More Red Flags About Antibiotics

In a new article in the journal Nature, Dr. Martin Blaser is warning about the long-term effects of antibiotic exposure:

Overuse Of Antibiotics May Cause Long-Term Harm, ABC News, 25 August 2011

We've seen evidence that suggests antibiotics may permanently change the beneficial bacteria that we're carrying.
...
Blaser hypothesized that the overuse of antibiotics may even be fueling the "dramatic increase" in many illnesses, including type 1 diabetes, allergies and inflammatory bowel disease by destroying the body's friendly flora, or protective bacteria.
...
"These drugs affect what we're colonized with, particularly the digestive tract," said [Dr. Cesar Arias, assistant professor of infectious disease at University of Texas Medical School]. "If you alter your flora, you can promote certain superbugs to colonize in your gut and get into the bloodstream."

Here's an unusual prediction:

Blaser said he speculates and fears that humans have already lost some "ancestral organisms" that help protect us.
...
"I think we'll soon be inoculating babies with these lost bacteria."

Antibiotics Deplete Nutrients

This site offers a checklist of nutrients that may be depleted in the presence of antibiotics. Those nutrients include vitamins B1, B2, B3, B6, B12, biotin, vitamin K, vitamin A, vitamin D, zinc, copper, calcium, magnesium, iron, and others.


Antibiotic Residue In Food

Even if you don't take antibiotics straight up in a pill, you may be getting them from food. Unfortunately, health effects of chronic, low-level ingestion of antibiotics haven't been adequately studied.

Dan Flynn at Food Safety News has been keeping track of instances where drug residues, mostly antibiotics, in livestock were found to violate max allowable limits.

I was reading through his articles and was surprised at how common this problem was. The FDA and USDA/FSIS appear under-resourced for the task of weeding out violators. (Their resources may be reduced further in the upcoming budget cuts.)

Here's a sampling of his stories from just the past few months:

• Test Finds Too Much Juice in CA Dairy Cow
• Iowa Cattle Dealers Get Drug Residue Warnings
• Drug Residues Too High at Two Dairies
• Drug Residues Found in New Mexico Dairy Cows
• Animal Drug Misuse Found at Two Dairies
• Drug Residue Tests Trip Up Four Dairies
• State Investigation Brings FDA Warning for Dairy
• Controversy Looms Over Dairy Farm Drug Tests
• High Animal Drug Residues Found in Veal Calves
• Drug, Chemical Residues Get More FSIS Attention
• Washington Dairy Had Drug Residues Under Control?

How much illegal drug is getting through to the meat and dairy food we eat? Since manure and animal waste are used as soil conditioners, are plants another source for these drugs?

I've been wondering about these low-level drug residues. We can't inject a substance into the food chain and expect the food we eat to be devoid of it, can we? What happens when drugs seep into soil and water? Are they taken up by plants and animals? What is our total exposure from all sources?
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I Didn't Realize Search Results Were So Filtered

This new search engine, Duck Duck Go, describes how search engines return different results to different people. I'll be:

Don't Bubble Us

I must say, I'm really creeped out by all these results in my hometown when I don't voluntarily disclose where I'm from. And those location widgets I see on people's blogs. I guess they use the computer's IP address.

On a related note, one time I was looking for shoes at Zappos and suddenly everywhere I went those exact same shoes from Zappos, that I never even bought, were showing up on all these other sites, like a weather page! What if it was a gift? I mean, I can't delete my cookies after every site I land on.

Here's their search engine:


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Morning Fog

________Photo: Bix.
This may look like semi-wilderness but if I drew back you'd see houses crowding in on either side. There's a petroleum pipeline buried under the grass along this clearing.

Bill Clinton: "I Live On Beans" (Repost)

Melinda, Here's what Clinton said last year about his diet.
(This is a repost from September 29, 2010.)



September 22, 2010. CNN Transcript:

BLITZER: My last question, and it comes to me as a lot of my followers, as they're called on Twitter, sent me this question. They wanted me to ask you a variation of this question. How did you lose so much weight? What kind of diet are you on?

CLINTON: Well, the short answer is, I went on essentially a plant-based diet. I live on beans, legumes, vegetables, fruit. I drink a protein supplement every morning. No dairy. I drink almond milk mixed in with fruit and a protein powder. So I get the protein for the day when I start the day out.

And it changed my whole metabolism, and I lost 24 pounds, and I got back basically what I weighed in high school. But I did it for a different reason. I mean, I wanted to lose a little weight. But I never dreamed this would happen.

I did it because, after I had this stent put in, I realized that, even though it happens quite often that, after you have bypasses, you lose the veins, because they're thinner and weaker than arteries, the truth is that it clogged up, which means that the cholesterol was still causing buildup in my vein that was part of my bypass. And thank God I could take the stents. I don't want it to happen again.

So I did all this research, and I saw that 82 percent of the people since 1986 who have gone on a plant-based, no dairy, no meat of any kind, no chicken or turkey, and I eat very little fish. Once in a while, I will have a little fish, not often. But if you can do it, 82 percent of the people who have done that, they've begun to heal themselves. Their arterial blockage cleans up. The calcium deposits around their heart breaks up.

This movement has been led by a doctor named Caldwell Esselstyn* at the Cleveland Clinic, Dean Ornish whom you know out in California, the doctors Campbell, father and son, who wrote The China Study, and a handful of others.

But we now have 25 years of evidence, and so I thought, well, since I needed to lose a little weight for Chelsea's wedding, I'll become part of this experiment, I'll see if I can be one of those that can have a self-clearing mechanism. We'll see.

BLITZER: I hope you're healthy for many years and get to see grandchildren for many years.

CLINTON: Me, too. That's really the big deal. You know, Hillary and I, we're happy. We love our son-in-law, and we admire him, but -- and we'd like to be around if there's grandkids. We want to be there to do our part.

BLITZER: Mr. President, good luck.

CLINTON: Thank you.
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* Dr. Esselstyn's diet also omits all oil. No olive oil, soybean oil, corn oil, coconut oil, fish oil, or any other processed or extracted fat/oil.

Orangutan Cools Itself With A Towel

In the book I'm reading, The Tell-Tale Brain, Ramachandran talks about mirror neurons. These are parts of the brain that fire not only when we do something, like reaching for a peanut, but when we merely see someone else reach for a peanut. He says a lot about the benefit of mirror neurons and their importance in human evolution. One ... they allow us to imitate, or learn through imitation.

BL just sent this video since he knows my interest in apes. I was flabberghasted.



Which reminded me of this excerpt from Ramachandran's book:

"No ape can match our imitative talents. However, I will note as an interesting aside here, the ape that comes closest to us in this regard is not our closest cousin, the chimpanzee, but the orangutan. Orangutans can even unlock locks or use an oar to row, once they have seen someone else do it. They are also the most arboreal and prehensile of the great apes, so their brains may be jam-packed with mirror neurons for allowing their babies to watch mom in order to learn how to negotiate trees without the penalties of trial and error.

If by some miracle an isolated pocket of orangs in Borneo survives the environmental holocaust that Homo sapiens seems hell-bent on bringing about, these meek apes may well inherit the earth."

I bet this orangutan watched some human or other animal doing this and learned through imitation. By the way, Ramachandran says that our use of the word 'aping' "is ironic given that most apes are actually not very good at imitation."
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More Evidence Links Pesticides With Diabetes

A new study links, yet again, pesticide levels in humans with diabetes. Milk and meat have some of the highest levels of pesticides.

Association Between Type 2 Diabetes And Exposure To Persistent Organic Pollutants, Diabetes Care, August 2011

Those with the highest levels of certain pesticides in their blood had an over two times! higher risk of diabetes than those with the lowest levels. The strength of this association is leading researchers to conclude a cause-and-effect situation.

Here's Dr. David Jacobs, professor of epidemiology at the University of Minnesota:

"I fear that the association of chlorinated persistent organic pollutants with diabetes is causal. There is a large scientific background of cell-based and animal research that shows that these compounds disrupt endocrine (hormonal) function."
- More Evidence Links Pesticides, Diabetes

I've worked in diabetes for over 15 years, and this link with pesticides has always been discussed, but there's more research data accumulating. One point I often mention - that animal products harbor the highest levels - was also mentioned here:

"Diet is the main potential source of exposure, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) -- with fatty foods, like dairy products and oily fish, topping the list."

"Experts say that one way to limit your exposure to the chemicals is to limit the animal fat in your diet."

"[These] pollutants impair the body's ability to regulate blood sugar."

"Some of the compounds also have been shown to promote obesity."

Ironically, people with diabetes who try to control their blood sugar by reducing carbohydrates end up eating more animal foods and fatty foods, both of which add to their pesticide burden more than the carbs they shun, making blood sugar that much harder to control.
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Dr. Steven Nissen: "Calcium Scanning Is One Of The Worst Examples Of Medicine Gone Wild"

Odd. This ABC news piece said:

"50% of people who have heart attacks have normal cholesterol."

So if cholesterol isn't a good indicator of heart attack, what is? Looking at blood levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker for inflammation (but you can't tell where), was supposed to help. But a new study in the journal Lancet found that having a CT scan to view calcium build-up in arteries was better than CRP testing.

Here's the odd part. If the test shows calcium in arteries, the therapy is to give statins. Statins lower production of cholesterol, and right up front they said that half of people who have heart attacks have normal cholesterol.

Scans may be quick and painless as the article said, but they are not cheap, and they are not without risk. There is no level of radiation that is risk-free. People who have diminished ability to repair DNA are at significantly higher risk of cancer from these procedures.

They also may not work:

"For many, calcium presence in the arteries does not necessarily indicate heart disease or even a looming heart attack. Studies have yet to show that calcium scans have reduced the risk of heart attack or death from heart disease."

Dr. Steven Nissen, chair of cardiovascular medicine at Cleveland Clinic, said:

"Calcium scanning is one of the worst examples of medicine gone wild. It's taken on a 'cultlike' following."

Dr. Howard Weintraub, clinical director of New York University Center for Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, said:

"This test has led many to perform more invasive tests and then potentially act on its findings. Even though in the vast majority the intervention will do nothing to prevent [heart attack] or death and, in the absence of pre-existing symptoms, won't improve quality of life."

This is how spending on healthcare is going through the roof ... without concomitant improvement in health. This is why we need comparative effectiveness research.
________Photo is of CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta undergoing a heart scan.

Green Tea Fends Off Flu

It looks like drinking a few cups of green tea each day may prevent the flu.

Study:
Green Tea Consumption Is Inversely Associated With The Incidence Of Influenza Infection Among Schoolchildren In A Tea Plantation Area Of Japan, The Journal of Nutrition, October 2011

Tea does contain some antiviral chemicals, polyphenols like epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), so it's credible.
________The photo I took is of a green tea called sencha. A green tea called Gyokuro is one of my favorites!

Organic Vs. Conventional Farming

Christie Wilcox, at Scientific American Blogs, defends her points that:

1. Organic farming uses pesticides – and yes, organic pesticides are bad for you, too.
2. Science has yet to support claims that organic foods are healthier.
3. Certified organic farms don’t have yields that equal conventional ones.
4. GMOs aren’t evil, and yes, they might even do some good for the world.
5. Farming practices of all types should be considered and weighed for their merits independent of labels.

In The Immortal Words Of Tom Petty: “I Won’t Back Down"
- Christie Wilcox

Some contentious points. What do you think?

- I agree with her about #1.
- I don't know about #2. Apart from the science, I imagine some ethical problems. If you conclude that organic is "nutritionally superior," how do you deal with the fact that only 1-2% of all food grown is organic? Do you make sure those who need it most, say people in hospitals or care homes, get it first?
- In #3, there are external costs that may be higher with industrial farming, e.g. water use and soil depletion, that you may need to factor. So I'm not sure about that one either.
- In #4, genetic engineering has some unique problems. It affects communities that can't afford to buy seed every year (because it was engineered to be sterile). It creates super-resistant weeds. And there are, in my mind, inadequate long-term health studies in humans. Genetic engineering causes unexpected mutations in a plant's DNA, affects of which are unknown.
- For #5, sure. Do a cost/benefit analysis. Why not?
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Applying For Food Stamps

What this woman goes through to get food stamps, wow. Fingerprinting?

In January of this year, 44.2 million people were receiving food stamps, 1 in 7 Americans. And that doesn't include the 1 in 3 Americans who are eligible but aren't receiving them.


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PBS Newshour: Land Of The Free, Home Of The Poor

A stunning description of inequality in the US. There's an 11-minute video below and an accompanying transcript.

Those 3 pie charts? I would never have guessed we were the one on the bottom.

Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.

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Nickel and Dimed

From:
Nickel and Dimed (2011 Version), On Turning Poverty into an American Crime
- by Barbara Ehrenreich

"The most shocking thing I learned from my research on the fate of the working poor in the recession was the extent to which poverty has indeed been criminalized in America."

On sharing food:

"The viciousness of the official animus toward the indigent can be breathtaking. A few years ago, a group called Food Not Bombs started handing out free vegan food to hungry people in public parks around the nation. A number of cities, led by Las Vegas, passed ordinances forbidding the sharing of food with the indigent in public places, leading to the arrests of several middle-aged white vegans.

One anti-sharing law was just overturned in Orlando, but the war on illicit generosity continues. Orlando is appealing the decision, and Middletown, Connecticut, is in the midst of a crackdown. More recently, Gainesville, Florida, began enforcing a rule limiting the number of meals that soup kitchens may serve to 130 people in one day, and Phoenix, Arizona, has been using zoning laws to stop a local church from serving breakfast to homeless people."

On criminalizing debt:

"For the not-yet-homeless, there are two main paths to criminalization, and one is debt. Anyone can fall into debt, and although we pride ourselves on the abolition of debtors’ prison, in at least one state, Texas, people who can’t pay fines for things like expired inspection stickers may be made to “sit out their tickets” in jail.

More commonly, the path to prison begins when one of your creditors has a court summons issued for you, which you fail to honor for one reason or another, such as that your address has changed and you never received it. Okay, now you’re in “contempt of the court.” "

What to do...

"So what is the solution to the poverty of so many of America’s working people? Ten years ago, when Nickel and Dimed first came out, I often responded with the standard liberal wish list -- a higher minimum wage, universal health care, affordable housing, good schools, reliable public transportation, and all the other things we, uniquely among the developed nations, have neglected to do.

Today, the answer seems both more modest and more challenging: if we want to reduce poverty, we have to stop doing the things that make people poor and keep them that way. Stop underpaying people for the jobs they do. Stop treating working people as potential criminals and let them have the right to organize for better wages and working conditions.

Stop the institutional harassment of those who turn to the government for help or find themselves destitute in the streets. Maybe, as so many Americans seem to believe today, we can’t afford the kinds of public programs that would genuinely alleviate poverty -- though I would argue otherwise. But at least we should decide, as a bare minimum principle, to stop kicking people when they’re down."

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Interactions Between Hearing And Vision

I've been reading The Tell-Tale Brain by Vilayanur S. Ramashandran. I'm on a chapter where he describes "cross-modal" interactions:

"A modality is a sensory faculty, such as smell, touch, or hearing. "Cross-modal" refers to sharing information between senses, as when your vision and hearing together tell you that you're watching a badly dubbed foreign film."

He gives this example. In the illustration below, which shape would you name "bouba" and which "kiki"?



He says that 98% of English-speaking students called the jagged shape on the left "kiki" and the rounded shape "bouba." As well, "if you try the experiment on non-English-speaking people in India or China, where the writing systems are completely different, you find exactly the same thing." Children as young as 2.5, too young to read, also show this effect.

Interestingly, people with autism don't show as strong a preference, agreeing only 60% of the time.

Ramachandran says this happens because:

"The gentle curves and undulations of contour on the amoeba-like figure mimic the gentle undulations of the sound "bouba, as represented in the hearing centers in the brain and in the smooth rounding and relaxing of the lips for producing the curved booo-baaa sound. On the other hand, the sharp wave forms of the sound kee-kee and the sharp inflection of the tongue on the palate mimic the sudden changes in the jagged visual shape."

Thus, our brain associates a shape with a sound, and vice-versa, setting the stage for the development of language.

Here's another example I saw on Google+ this morning, the McGurk effect. The video exemplifies how our speech perception is cross-modal, is strongly affected by what we see. Even when we know what the sound is, we don't hear it the same way if we can't reconcile the visual with it. See if you agree:


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Toasted Quinoa

A good snack when I'm home working.

1. Pour 1/4 cup dry quinoa into a dry pan.
2. Toast at a low setting until it turns slightly caramel-colored and smells like popcorn, about 5 minutes. (It's done toasting in the photo.)
3. Transfer to a small pot that has about 3/4 cup water simmering.
4. Simmer slightly uncovered (leave lid askew about 1/4 inch to allow steam to escape) for 10 minutes.
5. Cover and let sit for 5 minutes. Fluff.

Use more or less water depending on how mushy you like the final product. The quinoa is done when you can no longer see a small opaque center in the grain.

I sprinkle this with tamari or just salt and toasted sesame seeds.
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156 calories
2.5 grams fat
27 grams carbohydrate
3 grams fiber
6 grams protein
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Is There Cost Savings In A Single-Payer Healthcare System?

I see this as wasteful:

"US physicians spend an estimated $27.6 billion more each year on administrative costs in a health care system with multiple health insurance plans than Canadian physicians practicing in a single-payer system."
- US Physicians Spend $27 Billion More On Health Insurance Costs Than Canadian Physicians, news@JAMA, August 4, 2011

- Canadian physicians spend $22,205/yr in administrative costs.
- US physicians spend $86,975/yr in administrative costs.

- Medical staff spend 20.6 hours/wk on administrative tasks in the US.
- Medical staff spend 2.5 hours/wk on administrative tasks in Canada.

Can't we find a better, less convoluted, and more equitable way to administer health care in this country?
_______That photograph is how I feel dealing with insurance forms, figuring out copays, coinsurance, premiums, deductibles, covered/noncovered services, collecting and completing forms for health savings accounts, health spending accounts, comparing and contrasting insurance plans. I'm amazed at how much time this takes.

36,000,000 Pounds Of Ground Turkey Recalled

The US Department of Agriculture reports:

"WASHINGTON, August 3, 2011 - Cargill Meat Solutions Corporation, a Springdale, Ark. establishment, is recalling approximately 36 million pounds of ground turkey products that may be contaminated with a multi-drug resistant strain of Salmonella Heidelberg, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today."
- USDA/FSIS: Arkansas Firm Recalls Ground Turkey Products Due to Possible Salmonella Contamination

According to Bill Marler, this is the largest Class I recall on record. A Class I recall, he notes, is defined by USDA/FSIS as:

"This is a health hazard situation where there is a reasonable probability that the use of the product will cause serious, adverse health consequences or death."

How did we get to a place where:

• Millions of people are made ill by contaminated food? (In this case, the CDC reports 77 illnesses and one death. The number of actual illnesses is likely higher.)
  
• Hundreds of thousands of birds are brought into the world for food, raised in abhorrent conditions, only to be thrown away?

John Munsell, one of the commenters on Bill Marler's blog, wrote:

"FSIS is paralyzed with fear of litigation, if the agency were bold and stupid enough to tell one of the major packers (many are multinational) that they must implement corrective actions or face withdrawal of the agency's inspection team. The major packers have deep pockets (enabling legal threats), and enjoy political clout via campaign contributions."
- John Munsell's comment on: USDA Should Immediately Grant CSPI's Petition On Salmonella Heidelberg, Salmonella Newport, Salmonella Hadar, And Salmonella Typhimurium

I'm sorry to say I believe him.
________Photo from SeattlePI:

"Fans blow cooling air onto cages of live turkeys at the Cargill turkey processing plant in Springdale, Ark., Thursday, Aug. 4, 2011."