I'm Healthy! (Says The Health Insurance)

My friendly health insurance has written me to inform me that I am – contrary to the assertion of my doctor, and without them having ever seen or contacted me – not afflicted by any disease or illness. Cured by health insurance, it seems! What a marvellous wonder! If a health insurance (unlike doctors) can make people healthy, we should do away with all doctors all together, and simply rely on health insurances to make people health with their some written words.

Same as Pluto, which doesn't care if call it a planet or a dwarf planet, my state of health is unfortunately wholeheartedly unimpressed and unmoved by the assertion from my health insurance.

I for one am intensely grateful for this humble lesson of sophistic philosophy inflicted instilled on me by my health insurance – truly if they cure people so easily, they must sleep like babies at night. As an atheist, I say "god bless them!" to that.

The Tabloids: Nature and Science

"Clark" has this to report:

When I review for Nature (not climate science), I find about half of the reviewers (we get to see all the reviews) do a superficial review. When this happens, they are typically reviewing how ‘significant’ the work is, not how scientifically sound it is. Interestingly, the journals a step down from Science and Nature have on average much more rigorous and consistent reviews.

One thing that is definitely more true of Nature and Science than any other journal I’ve reviewed for is that the editor will override a critical review if the lead author is prominent enough. The sections editors for both journals will go to scientific meetings in their areas to scout out the ‘hottest’ findings.

The tabloids, mainly interested in the hottest latest biggest bang that sells – science and reality be damned.

Atopic Dermatitis ("Neurodermitis") Caused By Dairy and Eggs?

Another chronic skin condition which is possibly caused by (pasteurized) milk and dairy: Atopic Dermatitis ("Neurodermitis").

The German weekly "Der Spiegel" had this to report in August 2011 (translation mine):

… After Nina Meier's odyssey through doctors offices and many treatments, the turn came with a few words: "Abstain from cow's milk and eggs," advised a general practitioner. "I said to myself, shit, I'll simply try it," says Meier. "It can't get any worse." For one week the symptoms got worse - but then came the turning point. "I could rub off my skin like scabs, underneath new skin came to light. After the old skin had gradually peeled off, it was fine."

Since then she has never been in treatment for their eczema again. With regards to dermatologists she is now skeptical. Nina Meier says she had trusted doctors too much and "ignored nutrition during the search for the cause, because the doctors said nutrition did not play a role". Meanwhile, she can tolerate even a little bit of cow's milk or egg. "And even if my body reacts, I won't get no stressed anymore. Because I now know the cause." …

http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/gesellschaft/jahrelange-fehltherapie-gefangen-in-der-eigenen-haut-a-780722.html

The entire article in "Der Spiegel" is a truly horror story of her various treatments by "evidence based" medical industry – at least it has an happy end for her. What about the countless others who are stuck in this ordeal?

So after Acne, Aphthous Ulcers, Behçet's and Psoriasis, I can add this to my growing list. Why is it the skin, that is the "target"? What is the common mechanism here? I'm sure it will be fascinating to read the mechanism, once medical science will find it out in a couple of decades… I sure hope I live that long.

Et tu, Mutton?

So in addition to cow products (especially dairy and veal), it seems that lamb does at well cause Acne/Behçet's like symptoms for me.

Tough look.

Interesting was that veal caused much more problems than beef, and that lamb is on the same order as veal. Something is different in the meat from those young animals.

If other bovid animals are the same for me? Seems like the entire family of Bovidae might be bad for me – must be some shared protein or something…

90% Of Preclinical Cancer Research Is Not Reproducable

Oh my:

In their Comment article 'Raise standards for preclinical cancer research', C. Glenn Begley and Lee Ellis (Nature 483, 531–533; 2012) refer to scientists at Amgen who were able to reproduce findings in only 11% of 53 published papers. Several correspondents have asked for details of these studies, which were not provided in the article.

The Amgen scientists approached the papers' original authors to discuss findings and sometimes borrowed materials to repeat the experiments. In some cases, those authors required them to sign an agreement that they would not disclose their findings about specific papers. Begley and Ellis were therefore not free to identify the irreproducible papers — a fact that the Comment should have mentioned.

Nature, like most journals, requires authors of research papers to make their data available on request. In this less formal Comment, we chose not to enforce this requirement so that Begley and Ellis could abide by the legal agreements.

The scientists at Amgen could not have implemented their study had they reserved the right to reveal the outcome for individual papers. The Comment highlights important systemic problems in preclinical cancer research, which we felt appropriate to communicate to our readers, even though the authors could not disclose the studies in question.

Cochrane: No Health Benefits By Reducing Saturated Fat

Via That Paleo Guy:

There are no clear health benefits of replacing saturated fats with starchy foods (reducing the total amount of fat we eat).

Oh my.

Clearly the people at Cochrane just don't know how to look for the "proper" evidence. After all, haven't we be told for decades that Saturated Fat is THE bogey man? What's next? That they tell us that statins don't work?

Lu·di·crous No·tions: Calories In = Calories Out

lu·di·crous

(Adjective)
So foolish, unreasonable, or out of place as to be amusing.

Synonyms
ridiculous - laughable - absurd - funny - comical

no·tions

(Noun, plural of no·tion)
1. A conception of or belief about something.
2. A vague awareness or understanding of the nature of something.

Synonyms
haberdashery - dry goods

The "Calories In = Calories Out" hypothesis is based on the assumption that an healthy human body has no mechanisms for regulating energy uptake and energy expenditure.

What a ludicrous notion.

Well, for starters there is "hunger" and "satiety", which clearly regulate energy uptake.

Then there is the "the urge to go out and do something" (for lack of a better word) and "fatigue", which clearly regulate how much physical activity you do.

And these are only two of the high level manifestations of regulation mechanisms that are most "visible" therefore on the top of my mind. If you look you will certainly find mechanisms on various levels, like in the gut, or even in the cells – the neat insulin and insulin resistance thingy comes to my mind.

But this is of course only true if you use not the wrong fuel for your machine human body (wrong food = most of the evolutionary novel food), and only if those mechanisms are not broken. Once you start using the wrong fuel and things start to break down, all bets are off. Fuck up your insulin sensitivity by using the wrong fuel? Congrats, you just put yourself on the path to obesity and diabetes…

Eat beef, butter and egg, help cure TB?

Dr. Briffa on an interesting experiment:

… while I was researching this post I came across an interesting human study in which some attempt was made to assess the role of cholesterol in immunity in humans [3].

This study took 21 individuals who had confirmed infection with tuberculosis (TB). All of the individuals were treated with standard TB medication (four antibiotics taken in combination) over a period of 8 weeks.

Of the 21 participants, 10 were given a cholesterol-rich diet (800 mg of cholesterol a day – about the amount of cholesterol found in 5 medium-sized eggs). The rest of the study participants were to eat a diet which contained 250 mg of cholesterol each day.

After two weeks of treatment, 80 per cent of those eating a high-cholesterol diet were free of TB infection, compared to only 9 per cent of the others. This difference was statistically significant. The authors of the study concluded that:

“A cholesterol-rich diet accelerated the sterilization rate of sputum cultures in pulmonary tuberculosis patients, suggesting that cholesterol should be used as a complementary measure in antitubercular treatment.”

The findings support this conclusion, but it should be borne in mind that the benefits from the diet may not have come from additional dietary cholesterol per se. The cholesterol came via enrichment of the diet with foods such as butter, beef liver and egg yolk. It’s possible, therefore, that the benefits came from other nutritional elements found in these foods, say. The authors of this study acknowledge this possibility.