| Thursday, November 20th, 2008 |
| 10:54 am |
Survey Says: Parents purportedly want to be screened for alcohol use by their child’s pediatrician http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/11/survey-says-parents-purportedly-want-to.html Pediatricians are being encouraged to add another screening test to their lifestyle assessments of the families of their young patients. Medscape just reported on a study in the current issue of the journal Pediatrics telling pediatricians that it had found eight out of ten parents would “welcome or not mind at all” their child’s doctor asking them about their alcohol use and screening them for |
| Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 |
| 5:36 pm |
Posole-gate http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/11/posole-gate.html It’s already being called Posole-gate. “The more we look to the government to protect us, the more freedoms we lose,” said one resident. This became a reality today when government health officials went after an 84-year old tradition and told the nuns at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that their church dinner of homemade posole, tamales and biscochitos was |
| Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 |
| 10:22 pm |
Null Series: B vitamins for preventing mental decline as we age http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/11/null-series-b-vitamins-for-preventing.html Remember that mischievous little African bee and the epidemiological study that recently claimed to show that low vitamin B12 levels were associated with brain atrophy? As we uncovered, the study had actually found no tenable correlations between the B vitamin and brain size, and the Oxford authors were unable to give a biologically plausible explanation for how vitamin B12 levels might |
| Monday, November 17th, 2008 |
| 11:44 pm |
Reflections on today’s news — from the food for thought file… http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/11/reflections-on-todays-news-from-food.html This news story isn’t about food or weight, chronic diseases of aging or pharmaceuticals, or which unsound initiative our healthcare resources will be squandered on next. This is a story being followed by Uyghur Human Rights Project in China, and reported by Radio Free Asia and China Digital Times, that is so heart wrenching, disturbing and soul-searching on so many different levels, it deserves |
| Sunday, November 16th, 2008 |
| 7:55 pm |
Null Series — Vitamins and wholegrains for heart disease prevention http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/11/null-series-vitamins-and-wholegrains.html [Null Series Part One here.] Beliefs and ideologies can be stronger than the science, especially when it comes to our diets. Sadly, so can our fears. Millions of Americans take vitamins and worry about what they eat, fearing that if they fail to eat loads of antioxidants, free radicals will lead to heart disease, cancers and other chronic diseases of aging. Yet, the strongest studies continue |
| Saturday, November 15th, 2008 |
| 8:54 am |
The Null Series — Vitamins for cancer prevention http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/11/null-series-vitamins-for-cancer.html Good news — that isn’t trying to scare us into doing something, buying something, or eating something — means there’s nothing to sell us. That may explain why good news is considered bad news and studies showing there’s nothing to worry about rarely make headlines. Yet, those unpopular “nothing to fear here” with astudies, also known as “null studies,” are some of the best kinds. They help us |
| Friday, November 14th, 2008 |
| 10:31 am |
Can we trust the published results of clinical trials? http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/11/can-we-trust-published-results-of.html News coverage of the long-awaited session of this week’s American Heart Association’s scientific meetings that had promised to constructively address uncomfortable issues surrounding recent statin clinical trials is virtually nowhere to be found. There was no AHA press release and only one reporter even covered it at all. The session — “What Is the Emperor Wearing? Unbiased Evidence from |
| Thursday, November 13th, 2008 |
| 3:13 pm |
Questions the media didn’t ask http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/11/questions-media-didnt-ask.html You’ve no doubt heard about a study presented this week at the American Heart Association conference in New Orleans that's being reported as finding “striking evidence” that children who are fat or with ‘high’ cholesterol have early signs of heart disease. The thickness of the inner walls of their carotid arteries (“carotid intima-media thickness” measurements or CIMT) was reported as resembling |
| Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 |
| 11:50 pm |
Your secret's save with us — more electronic health information news http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/11/your-secrets-save-with-us-more.html Two stunning stories came out today from the federal advisory committee formulating the government’s action plan for accelerating the adoption of a national electronic health database (Health IT). The American Health Information Community’s final meeting was today. First, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt announced that a new pilot project called Medicare PHR Choice will target |
| 8:00 pm |
Leaving kids a bad taste for science http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/11/leaving-kids-bad-taste-for-science.html Even science articles for elementary school children have become venues for scaring them about their food and health and spreading pop myths about good-bad foods, rather than offering opportunities to teach science and make science and food fun. This week it was about salt. In the current issue of Science News for kids, young readers were told that they’re eating more salt than they realize |
| 11:27 am |
Electronic medical records — different perspectives sharing the same news pages http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/11/electronic-medical-records-different.html “How could this happen?” As security experts know, no data system is completely invulnerable. — Express Scripts Within weeks: ● medical providers with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts learned that they will be required to adopt electronic prescriptions; ● the federal government has mandated that all doctors who provide care to Medicare recipients adopt electronic prescriptions or |
| Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 |
| 10:19 pm |
Google joins the CDC in tracking our health http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/11/google-joins-cdc-in-tracking-our-health.html Did you hear that Google is working with the federal government to track our health based on our online searches? Google tracks trends of search terms people use when looking for online health information. It found that people search for flu-related topics commonly during flu season. Google software engineers, Jeremy Ginsberg and Matt Mohebb, said they then tallied the flu-related searches |
| Monday, November 10th, 2008 |
| 4:12 pm |
When the news sounds too good… statin, the new wonder drug http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/11/when-news-sounds-too-good-statins-new.html “It's a breakthrough study. It's a blockbuster. It's absolutely paradigm-shifting.” — Dr. Steven E. Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio (Washington Post, November 9, 2008) The news has been nothing short of breathless, as every major news publication has come out with a story on the clinical trial of the statin rosuvastatin (Crestor). Each news story has been more sensational than the |
| Sunday, November 9th, 2008 |
| 4:52 pm |
A loss for all http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/11/loss-for-all.html Dr. Michael Crichton (1942 – 2008) [I]n the end, science offers us the only way out of politics. And if we allow science to become politicized, then we are lost. We will enter the Internet version of the dark ages, an era of shifting fears and wild prejudices, transmitted to people who don't know any better. That's not a good future for the human race. — September 15, 2003 Science is nothing |
| 12:43 pm |
All of that for not — eliminating sweet drinks in schools fails to reduce overall consumption http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/11/all-of-that-for-not-eliminating-sweet.html To receive federal funds for school meal programs, schools have been required since 2005 to implement local wellness policies addressing food and beverages available for sale, as part of the national agenda to lower obesity rates. School vending machines are a source of sodas and other sweetened drinks, mostly only available at the high school level, and have become a focus of efforts to reduce |
| Saturday, November 8th, 2008 |
| 10:08 pm |
Children’s stories with not so happy endings http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/11/childrens-stories-with-not-so-happy.html This is why sound science matters and how stereotypes can hurt the most innocent. How many children’s books out there have become venues to teach young people prejudice and reinforce stereotypes of others? How many children’s books are being published to scare young girls about their bodies and health, convince them that they have emotional problems, and that their self worth depends on what |
| 10:01 pm |
A new shock ad campaign http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/11/new-shock-ad-campaign.html Catching up on medical news from the UK, one can’t help but look in wonderment at the logic of allocating limited public healthcare resources. These stories appearing in juxtaposition are a case in point. Health Secretary Alan Johnson just announced that a new anti-obesity public health campaign will be launched on Tuesday. Called Change4Life, it will use shock tactics, depicting graphic |
| Friday, November 7th, 2008 |
| 11:42 pm |
Can anyone be taking this seriously anymore? http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/11/can-anyone-be-taking-this-seriously.html The more the evidence keeps failing to support an obesity-related international health crisis, the more hysterical and frantic the claims become. This week, our friends in the UK have been threatened with proclamations that obesity is the new Black Death and will kill as many of their children and that the obesity crisis will cause cancer deaths to double in the UK by 2050. There can be no other |
| 11:34 am |
Teaching tots — what our youngest children are internalizing from the war on obesity http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/11/teaching-tots-what-our-youngest.html This is one of the most heartbreaking studies you may read about this year. Within its findings is the hurt felt by every child who is born with a body that doesn’t fit the norm. This small study of disadvantaged, minority preschoolers in a Southwest community won’t likely make major news. There is nothing to interest commercial or political stakeholders, and nothing to sell … but the need for |