Re: Study - connection between eating red meat and diabetes

[Guest guest]

>

> Here is a study claiming that women who consume red meat, chicken livers

> and oysters have a higher risk of suffering from Type 2 diabetes.

**The problem with most studies on red meat is they use regular beef instead

of grass-fed. There is a big difference in the nutritional content of the

meat and how it affects the body...so take these studies with a grain of

salt )

[Guest guest]

I second this... and would say " take these studies with a pinch of salt "

much more salt needed to digest these studies than a single " grain " IMHO.

Regards

Sanjay

>

>

>.so take these studies with a grain of

> salt )

>

[Guest guest]

Here

is a study claiming that women who consume red meat, chicken livers and

oysters have a higher risk of suffering from Type 2 diabetes.

http://www.newstarget.com/021476.html

I

also learned something similar when I studied nutrition at Bauman

college, which was that hypoglycemics and diabetics should eat only

minimal amounts of red meat and saturated fats.

Thanks,

Riki

They're neglecting to look at the population with the highest incidence of

diabetes on the continent. The same population that was diabetes free when they

had bison and deer to eat and not after refined sugar and flour. The natives of

the northern Americas. Carbohydrates do not keep anyone with northern

acclimated genetics and metabolism warm any more than plant fats keep them free

of the heart disease very often accompanying diabetes. Throwing or taking

protein and amino acids is deadly to some.

Wanita

________________________________________________________________________________\

____

Bored stiff? Loosen up...

Download and play hundreds of games for free on Games.

http://games./games/front

[Guest guest]

Riki,

> Here is a study claiming that women who consume red meat, chicken livers and

> oysters have a higher risk of suffering from Type 2 diabetes.

> http://www.newstarget.com/021476.html

The study has nothing to do with chicken liver and oysters; just red

meat. Postmenopausal, but not premenopausal, women with type 2

diabetes had twice the risk of fatal heart disease when they consumed

more than two servings a day than when they did not consume red meat

regularly.

In many of the cancer studies, when they break up the " red meat "

category into specific types of meat products or the way they are

cooked, they find the association to be specifically with processed

meats and overcooked or charred meats. Most of the studies, however,

like this one, don't break it down that way. I don't think we should

quite completely ignore these studies, but it is difficult to make

much of them when they do not break down the broad categories like

" red meat " into subcategories that we would expect to carry different

risks. I suppose you could make a better case for breaking it down

like this when analyzing cancer but I would still like to see it done

for heart disease anyway because we do not fully understand the

etiology of heart disease.

2 servings of red muscle meat a day is a pretty rich diet. Many of

Price's primitives ate meat once a week (Swiss) or if they ate meat

daily the muscle meat they ate was a much smaller proportion of the

total animal products than the way we eat it. If you kill a caribou,

what proportion is muscle meat? Half?

And, of course, the primitives that Price studied were not diabetic.

Chris

--

The Truth About Cholesterol

Find Out What Your Doctor Isn't Telling You:

http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com

[Guest guest]

--- Masterjohn <chrismasterjohn@...> wrote:

> Riki,

> > Here is a study claiming that women who consume red meat, chicken

> > livers and oysters have a higher risk of suffering from Type 2

> > diabetes.

> > http://www.newstarget.com/021476.html

>

> The study has nothing to do with chicken liver and oysters; just red

> meat. Postmenopausal, but not premenopausal, women with type 2

> diabetes had twice the risk of fatal heart disease when they

> consumed more than two servings a day than when they did not consume

> red meat regularly.

Another point in addition to what mentioned is that this is

merely an association and not a proof of cause. It could be entirely

coincidental, while the real cause is from other associated factors

that may or may not have been identified. Chris's examples of

processed or charred meats are possibilities also - but no proof.

Much more evidence is needed to show cause.

I wonder if it's true that women consuming moderate to high amounts of

processed grains and starches have a greater risk of diabetes?

They probably didn't bother to look because these are " healthy " foods

[Guest guest]

,

> Another point in addition to what mentioned is that this is

> merely an association and not a proof of cause.

Excellent point.

> Chris's examples of

> processed or charred meats are possibilities also - but no proof.

True, but it would be worthwhile information to look for the

association and obtain more specific information.

> I wonder if it's true that women consuming moderate to high amounts of

> processed grains and starches have a greater risk of diabetes?

>

> They probably didn't bother to look because these are " healthy " foods

Actually they looked for total iron and heme iron, and the nonheme

portion of total iron would come from " healthy " vegetables, so they

weren't looking to pinpoint meat solely out of anti-meat bias. They

looked at iron because there is an hypothesis that high levels of iron

can mediate free radical damage, and because diabetics have high

levels of iron. They looked at heme iron because they considered it

more bioavailable, although I thought I've read that this is an

outdated view and I've seen studies suggesting plant-based diets lead

to higher iron levels than meat-based diets.

However, right after that study was published, this one came out:

================

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed & cmd=Retrieve & dopt=Abstra\

ctPlus & list_uids=17237312 & query_hl=4 & itool=pubmed_docsum

Increased lean red meat intake does not elevate markers of oxidative

stress and inflammation in humans.

Red meat intake has been associated with increased risk of coronary

heart disease and type 2 diabetes, but it remains uncertain whether

these associations are causally related to unprocessed lean red meat.

It has been proposed that iron derived from red meat may increase iron

stores and initiate oxidative damage and inflammation. We aimed to

determine whether an increase in unprocessed lean red meat intake,

partially replacing carbohydrate-rich foods, adversely influences

markers of oxidative stress and inflammation. Sixty participants

completed an 8-wk parallel-designed study. They were randomized to

maintain their usual diet (control) or to partially replace energy

from carbohydrate-rich foods with approximately 200 g/d of lean red

meat (red meat) in isoenergetic diets. Markers of oxidative stress and

inflammation were measured at baseline and at the end of intervention.

Results are presented as the mean between-group difference in change

and [95% CI]. Red meat, relative to control, resulted in: higher

protein [5.3 (3.7, 6.9) % of energy], lower carbohydrate [-5.3 (-7.9,

-2.7) % of energy], and higher iron [3.2 (1.1, 5.4) mg/d] intakes;

lower urinary F(2)-isoprostane excretion [-137 (-264, -9) pmol/mmol

creatinine], lower leukocyte [-0.51 (-0.99, -0.02) x10(9)/L] counts,

and a trend for lower serum C-reactive protein concentrations [-1.6

(-3.3, 0.0) mg/L, P = 0.06]; and no differences in concentrations of

plasma F(2)-isoprostanes [-12 (-122, 100) pmol/L], serum

gamma-glytamyltransferase [-0.8 (-3.2, 1.5) U/L], serum amyloid A

protein [-1.4 (-3.4, 0.5) mg/L], and plasma fibrinogen concentrations

[-0.08 (-0.40. 0.24) g/L]. Our results suggest that partial

replacement of dietary carbohydrate with protein from lean red meat

does not elevate oxidative stress or inflammation.

=============

Chris

--

The Truth About Cholesterol

Find Out What Your Doctor Isn't Telling You:

http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com

[Guest guest]

--- wrote:

> > I wonder if it's true that women consuming moderate to high

> > amounts of processed grains and starches have a greater risk of

> > diabetes?

> >

> > They probably didn't bother to look because these are " healthy "

> > foods

>

--- Masterjohn <chrismasterjohn@...> wrote:

> Actually they looked for total iron and heme iron, and the nonheme

> portion of total iron would come from " healthy " vegetables, so they

> weren't looking to pinpoint meat solely out of anti-meat bias. They

> looked at iron because there is an hypothesis that high levels of

> iron can mediate free radical damage, and because diabetics have

> high levels of iron. They looked at heme iron because they

> considered it more bioavailable, although I thought I've read that

> this is anoutdated view and I've seen studies suggesting plant-based

> diets lead to higher iron levels than meat-based diets.

My rant was referring to studies *in general* using data from the

Nurses' Health Study - which I should have stated - not this

particular study.

> However, right after that study was published, this one came out:

>

> ================

>

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed & cmd=Retrieve & dopt=Abstra\

ctPlus & list_uids=17237312 & query_hl=4 & itool=pubmed_docsum

> Our results suggest that partial replacement of dietary carbohydrate

> with protein from lean red meat does not elevate oxidative stress or

> inflammation.

> =============

>

Interesting.... I would have guessed that diabetics in the Nurse's

Health Study who consumed more heme iron without also increasing their

anti-oxidant intake may have suffered the most from heart disease.

But these results suggest that eating more lean red meat does not

increase oxidative stress or inflammation.

Also, the Newstarget article didn't say what percentage of diabetics

who consumed more heme iron did not get heart disease - only that the

relative risk increased by 50% compared to those with a low heme iron

diet.

[Guest guest]

,

> My rant was referring to studies *in general* using data from the

> Nurses' Health Study - which I should have stated - not this

> particular study.

Oh, fair enough. I'm a little confused though -- you say in general,

but seem to have something specific in mind, since you're referring to

the NHS -- do you?

> Interesting.... I would have guessed that diabetics in the Nurse's

> Health Study who consumed more heme iron without also increasing their

> anti-oxidant intake may have suffered the most from heart disease.

> But these results suggest that eating more lean red meat does not

> increase oxidative stress or inflammation.

I personally am skeptical of the theory that increasing iron load

leads to oxidative stress. It's certainly possible, however there are

some obstacles to the theory, including the fact that very little free

iron is contained within cells, such that the theoretical reactions

that could take place generally don't. I have read Colpo's chapter on

iron and I think he makes a compelling case that we should consider

the hypothesis that high iron levels are harmful to be plausible and

justify further investigation, but I think it is a leap to assume that

it is mediating free radical damage. There are other explanations --

for example, it could make us more vulnerable to chronic subclinical

infection. Iron in the blood is a demonstrated pre-requisite for

bacterial growth in the blood.

By the way, iron plays several antioxidant functions. First, it is

the cofactor for the enzyme catalase, which converts hydrogen peroxide

to water; second, it holds on to oxygen (along with copper) in the

electron transport chain and keeps superoxide from being released,

which is a dangerous intermediate between molecular oxygen and water.

Theoretically, free iron within the cell can facilitate hydrogen

peroxide damage of cell membranes, but iron usually is not free, but

instead bound up -- in some cases bound to enzymes like catalase that

are reducing the hydrogen peroxide content of the cell.

So the iron --> oxidative stress hypothesis is interesting and should

be looked at, but it is by no means something that should be taken for

granted at this point.

> Also, the Newstarget article didn't say what percentage of diabetics

> who consumed more heme iron did not get heart disease - only that the

> relative risk increased by 50% compared to those with a low heme iron

> diet.

11% of people in the highest quintile of heme iron intake developed

heart disease and 10% of people in the highest quintile of red meat

developed heart disease. However, the finding was entirely

concentrated in fatal CHD, so it makes more sense to look at that.

There was actually a non-significant reduced risk of nonfatal CHD with

increasing red meat intake. In other words, if they ate more red meat

and had a heart attack, they were likely to die from it than people

who ate less red meat. Or, conversely, the heart attack may have been

more likely to be of a different kind that tends to carry a greater

risk of fatality.

3% of people in the highest quintile of red meat intake died of CHD

while 2.1% of people in the lowest quintile died of CHD. After

adjusting for age, BMI, smoking, alcohol, physical activity, aspirin

use, duration of diabetes, history of hypertension and

hypercholesterolemia, postmenopausal hormone use, family history of

CHD, cereal fiber, glycemic load, polyunsaturated fat-to-saturated fat

ratio, trans fat, multivitamin use, and vitamin C, those in the

highest quintile, who consumed 2.4 servings of red meat per day, were

2.05 times as likely to have a CHD fatality as those in the lowest

quintile.

The differences in the first four quintiles were not significant, so

the risk was concentrated in those consuming over 2 servings per day.

Chris

--

The Truth About Cholesterol

Find Out What Your Doctor Isn't Telling You:

http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com

[Guest guest]

--- wrote:

> > My rant was referring to studies *in general* using data from the

> > Nurses' Health Study - which I should have stated - not this

> > particular study.

>

--- Masterjohn <chrismasterjohn@...> wrote:

> I'm a little confused though -- you say in general, but seem to have

> something specific in mind, since you're referring to the NHS

> -- do you?

I meant other studies based on NHS data. I have not searched for any,

so I'm just guessing that they don't bother to look at effects of too

much carbs of various types or too much vegetable oil as possible

causes for diabetes because they consider these to be " healthy " food

types. Research with blinders on. Tunnel vision constrained by the

status quo.

Yesterday I read this lengthy article that Mercola mentioned on his

blog: " Unhappy Meals " by Pollan

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/28/healthscience/web.0128foodMAGAZINE.php

An interesting discussion of nutritionism, nutrition, and bad science

that also talks about health studies and how they are conducted.

It's thought provoking and well worth the 14 web pages to read.

Pollan says (among many other things):

====================================================================

When it comes to studying nutrition, this sort of extensive, long-term

clinical trial is supposed to be the gold standard. It certainly

sounds sound. In the case of the Women's Health Initiative, sponsored

by the National Institutes of Health, the eating habits and health

outcomes of nearly 49,000 women (ages 50 to 79 at the beginning of the

study) were tracked for eight years. One group of the women were told

to reduce their consumption of fat to 20 percent of total calories.

The results were announced early last year, producing front-page

headlines of which the one in this newspaper was typical: " Low-Fat

Diet Does Not Cut Health Risks, Study Finds. " And the cloud of

nutritional confusion over the country darkened.

But even a cursory analysis of the study's methods makes you wonder

why anyone would take such a finding seriously, let alone order a

Quarter Pounder With Cheese to celebrate it, as many newspaper readers

no doubt promptly went out and did. Even the beginner student of

nutritionism will immediately spot several flaws: the focus was on

" fat, " rather than on any particular food, like meat or dairy. So

women could comply simply by switching to lower-fat animal products.

Also, no distinctions were made between types of fat: women getting

their allowable portion of fat from olive oil or fish were lumped

together with woman getting their fat from low-fat cheese or chicken

breasts or margarine. Why? Because when the study was designed 16

years ago, the whole notion of " good fats " was not yet on the

scientific scope. Scientists study what scientists can see.

But perhaps the biggest flaw in this study, and other studies like it,

is that we have no idea what these women were really eating because,

like most people when asked about their diet, they lied about it. How

do we know this? Deduction. Consider: When the study began, the

average participant weighed in at 170 pounds and claimed to be eating

1,800 calories a day. It would take an unusual metabolism to maintain

that weight on so little food. And it would take an even freakier

metabolism to drop only one or two pounds after getting down to a diet

of 1,400 to 1,500 calories a day — as the women on the " low-fat "

regimen claimed to have done. Sorry, ladies, but I just don't buy it.

In fact, nobody buys it. Even the scientists who conduct this sort of

research conduct it in the knowledge that people lie about their food

intake all the time. They even have scientific figures for the

magnitude of the lie. Dietary trials like the Women's Health

Initiative rely on " food-frequency questionnaires, " and studies

suggest that people on average eat between a fifth and a third more

than they claim to on the questionnaires. How do the researchers know

that? By comparing what people report on questionnaires with

interviews about their dietary intake over the previous 24 hours,

thought to be somewhat more reliable. In fact, the magnitude of the

lie could be much greater, judging by the huge disparity between the

total number of food calories produced every day for each American

(3,900 calories) and the average number of those calories Americans

own up to chomping: 2,000. (Waste accounts for some of the disparity,

but nowhere near all of it.) All we really know about how much people

actually eat is that the real number lies somewhere between those two

figures.

To try to fill out the food-frequency questionnaire used by the

Women's Health Initiative, as I recently did, is to realize just how

shaky the data on which such trials rely really are. The survey, which

took about 45 minutes to complete, started off with some relatively

easy questions: " Did you eat chicken or turkey during the last three

months? " Having answered yes, I was then asked, " When you ate chicken

or turkey, how often did you eat the skin? " But the survey soon became

harder, as when it asked me to think back over the past three months

to recall whether when I ate okra, squash or yams, they were fried,

and if so, were they fried in stick margarine, tub margarine, butter,

" shortening " (in which category they inexplicably lump together

hydrogenated vegetable oil and lard), olive or canola oil or nonstick

spray? I honestly didn't remember, and in the case of any okra eaten

in a restaurant, even a hypnotist could not get out of me what sort of

fat it was fried in. In the meat section, the portion sizes specified

haven't been seen in America since the Hoover administration. If a

four-ounce portion of steak is considered " medium, " was I really going

to admit that the steak I enjoyed on an unrecallable number of

occasions during the past three months was probably the equivalent of

two or three (or, in the case of a steakhouse steak, no less than

four) of these portions? I think not. In fact, most of the " medium

serving sizes " to which I was asked to compare my own consumption made

me feel piggish enough to want to shave a few ounces here, a few

there. (I mean, I wasn't under oath or anything, was I?)

This is the sort of data on which the largest questions of diet and

health are being decided in America today.

====================================================================

Doesn't give me a whole lot of faith in some of these studies.

In engineering they say garbage in > garbage out. In this case,

poorly conceived methodology > nearly worthless results.

I'm not sure how the NHS compares to the WHI in methodology.

Hopefully it was better designed?

> I personally am skeptical of the theory that increasing iron load

> leads to oxidative stress.

> <snip>

> So the iron --> oxidative stress hypothesis is interesting and

> should be looked at, but it is by no means something that should be

> taken for granted at this point.

Thanks, I hadn't run across an opposing point of view on this subject.

Most of what I have seen is similar to what Mercola reports:

" Excess Iron Damages Blood Vessels "

http://www.mercola.com/2000/nov/12/excess_iron.htm

====================================================================

Although iron is an essential and important nutrient, excessive levels

can cause significant harm. A new study has shown that excess iron can

cause damage to the endothelium, the inner lining of blood vessels,

boosting a person's chances of developing hardening of the arteries

(atherosclerosis) and heart attack.

The mechanism of action of this effect seems to be that the high iron

levels impede the action of nitric oxide, a chemical released by the

endothelium, which aids in keeping blood vessels relaxed.

According to study lead investigator Dr. Hidehiro Matsuoka of Kurume

Medical School, consuming high amounts of iron over the long term may

increase iron levels in the body. He also said that people should get

regularly tested for high iron levels if they are over 40 and have

other risk factors for heart disease, such as high blood pressure or

diabetes.

* Researchers injected 10 healthy volunteers with high doses of iron

(0.7 milligrams per kilogram body weight) and used ultrasound imaging

to observe arterial wall functioning.

* The excess iron raised levels of malondialdehyde, a chemical marker

for oxidation, and inhibited normal endothelial function.

* As a separate part of the study, researchers also monitored the

effects of lowering iron blood levels in 10 cigarette smokers and

found that this caused endothelial function to return to normal.

The study also could help to explain why premenopausal women have less

heart disease, since iron is removed from the body each month during

menstruation.

====================================================================

I wonder what form of iron they injected and whether it was a form

that is commonly found in people with elevated iron?

My annual physical is coming up in about a month and I was thinking

about asking my D.O. to add serum ferritin and 25(OH)D in addition to

the insulin that I had her add to my blood test last year in March.

They don't normally include these items. In fact, she never had

anyone ask to have their insulin measured before me last year and

she said she didn't know how to interpret the results!

OK, nobody's perfect, so I'm giving her a break

Maybe I'll be the first one to ask her for 25(OH)D

<nothing like teaching our doctors!>

[Guest guest]

,

> Pollan says (among many other things):

[snip]

> Doesn't give me a whole lot of faith in some of these studies.

> In engineering they say garbage in > garbage out. In this case,

> poorly conceived methodology > nearly worthless results.

Well he definitely makes good points that these FFQs are subject to a great deal

of error, but they are not completely worthless.

The Nurse's Health Study FFQs are " validated " by a substudies where they take a

subset of the people and have them fill out 1-week FFQs spaced apart by, say,

six months, and compare how closely correlate with the FFQs for the year. Then

they are able to quantify for each variable how closely the FFQ mirrored the

real intake. They'll get one value for fat, one for vitamin A, one for

saturated fat, and so on. In some cases the correlation coefficient may be very

poor, like 0.31, whereas in other cases it may be really good, like 0.79.

It defiinitely is far from perfect, but the validation studies at least

generally quantify how well the people are able to recall the past year. They

aren't going to pick up flat-out lying, of course.

The NHS also did/does repeated follow-up questionairres every two years, which

helps rectify some of the imprecision. If you look for a correlation, and you

find that you don't find one if you look at only one FFQ, but that you find a

good one if you use the multiple follow-up FFQs, it's a good sign that one FFQ

lacks the precision to detect the correlation but that the multiple FFQs are

increasing the precision. If they weren't, including more follow-up FFQs

wouldn't improve the correlation.

So, it certainly has its faults, and one could certainly do an absolutely

horrible analysis with the data, but one can also do pretty good analyses of the

data, at least for certain foods/nutrients that were correlated well with the

FFQ estimates in the validation studies. And one could better conclude that

there is a correlation when one finds one than one could conclude that there

isn't a correlation when one doesn't find one, because lack of precision would

be expected to lead to random error.

Of course, directing the people to eat a specific way as in the example Pollan

gives might introduce a substantially greater degree of error because the people

are probably much more likely to lie or cheat the truth when they've been

directed to eat a certain way but haven't eaten that way.

> I'm not sure how the NHS compares to the WHI in methodology.

> Hopefully it was better designed?

What was from the WHI? The red meat/heme iron study says its from the NHS.

> I wonder what form of iron they injected and whether it was a form

> that is commonly found in people with elevated iron?

Well this is a little more plausible because the iron is in the blood, but

still, when they inject the iron, the iron is going to be running around freely

for a while whereas I think it is normally carried with proteins. I'm not so

sure this is the best approximation of what happens.

It also has little to do with eating iron or heme iron. In the study from this

thread, they didn't look at iron levels; they looked at dietary intake. They

claim that heme iron is more easily absorbed and would lead to higher iron

levels, but I don't buy it.

=============

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed & cmd=Retrieve & dopt=Abstra\

ctPlus & list_uids=16115353 & query_hl=5 & itool=pubmed_docsum

The Orthodox Christian diet is unique in regularly interchanging from an

omnivore to a vegetarian-type diet, and no study to date has focused on the

impact of this on Fe status. . . . In particular, fasters increased their

ferritin levels (P = 0.02) . . .

============

In one of 's analyses of the China Study outside his book, he gives a

table comparing rural Chinese to I think Americans. The rural Chinese eating

very little animal foods had higher iron levels! BUT, they had lower

hematocrit. That indicates to me that a diet high in iron-rich plant foods

contains more iron and that lower absorption doesn't compensate for this, but

that the iron is less transoformed into hemoglobin than heme iron.

This controlled study found something similar -- no difference in iron levels

with reintroduction of beef, but hematocrit increased:

================

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed & cmd=Retrieve & dopt=Abstra\

ctPlus & list_uids=12728219 & query_hl=5 & itool=pubmed_docsum

Serum iron, total iron binding capacity, transferrin saturation, and transferrin

receptor were not significantly different between the beef and vegetarian

groups, or changed over time with RT. Serum ferritin decreased over time in both

the beef and vegetarian groups during RT (P<.01). Re-introduction of beef into

the diets of the beef group increased hemoglobin concentration and hematocrit

compared with the vegetarian group during the 12 weeks of RT (group x time,

P<.05). These changes were within clinically normal limits.

============

I think increased hematocrit over normal levels can cause increased blood

pressure, so perhaps too high of a heme iron intake could lead to increase blood

pressure in this way.

On the other hand, exercise is very effective at lowering iron levels. Perhaps

red meat could be bad for you if you're a couch potato, unlike all of the

traditional hunter-gatherers who had to get off their butt and hunt their red

meat.

> My annual physical is coming up in about a month and I was thinking

> about asking my D.O. to add serum ferritin and 25(OH)D in addition to

> the insulin that I had her add to my blood test last year in March.

> They don't normally include these items. In fact, she never had

> anyone ask to have their insulin measured before me last year and

> she said she didn't know how to interpret the results!

Kind of funny that they all test for cholesterol though. :-P

Chris

--

The Truth About Cholesterol

Find Out What Your Doctor Isn't Telling You:

http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com

[Guest guest]

--- wrote:

> > I'm not sure how the NHS compares to the WHI in methodology.

> > Hopefully it was better designed?

>

--- Masterjohn <chrismasterjohn@...> wrote:

> What was from the WHI? The red meat/heme iron study says its from

the NHS.

WHI was the Women's Health Initiative sponsored by NIH that Pollan

described as having shoddy design. From what you said about the NHS,

it sounds like NHS did have a better design.

Thanks for the additional info on iron.

> > My annual physical is coming up in about a month...<snip>

>

> Kind of funny that they all test for cholesterol though. :-P

Yeah, mine was 162 last year and I'm hoping it'll go up!

<ask your doctor if HIGHER is better!>

[Guest guest]

,

> WHI was the Women's Health Initiative sponsored by NIH that Pollan

> described as having shoddy design. From what you said about the NHS,

> it sounds like NHS did have a better design.

Oh I see.

> Thanks for the additional info on iron.

You're welcome.

> Yeah, mine was 162 last year and I'm hoping it'll go up!

I had mine tested five years ago or so when I was vegetarian and it

was 106 and I was a mental wreck. I can only assume it's gone up

quite a bit but I haven't checked it.

Chris

--

The Truth About Cholesterol

Find Out What Your Doctor Isn't Telling You:

http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com

[Guest guest]

It appears that there may be a connection with iodine and diabetes:

http://www.iodine4health.com/disease/diabetes.htm

Irene

At 06:39 PM 1/30/07, you wrote:

>--- wrote:

> > > My rant was referring to studies *in general* using data from the

> > > Nurses' Health Study - which I should have stated - not this

> > > particular study.

> >

>--- Masterjohn <chrismasterjohn@...> wrote:

> > I'm a little confused though -- you say in general, but seem to have

> > something specific in mind, since you're referring to the NHS

> > -- do you?

>

>

>

>I meant other studies based on NHS data. I have not searched for any,

>so I'm just guessing that they don't bother to look at effects of too

>much carbs of various types or too much vegetable oil as possible

>causes for diabetes because they consider these to be " healthy " food

>types. Research with blinders on. Tunnel vision constrained by the

>status quo.

>

>Yesterday I read this lengthy article that Mercola mentioned on his

>blog: " Unhappy Meals " by Pollan

><http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/28/healthscience/web.0128foodMAGAZINE.php>\

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/28/healthscience/web.0128foodMAGAZINE.php

>An interesting discussion of nutritionism, nutrition, and bad science

>that also talks about health studies and how they are conducted.

>It's thought provoking and well worth the 14 web pages to read.

>

>Pollan says (among many other things):

>====================================================================

>When it comes to studying nutrition, this sort of extensive, long-term

>clinical trial is supposed to be the gold standard. It certainly

>sounds sound. In the case of the Women's Health Initiative, sponsored

>by the National Institutes of Health, the eating habits and health

>outcomes of nearly 49,000 women (ages 50 to 79 at the beginning of the

>study) were tracked for eight years. One group of the women were told

>to reduce their consumption of fat to 20 percent of total calories.

>The results were announced early last year, producing front-page

>headlines of which the one in this newspaper was typical: " Low-Fat

>Diet Does Not Cut Health Risks, Study Finds. " And the cloud of

>nutritional confusion over the country darkened.

>

>But even a cursory analysis of the study's methods makes you wonder

>why anyone would take such a finding seriously, let alone order a

>Quarter Pounder With Cheese to celebrate it, as many newspaper readers

>no doubt promptly went out and did. Even the beginner student of

>nutritionism will immediately spot several flaws: the focus was on

> " fat, " rather than on any particular food, like meat or dairy. So

>women could comply simply by switching to lower-fat animal products.

>Also, no distinctions were made between types of fat: women getting

>their allowable portion of fat from olive oil or fish were lumped

>together with woman getting their fat from low-fat cheese or chicken

>breasts or margarine. Why? Because when the study was designed 16

>years ago, the whole notion of " good fats " was not yet on the

>scientific scope. Scientists study what scientists can see.

>

>But perhaps the biggest flaw in this study, and other studies like it,

>is that we have no idea what these women were really eating because,

>like most people when asked about their diet, they lied about it. How

>do we know this? Deduction. Consider: When the study began, the

>average participant weighed in at 170 pounds and claimed to be eating

>1,800 calories a day. It would take an unusual metabolism to maintain

>that weight on so little food. And it would take an even freakier

>metabolism to drop only one or two pounds after getting down to a diet

>of 1,400 to 1,500 calories a day — as the women on the " low-fat "

>regimen claimed to have done. Sorry, ladies, but I just don't buy it.

>

>In fact, nobody buys it. Even the scientists who conduct this sort of

>research conduct it in the knowledge that people lie about their food

>intake all the time. They even have scientific figures for the

>magnitude of the lie. Dietary trials like the Women's Health

>Initiative rely on " food-frequency questionnaires, " and studies

>suggest that people on average eat between a fifth and a third more

>than they claim to on the questionnaires. How do the researchers know

>that? By comparing what people report on questionnaires with

>interviews about their dietary intake over the previous 24 hours,

>thought to be somewhat more reliable. In fact, the magnitude of the

>lie could be much greater, judging by the huge disparity between the

>total number of food calories produced every day for each American

>(3,900 calories) and the average number of those calories Americans

>own up to chomping: 2,000. (Waste accounts for some of the disparity,

>but nowhere near all of it.) All we really know about how much people

>actually eat is that the real number lies somewhere between those two

>figures.

>

>To try to fill out the food-frequency questionnaire used by the

>Women's Health Initiative, as I recently did, is to realize just how

>shaky the data on which such trials rely really are. The survey, which

>took about 45 minutes to complete, started off with some relatively

>easy questions: " Did you eat chicken or turkey during the last three

>months? " Having answered yes, I was then asked, " When you ate chicken

>or turkey, how often did you eat the skin? " But the survey soon became

>harder, as when it asked me to think back over the past three months

>to recall whether when I ate okra, squash or yams, they were fried,

>and if so, were they fried in stick margarine, tub margarine, butter,

> " shortening " (in which category they inexplicably lump together

>hydrogenated vegetable oil and lard), olive or canola oil or nonstick

>spray? I honestly didn't remember, and in the case of any okra eaten

>in a restaurant, even a hypnotist could not get out of me what sort of

>fat it was fried in. In the meat section, the portion sizes specified

>haven't been seen in America since the Hoover administration. If a

>four-ounce portion of steak is considered " medium, " was I really going

>to admit that the steak I enjoyed on an unrecallable number of

>occasions during the past three months was probably the equivalent of

>two or three (or, in the case of a steakhouse steak, no less than

>four) of these portions? I think not. In fact, most of the " medium

>serving sizes " to which I was asked to compare my own consumption made

>me feel piggish enough to want to shave a few ounces here, a few

>there. (I mean, I wasn't under oath or anything, was I?)

>

>This is the sort of data on which the largest questions of diet and

>health are being decided in America today.

>====================================================================

>

>Doesn't give me a whole lot of faith in some of these studies.

>In engineering they say garbage in > garbage out. In this case,

>poorly conceived methodology > nearly worthless results.

>

>I'm not sure how the NHS compares to the WHI in methodology.

>Hopefully it was better designed?

>

> > I personally am skeptical of the theory that increasing iron load

> > leads to oxidative stress.

> > <snip>

> > So the iron --> oxidative stress hypothesis is interesting and

> > should be looked at, but it is by no means something that should be

> > taken for granted at this point.

>

>Thanks, I hadn't run across an opposing point of view on this subject.

>Most of what I have seen is similar to what Mercola reports:

> " Excess Iron Damages Blood Vessels "

><http://www.mercola.com/2000/nov/12/excess_iron.htm>http://www.mercola.com/2000\

/nov/12/excess_iron.htm

>====================================================================

>Although iron is an essential and important nutrient, excessive levels

>can cause significant harm. A new study has shown that excess iron can

>cause damage to the endothelium, the inner lining of blood vessels,

>boosting a person's chances of developing hardening of the arteries

>(atherosclerosis) and heart attack.

>

>The mechanism of action of this effect seems to be that the high iron

>levels impede the action of nitric oxide, a chemical released by the

>endothelium, which aids in keeping blood vessels relaxed.

>

>According to study lead investigator Dr. Hidehiro Matsuoka of Kurume

>Medical School, consuming high amounts of iron over the long term may

>increase iron levels in the body. He also said that people should get

>regularly tested for high iron levels if they are over 40 and have

>other risk factors for heart disease, such as high blood pressure or

>diabetes.

>

>* Researchers injected 10 healthy volunteers with high doses of iron

>(0.7 milligrams per kilogram body weight) and used ultrasound imaging

>to observe arterial wall functioning.

>

>* The excess iron raised levels of malondialdehyde, a chemical marker

>for oxidation, and inhibited normal endothelial function.

>

>* As a separate part of the study, researchers also monitored the

>effects of lowering iron blood levels in 10 cigarette smokers and

>found that this caused endothelial function to return to normal.

>

>The study also could help to explain why premenopausal women have less

>heart disease, since iron is removed from the body each month during

>menstruation.

>====================================================================

>

>I wonder what form of iron they injected and whether it was a form

>that is commonly found in people with elevated iron?

>

>My annual physical is coming up in about a month and I was thinking

>about asking my D.O. to add serum ferritin and 25(OH)D in addition to

>the insulin that I had her add to my blood test last year in March.

>They don't normally include these items. In fact, she never had

>anyone ask to have their insulin measured before me last year and

>she said she didn't know how to interpret the results!

>

>OK, nobody's perfect, so I'm giving her a break

>Maybe I'll be the first one to ask her for 25(OH)D

>

> <nothing like teaching our doctors!>

>

>