26 January 2009

Nanny state at its worst

Supports the whole raison d'etre of Trick and Treat

On Monday 26 January 2009, UK's Daily Express published two stories that illustrate the sheer and utter incompetence and wastefulness of the present government and 'health' boffins. They also demonstrate how the 'health' industry is able to con the media so that they can profit from our ill-health.


Article 1:

NOW FOOD POLICE PLAN TO SWOOP ON YOUR FRIDGE


SQUADRONS of “Food Police” are to start knocking on doors to lecture families on how to feed themselves properly.

In a move branded “Government nannying at its worst”, the teams – operated by councils across the country – will be recruited to visit homes at meal times before handing out advice on diet and how to reduce waste.

Eight thousand Food Police, or Love Food Champions under their official title, will be paid up to £8.50 an hour of taxpayers’ cash. And if a pilot scheme is successful, the idea could be rolled out across the country, costing the taxpayer tens of millions of pounds.

Employed by a private contractor, the teams will advise householders on how to plan their shopping carefully so that they do not over-cater.

You can read the rest at: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/81804/Now-Food-Police-plan-to-swoop-on-your-fridge

Apart from the obvious intrusion into people's lives and the total waste of taxpayers' money (I thought we were in a recession and short of the stuff), what possible good will it do? Don't people know now that they are wasting money by buying more food than they can eat and so on?

And if these cretins think that advising people to eat more 'healthy' carb-based foods to cut the incidence of conditions such as obesity and diabetes, when there is such a huge amount of evidence that this adv ice is a major cause of these illnesses, then the result can only be that the situation will get worse.


Article 2:

OBESITY BUG YOU CAN CATCH

OBESITY can be “caught” as easily as a common cold from other people’s coughs, sneezes and dirty hands, scientists will claim today.

Researchers believe that an airborne “adenovirus” germ could be causing the fat plague that is blighting Britain and other countries.

As many as one in three obese people may have become overweight after falling victim to the highly infectious cold-like virus, known as AD-36.

Read the rest here: http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/81810

Even if this is true, which I doubt, increasing the numbers of fat cells (adipocytes) won't make you any fatter — unless you fill those adipocytes with fat!

Stories like these are making me lose the will to live (at least in this country!)

But there are two other points:

1: Just what qualifications will these £8.50 per hour 'advisors' have to tell me what to do?

2. As my doctor is cannot legally prescribe for me without my consent, what law allows the (probably unqualified) otherwise unemployed to tell me what I can and can't eat?

13 January 2009

Low-carb, high-protein diet beats low-fat diet for weight loss - again

Supports Chapter 4: Learning from history,
Chapter 19: 'Healthy eating' is fattening,
Chapter 20: Diabetes deceit, and
Chapter 21: Diseases of the heart and blood vessels

Results from a systematic review demonstrate, yet again, that low-carbohydrate, high-protein diets are more effective for reducing weight and improving cardiovascular health than are low-fat diets.

Catherine Rolland and colleagues from Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, UK, carried out a systematic review of 13 randomized, controlled trials including a total of 1222 individuals comparing low-carbohydrate, high-protein diets with low-fat diets.

Inclusion criteria included publication between January 2000 and March 2007, length of at least 6 months, participants aged 18 years and above, and a mean or median body mass index of at least 28 kg/m2.

Of the 13 studies, five lasted for 6 months, six for 12 months, one for 17 months, and one for 36 months. Eleven studies compared low-carbohydrate, high-protein diets with low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets and two compared medium-protein with high-protein diets. Measurements were compared at 6 and 12 months.

At 6 months, weight loss was an average of 4.02 kg greater in the low-carbohydrate, high-protein group than in the low-fat diet group.

At 12 months, the difference between the two groups had reduced, with the low-carbohydrate, high-protein group having lost an average of 1.05 kg more than the low-fat group.

Rolland and team also noted improvements in serum lipids, although these were more mixed, as a significant improvement in high-density lipoprotein and triglycerides was seen favoring the low-carbohydrate, high-protein group up to 12 months, but improvements in total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol were higher in the low-fat group at 6 months.

A nonsignificant trend toward improvement in diastolic and systolic blood pressure was also observed up to 17 months for the low-carbohydrate, high-protein group.

The researchers conclude in the journal Obesity Reviews that their results show low-carbohydrate, high-protein diets are more effective for weight loss up to 12 months than low-fat diets with unrestricted or high levels of carbohydrates.

They add that although trends toward cardiovascular improvement favoring the low-carbohydrate, high-protein diet were seen in this study, “more evidence and longer-term studies are needed to assess the long-term cardiovascular benefits from the weight loss achieved using these diets.”

But there have already been many studies, both clinical and epidemiologic dating back over 140 years.

For example, as I showed in Trick and Treat, a study conducted in 1932 with four different diets with the same number of calories but different constituents gave these results in grams of weight lost per day on average:

high-carbohydrate/low-fat diet – 49 grams (Typical 'slimming' diet)
high-carbohydrate/low-protein – 122 grams
low-carbohydrate/high-protein – 183 grams
low-carbohydrate/high-fat – 205 grams (As recommended in T&T)

Those were all 1,000 kcals. But obese patients also lost weight at 2,700-kcals - but only on the low-carb high fat diet.

How much more evidence will it take before the disastrous 'healthy eating' experiment is called to a close - and those perpetrating it, and who are responsible for the increasing ill-health in our society, are called to account?

Hession M, et al. Systematic review of randomized controlled trials of low-carbohydrate vs. low-fat/low-calorie diets in the management of obesity and its comorbidities. Obes Rev 2009; 10: 36-50
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-789X.2008.00518.x