Category Archives: Health

Business, Culinary, Health, Science And Society

The Bee Mystery

9 Comments

I hadn’t known about this:

Researchers are making headway in mapping the genes that help bees overcome these obstacles, including which genes help them safely break down pesticides. Now researchers have identified several compounds that help turn on those genes. They’re present in honey, something commercial bees don’t get to keep–their food supply is taken for human use, and bees are feed sweet substitutes like corn syrup.

Wenfu Mao and colleagues found three compounds in honey that increase the expression of a gene that helps bees metabolize pesticides. The most important chemical is something called p-coumaric acid, which is found in pollen cells. By eating honey, which contains pollen, the bees are exposed to a compound that basically boosts their ability to break down dangerous chemicals. So honey substitutes like high-fructose corn syrup may compromise their health.

You don’t say. Corn syrup isn’t good for anyone. No reason to think it would keep a bee healthy, but apparently the industry fooled themselves into thinking so.

Now that they understand this, maybe there’s something they can do about it, and still harvest honey.

Culinary, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Low Fat, High Carb

31 Comments

I’m sure that this is just a coincidence:

It’s an interesting coincidence that this increase in obesity started roughly at the same time that the U.S. government started to advocate low-fat, high-carb diets. I remember that period pretty clearly, because I thought it was wonderful. Entenmann’s came out with no-fat pastries — the no-fat cherry coffeecake was one of my favorites — I could eat as much rice as I wanted, pasta was good and more pasta was better, as long as you didn’t use butter because of the evil saturated fat and cholesterol. But margarine, rich in transfats made by hydrogenating corn oil, was much better.

I remember that period clearly, too. It was during that time, after my father’s first heart attack at age 44, that the health gurus told him to go low-fat and eat more grains. Ten years later, he had another one, from which he died a month later. I blame the FDA/nutrition-industrial complex for his death (though it didn’t help that he smoked and had grown up on bagels, knishes and potatoes). And I find it particularly galling when idiots think that it’s anti-science to not buy the health-destroying junk science of the conventional wisdom, when the actual science indicates that it’s killing us.

[Update a couple minutes later]

In reading the Yglesias piece, it’s worth pointing out the flaw in the logic. No one is claiming that humans aren’t capable of rapidly evolving to accommodate dietary changes. That’s a straw man.

The issue is whether or not there is any evolutionary pressure for us to evolve to be healthy with a modern big-agro diet. In short, there is not. If you’re lactose intolerant in a dairy-based society, you’re unlikely to thrive or reproduce. But when it comes to grains, people do just fine on such diets when young, in terms of reaching reproductive age and rearing kids. The bad effects hit us generally later in life, when our genes no longer care (yes, I’m anthropomorphizing, but you know what I mean) whether we live or die, or are healthy or ill. So we go on, generation after generation, continuing to eat crap that’s bad for us, and our bodies not bothering to adapt.

Business, Economics, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Chutzpah Of Max Baucus

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Mike Pompeo calls him on it:

If it’s a train wreck, Pompeo said, Baucus has no one to blame but himself.

“No one in the country bears more responsibility for the complexity of this law than you,” Pompeo wrote in a letter to Baucus on Thursday.

Baucus, as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, was a key architect of the Affordable Care Act. Most of its major provisions were crafted in his committee, and the Finance draft was consistently treated as the primary bill even as other Senate and House committees worked on their own proposals.

“You drafted it, you twisted arms to get it passed, and, until now, you have lauded it as a model for all the world,” Pompeo wrote to Baucus. “Your attempts to pass the buck to President Obama’s team will not work, nor will they absolve you of responsibility for the harm that you have brought via this law.”

Baucus has a competitive reelection fight coming up next year — just months after the biggest pieces of ObamaCare are set to take effect. Republicans have already made clear that they plan to target Baucus over his role in getting the healthcare law passed, and problems with the implementation could make the GOP’s job easier.

My emphasis.

It certainly should make it easier. These people are truly disgusting.

Administrative, Health, Technology and Society

Busy And Aching

8 Comments

I was traveling most of last week, and I’m now frantically trying to finish the book. Plus, I had a tooth extracted this morning.

Just in case anyone was wondering why blogging has been light to non-existent.

[Wednesday morning update]

Thanks for the sympathy, but it’s really not that bad. The extraction was almost painless, with lidocaine, and I’ve only experienced a little swelling, and not much pain, on ibuprofen. I feel pretty much back to normal today. Next related project is an implant, in a few months after the bone graft has filled in and healed, but my experience with those is that they’re not a big deal, either. Modern dentistry is one of the many reasons that I wouldn’t want to have been born in an earlier era.

Culinary, Health, Media Criticism

Lipidophobia

5 Comments

OK, here’s yet another article extolling the terrors of fat:

Also known as Eskimo Ice Cream, akutaq, (pronounced agoodik or agooduk) is a classic native dish that is still popular today. Traditionally, women made a batch of the frosty treat when the men returned with a freshly killed polar bear or seal. Today, modern versions are usually prepared with Crisco, but traditional recipes called for meat and fat from caribou, moose, bears, seals, and fish.

Ingredients: Reindeer fat, seal oil, salmonberries, blackberries

Fat content: It’s hard to estimate without a known serving size of this native treat. But consider this: An average serving of reindeer fat packs a whopping 91 grams of fat. A different version made with fish, berries, and seal oil contains 9 grams of fat.

And you know what? Those on the traditional Inuit diet have very low rates of hearth disease. So what does this do for your thesis? You know what’s wrong with most of the dishes listed? Hint: it’s not fat.