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Why dietary recommendations on fat need to change

oily fish, good fats
© Evidence supports a review of dietary guidelines around the ideal balance of omega 6 to omega 3 dietary fats. Shutterstock/Uber Images
A recent editorial in the journal Open Heart suggests many of us have it all wrong when it comes to the balance of fats we eat.

The authors urge a return to equal amounts of specific types of fats known as omega-6 and omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in order to help combat global obesity.

The paper reflects a recent wave of evidence supporting a revision of guidelines around dietary fat, including in Australia.

What are dietary fats?

Fats - more correctly referred to as fatty acids - are a major dietary source of energy, along with carbohydrate and protein. Fats can be saturated or unsaturated, terms that refer to the makeup and structure of the fat molecules.

Apple Red

Diabetes opens floodgates to fructose

How fructose builds fat -- fast
Diabetes
Fructose, once seen as diabetics' alternative to glucose, is fast-tracked to the liver in diabetic mice and contributes to metabolic diseases, according to new research from Harvard University.

In a study to be published in eLife, scientists discovered that the effect is dependent on a protein that is turned on by diabetes and that then opens the floodgates to fructose in the small intestine. The findings are the result of both short-term and long-term feeding experiments, and they provide a vivid picture of what may be happening after consuming high-fructose food and drink.

The surprise is that diabetic mice absorb more fructose within minutes after it hits the stomach, sending it to the liver where it manufactures fat.

"By building a picture of what happens inside the body when you drink a sugary drink or eat that extra cookie, we might be able to help people to think about the effects and also identify which people could be most vulnerable to excess sugar," says Professor Richard Lee of Harvard, who supervised the study.

"What is a safe amount of sugar for one person could be different from what is safe to another. Our findings suggest that some diabetics might be more susceptible to the damaging effects of fructose because diabetes tunes the body to reach into the intestine and grab more of this type of sugar."

Comment: Which puts in evidence the complete absurdity of the fact that foods marketed for diabetics contain fructose. At this point, people only need to do the opposite of what official guidelines recommend in order to heal from their diabetes:

Want to reverse diabetes? Ditch the ADA guidelines and go low-carb


Biohazard

The Zika virus is "harmless" and does not cause birth defects

Mosquito
© BBC

After nearly a year of causing hysteria, mass travel cancellations and unnecessary abortions it finally daunts to "journalists" and "experts" that the Zika virus is harmless. It can cause a very minor flue - two days of a low fever and uncomfortable feeling for a quarter of those infected - that is all. It does not cause, as was claimed by sensationalists in the media and various self-serving "scientists", birth defects like microcephaly.


We told you so.

Comment: For more information, see the following articles:


Alarm Clock

The opioid epidemic in America is shattering women's lives

opioid epidemic
© Jessica Sarhan/Al Jazeera
Women at the McShin Foundation are helping each other to sustain recovery
Women fighting addiction to prescription painkillers tell stories of losing children and loved ones.

Approximately 18 women die every day of a prescription painkiller overdose in America, according to statistics from the US Department of Health.

It is an epidemic spreading across the country and while men are still more likely to suffer from opioid addiction than women, the gap continues to close. Overdoses caused by prescription pain medication increased more than 400 percent among women from 1999 to 2010, compared to 237 percent among men.

"The United States is in the midst of the worst drug epidemic in its history," Dr Andrew Kolodny, executive director of the advocacy group Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing, told Al Jazeera. It is an epidemic from which American women are suffering at higher rates than ever.

Opioids are a type of highly addictive class of drugs commonly used to relieve pain. Medications such as oxycodone, codeine and morphine are all types of opioids. They work by reducing the strength with which pain signals reach the brain - giving their consumer an immense sense of both physical and emotional relief. Heroin is also an opioid.

Comment: The opioid epidemic: What big pharma does not want you to know


Apple Green

Is it time to resurrect the wartime 'Grow Your Own' campaign?

Grow Your Own poster
© Australian government ‘Grow your own’ campaign billboard, 1943. NAA C2829/2
During the devastating floods that hit Queensland in 2011, Brisbane and regional centres came perilously close to running out of fresh food. With the central Rocklea produce market underwater, panic-buying soon set in and supermarket shelves emptied fast.

Such events expose the vulnerability of our urban food systems. Climate change and resource depletion present more slow-burning challenges, but the fact remains that urban food policy is at risk of complacency.

Gardening is certainly good for you, but does it have a role to play in increasing urban food security and resilience? Perhaps history can tell us the answer.

While Australian research has focused on recent urban agriculture initiatives, a real-world experiment in gardening for food security took place in Australia more than 70 years ago, during the Second World War.

Comment: Related articles:


Info

Dr. Gary Kohls: Big Pharma and the causes of Parkinson's Disease

big pharma drugs
An open letter to a son whose father has Parkinson's Disease

Recently I read an online essay that was written by a person whose father has had progressive Parkinson's disease for several decades. The tone of the essay was one of despair, confusion and frustration from a son who truly loved his father and would do anything to help him.

Given the fact that a lot of the medical information that is on the internet comes from Big Pharma websites, the author understandably repeated many of the myths about Parkinson's disease, such as the "no known cause" myth or the "it might be genetic" myth.

However, in the middle of the essay, the author did reveal that his dad had been a farmer in his younger years and had been exposed to some of the common agribusiness-promoted neurotoxins (such as insecticides and herbicides) that seem to have been accepted by the industry as normal parts of farming. Of course, physicians have known for a long time that neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson's disease are one of the occupational hazards of farmers who are exposed to neurotoxins like farm chemicals, solvents and heavy metals.

So, wanting to encourage the author to keep on with his research, I wrote a note to him. As is my wont, the note turned into a 2500 word essay. I submit it below, keeping in mind Dr Marcia Angell's wisdom:
"It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines."

Dollars

Big Pharma's latest marketing scam - leading lobby group will spend hundreds of millions to keep drug prices high

pill box
© Dvortygirl/flickr/cc
A recent poll found that more than three in four Americans believe that prescription drug prices are "unreasonable."
"PhRMA's decision to hike membership dues 50 percent will increase the trade group's considerable coffers to more than $300 million per year," Politico reports

Facing an increasingly outraged public, the leading Big Pharma lobby group is hiking its annual dues by more than 50 percent as it prepares to defend its pharmaceutical company members against lawmakers and voters who want to rein in out-of-control drug prices.

Politico reported Tuesday that "PhRMA hopes to improve its public image next year and stave off any legislative action" in the wake of recent public scandals like those over EpiPen and Valeant. "It plans to run TV ads emphasizing how new drugs could add years to patients' lives, as well as the years of complex research needed to develop a drug—in other words, a lot of money that must be recouped through high prices."

To do so, it needs some extra cash.

Comment: Courtesy of Big Pharma: The most expensive medicines in the world:
So why is drug price gouging such a serious problem across the US pharmaceutical industry? US laws, the current state of medical insurance, Medicare, and drug research are all parts of the problem, leaving the little to no oversight in how much drug makers can charge for their drugs.
"As opposed to other countries, American laws actually prevent the government from restraining drug prices. Federal law even prevents the single largest drug buyer - Medicare - from negotiating drug prices. This is a perfect example of how Big Pharma has successfully manipulated laws in such a way that they can operate completely unrestrained in the US, under the flimsy argument that high prices and profits are required in order to fund costly research to develop potentially groundbreaking drugs to treat our ever-proliferating ills." Source
Because the FDA has become little more than a revolving door for the pharmaceutical industry to continually grant itself special privilege, the natural checks and balances of the market do not apply and we see seemingly insane price differences when compared to other markets.
According to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, the drug industry spent $272,000 in campaign donations per member of Congress last year. He reports that there are more drug company lobbyists than members of Congress. Even before Gilead's $1000-a-pill hepatitis drug, the result of this unsavory lobbying is a $50 billion annual taxpayer gift to the drug industry - a fact that should outrage every taxpayer.



Microscope 1

The science of psychobiotics

psychobiotics
Now that we know that gut bacteria can speak to the brain—in ways that affect our mood, our appetite, and even our circadian rhythms—the next challenge for scientists is to control this communication. The science of psychobiotics, reviewed October 25 in Trends in Neurosciences, explores emerging strategies for planting brain-altering bacteria in the gut to provide mental benefits and the challenges ahead in understanding how such products could work for humans.

Psychobiotics is a recent term. While it's been known for over a century that bacteria can have positive effects on physical health, only studies in the last 10-15 years have shown that there is a gut-brain connection. In mice, enhanced immune function, better reactions to stress, and even learning and memory advantages have been attributed to adding the right strain of bacteria. Human studies are more difficult to interpret because mood changes in response to probiotics are self-reported, but physiological changes, such as reduced cortical levels and inflammation, have been observed.

Comment: More information on how gut bacteria can speak to the brain:


Bacon n Eggs

Children need fat to absorb vital vitamins

tim noakes

Tim Noakes
Children should not be on low-fat diets as their bodies need vital vitamins which can only be absorbed by fat, the hearing into Professor Tim Noakes's conduct was told 
yesterday.

Nina Teicholz, investigative journalist and author of The Big Fat Surprise, was on the stand in Noakes's hearing, where he is accused of unprofessional conduct by the Health Professionals Council of SA.

Teicholz said the only way she could see the world overcoming the obesity and diabetes epidemic was if people went back to eating like they did in 1965, before carbohydrate-based dietary guidelines came into play.

Noakes is facing a charge of unprofessional conduct after he responded to Pippa Leenstra's tweet that babies should be weaned on to a low-carbohydrate, high-fat (LCHF) diet.

Leenstra had tweeted him and nutritional therapist Sally-Ann Creed asking if it was safe for breast-feeding mothers to be on the Banting diet.

Comment: The hearing continued and in fact, The Health Professions Council of South Africa incorrectly announced on Friday that Professor Tim Noakes had been found guilty of unprofessional conduct. Shortly afterwards, they retracted their statement and apologized:
The HPCSA sent out its initial press release that caused mass confusion just before 13:00, and only retracted it at 16:20.

"We apologise for incorrectly stating that Prof Tim Noakes was found guilty by the Professional Conduct Committee," the second press release said.
Spoke too soon? Maybe someone actually cares about the facts? In any case, judgment on the matter would be issued on April 21, 2017.


Arrow Down

Study: US life expectancy trending downward

life expentacy
© Shannon Stapleton / Reuters
Life expectancy for Americans aged 25 to 85 is getting shorter, according to a new study. For 65-year-old males and females, expected lifespan has fallen by six months compared to projections in 2015, the study found.

The Society of Actuaries (SOA) released its latest annual mortality improvement scale for pension plans earlier this month. The scale is crafted using Social Security Administration data from 2012 to 2014 on mortality of Americans of all ages, and is used by pension plans to "help accurately measure pension obligations," said Dale Hall, SOA's managing director of research.

"The updated improvement scale suggests US mortality continues to improve, but at a slower average rate of improvement than previous years, which may decrease pension plan obligations slightly," SOA said, adding that the "updated improvement scale indicates a slight decline in life expectancy as a result of the slower average rate of mortality improvement."

Comment: Mortality rate of middle-aged white Americans increasing rapidly
Princeton economists, Anne Case and Angus Deaton who won the 2015 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, made an incredible discovery after a careful analysis of health and mortality data from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other sources between 1999 and 2013. They found that a group of middle-aged white Americans (ages 45 to 54) have an increased mortality rate that continues to increase. This trend is especially alarming as the death rate of other advanced countries, like the United Kingdom, have been declining by about 33 percent.

In the findings of the economists, education seemed to be a factor for the middle-aged white Americans. For those who had a high school diploma or below, the death rate increased by more than 20 percent. Compared with the mortality rate of this group prior to its previous rate from 1979 to 1998, about a half million lives have been lost between the 1999 to 2013 period to something other than chronic disease or aging - something that could have been avoided.

According to the study by Case and Deaton in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, the mortality rates of middle-aged white Americans has rapidly increased due to things that could have been avoided. After analyzing health and mortality statistics, they reported that the epidemic of alcohol/drug abuse, diseases formed from those abuses (such as liver disease), and suicide are to blame.