Salt intake not correlated with mortality

.
New study and one more medical myth demolished:

Dietary Sodium Content, Mortality, and Risk for Cardiovascular Events in Older Adults

Wiki

Quote:

Results  The mean (SD) age of participants was 73.6 (2.9) years, 51.2% were female, 61.7% were of white race, and 38.3% were black. After 10 years, 881 participants had died, 572 had developed CVD, and 398 had developed HF. In adjusted Cox proportional hazards regression models, sodium intake was not associated with mortality (hazard ratio [HR] per 1 g, 1.03; 95% CI, 0.98-1.09; P = .27). 

Born during Solar minum - longer lifespan

.
by 5.2 years, on average!  Quite a strong effect and many of the results are statistically significant (p less than 0.05), according to a Norwegian study [1] that analyzed 202 years of data over a population of 8662 people.  See also this article.
A Solar cycle takes 11 years on average, thus the period of the study (1676-1878) spans about 18 cycles.  Interestingly, intensity of cosmic radiation goes down during solar maximum, due to the shielding effect of the active solar wind against Galactic cosmic rays.  Could the lower level of ionizing radiation background present during Solar Maxima [2] have had a detrimental effect, and the higher level during the Solar Minima - may have had a beneficial effect on the newborn babies?  This is my purely speculative interpretation of course - but see my other articles on ionizing radiation!

 Results are shown in the Figures 1,2 and 3, from the referenced paper:

References:

1. "Solar activity at birth predicted infant survival and women's fertility in historical Norway",
Gine Roll Skjærvø, Frode Fossøy, Eivin Røskaft, 
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2014.2032, Proceedings B of The Royal Society, Published 7 January 2015

2. Cosmic radiation background is strongly and inversely dependent on the Solar activity.  Cosmic radiation is the highest and the Sun is the least active, the Sunspot number is the lowest at Solar Minimum, for example, see the following graph:

The effect is stronger at high latitudes, like in Norway, where the magnetospheric shielding is lower.  Incidentally higher level of Cosmic Radiation during low Solar activity results in high global cloud cover due to cloud seeding, which in turn lowers the global temperature.  This is a stronger effect than due to CO2 variation, according to some studies [to be quoted]. 

Are some diets "mass murder"?

.
Recently published paper in BMJ, of the title above:

BMJ 2014; 349 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g7654 (Published 15 December 2014)

Wiki 

Quotes:

Jean Mayer, one of the "greats" of nutrition science, said in 1965, in the colourful language that has characterised arguments over diet, that prescribing a diet restricted in carbohydrates to the public was "the equivalent of mass murder."1 Having ploughed my way through five books on diet and some of the key studies to write this article, I’m left with the impression that the same accusation of "mass murder" could be directed at many players in the great diet game. In short, bold policies have been based on fragile science, and the long term results may be terrible.

...

An analysis of the data from the Seven Countries Study in 1999 showed a higher correlation of deaths from heart disease with sugar products and pastries than with animal products.13 John Yudkin from London had since the late 1950s proposed that sugar might be more important than fat in causing heart disease,4 but Keys dismissed his hypothesis as a “mountain of nonsense” and a “discredited tune.” Many scientists were sceptical about the saturated fat hypothesis, but as the conviction that the hypothesis was true gripped the leading scientific bodies, policy makers, and the media in the US these critics were steadily silenced, not least through difficulty getting funding to challenge the hypothesis and test other hypotheses.

...

It might be expected that the powerful US meat and dairy lobbies would oppose these guidelines, and they did, but they couldn’t counter the big food manufacturers such as General Foods, Quaker Oats, Heinz, the National Biscuit Company, and the Corn Products Refining Corporation, which were both more powerful and more subtle. In 1941 they set up the Nutrition Foundation, which formed links with scientists and funded conferences and research before there was public funding for nutrition research.

...

Recognising that the fat hypothesis was falling apart, some scientists, particularly Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology at Harvard (whom I’ve also met), began to promote the Mediterranean diet, which comes in many forms but is essentially lots of fruit, vegetables, bread and grains (including pasta and couscous), little meat and milk, and plenty of olive oil. Such a diet is much easier to eat than a low fat diet, and a combination of vested interests, including the International Olive Oil Council and a public relations company Oldways, which promoted the diet, has—together with the natural seductiveness of the Mediterranean region—made the diet popular. But the science behind it is weak, as a Cochrane review found,20 and some of the evidence comes from R B Singh, whose research is suspect.21

Last but not least and somewhat related to the above topic,  some science fun stuff. Enjoy!

The Demise of Science? Hundreds of Computer Generated Studies Have Been Published in Respected Scientific Journals.

Another vegan myth bites the dust!

.
I found the link, of all places on Dr. Michael (VeganMD) Greger site.  (Thanks EG!)

from Wiki

"The Impact of Dietery Protein..."

Quote:

Abstract

Although high-protein diets induce hypercalciuria in humans, the source of the additional urinary calcium remains unclear. One hypothesis is that the high endogenous acid load of a high-protein diet is partially buffered by bone, leading to increased skeletal resorption and hypercalciuria. We used dual stable calcium isotopes to quantify the effect of a high-protein diet on calcium kinetics in women. The study consisted of 2 wk of a lead-in, well-balanced diet followed by 10 d of an experimental diet containing either moderate (1.0 g/kg) or high (2.1 g/kg) protein. Thirteen healthy women received both levels of protein in random order. Intestinal calcium absorption increased during the high-protein diet in comparison with the moderate (26.2 +/- 1.9% vs. 18.5 +/- 1.6%, P < 0.0001, mean +/- sem) as did urinary calcium (5.23 +/- 0.37 vs. 3.57 +/- 0.35 mmol/d, P < 0.0001, mean +/- sem). The high-protein diet caused a significant reduction in the fraction of urinary calcium of bone origin and a nonsignificant trend toward a reduction in the rate of bone turnover. There were no protein-induced effects on net bone balance. These data directly demonstrate that, at least in the short term, high-protein diets are not detrimental to bone.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Off topic, a joke "du jour", had to post it, couldn't help it...
8-:D

(From a vegan forum by Katydid)

I wish I could find the link to where I learned this (I think it was in Dr. Klaper's "Foods that Kill" video), but you can think of a fully saturated (hydrogenated) fat like a straight inflexible stick. As it flows through the bloodstream the stiffness of the molecule causes it to "poke" at the lining of the blood vessels and cause irritation. A mono or polyunsaturated fat has missing hydrogen atoms that allow the fat molecule to flex, so it causes less damage as it flows through the bloodstream. So if you substitute say, olive or canola oil for butter or lard, you'll improve your heart health by reducing the constant irritation to your blood vessels"

Just a spoonful of sugar (with CO2) helps the medicine go down

.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar

http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302151

Quotes:

Objectives. We tested whether leukocyte telomere length maintenance, which underlies healthy cellular aging, provides a link between sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption and the risk of cardiometabolic disease.
...
Results. After adjustment for sociodemographic and health-related characteristics, sugar-sweetened soda consumption was associated with shorter telomeres (b = –0.010; 95% confidence interval [CI] = −0.020, −0.001; P = .04). Consumption of 100% fruit juice was marginally associated with longer telomeres (b = 0.016; 95% CI = −0.000, 0.033; P = .05). No significant associations were observed between consumption of diet sodas or noncarbonated SSBs and telomere length.
Conclusions. Regular consumption of sugar-sweetened sodas might influence metabolic disease development through accelerated cell aging. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print October 16, 2014: e1–e7. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2014.302151)

Notice the lack of correlation for non-carbonated sugar-sweetened beverages!

More on the carbohydraty poison, today's news.  Skim milk anyone?

Quote:

In women the adjusted mortality hazard ratio for three or more glasses of milk a day compared with less than one glass a day was 1.93 (95% confidence interval 1.80 to 2.06). For every glass of milk, the adjusted hazard ratio of all cause mortality was 1.15 (1.13 to 1.17) in women and 1.03 (1.01 to 1.04) in men. For every glass of milk in women no reduction was observed in fracture risk with higher milk consumption for any fracture (1.02, 1.00 to 1.04) or for hip fracture (1.09, 1.05 to 1.13). The corresponding adjusted hazard ratios in men were 1.01 (0.99 to 1.03) and 1.03 (0.99 to 1.07). In subsamples of two additional cohorts, one in males and one in females, a positive association was seen between milk intake and both urine 8-iso-PGF2α (a biomarker of oxidative stress) and serum interleukin 6 (a main inflammatory biomarker).

Interestingly, detrimental effects seem to be related to the milk lactose contents rather than fat or proteins, because consumption of milk products that are high in fat and lower in lactose, such as fermented milk, cheese or cream, seem to correlate with more favorable biomarkers profile.

Comparing milk with other dairy products
Particularly noteworthy is that intake of fermented milk products such as yogurt and soured milk and cheese were associated with lower rates of fracture and mortality. Furthermore, we observed a positive association only between milk intake and markers of oxidative stress (urine 8-iso-PGF2α) and inflammation (serum interleukin 6). Previously, we found a negative relation between bone mineral density and 8-iso-PGF2α.42 63 Interleukin 6 seems to be causally related to cardiovascular disease64 and may influence bone loss and osteoporosis.65 Importantly, those who consume high amounts of non-fermented milk have a more non-favourable cardiovascular risk factor profile, with higher blood pressure, lower high density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, and higher insulin resistance.18 In contrast, intake of cheese and fermented milk products is related to higher high density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, less insulin resistance, and a lower risk of myocardial infarction.18 22 23 24 In addition, a recent small randomised cross over study indicated that the intake of a fermented dairy diet seemed to provide a more favourable biomarker profile than that of a non-fermented dairy diet.66

Anti-depressants may permanently rewire the brain

.
New  study by the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany, just published:

Antidepressants rapidly alter brain architecture

To have your brain permanently rewired? No problem, just take those pills mentioned in the article!

Quote:

The rapid connectivity shifts noted by the study might therefore be precursors to longer-term changes, perhaps starting with remodeling of synapses, the microscopic gaps where chemical neurotransmitters such as serotonin flood across to an adjacent brain cell, the study suggests.

The concentrated on the Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor class of anti-depressants. Interestingly, some of the most severe (long lasting and dangerous) withdrawal symptoms are reported to be associated with the Serotonin-Norepinephrine Reuptake inhibitor, or SNRI.

Venlafaxine and Serious Withdrawal Symptoms: Warning to Drivers

Suddenly and mysteriously, protein no longer leaches calcium from bones!

.
Surely, all the past warning by vegans against consuming too much proteins, as being bad for bones, especially animal proteins, must have been based on something?  Something must have happened in the environment...


Recently published:

Biomarker-calibrated protein intake and bone health in the Women's Health Initiative clinical trials and observational study

Quotes [my comments added in square brackets]:

Abstract
Background: The effects of dietary protein on bone health are controversial.

[Really? I was under an impression that it has all been 'proven' long ago by a scientist from Cornell...]

Conclusions: Higher biomarker-calibrated protein intake within the range of usual intake was inversely associated with forearm fracture and was associated with better maintenance of total and hip BMDs.

These data suggest higher protein intake is not detrimental to bone health in postmenopausal women.

[This is using double-negative form to weaken a perceived impact of the statement. Under 'normal' circumstances, a scientist would have simply stated: "We found that eating more protein improves bone density and reduces probability of some types of bone fractures in postmenopausal women"]

Heretic

(P.S. Thanks JC for the link!)

Fasting - something is missing...

.
Fasting for three days can regenerate entire immune system, study finds

Radical news - free radicals are good for us!

Researchers found that free radicals can actually make our cells live longer - read here:

Think antioxidants...

Quote:

... When free radicals interact with the cells, proteins and DNA in the body, they can cause damage by interfering with their chemical structure. Until now, it has been believed that, as a result, we inevitably suffer the ravages of ageing, from normal physical ageing to diseases such as cancer.
But the Canadian study, published in the respected journal Cell, says the opposite. Researchers found that free radicals can make our cells live longer.
This happens by altering a mechanism called apoptosis. This is a process by which damaged cells are instructed to commit suicide in a variety of situations, such as to avoid becoming cancerous when their DNA has mutated dangerously, or to kill off viruses that have invaded the cell.


The scientists have found that free radicals can stimulate this 'suicide mechanism' to do something completely different in healthy cells - bolstering their defences and increasing their lifespan.
Siegfried Hekimi, professor of biology at McGill University, who led the study, says: 'The so-called free-radical theory of ageing is incorrect. We have turned this theory on its head.'
Professor Hekimi says that when he raised levels of free radicals in nematode worms (these simple roundworms are used because their nervous system performs many of the same functions as higher organisms), he got the creatures to live 'a substantially longer life'.
His study reinforces suspicions raised by other scientists. Last year, for example, researchers at the Multimedica Cardiovascular Research Institute in Italy warned that our bodies need the stress caused by free radicals to stimulate them to fight infectious disease and to properly regulate vital bodily functions such as our cardiovascular system.

The Milan-based researchers had surveyed all previous research evidence and concluded in The International Journal of Biochemistry and Cell Biology: 'Increasing the levels of antioxidants in our bodies may harm our health. Balanced levels of antioxidants are important for our cardiovascular system and for healthy ageing.'

The theory behind this idea is called hormesis - which may be more described as 'what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger'.

Scientists believe our bodies have evolved an array of defence mechanisms for surviving tough environments, but that these systems are not switched on unless we are challenged. And that is where free radicals come in.

The problem with antioxidants is that they may neutralise this 'protective' effect. It may also help explain why antioxidant pills have been found to produce some unexpectedly harmful results.
For instance, laboratory studies have shown how high doses of antioxidants such as N-acetyl cysteine - a popular antioxidant supplement - may promote the spread of breast cancer cells.
Meanwhile, the antioxidants beta carotene and vitamin A have been linked to an increased risk of death from lung cancer and lung disease. ...

If supplements make us age faster, then perhaps excessive consumption of vegetables and fruit would make people age faster as well?

Apparently yes!...

Credentialism

.

Source: Wiki

Form of economic discrimination disguised as opportunity.

Fascinating article:

College is a promise the economy does not keep
Has college become less about education and more about purchasing credentials for flawed job market?
14 May 2014, by Sarah Kendzior

Quote:

People go to college because not going to college carries a penalty. College is a purchased loyalty oath to an imagined employer. College shows you are serious enough about your life to risk ruining it early on. College is a promise the economy does not keep - but not going to college promises you will struggle to survive.

In an entrenched meritocracy, those who cannot purchase credentials are not only ineligible for most middle-class jobs, but are informed that their plight is the result of poor "choices". This ignores that the "choice" of college usually requires walking the road of financial ruin to get the reward - a reward of employment that, in this economy, is illusory.

Credentialism is economic discrimination disguised as opportunity. Over the past 40 years, professions that never required a college degree began demanding it.

Vegetarianism not healthy!

.

 versus 

Source: wiki (both pics)

Large Austrian study was published recently:

Nutrition and Health – The Association between Eating Behavior and Various Health Parameters: A Matched Sample Study

Quote:

Our results revealed that a vegetarian diet is related to a lower BMI and less frequent alcohol consumption. Moreover, our results showed that a
vegetarian diet is associated with poorer health (higher incidences of cancer, allergies, and mental health disorders), a higher need for health care, and poorer quality of life.

From Table 3 (statistically significant results only):

Compared with carnivorous diet rich in meat, vegetarians have 1.8 higher risk of Allergies (30% in absolute terms!), 3 times lower risk of urinary incontinence (2%), 2.7 higher risk of cancer (4.8%), and 2.1 higher risk of anxiety disorder or depression.

Among non-statistically significant results, most notable is about twice as high risk of cardiac infarction (1.5% vegetarian vs 0.6% meat eaters), and a generally higher risk of all other chronic conditions.

See also: Study: Vegetarians Less Healthy, Lower Quality Of Life Than Meat-Eaters

Global Warming - Fight of the Faceless Fomentors

.
Mysterious Steven Goddard's anonymous heretical blog is documenting what appear to be cases of scientific fraud and data-tampering associated with the recent global warming "research" by NASA-GISS (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies).  Look at the graphs in:

http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/03/01/spectacular-data-tampering-from-giss-in-iceland/

http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/30-of-giss-warming-is-due-to-data-tampering-since-2005/?relatedposts_exclude=105745

http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/all-giss-us-warming-is-due-to-data-tampering/

A presence of opposing views or even debunking is essential to the scientific method.  Steven Goddard has attracted his or her fair share of the latter:

http://www.desmogblog.com/steven-goddard

The following anonymous blog (Hey NASA is that you? On the other hand, Steve - if  you made that blog to "debunk" yourself - congratulations!  8-:D   )
-  seems to be devoted mostly to debating and character-assassination of "Steven Goddard"

http://reallysciency.blogspot.ca/

http://nationbuilders.thenation.com/profiles/blogs/debunking-a-climate-denier

http://climatecrocks.com/2011/09/14/new-lows-sea-ice-and-steven-goddard-credibility/


Update (23/06/2014):
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/10916086/The-scandal-of-fiddled-global-warming-data.html

Quote:

"Any theory needing to rely so consistently on fudging the evidence, I concluded, must be looked on not as science at all, but as simply a rather alarming case study in the aberrations of group psychology."

Update (30/06/2014):

http://dailycaller.com/2014/06/30/noaa-quietly-reinstates-july-1936-as-the-hottest-month-on-record/

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, criticized for manipulating temperature records to create a warming trend, has now been caught warming the past and cooling the present.
...
"These show that the US has actually been cooling since the Thirties, the hottest decade on record; whereas the latest graph, nearly half of it based on 'fabricated' data, shows it to have been warming at a rate equivalent to more than 3 degrees centigrade per century," Booker adds.
When asked about climate data adjustments by the DCNF back in April, NOAA send there have been "several scientific developments since 1989 and 1999 that have improved the understanding of the U.S. surface temperature record."

Update (6-July-2014):

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2014/06/25/government-data-show-u-s-in-decade-long-cooling/

Government Data Show U.S. in Decade-Long Cooling

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s most accurate, up-to-date temperature data confirm the United States has been cooling for at least the past decade. The NOAA temperature data are driving a stake through the heart of alarmists claiming accelerating global warming.

Responding to widespread criticism that its temperature station readings were corrupted by poor citing issues and suspect adjustments, NOAA established a network of 114 pristinely cited temperature stations spread out fairly uniformly throughout the United States. Because the network, known as the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN), is so uniformly and pristinely situated, the temperature data require no adjustments to provide an accurate nationwide temperature record. USCRN began compiling temperature data in January 2005. Now, nearly a decade later, NOAA has finally made the USCRN temperature readings available.

According to the USCRN temperature readings, U.S. temperatures are not rising at all – at least not since the network became operational 10 years ago.
Instead, the United States has cooled by approximately 0.4 degrees Celsius,
which is more than half of the claimed global warming of the twentieth century. ...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2681829/Global-warming-latest-Amount-Antarctic-sea-ice-hits-new-record-high.html

Global warming computer models confounded as Antarctic sea ice hits new record high with 2.1million square miles more than is usual for time of year.

• Ice is covering 16m sq km, more than 2.1m unusual for time of year
• UN computer models say Antarctic ice should be in decline, not increasing

America’s National Snow And Ice Data Center, which is funded by Nasa, revealed that ice around the southern continent covers about 16million sq km, more than 2.1 million more than is usual for the time of year. It is by far the highest level since satellite observations on which the figures depend began in 1979. In statistical terms, the extent of the ice cover is hugely significant.

It represents the latest stage in a trend that started ten years ago, and means that an area the size of Greenland, which would normally be open water, is now frozen. The Antarctic surge is so big that overall, although Arctic ice has decreased, the frozen area around both poles is one million square kilometres more than the long-term average.

In its authoritative Fifth Assessment Report released last year, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admitted that the computer models on which scientists base their projections say Antarctic ice should be in decline, not increasing. The report said: ‘There is low confidence in the scientific understanding of the observed increase in Antarctic sea ice extent since 1979, due to… incomplete and competing scientific explanations for the causes of change.’

-----------------------------------------------
Update (20-July-2014):

Patrick Moore, founder of Greenpeace on "Global Warming":

Myths Busted at Climate Change Conference

During the breakfast session on Day 2, Greenpeace cofounder Patrick Moore chronicled the radicalization of once-noble environmentalist groups. Standing before photographs of himself leading environmental protests and provocative actions against whalers and other corporate entitites, Moore explained how Greenpeace and other environmental activist groups are now harming human health and welfare by demanding so many resources be dedicated to the fictitious global warming crisis. True environmental progress would be made fighting for land conservation and other real environmental concerns rather than trumped-up global warming claims, Moore explained.

Patrick Michaels, a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists and former program chair for the Committee on Applied Climatology of the American Meteorological Society, explained during the Day 2 luncheon how government research grants are promoting the false notion of an alarmist consensus. Large government research grants are handed out almost uniformly to scientists who will promote the idea of global warming crisis, which ensures more budgetary dollars for government agencies addressing the topic and subsequently more research grants for the participating scientists, he noted.

More:

Humans are NOT to blame for global warming, says Greenpeace co-founder, as he insists there is 'no scientific proof' climate change is manmade

PATRICK MOORE ON THE HOT TOPIC OF GLOBAL WARMING:

There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years. If there were such a proof it would be written down for all to see. No actual proof, as it is understood in science, exists.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states: "It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century." (My emphasis) "Extremely likely" is not a scientific term but rather a judgment, as in a court of law. The IPCC defines "extremely likely" as a "95-100% probability".

But upon further examination it is clear that these numbers are not the result of any mathematical calculation or statistical analysis. They have been "invented" as a construct within the IPCC report to express "expert judgment", as determined by the IPCC contributors.

When modern life evolved over 500 million years ago, CO2 was more than 10 times higher than today, yet life flourished at this time. Then an Ice Age occurred 450 million years ago when CO2 was 10 times higher than today.

There is some correlation, but little evidence, to support a direct causal relationship between CO2 and global temperature through the millennia. The fact that we had both higher temperatures and an ice age at a time when CO2 emissions were 10 times higher than they are today fundamentally contradicts the certainty that human-caused CO2 emissions are the main cause of global warming.

Today, we live in an unusually cold period in the history of life on earth and there is no reason to believe that a warmer climate would be anything but beneficial for humans and the majority of other species. There is ample reason to believe that a sharp cooling of the climate would bring disastrous results for human civilization.

The IPCC states that humans are the dominant cause of warming "since the mid-20th century" which is 1950. From 1910 to 1940 there was an increase in global average temperature of 0.5C over that 30-year period. Then there was a 30-year "pause" until 1970.

This was followed by an increase of 0.57C during the 30-year period from 1970 to 2000. Since then there has been no increase, perhaps a slight decrease, in average global temperature. This in itself tends to negate the validity of the computer models, as CO2 emissions have continued to accelerate during this time.

The increase in temperature between 1910-1940 was virtually identical to the increase between 1970-2000. Yet the IPCC does not attribute the increase from 1910-1940 to "human influence".

Low dose radiation is healthy!

What has cholesterol-heart disease theory and anti nuclear power environmentalism got in common?  It turns out - a lot!      8-:)

I came across a fascinating conference presentation by Philippe Duport on low level radiation in Ottawa University, January 2002.

Basically, turns out that radiation level between 10 to 1000 times stronger than the typical sea level natural background,  reduces the risk of cancer and extends the lifespan!   Some slides:

Note: 0.2Gy (Gray) is 20rad which is a rather high dosage (lethal dose for humans is 100rad), see also Wiki.

30% lung cancer reduction after 0.15Gy dose.

28% longer lifespan in mice at 35 and 70 times the natural background radiation!

Human cancer studies show a similar risk reduction, for example British radiologists have a lesser risk (by about 30%) than their non-radiologist colleagues.  Similar situation with Canadian radiation workers, 12% and 26% lower SIR (Standardized Incidence Ratio) of cancer in women and men, respectively,  28 and 35% lower cancer mortality rate (SMR=Standardized Mortality Rate) in women and men, respectively,  38 and 41% lower all causes mortality rate (SMR=Standardized Mortality Rate) in women and men, respectively (see slides 36,37).  It is interesting to note that the total mortality rate decreases more with (low level) radiation exposure than the cancer mortality, indicating that the protective effect of low level ionizing radiation against many other causes of death (cardiovascular?)  may be even stronger than against cancer!

The next slides illustrates the effect of rising natural radiation level with altitude above the sea level (due to cosmic ray effect).

High elevation = higher radiation = less cancer!

Similar map appears when plotting cancer incidence maps versus natural radiation map due to radon emission from the ground.

More Radon = more radiation = less cancer!

Conclusions (slides 45,46):

• Ionizing radiation is part of life.
• Sources of ionizing radiation are naturally everywhere, in food, air, water and our body.
• Life appeared and evolved in a radioactive environment.
• At environmental levels, there is no evidence of increased risk with increased dose, even when annual doses exceed current dose limits for radiation workers
• In fact, there are indications of decreased risk of cancer and non-malignant diseases at doses and dose rates well above current regulatory limits for the public and the workers.
• Populations in high background areas tend to have less cancers than those in low background areas.
• Low dose radiation is used in medicine: radon spas, cancer treatment and prevention.

This is supported by many other sources, studies and statistics, for example, see Figure 3 at  http://radiation-hormesis.com/

Optimum health = 100 times higher radiation than typ background!

------
Refs:

http://radiation-hormesis.com/

http://www.lowdose.uottawa.ca/projects.htm

http://www.lowdose.uottawa.ca/publications_files/Facts%20about%20low-dose%20radiation%20effects.ppt

http://stan-heretic.blogspot.ca/search?q=hormesis

The Anointed Ones

.
Fascinating new presentation by Tom Naughton, a must-watch (begin with the Vision of the Anointed at 8m 27s)!

A dissection of the homicidal nutritional disinformation campaign waged throughout the XX-th century by the corporate medical & drug establishment against the population.  Many interesting threads documenting the triumph of the corporate-governmental complex pitted directly against the science and against the public interest.

Proportion of heart attack survivors on different types of fat, clinical study, quoted from Tom Naughton's video (see the Youtube link above)

"Healthy" vegetable fats (2), heart attack survivors, clinical study (same source as above)

Low fat anyone?  Heart attack survivors, clinical study (same source as above)

Death by committee - what did the United States and later all other governments do, following the above studies?  (same source as above)

Twistor Revolution in Physics

.

This is a short alert note! It looks like a new revolution in theoretical physics, involving Twistor concept, has been going on for some time. Spinor coordinates, Clifford Algebra and quantum states replacing the space-time and classical vector calculus. No longer are space and time the free coordinate variables of the quantum or classical equations of motion or of the curvature tensor (General Relativity - R.I.P.).   No space, no time, no singularities, no Feynman diagrams, no locality, no 26 dimensions ...

Roger Penrose presentation (must watch!!!)

More reading, more refs: Andrew Hodges review

For the most hardened, read this unreadable "Primer on Twistors" by Fedja Hadrovich.

Lesson from medical history - beware of liars!

.
An article link was emailed to me by a friend.  An article like many of that kind, published in the last few years exonerating the benefits of low carb nutrition and pointing out some fallacies of the past misguided medical guidelines, full of references and links to various published studies.

  The way it was written, in a succinct way, has caught my attention and made me think about my own path to nutritional heresy and liberation from the Official Medical Dogma.   It dawned on me that it is actually much worse than I ever believed!   Back in 1999, when I once saw a medical article calling for low fat low meat high vegetable and fruit diet, in my naivety, I sent an email to an author, pointing out discrepancies and inaccuracies.   Among them I pointed out that the health risks associated with saturated fat and meat consumption were most likely caused by mixing fat and carbohydrates together in similar caloric proportions.   I believed in that!    The truth turns out (see many of the references links embedded in the article, for example this multi-study review) was much simpler and troubling than that - we were not dealing with the honest scientific mistakes!   The statements of a  health risk from eating saturated fat, with carbohydrates or without -  were a mixture of medical lies, references to irreproducible anti-saturated fat and cholesterol pseudoscience, plus unproven opinions!  Much of the dietary medical "wisdom" doled out so often in the past 30 years by the generations of unintelligent doctors to their patients, has been actually completely disproven by many of the past studies and by a majority of recent studies!

Heretic

References:

1) 13 Nutrition Lies That Made The World Sick And Fat

2) Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease

Statins review paper

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"Nuclear explosion" is probably a better term than review!

Source Wiki

"The Ugly Side of Statins. Systemic Appraisal of the Contemporary Un-Known Unknowns" by Sherif Sultan and Niamh Hynes published in Open Journal of Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases, 2013, 3, 179-185.

The whole text is well worth reading in its entirety! Some quotations:

From the Abstract:

A comprehensive review of Pubmed, EM-BASE and Cochrane review databases was undertaken for articles relating to cardiovascular primary prevention and statin side effects with the aim of harmonising their roles within contemporary clinic practice. Particular attention was paid to large-scale randomised controlled trials on contemporary cardiovascular pharmacotherapies and their specific adverse effects on metabolic pathways which feature prominently in cardiovascular primary prevention and regenerative programmes.

There is a categorical lack of clinical evidence to support the use of statin therapy in primary prevention. Not only is there a dearth of evidence for primary cardiovascular protection, there is ample evidence to show that statins actually augment cardiovascular risk in women, patients with Diabetes Mellitus and in the young. Furthermore statins are associated with triple the risk of coronary artery and aortic artery calcification.
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Utmost Medical Tragedy.

We seem to have fallen into the marketing trap and ignored the niggling side effects with regard to the HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors [1]. The only statin benefit that has actually been demonstrated is in middle aged men with coronary heart disease. However, statins were not shown to best form of primary prevention. Aspirin, as a form of primary prevention decreases the risk for total cardiovascular events and nonfatal Myocardial Infarction over any other factor [5]. In actual fact, high cholesterol levels have been found to be protective in elderly and heart failure patients and hypo-cholestereamic patients had higher incidence of intra-cerebral bleeds, depression and cancer [1].

The statin industry, with all of its spin-off, is a 20-billion-a-year industry. We are observing the revealing of the utmost medical tragedy of all times. It is unprecedented that the healthcare industry has inadvertently induced life-threatening nutrient deficiency in millions of otherwise healthy people. What is even more disparaging is that not only has there been a failure to report on these negative side-effects of statins, there has actually been active discouragement to publish any negative studies on statins.

Statins induce diabetes.

The US Veterans affair healthcare system study on 15 million veterans in 10 hospitals in Southern USA concluded that statins affect fasting and postprandial glucose level by inducing a state of hyperglycaemia in diabetic as well as non diabetic patients [12]. This relationship between statin use and rise in glucose level is independent of age and use of aspirin, beta blockers and angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors. Furthermore, a sub-analysis of the JUPITER study showed that statin therapy can induce full blown type 2 diabetes in women [13]. This was astonishingly shown in the sub study of PRO-VE-IT TIMI 22, in which there was a significant increased risk of developing HBA1c > 6% in both diabetics and non diabetics [14]. Moreover Huptas et al. have demonstrated that statin therapy can induce a state of insulin resistance [15].
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Statins manipulate glucose metabolism as a consequence of inhibitory effects on adipocytes. They induce insulin resistance through reduction in insulin-stimulated glucose uptake with a strong impact on glycaemic control in non obese patients.
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Preiss et al. [19] demonstrated, in a pooled analysis of data from the five major statin trials, an increased incidence of new onset diabetes with statin therapy and provided evidence of a dose dependent association.

Statins accelerate arterial calcification.

The Confirm registry had shocked the scientific world with the strongest evidence that statin use is associated with an increased prevalence and extent of coronary plaques calcification [32]. Ironically for a drug which was marketed to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, the confirm registry identified a strong association of statin use to the progression of coronary artery plaque features. Moreover, Statin use was correlated with a greater incidence of severe coronary artery stenosis as well as increase in the numbers of coronary vessels developing obstructive coronary artery disease. Furthermore, statin use was linked to an increase in the prevalence and extent of mixed calcific plaque. Five prospective studies have borne witness to the fact that statin therapy does not induce any coronary calcium regression and evolution of coronary calcium continues regardless of statin treatment[33,34]. The Veteran Affairs Diabetes Trial [35] established that statin consumption was linked to accelerated progression of Coronary Artery Calcification (CAC) in participants with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus without previous coronary artery disease, despite the fact that statin users had significantly lower and nearly optimal LDL-cholesterol levels.

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Updated 5-Oct-2013, press news by Irish Independent:

"HSE gags surgeon after cholesterol drug claims"

A LEADING vascular surgeon [Sherif Sultan], whose research review concluded cholesterol-lowering medicines may do more harm than good for many otherwise healthy people, has been gagged by the Health Service Executive. ...

Why is Microsoft really doomed?

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Why are Microsoft and similar large organisations really doomed to fail?

Bad CEO?  Don't think so!

-  It's the system!   - Because of the systemic handicap inherent in large collectives!

Because it is more advantageous for middle ranking management to compete internally undermining their colleagues' departments and project developments, rather than make their company compete on the market!

Undermining a corporate colleague is more career-rewarding, for a "monkey", and brings rewards faster than a successful project management! It is a culture of hierarchical collectivism where a stronger must fight a weaker and must suck up to the higher in ranks. It is a culture of punishing the one who tries to work for a slightest mistake while rewarding her  boss for all successes. It is a culture akin of a herd of primates where everybody is a follower, nobody is capable or willing to show any creativity, and everyone spends all energy on social interaction and power games.

Eventually, normal humans are treated as misfits and leave or are pushed out, and those who embrace that culture, or are of this culture - stay in.

See the article:

“Microsoft’s Lost Decade” by Kurt Eichenwald
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2012/08/microsoft-lost-mojo-steve-ballmer

Quotes (from Kurt Eichenwald's article):

The story of Microsoft’s lost decade could serve as a business-school case study on the pitfalls of success. For what began as a lean competition machine led by young visionaries of unparalleled talent has mutated into something bloated and bureaucracy-laden, with an internal culture that unintentionally rewards managers who strangle innovative ideas that might threaten the established order of things.
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Fiefdoms had taken root, and a mastery of internal politics emerged as key to career success. In those years Microsoft had stepped up its efforts to cripple competitors, but—because of a series of astonishingly foolish management decisions—the competitors being crippled were often co-workers at Microsoft, instead of other companies. Staffers were rewarded not just for doing well but for making sure that their colleagues failed. As a result, the company was consumed by an endless series of internal knife fights. Potential market-busting businesses—such as e-book and smartphone technology—were killed, derailed, or delayed amid bickering and power plays. That is the portrait of Microsoft depicted in interviews with dozens of current and former executives, as well as in thousands of pages of internal documents and legal records.

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More employees seeking management slots led to more managers, more managers led to more meetings, more meetings led to more memos, and more red tape led to less innovation. Everything, one executive said, advanced at a snail’s pace. “There was this institutionalized system, and it was like designing software by committee,” said Prasanna Sankaranarayanan, a former Microsoft engineer. “Things moved too slowly. There were too many meetings.” Just as with e-books, opportunities for major product developments slipped away. …
By 2002 the by-product of bureaucracy—brutal corporate politics—had reared its head at Microsoft. And, current and former executives said, each year the intensity and destructiveness of the game playing grew worse as employees struggled to beat out their co-workers for promotions, bonuses, or just survival.
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Death by "stack ranking" peer-review system.

Quotes:

Microsoft’s managers, intentionally or not, pumped up the volume on the viciousness. What emerged—when combined with the bitterness about financial disparities among employees, the slow pace of development, and the power of the Windows and Office divisions to kill innovation—was a toxic stew of internal antagonism and warfare.

“If you don’t play the politics, it’s management by character assassination,” said Turkel.

At the center of the cultural problems was a management system called “stack ranking.” Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees. The system—also referred to as “the performance model,” “the bell curve,” or just “the employee review”—has, with certain variations over the years, worked like this: every unit was forced to declare a certain percentage of employees as top performers, then good performers, then average, then below average, then poor.

“If you were on a team of 10 people, you walked in the first day knowing that, no matter how good everyone was, two people were going to get a great review, seven were going to get mediocre reviews, and one was going to get a terrible review,” said a former software developer. “It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies.”

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“I was told in almost every review that the political game was always important for my career development,” said Brian Cody, a former Microsoft engineer. “It was always much more on ‘Let’s work on the political game’ than on improving my actual performance.”

Creating wealth versus selling someone's product.

Quotes:

In Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography Steve Jobs, Jobs acknowledged Ballmer’s role in Microsoft’s problems: “The company starts valuing the great salesmen, because they’re the ones who can move the needle on revenues, not the product engineers and designers. So the salespeople end up running the company.… [Then] the product guys don’t matter so much, and a lot of them just turn off. It happened at Apple when [John] Sculley came in, which was my fault, and it happened when Ballmer took over at Microsoft. Apple was lucky and it rebounded, but I don’t think anything will change at Microsoft as long as Ballmer is running it.”

Most interesting, however, is that Jobs put the ultimate blame on Bill Gates: “They were never as ambitious product-wise as they should have been. Bill likes to portray himself as a man of the product, but he’s really not. He’s a businessperson. Winning business was more important than making great products. Microsoft never had the humanities and liberal arts in its DNA.”

Another potentially big issue, from a very different point of view:
A dialogue between the Market Diva and myself

Why are they doing it?

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Interesting phenomenon: large number of material has appeared on various blogs and youtube recently, debunking the low carbohydrate diets. Most of them appear to be produced by very dedicated individuals with no apparent science background though with very good communication and media skills. The presentations are well written in terms of English and well presented with illustrations and video. It looks like a considerable time effort has been expended by some vegan English Major graduates.   8-:)

It puzzles me because for me personally, nothing seems more fruitless and useless than trying to convince another person how to eat! What is the point?

It is impossible (and unnecessary) to argue against that material because it is too much verbiage with very little hard data, quotes are misrepresented and the references are often either missing or misleading. A good illustration of this is the following example:

http://healthylongevity.blogspot.ca/2013/08/asian-paradox-low-carb-diets.html

Take for example this graph:

The reference link points to a paper:

Explaining the Increase in Coronary Heart Disease Mortality in Beijing Between 1984 and 1999
Julia Critchley, et al.

- which does not implicate meat or animal produce at all, rather points towards the Westernisation of the modern Chinese diet as the main culprit. Anyone visiting China recently remarks how much Western junk food are young Chinese now consuming, pop soda, wheat rolls, sweets and other carbohydrates.

Quote:

Conclusions - Much of the dramatic CHD mortality increases in Beijing can be explained by rises in total cholesterol, reflecting an increasingly "Western" diet. Without cardiological treatments, increases would have been even greater.

Contrary to what the blogger seems to believe, there is nothing here against or for Paleo Diet, nothing that would single out meat, carbohydrates or anything!

Healthylongevity blogger conjures a link between CHD and a consumption of animal produce based on a second-removed correlation between cholesterol and meat. However, high consumption of both carbohydrates and fat or meat calories can also increase blood cholesterol, as witnessed by the Western SAD stats, so it is not really proven that what has caused both cholesterol and CHD in the West is one and the same thing, and it is a completely unproved Healthylongevity's opinon that supposedly, the culprit must be animal produce, not the mountains of sugar, grains or vegetable oils introduced into the world diet!.

It's the Wheat!

The next group of graphs of mysterious origin really fascinates me, since I have never seen a better example of misinformation dressed up as scientific quotation.  The first of the graphs looks like this:

I presume mIHDc stands for mortality from Ishaemic Heart disease (group c=adults) so it seems to stipulate that more wheat = lower IHD mortality!   I was not able to find any source of those graphs, since the only link above them points to some deleted blog article by Michel Blomgren titled "Elektromagnetisk överkänslighet", where the graphs are nowhere to be found!  There is a verbal "explanation" that it was supposed to be some "regressed" scientific data with no comments on the nature of regression, what variables was it regressed against and under which assumptions and models was it calculated, other than it was based on China Study II.  IHD is only one of many (and the less prevalent in China) of mortalities due to cardio-vascular causes.   Would you like to take a look at the total cardiovascular disease mortality instead?  Much higher statistics and therefore much more reliable correlation.  Well, the China Study raw  un-massaged data does show the total cardio-vascular disease versus wheat trend, albeit a completely opposite one! That is, the more wheat one consumes the higher the rate of cardio-vascular disease (in terms of correlation), for example look at the graphs here and there which I generated last 3 years ago (I can send anyone the original spreadsheet, upon request), based on the original China Study data from the Oxford University web site. Incidentally, Oxford data graphs on Wheat vs Cardio-Vascular are very consistent with the Julia Critchley et al. paper quoted above, since Chinese appear to have been recently consuming a record amount of wheat due to Westernisation of their diet!

Heretic

Quantum biophysics is the new microelectronics!

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I am recently obsessed fascinated by quantum coherent physical phenomena involving biological cellular membranes that may also represent a possible physical mechanism behind cold fusion (aka LENR - Low Energy Nuclear Reactions!).

Brief introduction:

In case of cellular membranes, we are dealing with electron-proton pairs on the opposite sides of the membranes forming the pseudo-particles - bosons i.e. particles of integral spin. Being bosons, those pseudo-particles may form a coherent quantum state - Bose-Einstein (BE) condensate just like the Cooper pairs of electrons in a superconductor, except they are neutral thus they do not produce observable electromagnetic phenomena as a superconductor but they do produce non-local quantum propagation phenomena (neurons, brain) and non-local synchronous energy transfers (bio-catalysis, mitochondria).

In case of deuterium or hydrogen ions in palladium or nickel crystal lattices, we are dealing probably with similar phenomenon of free electrons in the metallic lattice pairing with hydrogen nucleus forming an analog of hydrogen pseudo-atoms of very large dimensions which then form a coherent collective state of B-E condensate like on a cellullar membrane.

A collective state behave like a single "particle" of energy and mass being the multiple of the initial particle state energy (150meV in case of cellullar mitochondria and neurons, about 1eV in case of hydrogen/deuterium ions in metallic crystal lattice), multiplied by the average number N of particle forming the B-E condensate state. if N=10 then the membrane potential can energise all sort of chemical reaction acting like a catalyst. If N=1e6 then the B-E condensate may trigger nuclear reactions!

Once we develop a more accurate understanding and the model, we will be able to optimise and control those processes. From the practical and technological development point of view, I think, quantum biophysics is now what semiconductor microelectronics was in the 1950-ties.

Se also this document: "Proton Pump CF Mechanism".

[to be continued]

Added 9-Jan-2014

Quantum condensate effects observed in the living cells:

Physica Scripta. Vol.40,786-791, 1989., "Magnetic Flux Quantization and Josephson Systems",
E. Del Giudice, S. Doglia, M. Milani, C. W. Smith and G. Vitiello



Quotes:

One of the authors (CWS) and his co-workers have, over many years, found evidence that Josephson-like phenomena are occurring in living systems. The first piece of evidence [lo] came in 1975, when in the course of measurements on enzymes it was found that magnetic fields of the order of 60 mT could lead to very large changes in the dielectric constants of dilute solutions of enzymes.

This clearly indicates the presence of a cooperative phenomenon capable of increasing the susceptibility in a magnetic field. The effect disappeared above a critical value of the field suggesting a Meissner effect. Also the effects disappeared, if the solution was completely sterile biologically. These results have been discussed on the basis of a model in which there is a small superconductive region with linear dimensions smaller than the London penetration depth. A dispersion of such regions will act like a diamagnetic medium and could give rise to an AC Josephson effect. These preliminary results were repeated more extensively and using a different experimental technique for measuring the diamagnetic susceptibility.