Gamma radiation protects against cancer, in low doses?

.
Cancer mortality reduction by 97% - huge!  Is it true?  Hormesis?

Paper:
  "Effects of Cobalt-60 Exposure on Health of Taiwan Residents Suggest New Approach Needed in Radiation Protection",   W.L. Chen et al.,   Dose Response. 2007; 5(1): 63–75, 

Quote:

... serendipitous contamination of 1700 apartments in Taiwan with cobalt-60 (T_1/2 = 5.3 y). This experience indicates that chronic exposure of the whole body to low-dose-rate radiation, even accumulated to a high annual dose, may be beneficial to human health. Approximately 10,000 people occupied these buildings and received an average radiation dose of 0.4 Sv, unknowingly, during a 9-20 year period. They did not suffer a higher incidence of cancer mortality, as the LNT theory would predict. On the contrary, the incidence of cancer deaths in this population was greatly reduced-to about 3 per cent of the incidence of spontaneous cancer death in the general Taiwan public. In addition, the incidence of congenital malformations was also reduced - to about 7 per cent of the incidence in the general public. These observations appear to be compatible with the radiation hormesis model.

   Figure 1 from the same paper.  Click to magnify and hires.

More readings:

1. by D.W.Miller, MD:  Afraid of Radiation

2.  Keeping the Lights On

3. by William R. Ware, Ph.D.:  Low-Dose Radiation Exposure and Risk of Cancer

4. Caroline Hadley: "What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger", Nature, EMBO reports   VOL 4 | NO 10 | 2003

5. Bernard L. Cohen: "Test of linear no threshold theory of radiation carcinogenesis for inhaled radon decay products", University of Pittsburgh 1994

Fig 1a from Cohen's paper 

To annoy anti-nuclear environuts:    Letter... 

More refs added (02-Mar-2011):

6.  Rheumatology 2000;39:894–902;
"Long-term efficacy of radon spa therapy in rheumatoid arthritis—a randomized, sham-controlled study and follow-up"

7. Int.J.Low Radiation,Vol.1,No.4,2005; "Nuclear shipyard worker study (1980–1988): a large cohort exposed to low-dose-rate gamma radiation"

see also John Cameron's (one of the study author) write-up here

Quote:

In 1980, the US Department of Energy (DOE) gave a contract to the School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University to study radiation risks to nuclear shipyard workers. This study, which extended for more than a decade, cost the taxpayers $10 million. This was the World's best epidemiological study of nuclear workers. The study has yet to be published more than 12 years after its completion in early 1988.
...
The reader may think that the nuclear shipyard study is contradicted by other human studies. I know of no contradictory studies. One other radiation worker study--the British radiologists study. (Smith and Doll 1981)-- also looked at the death rate from all causes. It gives results consistent with NSWS. (Table 2.)

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Eating less processed meat and more poultry, fish reduces cancer

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New cancer-diet study, just being published in AJCN:

"Meat, fish, and ovarian cancer risk: results from 2 Australian case-control studies, a systematic review, and meta-analysis."

Results from 2 case-controlled studies were combined and presented (see blue numbers below), and separately, a combined meta-analysis from 7 additional studies was also presented (red numbers).  Bulleted conclusions are as follows:

• No association (within statistical significance) of red meat consumption with ovarian cancer.
• Women with the highest intake of processed meats had +18% and +20%  more ovarian cancer.
• Women with the highest intake of poultry had -17% and -10% less ovarian cancer (statistically borderline).
• Women with the highest intake of fish had -24% and -16% less ovarian cancer.

-------

As I am with this topic, here is some more nutritional heresy.  Enjoy.

"Health Benefits of a Low-Carbohydrate, High-Saturated-Fat Diet"

written by cardiologist
Dr. Donald W. Miller, Jr.

I could not help noticing how similar, no - virtually identical are mine and his interests and views, except that he has been enjoying his life assignment 15 years earlier, before me.  I strongly urge readers to read all Dr. Miller's articles on his website!
.

Refined Carbohydrates, not Fats, Threaten the Heart - Official!!

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(From Wikipedia)

Spot the junk bits!

Scientific American Magazine - April 27, 2010

Title: "Carbs against Cardio: More Evidence that Refined Carbohydrates, not Fats, Threaten the Heart"

Quotes:

...compared the reported daily food intake of nearly 350,000 people against their risk of developing cardiovascular disease over a period of five to 23 years. The analysis, overseen by Ronald M. Krauss, director of atherosclerosis research at the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute, found no association between the amount of saturated fat consumed and the risk of heart disease.

... Stampfer’s findings do not merely suggest that saturated fats are not so bad; they indicate that carbohydrates could be worse. A 1997 study he co-authored in the Journal of the American Medical Association evaluated 65,000 women and found that the quintile of women who ate the most easily digestible and readily absorbed carbohydrates—that is, those with the highest glycemic index—were 47 percent more likely to acquire type 2 diabetes than those in the quintile with the lowest average glycemic-index score. (The amount of fat the women ate did not affect diabetes risk.)  And a 2007 Dutch study of 15,000 women ... who were overweight and in the quartile that consumed meals with the highest average glycemic load, a metric that incorporates portion size, were 79 percent more likely to develop coronary vascular disease ...

Another issue facing regulatory agencies, notes Harvard’s Stampfer, is that “the sugared beverage industry   [and vegetarians, my comment - H.]  is lobbying very hard and trying to cast doubt on all these studies.”

... Some monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, such as those found in fish and olive oil, can protect against heart disease. What is more, some high-fiber carbohydrates are unquestionably good for the body. But saturated fats may ultimately be neutral compared with processed carbs and sugars such as those found in cereals, breads, pasta and cookies.


“If you reduce saturated fat and replace it with high glycemic-index carbohydrates, you may not only not get benefits—you might actually produce harm,” Ludwig argues. The next time you eat a piece of buttered toast, he says, consider that “butter is actually the more healthful component.”

Stan (not-so-Heretic)

.

Cheese - reduced risk of incident and fatal cancer

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New European  EPIC study ,  just published.

24 thousand participants, over 10 years, 28% reduction in cancer mortality, mostly associated with prostate and lung cancers. Only dairy (not vegetable) source of vitamin K had any effect.

Quote:

24,340 participants aged 35–64 y and free of cancer at enrollment (1994–1998) were actively followed up for cancer incidence and mortality through 2008. Dietary vitamin K intake was estimated from food-frequency questionnaires completed at baseline by using HPLC-based food-composition data.


Results: During a median follow-up time of >10 y, 1755 incident cancer cases occurred, of which 458 were fatal. Dietary intake of menaquinones was nonsignificantly inversely associated with overall cancer incidence (HR for the highest compared with the lowest quartile: 0.86; 95% CI: 0.73, 1.01; P for trend = 0.08[*]), and the association was stronger for cancer mortality (HR: 0.72; 95% CI: 0.53, 0.98; P for trend = 0.03). Cancer risk reduction with increasing intake of menaquinones was more pronounced in men than in women, mainly driven by significant inverse associations with prostate (P for trend = 0.03) and lung (P for trend = 0.002) cancer. We found no association with phylloquinone intake[**].


Conclusion: These findings suggest that dietary intake of menaquinones[**], which is highly determined by the consumption of cheese, is associated with a reduced risk of incident and fatal cancer.

My comments:

*) Accepted threshold for "significance" is P<=0.05 that is probability of the result being by chance are less or equal than 5%. P=0.08 means that the total cancer incidence results were also close to being significant, with the probability of being false of 8%.

**) Phylloquinone is the form of vitamin K (K1) that is present in plants. Menaquinones are forms of K2 present in non-plant food sources such as meat, organ meat and dairy (MK-4) or some types of yeasts (MK-7, MK-9).

It is interesting to reflect at this stage at the infamous "The China Study" book by Dr. T.C. Cambpell from Cornell University. For many years Campbell has been claiming that cheese (specifically caseine) supposedly caused cancer in his experimental mice and it was also presumed to be certain, according to him, to cause cancer in humans. Countless of vegans must have used Campbell's book to justify avoiding all dairy products.

Now it turnes out that the China Study must have been a mistake.  Some people like Chris Masterjohn, have been pointing that out in the past, to no avail probably due to high academic credibility of the book author.  (*)

False knowledge seems to be more harmful than no knowledge.

Heretic

_______________________________

References:

Am J Clin Nutr. 2010 May;91(5):1348-58. Epub 2010 Mar 24.
"Dietary vitamin K intake in relation to cancer incidence and mortality: results from the Heidelberg cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC-Heidelberg)."
Nimptsch K, Rohrmann S, Kaaks R, Linseisen J.


http://www.westonaprice.org/1799-Cure-for-Cancer-Activator-X-May-Be-the-Missing-Link-1799.html

http://blog.cholesterol-and-health.com/2010/01/weston-prices-activator-x-cure-for.html

http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/index.html

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/03/are-mk-4-and-mk-7-forms-of-vitamin-k2.html

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/06/vitamin-k2-menatetrenone-mk-4.html

-------------------------------------

*) Updated 12-July-2010 - see also this post .

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Running causes heart attacks

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12% of marathon runners were found in a German study to have suffered heart atacks versus only 4% among  the age-matched control subjects.

This is important!  You have to read more about it on Kurt's blog here   and there . (Thanks for bringing this subject!).

It turns out that marathon runners not only carried more frequent traces of  past myocardiac infarction events, than the average age-matched population, but also had 62% more atherosclerotic plaque as showed in this research.  The true extent of atherosclerosis among runners is likely to be even higher than that, because the control group in that study wasn't random.  It was selected from among patients undergoing the same scan for symptomatic or suspected heart abnormalities.

Has there ever been a study on marathon runners using a diet other than high carb?

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Carbohydrates increase women's heart risk

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New large Italian study published in Archives of Internal Medicine is described on the BBC Health web site.

A study of over 47,000 Italian adults found that women alone whose diets contained a lot of bread, pizza and rice doubled their heart disease risk.

After seven years, 463 participants had developed coronary heart disease.

The researchers found that the women whose diet had the highest glycaemic load had more than double the risk of heart disease compared with those women with the lowest glycaemic load. 

The authors concluded: "Thus, a high consumption of carbohydrates from high-glycaemic index foods, rather than the overall quantity of carbohydrates consumed, appears to influence the risk of developing coronary heart disease."

  This is somewhat contradictory since the GlycemicLoad concept being a product of Glycemic Index times daily intake in grams, does include all types of carbohydrates not just those of the highest glycemic index.   Also, the fact that the correlation showed up among women but not men is a bit suspicious.

Last but not least, there is no mention of "artery-clogging" fat!  I wonder why?

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Money matters

I am glad to present another interesting essay written by Dozent (Stan P.), this is a continuation on the subject of Baby Boomers culture (that we fondly refer to as "Monkeys"), this time discussed in the context of economy and money.  I hope you will enjoy it.

-------------

Stan (Heretic) wrote Re:

I found that being too "business"-obsessed in the sense of seeing monetary rewards in everything is also a sign of a "monkey".   The reverse is probably also true. Real people want to be paid real money but they (we) are not too obsessed with it. Playing games with monetary reward, that is withholding it when due and rewarding arbitrarily when it is not warranted, is _their_ signature.

Stan,


I always knew it and I have acted upon it.


What is money (I mean real-money) ? It is equivalent of work or in other terms a rechargeable work-battery   :-)


I like to work. It is normal. Why should I be obsessed with WORK.  If you can not make money then you do work nobody wants.  But the problem is: you NEVER KNOW what will sell.


A few years ago I found your "marketing research.on your sensors a little funny, but "harmless" so I said nothing.  Simply estimating the potential size of the market is a good thing.  But that as far as I would go.


I know "if the product WORKS for me then it will most likely work for others".   I veered off topic. "Monkeys" are obsessed with money because they can not do any useful work. For them money is NOT an equivalent of work. No wonder they print it - they can not not see the equivalence. They either "hustle" money or receive it for being loyal to the boss.  They can not earn it on the open work market because they have no marketable skills.  They can not make things other people need.  They are obsessed wit it because it is their constant problem.

Mind you, this definition automatically defines who is a "human" [in our sense] and who is a "monkey" [figuratively, not literally, in a cultural sense, S.B.].    The critical words are "what people need".


It means that a singer like lady Gaga is a human being because she creates something "people need" and are willing to pay for.   It means she is working for her money. It is a kind of work you and me do not understand, but we can not be Astronauts either.


The definition of "useful work" is that is has a "monetary value" on the market. Loyalty and arse kissing does not have a monetary value on the market though it does have value to the Top Monkey and is rewarded accordingly. However, nothing has been created neither by loyal followers nor the boss.  The money, being an equivalent of work must be stolen by a form of "taxation" or simple extortion.

This defines instantly the role of the government.   What government creates ?   Services ?   What services ? No, the only "product" government "creates" is SECURITY.   Mind you, it is a marketable product and people are willing to pay for it.   Providing security is a full time job.
Now what is a value of a well equipped army.  That depends.  If you are facing Hitler or Genghis Khan, nothing else matters.   The problem is a professional army could not stop Hitler.  If fact, it was wiped out and proved completely useless.   In the end a few million of regular folks had to leave their stores, their factories, their fields, they had to learn to fight and they kicked ass.


So the security it is not worth 50% of MY EARNINGS.   If it is, it is time to make weapons and go to war.

There is a reason why the "monkeys" do not understand the connection between work and money.   For them, there isn't any. No matter how hard they "work" ie talk, go to meetings, make noise and other efforts nothing happens.


There is no product, no buyer, no sale and no money.

Now we can go back and create some definitions.  

[Goods and Services]

To state the obvious: people need things.  In order to survive people need goods and services like food, shelter, clothing, tools etc...     These goods have to be made. For the sake of efficiency and quality work specialization is required so most of the goods we need is made by other people.  By definition services are provided by other people.  Primeval societies "found" things they needed. There was a very high "intrinsic" component in goods.  We hunted land animals and fish, collected nuts, dug roots, used wood, bone, native gold, obsidian and flint.  With few exceptions like fish we have exhausted the available supply of  things we could find.  Now ALL the goods have to be made by human labor.

[Trade and Economy]

The second factor is an economy of scale. It was difficult to kill an animal to catch a fish or to make a bow. It was even more difficult to produce "high tech" product like a bronze axe or a gold ear-rings. It required a skill and a know how.  Once the smith made first good axe, it was easy to make 10 or 20 more.  Then one could trade them for some beautiful sea shells    :-)      You know I am serious there. Trade is as old as humankind.   What was the first trade?   Well, the Bible is probably right: a woman exchanging sex for food though a Snake had nothing to do with it!

[Money, Value, Currency and Fake Value ]

Trade started as barter. Money was invented later to facilitate the exchange.   Money is a concept. It is a measure of "value" humans attach to goods and services.   Value is the desire of humans to "own" or "consume" goods and services.   However, money has an weakness. It needs a medium to be implement in practice.  A medium like sea shells, iron bars or gold and silver.   The medium has to be convenient to carry, indestructible, difficult and expensive to produce,  impossible to fake, easily recognizable and uniform (that is why diamonds are not money).    It has to have value to humans but it can not have any utility value so it will not be destroyed.    It has to be rare and expensive but not too rare nor too expensive.


The only medium of exchange that survived the centuries is gold and silver.   Over time, gold and silver has become money though it does not have any use and little utilitarian value.

Gold and silver money has serious flaw - the supply is limited by the availability of metal.  However, this is alleviated by increasing the velocity of money and creating credit.   Velocity of money is a fancy name for reuse.   A buys from B, B buys from C etc...  the same money facilitated multiple transactions.


Credit is a legal note created by a creditor, and backed by his tangible assets.   It is an obligation to buy back the note after the prescribed time for the principal plus interest.  This obligation must be enforced by law.   Money is an equivalent of labor.   It works like a rechargeable battery.   It "stores" human labor in a convenient form for later consumption.   However, people rarely need a pure human labor like the "professional" services of a doctor or lawyer.   In most cases we need "goods" ie. things which have been made by labor. The labor itself is hidden from consumer  in the "value" of these goods.   The value of the "product" is a measure of a desire of people to consume it.   Thus, "money" is an equivalent of goods and labor and a store of value ie. desire to consume.  


Credit is equivalent of work to be done in the future by the debtor in exchange for money borrowed from the creditor.   To account for the risk to the creditor the borrower has to pay interest.


Currency is a credit note issued by the government as a legal means of exchange.   In theory, the government promises to buy it back at any time for money.  The government is a debtor, the saver is the creditor.  It is a cheap credit as the government does not pay interest [or very little of it].   Money can not be easily created.   It has to be saved and pooled to create capital.  

Money is an asset and will hold value for as long as people desire gold and other rare objects.


Currency is a piece of paper. It has value as long as the government says it does. This "value" can be wiped out with one stroke of a pen. Currency is someone's liability. It holds value only as long as the issuer is credit-worthy and can pay back its debt..


Gold Rubles and gold Krugerrands are money . The Reichsmarks were currency. It lost all real value on 9-May-1945.


In the mid 20 century something curious had happened - currency had become "money".   The liability has become an asset.  The piece of paper acquired value backed by the creditworthiness of entire nations.  It is not the first time it has been tried.  The kings of France tried this.  The kings of England tried this.  The results were rather sorry - the kings lost their heads.  The current massive experiment lasted 70 years for over 3 generations.  One could think it was successful, but the fraud was just so big it took a very long time for the results to first appear.  Now the cows are coming home.  The currency will go to zero again, but that is a subject for another essay.

This simple definition of  "money" and  "currency"  has a very far reaching consequences.  First, it provides a clear distinction between human producers and parasitic consumers.  Second, it provides a clear distinction between money and currency.  Third, it clearly defines the role of the "government".

There are many people who have no skills or no desire to produce anything. Yet they need the manufactured goods and services in order to survive.   I call them "Monkeys" because just like the monkeys they tend to congregate into troupes and many are actually destructive.  The critical statement is this: since Monkeys do not make anything they can not "earn" money.  They have to steal it or extort it.  They congregate in groups of alike individuals and use agression to hustle a living.
The Currency is NOT money. It is a piece of paper. It obfuscates the role and the very nature of money as a deferred labor.  It enables the incompetent, destructive "monkeys" to pretend they also create "value".


However, currency is designed and promoted as the equivalent of money thus the equivalent of labor but unlike labor,  it can be printed at will.   It makes "credit" cheap.   After all, all it takes is to print a piece of paper.   It makes savings an oxymoron.   The banks do not need savings to issue credit.   Sooner or later credit printing gets out of control and the whole fraud unwinds.  We are witnessing it now.

The only products government can manufacture and sell is law and security.   Personal security.  It is a legitimate role and a legitimate products.   In fact, it is priceless.  Laws permit economies to function.  It enables property ownership and civility.   Personal security is the first step to political freedom which has been proven to promote wealth creation.

This has become a book. The real point can be made starting here with the "Monkeys" taking over the government in the times of prosperity and the replacement of  money with currency.  The system starts rotting from the top and the disaster is unavoidable.


I have no desire to write this book.  I know you know the end.  We both know the resulting cycle is very long.  In fact, this may well be the explanation of the Kondratiev's super-wave.  There has to be a longer cycle - about 3-4 generations.  In short, the cycle starts with competent people and real money and it ends with "Monkeys" in charge and worthless paper currency.

See you tomorrow.
Stan P.

(Text in brackets [] and quotes added by Heretic)
--------------------------------
Update 24-April-2010.
More comments posted on this subject, see under the previous article.

Veg prevent cancer bullxxxx exposed

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European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition report by BBC

Professor Walter Willet of Harvard University said the research strongly confirmed the findings of other studies, showing "that any association of intake and fruits and vegetables with risk of cancer is weak at best".

and this:

The study of 500,000 Europeans joins a growing body of evidence undermining the high hopes that pushing "five-a-day" might slash Western cancer rates.

The international team of researchers estimates only around 2.5% of cancers could be averted by increasing intake.

Healthy vegetables?  Yeah right!

Human regression, anthropology

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"Grok" the Neanderthal (drawn by Cecylia Bleszynski)

This is a continuation of the previous post on the subject of present day human regression, problem with "Baby Boomers" generation etc.

I have been thinking of expanding it into an essay but I am not quite sure how to attack it.   As far as I know it has never been postulated this way.  It has probably never been said that certain traits and attributes of the modern human culture such as social uniformity and an obedience towards authority in power and regulations, may in fact be the symptoms of regression into our distant evolutionary past. It is important to recognize it since it may harm our long term survival.

On the first sight that may sound like a pure anarchic heresy.  I need to explain.   During our relentless discussions and rants (me with Dozent), we realized that there is a behavioral pattern, namely people who tend to be the most willing followers of hierarchy of power, who like obeying all regulations spread by governments, corporations and churches, are the same who have unusually well developed group social skills, and at the same time tend to lack the skills that defined our humanity in the past. The same type of people also lack certain human skills that used to ensure our survival, that is:  innate creativity, ingenuity, ability to manipulate or adapt to changing environment, high mobility  and tendency to build strong bonds within the small teams of equals based on skill and usefullness rather than on some hierarchy of authority and power.      

I will describe some basic differences between the characteristic of nomadic humans the way I see it, in contrast to the opposite traits of the so-called "Baby Boomers". Please keep in mind that use the last term in a simplistic generalized way, to described a certain subculture.

"Nomadic" (Homo Sapiens)	"Boomers" (Simian Sapiens)
outwardly - individualists, inwardly - co-operative	outwardly - collectivists, inwardly - aggressive and competitive
introvert	extrovert
disobedient	followers
adaptive, flexible	static, rigid
racially blind	intolerant of strangers
value creativity	afraid of new
dislike static order	value stability
rely on individual work	work unconnected to wealth
authorities = problems	authorities = source of wealth
strong team bonds	strong social group bonds
manipulate environment	manipulate people
technical and science skills	lack of technical abilities
logic and math	verbal reasoning and rhetorics
observe what works	observe what others say
individual survival priority	group has priority
idealizes religions	uses religions
support commerce	consider it unfair profiteering
nomadic mentality	settled mentality
highly focused on 1 task	multitasker
"What I produce belongs to me"	"What you produce belongs to us"

-----------------
Update 24-April-2010
More comments by Dozent posted on this subject, see the comments section.
-----------------
Update 8-Feb-2011
Added last row in the table.
-------------------
Update 4-March-2012
Added introver/extrovert attribute.  Note - read this article about Susan Cain's book.
--------------------
Updated table 16-Jan-2014
---------------

External debt of Ireland falls to €1.61 trillion

According to todays' Irish Times article.  Population of the Republic of Ireland is 4.5M.

Quote:

Ireland’s external debt continued to fall, standing at €1.61 trillion at the end of December 2009, a decrease of €26 billion compared with the end of September. The figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) include general government, the monetary authority, financial and non-financial corporations and households.    ... Credit institutions and money market funds had debt of €661 billion at the end of last year, a fall of close to €30 billion compared to three months earlier, and a decline of €107 billion compared to a year earlier.  However, general Government foreign borrowing rose €2 billion to €75 billion between the end of September and December 31st 2009 as new long-term debt securities were issued, off-setting redemptions in short-term securities. Compared to a year earlier, it was €17 billion higher.  Intra-group borrowing and fluctuating exchange rates accounted for a rise in direct investment debt liabilities of €10 billion to €210 billion.

My comments:

It will take 31 years to pay back 1.6Teu at that rate providing that Irish institutions and households find enough assets to pay all that.   There are many questions,  I am curious as to who the creditors are?  British? Germans?    Why did they lent so much to a country with no assets other than property they were lending for?    If most of that was backed up by property, that is clearly under water now, since the 50% property price drop in 2007-2009.  How could an island nation of 4.5M people own 1.6Teu worth of properties to back that all up?   How long (maturity) are those liabilities?  Does Ireland really own that much in backup assets or is most of that 1.6Teu really unsupported by anything other than a promise to pay it back?  That would be roughly 1Meu per family/household!     Iceland's case springs to my mind.

High plasma AGE and platelet hyperaggregability in vegans

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More deficiencies have been shown (than just B12,A,D3,K2,EPA,DHA) to be inherent in vegan diets. Taurine supplementation may be necessary for some vegans. Taurine is amino-acid not present in plants, and can only be obtained from animal produce.

1) Sub-optimal taurine status may promote platelet hyperaggregability in vegetarians.

Quote:

Plasma taurine levels are lower, and urinary taurine excretion is substantially lower, in vegetarians than in omnivores. Platelets are rich in taurine, which functions physiologically to dampen the calcium influx evoked by aggregating agonists--thereby down-regulating platelet aggregation. Supplemental intakes of taurine as low as 400 mg daily have been reported to markedly decrease the sensitivity of platelets to aggregating agonists ex vivo.

2) The low-AGE content of low-fat vegan diets could benefit diabetics - though concurrent taurine supplementation may be needed to minimize endogenous AGE production.

Quote:

Nonetheless, the plasma AGE content of healthy vegetarians has been reported to be higher than that of omnivores - suggesting that something about vegetarian diets may promote endogenous AGE production. Some researchers have proposed that the relatively high-fructose content of vegetarian diets may explain this phenomenon, but there so far is no clinical evidence that normal intakes of fructose have an important impact on AGE production. An alternative or additional possibility is that the relatively poor taurine status of vegetarians up-regulates the physiological role of myeloperoxidase-derived oxidants in the generation of AGEs - in which case, taurine supplementation might be expected to suppress elevated AGE production in vegetarians.

3) A taurine-supplemented vegan diet may blunt the contribution of neutrophil activation to acute coronary events.

Quote:

Taurine has anti-atherosclerotic activity in animal models, possibly reflecting a role for macrophage-derived myeloperoxidase in the atherogenic process. Taurine also has platelet-stabilizing and anti-hypertensive effects that presumably could reduce coronary risk.

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Vegetarian Bantu have worse CHD markers than non-vegetarian!

I could not resist re-posting this pearl (thanks Peter):

Lancet. 1996 Sep 21;348(9030):784-8. "Blood pressure and atherogenic lipoprotein profiles of fish-diet and vegetarian villagers in Tanzania: the Lugalawa study."

Quote:

INTERPRETATION: In these villagers, consumption of freshwater fish (300-600 g daily) was associated with raised plasma concentrations of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, lower blood pressure, and lower plasma lipid concentrations.

 Heretic's translation:

   Vegetarianism sucks.

 

overvalued currency is government's fault

Dozent wrote:

Please note the fact that when currency is overvalued everything is expensive, is totally counter-intuitive. When the currency is very strong the imports should be cheap. Like the $30 microwaves. But it applies to so few products it is not even funny.

Exactly! That's what misled me too. It is very counter-intuitive! A simple minded false logic would dictate that a country with overvalued, too strong currency like Ireland in the 1980-ties and 90-ties, should have been flooded with cheap food and cheap industrial good from abroad.

The truth is that it does not work like that at all! The primary factor missing from the logic which in fact CAUSES the currency to REMAIN overvalued is the government! I did not understand it but it is the most important: - Irish government made possible for the Punt to REMAIN overvalued for so long, indefinitely because they simply blocked the cheap import through import and excise duties and siphoned off the excessive cash through punitive income tax!. Had Irish gov not done that everybody would have simply bought computers, would ate only imported food and the currency would have collapsed within 3 months!

Food was too expensive in Ireland because imports were heavily taxed and farmers had to recoup their overvalued labor costs with appropriate pricing, where as the consumers had no choice.

There is one manipulation necessary to drive a currency high above par value (for example pushing bond yields up) and there are other necessary conditions that must be manipulated by centralized government in order for the currency to remain overvalued rather than correcting immediately through trade imbalance. Actually Americans accomplished the second part (preventing overvalued dollar from collapsing) not by taxation and customs like the Irish gov (they couldn't tax outside of the US borders!) , but by managing to sustain the permanent trade imbalance - by balancing the real trade of goods and service with fake printed papers that the other countries like China treated as if these were real goods with value! (*)

Under normal free market system a poorer less developed and less industrialized country like Ireland (or Portugal - another prime victim of Dr. Salazar's monetary manipulation theory) could not have possibly maintained an overvalued currency at al! Irish Punt would have been worth not 2$ in the 80-ties, but 1$ and living expenses in Ireland would have been LOWER , not higher than in W.Germany! As it should have been, as it is in Poland right now. That's why Polish economy is not doing worse but better than German, French or Swedish in spite of the different levels of development.

Stan

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*) We know that the US$ will probably collapse only when the trade imbalance balance will rectify itself using real goods and services that real people really need in real life, that have real value priced on the real market! As long as China, Japan and EU buy US Bills and Bonds, the US$ will have to remain overvalued!

Does red meat give you bowel cancer or hacked email disease?

It's an enigma - nobody knows the truth 

Professor Tim Key
Oxford University

BBC Health -Does red meat give you bowel cancer?
 
Why do I get the same kind of feeling reading about the supposed perils of meat as when reading about the recent "Global Warming" flap.   Omitting non-conforming evidence?  What's the problem since "we know that we are right anyway...".

Quotes:

The WCRF says the evidence that red and processed meats increase the risk of colorectal cancer is "convincing",...

...The WCRF has published a list of  "minor errors"  with the report - some relating to the findings on red meat and bowel cancer - but says it has no intention of altering the conclusions based on an expert panel's review of the scientific literature.

...
But there have already been clashes within the pages of the leading scientific journal on diet and disease.
In a letter last year to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Professor Stewart Truswell of the University of Sydney questioned why  several large studies which found no link had been discarded by the panel , and also pinpointed errors in the reporting of data. 

 Pass that steak then, bring veggies?  Well not quite yet:

The European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition-Oxford (EPIC-Oxford), which followed 65,000 people during the 1990s, found that far from being protected from bowel cancer as anticipated, vegetarians in fact displayed a slightly higher incidence of this form of the disease.

 Enjoy your food    8-:)
 Heretic

More on Fat and CHD - no correlation!

No statistically significant correlation between saturated fat and coronary heart disease!

Another meta-study was published by NZ authors recently on this subject:

"Dietary Fat and Coronary Heart Disease: Summary of Evidence from Prospective Cohort and Randomised Controlled Trials",  C. Murray Skeaff , Jody Miller,  Ann Nutr Metab 2009;55:173–201 Published online: September 15, 2009 
See also the previous blog posts on the same topic by Peter and Chris M.on Krauss' meta-study , about saturated fat and Coronary Heart Disease.

Dr. William Davis' postprandial atherogenic particles hypothesis

 See the following comment and Dr. Davis' response.   What do you think?

Baby boomers' monkey business

What do the following terms have in common: Ardipithecus, monkeys’ social habits, high sugar + cereal diet, Lipitor™, vegetarianism, environmentalism, political collectivism, herd mentality, break-down of family values, excessive focus on entertainment, business-destroying corporate management based on consensus not competence, de-industrialization, engineering decline and medical science failure?

I am going to expand upon that. Existence of some connection in the above listed items was originally postulated by Stan Piotrowski (aka "Dozent") in response to my theory explaining the strikingly (to me) consistent social habits and culture of the generation of people born just after WWII (1940-ties to 1950-ties), in Europe (West + East) and N.America. My theory postulated reincarnation of some ancient technologically-inept collectivist-minded differently-logical people into the midst of our modern technology-based individualistic civilization. On the other hand, Dozent's theory replaced my metaphysics with pure biology, evolution, genetic programming, and atavistic fallback to the social behavior from our very distant evolutionary past.

Here is Dozent’s theory in a nutshell, in his own words:

Recently you have told me that the looters are cavemen. You are wrong. Totally, utterly wrong. If anything, WE are cavemen. We eat meat. We hunt. We build fires and spears. [....]

To explain my thesis I have to go back to the first time I have seen a TV program on "Ardi" - the earliest known humanoid. Ardi walked upright and had small teeth. Just like us. He wasn't aggressive. He was a hunter and gatherer. Males brought food home and shared life with a female. Females choose good providers and husbands, not an aggressive unattached types. The teeth are a proof of it.

Chimps and Gorillas went the other way. We don’t descent from monkeys, Ayn Rand didn’t know that. Apes are a different evolutionary line which rewarded strength and aggression. The big gangster type. Large gun and no respect for his woman. Ardi was not a chimp-like creature. Neither was "Lucy" the Australopithecus. They did not look like an ape and they did not behave like an ape. We can see it from the results. From the size of our bodies, our teeth, our testicles and our penises. They all point to one-to-one stable relationship. Not based on aggression and sex.

If we were like apes, women would have a red protruding behinds and the men would be twice as big with very large teeth and very aggressive sexually driven behavior.

This observation has eluded me for years.

Back to my thesis. The looters are not cavemen. They are Chimps. Mini-skirts and large half-naked breasts are an equivalent of big red arses. Big guns and motorcycles are equivalent of large canines. Aggression and submission are dominant behavior. Everyone tries to be an Alpha dominant male, a "silverback". They can't work. They don't think. They drink beer (carbs) and eat cereals (carbs). They behave like Chimps not like Cavemen. They look like Chimps, they talk like Chimps and behave like Chimps. They are Chimps.

This is a discovery which eluded me. You do not try to befriend a chimp. You stay away and so does he. You do not try to appease an aggressive chimp. […]

This is not arrogance. This is not "I am better then them" etc... I may not be better I am different. I am a Human. They are Chimps.

The most popular movies right now are all about vampires. Vampires are creatures who live among humans look like humans but behave like..., yes you have guessed it, Chimps. You can call them Chimps or you can call them vampires. You do not call them Cavemen. That is offensive to my noble ancestors who lived in natural caves before they learned to build artificial "caves". They did it so as to protect their children and family from the environment.

They also dressed up in animal skins to be warm not undressed up to show their canines and biceps or their red arses. That was before they have learned how to make an artificial skin called fabric. Yes, caves were rare and they had to be shared. They had names, individuality and respect for the skills. They cared for their families, their children, their parents and their friends.

Stan, Cavemen were US, not THEM.

Stanislaw P., a human.

Will C++ destroy Microsoft Corp.?

The last 2 weeks of struggle to install my wife's "Simply Accounting 2008 Premium Student's Ed." (SA) by Sage, on Windows XP convinced me that the answer has to be positive.

Problem.

The package installer program would crash at the end of installation. Event Log showed that the crashes were due to a missing class, message issued by CLR module from the .NET2 framework. Turns out SA was compiled using Visual Studio 2005 and uses .NET2 but some changes after 2005 (most likely .NET3.5 or some service packs) broke the compatibility. It's not just one application problem. Apparently, the same happens to Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on a fully upgraded and fully service-packed WinXP Pro. It hangs or crash on install, except when installed on a fresh un-upgraded WinXP.

Solution.

Think about Linux then uninstall in this order: .NET3.5, .NET3.0, then .net-sp2, then unistall .NET2 . If uninstallation fails at any of the stage use dotnetfx_cleanup_tool.zip (from Microsoft web site). Get rid of all .NET down to .Net1.1. Turn off automatic upgrades. Re-install .NET2 using dotnetfx_Net2.exe from Microsoft web site. Reboot. Reinstall application program. Think about Linux again.

Conclusions.

1. .NET framework issued with Visual Studio 2008 appears to break old applications that use .NET2.

2. With C++ being Microsoft's language of choice, .NET framework was introduced by Microsoft to overcome C++ inherent flaw - it's inter-modular binary incompatibility. Clearly that does not seem to be working very well. However C++ does work very well for Linux/Unix OS where applications are distributed as sources and binary incompatibility does not matter! In short: C++ + GPL = sucess, C++ + $$$ = failure!

3. Microsoft is probably not using .NET for it's own new applications, so shouldn't we either!

Microsoft used to tout like crazy ASP.NET and all .NETx.x plus a small herd of other impossible to remember acronyms like WPF etc, from every media outlet. I believe that they may have already quietly scrapped all that new Application Programming Interface garbage! Ever tried installing Internet Explorer 8 without the latest .NET3_3.5? It works like a charm, no problem! I wonder what was the truth behind the rumors of their Vista development "Reset" (code scrap & re-write) in 2005? Is that only my nagging heretical suspicion that it may have had something to do with a hypothetical major flaw in their .NET framework?

4. I have seen the future and it might just work... My view on Objective-C and C++

5. Think about Linux...

6. Why do I think that C++ is an upside-down language...
.

Beware of Okinawa Diet scam!

I thought Okinawa Diet case has been rightfully forgotten a few years ago but a recent post on webmd Diet Debate board tries to revive it by linking this article , quote:

...Okinawa Centenarian Study. Okinawa, a chain of islands in southern Japan, has the highest concentration of centenarians. Uniformly these old folks have a vegetable-based, low-calorie, low-fat diet and exercise daily. They eat on average seven servings of vegetables and seven servings of grain per day, several servings of soy products, fish rich in omega-3 fatty acids, and little dairy or red meat.

My comment: I have come across Okinawa Study and the popular books by Willcox et al. a few years ago and came to a conclusion that it is totally bogus and a scam designed to sell their books, diet plans, supplements etc.

Here is what what do Okinawans probably eat, from WAPF web article :

And what do Okinawans eat? The main meat of the diet is pork, and not the lean cuts only. Okinawan cuisine, according to gerontologist Kazuhiko Taira, "is very healthy-and very, very greasy," in a 1996 article that appeared in Health Magazine.19 And the whole pig is eaten-everything from "tails to nails." Local menus offer boiled pigs feet, entrail soup and shredded ears. Pork is cooked in a mixture of soy sauce, ginger, kelp and small amounts of sugar, then sliced and chopped up for stir fry dishes. Okinawans eat about 100 grams of meat per day-compared to 70 in Japan and just over 20 in China-and at least an equal amount of fish, for a total of about 200 grams per day, compared to 280 grams per person per day of meat and fish in America. Lard-not vegetable oil-is used in cooking. Okinawans also eat plenty of fibrous root crops such as taro and sweet potatoes. They consume rice and noodles, but not as the main component of the diet. They eat a variety of vegetables such as carrots, white radish, cabbage and greens, both fresh and pickled. Bland tofu is part of the diet, consumed in traditional ways, but on the whole Okinawan cuisine is spicy. Pork dishes are flavored with a mixture of ginger and brown sugar, with chili oil and with "the wicked bite of bitter melon."
--------------

19. Deborah Franklyn, "Take a Lesson from the
People of Okinawa," Health, September 1996, pp 57-63

I also found my old post containing some information from Barry Groves (private communication), see what he had to say:

-------
Okinawa (by Heretic on Aug-08-06, webmd)

I am trying to get hold of some papers on the subject. So far I found, surprisingly (or may be not...) that there is just as much confusion about it and contradictions in the literature, as about infamous "The China Study"(*). When I get the article text I will post some quotations. It will require a trip to the local uni library and paying some $$$. Let me quote after Barry Groves (private communication), the following citation:

In 1992 scientists at the Department of Community Health, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Japan published a paper which examined the relationship of nutritional status to further life expectancy and health status in the Japanese elderly[1]. It was based on three epidemiological studies. In the first, nutrient intakes in ninety-four Japanese centenarians investigated between 1972 and 1973 showed a higher proportion of animal protein to total proteins than in contemporary average Japanese. The second demonstrated that high intakes of milk and fats and oils had favourable effects on ten-year survivorship in 422 urban residents aged sixty-nine to seventy-one. The survivors revealed a longitudinal increase in intakes of animal foods such as eggs, milk, fish and meat over the ten years. In the third study, nutrient intakes were compared between a sample from Okinawa Prefecture where life expectancies at birth and sixty-five were the longest in Japan, and a sample from Akita Prefecture where the life expectancies were much shorter. It found that the proportion of energy from proteins and fats were significantly higher in the former than in the latter.


Reference
1. Shibata H., Nagai H., Haga H., Yasumura S., Suzuki T., Suyama Y. Nutrition for the Japanese elderly. Nutr & Health. 1992; 8(2-3): 165-75.

-----------------

Update 9-Nov-2009

Description of Okinawa food:

http://stanford.wellsphere.com/healthy-eating-article/hara-hachi-bu-lessons-from-okinawa/845480
Quote:

Animal Foods, Seafoods, Fat and Okinawa Cuisine
Traditional foods of Okinawa are extremely varied, remarkably nutrient-dense as are all traditional foods and strictly moderated with the philosophy of hara hachi bu. While the diet of Okinawa is, indeed, plant-based it is most certainly not “low fat” as has been posited by some writer-researchers about the native foods of Okinawa. Indeed, all those stirfries of bittermelon and fresh vegetables found in Okinawan bowls are fried in lard and seasoned with sesame oil. I remember fondly that a slab of salt pork graced every bowl of udon I slurped up while living on the island. Pig fat is not, as you can imagine, a low-fat food yet the Okinawans are fond of it. Much of the fat consumed is pastured as pigs are commonly raised at home in the gardens of Okinawan homes. Pork and lard, like avocado and olive oil, are a remarkably good source of monounsaturated fatty acid and, if that pig roots around on sunny days, it is also a remarkably source of vitamin D.
The diet of Okinawa also includes considerably more animal products and meat – usually in the form of pork – than that of the mainland Japanese or even the Chinese. Goat and chicken play a lesser, but still important, role in Okinawan cuisine. Okinawans average about 100 grams or one modest portion of meat per person per day. Animal foods are important on Okinawa and, like all food, play a role in the population’s general health, well-being and longevity.
Fish plays an important role in the cooking of Okinawa as well. Seafoods eaten are various and numerous – with Okinawans averaging about 200 grams of fish per day.

------

More links (07/06/2010): Okinawa - The Island of Pork

Note (updated 18/12/2011):  Unfortunately the link above with its lovely photo of a market stall filled with pork to the roof, has gone kaput. Enjoy okinawa-information.com instead.   Quote:

 Pork is a very important ingredient, and every part of the pig is used, from pig's feet and pig's ears to pork tripe. Other ingredients include local seafood and native tropical vegetables and fruits.

Update 21-Oct-2010 (from Denise Minger comments on her blog)

Nutr Health. 1992;8(2-3):165-75. Nutrition for the Japanese elderly., Shibata H,et al.

Abstract quote:

The present paper examines the relationship of nutritional status to further life expectancy and health status in the Japanese elderly based on 3 epidemiological studies. 1. Nutrient intakes in 94 Japanese centenarians investigated between 1972 and 1973 showed a higher proportion of animal protein to total proteins than in contemporary average Japanese. 2. High intakes of milk and fats and oils had favorable effects on 10-year (1976-1986) survivorship in 422 urban residents aged 69-71. The survivors revealed a longitudinal increase in intakes of animal foods such as eggs, milk, fish and meat over the 10 years. 3. Nutrient intakes were compared, based on 24-hour dietary records, between a sample from Okinawa Prefecture where life expectancies at birth and 65 were the longest in Japan, and a sample from Akita Prefecture where the life expectancies were much shorter. Intakes of Ca, Fe, vitamins A, B1, B2, C, and the proportion of energy from proteins and fats were significantly higher in the former than in the latter. Intakes of carbohydrates and NaCl were lower.

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Added 24-Jan-2013 (thanks for the paper, Anonymous!):

More quotes from Shibata's paper:


Quotes:

The food intake pattern in Okinawa has been different from that in other regions  of  Japan.  The people  there  have  never  been  influenced  by Buddhism. Hence, there has been no taboo regarding eating habits. Eating meat was not  stygmatised, and consumption of pork and goat was historically high.  It was exceptional among Japanese food consumption.
The intake of meat was higher in  Okinawa... On the other hand, the intake of fish was lower... Intake of NaCl was lower... Deep colored vegetables were taken more in Okinawa... These characteristics of dietary status are thought to be among the crucial factors  which convey longevity and good health to the elderly in Okinawa Prefecture. ....

and the "kicker":

Unexpectedly, we  did not find any vegetarians among the centenarians.

.

Food Choices and Coronary Heart Disease

Barry Groves published today a note on his blog about this new study. The most interesting are certain heretical conclusions such as, quote:

Daily intake of fruit and vegetables was associated with a lower risk of coronary heart disease when combined with a high dairy fat consumption (odds ratio 0.39, 95% CI 0.21-0.73), but not when combined with a low dairy fat consumption (odds ratio 1.70, 95% CI 0.97-2.98).

It is noticeable that the odds ratios are highly significant, by a large factor, namely 61% lower risk for high fat and 70% higher for low fat consumption! By high/low fat the authors meant this:

Low consumption of dairy fat was defined as milk with 1.5 percent fat or less, no butter and seldom or never intake of cream. All others were denoted high consumption of dairy fat.

However, the real harbinger of low fat diet doom is table 4 (click on the picture to magnify):



I strongly suggest to print it out and stick it on a fridge!

Finally, the following heretical, no - an outright subversive paragraph found its way into the end section. Please understand that I am in a state of shock [aaaah] - you are looking at the paper published in the mainstream peer-reviewd scientific journal. Quote:

In the prospective population-based Malmö Diet and Cancer Study, total fat and saturated fat were not associated with cardiovascular events [14]. Evidence support harmful effects of trans-fatty acids on coronary heart disease, but there is insufficient evidence of associations between saturated fat and heart disease [3]. We lack a clear understanding of the complex effects on health of fats in relation to other components in dairy products [32,33]. A recent review and meta-analysis of 15 cohort studies of vascular disease and milk and dairy consumption found lower relative risks of stroke and/or heart disease in subjects with a high milk and dairy consumption relative to the risk in subjects with low consumption [34].