News Brief by Kip Hansen — 6 September 2024 — 1100 words
Thanks to the New York Times, in an article in the EAT section, we have the news that “those who consumed the most ultraprocessed foods were 11 percent more likely to develop cardiovascular disease and 16 percent more likely to develop coronary heart disease during the study period”.
The article is written by Alice Callahan and titled: “Are Some Ultraprocessed Foods Worse Than Others?”
Callahan’s summary of a Lancet research paper is:
“The researchers also combined their findings with those from 19 other studies, for a separate analysis of about 1.25 million adults. They found that those who consumed the most ultraprocessed foods were 17 percent more likely to develop cardiovascular disease, 23 percent more likely to develop coronary heart disease and 9 percent more likely to have a stroke compared with the lowest consumers.”
What is the evidence presented in the Lancet paper [Mendoza et al. 2024]? Here’s the money chart:
Now, before I say anything further about the study, the results, and those Hazard Ratios — the original study states the following in its Summary:
“Interpretation
Total UPF intake was adversely associated with CVD and CHD risk in US adults, corroborated by prospective studies from multiple countries, also suggesting a small excess stroke risk.”
Take a look at the hazard ratio chart again with that interpretation in mind. What do you think?
Give us your view in the Comment section – now — before I give my take on the study findings.
# # # # #
Let me start again.
There is a new study in The Lancet titled as an “analysis of three large US prospective cohorts and a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies” that dealt with the relationship between “ultra-processed foods and cardiovascular disease”.
Here are their findings, in a chart showing their findings as Hazard Ratios for adverse conditions based on the uptake (consumption) of various categories of ultraproccessed foods (UPFs):
CVD – Cardiovascular Disease CHD – Coronary Heart Disease ASBs – artificially sweetened beverages
If this was a display on a digital whiteboard, projected on the giant screen at a conference, I’d do the following:
I have circled the ONLY findings that are even close to being clinically significant.
Notice that the majority of the hazard ratios, for most categories of UPFs, are less than 1 – usually interpreted as being, in this case, beneficial – preventative of the harm. Many of those that are greater than 1 have uncertainty/error bars that include ‘1’, which is correctly interpreted as ‘no effect’. Only those circled in red could even be considered statistically to be harmful, associated with the adverse effect, in any way.
Using the logic of the authors of this paper, all those below boxed in blue could be considered to prevent the ‘bad thing’ – CVD, CHD, Stroke:
To complete the set of images:
The highlighted values, though positive, include ‘1’, the unity, which fall under this general rule:
“Statistically significant hazard ratios cannot include unity (one) in their confidence intervals.” [ source ]
As for the bottom two items, ASBs – artificially sweetened beverages, it seems that the failure to find a positive enough hazard ratio may have led them to recalculate the HR “adjusting for dieting behaviours and time-varying BMI”. They still end up as a nothing done.
Now, consider again the statement made by the authors – the plain language Interpretation of their findings:
“Total UPF intake was adversely associated with CVD and CHD risk in US adults, corroborated by prospective studies from multiple countries, also suggesting a small excess stroke risk.”
# # # # #
Junk Science:
Only “sugar-sweetened beverages” and “processed red meat, poultry, and fish” show ANY adverse association with CVD and CHD. The lead author of the study is quoted in the Times as saying “When these two categories were excluded from the data, most of the risk associated with ultraprocessed food consumption disappeared…”. That is exactly correct. In fact, whatever ‘risk’ remained would be tiny, with uncertainty overlapping ‘1’, and not be even statistically significant, and never could be properly considered either clinically significant or a “minimal clinically important difference”.
So, the interpretation offered by the study’s authors is just not true in plain language – they did not find UPF consumption associated with CVD and CHD, but only consumption of the two of the ten categories to be so associated.
Scientific Controversies:
Both categories that were found to have an associated adverse effect are themselves Modern Scientific Controversies: the War on Sugar and the Meat Wars.
This means that the studies included in the meta-analysis are quite possibly (or stronger, probably) questionable and may just “be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.”
Bottom Line:
The NY Times article and the study in The Lancet are prime examples of how junk science findings are transformed into actionable science. Findings with tiny questionable effects are elevated by the study authors to apply widely (in the Interpretation, to apply to all UPFs as a broad category of foods) and then again elevated by the media to be important to the lives of everyday people.
Studying UPFs is a new Science Fad with study after study desperately trying to find that “UPFs are bad for you”. UPFs are not even a distinct category of food by ingredients or type – only by the fact of how they are produced (yes, really).
# # # # #
Author’s Comment:
I have been collecting material on UPFs for a couple of years, towards writing a new Modern Scientific Controversies segment on the topic. Coming soon-ish.
There are total diets that do not promote good health. These certainly include diets with excessive amounts of sugars of all types. The case against excessive sugars depends exclusively on the perceived relationship between sugars and diabetes and obesity, both of which are controversial. Exactly what constitutes ‘excessive’ is the open question, but you’ve seen men and women walking and driving drinking from refillable giant convenience-store soda cups, 44-52 oz, full of what is essentially sugar syrup. Big box stores have hundreds of feet of shelf space dedicated to extra large containers of candies in huge bags and large square plastic jars.
The case against meats and processed meats is far less clear and may be even non-existent – maybe entirely an example of prevailing bias.
I have long maintained that diet is a personal and cultural choice, that diets should be well-rounded and varied, including a wide range of vegetables and fruits and grains. Personally, my religious health code calls for meats to be eaten “sparingly”.
Thanks for reading.
# # # # #
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
“Controversial”
re: “Controversial”
Heh.
AS opposed to “The science is settled.”
All red meats, chicken and fish available at my markets are processed. None of them sell any live, unprocessed animals for consumption. I think that’s illegal without permits, isn’t it?
Beef stew is processed! LOL
How do they define just what is “processed” food versus “unprocessed” food.
Seriously.
Is harvesting an apple from a tree “processing” it?
If someone cans it at home to make applesauce “processing” it?
If it’s canned in a factory (and then inspected for safety) … ?
This has been talked about here in the U.K. and I’ve raised the same question. Pickling with salt, vinegar, saltpetre, nitre has been done for centuries. In the Middle Ages meat was mixed with dried fruit and spices to preserve the meat, this has morphed into the modern mincemeat.
Canning is over a century old. Freezing similarly. Ice houses are centuries old.
I would go so far as to say that a basic MacDonalds or Burger King or Wendy’s beef burger is not ultra processed.
Having visited the USA a few years back, we found the bread over sweet. The allegedly mature cheddar was more like U.K. mild cheddar.
Hormel canned mystery beef is ultra processed.
SPAM is ultra processed.
Beef chews sold in bars and convenience stores are ultra processed.
Many hot dogs are ultra processed.
If you can’t positively identify what the meat is, it is ultra processed.
Many meats sold as deli meats are ultra processed. Raw meats are tumbled until coated with a sticky protein covering the meat. Add preservatives and other chemicals, then the meats are pressed into molds and cooked.
Have you ever really looked at the meat used in Taco Bell ultra processed corn tortillas?
You correct about America’s commercial ultra processed breads and America’s rather pathetic cheeses, they are commercially made for East Coast tastes, not for real cheese flavor.
One can still find good cheddars, but only at exorbitant cost in large grocery chains.
Fortunately, my 25 year old bread maker still kneads bread dough for me, making luscious smelling good breads easy to have.
You might have also noticed that alleged French or Italian breads in America have curiously uniform texture without a chewy crust or soft airy pockets inside?
A local grocery chain near me had the owner’s wife meddling in bread recipes, e.g., French bread. Their French bread is now an soft granular texture with abundant bran now. No crust or airy pockets or chewy bread at all, more like sweetish cardboard.
Baguettes sold on the west coast are fairly crunchy.
Do they want to?
IMJ t is a handy tool for scare-mongering mentalities, it is anti-human.
(A case has been made that even cooking food was a great advance, as it reduced the energy needed for digestion thus netted more energy for the rest of life. (Cooking energy/equipment does take time, such as finding fuel.))
IIRC, our stomachs cannot handle most raw meats, which makes sense because we cannot digest raw blood even in the absence of any harmful bacteria, we require the cooking process to begin digestion.
You need to start shopping at the Wuhan Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. The kill the animals right in front of you. Everything is very sanitary.
/sarc
Walter,
Even in Hong Kong markets I have seen fish for sale in two parts, one being a side filleted from the live fish, the other the lighter live fish.
Not used to that.
Geoff S
Boiled potatoes is processed food. And don’t start me on mash.
Any form of cooking any food is processing it, changing physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of the food to make it more digestible or more palatable.
Also, our own digestive tracts “ultra-process” pretty much everything we consume, even water.
And then I’ll bet you ultraprocess it using heat causing all kinds of chemical changes – chemicals undoubtedly ‘linked’ to___________________ (insert disease of choice) in rats.
And if they were California rats being used …
I read that different vegetable oils have different temperatures at which they begin to break down.
(Canola, sunflower, coconut, olive, ……
OTOH ‘lard’ being animal fat.)
Plants are sugar factories taking CO2 out of the air and water out of the ground and make sugars. Glucose is the primary and secondarily fructose. Plants assemble these sugars into chains we chemists call polysaccharides, Our digestive system breaks these polysaccharides that are digestible back down to sugar units. Glucose is primary metabolic fuel of the human cell. When you eat a potato your blood sugar soars more then sweeteners like table sugar or HFCS. Demonizing sugar is ridiculous
HFCS
aka high fattening corn syrup
… turns off your I am full “switch ”
…turns on your I am hungry “switch”
…turns on your store fat “switch” .
HFCS is half fructose and half glucose identical to sucrose or table sugar. Ripe fruits are high in fructose that’s why they are sweet. Again no different than HFCS
Thankyou for pointing to facts.
Old Bob ==> Well, those are the claims made by anti-HFCS advocates. In fact, HFCS is almost identical to table sugar in its ratio of fructose and glucose:
“Sucrose [common table sugar] is 50 percent fructose and 50 percent glucose…The type of HFCS that is most commonly used in soft drinks is 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose (HFCS-55)”
“Fructose is a sugar found naturally in fruits, fruit juices, some vegetables and honey. Table sugar, called sucrose, also has fructose.”
While there are differences — “Glucose and fructose have similar metabolic fates because most dietary fructose converts into glucose.”
Oops forgot HFCS has little bit more fructose
Is it not the case that plain corn syrup contains no fructose?
True there use enzymes to convert glucose to fructose. Fructose is much sweeter 2X I think is why
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-fructose_corn_syrup
Corn syrup – Wikipedia
Drive the ring road around the south side of Cedar Rapids IA and you’ll smell corn syrup in the air – from a processing plant.
Almost 40 years experience in the food industry . Most in a cake plant .
Knew top company management on first name basis .
They said HFCS was used because customers ate more product .
I believe them .
They told me what I posted above ,
😉
I always read it was cheaper than cane or sugar beet
I would suspect that the reason fruits are considered healthy and good for you is because they also have vitamins and minerals that our bodies need. Even though I think avoiding excess sugar is a good idea, I note that sugar and complex polysaccharides are not in and of themselves truly bad. Quantity matters. Also, if the choice is between sugar and artificial sweeteners, I go with sugar.
Sugar is a nutrient. It’s just that it’s only energy and we get more than enough energy in our western diets. I guess it’s just too hard to teach kids to deal with quantitative arguments.
Exactly! All nuance is incomprehensible.
The corollary to “If a little is good then a lot must be better” is “If an excess is bad then a trace must be deadly”!
It has been a while since my reading in the area and information might have changed but I do remember that the claim was that fructose has a completely different metabolic path than glucose. It can only be processed through the liver, much like ethanol. If used for physical activity soon enough after ingestion it is probably perfectly fine nutrition but if consumed in greater quantity than can be used at the time (consider the real difference between an athlete in a training session and a TV watcher), it is stored as visceral fat.
This type of fat is generally for long term storage, not so readily used by the body as glucose, and is primary or only useful for muscle activity. It can only be accessed after quite a few hours of no food intake, more time than most people go without eating. It is life saving when game, berries, nuts, and such are in short supple. Larger quantities are correlated with various metabolic dysfunctions, fatty liver disease being one of those, indistinguishable from excess ethanol consumption.
Do you have any references that address those claims, finding them in error?
Sounds like BS.
!
Sucrose is a disaccharide made up of two monosaccharides fructose and glucose. The third monosaccharide is galactose found in milk. Glucose has a glycemic index of 100, sucrose 60 and fructose 23. Fructose is significantly sweeter than sucrose.
Fructose is found in honey, tree and vine fruits, flowers, berries and most root vegetables.
Corn syrup is a mixture of glucose and fructose as monosaccharides rather than chemically bound in sucrose.
This makes corn syrup significantly sweeter than sucrose alone would, because of the fructose.
Incorrect. Corn syrup does not contain fructose. It is mainly glucose with small quantities of some less familiar sugars. No fructose.
Both products are made from the starch in corn, but corn syrup is made up of 100 percent glucose, while some of the glucose in high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) has been enzymatically converted to fructose.
https://www.thekitchn.com/corn-syrup-vs-high-fructose-corn-syrup-difference-196819
However, the familiar Karo “Light Corn Syrup” has 10 grams of unspecified “Added Sugars” per 2 Tbsp. Dark Karo has some other kind of sugar added to change it flavor.
Thanks.
There is a type of sugar sold retail that is quite dark, name demerrara or such – often made by adding molasses.
Mmmm – cane and beet sugar – the standard ‘table sugar’ – are sucrose NOT glucose.
Your body turns it into glucose.
(Glucose sugar is used directly in some foods for its gelling property, pecan pie notably and some ice creams.)
BTW your post stumbles, contradicting itself – do proper homework and edit your writing.
No that is false Mike since potatoes has a moderate GLYCEMIC value a lot less than table sugar which is a simple sugar that rapidly goes into the bloodstream complex carbohydrates takes much longer which is better to reduce the insulin spiking effect.
My father had to watch his carbohydrate intake which is to keep the values down and to avoid table sugar.
Absolutely wrong. The glycemic index of a potato is 90 and table sugar is 95. That is because table sugar is half fructose which is absorbed by the liver and converted to glucose before raising blood sugar. Fructose was recommended to diabetics before the advent of artificial sweeteners
You left out Glycemic LOAD
Potato is listed as GI 70 and GL as 12.3 LINK
Table Sugar/sucrose is GI 65 and GL as 100 LINK
Doesn’t Glycemic Load depend on amount consumed?
So watermelon may have high GI but low GL because it is mostly water.
Here is more about simple sugars:
Glucose 96 GI and 94 GL
Dextrose 100 GI and 95 GL
Glucose Syrup 100 GI and 70 GL
Sugar 100 GI and 100 GL
LINK
Soda Pop is not much more than drinking flavored sugar water a major reason why so many people get diabetic troubles in the western world.
Basically, simple sugars are bad and complex carbohydrates in moderation is good to the body which can more easily manage the incoming carbohydrates.
Diabetes used to be less common before 1900 but now increasing all over the world as the high sugar diet spreads.
Dextrose= d Glucose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucose#Chemical_and_physical_properties. When they attached an IV bag to you in the hospital its a glucose solution. The causes of type II diabetes is still unknown
Yeah, it is a dribble of glucose at about a 5% solution in a bag of water spread out over 15-30 minutes for most people who are in the hospital for significant medical reasons.
LINK
Because glucose is the primary fuel of the human cell
I have known that for 50 years now, I did mention my father was diabetic……
The hospital adds it in small amounts slowly no blood sugar spike.
Drink a big can of soda pop will create a sugar spike in the blood which over time can generate a diabetic condition.
Avoiding rapid sugar spikes is a factor in better health and less stress on the body.
As was my oldest brother
You may find this Doctors perspective interesting…
There is a high personal variability in the glycemic response to identical meals. https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-86741501481-6.pdf
Nonsense!
Normal table sugar is sucrose.
Harold the Organic Chemist Asks:
What type of chemist are you?
Organic
What is your opinion re the claim by the IPCC that CO2 is a cause of global warming? Most people and especially politicians do not know that the trace amount of CO2 in the air can not cause global warming, and that water is the main greenhouse gas.
Here is a comment that I post in discussions of greenhouse gases and global warming to educate the commenters about basic atmospheric chemistry:
At the MLO in Hawaii, the concentration of CO2 in dry air 427 ppm. This is only 0.839 grams of CO2 per cubic meter of dry air at STP.
One cubic meter of this air has mass of 1.29 kilograms.
For a sunny day with a temperature of 70 deg. F and 70% RH, the concentration of water in air is 17,780 ppm. This is 14.3 grams of water per cubic meter of air. One cubic meter of this warm air has a mass of 1.20 kilogram. The amount of CO2 in this air is 0.780 grams.
To the first approximation, water is 97.8% of the greenhouse effect.
Based on above the data and calculations, I have concluded that the claim since 1988 by the IPCC that CO2 causes global warming is a lie, the purpose of which is further the UN’s objective of distribution of donor funds via the UNFCCC and the UN COP to poor countries to help them cope with global warming and climate change.
The data doesn’t support the conclusions.
I stand by what I posted. The UNFCCC, the IPCC and a coterie of unscrupulous scientist (aka, the white-coated welfare queens) have been perpetrating the greatest scientific fraud in recent human history. Their objective: easy money for research and to avoid hard physical labor.
Please do the following. Use Google to obtain the essay:
“Climate Change Reexamined” by Joel M. Kauffman. The essay is 26 pages and can be downloaded for free. This essay exposes climate science fraud.
Shown in Fig 7 is the IR absorption spectrum of a sample of Philadelphia city air from 400 to 4,000 wavenumbers. Integration of spectrum using a planimeter determined that water absorbed 92% of the IR light and CO2 only 8%. Since the air sample was inner city air, it likely that the concentration of CO2 was greater than that at a remote location such a rural area. Unfortunately, Kauffman didn’t measure the concentration of CO2 in the city air.
Now do this: Use Google to obtain UNFCCC budget, IPCC budget, and UN COP budget. After you examine the budget documents, you will learn about the many, many billions of dollars these organizations have at their disposal. The UN COP28 budget for 2023-24 is 57 billion dollars.
“… I have concluded that the claim since 1988 by the IPCC that CO2 causes global warming is a lie,” H. Pierce
I have easily concluded that you are wrong and know nothing about climate science.
You are contradicting almost 100% of scientists since 1896, all lab spectroscopy CO2 measurements and even about 99% of the skeptic scientists ON OUR SIDE, who claim CO2 is a weak greenhouse gas. Such as:
Richard Lindzen
William Happer
Roy Spencer
John Christy
Judith Curry
They are science Ph.D.’s
They all believe CO2 causes global warming
You are claiming they are all wrong
The probability that they are all wrong and you are right is ZERO.
A silly conservative effort to refute the leftist’s claim of CAGW by claiming AGW does not exists is wrong and counterproductive.
Claiming CO2 does nothing is something conservative fools do to make fellow conservatives appear to be science deniers. No thanks for making the leftists happy with your junk science myths.
Fellow fool BENASTY will soon be here to defend you and claim 127 years of scientific evidence supporting AGW does not exist.
BENASTY is the website climate buffoon so if he defends your comment, then you are definitely on the wrong path.
Poor dickie, seems I have vacant possession of his mind ! 🙂 hilarious
Still waiting for your empirical evidence of warming by atmospheric CO2.
You have FAILED yet again to produce anything remotely scientific.
You have FAILED to produce any of this so-called “evidence”, evah !
Happer says “unmeasurable” at current ppm and changes.
Seems he is correct, wouldn’t you agree.
Perhaps that is why you can’t produce any measurements 😉
Stop making an arrant fool of yourself, drone. !
Oh… and the leftists must be thanking you a lot for continually supporting their FAKE AGW scam.
FYI: I have a B.Sc.(Hon), 1967, U of Illinois (U-C) and a
Ph.D. (Organic Chemistry), 1972, UC Irvine.
RG, what is your academic training?
On Aug. 1, I turned 80 years old and have something that RG does not have: Experience and Wisdom!
In my first long post above, I forgot to add this comment:
This small amount of carbon dioxide can heat up such a large amount of air by a very small amount.
That is the conclusion any rational, scientifically-minded person should come to.
Harold ==> Can’t quite tell who you are speaking to. I’m not a chemist, though I studied Chem in Uni, first level organic chem and a bit of physiology.
I’m just trying to tell all the people that water is the main greenhouse gas and CO2 is trace greenhouse and that the IPCC is perpetrating a great scientific fraud.
Here are a few possible consequences of this fraud:
Phase out of all cars and light trucks and replace them with evs.
Phase out of a fossil-fueled power plants
Phase out all fossil fuels
Transition to green energy
All the companies are pledging to be net zero emissions by 2050
I’ll stop for now. Have you got the gist of this fraud?
re: “I’m just trying to tell all the people that water is the main greenhouse gas”
Why don’t you encourage ppl to verify this themselves; Buy a cheap what is termed an “IR Thermometer”. These indicate in their datasheets to use 14 um LWIR wavelength to ‘measure’ (as a proxy from a blackbody radiator) temperatures, and this is very near the ‘atmospheric window’ at 15 um …
The experiment using the above piece of equipment will be to make observations of the optically clear sky (no clouds in the first phase of this experiment) under different ‘humidity’ (RH) and dew point conditions in the troposphere … note well the varying observed ‘temperature of the sky’ (i.e. the water vapor/gas emission or lack thereof at 14 um wavelength) under different conditions (low and high RH conditions).
The second phase of this experiment is to ‘read’ cloud temperature, just to cover this base (base as in baseball diamond.)
PS CV here is engineer, mainly RF and RF-related systems involving parametric testing (including antennas, amplifiers, radios, etc) over the last ~50 years.Presently running Joe Taylor’s (noted astrophysicist) WSPR computer program on 160m (1.836 MHz) testing a tuned QW radiator (antenna) as well as condx on that MW band.
Harold ==> Most of the readers here agree with you (and me) that H2O is the main greenhouse [sic] gas. Most of the readers here are perfectly willing to agree with Happer/Lindzen/Clauser et al that CO2 is a minor greenhouse gas and doubling it does not add much to the equation.
Few however are in the “it’s a intentional fraud” camp — most would agree that the IPCC et al are simply wrong and are pushing Global Warming/Climate Crisis for political reasons.
Most would agree that the vast majority of scientists studying climate issues are well-meaning, serious but misguided or stuck in the “I must go along to get along” rut.
No sense arguing with the fringe elements at either end of the CliSci spectrum.
Lack of brain glucose is associated with alzheimers.
Reference please?
Shhhhhh….. Don’t you know fruit and veg is the ‘healthy’ sugar-free alternative to soft drinks and sweeties, for children and fatties?
Now you’ve gone and spoiled it
Next you’ll be saying sugars are carbohydrates. The horror.
They should have included a column for mental instability due to a lack of Vitamin B-12.
A single meal of Lamb or Beef Liver would be a month’s supply of B-12, I eat Braun Sweiger on Ritz crackers….. Mmmm.
It is hard to develop vitamin B-12 deficiency.
Sunset ==> “Vitamin B12 deficiency is common in older people and is linked to anaemia, cognitive decline, and dementia. Clinical presentation is variable, ranging from no symptoms or subtle, non-specific symptoms, through to serious, irreversible neurological symptoms if left untreated. Although common, it is often under-recognised, with diagnosis usually occurring on incidental blood test screening. Older people are at increased risk of vitamin B12 deficiency due to insufficient dietary intake, malabsorption associated with aged-related changes in gastrointestinal function, higher incidence of pernicious anaemia, and chronic use of interfering medications such as metformin and proton-pump inhibitors.”
[ source ]
“Vitamin B12 shots are injections that a doctor may prescribe to treat a vitamin B12 deficiency. They may be useful for those with gastrointestinal issues, older adults, vegans, and vegetarians.” [ source ]
A blood test is the obvious for anyone over 50, but many don’t bother because they are being foolish, but it is otherwise easy to get enough Vitamin B-12 in the diet if they eat the liver a couple times a month at least they can do that at least no excuse for getting enough, the few who have deficiencies never bother to visit the doctor over it.
I have long stayed away from drugs because most colds and flues are easily handled at home and recover fine in just 2-3 days’ time, I have a brother who has far more flues and be off work 5-10 days be taking medications, while I stay off the drugs and recover much faster.
I started taking the multi-MINERALS when I reached 60 to counter the growing food deficiencies of minerals and to bolster my levels of the liver.
My wife took that many mult-minerals over her lifetime … now at a young age she has alzheimers with a huge deficiency of glucose in the left temporal lobe.
That is a bummer to see.
I don’t follow the daily dosage advice since doing that can cause excess of certain minerals and vitamins that can cause problems even generate shortage in the body.
It says two a day, I take around 2-3 pills a week.
B vitamins of all stripes are really important to pregnant women and the health of their babies.
George Whipple (who authored or co authored 300+ papers) just after the turn of the 20th century received the Nobel prize for the discovery of the cause of pernicious anemia. He showed by eating liver that the problem disappeared. (He was one of the recipients btw). My pathology chief and later a friend at UCLA were students of his in the 30’s. I have mentioned the friend from UCLA before…Norman Simmons who was the first man to isolate DNA in the lab and later by rehydrating following Xray crystallography discovered that it was a double helix. That was in 1952. He later was nominated for the Nobel prize for work he did with proteins (1972).
My path chief wrote a number a student text book which was widely used and was a noted expert in his field.
The problem is that some young people are only munching on vegetables without taking animal-derived B-12 supplements. (Brewers Yeast is the only non-animal source that I know of.)
?auto=webp&s=8aa7a7581968c6d10e2fa65362b6e5066e805f18
I think it takes about 5 years for a B-12 deficiency to effect the mind.
Of course, it takes a lot less time for a surplus of B vitamins to effect perception via, say, beer, but the recovery is fairly quick. I’ve heard it’s called “a hangover”?
Did you you know it’s illegal for a beer company to advertise any of the nutritional benefits of “beer”?
Course, there are limits.
One last try for the “punchline”.
ARRRGHHHG!
It was supposed to show an image of an old Blatz Beer ad saying that a case of Blatz Beer was good for the young mother and the baby would also benefit.
Election Time!
Are some multi/social media sources cracking down?
I’ve easily found the image of that old ad many times in the past.
Here it is:
Thanks!
B12 deficiency can also be caused by consistent use of proton-pump inhibitors (i.e. prilosec) as they also inhibit digestive absorbtion of B12 from food. I have found that most doctors do not know this. If you take otc or are prescribed PPIs, be sure to take B12 supplement along with it.
Does junk food lead to junk science or is it the other way around?
It looks like observer bias could be the leading cause of the link between diet and charts,
Eng_Ian ==> The idea of junk food stimulates the minds of academic nutritionists and dietary health researchers — usually into some sort of derangement syndrome.
Humans don’t seem to have proper self-regulating dietary impulses — some other animals have the same problem — they will eat one type of thing excessively to their own detriment.
They must serve a lot of junk foods in the cafeterias of Tufts University, as they are the ones who came up with a food pyramid that had sugary cereals as the best foods.
“Humans don’t seem to have proper self-regulating dietary impulses”
I would argue that they do, but in my experience it’s the high carb contemporary diet that makes you crave more. (“Bet you can’t eat just one”.)
There are no essential carbohydrates, only essential fatty acids, and amino acids; you can be well nourished without dietary carbs, but not without fat and protein.
The fruit and vegetable you buy today didn’t exist 200 years ago, grains 10,000 years ago. We didn’t evolve over millenia to eat like this…
“the fruit and vegetable you buy today didn’t exist 200 years ago”
????
Apple.. biblical
Orange.. first mentioned in text in 300BC
Tomato… think Aztecs. Edible berries have been a round since year dot. !
“the fruit and vegetable you buy today didn’t exist 200 years ago”
My bad, should have said “didn’t exist like they look today”.
“Biblical apple” was nothing like the honey crisp you see today.
See Botany of Desire https://a.co/d/6UE1dYP
david ==> So do you think we have self-regulating diet impulses or not? If we our natural impulses can be overcome by a potato chip — they are pretty weak.
Some nutritionists theorize that junk foods are consumed in unconscionable amounts because the lack any nutrition, and the body is therefore never satiated, no matter how much of the crap one consumes. Seems rational.
Kip, I used to be hypoglycemic if I didn’t get my breakfast early: weak, shakey, headache. After reading Gary Taubes “Good Calories, Bad Calories” I simply cut out the toast and jam, stayed with eggs and Ham, and the ravenous morning craving went away, now I can go to 11 or 12 am with fine energy. So yes, based on my experience, we self regulate on a low carb diet. (Atkins, keto, carnivore…)
Nutrition “science”, like climate “science” is unsettled. Individual metabolisms, like geographical climate regions, are complex, but the average individual BMI has changed more in my lifetime than the average temperature.
David ==> Now you have said something that I can totally agree with!
“average individual BMI” is an ongoing Modern Scientific Controversy. See mine on Obesity and Sugar — two different essays.
Thanks Kip, I’ll check it out.
You are prolific!
Boy howdy!
Mickey Mann looks like he eats a lot of junk food.
You can bet he doesn’t eat bugs !
Nutrition rapidly gets political. For whatever reason, Google suppresses a great deal about Ancel Keys, of low fat diet fame, and his suppression of his own study that did not support his obsession, excuse me, theory.
Then we have vegans. Enough said.
Google suppresses a great deal about Ancel Keys
When I looked it up several years ago, I found that the “seven countries study” actually studied something like 20 countries and the ones that showed contradictory data were simply discarded.
I also remember reading that his findings were consistently rejected by the American Heart Association, until he was elected to the board, after which they were accepted.
A complex topic. Like all complex topics, oversimplifications are unfortunately all too easy and subject to hidden bias. Or, as Einstein said (paraphrased), a problem should be reduced to its simplest essential form, but no further.
The link between type 2 diabetes and obesity is well established. For example, as the percentage of subadult obesity has gone up from little to now about 35%, the percentage of those with childhood type 2 diabetes has gone from essentially zero to about 200k. The causes of obesity are many, of which sugared beverages are but one.
Fundamentally, obesity is too many calories in, not enough calories out. The GLP1 agonist semaglutides work on obesity by reducing the desire to shovel calories in. Exercise works on obesity by increasing calories out.
Looking forward to your UPF Controversies coming soonish. From what I have read, there is a lot of anecdotal stuff out there depending on who defines UPF as what (baloney? bacon? white bread?), but nothing logically or statistically persuasive.
I am convinced that a Mediterranean diet is generally healthy—it’s how Patricia and I ate until she passed away late May. That included wine in moderation with dinner. I was delighted to see that category 9 was slightly therapeutic—I am enjoying my pre-dinner bourbon now, and will have glass of Chardonnay with my seafood dinner.
My brother is a doctor and said many studies about calorie restricted diet had claimed longer life expectancy, but most actually showed that the lives simply felt longer.
Chardonnay and single malt whiskey are mandatory for a good life.
Well said Rud.
I know a lot of fat people who never get diabetes even know of people who were never fat get diabetes, a friend of mine drank gobs of beer and soda pop and nearly died out in the field, had to take medical retirement and stay off the processed sugar by regulating his blood sugar level through the day he was athletic nearly made it to MLB until a bad knee injury shut him down.
The Mediterranean Diet is very low to NO table sugar in the diet,
.Focus on vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, legumes, potatoes, whole grains, herbs, spices, fish, seafood, and extra virgin olive oil
Low to moderate consumption poultry, eggs, cheese, yogurt, red wine
Limit or avoid red meat, sugar-sweetened beverages, added sugars, processed meat, refined grains, other highly processed foods, beers, and liqors
LINK
I am prediabetic. The killer for me is not sugar, It is starch. Especially highly processed starch like wheat flour based products. Bread, Pastry. cake. Rice is better as is pasta. and potato. Seems to absorb slower.
Rud ==> Any well balanced diet, with a wide variety of foods, each sufficient and in moderation, will provide the nutrition for a healthy life. enjoy!
Yes – so long as you know that “sufficient” and “moderation” are dependent variables. Dependent on a whole host of other variables – genetics, activity levels, environment, age, etc.
For any particular individual, following the statistically better diet could very well be extremely detrimental.
Here here.
The correct hominids is “hear, hear.”
Even at my age, I continue to learn.
I allowed autocorrect to incorrectly change my comment. Hominids are animals. Homonyms are the sound words make that sound alike. I should have said the correct homonyms are “hear, hear.”
Responding before reading the rest, as requested, it looks like there is a case to be investigated for sugar sweetened beverages and also processed meat and fish. Otherwise nothing much to see.
What’s maybe more interesting is what people eat who are in long lived and exceptionally healthy communities.
michel ==> and you have got it exactly right !
“what people eat who are in long lived and exceptionally healthy communities.” Longevity, I believe, barring accidents, diseases, and lack of enough food, is primarily determined by genetics.
I might be wrong now…but I don’t think so.
Amen.
It’s a jungle out there Kip 😀
Rich ==> I hope that’s a literary quote…
Yes, just letting you know that I was picking up what you were putting down.
You better pay attention or this world you love so much might just kill you.
I can (anecdotally, of course) confirm that. My father’s family, especially the women, routinely survive into their 90’s and some a bit beyond that; all of them mean as hell. The old man, at 95, says he benefits from the fact that only the good die young.
I decided to stop reading nutrition articles long ago, but Hanson is such a good writer, I could not resist.
The Greene Food Pyramid is slightly different than any Goobermint versions:
Pizza
Two Eggs a Day
Hamburgers and Salami
Potato chips are a vegetable
No Kale, tofu or Brussel’s sprouts even if starving
Common Question: Will I live longer if I eat kale, tofu and Brussel’s sprouts?
My answer: I don’t know, but it will seem like you lived longer because they are awful tasting foods.
The Greene Nutrition Study
Fat people who get no exercise tend to die of heart disease. But it’s better to die a little too young, than to live too long and get dementia. Based on a lifelong study of fat people who got no exercise.
There are always puzzling exceptions to any rule of thumb
(1) A slim friend who died at about age 60 of a heart attack — his first symptom of heart disease.
(2) My slim father who ate eggs, bacon, steak and potatoes almost every day of his adult life, and lasted 98 years,
These UPF usually have lots of salt. Too much salt in the diet can cause high blood pressure.
You have a point for KH. Most processed foods (forget ultra processed) contain too much salt. Was not a problem for the Roman legions, whose payment included a salarium. Is a big problem now for those that do not daily sweat like old Roman legions training.
Patricia and I became hyper salt aware after she developed high blood pressure. We lowered salt and never missed it. (joke to her primary care physician—our only salt is the soy sauce on our weekly sushi—her doc agreed.) Now in ‘widower hood’, when I buy a prepared packaged food sometimes the salt makes it almost inedible. So I have been winnowing brands and courses very aggressively. Plus much increasing exercise in remembrance of her.
Rud ==> Sorry for your loss — I face the same, but only, so far, as a possibility. My wife turns 80 next week.
See my reply to Harold. Most people are not salt sensitive. It is a real problem for those that are.
She was only 73, and despite PTSD and associated mild cognitive impairment, otherwise in excellent health after we got her salt sensitive high blood pressure under control.
Sorry for your loss, Rud. Prayers are with you.
Ditto from me, Rud.
salt-If you have normal renal function and drink liquids its not a problem
Harold ==> See my essay on the Salt Wars and a follow-up based on the work of Dr. Jens Titze (also covered in this NY Times piece by Gina Kolata.)
Bottom Line: Some percentage of humans are “salt sensitive” (~10%-15% — from memory) and experience a rise in BP if they eat “too much” salt. The rest of humanity can eat all the salt they want without adverse effect, they body just disposes of the excess. (within some limit — you can’t just drink nothing but sea water for instance).
Some percentage of humans are “salt sensitive”
Yet doctors still automatically say to “reduce salt” if you have hbp. I did that once, and it didn’t touch my BP at all. Going back to a normal diet and enrolling in karate classes (increased exercise) DID lower it.
I have been off, or limited, salt for more than 30 years … and have high blood pressure.
Cred ==> See my piece on Dr. Jens Titze or look up his studies. Ask you doctor about Salt Sensitivity.
Agree about salt sensitivity. To actually get salt intake down, you have to restrict dairy products. Doctors do not seem to be aware of this.
I read recently that iodine deficiency is highly prevalent in Canada. Part of the cause is the probably the popularity of boutique salt. Another is probably that iodized salt is not used in manufactured foods. The third may be salt restriction recommended by the American Heart Assoc.
I have followed much of Dr. Gundry’s advice for last 2 years….avoid lectins….sugars and artificial sweetners….and vegetable oils…and more.
Dr. Gundry notes the enclaves around the world that have lots of centarians but their diets are all unique. Look at the processed food box labels….almost always sugar and salt and some chemicals added….the creal ailse in particular has lots brightly colored boxes of stuff that provides calories but health not so much. If diet was thoroughly understood – the military would probably develop the perfect food for soliers in combat but maybe everyone is different to some extent?
Hmmm, Dr. Gundry.
Anybody who pops up in web ads constantly sets off my fraud alerts. But of course he’s spending all that money on ads because he wants to pay it forward. Not because he’s making a fortune selling quackery to the gullible. I’m sure.
Rule Zero: Don’t eat when you’re not hungry.
Rule One: Eat when you’re hungry.
Rule Two: Stop eating when you’re full.
Rule Three: Eat what appeals to you.
Rule Four: Seek out new foods that may appeal to you.
These have kept my 5’11”, 200ish lb self at a steady weight for over a decade. I daresay most people with weight problems have a hard time with even keeping Rule Zero.
Out of curiosity, I just weighed. 184 lbs even.
In the 6th grade I weighed about 140 to 145.
I’m 70 now and I’ve always weighed around 145 give or take 5 or less lbs.
(Though it’s shifted quite a bit.)
Very nice Kip. I became suspicious of the healthy life style long ago. I would have lunch with my grandmother every Wednesday for 15 or 20 years. Much of our conversation was her complaining that the nutritionists at the Senior Citizens Center kept hounding her about her diet. This was a woman born in 1899, they were lucky to have enough to eat. She raised a family during the Great Depression and World War Two. Again not a time of an over abundance of food. The last thing she needed as a woman well into her nineties was some punk twenty year old telling her how to live a longer life. My grandma taught me a lot, young twenty year olds not so much.
re: “The last thing she needed as a woman well into her nineties was some punk twenty year old telling her how to live a longer life.”
Bravo!
Bob ==> I am afraid most of us suffer from Presentism — generally the belief that the way the world is today is the way it was in the past. Almost no one in the highly developed countries who did not live through the Depression of WWI and WWII rationing had no idea that most people went bed and got up hungry every day.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with having enough and varied food to eat at will.
Your long term health and longevity is NOT regulated solely or even primarily by your diet.
I remember my great grandmother came to visit us for about a week when I was about 5 or 6. She was born in the 1880s. Died when she was 80 or so in the early 1960s.
I remember Mom putting a large bottle of Calvert Extra on the kitchen counter where she could reach it. I saw her one morning taking a shot of it, smacking her lips and saying, “That was good.”
Mom told me that when great grandma was 20 around the turn of the century, she had a cold.
She went to the doctor and he told her to take a shot of whiskey in the morning.
She continued to do that for the next 60 years. But that was all she ever drank, that one shot in the morning.
(The things she lived through! The Spanish American War, WW1, etc.! I was too young to think to ask about any of it.)
The BMI crazies are at it again.
leefor ==> Oh, now they have a new one — BRI !
I’ve been skeptical of ‘regime science’, including climate alarmism, since reading Steve Milloy’s ‘Junk Science Judo’ over 20 years ago. One of the takeaways was to recognize that many so-called scientists are fond of combining studies, each of which has no statistical significance, in order to obtain their preferred outcome, which is usually to goad the government into limiting individual choice.
I’m liking what I’m seeing for hard liquor! Bartender: Your finest Scotch neat.
Never eat anything that your grandmother wouldn’t recognize.
roaddog ==> Well, you didn’t know my grandmother, who raised ten kids while serving as a school teacher on the Pine Ridge Reservation along wounded Knee Creek. I wouldn’t ever eat much of what she WOULD recognize from those days.
Funny thing Kip, my grandmother lived on the west side of that reservation and ate all the parts of the chicken, and I mean all. Also a school teacher. For all of that they may have known each other. Even today it’s not very populated in that country. My uncle dated a young lady on the reservation for a time, and would ride horseback about 17 miles to court her.
Hmmm, meta analysis usually means that whatever is concluded can be safely ignored. Kip once again makes the point succinctly.
Any meta analysis, however honest the researchers, is always junk. For a very simple reason. Results are not published when no effect was found. Only results that can grab headlines appear in print. A meta analysis of published results is therefore always biased against the null hypothesis of no effect.
Ed ==> Yes, widely known as Publication Bias.
….diets should be well-rounded and varied, including a wide range of vegetables and fruits and grains. Personally, my religious health code calls for meats to be eaten “sparingly”.
Yes, this seems very sensible. If you look at populations with long and healthy lives over a few generations, you find they eat a diet mainly consisting of starchy staples with of pulses and vegetables, and with regular but relatively small amounts of meat, fish, poultry, or dairy. Often lots of green leaves of different sorts. They also have high exercise and physical activity levels. And finally, food is usually eaten at mealtimes, not, as in many parts of our societies, in the form of continuous snacking before and after meals.
That the UK and US are doing something wrong is clear from the obesity and diabetes incidence. That it is a reasonably recent phenomenon is also clear: the war years and after in the UK were not like that, nor were the 1950s in the USA. Its due to something we are doing differently in the last 50 years, and its something different from what long lived and healthy societies are doiing.
Michael Pollan summarized the advice: eat food, mainly plants, not too much of it.
By food he means what your grandmother would recognize as basic ingredients.
The issue veganism has no answer to is that we cannot have evolved as vegans. B12 deficiency would sink any society that tried strict veganism before it became available as a supplement in the 1950s. You’d end up with unhealthy children with neurological issues. And pernicious anemia for adults.
So how do vegan animals manage? They make B12 in their digestive system. So do we. The difference is, we make it after the point where nutrient absorption happens. How do Eastern vegan societies manage? They unknowingly eat insects, because of less than perfect crop cleaning and storage. And very few are strict vegan – dairy and/or fish are common as supplements.
…unhealthy children with neurological issues… And we know how they vote.
Pollan, I think, has got it right, and he’s spend a great portion of his life studying the issue. Probably where I got the “never eat anything your grandmother wouldn’t recognize” tenet. I’ve supplemented it with one of my own, “Never eat anything that comes in a box.”
I peaked but what did stick out to me was only sweetened beverages and meat eaters had a significant result. With both of those, the issue might be over consumption to the point of not drinking pure water or leaving enough room on the plate for vegetables.
Meat is lovely but a patty made of lamb mince and shredded zucchini is better, and you take care of the problem with meat consumption – you forgot to eat your veggies.
Robert B ==> Humans do not need to drink “pure water” — in fact, drinking distilled water as your primary fluid is nominally bad for you. You need the minerals usually found in ambient water (wellwater, tap water, spring water, etc).
And, yes, absolutely Eat Your Vegetables. (Your mother was right).
A question for Kip:
These studies of studies seem to obscure what is actually being sampled and analyzed. When a study says there is an observed correlation between “eating more ultra-processed foods” and coronary disease, are they measuring total caloric intake?
It seems pretty well established that over-eating and excessive weight gain are associated with coronary disease. So can the effect of eating too much food be differentiated from eating too much of a particular class of foods? Would it not be logical to assume that many of the subjects in these studies who consume elevated amounts of “ultra-processed” foods also eat too much, period?
Also, are these studies of studies considering the potential health or other types of benefits of eating “ultra-processed” foods as well as the risks of coronary disease? I think not.
The fact that such studies only consider hypothesized risks but ignore actual or hypothesized benefits of any variable is by definition a bias.
Duane ==> There are a lot of studies that look at diets — some, such as are being done on the so-called Mediterranean Diet, have the control and Med diets balanced for total calories.
There are so many problems with these nutritional studies that many consider them simply silly — particularly “food/diet recall” based studies — “In the last year, how often did you eat broccoli?”
The pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes is much more complex than sugar intake or weight. If it were just weight for example, then every obese person would be diabetic and every diabetic person would be overweight, neither of which is true. Why is the risk of a person from India aged 25 developing diabetes the same as a Caucasian aged 40? There are genetic factors, I have type 2 diabetes, as has my cousin, my mother and her brother had diabetes, two of their mother’s sisters had diabetes. Then there are epigenetic factors to consider, the image shows a book that discusses this. If one of monozygotic twins develops type 2 diabetes it doesn’t necessarily mean the other twin will.
JohnC ==> As you know, being diabetic yourself, diabetes results from a lack of normal function.
“The exact cause of most types of diabetes is unknown. In all cases, sugar builds up in the bloodstream. This is because the pancreas doesn’t produce enough insulin. Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes may be caused by a combination of genetic or environmental factors.” Mayo Clinic here.
In the crazy world of Nutrition, “sugar builds up in the bloodstream” means that everyone should thus eat less sugar.
Type 1 is an autoimmune disease where the body produces antibodies against the insulin producing beta cells in the pancreas.
One point not made in this piece is that Big Tobacco entered the food business back in the 80’s. Phillip Morris and RJ Reynolds acquired major food company’s. They made food “hyperpalatable”.
It’s been said their influence on the food market is what’s behind the unhealthy obesity epidemic
in the country. What a doctor I know calls the SAD diet. aka the Standard American Diet. I personally ditched the SAD diet when I was in my 30’s and never looked back. It takes a bit of discipline but is well worth it and it’s just your wallet is what stays fat. There’s also endocrine
disruptors that are effecting our health…but that’s another story.
Thanks.
I’d want to look at (control for):
Found in processed meats.
But there’s a wide variety, you say the term hpf lacks a definition.
I note that meat is often smoked, often has extra salts rubbed in.
And how meat is cooked – Ames cautioned about burnt meat.
Hopefully researchers were smarter than the ‘raw foods’ enthusiast running a cafe in Victoria B.C.
Talked at length as though that diet greatly improved their health – but in an interview did mention changing their lifestyle at the same time. Who’d a thunk that more exercise would help health? 😉
And even wilder story is the organizers of a food expo having to admit in advance that the book Wheat Belly, whose author was a featured speaker, was exaggerated.
IIRC it was a launch off of the gluten concern.
(Which is a concern for less than 1% of the population here, females most of that.
A cousin claimed that avoiding wheat really improved her health because that avoided gluten, but was not aware than gluten is in other grains she grew up with – like barley and rye. I don’t know what she ate otherwise, perhaps oat porridge which is usually free of gluten. !)