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How researchers came to a controversial conclusion about the health effects of meat.

On a range of health outcomes — from deaths due to cancer and cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes, cancer incidence, stroke, all-cause mortality, and heart attack — the researchers generally found either no benefit on cutting back on meat or one so small, and based on such weak evidence, as to be unreliable. (You can read the papers here, here, here, and here.) For the fifth review, the researchers looked at people’s feelings about meat consumption, again focusing only on health concerns (read: not moral, ethical, or environmental reasons for avoiding meat). And they found, essentially, that many people are attached to meat, and feel eating it influences their quality of life.

#beef #red meat #processed meat #cvd #cancer #stroke #mortality #myocardial infarction #heart disease #diabetes #meat

Reading Time: 9 minutes I eat a mostly plant-based diet and I think most people should do the same. But it is important not to spread ideas that are not true. This leads to distortions in behavior–compared to what would happen if people had correct information–and worse outcomes. As we shall see. Without further ado. Those who focus primarily …

According to EPA, agriculture accounts for only a tiny fraction of emissions of carbon emissions. This includes methane from livestock. 9% of carbon emissions are from agriculture. Maybe half are from animals (4.5%). Transportation and electric power produce 29% and 28%, respectively. From a carbon emissions POV, green energy and transport is way more important than abstaining from meat.

#vegan #climate change #methane #carbon dioxide #environment #agriculture #meat

A massive study solidifies the link between particulates from cars and diabetes.

#diabetes #air quality #pollution

In our increasingly health-conscious society, a new fad diet seems to pop up every few years. Atkins, Zone, Ketogenic, Vegetarian, Vegan, South Beach, Raw - with so many choices and scientific evidence to back each, it's hard to know what's healthy and what's not. One message, however, has remained throughout: saturated fats are bad.

The researchers explained that the stiff, straight, long chains of saturated fatty acids rigidify the lipid molecules and cause them to separate from the rest of the cell's membrane. Under their microscope, the team observed that those lipid molecules then accumulate in tightly-packed "islands," or clusters, that don't move much - a state they call "solid-like." As more saturated fatty acids enter the cell, those islands grow in size, creating increasing inelasticity of the membrane and gradually damaging the entire cell.

"For a long time, we believed that all cell membrane is liquid-like, allowing embedded proteins to change their shape and perform reactions," said Principal Investigator Wei Min, a professor of chemistry. "Solid-like membrane was hardly observed in living mammalian cells before. What we saw was quite different and surprising."

Lipid molecules made from unsaturated fatty acids on the other hand bear a kink in their chains, Min said, which makes it impossible for these lipid molecules to align closely with each other as saturated ones do. They continue to move around freely rather than forming stationary clusters. In their movement, these molecules can jostle and slide in between the tightly-packed saturated fatty acid chains.

"We found that adding unsaturated fatty acids could 'melt' the membrane islands frozen by saturated fatty acids," said First Author Yihui Shen, a graduate student in Min's lab. This new mechanism, she said, can partly explain the beneficial effect of unsaturated fatty acids and how unsaturated fats like those from fish oil can be protective in some lipid disorders.

Yihui Shen et al, Metabolic activity induces membrane phase separation in endoplasmic reticulum, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2017).

#saturated fat #unsaturated fat #pufa

There is no evidence that GM crops have caused health problems in humans or animals. Yet they are heavily vilified

Though they may look warm and cozy cuddled up in their hay beds, it turns out that pigs lack a gene — common in other mammals — that helps the body keep its temperature up in chilly conditions by burning fat. As a result, pigs (especially young ones who haven’t built up their fat stores) experience significant suffering in the cold, and sometimes can’t survive it.

By inserting a mouse form of the missing gene into embryonic pig cells, then inducing embryo clones, the Chinese researchers were able to create 12 slim piglets that were better able to regulate their body temperatures than their fellow swine.

#animal welfare #gmo

In glyphosate review, W.H.O. cancer agency edited out 'non-carcinogenic' findings

From Reuters:

Reuters found 10 significant changes that were made between the draft chapter on animal studies and the published version of IARC’s glyphosate assessment. In each case, a negative conclusion about glyphosate leading to tumors was either deleted or replaced with a neutral or positive one. Reuters was unable to determine who made the changes.

IARC did not respond to questions about the alterations. It said the draft was “confidential” and “deliberative in nature.” After Reuters asked about the changes, the agency posted a statement on its website advising the scientists who participate in its working groups “not to feel pressured to discuss their deliberations” outside the confines of IARC.

#IARC #glyphosate #cancer

Greed, lies, and glyphosate: The Portier Papers

This is an exposé of how one scientist, Christopher Portier, is bringing down the reputation of science, scientific regulatory advice and a WHO agency. It calls to question the funding, transparency and motivation of the anti-glyphosate campaigners, the role of IARC in the American anti-corporate litigation practices, and the quality of the scientists who engage with them. It demonstrates how the entire campaign against glyphosate has been built on greed and deceit.

- Risk-Monger

#glyphosate #iarc #conflict of interest

So why has this practice not been banned? It is a question of interpretation of toxicity data. Perhaps tainted by business interests. The European community has decided that any amount of arsenic in chicken meat is too much and has banned the use of arsenic as a feed additive. In North America, it is still allowed, the decision being based on the unlikelihood of the trace amounts of arsenic residue in the meat having any health consequences. This is probably correct. But there is a bigger question here. And that is, what happens to the vast amount of poop that is produced by the over ten billion chickens slaughtered every year. Most of it gets spread on crop land as fertilizer or is formulated into pellets for use by the home gardener. It is now known that bacteria present in chicken litter and in the soil can convert the excreted organic arsenic into the inorganic form, and that as a result of runoff from fields it can end up in the water supply.

#arsenic #chicken #poultry

While both the 2012 and 2014 Consumer Reports concerned arsenic levels in US rice, no previous study has evaluated long‐term consumption of total rice, white rice and brown rice in relation to risk of...

While both the 2012 and 2014 Consumer Reports concerned arsenic levels in US rice, no previous study has evaluated long-term consumption of total rice, white rice and brown rice in relation to risk of developing cancers.

[...]

Compared to participants with less than one serving per week, the multivariable RRs of overall cancer for individuals who ate at least five servings per week were 0.97 for total rice (95% CI: 0.85–1.07), 0.87 for white rice (95% CI: 0.75–1.01), and 1.17 for brown rice (95% CI: 0.90–1.26).

#rice #arsenic #cancer

And that's embarrassing.

North Americans are simultaneously overweight and malnourished, and a diet like Soylent, for all of its flaws, provides less of the problem ingredients like sugar and cholesterol and more of the nutrients. With clinical studies still pending, no responsible nutritionist could or would approve Soylent more strongly than the recommended food group guidelines. But a review of the ingredients reveals that the liquid concoction conforms to Michael Pollan’s health advice: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” That is, if you can call it food.

For someone who eats the average amount of added sugars as part of their diet—more than three times that recommended by the USDA—it stands to reason they would see a reduction of their fasting glucose levels. Likewise, triglycerides and LDL cholesterol should respond, when Soylent’s vegan algal profile is compared with a greasy American diet.

#soylent

Whole grains have been considered to be healthy for a very long time. Some of the health benefits of whole …

This literature review was conducted back in September 2015, but as far as I can tell it is still the most comprehensive review of the health effects of whole grains to date.

#whole grains #triglycerides #heart disease #cholesterol #grains

Why your “organic” milk may not be organic

#organic #milk #dairy

Even with proper hydration, it might be best to run fewer than 26 miles at a time.

What Parikh takes from the data is that marathon running does indeed inducestructural damage in kidneys, and it’s likely due to physical stress.

So most news outlets will likely report this as a scary story about long-distance running—or any other type of extreme endurance training. The study definitely didn’t read to me like an endorsement. But Parikh isn’t sure that’s the right takeaway.

[...]

The day-after-the-race results showed that the kidneys in all people were quickly coming back to normal, and that’s reassuring. “The main question on our minds is what is the long-term consequence of small injuries? Chances are, the majority of people may be okay.”

At the same time, for people who are at-risk for kidney disease—people with diabetes, hypertension, of older age, for example—“we should consider whether marathon running is safe for them. That should be the focus of future studies.” This is a short-term study and can’t tell us if marathoning would be associated with any permanent renal damage. “For example, if someone runs marathons for 30 years, we don’t know if kidney disease would progress more quickly than in someone who didn’t run marathons.”

#marathons #running #exercise #inflammation #kidneys

Move over Japanese women. You've been dethroned as the population with the healthiest hearts. This group of people can fight off heart disease even into their 80s. What's their secret?

On the surface, it wasn't clearcut that the Tsimane's would have such remarkable heart health. Their risk factors for heart disease are a mixed bag. The group has low blood pressure and low cholesterol, on average. But they have low levels of the "good" cholesterol and high levels of chronic inflammation, which has been linked to heart disease. In terms of weight: None of the Tsimane are obese but about a quarter of adults qualify as "overweight," says Michael Gurven, an anthropologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who contributed to the study. The average BMI was about 24, which is near the upper end of normal, with a BMI of 25 considered overweight. "So it's not that they are super-lean," Gurven says. The Tsimane get a ton of exercise, Gurven says, but it's not really intense exercise.

In this study, researchers found that the Tsimane population in the Amazon have an extraordinarily low rate of heart disease (85% of those over age 40 had no atherosclerosis). Their diet consists of about 70% carbohydrate, 15% protein, 15% fat. The carbohydrate mainly comes from whole food sources such as corn, cassava, and plantains.

#heart disease #tsimane #paleo

“When you really dig into the research on the hierarchy of ecological impacts, pesticides represent a drop in the sustainability bucket when compared to land use, water use, pollution and greenhouse gases. In fact, it may seem counter-intuitive but, pesticides can play a substantial role in mitigating the damage associated with many of those other factors. Pesticides allow for us to grow more food on less land, limit the wasting of fuel and water, and help curb erosion and run-off. There is nothing sustainable about pouring inputs into growing food that is destroyed by pests.”

#pesticides #environment

Dr Ronald Krauss on LDL cholesterol, particle size, heart disease, and atherogenic dyslipidemia

#heart disease #ldl #ronald krauss

Take your medical news and recommendations with a dose of healthy skepticism, especially regarding nutrition.

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