Author Archives: Glyn and Liz

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About Glyn and Liz

Writer Liz wainwright and Independent Researcher Glyn Wainwright

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Quote from Chris Kresser

The healthy user bias is the scientific way of explaining the phenomenon I described above, where people that engage in one behavior that is perceived as healthy (whether it is or not) are more likely to engage in other behaviors that are healthy. (7, 8) Of course the flip-side is also true: those that engage in behaviors perceived to be unhealthy are more likely to engage in other unhealthy behaviors. The healthy user bias is one of the main reasons it’s so difficult to infer causality from epidemiological relationships. For example, say a study shows that eating processed meats like bacon and hot dogs increases your risk of heart disease. (9) Let’s also say, as the healthy user bias predicts, that those who eat more bacon and hot dogs also eat a lot more refined flour (hot dog and hamburger buns), sugar and industrial seed oils, and a lot less fresh fruits, vegetables and soluble fiber. They also drink and smoke more, exercise less and generally do not take care of themselves very well. How do we know, then, that it’s the processed meat that is increasing the risk of heart disease rather than these other things—or perhaps some combination of these other things and the processed meat? The answer is, we don’t. Good studies attempt to control for some of these confounding factors, but inevitably some will not be controlled for. And one of the most important potential confounding factors that is never controlled for is the gut microbiome.

Red Meat: Another Red Herring?

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Victoria Lambert in The Telegraph

Like it or lump it, few of us get through the day without adding sugar to our daily diet. We are a Pavlovian population made up of sugar, treacle and toffee addicts, drawn to the taste of sweetness like bees to honey. So ingrained is our desire that even writing about sugar now is sending my salivary glands into overdrive as my brain reacts to the very thought of it, whizzing neurotransmitters around to prepare my body for some serious glucose action. Perhaps you, while reading this, are reaching – almost unwittingly – for a chocolate Hobnob?

But that’s not a problem, is it? We could stop and eat a piece of cheese instead – any time we wanted. Or could we?

Maybe not. It seems that our desire to load up with sugar regularly may not be the cheeky reward-cum-energy boost we think it is. Increasingly, experts believe we can be truly addicted to sugar. French scientists in Bordeaux reported that in animal trials, rats chose sugar over cocaine (even when they were addicted to cocaine), and speculated that no mammals’ sweet receptors are naturally adapted to the high concentrations of sweet tastes on offer in modern times. They worried, in a paper published in 2007, that the intense stimulation of these receptors by our typical 21st-century sugar-rich diets must generate a supra-normal reward signal in the brain, with the potential to override self-control mechanisms and thus to lead to addiction.

So if you feel like you are craving a chocolatey treat, that craving is more than just a figure of speech. You may be one of the world’s most common dependants: a sugar addict.

Sweet poison: why sugar is ruining our health

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...the risk of mortality or acute coronary syndrome was positively associated with age; male gender; hypertension; uncontrolled diabetes; being a former smoker; HAVING LOW LDL; having low BMI....

Vitamin D Levels for Preventing Acute Coronary
Syndrome and Mortality: Evidence of a Non-Linear
Association

doi: 10.1210/jc.2013-1185

J Clin Endocrinol Metab

Low LDL and low BMI associated with increased mortality risk

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Zoe Harcombe et al. brilliantly expose the erroneous basis of much official dietary advice.

PDF (Size:82KB) PP. 240-244   DOI: 10.4236/fns.2013.43032

ABSTRACT

Background: Since 1984 UK citizens have been advised to reduce total dietary fat intake to 30% of total energy and saturated fat intake to 10%. The National Institute of Clinical Excellence [NICE] suggests a further benefit for Coronary Heart Disease [CHD] prevention by reducing saturated fat [SFA] intake to 6% – 7% of total energy and that 30,000 lives could be saved by replacing SFAs with Polyunsaturated fats [PUFAs]. Methods: 20 volumes of the Seven Countries Study, the seminal work behind the 1984 nutritional guidelines, were assessed. The evidence upon which the NICE guidance was based was reviewed. Nutritional facts about fat and the UK intake of fat are presented and the impact of macronutrient confusion on public health dietary advice is discussed. Findings: The Seven Countries study classified processed foods, primarily carbohydrates, as saturated fats. The UK government and NICE do the same, listing biscuits, cakes, pastries and savoury snacks as saturated fats. Processed foods should be the target of public health advice but not natural fats, in which the UK diet is deficient. With reference to the macro and micro nutrient composition of meat, fish, eggs, and dairy foods the article demonstrates that dietary trials cannot change one type of fat for another in a controlled study. Interpretation: The evidence suggests that processed food is strongly associated with the increase in obesity, diabetes, CHD, and other modern illness in our society. The macro and micro nutrients found in meat, fish, eggs and dairy products, are vital for human health and consumption of these nutritious foods should be encouraged.

The Wrong Dietary Advice?

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Thank you Björn Hammarskjöld for the link.

The impact of sugar on diabetes was independent of sedentary behavior and alcohol use, and the effect was modified but not confounded by obesity or overweight. Duration and degree of sugar exposure correlated significantly with diabetes prevalence in a dose-dependent manner, while declines in sugar exposure correlated with significant subsequent declines in diabetes rates independently of other socioeconomic, dietary and obesity prevalence changes. Differences in sugar availability statistically explain variations in diabetes prevalence rates at a population level that are not explained by physical activity, overweight or obesity.

Paper from Sanjay Basu, Paula Yoffe, Nancy Hills, Robert H. Lustig

At last! Sugar consumption does cause diabetes!

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A small increase in a small risk is still a slightly bigger but small risk and we are relieved to note there is no association of cancer with red meat consumption.

Why do we allow the abuse of statistics to create a scare story about food and health, because the figures quoted are meaningless due to confounders not discussed. 

How to make a scare out of very little with statistics:

Suppose a 1% risk is a 1.3% risk…lets use the 0.3% increase in (absolute) risk or use the ratio (0.3 to 1) to get an impressive 33% increase in (relative) risk – Same risk increase but more journalistic scare power!

Enjoy the bacon with eggs – as with all traditional foods.

CBN News has a much more important story to tell!.

BBC News – Processed meat ‘early death’ link