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Ask a public-health/nutrition student
#1
Question 
Ask a public-health/nutrition student
Health beliefs are much like religious beliefs. Many people feel that they have an exclusive right to know the "truth"; and you always hear claims from people selling "miracle products" about how they know something that the mainstream establishment doesn't (just like religious leaders have knowledge about humanity that secular anthropologists, historians, and scholars can't possibly know).

What irks me, and has done for many years, is the terrible shit that gets advertised on TV. Whether its diets, or "nutrition" products, or pharmaceutical medicine, it has no place on TV. With so much misinformation out there it can be difficult for consumers to find the valid information (that is the information supported by evidence).

There are a number of organised groups that actively promote misinformation. I often target the Vegan and specifically 80/10/10 crowd, but the pro-ana, or the anti-medicine (e.g. Scientology or Jehovah's Witnesses or Anti-vax). A lot of the time these groups simply capitalise on common misconceptions, or ambiguous data from a Journal that doesn't mean anything significant.

Individuals can be duped by misleading information, and then become stubborn in their defence of their "knowledge" - I know I'm guilty of this.

Here's an example of misinformation...

    Consider this page that I found claiming "gluten confirmed to cause weight gain". Read it if you like. Notice how they don't even provide an actual link to the Journal article (Soares, et al., 2013). On the web page this sentence is bolded "The 'wheat belly' syndrome and how it leads to other health issues was the purpose of their research." but nowhere in the journal article itself does it ever say "wheat belly". And as it's not open-access how is anyone supposed to know that? Furthermore Soares, et al. found that "the gluten-free diet slowed body weight gain", they didn't make the finding that gluten caused it in the first place as claimed by the website.

    And this was in rats, not humans. A positive result in animals is meaningless when discussing possible dietary recommendation to be made to humans. All it means is that further research in humans might be a good idea. And even then you need a RCT (the minimum requirement) or a meta-analysis (preferred) to get enough evidence to make a dietary recommendation in humans.

    There are many many advantages to using animals first. Rats is how they isolated and identified what hormone was responsible for subduing hunger (Leptin) in the 90's, following decades of research. I imagine that if we didn't have animals to experiment on, that today we still wouldn't know what hormone tells the brain to stop eating. It takes a lot longer than animal experiments to determine a result from epidemiology, which is why animals are used to find areas for epidemiological study.

    "This study report, according to Sayer Ji proves that the major factor of obesity is gluten, not calories." Notice they're quoting a 3rd-party, they aren't even getting their information direct from the Journal. "Sayer Ji" has nothing to do with the research article. Soares, et al. do not make the claim that gluten is "the major factor of obesity", this is the claim they make (which itself is far too strong a claim to be making from an animal study): "Our data support the beneficial effects of gluten exclusion in reducing body weight and adiposity gain, inflammation and insulin resistance."

That's just one example that I recently found. A website quoting some other unqualified person explaining what a journal article says, all the while failing to explain that this was only in rats. Often times things have been discovered in animals that made scientists excited, only to find out that humans are different.

Anyhow ask away, I will try to provide recent peer-review literature wherever possible.
For Religion & Health see:[/b][/size] Williams & Sternthal. (2007). Spirituality, religion and health: Evidence and research directions. Med. J. Aust., 186(10), S47-S50. -LINK

The WIN/Gallup End of Year Survey 2013 found the US was perceived to be the greatest threat to world peace by a huge margin, with 24% of respondents fearful of the US followed by: 8% for Pakistan, and 6% for China. This was followed by 5% each for: Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, North Korea. -LINK


"That's disgusting. There were clean athletes out there that have had their whole careers ruined by people like Lance Armstrong who just bended thoughts to fit their circumstances. He didn't look up cheating because he wanted to stop, he wanted to justify what he was doing and to keep that continuing on." - Nicole Cooke
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#2
RE: Ask a public-health/nutrition student
We're often told that one of the causes of weight gain is the way people indulge in heavy, rich desserts. If I have the bacon-wrapped éclairs for my entrée, will having a leaf of wilted lettuce (no dressing) for dessert obviate this problem?

Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
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#3
RE: Ask a public-health/nutrition student
Is a bmi of 17.1 bad bad or meh bad?
Follow up question. What do I do to gain weight without eating junk food and sweets?
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#4
RE: Ask a public-health/nutrition student
On the topic of nutrition and disinformation, I've noted a local GNC competitor has been running ads on TV here.  He's a little bit of eye candy, so maybe  I pay a little more attention to his ads than most of the other dreck we get.

Anyhow, I noticed the small print on a bottle of supplements (only $65 for a whole 2 months supply!!!)  he was waving around (in his meaty paw)  was marginally legible, so I paused and looked a little closer;

homeopathic formula

So, he's easy to look at, and a bit of a crook too.  $65 for 2 months worth of inert ingredients and filler with the occasional molecule of an actual biologically active chemical floating around seems a bit high priced to me.  Turns out the chemical is supposed to be prescription only, so what's in his bottle can't have more than the error of measurement amount or the FDA would be all over his (heavenly) ass.

While irked, I gotta give him credit, he is certainly giving a heads up as to the real nature of his product, but it's discouraging to realize the public is too stoooopid to note the deception.
 The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it. 




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#5
RE: Ask a public-health/nutrition student
I ate 3 metric fucktons of turkey, stuffing, greens, green beans, mashed potatoes, and a chocolate creme pie in the last 3 days.

I also ate 6 Krispy Kreme glazed donuts for breakfast yesterday.

How screwed am I?
"There remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking." ~Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great

PM me your email address to join the Slack chat! I'll give you a taco(or five) if you join! --->There's an app and everything!<---
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#6
RE: Ask a public-health/nutrition student
How screwed do you wanna be ??
 The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it. 




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#7
RE: Ask a public-health/nutrition student
(November 29, 2015 at 11:40 am)vorlon13 Wrote: How screwed do you wanna be ??

I may be psychic - I KNEW that was on the way. Big Grin

Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
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#8
RE: Ask a public-health/nutrition student
No pressure, Aractus, but I REALLY need an answer to my éclair question from a nutritionist.

Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
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#9
RE: Ask a public-health/nutrition student
(November 29, 2015 at 11:40 am)vorlon13 Wrote: How screwed do you wanna be ??

Yep. I walked right into that one. Gotta be careful, Mike. Gotta be careful.
"There remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking." ~Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great

PM me your email address to join the Slack chat! I'll give you a taco(or five) if you join! --->There's an app and everything!<---
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#10
RE: Ask a public-health/nutrition student
Question #2: I recently bought a packet of processed food (doesn't much matter what). While reading the ingredients list, I saw that it contained '...not less than 0.02% of rehydroxylated glutonium or abstract of debentured soybean genitalia, whichever comes first.' So, my question is: What wine would you pair with this?

Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
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