Tag Archives: health

“organic” eating may lower cancer risk after all

I haven’t always been on the “organic” band wagon 100%. For one thing, the name is stupid. Chugging a glass of diesel fuel would be about as organic as you could get, in terms of the definition of the word I learned in high school chemistry. I am strongly in favor of sustainable farming practices that build soil, protect biodiversity, and prevent groundwater and surface water pollution. But in terms of health benefits, I have never felt the benefits were all that proven, and to some extent the industry is just based on scare tactics. I also wonder if the billions of humans on the planet can be fed without resorting to fossil fuel-derived fertilizer, and I still think that is dubious. But here is one large study in JAMA that did find significant evidence of a link between organic food (as labeled at the grocery store) and reduced cancer risk.

Association of Frequency of Organic Food Consumption With Cancer Risk: Findings From the NutriNet-Santé Prospective Cohort Study

Main Outcomes and Measures This study estimated the risk of cancer in association with the organic food score (modeled as quartiles) using Cox proportional hazards regression models adjusted for potential cancer risk factors.

Results Among 68 946 participants (78.0% female; mean [SD] age at baseline, 44.2 [14.5] years), 1340 first incident cancer cases were identified during follow-up, with the most prevalent being 459 breast cancers, 180 prostate cancers, 135 skin cancers, 99 colorectal cancers, 47 non-Hodgkin lymphomas, and 15 other lymphomas. High organic food scores were inversely associated with the overall risk of cancer (hazard ratio for quartile 4 vs quartile 1, 0.75; 95% CI, 0.63-0.88; P for trend = .001; absolute risk reduction, 0.6%; hazard ratio for a 5-point increase, 0.92; 95% CI, 0.88-0.96).

Conclusions and Relevance A higher frequency of organic food consumption was associated with a reduced risk of cancer. Although the study findings need to be confirmed, promoting organic food consumption in the general population could be a promising preventive strategy against cancer.

I researched the risk measures a little. The hazard risk ratio of 0.75 means that people eating mostly organic food (scoring in the top 25% of however they are measuring that) are 25% less likely than people eating the least organic food. That seems significant. From a quick skim, it appears they did try to control for differences in lifestyle (i.e., similar nutrition and exercise levels) and family history of cancer when coming to their conclusions.

scientific bathing

Apparently, you can influence your circadian rhythm by heating up or cooling down your body at certain times of day, and a well-timed and designed bath is one way to do that. You’ll need a clock, a water thermometer, an air thermometer, and an understanding of the metric system.

In the study, researchers at the University of Freiburg in Germany assigned 45 people with depression to either soak in 40C water for up to 30 minutes and then wrap themselves in blankets and hot water bottles for a further 20 minutes, or take 40 to 45 minutes of aerobic exercise twice a week. Eight weeks later, those taking regular warm baths in the afternoon scored six points lower on a commonly used depression scale, while the exercise group scored three points lower on average…

Your bathwater should be just a little hotter than body temperature, which is about 37C. Somewhere between 40C and 45C is ideal…

Consider the temperature of the room as well. A Japanese study showed that bathing in 41C water in a 25C room increased body temperature more than taking a bath in a 14C room. However, if taking a bath to promote sleep before bed, the room temperature should be cooler: 18C is ideal.

 

 

smart drugs

This BBC article talks about how some people are using amphetamines like Adderall and Ritalin to stay focused and motivated in high pressure jobs. It clearly works, at least for short periods of time. It is not clear whether it can work longer term, because people may either need a significant recovery period to recover from use of the drugs, during which they are less focused and motivated than normal, or else they may become addicted to the drugs. But the article also points out that the new drugs are not qualitatively different from using coffee to stay focused and productive – it is just a matter of differences in degree and chemistry, and coffee has proven to be safe and even beneficial to most people.

gene-edited soybean oil

Gene editing is starting to move into food, using CRISPR and something new (to me) called TALENs.

Calyxt’s soybean is the first of 23 gene-edited crops the Agriculture Department has recognized to date.

Scientists at Calyxt, a subsidiary of the French pharmaceutical firm Cellectis, developed their soybean by turning “off” the genes responsible for the trans fats in soybean oil. Compared with the conventional version, Calyxt says, oil made from this soybean boasts far more “healthy” fats, and far less of the fats that raise bad cholesterol…

Tripodi likes to say the product is akin to olive oil but without the pungent flavor that would make it off-putting in Oreos or granola bars. It has earned praise from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer group that says public health will benefit from ingredients with less trans and saturated fats, regardless of how they were developed.

I’m not really afraid of genetically engineered food, but when we monkey with whole foods in this way, it almost never ends up being healthier. Two good cases in point are vitamin pills and baby formula. If you want to be healthy, you should eat the actual soybeans rather than the Oreos or granola bars with soybean oil in them, whether genetically modified or not. And I happen to like olive oil, by the way.

My other concern is biodiversity. The more patented, altered, and homogeneous our food supply is, I wonder if it is more vulnerable to some pest or disease coming out of left field and wiping out the vast majority of it. This concern is not limited to genetic engineering either.

July 2018 in Review

Most frightening stories:

  • The UN is warning as many as 10 million people in Yemen could face starvation by the end of 2018 due to the military action by Saudi Arabia and the U.S. The U.S. military is involved in combat in at least 8 African countries. And Trump apparently wants to invade Venezuela.
  • The Trump administration is attacking regulations that protect Americans from air pollution and that help ensure our fisheries are sustainable. Earth Overshoot Day is on August 1 this year, two days earlier than last year.
  • The U.S. has not managed a full year of 3% GDP growth since 2005, due to slowing growth and the working age population and slowing productivity growth, and these trends seem likely to continue even if the current dumb policies that make them worse were to be reversed. Some economists think a U.S. withdrawal from the World Trade Organization could trigger a recession (others do not).

Most hopeful stories:

  • Looking at basic economic and health data over about a 50-200 time frame reminds us that enormous progress has been made, even though the last 20 years or so seems like a reversal.
  • Simultaneous Policy is an idea where multiple legislatures around the world agree to a single policy on a fairly narrow issue (like climate change or arms reductions).
  • I was heartened by the compassion Americans showed for children trapped in a cave 10,000 miles away. The news coverage did a lot to humanize these children, and it would be nice to see more of that closer to home.

Most interesting stories, that were not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps were a mixture of both:

China passes U.S. in healthy life expectancy

  1. U.S. citizens still live a bit longer than Chinese citizens on average, but Chinese citizens have drawn even and slightly surpassed us in health.

https://www.axios.com/chinese-people-now-healthy-longer-than-americans-6dc7235f-e057-45ee-a975-c433611edabf.html

This would be perfectly fine if it just represented China catching up, but I suspect it represents the U.S. stalling as both our peers and developing countries continue to progress.

Climate Change and Global Child Health

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics:

Climate change threatens to reverse the gains in global child health and the reductions in global child mortality made over the past 25 years. There is broad recognition that greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are causing climate change. The problem of climate change transcends geopolitical boundaries and will have extensive impacts on child health and security. With implications for all of humanity, climate change will disproportionately affect children and the poor, magnifying existing disparities in social determinates of health.

I don’t know if “reverse” means we stop making gains, or if child mortality rates actually revert to where they were 25 years ago. Either way, it kind of suggests the amazing progress of recent decades may have peaked, at least for the time being.