Public Health

Introduction: A covert alliance forged of mutual interest has declared victory after the recently-concluded Paris climate conclave issued its final accord, garnering almost 200 national signatories. Do they have reason to celebrate — or are their gleeful press statements meant to cover up the real shortfalls of this agreement?  Those behind the climate crusade include opaque, billion-dollar foundations (some funded by shadowy foreign interests) and the deep green NGOs they support (often including past and future members of our governmental agencies); extremely wealthy,…

When used properly, car seats can reduce the risk of infant death and injury by 71% but a new study in The Journal of Pediatrics found that most families with newborns made at least one serious error in the use and installation of their car safety seat. In 2013, car accidents resulted in approximately 8,500 infants requiring hospitalization or emergency department visits and 135 deaths.   Between November 2013 and May 2014, Dr. Benjamin D. Hoffman and researchers from the Oregon Health&Science University surveyed 291 families being discharged from the hospital with a healthy newborn…

Not content with blathering about the politics of soda and the urgent need to label GMO-containing food to protect America's consumers from science, Prof. M. Nestle has come up with an impressive non-sequitur in her latest blog posting. Entitled "House Appropriations Bill Affects Dietary Guidelines," she goes over in detail (down to posting several draft sections of the "Omnibus" budget bill in their entirety) proposed sections relating to diet in the bill. Those sections she posts discuss the attempts, by (one assumes) the Republican majority, to keep the Federal Dietary Guidelines from…

Not content with blathering about the politics of soda and the urgent need to label GMO-containing food to protect America's consumers from science, Prof. M. Nestle has come up with an impressive non-sequitur in her latest blog posting. Entitled "House Appropriations Bill Affects Dietary Guidelines," she goes over in detail (down to posting several draft sections of the "Omnibus" budget bill in their entirety) proposed sections relating to diet in the bill. Those sections she posts discuss the attempts, by (one assumes) the Republican majority, to keep the Federal Dietary Guidelines from…

Nearly 185 million adults and 24 million children in the United States are overweight or obese. In Philadelphia, an estimated 68 percent of adults are overweight or obese. Beyond impaired cognitive function, poor sleep is associated with a host of chronic health problems including depression, obesity, and hypertension. Additionally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 50 to 70 million U.S. adults experience sleep or wakefulness disorders. Weight loss due to dietary changes can improve sleepiness at any weight, says a study published in the journal Sleep, which the…

One of every three deaths in the U.S. in 2013 were from heart disease, stroke and other cardiovascular diseases, while heart disease and stroke were the top and second killers worldwide, according to American Heart Association's 2016 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics Update, which uses data from the AHA, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other government sources.   In the U.S. the data showed: cardiovascular diseases claimed 801,000 lives; heart disease killed more than 370,000 people; stroke killed nearly 129,000 people; about…

Poisonings from recreational drug and alcohol use account for 9 percent of all poisoning-related hospital admissions,while males and people under 30 are at greatest risk, according to a paper in Drug and Alcohol Dependence. The lesson: Young people are more inclined to be both experimental and stupid about it, especially at Australian music festivals. The report is based on 13,805 patient records collected between January 1996 and December 2013 using data from the Hunter Area Toxicology Service (HATS). The report finds that stimulants were the drug class most commonly linked to recreational…

Smoking are linked to infertility problems and a hastening of the natural menopause before the age of 50, finds a large study in Tobacco Control.  The clinical significance of earlier menopause is unknown and it was an observational study so no firm conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect.  The highest levels of tobacco exposure were associated with the arrival of menopause 1 to 2 years earlier than among lifetime non-smokers. The researchers base their findings on information obtained on lifetime smoking habits, fertility problems, and age at natural menopause provided by…

Why do we eat stuff that's bad for us when our stated aim is to lose weight or "get in shape?" In a 2010 study entitled Food reinforcement, delay discounting and obesity, Dr. Leonard Epstein and colleagues review the work that’s been done so far in the behavioral economics of obesity. This branch of science tries to distinguish how human beings make complex choices. Humans must balance their experience of the world with limited resources in terms of time, money, and availability of activities or commodities. A main question of research interest is: What goes into the apparently harmful…

The latest nonsense from the NYTimes comes in the form of an op-ed by the noted chef and restaurateur, Tom Colicchio. Mr. C. is described as chef, owner of Crafted Hospitality and co-founder of Food Policy Action. The latter NGO lobbies for GMO labeling and against pesticides, ostensibly out of concern for "pollinators." The op-ed, "Are You Eating Frankenfish?", repeats the mantra of anti-science, anti-technology and (most commonly) groups backed by Big Organic to stymie consumer confidence in foods containing genetically-engineered ingredients ("GMOs"). While donning the…