Bogosity!

The dietary supplement industry is huge (as in $BILLION$ in profits), and most of the money foodies and foodie victims spend on these very expensive capsules, tablets, and powders is wasted or goes to fund whacko organizations that prevent people from getting real preventive health care.

People think these items are controlled by the FDA, which they are not. (Congress caved to the supplement lobby over a decade ago, classifying these things as food. Probably some nice bribes and kickbacks were spread around to the almost universally scientifically illiterate Congresspersons there!)

The health claims made are outrageous (and reversed,right on the packaging, through the use of asterisks, daggers, and nanoprint), the "science" absent, terrible, or "pseudo", and even so they don't address the major dietary problem we have in this country--obesity (despite the ridiculous claims about "fat burning", which my nutrition class demonstrated is physiologically impossible this side of absolute starvation). 
Antioxidants, beloved of foodies everywhere, can actually kill (by interfering with cellular energy production), cause anemia (through blocking effective oxidation of iron in hemoglobin), or increase the aggressiveness of cancer if taken in excess, and there is essentially no data to support that they prevent anything! Some supplements, especially those with fat-soluble vitamins and heavy metals, can kill directly if taken in excess.

Buyer, beware, indeed!!

...and most of them useless.

Another miracle....

...the spinal cord.

Most life forms don't need much more than this, thanks you. Maybe a brain stem.

The cord is a part of the central nervous system, which means that it does a lot of its processing, bit afferent and efferent, with no help from the brain. In fact, without spinal cord reflexes we probably wouldn't survive infancy.

It has been in the area of spinal cord injury that a good deal of stem cell research has been aimed hopefully. Neurons in general don't reproduce themselves (mitose), though they may regenerate to a degree, especially along the axon, and we know that new interneuronal connections can be made. Unfortunately stem cells have not panned out here, as in so many other places.

So, protect your spinal cord! Wearing seat belts, not doing stupid things--whatever it takes!

No water = no life

People simply do not internalize the reality that we have all the water we will ever have, that there has been essentially no new water added to the system since the Earth was formed (with the exception of the occasional comet). 

The positive side of this is that there is no less.

The issue is "usability".

Humans are wasteful in many ways, and particularly in regard to water. The contamination of our fresh water is accelerating, and though it can be cleaned up it is increasingly difficult and costly to do so. A plurality of the human population does not have access to clean water. It would seem to me keeping it clean in the first place in places where that is possible (like the developed world) would allow us to focus our efforts on the developing world, where lack of clean water is a major health issue as well as an economic one.

It would seem....

Why are we are so fat?

We don't know our own basic physiology so are easily duped.

We don't know how to read research and rarely even demand it when outrageous claims are made by supposedly reputable entities. 

We engage in wishful thinking in preference to facts.

We hate anything that is difficult.

We are Americans!

One of my favorite experiences in this regard occurred in a San Diego hotel restaurant, at the omelet stand. (I LOVE omelets, and eggs in general!) The lady in front of my (BMI no less than 35, I'm sure) asked for a plate of the "veggies" that the chef was using to make his egg dishes. She took great pains to explain that she was on a "raw food" diet (a fairly recent food fad). She was completely oblivious to the fact that several of the items were, in fact, cooked. 

Use your education today where it counts--on what goes in your egg-hole! :-)

Poison?

I think not.

Our bodies need fats and oils as sources for fatty acids, which in turn are used as energy storage, as structural components in cells, and in constructing hormones. They also contain some important fat-soluble vitamins.

Someone once said Americans are more afraid of fat than we are of nuclear war. This is unnecessary!

As part of a calorie managed diet, fats are fine. In fact, we would die without them. 

The real problem is that Americans are more afraid of moderation than they are even of fats....

The source!

Neuron and synapse--

where it all happens!

Perfection in molecular biology!

Brought to you by:

GLUCOSE

+

OXYGEN!

And not so much....

...pretty, that is.

In order for muscles to get bigger, they must be "damaged" first, such that additional proteins are laid down within the fibers so as to heal them.

On the other hand, muscles can be conditioned to be more effective and efficient without increasing their size at all.

Which is better?

Pretty?

Deadly?

Well, maybe a bit of both.

This is adipose tissue, composed of fat cells.

We are born with our full complement of these cells, and they have some really important uses--as a back up source of carbon energy for the Krebs cycle,  as padding and protection for organs, as a source of structural components, partcualrly for  But when they get BIGGER, we get fatter. Latest data suggests that by 2040 42% of Americans will be obese. There are no "fat-burning foods", no magic "eat all you want and lose weight" diets--just calorie restriction and/or increased calorie expenditure. We want it easy, and it is, at least, simple. 

Push away from the table sooner, eat ONE portion (NORMAL sized), only eat when you are hungry--there are many USEFUL tips to help you restrict calories. But in the end it's the only way!

The real food problem....

Americans eat too often and too much, and we are infecting the world. 

Instead of selling bogus claims about "superfoods" and lies about "antioxidants" and gluten, foodies need to focus on this issue.

The miracle cure? Eat less, exercise more.

Nobel Committee, are you listening?

Not me.

Foodie propaganda is all around us. (Antioxidants can kill, did you know?)

More interesting is the question, "What does 'unnatural' mean?"

Most "diets" are bogus, and work only if they result in decreased caloric intake.

A study published this week in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine (5 worms!) documents this fact: the only "miracle diet" is the one that causes you to eat less.

Have a nice weekend!

What does this mean?

Amino acids

When we eat, we don't just break our pasta down into smaller pieces of pasta and absorb past bits into our cells. The reason we can eat so many different things--unlike koalas, who can only eat eucalyptus--is that our system breaks foods into a few basic types of molecules. Critical are the amino acids, which in turn build proteins, out of which everything in out body is constructed. "Essential" amino acids must be taken in--we cannot make them. The foodies would have you believe that we absorb huge molecules (like modified DNA) directly into our cells--WRONG!! A great exercise would be to identify two or three basic errors of cellular biology in every single foodie press release, including pronouncements from their "scientists"--slam dunk!