Showing posts with label destruction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label destruction. Show all posts
The New York Times Newt Gingrichs Sins and The Merits of Creative Destruction
Friday, May 2, 2014
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| Wheres Newt? |
Yet, keynoting prowess is one thing, but being a contender for President an another. Now that Newt has clawed is way into a leading position in the polls, greater visibility has prompted greater scrutiny.
Thats why the DMCB likes this New York Times article on Newts unseemly mix of health advocacy and business ties. Its not pretty, portraying Newt as a cynical political opportunist who has been brazenly willing to ally himself with popular "big-government" ideas. Whats more, The Times darkly implies that consulting fees from big pharma and insurance companies caused him to promote their business interests.
So what, according to The New York Times, are Newts five sins?
1. While every other service industry relied on information technology, Newt had little patience for a health care system system that perpetuated reliance on pen and paper. When HITECH passed, private citizen Newt had little problem taking some of the credit and collecting some fees while he was at it.
2. Newt repeatedly observed that ATMs could reconcile complex financial records and yield hard cash from any ATM in the world within seconds, yet Medicares payment systems were inaccurate, byzantine and highly vulnerable to fraud. He called for the orm of Medicare, which later also turned out to be one of the bedrock principles of the Democrats modernizing health orm agenda.
3. Then theres this 1995 "wither on the vine" quote in which he maps out the demise of Medicare because of orms leading Americans to "voluntarily [going to] leave it -- voluntarily." Fast forward 15 years and Newt is supporting the Ryan-Wyden bipartisan compromise legislative proposal that is likewise based on voluntary choice and doesnt end Medicare as we know it.
4. Newt was also an ardent supporter of comparative effectiveness research (CER) Newt specifically cited not-for-profit Cochrane as an example of the kind of CER he supported. He doesnt like this $1.1 billion boondoggle.
5. As for funding from insurers and pharma, Newts ideas on enhanced coverage of children and diabetes care attracted like-minded companies and allies.
"Big deal," says the yawning DMCB. The Times concerns about Newts past lack substantive ballast. If nothing else, Newts pugilistic skills will make Mitt Romney a stronger contender - assuming he makes it to the championship round .
While the DMCB is at it, it cant help but take a quick look at two other arenas of alleged Newty nuttiness:
1) That infamous criticism about his fellow conservatives dangerous "social engineering" in the Ryan Ver. 1.0 plan:
The DMCB thinks Newt personally liked the plan but disliked the prospect of having it pass over the objections of a leery electorate. Its one thing to dream up a good plan, but its another to craft it behind closed doors and impose it on an unwilling citizenry.
By the way, that some logic seemed to underlie his recent debate commentary over abolishing "activist" federal courts. Hes warning that in a divided powers representative democracy, the co-equal legislative and executive branches and grumpy voters could be pushed into neutralizing flashpoint judges at either end of the political spectrum with recalls, subpoenas, impeachment and defunding. Hes not only consistent, he has a point. (A 12/22 addendum - A point which Newt is provocatively willing to to back up with U.S. Marshals. Of course, he could just sandbang them during State of the Union Addresses. Whats next: pieing?)
2) Being too incendiary, zany and mercurial to be President
This was best portrayed by Peggy Noonans December 10 Wall Street Journal "Declarations" description of Newt as a human "hand grenade" who delights in being to ready "watch this!" pull the pin at a moments notice.
Good point, but there is also something stubbornly dysfunctional in many parts of the health care system. If Obamacare doesnt work out as planned, there may be merit to the notion rejecting the Republican mainstream and applying a heavy dose of creative destruction. Newt certainly has the "creative" and "destruction" chops. Absent anyone else with this particular skill set, Newts biggest problem may be that were just not ready for him to combine them... yet.
Newts problem is that hes still far ahead of the curve.
Let the games continue.
Broccoli and Cruciferous Vegetable Compound Targets Cancer Cells for Destruction
Friday, March 21, 2014
Cruciferous vegetables have long been associated with a lowered risk of prostate cancer, but this is the first study to demonstrate the `search and attack` capability of the natural chemical compound. Consuming small amounts of crucifers several times each week can help to significantly lower your risk of developing many types of potentially deadly cancer lines.
Sulforaphane from Broccoli and Crucifers Targets Cancer Cells for Destruction
Based on prior research to indicate that crucifers and sulforaphane specifically kill cancer cells, researchers designed a trial study using mouse models to demonstrate that sulforaphane selectively targets hormone dependent cancers such as breast and prostate. Dr. Ho commented “It is well documented that sulforaphane can target cancer cells through multiple chemopreventive mechanisms” and continued “Here we show for the first time that sulforaphane selectively targets benign hyperplasia cells and cancerous prostate cells while leaving the normal prostate cells unaffected.”
Natural Food Inhibits Enzymes Necessary for Cancer Development
Scientists clearly demonstrated the specific mechanism to explain how sulforaphane targets breast and prostate cancer cells. Many existing studies show that nutrients present in cruciferous vegetables can halt all cancer cell lines by inhibiting the fuel necessary for the cells to multiply out of control. Researchers concluded the data collected “provide(s) further support for the relevance of sulforaphane as a dietary HDAC inhibitor and chemopreventive agent.” Nutritional experts recommend several three to four ounce servings of lightly steamed crucifers each week to prevent cancer development.
Whole Grain Destruction
Sunday, February 2, 2014
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| Bread... destroyed |
Aaand back to the sciencey posts. I do like the more philosophical rant posts, but truthfully, I get my jollies off in two ways... reading about scientific research and drinking endless coffee (take note ladies). Consider both covered. Big nerd? Probably. Bored because the weather is shitty and everyone I know is at work? Absolutely.
Today’s topic is grains. More specifically, whole grains. Many of you may know my stance on grains; I think they’re nutritionally useless, potentially harmful, and they often displace the more nutritious foods we could be eating (ie. fruits, vegetables, meats, seafood). But today, I offer more convincing evidence against grains in the form of randomized, controlled scientific research. Yup, the gold standard.
Let’s go over the levels of scientific evidence, just briefly so no ones confused. For my purposes today, I’ll be talking about two types of study designs: epidemiological research and randomized, controlled trials. The weaker of the two is epidemiological research. In this type of study, participants are recruited, asked about their dietary patterns, and followed for a period of time to see who lives and who gets sick and/or dies. Its observational in nature, and you cant infer cause and effect. Blah, blah, blah, etc, etc, etc... the best you can do is to find a connection between two variables. For instance, you might see that people who eat more whole grains tend to have less incidence of cardiovascular disease (1,2). That doesn’t mean eating whole grains caused a reduction in heart disease; it just means the two happened at the same time. It could be, instead, that people who consume more whole grains are typically more health conscious. So in addition to eating whole grains, they exercise more, eat more fruits and vegetables, and choose not to smoke. Maybe the grains were just along for the ride, while the other variables were what really mattered. Theres no way to know for sure.
What you can do, though, is use this information to set up a randomized, controlled trial. In this type of study, you can isolate one variable that you think is important, like whole grains, so that you can determine cause and effect. You need a control group, which would eat ined grains (or no grains), and an experimental group, which would eat whole grains. Then, you can measure the difference in health outcomes; maybe vitamin/mineral status, blood sugar control, or risk of heart disease. The key, in this case, is that you have a much clearer idea of causality.
The point is, randomized, controlled trials trump epidemiological research. Which is why Im so glad I found this article by Anthony Colpo, in which he discusses all of this randomized, controlled research on grains. Theres a reason why the only research you hear to support whole grains is observational... because the controlled trials destroy them. In fact, whole grains may be even worse than the ined variety. Feast your eyes on this here research...
Whole Grains and Mineral Status
Ive written about it before. Whole grains are full of antinutrients, like phytates, that make minerals unavailable to the body. This is the result...
As far back as 1949, researchers from the University of Ceylon in Sri Lanka found feeding brown rice to healthy male medical students for three weeks worsened their calcium and magnesium status, even though their intake of these nutrients was higher than when they ate white rice (3). A 1960 paper by Indian researchers reported similar findings for calcium and warned “the exclusive consumption of brown rice in diets containing marginal or submarginal amounts of calcium is not to be recommended as it may produce negative calcium balances (4).”
In addition, a 1976 paper reported a tightly controlled metabolic ward study in Iran in which two men ate 2 different diets for 20 days each. During the first 20 days, more than 50% of their energy intake was provided by white bread. During the second 20-day period, the white bread was replaced with Bazari, a traditional whole grain bread. Apart from the different breads, the experimental diets contained identical amounts of cheese, milk, mutton, fruits and vegetables, beans, rice, turnips, oils, tea/water, and sugar. The whole wheat bread diet was shown to significantly worsen zinc, calcium, and magnesium status, despite the increase in both calcium and magnesium consumption during this period (5).
Looks like whole grains increase your requirement for critical minerals like calcium, magnesium, and zinc. Osteoporosis anyone? You may even be better off with white rice and white bread! Continuing on...
LDL Oxidation
LDL oxidation is a key player in cardiovascular disease. LDL particles on their own may not be harmful, but oxidized LDL particles certainly are. They may even have a causal role in the development of atherosclerotic plaque. Having said that, check out this paper by Jenkins et al. Researchers gave type 2 diabetics a low-wheat fiber diet and a high-wheat fiber diet containing bran-rich bread and breakfast cereal for three months each. LDL oxidation increased during the high-wheat fiber phase (6).
Its only three months, which is too short to see any effect on the rate of heart disease, but increasing oxidized LDL certainly indicates a problem.
Whole Grains for Diabetics
Your run-of-the-mill dietitian will tell you diabetics need to eat brown rice instead of white rice, since it has more fiber and a lower glycemic index. Well theyd be wrong. Actually, brown and white rice have virtually the same glycemic index; what really matters is the type of rice. Long grain rice strains have higher amylose contents than their short grain cousins, so wherever possible opt for long grain rices like Basmati and Doongara, as they tend to have lower GI scores than instant, converted and short-grain varieties. Jasmine is an exception to the rule as it sports a higher GI despite its long grain status (7,8).
A recent clinical trial from China further puts lie to the claim that brown rice has some sort of anti-diabetic effect. Researchers randomly assigned 202 middle-aged adults with diabetes or a high risk for diabetes to consume either white or brown rice ad libitum for 16 weeks. No differences were noted in BMI, waist circumference, glycated hemoglobin, blood glucose or insulin concentrations between the two groups (9).
Brown rice better than white rice?? Pshhhh, I dont think so.
Arsenic in Brown Rice
Unless you exclusively eat rice grown and watered under strict organic growing conditions, it is true that you may get a little something extra from brown rice. Unfortunately, that something extra happens to be a group 1 carcinogen. You see, vitamins, minerals, amino acids and trace elements are not the only things plants absorb from the soil and water in which they grow. Toxic metals like arsenic also find their way into plants; analyses of hundreds of varieties of white and brown rice have found the latter to contain higher levels of arsenic than white rice (10,11). The higher concentration of arsenic in brown rice is attributed to the fact it still retains its outer layers; rice bran is an especially rich source of arsenic (12).
Total Antioxidant Capacity
Youve probably heard of antioxidants. They fight free radicals, protecting our cells from damage. Total antioxidant capacity is simply a measure of our bodys ability to do this. Do whole grains help our bodies in this regard? Conventional nutrition may assume they do, since whole grains contain antioxidants. Lets see... In a University of Minnesota experiment, healthy young males and females followed a ined grain diet, or a diet in which ined grains were replaced by whole grain and whole meal products in random order. Despite its higher content of the antioxidant nutrients vitamin B6, folate, selenium, zinc, magnesium and cysteine, the whole grain diet produced no improvement whatsoever in blood antioxidant capacity, nor in urinary markers of antioxidant status (13). Looks like the answer is a clear no.
But fruits and vegetables, on the other hand, do increase our total antioxidant capacity. When young and older adult subjects doubled their usual intake of fruit and vegetables from five to 10 servings daily, substantial increases in blood antioxidant capacity were seen after 15 days (14). In a Danish study, healthy males and females who consumed an extra 600 grams of fruit and vegetables daily for 25 days experienced reductions in lipoprotein oxidation and increases in the activity of glutathione peroxidase, an enzyme in the body that is a powerful scavenger of free radicals (15).
The lesson? Whole grains provide shitty protection from free radicals, but fruits and vegetables are awesome. As you know.
Heart Disease
Remember those observational studies I cited earlier? The ones showing that people who ate more whole grains had lower rates of heart disease? Yeah, the ones that mean absolutely nothing. Well, the only randomized, clinical trial in existence to test the hypothesis shows no connection. Actually, it shows a slight increase in coronary and overall mortality in those eating whole wheat (16). I wish there were more studies done here, but the fact is its difficult to study diets impact on chronic disease. Its expensive. Maybe some day. But for now, whole grains do NOT appear to be protective of heart disease.
Colon Cancer
Were constantly told about the benefits of whole grains for our digestive health, especially colon cancer. While confounder-prone epidemiological studies backing this notion are easy to find, none of the numerous randomized controlled intervention trials conducted in this area support the possibility that high cereal fiber intakes prevent the progression of colon cancer (17). In fact, some of these trials noted worse outcomes in the treatment groups (18, 19).
The evidence is clear on colon cancer. There is no benefit. None at all.
The Bottom Line
So whole grains arent what their cracked up to be. And thats putting it nicely. And this isnt just me spouting off about grains being low in nutrients (20), or me ranting about the decline in human health when we adopted grains as a food source (21). Not that that stuff is useless. It has its place. But this is real science. This is whole grains, being studied to the best of our ability, and failing miserably.
This is important. Because everyone and their mother is currently going out of their way to eat more whole grains, putting up with the shitty taste because they think theyre doing their body a favor. Youre not. Stop it. We need to be eating less whole grains, and less grains in general. And I think you can now see why. Tell all your friends.
The evidence is clear on colon cancer. There is no benefit. None at all.
The Bottom Line
So whole grains arent what their cracked up to be. And thats putting it nicely. And this isnt just me spouting off about grains being low in nutrients (20), or me ranting about the decline in human health when we adopted grains as a food source (21). Not that that stuff is useless. It has its place. But this is real science. This is whole grains, being studied to the best of our ability, and failing miserably.
This is important. Because everyone and their mother is currently going out of their way to eat more whole grains, putting up with the shitty taste because they think theyre doing their body a favor. Youre not. Stop it. We need to be eating less whole grains, and less grains in general. And I think you can now see why. Tell all your friends.
Cows Milk Responsible For Destruction of Beta Cells in Type 1 Diabetes
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
One of my earlier posts (Think Twice Before Feeding Your Child Cows Milk) discussed the possibility that early ingestion of cows milk can increase the risk for type 1 diabetes.Last month, an article in a journal of the American Chemical Society reviewed the literature for this association:
Relation of Time of Introduction of Cow Milk Protein to an Infant and Risk of Type-1 Diabetes Mellitus, Journal of Proteome Research, April, 2008
Its author, Marcia Goldfarb, described a set of conditions which could explain how pancreatic beta cells are destroyed - leading to type 1 diabetes - when cows milk products are fed to infants:
"The newborn intestine does not have complete "closure" and can pass food antigens. Beta Lactoglobulin could generate antibody to glycodelin undermining T cell regulation of beta cells."
Mechanism
- Beta-lactoglobulin is a protein present in cows milk, but not human milk. "It has the largest concentration of any whey protein in bovine milk. (Goldfarb)" Glycodelin is a human protein that affects our immune system, regulating our T-cells.
- The cow beta-lactoglobulin and the human glycodelin have similar structures, such that an infants body may generate antibodies not just for the foreign beta-lactoglobulin, but also for the endogenous glycodelin.
- Type 1 diabetes is thought to be caused by autoimmune destruction of pancreatic beta cells by T-cells. Destruction of glycodelin (by the antibodies generated to destroy the foreign cows milk protein) may allow proliferation of these beta-cell-destroying T-cells.
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