Cartoons for the holidays I

Next week: Three more cartoons

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Food supplements: a big debate

The December 2013 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine published an editorial titled “Enough Is Enough: Stop Wasting Money on Vitamin and Mineral Supplements.” The authors were from Johns Hopkins University and other august institutions. The researchers performed a thorough investigation of  clinical trials that tested the usefulness of supplements. Their conclusion: “We believe that the case is closed— supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults with (most) mineral or vitamin supplements has no clear benefit and might even be harmful.”

On the whole, I agree with this conclusion. If you’re a normal well-fed person, you don’t need supplements. I don’t take any myself. But I have. When I started getting arthritis in my thumb, I tried glucosamine-chondroitin. I did it because a friend of mine had given it to her dogs and they stopped limping! Anyhow, I tried it for many months and noticed no difference. I have since learned that a randomized trial of more than 1,500 people showed no improvement through using this supplement.  I also tried fish oil supplements, but later found out that studies have definitively proved that it has no value. Ditto for calcium and vitamin D: they don’t reduce the risk of fractures. And so on.

But there’s still plenty of debate about this among researchers. Various studies show that some people may be deficient in certain vitamins or minerals. On the other hand, scientists also say we don’t really know the threshold for deficiency. Plus the vast genetic variation among people affects an individual’s requirements for vitamins and minerals. It’s all very complicated.

Here’s my favorite story about mineral deficiency: A man suddenly found that everything smelled and tasted either rotten or very strong. “All I could do was stand in the woods all day.” He could eat only a few things, mostly cold and white. He went to doctor after doctor until finally one figured out his problem: his saliva had no zinc in it. He was cured with a prescription for zinc sulfate. This condition, by the way, is usually triggered by a bout of flu or a stay in the hospital. Go figure.

While I don’t take any supplements, in the past I have found that a mineral supplement containing calcium, magnesium, potassium, etc. prevented muscle cramps, which, for some reason, I don’t get anymore. But my husband and friend Susan take two a day. It has reduced my husband’s cramps considerably; it has eliminated Susan’s cramps entirely. It’s called Skeletal Strength from Nature’s Sunshine.

Next week: Cartoons for the holidays (I)

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.

In defense of fat people

In researching and writing my book, Fat—It’s Not What You Think, I became even more sympathetic towards fat people than I already was. Sadly, I appear to be in the minority. Most people—even those I consider friends—think that people are fat because they don’t exercise or eat properly. As The Scientist Magazine reports, “This antiquated view of the cause of obesity is still widespread, even among medical professionals.” According to scientific research, “poor lifestyle choices” account for only about 15 pounds of weight gain.

Look at yourself and those about you: as the years go by your weight stays about the same. I have fat friends and thin friends. We all exercise and eat sensibly. My fat friends stay fat; my thin friends stay thin (and I remain somewhere in between). The system that regulates our weight is a highly complex one that keeps our weight within a narrow range. Our fat cells maintain equilibrium between the forces that deposit fat and the forces that release fat. The filling and emptying is regulated by feedback systems, chiefly the nervous system and the endocrine (hormone) system. Neither eating less nor exercising more will lead to long-term weight loss because our bodies naturally compensate.

For most obese people, an equally complex system is at work to maintain an overweight condition. Scientists have been studying this for years. For example, researchers hospitalized a 348-pound woman to study the relationship between her food intake and her obesity. For weeks, they fed her exactly the number of calories they calculated would keep her weight at 348. Instead, she gained twelve pounds in two weeks.

Generally speaking, lean people are more active than fat people because a greater proportion of the food they consume is made available to their cells and tissues for energy. With energy to burn, they’re more inclined to be restless and impelled to be physically active. The opposite is true of obese people: the calories they consume go to making fat rather than to burn for energy.

Like much else, having a body that tends toward obesity is simply bad luck. As for the rise in obesity world-wide, Dr. Rudy Liebel, a long-time obesity researcher and fellow sympathizer says, “We simply do not know what environment factors account for the increased prevalence of obesity.”

Next week: Food supplements: a big debate

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.

A dose of radiation for health?

Sixteen hundred people died following the Fukushima nuclear accident. But scientists have recently found that none of the deaths were caused by radiation. “It was the fear of radiation that ended up killing people” says Dr. Mohan Doss, a medical physicist. “The government basically panicked.” Many of those who died were evacuated from intensive care units and other health facilities and did not survive the move. Some deaths were suicides.

If people had stayed put, they would have been OK. Even in the hottest spots, their exposure would have been roughly comparable to receiving a high-resolution whole-body scan each year. But most residents would have received far less radiation. Below a certain threshold, according to Dr. Doss and other scientists, low doses are harmless and possibly even beneficial. The phenomenon of beneficial radiation is called radiation hormesis, which means that weak radiation can have favorable effects. Life evolved in a mildly radioactive environment. What’s more we’re all exposed to a natural “background radiation” from the earth (an amount less than half of what most Fukushima residents received).

Some laboratory experiments and animal studies have shown that low exposures unleash protective antioxidants and stimulate our immune systems, conceivably protecting against cancers. Thirty years ago in Taiwan, authorities discovered that about 200 buildings housing 10,000 people were constructed from steel contaminated with radioactive cobalt. Over the years residents were exposed to double the average for the people of Fukushima. Yet a study in 2006 found fewer cancer cases among these folks compared with the general public. More recently, a study of radon by Johns Hopkins scientist suggested that people living with higher concentrations of the radioactive gas had correspondingly lower rates of lung cancer.

I like the idea of hormesis—the notion that low exposure to toxins and other stressors can be good for you. While scientists don’t know the exact biochemical mechanisms by which it works, the general belief is that low doses of otherwise toxic substances can stimulate our bodies’ natural repair mechanisms. I like the theory because it fits with my overall approach to health: don’t worry about it.

Next week: In defense of fat people

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.