Public Health

Though the world is facing on obesity crisis, at least in the U.S. the culprit is not sugar, it's too many calories of other kinds. Americans are actually eating less sugar than two decades ago, partially thanks to non-nutritive sweeteners. The analysis used a nationally representative dataset on household purchases at the barcode level (Nielsen Homescan) in 2002 and 2018 linked with Nutrition Facts Panel (NFP) data and ingredient information using commercial nutrition databases that are updated regularly to capture reformulations. Keyword searches were performed on ingredient lists to…

There is no magic food that causes weight gain, in every study people who consume fewer calories than they burn lose weight while people who consume more gain it. Energy balance, like evolution and Einstein, has survived all challengers.  Yet the biology underlying the breakdown of stored fat molecules is not well known. A new paper posits that nerves embedded in fat tissue have previously unrecognized capability. If they receive the right signal, they have an astonishing capacity to grow. At least in mice. Don't get excited that this will soon be a claim in a supplement bottle or a diet…

Though there is concern about inequality in outcomes when it comes to medicine, how much is due to lifestyle choices and the co-morbidities they bring and if any is prejudice by care providers is unclear. Yet data can inform smaller populations. And an analysis of women with the SARS-CoV-2 infection who gave birth at two hospitals in northern Manhattan during the height of New York City's COVID-19 pandemic, the national epicenter, did not find a difference in impact on obstetric complications and symptoms of COVID-19 in different groups of women, regardless of income, race or ethnicity.…

Though old age, respiratory issues, blood clots, and obesity are risk factors for likelihood and severity of COVID-19, one group in the respiratory section needn't worry more; asthmatics. Asthma does not appear to increase the risk for a person contracting COVID-19 or influence its severity. "Older age and conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes and obesity are reported risk factors for the development and progression of COVID-19," said Reynold A. Panettieri Jr., a pulmonary critical care physician and director of the Rutgers…

Coronavirus and the COVID-19 disease it brings does not discriminate on race, creed, or color, but it does target people with pre-existing conditions. Like age, respiratory issues, and obesity, which are risk factors for nearly everything. And that can translate into cultural disparity. Obese European minorities are up to two times higher the risk of contracting COVID-19 than white Europeans, a study has found. The study used body mass index (BMI), a controversial metric with numerous confounders, so caution is warranted, and cardiometabolic health. The researchers wanted to see if…

Can you prevent cancer? Not really. The number one risk factor for cancer is old age, if you live long enough you are likely to get some form or another. Despite the beliefs of the Longevity crowd, we are biologically self-terminating. Can you lessen your risk of getting some types of cancer? Absolutely. But American Cancer Society claiming their guidelines can prevent it is just the first problem with their latest "cancer prevention" document. If Google says an Incognito tab in its browser makes you incognito, but it doesn't, they will get sued for $5 billion. If American Cancer Society,…

For decades there has been a statistical controversy about meat. By statistical I mean it was never a real health issue. Instead, though we clearly evolved to eat it, epidemiologists statistically correlated meat to dying and said therefore we shouldn't eat it. Though such studies noted down at the bottom that the relationship was not causal, they wanted the public to believe it because they highlighted the causal inference in press releases, and so media rushed to claim that meat causes heart attacks. A few years ago, epidemiologists at France's International Agency for Research on Cancer (…

A few decades ago, Asian diets were regarded as superior because lower incomes meant they ate less meat - and those who were tested had less cholesterol, a substance found in the blood that the body uses to build healthy cells, but which can lead to a build-up in blood vessels. Cholesterol has been correlated to a risk factor for a risk factor for heart attacks. Whether they are wealthier now or more non-wealthier people are getting tested is unclear, but one thing is; more Asians have higher cholesterol. Cholesterol comes in different types and as time went on guidance changed. Now it…

The WHO have been hugely misreported by the media. Mike Ryan said that if we develop a safe and effective vaccine for COVID19 we also have to deploy it. We can do this. If we vaccinate enough people to eradicate this virus, it is a "beacon of hope" for the way we care about our world citizens. Mike Ryan points out that we have a safe and effective vaccine for measles but haven't eliminated it from the world although we know how to do this. [We have eradicted it from the Americas, last case July 2015 in Brazil. Measles elimination in the America] Scientists can find a safe and effective…

Many experts have called on the UK to rejoin the rest of the world in solidarity to test, trace and isolate. My petition to the UK government has just been approved (as of April 24th). Any UK citizen can sign it. The petition says: Petition: Take immediate action to find and isolate COVID-19 cases and recent contacts The World Health Organization has recommended that countries test every suspected case of COVID19, and isolate and treat every confirmed case. It also recommends that they trace every contact and isolate those for 14 days. We call on the UK government to do all these things.…