SubscribeDigest: Mumps, Obesity, Caffeine, Alzheimer’s, Dementia, and Healthful Trans Fats
But we swear it’s not because they are ineffective! Mumps shots didn’t fully protect in 2006 - ‘Most of the college students who got the mumps in a big outbreak in 2006 had received the recommended two vaccine shots, according to a study that raises questions about whether a new vaccine or another booster shot is needed. …. “It’s clear that over time, immunity wanes somewhat,” he said. “We need a better vaccine.”‘
You could just avoid the donut in the first place. A coffee with your doughnut could protect against Alzheimer’s disease - “A study in the open access publication, Journal of Neuroinflammation revealed that caffeine equivalent to just one cup of coffee a day could protect the blood-brain barrier (BBB) from damage that occurred with a high-fat diet.” Yeah, so they called donuts part of a high-fat diet, which we all know to be absurd, but it is interesting that caffeine can help stave off Alzheimer’s.
That pot-belly is bad in more ways than you know. Larger Belly In Mid-life Increases Risk Of Dementia, Study Suggests - “The study found that those with the highest amount of abdominal fat were nearly three times more likely to develop dementia than those with the lowest amount of abdominal fat.”
Another way obesity is detrimental: reduced fertility - ‘”When you’re obese, ghrelin levels are lower, and based on these preliminary findings, they may result in lower fertility,”…”Obesity may have an effect on pregnancy in the next generation,”‘ Sounds to me like Darwin keeping bad genes from proliferating.
Avoid trans fats? Perhaps not all. Natural trans fats have health benefits, University of Alberta study shows - “Flora Wang found that a diet with enriched levels of trans vaccenic acid (VA) – a natural animal fat found in dairy and beef products – can reduce risk factors associated with heart disease, diabetes and obesity. ….Because VA is the major natural trans fat in dairy and beef products, comprising more than 70 per cent of the proportion of natural trans fat content in those products, the findings support a growing body of evidence that indicates natural animal-based trans fat is different than harmful hydrogenated trans fat created through industrial processing, Wang noted.”
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Filed in Digest 3 Comments so far
Dan on 15 Apr 2008 at 1:37 am #
“…a diet with enriched levels of trans vaccenic acid (VA) – a natural animal fat found in dairy and beef products – can reduce risk factors associated with heart disease, diabetes and obesity.”
This is only one study but given that dairy products seems to be - I hesitate to use the word demonised - denigrated on many forums I find this an interesting result! Dairy might - gasp - have a positive influence?!
I come from a northern European background and grew up on a small dairy farm, so naturally enough I took in a substantial amount of mostly raw milk, butter and cream. So did most people I know, many of whom have family who are still hale in their 70s and 80s (anecdotal evidence, I freely admit). The idea that dairy products might not be a positive dietary influence didn’t present itself to me until a few years back.
I can accept that lactose intolerance is a problem for some people. On the other hand I’m far from convinced that natural dairy products in general are an issue. Off the top of my head I suggest two factors that might be at work.
(1) “Machine milk”. Most people drink milk that is scarcely recognisable as the substance that would have existed in, say, 1950. Cows in some countries are fed on corn, pumped full of antibiotics and hormones, seldom if ever led out to pasture and produce milk that in addition to its unwelcome content is then homogenised and in many regions subjected to ultra-heat treatment.
I would not drink this rubbish by choice, but how many people even stop to think about it? I do not support dairy industry propaganda, I am simply pointing out that denatured modern milk is scarcely a good starting point for exploring the merits and demerits of dairy products. (There seems to be a decent body of research pointing to the positive benefits of raw milk, which is precisely what the dairy industry will not or cannot supply.)
(2) Are genetic “dialects” a factor? I first noticed that some people consider dairy products to be a problem when talking to American friends. I don’t believe I have ever heard people from the UK or indeed Europe talk about intolerance to dairy goods.
I have followed the cholesterol controversy for years and although it has left me extremely skeptical of the integrity of mainstream medical thinking on diet, I am certainly not arguing that lactose intolerance does not exist outside the imagination of US dieticians. However, might it be the case that the US has an unusually high proportion of genetic groups that for whatever reason are less used to milk and its by products? Or conversely it is only people from certain parts of the world that are lactose tolerant? (It has always interested me that the Masai for example don’t seem to have many health problems despite their diet.)
Dan
Scott Kustes on 15 Apr 2008 at 8:05 am #
Dan, good stuff. I tend to agree with you on the milk issue. While most non-Europeans do have high levels of lactose intolerance, most of us of European descent would probably be alright if we weren’t drinking highly processed milk products, i.e., everything pasteurized and homogenized in the dairy case. From what I understand, raw milk tends to be okay, even for those with lactose intolerance as the good bacteria that can digest the lactase are still present. I find that I feel best without any dairy, but my only experience is with pasteurized/homogenized. I’m going to try some raw dairy via my local co-op here soon.
One thing to watch for when trying to determine if there is any level of dairy intolerance is mucus production. I don’t know how raw dairy will affect me, but the pasteurized stuff in any measurable quantity makes my nose stuffy.
Cheers
Scott
Dan on 16 Apr 2008 at 2:14 pm #
On reflection this issue is even more ambiguous than I thought. Let’s say they test people for lactose intolerance with a breath test or whatever. This measures a generalised output that does not tell us anything about the input substance (dairy product) that is supposedly causing the intolerance.
For example, if it’s milk, is it skim or whole? Raw and untouched? Pasteurised organic? Or UHT homogenised chemical cocktail? If it’s cheese is it unpasteurised cheese? Pasteurised but otherwise carefully made cheese? Or processed cheese-like product?
Given that probably 90% of people drink industrial milk and eat processed cheese-like products, the lactose intolerance test could be measuring not a reaction to dairy products but a reaction to the degree of industrial processing undergone by those products. And if it is, that would explain why so many people are “lactose intolerant”. And given that industrial agriculture has reached its apotheosis in the USA, that might explain why so many people in the US are apparently “lactose intolerant”, even those of European extraction.
Anyway, I know of no major raw milk / lactose intolerance study so this is all hypothetical. But it makes ya think…
Dan