Health – Page 91 – artdiamondblog.com

“The Government Wants to Decide What We Eat”

“A rule against selling food with added vitamins and minerals, like canned pudding, prompted the removal of several popular products from Abigail’s, a shop in Copenhagen.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A6) COPENHAGEN — For the last seven years, Marianne Orum has owned a narrow store in a charming street in the heart of this Danish capital.

A sign advertises “British and South African Food and Drink.”
The shelves are lined with products familiar to most Americans, like Betty Crocker Pancake Mix, but also more exotic items, like Heinz’s Taste of Home Delightful Spotted Dick Pudding in cans, and bottles of Harviestoun Old Engine Oil porter.
But in January Ms. Orum got a phone call from government food inspectors. Tipped off by a competitor, they told her she was selling products that were fortified with vitamins or minerals, and such products require government approval, which she did not have, so she would have to take them off the shelves.
The culprits were Ovaltine; a shredded wheat cereal called Shreddies; a malt drink called Horlicks; and Marmite, the curiously popular yeast byproduct that functions in England as a sandwich spread, snack or base for a soup (just add boiling water), and is sometimes known as tar-in-the-jar.
“That’s four products in one go,” said Ms. Orum, clearly angered. “That’s a lot for a small company.”
Application for approval, she said, costs almost $1,700 per product, and time for approval can run up to six months or more; the fee is not refunded if the product is rejected.
“It’s a strange thing, this attitude in Denmark,” she said, in a tone of exasperation. “The government wants to decide what we eat and not.”

For the full story, see:
JOHN TAGLIABUE. “COPENHAGEN JOURNAL; Extra Vitamins? A Great Idea, Except in Denmark.” The New York Times (Fri., June 17, 2011): A6.
(Note: the online version of the story was dated June 16, 2011.)

Theft of Elderly Woman’s Air Conditioner Called “Murder”

Source of the “murder” quote is from:
J.D. Miles, reporter. “Elderly Woman Dies From Heat After A/C Stolen.” Dallas, CBS 11 News, August 5, 2011.
(Note: this report is the source of the “murder” quote which was stated by Mrs. Grissom’s neighbor Caroline Ware.)
(Note: Another version of the report with the “murder” quote has the title: “Texas Heat Wave.” CBS 11 News, August 5, 2011.)

Another report on the incident is:

Source:
Ed Lavandera, reporter. “Woman Dies After Air Conditioner Stolen.” CNN American Morning, August 5, 2011.

Refuting Claims of Bread Adulteration

(p. 67) . . . : The Nature of Bread, Honestly and Dishonestly Made, by Joseph Manning, M.D., . . . reported that it was common for bakers to add bean meal, chalk, white lead, slaked lime, and bone ash to every loaf they made.

These assertions are routinely reported as fact, even though it was demonstrated pretty conclusively over seventy years ago by Frederick A. Filby, in his classic work Food Adulteration (1934), that the claims could not possibly be true. Filby took the interesting and obvious step of baking loaves of bread using the accused adulterants in the manner and proportions described. In every case but one the bread was either as hard as (p. 68) concrete or failed to set at all, and nearly all the loaves smelled or tasted disgusting. Several needed more baking time than conventional loaves and so were actually more expensive to produce. Not one of the adulterated loaves was edible.

Source:
Bryson, Bill. At Home: A Short History of Private Life. New York: Doubleday, 2010.
(Note: ellipses added; italics in original.)

Findings “Strongly Suggest” Cholera in Haiti Due to United Nations

(p. 5A) PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Scientists have presented the strongest evidence yet that U.N. peacekeepers imported the cholera strain that has killed more than 5,500 people in Haiti.
A report published in the July issue of the Emerging Infectious Diseases journal says research findings “strongly suggest” that the U.N. contingent from Nepal contaminated a Haitian river because of poor sanitation at a base. Author Renaud Piarroux had previously blamed peacekeepers. This study is more complete and its methodology was reviewed by other scientists.

Source:
AP. “U.N. may have brought cholera strain to Haiti.” Omaha World-Herald (Thursday, June 30, 2011): 5A.

Resistance to New Technology

(p. 59) . . . , not everyone was happy with the loss of open hearths. Many people missed the drifting smoke and were convinced they had been healthier when kept “well kippered in wood smoke,” as one observer put it. As late as 1577, a William Harrison insisted that in the days of open fires our heads did never ake.” Smoke in the roof space discouraged nesting birds and was believed to strengthen timbers. Above all, people complained that they weren’t nearly as warm as before, which was true. Because fireplaces were so inefficient, they were constantly enlarged. Some became so enormous that they were built with benches in them, letting people sit inside the fireplace, almost the only place in the house where they could be really warm.

Source:
Bryson, Bill. At Home: A Short History of Private Life. New York: Doubleday, 2010.
(Note: ellipsis added.)

“People Condemned to Short Lives and Chronic Hardship Are Perhaps Unlikely to Worry Overmuch about Decor”

If “necessity is the mother of invention,” then why did it take so long for someone to invent the louvered slats mentioned at the end of this passage?

(p. 55) In even the best homes comfort was in short supply. It really is extraordinary how long it took people to achieve even the most elemental levels of comfort. There was one good reason for it: life was tough. Throughout the Middle Ages, a good deal of every life was devoted simply to surviving. Famine was common. The medieval world was a world without reserves; when harvests were poor, as they were about one year in four on average, hunger was immediate. When crops failed altogether, starvation inevitably followed. England suffered especially catastrophic harvests in 1272, 1277, 1283, 1292, and 1311, and then an unrelievedly murderous stretch from 1315 to 1319. And this was of course on top of plagues and other illnesses that swept away millions. People condemned to short lives and chronic hardship are perhaps unlikely to worry overmuch about decor. But even allowing for all that, there was just a great, strange slowness to strive for even modest levels of comfort. Roof holes, for instance, let smoke escape, but they also let in rain and drafts until somebody finally, belatedly invented a lantern structure with louvered slats that allowed smoke to escape but kept out rain, birds, and wind. It was a marvelous invention, but by the time it (p. 56) was thought of, in the fourteenth century, chimneys were already coming in and louvered caps were not needed.

Source:
Bryson, Bill. At Home: A Short History of Private Life. New York: Doubleday, 2010.

Medieval Halls of the Rich Incubated Plague in a Nest of “Filth Unmentionable”

(p. 51) In even the best houses, floors were generally just bare earth strewn with rushes, harboring “spittle and vomit and urine of dogs and men, beer that hath been cast forth and remnants of fishes and other filth unmentionable,” as the Dutch theologian and traveler Desiderius Erasmus rather crisply summarized in 1524. New layers of rushes were laid down twice a year normally, but the old accretions were seldom removed, so that, Erasmus added glumly, “the substratum may be unmolested for twenty years.” The floors were in effect a very large nest, much appreciated by insects and furtive rodents, and a perfect incubator for plague. Yet a deep pile of flooring was generally a sign of prestige. It was common among the French to say of a rich man that he was “waist deep in straw.”

Source:
Bryson, Bill. At Home: A Short History of Private Life. New York: Doubleday, 2010.

In Medicine, as Elsewhere, What Pays Is Usually What Gets Done

“”I had to train myself not to get too interested in their problems, and not to get sidetracked trying to be a semi-therapist.” Dr. Donald Levin, a psychiatrist whose practice no longer includes talk therapy.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A1) DOYLESTOWN, Pa. — Alone with his psychiatrist, the patient confided that his newborn had serious health problems, his distraught wife was screaming at him and he had started drinking again. With his life and second marriage falling apart, the man said he needed help.

But the psychiatrist, Dr. Donald Levin, stopped him and said: “Hold it. I’m not your therapist. I could adjust your medications, but I don’t think that’s appropriate.”
Like many of the nation’s 48,000 psychiatrists, Dr. Levin, in large part because of changes in how much insurance will pay, no longer provides talk therapy, the form of psychiatry popularized by Sigmund Freud that dominated the profession for decades. Instead, he prescribes medication, usually after a brief consultation with each patient. So Dr. Levin sent the man away with a referral to a less costly therapist and a personal crisis unexplored and unresolved.

For the full story, see:
GARDINER HARRIS. “Talk Doesn’t Pay, So Psychiatry Turns Instead to Drug Therapy.” The New York Times, First Section (Sun., March 6, 2011): A1 & A21.
(Note: the online version of the story is dated March 5, 2011.)

Warm Yourself Over a “Dung Fire, and You Will Know What Pollution Really Is”

(p. D4) To the Editor:
The idea that ancient man had fewer tumors because he lived in a less polluted atmosphere (“Unearthing Prehistoric Tumors, and Debate,” Dec. 28) can be held only by those who have limited experience living in a preindustrial way. Try cooking over an open fire burning half-rotten wood, or sitting in a cave warming yourself with a peat or dung fire, and you will know what pollution really is.
Carol Selinske
Rye Brook, N.Y.

Source of NYT letter to the Editor:
Carol Selinske. “LETTERS; Cancer, Then and Now.” The New York Times (Tues., January 4, 2011): D4.
(Note: the online version of the letter is dated: January 3, 2011.)

Laron Syndrome Villagers Free of Cancer and Diabetes, Suggesting Longevity Breakthrough

Source of graph: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A6) People living in remote villages in Ecuador have a mutation that some biologists say may throw light on human longevity and ways to increase it.

The villagers are very small, generally less than three and a half feet tall, and have a rare condition known as Laron syndrome or Laron-type dwarfism. They are probably the descendants of conversos, Sephardic Jews from Spain and Portugal who were forced to convert to Christianity in the 1490s but were nonetheless persecuted in the Inquisition. They are also almost completely free of two age-related diseases, cancer and diabetes.
A group of 99 villagers with Laron syndrome has been studied for 24 years by Dr. Jaime Guevara-Aguirre, an Ecuadorean physician and diabetes specialist.
. . .
IGF-1 is part of an ancient signaling pathway that exists in the laboratory roundworm as well as in people. The gene that makes the receptor for IGF-1 in the roundworm is called DAF-2. And worms in which this gene is knocked out live twice as long as normal.
The Laron patients have the equivalent defect — their cells make very little IGF-1, so very little IGF-1 signaling takes place, just as in the DAF-2-ablated worms. So the Laron patients might be expected to live much longer.
Because of their striking freedom from cancer and diabetes, they probably could live much longer if they did not have a much higher than usual death rate from causes unrelated to age, like alcoholism and accidents.
. . .
A strain of mice bred by John Kopchick of Ohio University has a defect in the growth hormone receptor gene, just as do the Laron patients, and lives 40 percent longer than usual.
. . .
The longest-lived mouse on record is one studied by Dr. Bartke. It had a defect in its growth hormone receptor gene, just as do the Laron patients. “It missed its fifth birthday by a week,” he said. The mouse lived twice as long as usual and won Dr. Bartke a prize presented by the Methuselah Foundation (which rewards developments in life-extension therapies) in 2003.

For the full story, see:
NICHOLAS WADE. “Ecuadorean Villagers May Hold Secret to Longevity.” The New York Times (Thurs., February 17, 2011): A6.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story is dated February 16, 2011 and has the title “Ecuadorean Villagers May Hold Secret to Longevity.”)

“A 67-year-old man who has Laron-type dwarfism with his daughter, 5, and sons, 7 and 10.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

The Secret to a Long Life Is Conscientiousness

Source of book image: online version of the NYT review quoted and cited below.

(p. D3) Cheerfulness, optimism, extroversion and sociability may make life more enjoyable, but they won’t necessarily extend it, Howard S. Friedman and Leslie R. Martin found in a study that covered eight decades. The key traits are prudence and persistence. “The findings clearly revealed that the best childhood personality predictor of longevity was conscientiousness,” they write, “the qualities of a prudent, persistent, well-organized person, like a scientist-professor — somewhat obsessive and not at all carefree.”
. . .
There are three explanations for the dominant role of conscientiousness. The first and most obvious is that conscientious people are more likely to live healthy lifestyles, to not smoke or drink to excess, wear seat belts, follow doctors’ orders and take medication as prescribed. Second, conscientious people tend to find themselves not only in healthier situations but also in healthier relationships: happier marriages, better friendships, healthier work situations.
The third explanation for the link between conscientiousness and longevity is the most intriguing. “We thought it must be something biological,” Dr. Friedman said. “We ruled out every other factor.” He and other researchers found that some people are biologically predisposed to be not only more conscientiousness but also healthier. “Not only do they tend to avoid violent deaths and illnesses linked to smoking and drinking,” they write, “but conscientious individuals are less prone to a whole host of diseases, not just those caused by dangerous habits.” The precise physiological explanation is unknown but seems to have to do with levels of chemicals like serotonin in the brain.
As for optimism, it has its downside. “If you’re cheerful, very optimistic, especially in the face of illness and recovery, if you don’t consider the possibility that you might have setbacks, then those setbacks are harder to deal with,” Dr. Martin said. “If you’re one of those people who think everything’s fine — ‘no need to back up those computer files’ — the stress of failure, because you haven’t been more careful, is harmful. You almost set yourself up for more problems.”

For the full review, see:
KATHERINE BOUTO. “BOOKS ON SCIENCE; Eighty Years Along, a Longevity Study Still Has Ground to Cover.” The New York Times (Tues., April 19, 2011): D3.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the article is dated April 18, 2011.)

The book under review is:
Friedman, Howard S., and Leslie R. Martin. The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study. New York: Hudson Street Press, 2011.