Quick Links and News Roundup
A selection of news and not-news for all health-minded individuals.
FAT: What No One Is Telling You
This PBS documentary is now available on-line. Check it out.
The perfect bacon sandwich
From the tabloids: Scientists have developed a formula for the perfect bacon sandwich. It's this: N = C + {fb(cm) . fb(tc)} + fb(Ts) + fc . ta
Gay men are prone to eating disorders
15% of gay men exhibit symptoms of an eating disorder compared with <5% of heterosexual men. Intriguing.
Scientists find a genetic link to obesity
First in 2003, then in 2005, and now again in 2007. Do these discoveries ever help people eat better? Probably not.
Severely obese is the fastest growing segment of overweight Americans
This is the pun of the month.
Research: Phone advice can work
In more than three-quarters of the studies, phone advice from nurses or other counselors helped men and women improve their eating and exercise habits.
Cancer: Veggies in, Meat out
An extra serving of fruit or vegetables may reduce the risk of head and neck cancer. In another item, those women who ate the largest amount of red meat (2 or more ounces per day) were 56% more likely to develop breast cancer (than women who ate no meat).
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Bacon is the most frequently eaten meat in England, says the bacon sandwich link. I'm appalled. I like bacon and I eat it once or twice a month, but bacon is the main source of meat in England? More than fish, beef, chicken, lamb, pork, and other crap smoked meats all combined? I'm scared.
Replygood links and news!
ReplyDo they give estrogens to beef cattle in England, like they do in the United States? If so, it's not the red meat causing breast cancer, but what's in it...
ReplyThe actual RAND report on which this article is based has an equally lovely title: Obesity and Disability: The Shape of Things to Come.
What I found the most surprising: their claim Medicare and Medicaid savings stemming from increasingly good health among the elderly could be swamped by the cost consequences of disability among the young.
What I found most frustrating: they only reported changes in rates and not the actual distribution. They wrote Between 1987 and 2005, the prevalence of a BMI greater than 40 (about 100 pounds overweight) increased by 500 percent; the prevalence of a BMI greater than 50 increased by almost 1,000 percent, much faster than the prevalence of moderate obesity, which “merely” tripled ... This finding challenges the belief of many physicians that clinically severe obesity is a rare pathological condition affecting only a fixed percentage of the population. Instead, the finding is consistent with the view of most epidemiologists that severe obesity is an integral part of the U.S. population’s weight distribution—and as everybody gets heavier, the extreme group has the fastest growth rate. So, moderately obese: up 300%; BMI > 40: up 500%; BMI > 50: up 1000%. If in 1987, 90% of the overweight population were moderately obese, 9% had BMI > 40, and 1% had BMI > 50, then in 2005 the percentages would be 83%, 14% and 3%.
An observation that made me think: Weight also has a dramatic effect on people's ability to manage the five basic activities of daily living: bathing, eating, dressing, walking across a room, and getting in and out of bed. Over the last year, I've noticed how popular curved shower rods have become in hotels and motels (see, for example, here). Is this in response to a heavier population?
ReplyThank you for including the article on gay men and eating disorders! At least from my perceptions (I have /had a lot of gay male friends, and about a billion lesbian friends) a lot of it has to do with the difference between perceptions of "attractiveness" in the GLBT community and the hetero community.
ReplyActual numbers can be found - here is the prevalence in 1986 compared with 2000 (link = http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/163/18/2146.pdf)
1986
BMI >40 = 1 in 200
2000
BMI >40 = 1 in 50
500% increase (five fold) since 1987
BMI >40 = 1 in 40
Percentage of population now with a BMI >40 = 2.5%
1986
BMI >50 = 1 in 2000
2000
BMI >50 = 1 in 400
1000% increase (ten fold) since 1987
BMI >50 = 1 in 200
Percentage of population now with a BMI >50 = 0.5%
Which is also part of the population with a BMI >40, so 2.5% of our population has a BMI greater than 40, with 20% of them with a BMI of 50 or higher
ReplyThank you for the link, Regina!
There was a small typo: the link should be this instead.
ReplyI can't believe someone wasted grant money to come up with a formula for the perfect bacon sandwich. Aren't there more important things to research — you know, like maybe the cure for cancer?
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ReplyI completely agree. And even if you want to do bacon-related research, how about coming up with a nitrate-free bacon?
I've not had bacon in ages, and so I can't vouch for the flavor. For some reason, when I went from being your average kind of omnivore to an ayurvedic diet, bacon went from smelling good to smelling really, really bad. Eww.
ReplyWell I wouldn't keep any sort of bacon or meat unrefrigerated anyway. I don't consume enough to really worry about the nitrates, but if I found nitrate-free, I'd buy it. But I know what you mean about some things just being gross as your tastes change.
ReplyThis report is from the Sun newspaper.....the Sun newspaer is not known for accuracy, it is best known for its topless women on page 3 every day!
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ReplyWell Jordan and Samantha Fox are important cultural contributions, aren't they? Hahaha I'm kidding, of course. I hope that it is as accurate as the reports of alien babies in the US tabloids, although if it is accurate, it would certainly explain all the people featured on "You are what you eat".