The Politics of Vitamin Research (cardiovascular)

scientism
http://www.webref.org/anthropology/s/scientism.htm
“scientism: the belief that there is one and only one method
of science and that it alone confers legitimacy upon the
conduct of research.”

The political position of the Medical Establishment seems to indicate
that those who take vitamin supplements are basically creating
expensive urine. The obvious political justification is that if
vitamins are indeed both inexpensive and effective why should
physicians prescribe statins which are both expensive and come with a
number of serious side effects; other then to extract as much money as
possible from both patients and their health insurance?

For example: “Many experts say the finding, published this week in
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Living/ap20030612_2091.html
The Lancet medical journal, settles the issue of antioxidant vitamins
for heart health.”

Vivekananthan DP, Penn MS, Sapp SK.
Use of antioxidant vitamins for the prevention of
cardiovascular disease: meta-analysis of randomised trials.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12814711&dopt=Abstract
Lancet. 2003 Jun 14;361(9374):2017-23.
PMID: 12814711

I call into question the following recent research study. According
to this study, the issue of antioxidant vitamins for heart health is
not by any means settled.

Osganian SK, Stampfer MJ, Rimm E.
Vitamin C and risk of coronary heart disease in women.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12875759&dopt=Abstract
J Am Coll Cardiol. 2003 Jul 16;42(2):246-52.
PMID: 12875759

After taking into account the women’s age, whether they smoked,
and other factors, the researchers found that the risk of heart
disease dropped as vitamin C intake increased. Women who used
vitamin C pills were 28% less likely to develop heart disease
than women who didn’t.

The findings of the above study were different from most other recent
vitamin c research. Half of the human population happens to be female
and have a built-in immunity against heart disease for about 10 years
over men. This probably explains why women live longer than men do. As
a result, many other studies have shown antioxidants to be effective
for men, but not for women. And, that the men who have been the most
protected are those who smoke and engage in unhealthy
lifestyles.

Yet, the above study found that women who used vitamin C pills were
28% less likely to develop heart disease than women who didn’t.

Now, compare that positive finding with this recent review study.

Morris CD, Carson S.
Routine vitamin supplementation to prevent cardiovascular
disease: a summary of the evidence for the U.S. Preventive
Services Task Force.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1\2834320&dopt=Abstract
Ann Intern Med. 2003 Jul 1;139(1):56-70.
PMID: 12834320

Full Text online for FREE at:
http://www.annals.org/issues/v139n1/full/200307010-00014.html

“In three of four cohort studies, vitamin C supplementation was not
associated with coronary heart disease mortality (21 23) or all-cause
mortality (23). In two studies in older samples (21, 23), vitamin C
use did not protect against coronary disease or all-cause mortality
after adjustment for relevant confounders (23). Similarly, vitamin C
had no impact on cardiovascular or coronary heart disease mortality
(27). However, in a good-quality follow-up study of NHANES I (22),
regular use of a vitamin C supplement reduced the standardized
mortality ratio for cardiovascular mortality by 48% and for all-cause
mortality by 26%. In a cohort analysis of a secondary prevention trial
of cholesterol reduction or coronary stenosis, vitamin C use (250
mg/d) had no appreciable effect on progression of stenosis (28).”

I read through the complete full text of this study. They found a
reason to exclude a sizeable number of studies from their review. And,
for every favorable finding they found a reason to discount it. I
would characterize this review as political as it gets.

So, I repeat my question.

Is Medical Scientism a bunch of crock when it comes to Vitamin
Research, or what? Do scientists intentionally distort their findings
by any and all means possible in order to further their political
agenda?
—
John Gohde,
Achieving good Health is an Art, NOT a Science!
http://NaturalHealthPerspective.com/
The ONLY Frauds in Health are those who couldn’t care less about
prevention.

—
“The emperor is naked!”
“No he isn’t, he’s merely endorsing a clothing-optional lifestyle!”

to email me
Please remove “all your clothes”

Doug

Your comments operationally illustrate how a scientist in writing a
research paper, simply by careful selection of the words he chooses to
use, can make the findings of his research paper either positive or
negative depending on his political agenda. And, thus before you can
properly interpret the results, you have to first determine the spin
the authors are trying to put on their paper.

A recent example of this would be:

Hodis HN, Mack WJ, Azen SP.
Hormone therapy and the progression of coronary-artery
atherosclerosis in postmenopausal women.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12904518&dopt=Abstract
N Engl J Med. 2003 Aug 7;349(6):535-45.
PMID: 12904518

The author of this study was clearly playing a word game because
by his selective wording he was able to conclude that the study was
negative in that HRT did not protect against heart disease. As most
women take HRT in order to relieve the symptoms of menopause,
the issue of whether or not HRT prevents heart disease is quite
irrelevant.

Your comments, of course, don’t speak well for impartial research.

If anything your comments illustrate exactly what a farce Medical
Scientism really is. 🙁
—
John Gohde,
Achieving good Nutrition is an Art, NOT a Science!

Get started on improving your personal health and fitness, today.
http://www.Tutorials.NaturalHealthPerspective.com/
Offering 14 easy to understand lessons that will change your life.

Anybody who spends any amount of time actually reading published
research would have to be some kind of a fool to place any faith in
the false religion of Medical Scientism to actually solve our Nations
Health Problems.

Published health research clearly goes in a spiral direction. It is
like traveling to the Moon, from Earth, by way of Mars. It is
laughably inefficient. It clearly has the objective of going as slow
as possible so that the paychecks of the research scientists will keep
coming in as long as is humanly possible.

And, as far as peer review research is concerned, it clearly does not
work in the case of Vitamin Research. Scientists in the field of
health research clearly are neither willing or able to correct the
problem. If Medical Scientism was how NASA depended on getting to the
Moon, we would never have gotten even one monkey to obit the earth
once. 🙁

Just my opinion. But, I am *right* as usual!
—
John Gohde,
Achieving good Health is an Art, NOT a Science!

Health-with-Attitude is a support group for people
trying to follow a Healthy Lifestyle.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Health-with-Attitude/

Jeff

The subject of this thread is “The Politics of Vitamin Research.”

Just thought that you might want to know. 🙂

Be sue to leave out *all* personal opinions on health. 🙂

LOL … In your case George, that means leaving out all the whining.
—
John Gohde,
Achieving good Health is an Art, NOT a Science!
http://NaturalHealthPerspective.com/
The ONLY Frauds in Health are those who couldn’t care less about prevention.

that

Perhaps if you were to concentrate?

The citation was cited by me to provide an example that shows that
when “a study” (ie, subject matter is irrelevant) does not produce the
expected negative results, scientists think absolutely nothing of
wording the abstract in such a fashion as to make the conclusion
negative anyway.

The subject of this thread is *not* about HRT. You are already wasted
every bodies time on that subject, George.

Just thought that you might want to know. 🙂
—
John Gohde,
Achieving good Health is an Art, NOT a Science!
http://NaturalHealthPerspective.com/
The ONLY Frauds in Health are those who couldn’t care less about
prevention.

—

Pramesh

Scientific method is defined by its design to prevent such distortion.

What political agenda? I know hundreds of doctors, and dozens of scientists.
Their politics range from right wing conservatism to socialism to at least
one self-proclaimed communist.

This word is not in common use, and sounds like a fabrication of those who
like to demean science as a mere belief system or religion.

Ah, it’s the Great Medical Conspiracy theory again. Bullshit.

Corellation is not causation.

But your ‘characterization’ is apolitical and impartial?

And I repeat my answer. No.

Science is a method of preventing us from lying to ourselves.

–Rich –>Frauds in “alternative medicine” abound. Just enter “herbs” in
Google to find thousands of them.

This opinionated tirade proves nothing about science, medicine, or the
politics of scientists or medical professionals.

I said, and still say, that there is no coherent “political agenda” among
medical professionals and scientists. There are hardly any political ideas
we agree on. There is certainly no illuminati-like controling organization.

Oh? For free? Or are you another greedy altie quack who’s anti-science
political agenda is designed to scare people away from their doctors and
toward your pseudonatural for-profit products?

–Rich

Rodwin MA.
The politics of evidence-based medicine.
http://www.ahcpr.gov/clinic/jhppl/rodwin.htm#Introduction
J Health Polit Policy Law. 2001 Apr;26(2):439-46. Review. No abstract available.
PMID: 11330089

contistutes an opinionated tirade?

No! You are presenting the opinionated tirade. 🙂

I simply quoted from an Academic Journal.
—
John Gohde,
Achieving good Health is an Art, NOT a Science!
http://NaturalHealthPerspective.com/
The ONLY Frauds in Health are those who couldn’t care less about prevention.

So you think that academic journals never publish opinionated, biased
articles? Doesn’t that undermine your contention that, “scientists
intentionally distort their findings…”? Besides, the article you are
quoting here was published under the title “Commentary” and presented as the
opinion of the author. It was never intended to represent researched
data-based fact as would appear in the body of an academic journal.

prevention.

And your feeble attempt at diversion gets a failing grade. The fact remains
that the article in question is a biased anti-science tirade, and that you
have presented nothing factual in support of your contention that scientists
distort their research in order to further some common political goal. See
if you can find anything solid. Present not just vague accusations, but an
example of a study that was cooked and the evidence that the errant
researcher was influenced by a conspiracy to “extract as much money as
possible from both patients and their health insurance.”
–Rich –>With a face of sunshine and serenity.

So then, it is the political agenda of the federal government (supplying the
great bulk of the research money) to suppress research favoring vitamin
supplements in favor of promoting the sale of statin drugs? Why? Besides, it
is not Mr. Gohde’s contention that vitamin researchers do not get funded,
but that they cheat when reporting their results.

You surely know more than a few scientists at Purdue. Ask them if they are
willing to cook their data or adjust their conclusions to meet a common
political agenda.

–Rich

But, in general the issue of natural versus synthetic is so passe as
to be almost laughable.

ad hominem comments?

Are you not making an oxymoron statement?

Hark! My private health newsgroup beckons!
—
John Gohde,
Achieving good Nutrition is an Art, NOT a Science!

The nutrition of eating a healthy diet is the foundation of the
biomedical model of natural health. Weighing in at 17 webpages,
Nutrition ( http://www.Food.NaturalHealthPerspective.com/ )is now
with more documentation and sharper terminology than ever before.

….that do not support your thesis.

Yes run away to your private sandbox. Come back to the real world when
you’ve learned enough about how it operates to engage in intelligent debate.

The rules of newgroup communication prohibits responding both to my
thesis and to your comments in the same post. All educated people
agree on this. I personally don’t even download very long posts.
Long posts are a marker for Twit Comments.

I will restate my thesis with support in a separate entirely new post. 🙂

You missed the obvious problem with my comments on reference #6.
There was actually nothing wrong with this abstract. The problem was
with the news media coverage of this abstract. The original press
release came from Reuters. Reuters news coverage is supposed to be of
high scientific quality. Obviously, their coverage is often
politically motivated. They failed to report that the results of two
studies in the New England Journal of Medicine was actually mixed.
They are the ones who erroneously made the claim the results of this
study was negative.

I have seen their biased reporting before. Another example would be
their erroneous claim that moderate exercise is just as effective as
intense physical exercise is in reducing the risk of mortality from
heart disease. I recall them positively making this type of health
claim from abstracts that directly contradicted their health claims.
I believe that they did this once or twice.

Of course, the precise news reports and citations are permanently
recorded on my Mailing List online database. 🙂

I never made any such claim.

At best, I claimed that the ‘negative conclusions’ of ‘some’ vitamin
research appears to be politically motivated.

I never claimed that *all* scientists and doctors have a common
political agenda. In fact, I was not talking about physicians at all.
Those comments were strictly made in reply to your comments.
—
John Gohde,
Patient Empowerment Advocate
http://home.naturalhealthperspective.com/empowerment.html
Email: Ngs@NaturalHealthPerspective.com
www.NaturalHealthPerspective.com – Pioneering De-Medicalization by
handing back the power to the people, encouraging self care and
autonomy, and resisting the categorization of life’s problems as
medical.

At best, I claimed that the ‘negative conclusions’ of ‘some’ vitamin
research appears to be politically motivated. I did state that ‘some’
research appear to be ‘down-right fraudulent,’ but I was intending to
refer *only* to a couple of recent review studies that erroneously
‘appeared’ to make the conclusion that the use of antioxidant
supplements were not effective. The use of vitamin supplements are a
lot more effective than the medical establishment (i.e., these recent
antioxidant reviews) would like you to believe.

Of course, what they precisely did was engage in intentionally deceptive word games

I never made any such claim.

I never claimed anbody was cooking their data!

I never claimed that *all* scientists have a common political agenda.

See my comments above.
—
John Gohde,
Achieving good Health is an Art, NOT a Science!

Health-with-Attitude is a support group for people
trying to follow a Healthy Lifestyle.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Health-with-Attitude/

So now the problem is bad science reporting in the popular press? I thought
we were talking about scientists distorting their findings.

Hmmm.

“Is Medical Scientism a bunch of crock when it comes to Vitamin
Research, or what? Do scientists intentionally distort their findings
by any and all means possible in order to further their political
agenda?”

“The political position of the Medical Establishment seems to indicate
that those who take vitamin supplements are basically creating
expensive urine. The obvious political justification is that if
vitamins are indeed both inexpensive and effective why should
physicians prescribe statins which are both expensive and come with a
number of serious side effects; other then to extract as much money as
possible from both patients and their health insurance?”

I don’t see the qualifying “some” in either of those accusatory statements
from your original post in the thread. And it seems to be “physicians” who
are greedily prescribing the statins. Oh, and who are the “Medical
Establishment”? Nursing assistants and hospital janitors?

–Rich –> Patient empowerment rises from patient knowledge. Learn your
science.

I’m not at all clear why the medical establishment would want to deceive me
about this. Surely vitamins do not compete directly with statins or other
prescription drugs at the consumer level. And even if my doctor prescribes
statins for me, I doubt he would object to my taking vitamins as well. In
fact, he does recommend folate supplement and a daily aspirin, neither of
which are high profit items for the “Medical Establishment.” Do you really
think that research scientists see supplementary vitamins as a threat to
replace prescription medication and thereby a threat to their livelihoods?
Precisely what do you think the “Medical Establishment” is doing, and WHY?

–Rich

—

Pramesh

‘Ghostwritten’ research claims
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/health/1806613.stm

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=research+studies+ghostwritten+by+drug+companies&btnG=Google+Search

—

Pramesh

The food pyramid was set by politics, not research. Milk was not a basic
food until the 1930s, and of course is not a basic food beyond age 2. On
white people can digest milk easily as an adult–the recommendation is
basically racist. The current food pyramid will be done away with in the
next few years and is thought to be one main cause of an increase in
diabetes.

Unproven statement at the present time.

If one did, would he admit it?

There are many ways to adjust conclusions to fit the biases
of the investigator. It took a lot of pressure to get the
government to fund the current study of diets; it was
“politically incorrect” to consider that high fat diets
MIGHT be a good idea, despite not having a single study
anywhere showing that they might be bad.

The same holds for the question of sodium. In this case,
the published studies go both ways, and it is clear that
they are not studying the same thing, OR that key negative
studies are not published. In general, a paper does not
get published unless it agrees with the biases of the
editors, or has very strong statistical results. This is
the religious misuse of statistics in medicine and other
branches of science.

This is quite common, and is a good reason why
meta-analysis, which is how different papers are combined,
is dangerous.

—
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558

Well, I certainly agree with you that meta-analysis is dangerous. I always
read those meta-analysed review studies with a higher order of skepticism. I
also agree that there are many ways to fit conclusions to the biases of the
investigator. Often, however, those biases will be pointed out by others, or
filtered out in peer review. And in the history of science, some of the
greatest discoverys have been made when a scientist chose a hypothesis to
match his biases, then had the courage and intellect to rethink the issue
when the research data did not meet his expectations.

: 1 tablespoon of turmeric daily

: 1 teaspoon of ginger daily

: 1 large glass of green tea daily

: 1 large chocolate bar with nuts daily

Medical centres recommending that people eat chocolate?!?

No wonder the world has diet problems 😉
—
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ tim@tt1.org

Not if you use inexpensive vitamins.

Just thought that you might want to know. 🙂
—
John Gohde,
Achieving good Nutrition is an Art, NOT a Science!

Get started on improving your personal health and fitness, today.
http://www.Tutorials.NaturalHealthPerspective.com/
Offering 14 easy to understand lessons that will change your life.

Just thought that you might want to know. 🙂

Hark! My private health newsgroup beckons!
—
John Gohde,
Achieving good Nutrition is an Art, NOT a Science!

The nutrition of eating a healthy diet is the foundation of the
biomedical model of natural health. Weighing in at 17 webpages,
Nutrition (http://www.Food.NaturalHealthPerspective.com/) is now
with more documentation and sharper terminology than ever before.

That was a good one!

Also, there is NO evidence at this time that low fat
diets are more healthful.
—
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558

—
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558

—
# syrahz_derzai ; at yahoo.com

I like the “is thought”? Is thought *by whom*? Religious low-carbies,
that’s who. They always change the subject when asked how the food pyramid
can be causing diabetes, making people fat, etc. when there’s no evidence
that a significant number of Americans follow it. Such a belief is,
though, quite consistent with libertarian ideology; it’s a recommendation
*by* the government *for* an aspect of people’s personal lives, and
a certain brand of libertarianism says the government *always* screws up
when doing such.

(There’s an amusing thought experiment to determine which functions of
government a caricatured libertarian thinks government can be successful
at: imagine kids playing at doing it. If the activity would attract mostly
boys (army, cops and robbers, etc.) it’s legitimate; if it would attract
mostly girls (playing house, cooking, etc.) it’s best left to the private
sector. It seems they’re not so much against paternal government as
maternal government.)

It also strikes me that low-carb doctrine usually calls for the replacement
of foods with culturally feminine associations (e.g. grains) with foods
with culturally masculine associations (e.g. meat). In fact, the “the food
pyramid is making America fat” story strikes me as a thinly disguised
version of the Garden of Eden story; there’s a strong theme there of the
world going downhill as a result of the feminization of the culture. Of
course, some arguments for veganism are nothing more than the other side of
the coin, based on some rather loopy feminist doctrines and tying in with
the old superstition that eating an animal gives you the strength and
aggressiveness of the animal (a variation of the “doctrine of signatures”),
where “aggressiveness” is interpreted as “rape” (which doesn’t fit in well
with the fact that most of the meat in the American diet comes from
castrated animals, but since when does logic affect such matters?).

So I do think that some aspects of the Battle of the Sexes have leaked into
the nutrition debate, as well as aspects of political and economic
ideology.

I thought that our Moosh Brain was an aboriginal, as in a real original, from
down under?

And now we are protected from the sabre tooth, and to
some extent from other large and small predators.

The current theory is that a very large proportion of
the population has the genetics of type 2 diabetes, which
has a real survival advantage with poor food supply. Also,
type 1 diabetes is related to a very strong immune system,
a survival advantage before sanitation and other advances.

It is a major respected cardiology department.

—
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558

I think it has a considerable effect on the survival of the species.
And it has always been a concern, hasn’t it?

And we are living longer and healthier than ever.

Yep, interesting theories that I have some sympathy with.

Name? Where did you see this? URL?

I can also remind you that we are not living more healthy either.
Approx 33% chance of getting cancer, approx 1/2 heart disease.
If we died earlier then these diseases proably wouldn’t manifest themselves as much.

I don’t worry about them, some people do, because I’m pretty much convinced
they can be treated or prevented.

Some would argue evolution has halted in man or changed form.

What is a ‘balanced diet’, and why do they keep changing the RDA’s?

Then it _must_ be wrong because they are failing miserably!

: Living longer – there has been a change in mortality?

Yes – it is decreasing. The figures look something like this:

Life expectancy at birth (in years) of males born in U.S.
Birth Year: 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990
Life Expectancy: 65.6 66.6 67.1 70.0 71.8

Life Expectancy at Birth
Year: 1985 1987 1988 1990 1993 1998 2000
World 62 63 63 64 65 66 66
Developed World 73 73 73 74 74 75 75
Developing World 58 59 60 61 63 63 64
U.S.A. 75 75 75 75 75 76 77

– http://www.delmar.edu/socsci/rlong/data/p-tab-07.htm

Life expectancy is increasing by about 60 days each year.
—
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ tim@tt1.org

I see that there are claims (somewhat along the lines you mention)
that the increase in life expectancy is largely due to decreased
infant mortality figures.

If that’s right then the slow-down in life expectancy increase would
predictable on the grounds that the infant mortality decreases are bound
to run into diminishing returns as more and more babies’ lives are
preserved.

More along these lines at:

“Life Expectancy and Health Trends in Modern Society”

– http://www.holistichealthtopics.com/HMG/trends.html
—
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ tim@tt1.org

Nope, but surely tomatoes are. I eat them several times per day, on average.

You surely don’t need some of every antioxidant, and I dispute that
there are only 100. There are surely thousands, if not millions.

Do they really? Some may “act” in specific places, but they surely all
do the same thing. Ascorbic acid is used as an antioxidant
preservative in pharmaceuticals, for instance.

Your physicians are not using evidence based medicine?
Where is the evidence for this 1000 mg of ascorbic acid?
I’ve seen evidence that it is harmful, but I take no notice of any of
this “evidence” until it is tested and found “real”.

Cobblers!

If there is no evidence to disprove a hypothesis (and disproving is
all you can do) then it stands until evidence comes along TO disprove it.

So long as they are not overweight. That’s the usual determiner of
screwed up blood lipid levels.

So where has your statistical theory gone?

Really? You must have poor measurement techniques.

What is? More about? Or easily detected with a urine dipstick?

A diagnosis of diabetes is two fasting blood glucose levels above a
certain limit. The simple screening test of sugar in the urine (That’s
what diabetes mellitus means) is a tried and true screening test.
Blood tests will pick it up earlier, but it will always be causght by
the urine dipstick screen.

The genes. But as obesity must come first (very few thin, type twos
out there) it can be avoided by not getting fat.

No, weight gain causes insulin resistance. No weight gain, no insulin resistance (in general)

If you never become overweight you can avoid all of this. I wouldn’t
regard this as “severe dieting”, BTW.

Yep, we know all that. As I said, no weight gain, no insulin
resistance and no eventual frank diabetes. (in general)

How doesn’t it hold up?

Also, yes, life expectancy appears to be at least partially related to
the length of our telomeres — but inversely related. We have shorter
telomeres than other primates, theirs are shorter than those of wild
mice, theirs are shorter than (short-lived) lab mice.

Aubrey de Grey

PS:
I do hate N*** programmers who force me to post into certain newsgroups!

Do not forget: Rath is a mafioso. His spamming sunk the email servers of the
EU in
Brussels.

PS:
I do hate N*** programmers who force me to post into certain newsgroups!

That is not *quite* what the authors concluded. The authors concluded:
“The more rapid rise in the maximum age since 1969 is due to the faster
pace of old-age mortality decline during recent decades.” Indeed, they
found that a lot of this was due to a decrease in mortality in people
above 70 and thus may represent an increase in the human maximal life
span. That certainly is one possible explanation for their observations,
if you accept their methodology. However, they appear to have neglected
another explanation that is at least equally likely. This decrease in
old age mortality in recent decades could also be explained by
improvements over the last three decades in the treatment of the
diseases of old age, particularly heart disease and cancer, which result
in increased survival in elderly patients with these diseases.

There is quite a lot of error in your last statement, particularly the
part about the inverse relation. Your conclusion fails to account for
how active telomerase is in the various species. The more active
telomerase is, the more telomeres are lengthened. In humans, in normal
somatic cells, there is very little, if any, telomerase activity.
Initial telomere length may not be comparable between species, but
telomere length between individuals of the same species is. Indeed,
there is good, although not conclusive, evidence suggesting that
lifespan is directly related to the length of telomeres in humans:

http://www.dawn.com/2003/02/01/int15.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&l
ist_uids=12573379&dopt=Abstract

Also, good evidence that telomere length relates to lifespan comes from
the study of cloned mice, which have a shorter life expectancy. Other
evidence comes from the observation of what happens when telomerase is
transfected into cells that normally become senescent. Telomerase
increases their replicative potential markedly. [See Nature Biotech.
20:592-596 (2002), for example.] —
Orac |”A statement of fact cannot be insolent.”
|
|”If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you
| inconvenience me with questions?”

Adding a couple of years to the life expectancy of patients with heart
disease could potentially have a significant effect, could it not,
George? Similarly, I’m not talking about trivial improvements in the
life expectancy of people with metastatic pancreatic cancer, in which
case treatment does only increase life expectancy by a couple of months
or so. I’m talking about more common and less lethal tumors. Take a
couple of the common cancers, like breast. Better adjuvant therapy for
breast cancer and the wider use of hormonal agents have increased the
“cure rate” by a few percent, which could potentially also have a
significant increase in overall life expenctancy, although it would be
smaller than that realized by better treatment and management of heart
disease, simply because there are far more elderly patients with heart
disease than with cancer.
—
Orac |”A statement of fact cannot be insolent.”
|
|”If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you
| inconvenience me with questions?”

Indeed, which is why I look at comparisons between species in telomere
length with a fair bit of caution.

Possibly. However, until such a study is done (which, of course, would
take 70-100 years to see how long the infants live), the above study is
the best we have at the moment. One way to address your comment might be
to draw blood from groups of people at, say, decade intervals and
measure whether the rate of decrease in telomere length, or the telomere
length itself correlates with life expectancy.

Well, this result probably indicates that most mice have far longer
telomeres than they need.

Well, the problem is that certain cell types keep replicating throughout
life, some quite vigorously. There’s a big difference between a neuron,
for instance, and the epithelial cells lining the intestines or the
precursor cells of the bone marrow.
—
Orac |”A statement of fact cannot be insolent.”
|
|”If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you
| inconvenience me with questions?”

Well, I am responding to the fact that you guys have been babbling on about
absolutely nothing for quite a while. How can you prove your point, when you
don’t have a point? 🙁

What in the world are you guys talking about anyway? Nothing? Thought so.

Just my opinion. But, I am *right* as usual!

If that’s so, then why did you feel compelled to chime in and say
nothing about nothing?

Tell yourself that if it makes you feel good. No skin off my nose.
—
Orac |”A statement of fact cannot be insolent.”
|
|”If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you
| inconvenience me with questions?”

Heart disease: oh yes. We went throught that here several years back
when it was discovered that you were equally likely to live after a heart
attack in Canada as in the USA, despite aggressive treatments here. Those
posting at the time stated that our treatments offered better ‘lifestyle’
than the Canadian ones, even if they did not change life expectancy.

Hang on — if so, surely you would have to look at **all** comparisons
between species with similar caution? That seems likely to be rather over-restrictive.

Absolutely. But so might humans…. and certainly so do the cloned
mice that you mentioned initially in support of your position.

Yes. One of the main differences, a decidedly relevant one, is that
the intestinal stem cells express telomerase.

Aubrey de Grey

That is an over-statement. :-(Oh. I see burger and fries with catsup
morning, noon, and nite:-)

Science is about measurement of effect and specifics in part.
You almost never deal with specifics. You deal with things, like
an English lit major.

scientism
http://www.webref.org/anthropology/s/scientism.htm
“scientism: the belief that there is one and only one method
of science and that it alone confers legitimacy upon the
conduct of research.”

The political position of the Medical Establishment seems to indicate
that those who take vitamin supplements are basically creating
expensive urine. The obvious political justification is that if
vitamins are indeed both inexpensive and effective why should
physicians prescribe statins which are both expensive and come with a
number of serious side effects; other then to extract as much money as
possible from both patients and their health insurance?

For example: “Many experts say the finding, published this week in
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Living/ap20030612_2091.html
The Lancet medical journal, settles the issue of antioxidant vitamins
for heart health.”

Vivekananthan DP, Penn MS, Sapp SK.
Use of antioxidant vitamins for the prevention of
cardiovascular disease: meta-analysis of randomised trials.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12814711&dopt=Abstract
Lancet. 2003 Jun 14;361(9374):2017-23.
PMID: 12814711

I call into question the following recent research study. According
to this study, the issue of antioxidant vitamins for heart health is
not by any means settled.

Osganian SK, Stampfer MJ, Rimm E.
Vitamin C and risk of coronary heart disease in women.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12875759&dopt=Abstract
J Am Coll Cardiol. 2003 Jul 16;42(2):246-52.
PMID: 12875759

After taking into account the women’s age, whether they smoked,
and other factors, the researchers found that the risk of heart
disease dropped as vitamin C intake increased. Women who used
vitamin C pills were 28% less likely to develop heart disease
than women who didn’t.

The findings of the above study were different from most other recent
vitamin c research. Half of the human population happens to be female
and have a built-in immunity against heart disease for about 10 years
over men. This probably explains why women live longer than men do. As
a result, many other studies have shown antioxidants to be effective
for men, but not for women. And, that the men who have been the most
protected are those who smoke and engage in unhealthy
lifestyles.

Yet, the above study found that women who used vitamin C pills were
28% less likely to develop heart disease than women who didn’t.

Now, compare that positive finding with this recent review study.

Morris CD, Carson S.
Routine vitamin supplementation to prevent cardiovascular
disease: a summary of the evidence for the U.S. Preventive
Services Task Force.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1\2834320&dopt=Abstract
Ann Intern Med. 2003 Jul 1;139(1):56-70.
PMID: 12834320

Full Text online for FREE at:
http://www.annals.org/issues/v139n1/full/200307010-00014.html

“In three of four cohort studies, vitamin C supplementation was not
associated with coronary heart disease mortality (21 23) or all-cause
mortality (23). In two studies in older samples (21, 23), vitamin C
use did not protect against coronary disease or all-cause mortality
after adjustment for relevant confounders (23). Similarly, vitamin C
had no impact on cardiovascular or coronary heart disease mortality
(27). However, in a good-quality follow-up study of NHANES I (22),
regular use of a vitamin C supplement reduced the standardized
mortality ratio for cardiovascular mortality by 48% and for all-cause
mortality by 26%. In a cohort analysis of a secondary prevention trial
of cholesterol reduction or coronary stenosis, vitamin C use (250
mg/d) had no appreciable effect on progression of stenosis (28).”

I read through the complete full text of this study. They found a
reason to exclude a sizeable number of studies from their review. And,
for every favorable finding they found a reason to discount it. I
would characterize this review as political as it gets.

So, I repeat my question.

Is Medical Scientism a bunch of crock when it comes to Vitamin
Research, or what? Do scientists intentionally distort their findings
by any and all means possible in order to further their political
agenda?
—
John Gohde,
Achieving good Health is an Art, NOT a Science!
http://NaturalHealthPerspective.com/
The ONLY Frauds in Health are those who couldn’t care less about
prevention.

—
“The emperor is naked!”
“No he isn’t, he’s merely endorsing a clothing-optional lifestyle!”

to email me
Please remove “all your clothes”

Doug

Your comments operationally illustrate how a scientist in writing a
research paper, simply by careful selection of the words he chooses to
use, can make the findings of his research paper either positive or
negative depending on his political agenda. And, thus before you can
properly interpret the results, you have to first determine the spin
the authors are trying to put on their paper.

A recent example of this would be:

Hodis HN, Mack WJ, Azen SP.
Hormone therapy and the progression of coronary-artery
atherosclerosis in postmenopausal women.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12904518&dopt=Abstract
N Engl J Med. 2003 Aug 7;349(6):535-45.
PMID: 12904518

The author of this study was clearly playing a word game because
by his selective wording he was able to conclude that the study was
negative in that HRT did not protect against heart disease. As most
women take HRT in order to relieve the symptoms of menopause,
the issue of whether or not HRT prevents heart disease is quite
irrelevant.

Your comments, of course, don’t speak well for impartial research.

If anything your comments illustrate exactly what a farce Medical
Scientism really is. 🙁
—
John Gohde,
Achieving good Nutrition is an Art, NOT a Science!

Get started on improving your personal health and fitness, today.
http://www.Tutorials.NaturalHealthPerspective.com/
Offering 14 easy to understand lessons that will change your life.

Anybody who spends any amount of time actually reading published
research would have to be some kind of a fool to place any faith in
the false religion of Medical Scientism to actually solve our Nations
Health Problems.

Published health research clearly goes in a spiral direction. It is
like traveling to the Moon, from Earth, by way of Mars. It is
laughably inefficient. It clearly has the objective of going as slow
as possible so that the paychecks of the research scientists will keep
coming in as long as is humanly possible.

And, as far as peer review research is concerned, it clearly does not
work in the case of Vitamin Research. Scientists in the field of
health research clearly are neither willing or able to correct the
problem. If Medical Scientism was how NASA depended on getting to the
Moon, we would never have gotten even one monkey to obit the earth
once. 🙁

Just my opinion. But, I am *right* as usual!
—
John Gohde,
Achieving good Health is an Art, NOT a Science!

Health-with-Attitude is a support group for people
trying to follow a Healthy Lifestyle.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Health-with-Attitude/

Jeff

Be sue to leave out *all* personal opinions on health. 🙂

LOL … In your case George, that means leaving out all the whining.
—
John Gohde,
Achieving good Health is an Art, NOT a Science!
http://NaturalHealthPerspective.com/
The ONLY Frauds in Health are those who couldn’t care less about prevention.

that

Perhaps if you were to concentrate?

The citation was cited by me to provide an example that shows that
when “a study” (ie, subject matter is irrelevant) does not produce the
expected negative results, scientists think absolutely nothing of
wording the abstract in such a fashion as to make the conclusion
negative anyway.

The subject of this thread is *not* about HRT. You are already wasted
every bodies time on that subject, George.

Just thought that you might want to know. 🙂
—
John Gohde,
Achieving good Health is an Art, NOT a Science!
http://NaturalHealthPerspective.com/
The ONLY Frauds in Health are those who couldn’t care less about
prevention.

The subject of this thread is “The Politics of Vitamin Research.”

For the benefit of the intellectually challenged Science Geeks reading
this thread, the question is really very simple.

Are vitamins effective, or are they not effective, for improving your
personal health. 🙂

And, it appears to me that most of the published research on this
subject matter is down right fraudulent in that the use of vitamin
supplements is a lot more beneficial to your health than the medical
establishment would like you to believe.

The question of the effectiveness of vitamins has no more to do with
the sale of vitamins than the sale of statins has to do with the
effectiveness of statins.

Furthermore, quibbling over rather Vitamin E is effective against
arteriosclerosis or atherosclerosis does *not* address the question
that I am asking.

Just thought that you might want to know. 🙂
—
John Gohde,
Achieving good Nutrition is an Art, NOT a Science!

Get started on improving your personal health and fitness, today.
http://www.Tutorials.NaturalHealthPerspective.com/
Offering 14 easy to understand lessons that will change your life.

Scientific method is defined by its design to prevent such distortion.

What political agenda? I know hundreds of doctors, and dozens of scientists.
Their politics range from right wing conservatism to socialism to at least
one self-proclaimed communist.

This word is not in common use, and sounds like a fabrication of those who
like to demean science as a mere belief system or religion.

Ah, it’s the Great Medical Conspiracy theory again. Bullshit.

Corellation is not causation.

But your ‘characterization’ is apolitical and impartial?

And I repeat my answer. No.

Science is a method of preventing us from lying to ourselves.

–Rich –>Frauds in “alternative medicine” abound. Just enter “herbs” in
Google to find thousands of them.

This opinionated tirade proves nothing about science, medicine, or the
politics of scientists or medical professionals.

I said, and still say, that there is no coherent “political agenda” among
medical professionals and scientists. There are hardly any political ideas
we agree on. There is certainly no illuminati-like controling organization.

Oh? For free? Or are you another greedy altie quack who’s anti-science
political agenda is designed to scare people away from their doctors and
toward your pseudonatural for-profit products?

–Rich

Rodwin MA.
The politics of evidence-based medicine.
http://www.ahcpr.gov/clinic/jhppl/rodwin.htm#Introduction
J Health Polit Policy Law. 2001 Apr;26(2):439-46. Review. No abstract available.
PMID: 11330089

contistutes an opinionated tirade?

No! You are presenting the opinionated tirade. 🙂

I simply quoted from an Academic Journal.
—
John Gohde,
Achieving good Health is an Art, NOT a Science!
http://NaturalHealthPerspective.com/
The ONLY Frauds in Health are those who couldn’t care less about prevention.

So you think that academic journals never publish opinionated, biased
articles? Doesn’t that undermine your contention that, “scientists
intentionally distort their findings…”? Besides, the article you are
quoting here was published under the title “Commentary” and presented as the
opinion of the author. It was never intended to represent researched
data-based fact as would appear in the body of an academic journal.

prevention.

And your feeble attempt at diversion gets a failing grade. The fact remains
that the article in question is a biased anti-science tirade, and that you
have presented nothing factual in support of your contention that scientists
distort their research in order to further some common political goal. See
if you can find anything solid. Present not just vague accusations, but an
example of a study that was cooked and the evidence that the errant
researcher was influenced by a conspiracy to “extract as much money as
possible from both patients and their health insurance.”
–Rich –>With a face of sunshine and serenity.

So respond in a way that supports your thesis. The articles you quote do not
do so, regardless of the prestige of their sources. Where are the fraudulent
research reports from the greedy conpirators? You made the claim. So support it.

Let’s look at the support you’ve provided in this thread for your claim of
wrongdoing by researchers–

Referrence #1: An ABC News report of a study published in Lancet that
concluded that evidence does not support widespread use of vitamin E. No
mention of any researcher wrongdoing.

Referrence #2: The abstract of the article reported in referrence #1. No
evidence of any researcher wrongdoing.

Referrence #3: Abstract of a study in the Journal of the American College
of Cardiologists which concludes that women who use vitamin C supplements
appear to be at lower risk for coronary heart disease. No evidence of any
researcher wrongdoing.

Referrence #4: A review article in Annals of Internal Medicine which
abstracted cardiac outcomes from selected studies of vitamin supplementation
and reported that though some quality studies support a lower risk of
cardiovascular disease associated with vitamin supplement use, no one
vitamin or combination of vitamins was found to have a significant effect on
cardiac health. No evidence of any researcher wrongdoing.

Referrence #5: The full test of the review article in referrence #4. This
is the referrence you take issue with, stating that you characterize it, “as
political as it gets.” Why? Because, “They found a reason to exclude a
sizeable number of studies from their review. And, for every favorable
finding they found a reason to discount it.” Although you may disagree with
their selection of studies and their conclusions, their methods and
conclusions are clearly explained and reasonably supported and do not in any
way constitute evidence of wrongdoing.

Referrence #6: A study in the New England Journal of Medicine which you
posted as an example of a researcher “playing word games,” and as evidence,
“that when ‘a study’ (ie, subject matter is irrelevant) does not produce the
expected negative results, scientists think absolutely nothing of wording
the abstract in such a fashion as to make the conclusion negative anyway.”
Nothing in this article supports your accusation. And in the case of HRT,
one would think that the conspirators would want to find positive results to
sell more hormones. No evidence of wrongdoing.

When I pointed out to you that you have not proven that scientists and
doctors have a common political agenda, you came up with–

Referrence #7: A “Commentary” by a Marc A. Rowden in the Journal of Health
Politics, Policy and Law, decrying “Evidence Based Medicine” as an affront
to medical practice by “authority and experience.” When I labeled this an
anti-science tirade, you countered that you were quoting from an Academic
Journal [capitolization yours] and sniggered that you had made me lose face.
Well, it’s still an anti-science tirade, and though it attacks science and
politics, even this opinion piece does not claim that researchers are
biasing their studies for a conspiracy of greedy statin sellers. Still no
evidence of wrongdoing.

Your ad hominem comments are unbecomming. You still have not “supported your
comments” with any evidence of improper research reporting motivated by a common political agenda.

Hmm – try a beta carotene overdose – and then a retinol overdose –
and see which is more “potent” 😉
—
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ tim@tt1.org

For patentable medicines, private industry can take a chance,
since the rewards are high. The supplement industry may look
large to some, but it is small potatoes, and there is no way
to corner part of it; just about everything is generic.
—
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558

So then, it is the political agenda of the federal government (supplying the
great bulk of the research money) to suppress research favoring vitamin
supplements in favor of promoting the sale of statin drugs? Why? Besides, it
is not Mr. Gohde’s contention that vitamin researchers do not get funded,
but that they cheat when reporting their results.

You surely know more than a few scientists at Purdue. Ask them if they are
willing to cook their data or adjust their conclusions to meet a common
political agenda.

–Rich

But, in general the issue of natural versus synthetic is so passe as
to be almost laughable.

ad hominem comments?

Are you not making an oxymoron statement?

Hark! My private health newsgroup beckons!
—
John Gohde,
Achieving good Nutrition is an Art, NOT a Science!

The nutrition of eating a healthy diet is the foundation of the
biomedical model of natural health. Weighing in at 17 webpages,
Nutrition ( http://www.Food.NaturalHealthPerspective.com/ )is now
with more documentation and sharper terminology than ever before.

….that do not support your thesis.

Yes run away to your private sandbox. Come back to the real world when
you’ve learned enough about how it operates to engage in intelligent debate.

The rules of newgroup communication prohibits responding both to my
thesis and to your comments in the same post. All educated people
agree on this. I personally don’t even download very long posts.
Long posts are a marker for Twit Comments.

I will restate my thesis with support in a separate entirely new post. 🙂

You missed the obvious problem with my comments on reference #6.
There was actually nothing wrong with this abstract. The problem was
with the news media coverage of this abstract. The original press
release came from Reuters. Reuters news coverage is supposed to be of
high scientific quality. Obviously, their coverage is often
politically motivated. They failed to report that the results of two
studies in the New England Journal of Medicine was actually mixed.
They are the ones who erroneously made the claim the results of this
study was negative.

I have seen their biased reporting before. Another example would be
their erroneous claim that moderate exercise is just as effective as
intense physical exercise is in reducing the risk of mortality from
heart disease. I recall them positively making this type of health
claim from abstracts that directly contradicted their health claims.
I believe that they did this once or twice.

Of course, the precise news reports and citations are permanently
recorded on my Mailing List online database. 🙂

I never made any such claim.

At best, I claimed that the ‘negative conclusions’ of ‘some’ vitamin
research appears to be politically motivated.

I never claimed that *all* scientists and doctors have a common
political agenda. In fact, I was not talking about physicians at all.
Those comments were strictly made in reply to your comments.
—
John Gohde,
Patient Empowerment Advocate
http://home.naturalhealthperspective.com/empowerment.html
Email: Ngs@NaturalHealthPerspective.com
www.NaturalHealthPerspective.com – Pioneering De-Medicalization by
handing back the power to the people, encouraging self care and
autonomy, and resisting the categorization of life’s problems as
medical.

At best, I claimed that the ‘negative conclusions’ of ‘some’ vitamin
research appears to be politically motivated. I did state that ‘some’
research appear to be ‘down-right fraudulent,’ but I was intending to
refer *only* to a couple of recent review studies that erroneously
‘appeared’ to make the conclusion that the use of antioxidant
supplements were not effective. The use of vitamin supplements are a
lot more effective than the medical establishment (i.e., these recent
antioxidant reviews) would like you to believe.

Of course, what they precisely did was engage in intentionally deceptive word games

I never made any such claim.

I never claimed anbody was cooking their data!

I never claimed that *all* scientists have a common political agenda.

See my comments above.
—
John Gohde,
Achieving good Health is an Art, NOT a Science!

Health-with-Attitude is a support group for people
trying to follow a Healthy Lifestyle.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Health-with-Attitude/

So now the problem is bad science reporting in the popular press? I thought
we were talking about scientists distorting their findings.

Hmmm.

“Is Medical Scientism a bunch of crock when it comes to Vitamin
Research, or what? Do scientists intentionally distort their findings
by any and all means possible in order to further their political
agenda?”

“The political position of the Medical Establishment seems to indicate
that those who take vitamin supplements are basically creating
expensive urine. The obvious political justification is that if
vitamins are indeed both inexpensive and effective why should
physicians prescribe statins which are both expensive and come with a
number of serious side effects; other then to extract as much money as
possible from both patients and their health insurance?”

I don’t see the qualifying “some” in either of those accusatory statements
from your original post in the thread. And it seems to be “physicians” who
are greedily prescribing the statins. Oh, and who are the “Medical
Establishment”? Nursing assistants and hospital janitors?

–Rich –> Patient empowerment rises from patient knowledge. Learn your
science.

I’m not at all clear why the medical establishment would want to deceive me
about this. Surely vitamins do not compete directly with statins or other
prescription drugs at the consumer level. And even if my doctor prescribes
statins for me, I doubt he would object to my taking vitamins as well. In
fact, he does recommend folate supplement and a daily aspirin, neither of
which are high profit items for the “Medical Establishment.” Do you really
think that research scientists see supplementary vitamins as a threat to
replace prescription medication and thereby a threat to their livelihoods?
Precisely what do you think the “Medical Establishment” is doing, and WHY?

–Rich

‘Ghostwritten’ research claims
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/health/1806613.stm

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=research+studies+ghostwritten+by+drug+companies&btnG=Google+Search

—

Pramesh

The food pyramid was set by politics, not research. Milk was not a basic
food until the 1930s, and of course is not a basic food beyond age 2. On
white people can digest milk easily as an adult–the recommendation is
basically racist. The current food pyramid will be done away with in the
next few years and is thought to be one main cause of an increase in
diabetes.

Unproven statement at the present time.

If one did, would he admit it?

There are many ways to adjust conclusions to fit the biases
of the investigator. It took a lot of pressure to get the
government to fund the current study of diets; it was
“politically incorrect” to consider that high fat diets
MIGHT be a good idea, despite not having a single study
anywhere showing that they might be bad.

The same holds for the question of sodium. In this case,
the published studies go both ways, and it is clear that
they are not studying the same thing, OR that key negative
studies are not published. In general, a paper does not
get published unless it agrees with the biases of the
editors, or has very strong statistical results. This is
the religious misuse of statistics in medicine and other
branches of science.

This is quite common, and is a good reason why
meta-analysis, which is how different papers are combined,
is dangerous.

—
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558

: 1 tablespoon of turmeric daily

: 1 teaspoon of ginger daily

: 1 large glass of green tea daily

: 1 large chocolate bar with nuts daily

Medical centres recommending that people eat chocolate?!?

No wonder the world has diet problems 😉
—
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ tim@tt1.org

The nutrition of eating a healthy diet is the foundation of the
biomedical model of natural health. Weighing in at 17 webpages,
Nutrition ( http://www.Food.NaturalHealthPerspective.com/ ) is now
with more documentation and sharper terminology than ever before.

It is also very easy to start an online journal of your own.

And, you can produce e-books with print-on-demand options.

Frankly, I am very tempted to try to get something of my own
authorship published in one of these peer-reviewed journals. Perhaps,
some kind of commentary?
—
John Gohde,
Achieving good Health is an Art, NOT a Science!
http://NaturalHealthPerspective.com/
The ONLY Frauds in Health are those who couldn’t care less about
prevention.

Not if you use inexpensive vitamins.

Just thought that you might want to know. 🙂
—
John Gohde,
Achieving good Nutrition is an Art, NOT a Science!

Get started on improving your personal health and fitness, today.
http://www.Tutorials.NaturalHealthPerspective.com/
Offering 14 easy to understand lessons that will change your life.

Just thought that you might want to know. 🙂

Hark! My private health newsgroup beckons!
—
John Gohde,
Achieving good Nutrition is an Art, NOT a Science!

The nutrition of eating a healthy diet is the foundation of the
biomedical model of natural health. Weighing in at 17 webpages,
Nutrition (http://www.Food.NaturalHealthPerspective.com/) is now
with more documentation and sharper terminology than ever before.

That was a good one!

Also, there is NO evidence at this time that low fat
diets are more healthful.
—
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558

—
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558

—
# syrahz_derzai ; at yahoo.com

I like the “is thought”? Is thought *by whom*? Religious low-carbies,
that’s who. They always change the subject when asked how the food pyramid
can be causing diabetes, making people fat, etc. when there’s no evidence
that a significant number of Americans follow it. Such a belief is,
though, quite consistent with libertarian ideology; it’s a recommendation
*by* the government *for* an aspect of people’s personal lives, and
a certain brand of libertarianism says the government *always* screws up
when doing such.

(There’s an amusing thought experiment to determine which functions of
government a caricatured libertarian thinks government can be successful
at: imagine kids playing at doing it. If the activity would attract mostly
boys (army, cops and robbers, etc.) it’s legitimate; if it would attract
mostly girls (playing house, cooking, etc.) it’s best left to the private
sector. It seems they’re not so much against paternal government as
maternal government.)

It also strikes me that low-carb doctrine usually calls for the replacement
of foods with culturally feminine associations (e.g. grains) with foods
with culturally masculine associations (e.g. meat). In fact, the “the food
pyramid is making America fat” story strikes me as a thinly disguised
version of the Garden of Eden story; there’s a strong theme there of the
world going downhill as a result of the feminization of the culture. Of
course, some arguments for veganism are nothing more than the other side of
the coin, based on some rather loopy feminist doctrines and tying in with
the old superstition that eating an animal gives you the strength and
aggressiveness of the animal (a variation of the “doctrine of signatures”),
where “aggressiveness” is interpreted as “rape” (which doesn’t fit in well
with the fact that most of the meat in the American diet comes from
castrated animals, but since when does logic affect such matters?).

So I do think that some aspects of the Battle of the Sexes have leaked into
the nutrition debate, as well as aspects of political and economic
ideology.

Why not? It’s done us proud for millions of years. What’s different
now except easy access to concentrated calories in excess? Supplements
are probably essential when this diet is indulged in.

Living longer is genetic. Food supply has little influence. Calorie
restricition might make it seem longer 🙂

Natural selection has little to do with diet. When you got a little
slow, the sabre tooth got you, end of story.

Well you tell me why it wouldn’t. You are advocating a change, show
any benefit. The diseases you mention above are from too much food,
not too little as you seem to be saying.

And none of them are of any advantage on the diet I see as optimal.
Your “reputable” medical centre is reputable with whom?
Sounds quite crackpot to me.
The search for a magic bullet goes on.

Unproven does not mean false.

Something often arises, mainly anecdotal or due to
reasoning from assumptions or biological analogies,
not always accepted by the mainstream. The evidence
is often highly contradictory and confusing. Good
examples of mainstream conclusion jumping are those
of lipids, such as cholesterol and triglycerides.
“Eating cholesterol raises cholesterol.” “Fats
directly raise triglycerides, so a high fat diet
must raise the triglyceride level.” Neither of these
has held up, but the establishment has been pushing
as if these must be so. Getting clear results on
studies on humans is rare.

We cannot conduct the 50 year controlled experiments
on humans to “prove” results, and we cannot wait 50
years for those results. Has there been an increase
in type 2 diabetes and its precursor, insulin
resistance, or are we just better at finding these?
This was dogma until recently; it seems not to hold up.

—
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558

And now we are protected from the sabre tooth, and to
some extent from other large and small predators.

The current theory is that a very large proportion of
the population has the genetics of type 2 diabetes, which
has a real survival advantage with poor food supply. Also,
type 1 diabetes is related to a very strong immune system,
a survival advantage before sanitation and other advances.

It is a major respected cardiology department.

—
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558

So does just about ALL foods. You can get more anti-oxidants (if
that’s what turns you on) for far less calories in many other foods.
More of many other essential nutrients as well

Less calories in an overfed population?
Come now!
In a varied wholefood diet it is virtually impossible to get too
little fat, if that’s what worries you.

Why would you “avoid” it? If you avoid foodstuffs, you ain’t varying it enough.

Antioxidants are in all wholefoods.

But it’s the best guess.

It does slightly, but I’ve been aware for nearly thirty years that the effect was minimal.

Fasting trigs?

I’ve always understood that the biggest determiner of this is weight and exercise.

Not in my experience.

Especially when the effect being looked at is tiny.

Nope, there is more about. Diabetes is easily detected with a simple
and routine urine dipstick test. The diabetes incidence closely
follows the obesity incidence. And there is a good, tested mechanism
to explain it.

Sorry, I’ve lost the thread. What was dogma, and where?

I think it has a considerable effect on the survival of the species.
And it has always been a concern, hasn’t it?

And we are living longer and healthier than ever.

Yep, interesting theories that I have some sympathy with.

Name? Where did you see this? URL?

Ah – the candy floss seller’s song 😉
—
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ tim@tt1.org

I can also remind you that we are not living more healthy either.
Approx 33% chance of getting cancer, approx 1/2 heart disease.
If we died earlier then these diseases proably wouldn’t manifest themselves as much.

I don’t worry about them, some people do, because I’m pretty much convinced
they can be treated or prevented.

Some would argue evolution has halted in man or changed form.

What is a ‘balanced diet’, and why do they keep changing the RDA’s?

Then it _must_ be wrong because they are failing miserably!

: Living longer – there has been a change in mortality?

Yes – it is decreasing. The figures look something like this:

Life expectancy at birth (in years) of males born in U.S.
Birth Year: 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990
Life Expectancy: 65.6 66.6 67.1 70.0 71.8

Life Expectancy at Birth
Year: 1985 1987 1988 1990 1993 1998 2000
World 62 63 63 64 65 66 66
Developed World 73 73 73 74 74 75 75
Developing World 58 59 60 61 63 63 64
U.S.A. 75 75 75 75 75 76 77

– http://www.delmar.edu/socsci/rlong/data/p-tab-07.htm

Life expectancy is increasing by about 60 days each year.
—
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ tim@tt1.org

I see that there are claims (somewhat along the lines you mention)
that the increase in life expectancy is largely due to decreased
infant mortality figures.

If that’s right then the slow-down in life expectancy increase would
predictable on the grounds that the infant mortality decreases are bound
to run into diminishing returns as more and more babies’ lives are
preserved.

More along these lines at:

“Life Expectancy and Health Trends in Modern Society”

– http://www.holistichealthtopics.com/HMG/trends.html
—
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ tim@tt1.org

Can everyone get enough red tomatoes? There are in
the neighborhood of 100 known antioxidants; how likely
are you to get lots of turmeric in a varied diet?

But there are lots of them, and they have different functions.

I have been given several recommendations by physicians to
increase my vitamin intake, including one recently to raise
my supplemental vitamin C to 1000 mg; I had been taking 500,
which is considered quite high. This probably varies quite
a bit from person to person.

Not if you use statistical decision theory in an
intelligent manner. Besides, there is no such thing
as “proof” here; just a strong statistical indication,
and this criterion is only used due to a total
misconception of probabilistic reasoning.

This was assumed; it is false. Those on high fat
diets seem to have better lipid profiles, in the preliminary results.

It might be the biggest, but that does not always
work. Nothing works for everyone.

Even when the effect is large.

Any educated diabetic knows that this is false in both
directions. It may have been the original method, but
it iw wrong. BTW, the “definition” of diabetes has
changed to include more.

The diabetes incidence closely

But which is the cause? Insulin resistance causes
weight gain; this is known; severe dieting can keep
it from becoming “clinical” diabetes, especially if
the diet is VERY low carbohydrate. And even mild
weight gain can trigger insulin resistance if the
gene is there, as can low availability of food; it
confers a survival advantage in that case.

And there is a good, tested mechanism

The good, tested mechanism.

—
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558

Nope, but surely tomatoes are. I eat them several times per day, on average.

You surely don’t need some of every antioxidant, and I dispute that
there are only 100. There are surely thousands, if not millions.

Do they really? Some may “act” in specific places, but they surely all
do the same thing. Ascorbic acid is used as an antioxidant
preservative in pharmaceuticals, for instance.

Your physicians are not using evidence based medicine?
Where is the evidence for this 1000 mg of ascorbic acid?
I’ve seen evidence that it is harmful, but I take no notice of any of
this “evidence” until it is tested and found “real”.

Cobblers!

If there is no evidence to disprove a hypothesis (and disproving is
all you can do) then it stands until evidence comes along TO disprove it.

So long as they are not overweight. That’s the usual determiner of
screwed up blood lipid levels.

So where has your statistical theory gone?

Really? You must have poor measurement techniques.

What is? More about? Or easily detected with a urine dipstick?

A diagnosis of diabetes is two fasting blood glucose levels above a
certain limit. The simple screening test of sugar in the urine (That’s
what diabetes mellitus means) is a tried and true screening test.
Blood tests will pick it up earlier, but it will always be causght by
the urine dipstick screen.

The genes. But as obesity must come first (very few thin, type twos
out there) it can be avoided by not getting fat.

No, weight gain causes insulin resistance. No weight gain, no insulin resistance (in general)

If you never become overweight you can avoid all of this. I wouldn’t
regard this as “severe dieting”, BTW.

Yep, we know all that. As I said, no weight gain, no insulin
resistance and no eventual frank diabetes. (in general)

How doesn’t it hold up?

Also, yes, life expectancy appears to be at least partially related to
the length of our telomeres — but inversely related. We have shorter
telomeres than other primates, theirs are shorter than those of wild
mice, theirs are shorter than (short-lived) lab mice.

Aubrey de Grey

PS:
I do hate N*** programmers who force me to post into certain newsgroups!

Heart disease: oh yes. We went throught that here several years back
when it was discovered that you were equally likely to live after a heart
attack in Canada as in the USA, despite aggressive treatments here. Those
posting at the time stated that our treatments offered better ‘lifestyle’
than the Canadian ones, even if they did not change life expectancy.

Hang on — if so, surely you would have to look at **all** comparisons
between species with similar caution? That seems likely to be rather over-restrictive.

Absolutely. But so might humans…. and certainly so do the cloned
mice that you mentioned initially in support of your position.

Yes. One of the main differences, a decidedly relevant one, is that
the intestinal stem cells express telomerase.

Aubrey de Grey

That is an over-statement. :-(Oh. I see burger and fries with catsup
morning, noon, and nite:-)

Science is about measurement of effect and specifics in part.
You almost never deal with specifics. You deal with things, like
an English lit major.