Speaker: Seeking Better Science
116 Responses
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Because organic farmers don't use modern fungicides they rely too much on copper and the result is a progressive build up of copper which isn't all that great.
Or conversely our low selenium, also being studied here in relation to prostate cancer.
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Gluckman left out an established suspected contributor to earlier sexual maturity in favour of a benign-sounding explanation. The impact is coverage like this:
Yesterday, the Prime Minister's Chief Science Adviser issued a warning that adolescents' bodies were maturing faster than their brains; good health meant 11-year-olds reached sexually maturity while their judgment still had 10 years to develop.
Good science?
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FWIW, Bart, I agree with you in your take on the Gluckman pronouncement. And with most of your other comments too. Nice summary of the funding situation.
On the general topic of 'better science', how bizarre is this rant from the Fluoride Action Network on Stuff, and in yesterday's DomPost? Puts me in mind of this. First noted by Danyl on Kiwiblog, but I prefer this excerpt. -
one of my personal gripes is with the use of copper in organic farming
Yup, that's a bit wierd. Copper sulphate is a fairly toxic susbtance, to humans and in the environment (though I guess it's mostly harmless in the quantities used). The theory that because something has been used for aeons it must be harmless is somewhat bogus. Humans have had voluntary contact with lead and its compounds for millenia, but until the last century, we had no idea of its chronic toxicity (because we didn't have the science, and because other conditions masked low level lead poisoning).
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Rich of Observ.: "other conditions masked low level lead poisoning."
Like dying?
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@Islander
Sorry for being dilatory in replying. Certainly you can say hi to me and mine. My email address is my initials (my middle name is Richard) ashby at blueyonder dot co dot uk. if you want to get in touch.
I'm keeping the option of buckwheat flour in reserve because the stuff I have is wholemeal though the GF flour mix I use has it in anyway iirc. I will try gram flour since the commercial packet pastry mixes have it in and being proteinaceous it provides some flexibility. I made some tortillas yesterday with it and GP GF flour that are actually flexible and work really well. I think they will be really good with extra wholegrain buckwheat, I make sensational pancakes with it after all. I had my 6 bean chilli in wraps for tea last night, literally finger licking good.
Having failed to find a recipe for GF water pastry online I am motivated to put my final recipe up somewhere. I expect I will only use it intermittently as there are only so many pork pies you can eat before they become ordinary. I am using the cheapest, plain pack pork I can find for economy sake since it's the pastry that is the important thing. Once I get the pastry right I will make a number of small pies with good ingredients and freeze them.
Gilberts is simply being slow in one step of the breakdown of haemaglobin, at bilirubin which is yellow and causes jaundice in excess. My bruises get caught in the yellow phase and go slowly from there and I constantly have more bilirubin in my blood. It's really just one extreme of a normal distribution. When I get overstressed or run down I get more yellow and have a sort of lassitude. It frustrates my wife that when I get sick I have learned to rest whereas she tries to barrel through. It is of course the sole reason I have not won the Olympic Marathon, yet.
As for running (or any exercise) the trick is to withstand the first two weeks from unfit when it all just seems like too much hard work. Then when you have some fitness you find it can be enjoyable and you go from there. Unless you are someone who doesn't get that improvement. Apparently there are some people who simply don't improve in response to exercise, or at least not to the same extent as people like I do. When you have my experience of getting fit and ultra fit and how that feels and knowing you can run for 3 hours and enjoy it then the whole thing takes on an entirely different tinge.
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Humans have had voluntary contact with lead and its compounds for millenia
Hence gout and stone afflict the human race;
Hence lazy jaundice with her saffron face;
Palsy, with shaking head and tott'ring knees.
And bloated dropsy, the staunch sot's disease;
Consumption, pale, with keen but hollow eye,
And sharpened feature, shew'd that death was nigh.
The feeble offspring curse their crazy sires,
And, tainted from his birth, the youth expires.
(Description of lead poisoning by an anonymous Roman hermit,
Translated by Humelbergius Secundus, 1829 -
As for running (or any exercise) the trick is to withstand the first two weeks from unfit when it all just seems like too much hard work. Then when you have some fitness you find it can be enjoyable and you go from there.
I've been somewhat fascinated with improvements in my fitness via cycling, because they seem to happen as step-changes. I'll plough along for weeks then I hit a new plateau and go faster, further. My ability to ride up Mt Albert is quite a useful benchmark.
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Maybe you're gradually eroding it with all that cycling and it's getting less steep.
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I've been somewhat fascinated with improvements in my fitness via cycling
Which is why some folks become sports physiologists. The way the body adapts to exercise really is fascinating. I really loved the bit of biochemistry when I learnt why you stop being hungry after a while.
Also being able to see your toes again is kinda fun too.
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Also being able to see your toes again is kinda fun too.
I know what you mean, I was so pleased when I found them in an old sock.
:-S -
I found them in an old sock.
You found a sock!?!?!
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My personal wish is that the notions of 'obesity', 'premature maturation', 'diabetes', and a number of other conditions too extensive to list, are not looked at without due consideration of environmental factors.
This is being examined pretty closely...
I'm pretty sure when Peter Gluckman talks about "improved nutritional status" I think he means compared to 200 years ago, not 40 years ago. Simply put, not starving is good but feeding a child more than s/he can metabolise without become insulin resistant with high markers of inflammation is not so good.
In the USA for the first time in the history of the developed world, people are shorter than the previous generation which would indicate a less than ideal nutritional status. At the same time, the onset of sexual maturity is much, much lower than ever before. Especially in poorer populations - richer kids mature later.
In populations that have the greatest longevity (Okinawa etc - so called "Blue Zones") i.e. ideal nutritional status, you have a later onset of puberty than you would find in the poorest (i.e. most nutritionally deprived members of the population) in developed countries.
In other words, a skinny kid in Okinawa is likely to have better nutrition, longer life expectancy and a much smaller body than an obese kid in any developed nation. The kid in Okinawa will also have a later onset of sexual maturity.
Like so:
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
The expression of genes favoring the storage of excess calories as fat, which have been selected for over many millennia and are relatively static, has become maladaptive in a rapidly changing environment that minimizes opportunities for energy expenditure and maximizes opportunities for energy intake.
The consequences of childhood and adolescent obesity include earlier puberty and menarche in girls, type 2 diabetes and increased incidence of the metabolic syndrome in youth and adults, and obesity in adulthood.
In NZ a much earlier onset of puberty is seen among Pacific Island children than European children; though PI children are more likely to have excess weight (greater total nutrition) than their European counterparts, they are not more likely to have more ideal nutritional status.
There is also some fascinating research being done on the psycho-social effects of an absent father on the onset of sexual maturity -
Onset of Menarche and Absent Father
There have also been studies indicating that higher social status and greater education in the mother results in later sexual maturation in both girls and boys. Go figure.
As far as the massive rise in alcohol poisoning and binge drinking (this is a worldwide, not a national trend) - it looks to me like a massive push from the liquor industry to normalise binge drinking, vomiting and juvenile alcohol consumption. The rise of televised vomiting and the glorification of binge drinking culminating in vomiting has been lock-step in time with the tightening of controls of marketing alcohol to youth; similarly the rise of cigarette smoking in films seemed related to the tightening of promotion of tobacco.
Sneaky marketing, that's what it is. Bring on the World Health Organisation, yeah! They dealt to the tobacco industry pretty effectively, I wait with interest to see what they do to the alcohol industry.
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The rise of televised vomiting and the glorification of binge drinking culminating in vomiting ...
I agree with you that the liquor industry is directly targetting young people by providing alcohol that tastes like lollies, but I'm not sure where this televised vomiting and glorification of binge drinking takes place?
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+1 on wanting to be kindly pointed to the glamourisation of puking.
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The doctor who was on TV3 news referred to vomiting as the bodies natural defence mechanisms. I don't recall there being any evidence of an association with an alcohol company. And there was a report around New Year's in a camp in Nelson which showed a youthful up-chuck.
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the bodies natural defence mechanisms. I don't recall there being any evidence of an association with an alcohol company
My apologies for the complete statement of opinion not clarified as such - I didn't mean to say this was in any way proved or even an opinion shared by others... it's just an observation made by someone fairly old who has watched society change hugely.
When the films The Exorcist or The Fourth of July and the miniseries Brideshead Revisited came out there was considerable attention paid to the graphic inclusion of a vomiting scene. Back in the day, vomiting was not everyday tv fare. Now it's hard to avoid in any and all contexts: weird food-dare shows, reality tv drunken ho shows, out of it washed up celebrity shows, cooking shows, survival shows... whatever the context. But it has also emerged in the context of fictional tv series young people who are just having a good time getting drunk. It's been normalised as in, there is no reference to the idea that it might be a serious consequence of poisoning. True, it's the body's natural defense, but that's not something you want to invoke - poisoning yourself to the point where vomiting is necessary to keeping you alive. The body is defending itself for a reason.
The average tv show - Go Girls, Shortland Street, Outrageous Fortune, etc - now depict getting very drunk to the point of being hung over and vomiting- as normal, acceptable, funny and okay.
If you watch an episode of tv from any other era, young people are depicted drinking orange juice, soda, coffe; the advent of a carefully product-placement placed booze label in every shot is relatively recent.
But I have this paranoid notion that booze companies are circumventing blocks to advertising to young people (sponsoring and so on) by a combination of product placement and changing the very type of behaviour that is considered normal.
What drinking behaviour is considered normal is changing right around the world - there is a mass-culture attitude shift. I don't think it's womens lib, any more than when I saw it happen with cigarettes - advertising companies conflated feminism with smoking. I see it now with youth culture, the concept of freedom, self-expression, fun and identity conflated with drinking. I think it's driven by viral marketing and evil alcohol companies. But that's just me. And it did turn out to be true about tobacco companies and they denied it every step of the way.
If you look at Steinlager ads, they typify the kind of pitch to young people that is being clamped down on in ads, and is now popping up in tv and film storylines.
But again, apologies... I was rambling out loud... I don't expect you to agree at all...
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Russ when I go from completely unfit to exercise my waking pulse undergoes a step change. It usually takes 3 bouts of running, separated by a couple of days and my pulse will drop from the mid to high 50's to around 48. I have done this experiment numerous times and the result is consistent. It's like a switch has been flipped in my physiology and I am now in 'exercise mode'.
I have also found that it takes roughly 2 weeks for any given workout, such as a hard hill session, speed work or a long distance run to come through in terms of felt benefit to fitness. So your 2 weeks works for me too.
I do know that when you exercise your body changes the isoform of a number of enzymes in for eg the muscles. This involves replacing all the old forms and happens in a combination of as part of repair when you stress the system and due to normal turnover of proteins. You would feel the benefits of that when the new isoform is in some form of majority.
The process of losing fitness when sick, injured or discouraged is the reverse of that and again I find 2 weeks is the maximum I can rest for without losing fitness.
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@Dyan Campbell
I agree completely and have seen the same change in the style of alcohol advertising here in the UK as well.
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Dyan, you could apply the same argument to sex, though.
Wasn't around on the telly or in films much a few decades back, now it's everywhere. But that doesn't mean that people weren't getting it on back in the day.
Same with drinking. Just cos it wasn't on telly, doesn't mean that young folk weren't partying till they puked.
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Same with drinking. Just cos it wasn't on telly, doesn't mean that young folk weren't partying till they puked.
Interestingly when all the hoopla happened around New years, my 'fatherly' tendencies fuelled my internal 'moral panic' and it all seemed terrible and so different from my yoof.
But since then, and in discussions with others, I've come to realise that mostly what has changed is the awareness and media coverage.
In my home town a good proportion of the males in my age group are lying in the local cemeteries from motorcycle and car accidents, many involving alcohol. This happened before all the media coverage, guilt inducing nanny state legislation and justifications for curtailing civil liberties.
Given that teenagers will find alcohol one way or another during after match functions for balls, or whatever, would you rather they did it in the car down at Takapuna beach, or under the supervision of security guards, parents and other responsible adults, with a mini bus home afterwards?
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Careful with that bike Eugene...
Maybe you're gradually eroding it with all that cycling and it's getting less steep.
he says:
'e rode his bike up dis mount
you say:
his bike erodes dis mount
I say:
peak toil indeed..."Imagine a gigantic rocky mountain at the beginning of kalpa, approximately 16 x 16 x 16 miles (dwarfing Mt. Everest). You take a small piece of silk and wipe the mountain once every 100 years. According to the Buddha, the mountain will be completely depleted even before the kalpa ends."
don't be messing with kalpas though,
bad sh*t happens at their ends...some of these Sanskrit concepts leave Lost for dead (or not, as the case may be)
but I'm not sure where this televised vomiting and glorification of binge drinking takes place?
hmmm, The Young Ones, and most of Rik Mayall & Adrian Edmondson's oeuvre spring to mind...
but help is at hand at the tv vomiting hall of shame -
And to change the topic completely I loved this science/paparazzi headline.
Heavyweight runaway star captured and no it isn't Kirsty Alley again.
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Can we have a vomitorium moratorium? It's putting me off my morning tea. Oh, that's right, I'm forgetting myself, I'll call it lunch and order some Bollinger to wash it down.
'Waiter!'
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Dyan, you could apply the same argument to sex, though.
Wasn't around on the telly or in films much a few decades back, now it's everywhere. But that doesn't mean that people weren't getting it on back in the day.Actually sexual behaviour has changed drastically - both in terms of which activities and at what age. This is proving both alarming and problematic and is part of what Peter Gluckman was on about, I believe.
The causes are all up for dispute - but the results are easily monitored.
Same with drinking. Just cos it wasn't on telly, doesn't mean that young folk weren't partying till they puked.
Again, the degree of intoxication and the age at which people are starting to drink have drastically changed, with horrifying results.
The number of kids dying from alcohol OD in the UK has doubled in 14 years. This is being seen around the world but the Brits keep such nice stats.
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