WE ARE WHAT WE EAT

[Tizer]

It's all to do with quantity and frequency. There's nothing wrong with eating red meat or processed meat, only with eating too much of it and too often. The people who eat a bacon butty for lunch and a big steak every day of the week are the ones who have to change their diet.

The newspapers today are carrying details of a report that sugar causes health problems unrelated to the calorie content. The work was done by researchers at the University of California and here's the university's press release:
LINK

`Obese Children’s Health Rapidly Improves with Sugar Reduction Unrelated to Calories'
`Reducing consumption of added sugar, even without reducing calories or losing weight, has the power to reverse a cluster of chronic metabolic diseases, including high cholesterol and blood pressure, in children in as little as 10 days, according to a study by researchers at UC San Francisco and Touro University California. “This study definitively shows that sugar is metabolically harmful not because of its calories or its effects on weight; rather sugar is metabolically harmful because it’s sugar,” said lead author Robert Lustig, MD, MSL, pediatric endocrinologist at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco. “This internally controlled intervention study is a solid indication that sugar contributes to metabolic syndrome, and is the strongest evidence to date that the negative effects of sugar are not because of calories or obesity.'

This is interesting to me because my cousin, her husband and two young daughters have recently cut out sugar from their diet wherever possible and they are thriving on this regime. At first they found it a bit difficult because they all engage in sport and and exercise every day, so they felt short of energy. The 15-year-old said she "thought she was going to die" - this would have been been an unfamiliar feeling of faintness - she's not used to be short of sugar. Now they wonder why they ate so much sugar in the past!

[Stanley]

Interesting. No surprise to me that your cousin's family are thriving on less sugar. I have been of the opinion for years that the less added sugar you consume the better you are. The only sugar used in this house is muscovado in the bread making machine. I get plenty of sugar by natural routes in fruit particularly and I have the belief that this doesn't have the same ill effects. Don't ask me why, I'm going on the same principle I have always followed which is a variation of the 'If God put cholesterol in mother's milk it must be OK'! God put the sugar in fruit and veg.... Not scientific I know but I was right about the cholesterol, who knows, they may prove that I am on the right lines with sugar. It also fits in with my amateur theories about the advantages of a mixed diet. In subsistence societies (and all our ancestors were in this category) they had to eat everything edible they came across and even modern human metabolisms are shaped by that. Mind you, I draw the line at maggots and snails.....
I've never forgotten the theory that the biggest disadvantage the Australian Aborigines faced when the first settlers landed (leaving aside the imported diseases) was the introduction of sugar which ruined their teeth and made it impossible for them to continue with their natural diet.

[Tizer]

I think the report on sugar is important because it says sugar has a direct negative effect rather than simply adding to the total calorie intake. I'm looking forward to learning the mechanism of that direct effect. One thing about the report annoys me. Even the university's own press release refers to the `effect of sugar and fructose', yet sugar is a generic non-technical term and fructose is one of many sugars. I'm sure the researchers mean they have looked at the effects of two factors: total sugar content and fructose content of the food. Unfortunately the news media will have garbled the information because they think `sugar' means the stuff we buy in bags from Tesco, i.e. pure sucrose, whereas the researchers use it to include the total of all sugar types.

Below is a graphic from the university's web site illustrating the results and this does correctly use the term `total dietary sugar'. (LINK)

[Stanley]

How can the government ignore evidence like this and reject demands for a 'sugar tax' or similar action to lower overall sugar intake....? Could commercial interests be influencing them?

[Tizer]

The recent `Costing the Earth' programme on the bacteria killing olive trees in Italy was shocking. It's not only the devastating economic effects on the local population but the fact that Italy's characteristic scenery will change dramatically to a desert appearance. A double whammy - loss of the olive industry and loss of the tourist trade. Many of the olive trees are hundreds of years old and would take that long to replace, even if you can isolate resistant varieties. And the bacteria, spread by an insect, could move out beyond Italy and strike the whole Mediterranean area. It's heartbreaking for the Italians who depend so much on the olive crop and the olive landscape.

[Stanley]

Bad news.... Bad for Greece as well!

[Tizer]

And Spain. Of course a lot of olive oil is being produced now in countries far from the Med. New Zealand is a good example and they are very rigorous in ensuring quality and authenticity to protect their reputation. California produces olives and the programme said their trees are less susceptible to the disease.

[Stanley]

At one time daughter Margaret worked as administrator and book keeper for a firm that ran organic olive oil farms in Oz. She sent me some, it was very good quality....

[Stanley]

Two interesting news items caught my eye. See THIS for a sensible news item advocating using lard or butter instead of vegetable oil for frying because "it's better for you". Quite! Some of us have been shouting about this for a long time.
I heard a report on the World Service this morning in which a lady scientist was saying that one of the great dangers facing developing countries is that the more they are exposed to 'modern living' the more chance there is for them picking up the Western Diseases. She said that in 2005 the incidence of allergies etc in Africa was so low as to be negligible but today there is a significant increase in cases and the number is rising. She gave the example of a family living on a subsistence level in a mud hut with domestic animals running about and said that in such conditions, allergies in particular, were virtually unknown. She used an interesting phrase, "perhaps we are allergic to modern life". I like that, it just about sums it up. She thinks that this could be a significant danger in the future are eating and living habits 'improve'. Sounds sensible to me, we already know that in the UK the incidence of allergies and asthma is far less in kids reared on a farm.

[Tizer]

I still like the theory that our vulnerability to allergies is due to no longer having the permanent infections with parasites which were able to damp down our immune responses. We developed over millions of years in a close relationship with those parasites and then suddenly (relatively speaking) ditched them. We benefit from not having the bad effects of the parasites but have lost their good effects.

[Stanley]

I agree and the closer you are to animals and the land the more likely you pick them up and learn to deal with them. I have Brucellosis in my system and they tell me that once you have it it never leaves you. I don't get the symptoms now and so I assume my body has learned how to deal with it. Could this help defend me against different but similar organisms? I don't know the answer but I suspect that on the whole it's a good thing.

[Stanley]

See THIS for a report out this morning which could be bad news for Maz.... Garlic makes a man's sweat attractive to women because it suggests health. So that's why woman are always pleased to talk to me on the street.....

[Stanley]

Wendy and her thoughts on diet were on my mind this morning as I built a stew. A layer of onions, seven small minted lamb chops, topped up with sprouts, parsnips and carrots. Salt, pepper, two chicken Oxos a dash of vinegar and a bottle of vintage cider. It's sat on a very slow stove in the front room and will quietly argue with itself for as long as it takes. I think Wendy would approve.....

[Tizer]

`Diet debate: Low-fat or high-fat - does it matter?' BBC Fat
This article contains the quote:
The World Health Organization advises that between 30% and 35% of our calories should come from fat arguing there is "no probable or convincing evidence" that the total amount of fat in our diet is altering the risk of cancer or cardiovascular disease.

[Stanley]

I would agree but add that the fat is best derived from natural sources such as grass fed meat and of course some vegetable sources. Bearing in mind all the while that the amount ingested should be governed by what we burn off to avoid fat retention in the body beyond what is needed for a healthy metabolism. Too much fat, even if the highest quality, can still be a killer but not necessarily through the routes that the 'cheap fat lobby' has promoted so successfully even though what they were saying was wrong, not based on lipid research but the greed for profits and longer shelf life.
That's why when I make a stew one of my essential steps is to drain the gravy off after the initial cooking, put it in the fridge, and remove the excess fat. There is still enough fat left in the stew to enhance taste and assure satisfaction but not enough to damage you. I've just done it with my latest stew which conforms to Aunty Wendy's standards with the exception of three spuds that needed using.... No parsnips, carrots, onions and cauliflower.

[Stanley]

it's 'official'! The claims made for the health giving properties of red wine have been comprehensively rejected by researchers. (LINK)
I sometimes wonder about the value of all the health advice that is thrown at us. You have to be very perceptive and selective to sort the wheat from the chaff.

[Tizer]

The newspapers drive me to despair, they don't understand the science or even how science progresses and scientists work yet they pontificate on every scientific publication or announcement as if they are the experts. Scientific research progresses through many small steps, adding a bit of information here, a slight backtracking there, and it's never finished - all we can ever have is the best judgement based on the evidence at the time. Scientists aim to prove the claims of their colleagues wrong by developing improved methods and these improvements act like a `nudging' mechanism, gradually directing us closer to the correct answer or conclusion. But the newspapers jump on every announcement as if it's the final decision, the end of the research, and accuse scientists of `always changing their minds'. I know freedom of speech is important but I think that as far as science reporting is concerned the newspapers are now doing more harm than good.

[Stanley]

You could well be right Tiz, particularly the way they publish suspect findings without comment. A prime example is the way the canard that Saturayted fat is a killer was foisted on the world by industry with an axe to grind.
I watched 'Trust me I'm a doctor' on play back last night. It appears I seem to have been doing all the right things......

[Stanley]

THIS report states that there is no safe level of drinking for pregnant women and only allows two units a day average for anyone else with at least two alcohol free days a week. The main driver is the connection between alcohol consumption and cancer. I have no argument with this, it has always puzzled me that such a dangerous substance as alcohol is allowed to be consumed legally. It kills far more people than hard drugs but there is money to be made out of it.....

[Tizer]

As many of us are aware, most things are poisonous at some `dosage level', some more so than others. We cope with most of them effectively because they are only mildly poisonous or the level taken into our body is very low. Evolution has dealt with that. But neat ethanol is very poisonous and we ingest relatively large amounts of it in our alcoholic drinks. It's no wonder that it results in trouble! And it makes Nigel Farage look a complete fool for saying "No-one has ever died from alcohol drinks" (quoted on BBC, 8 Jan 2016). Some people have drunk so much at once that they die immediately if they don't get fast medical attention - and some probably die even with that attention.

Our problem is more to do with how we drink it persistently, day after day with no chance for our liver, which has the job of detoxifying it, to recover from being bombarded with poison. The health advisers and government are caught in a trap, needing to take some action because of the cost to the NHS of dealing with illness caused by alcohol intake. But there is a danger of garbling the message, having it ignored because it sounds too draconian. Quoting statistical risks can be misleading when out of context. As I've often said, such figures refer to statistical populations, not to individuals. We've been saying for years that health advice needs to be tailored to the individual, not to the population.

[Stanley]

I have been just about TT for many years now. A bottle of single malt lasts me for almost two years so the Vatican Cellar is building as I get a bottle a year from the paper! I don't count the vintage cider I use in my cooking because the alcohol will have evaporated off it. I always remember someone pointing out to me that it was far better to live with someone addicted to Cannabis than an alcoholic.... I think that's probably right and yet Cannabis is illegal! I also remember that one of the statistics about pit villages after the closures was that the rate of heroin abuse went up because it was a cheaper high than alcohol.... Probably safer as well as cheaper!

[Tizer]

"...better to live with someone addicted to Cannabis than an alcoholic.."
That may not be comparing like with like. An alcoholic is an alcohol abuser. A cannabis abuser may be just as bad to live with as an alcohol abuser. The cannabis abuser may not get violent but they may well abandon their duties and responsibilities to family and employer etc.

[Stanley]

The lady who told me that had experienced both... But of course, degrees of abuse vary....

[Stanley]

See THIS for news of an increased risk of Type 2 Diabetes in pregnant women if they eat potatoes. I immediately thought of Wendy. It looks as though, as usual, she is in front of the curve!

[plaques]

I once read that a baked potato would break down to usable energy faster than any other food, being second to glucose itself. Perhaps this is why they are saying avoid potatoes because they flood the body with excess sugar levels. Any thoughts Tizer?