eat in moderation. Look in the mirror. If you look fat you are fat. Calories in should be less than calories out to lose weight. Anyone who tells you different has a book to sell.

Exercise. Drink plenty of water. You can't take good old fashioned common sense out of the equation.

I recommend Food Rules, by Michael Pollan: "Don't eat cereal that changes the color of your milk", and more sensible food rules can be found. "Eat all the junk you want as long as you make it yourself."

If you eat real foods, and not the 'food like substances', you're likely to be more healthy. Forget store bought processed stuff.

Read the article NPR/Eat more fat, just make sure it's the right kind

MARCH 15, 2010 --  MARCH 21, 2010

PROMISE OF A BETTER GENE TEST FOR AUTISM

I will not at all be surprised as they find more genetic markers linked to many types of autism. Two of my paternal cousins (not in the same nuclear families) are autistic, one severely autistic savant (yes, she can absolutely count cards, and much more) and one only moderately affected.

And having lived so close to this disorder for 40 years now, I've been horrified by the vaccine conspiracy theory propagated in recent years.

However, I'm not so sure that they will find a single gene that turns autism on or off. My suspicion is that certain genes will prove necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for autism, and that some other coincident factor(s) will be necessary to trigger the disease.

Read the article ABC NEWS/ A better test for finding autism genes?

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It's very hard being a parent of an autistic child. It's heartbreaking. I'm sick of the phonies who don't know about autism or raising an autistic child. We started a parents' group at our school and it did wonders, especially for those parents whose children are extremely autistic. The so-called social workers didn't know squat. The only way to cure it is to find out what it is and where it comes from. Years and years of research.

Read the article ABC NEWS/ A better test for finding autism genes?

SNIFFING SUDDEN DEATH -- TEENS AND PRE-TEENS WHO TURN TO INHALANTS

 

My daughter died last year from huffing canned air. I had caught her once, and shared the risks (instant death) She promised to never do it again. Education isn't the only answer. She struggled with depression and we believe she was self-medicating. Kids don't have the ability to make good choices, but you can't be with them 24 hours a day. Please don't blame parents. We are being punished enough.

Read the article ABC NEWS/Sudden sniffing death syndrome to get high kills teens

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Shortly before I retired in 2006, our high school -65% White, 25% Black, 8% Asian, 2% Other- had an assembly about Racism. The school had recently elected a Korean-American Homecoming Queen and an African-American Homecoming King.

As we walked to the auditorium, one of my gifted Honors Chemistry students said to me, "Racism? We don't have much racism here! Why don't they do an assembly about drug use - or don't they want anyone to know how big a problem that is?"

I passed on that information to a former principal of our school who had become the top Asst. Superintendent for the entire county. They are finally starting to do mandatory anti-drug assemblies at our county schools just now.

Read the article ABC NEWS/Sudden sniffing death syndrome to get high kills teens

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Hmm, i wonder why 12-year-olds huff instead of doing weed. Weed is illegal, so it's not easy for a little kid to get his hands on. Aerosols, solvents and glues are in every basement in america. Imagine you're a 12-year-old who's been introduced to the idea that it's cool to get high. Weed is hard for you to come by, and it's not cheap either, as your only income is an allowance. and forget about the real hard drugs like cocaine, heroin and amphetamines.

So what do you do? Sneak some aerosols or solvents and huff. Your friends didn't happen to tell you that it's likely to kill you and guaranteed to screw with your brain cells, and as you're 12, you don't think ahead much. Of course, marijuana doesn't do good things to a 12-year-old's mind, but at least it doesn't cause instant death.

Read the article CBS NEWS/Sniffing trumps weed for 12-year-olds

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Inhalant abuse is a world-wide epidemic and has been for many years. In Asia you frequently see people walking down the street with a rag over their mouth and can of lighter fluid in a back pocket. Such chemicals are the essence of a cheap thrill, altho the results are far from trivial. The liver of a 10 year old can look like that of a 50 year old alcoholic, just to note one typical outcome.

So many are anxious the "take the edge off" their current reality and inhalants are cheap and available. It is the poor man's pot, just as meth is the poor man's coke. Where you have massive poverty, you have inhalant abuse ... better to give the kids organically grown marijuana than have them comatose by the age of 15.

And least you go crazy and think that is absurd, I must tell you that with pot, you get straight again ... with inhalants, all you get is permanently brain dead. Face reality on reality's terms - decriminalize pot and let people grow what they need and want. And do not blindly lash out at this idea unless you are prepared to never, ever take another drink or pop another pill.

Read the article WASHINGTON POST/Huffing a danger for pre-teens, study says.

 

MARCH 8, 2010 -- MARCH 14, 2010

THE SICKENING COST OF TAINTED FOOD: $152 BILLION A YEAR

 

The data that Scharff used is essentially a house of cards:

"Scharff worked with government estimates that there are 76 million food-related illnesses a year, 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths."

Those data come from a CDC paper published in 1999, and draws on data as old as 1947 (according to the paper). It is based on wild extrapolations.

Want to know how many food-borne illnesses CDC reports each year? Try 21,000 for 2007. And that's down from 24,000 in 2004.

Scharff's "study," and the FDA approval is all part of a campaign to create a "crisis" where none exists, and to get onerous food safety legislation passed. (Senate Bill 510, which will give the FDA vast powers over food producers and farmers). Read the article USA TODAY/U.S.A. pays price food-borne illness: $152 billion a year

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Look, I want the food I eat to be safe, everyone does. But at what cost? There is this thing known as the "law of diminishing returns" which basically states that "that we will get less and less extra output when we add additional doses of an input while holding other inputs fixed. "

We need to improve our inspection processes and utilize modern technology. We perhaps need to reassess the restaurant inspection process and improve monitoring. We probably need to increase fines for non-compliance and shut down processors more quickly when found in violation. But we don't need to spend $2 to save $1!

Read the article USA TODAY/U.S.A. pays price food-borne illness: $152 billion a year

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What if you strip out from the figure the economic loss of people using "food poisoning" as a made up excuse to take a sick day? It's a pretty common one - it's something that doesn't require a doctor visit, it's short-lasting but acute, and it's something that a lot of people have had, or at least know about, and will have sympathy for you

Read the article NPR/Tainted food leads to costly illnesses

 

MARCH 1, 2010 -- MARCH 7, 2010

DOCTORS WORKING FEWER HOURS  COULD THIN FUTURE RANKS

JAMA REPORT

With the changing gender make-up of the physician work force, rise in two-income families, and changing societal norms regarding the father's role in the family, physician parents are faced with greater responsibilities at home requiring a reduction in work hours.

The absent physician father just won't cut it anymore. Realizing that we have a family in addition to a career has been an important step in improving the quality of life for physicians. More doctors not more hours is the answer. Read the article LOS ANGELES TIMES/The doctor is in -- but not for long.

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I reported on this phenomena a few years ago but came to completely different conclusions. Declining salaries have nothing to do with declining hours, and if anything, promote longer working hours and help to reduce the rate of decline. What has changed is the realization that working long hours equates to poor performance. Committed doctors want to provide quality, not quantity, to patients if quantity is thought to lead to a greater probability of medical mistakes or at least, a perception of marginal quality.

Proper processing and analysis of patient data is taking longer than before because there is more to learn and more to consider than 30-40 years ago. The whole thrust of the 2003 changes to reduce residency hours nationally was based on the research showing that practicing medicine against your comfort level is a problem of quality: working with less sleep, or perhaps simply because of another distracting reason like money, is akin to working drunk. The issue is about a perception of quality of care, nothing else.

Every doctor intuitively knows what their mental limit is before they begin to overlook things and make mistakes. This is simply a trend in which doctors are coming into equilibrium with themselves to improve the quality of their work.

Read the article LOS ANGELES TIMES/The doctor is in -- but not for long.

BEWARE THE THREAT OF THE HUMBLE HOT DOG

 

 

I'm all for protecting kids, but this is just crazy. I completely agree with the other posters who use common sense and slit hot dogs in half lengthwise. When my niece and nephs were small, I'd slit their hot dogs into quarters and put the pieces in a bun.

I learned that trick from my great-grandmother, who raised four children and rode herd on nine grandchildren and at least a dozen great-grands without a single one of us choking to death on a hot dog.

Grapes are also the perfect size to block a child's airway. Will pediatricians demand genetically engineered grapes of a different size, or will they just tell parents "Hey, stupid, cut them into pieces so your kid doesn't choke"?

I shudder to think how much money would be poured into redesigning hot dogs - money that could be much better spent on trying to cure diseases that kill many more kids a year.

Read the article USA TODAY/Pediatricians call for choke-free hotdog

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A choke proof hot-dog?

How about hot-dog flavored pudding?

Read the article USA TODAY/Pediatricians call for choke-free hotdog

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Hot dogs already come with a warning label and product safety device.

They are called parents and other adult supervision.

Read the article USA TODAY/Pediatricians call for choke-free hotdog

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I have lived for two years in Switzerland and while there I soon realized that it is a country where everything is a) well designed and b) neat and clean. This certainly extends to their hot dogs. A Swiss hot dog is about 1/2 the diameter of the standard American one (negating any issue with choking) and it comes in a bun that has a hole drilled lengthwise along the long axis. Best of all - this hole does not extend all the way through thereby eliminating the inevitable ketchup/mustard drip that comes with the American version. Just insert your dog and condiments in the open end and munch away.

Simple, neat and very Swiss!

Read the article NPR/Group seeks hot dog redesign to prevent choking