Health and Fitness News

BananaHands

BananaHands

Staff member
Chad Sexington

Chad Sexington

Hm, and... Harvard says coffee might reduce risk of suicide.

Science reporting is hard to do, and I have sympathy for the reporters - the really good ones may have a background in science, but others might have just been assigned the story. The best thing to do, of course, is read the study, but that's time consuming, can be challenging if you're not a scientist and you may not even be able to get access to the study without subscribing to very expensive journals or databases.

This leads to a problem of really simplified versions of results and questions of studies. And it explains why you get a study out of the Mayo, which is what your links discuss, saying coffee may increase risk of early death, while you also get a study out of Harvard that says coffee might reduce suicide risk. Obviously these two studies aren't mutually exclusive (coffee may increase natural death risk, while decreasing the tendency of coffee drinkers to end their own lives), but it also means that having a cut-and-dry piece of evidence of the health of a particular food or drink is nearly impossible.

Also, the cynical answer: everybody's gotta die sometime, and I'd rather die sooner loving my coffee than die later without it's wonderful flavour.
 
BananaHands

BananaHands

Staff member
Chad Sexington said:
Hm, and... Harvard says coffee might reduce risk of suicide.

Science reporting is hard to do, and I have sympathy for the reporters - the really good ones may have a background in science, but others might have just been assigned the story. The best thing to do, of course, is read the study, but that's time consuming, can be challenging if you're not a scientist and you may not even be able to get access to the study without subscribing to very expensive journals or databases.

This leads to a problem of really simplified versions of results and questions of studies. And it explains why you get a study out of the Mayo, which is what your links discuss, saying coffee may increase risk of early death, while you also get a study out of Harvard that says coffee might reduce suicide risk. Obviously these two studies aren't mutually exclusive (coffee may increase natural death risk, while decreasing the tendency of coffee drinkers to end their own lives), but it also means that having a cut-and-dry piece of evidence of the health of a particular food or drink is nearly impossible.

Also, the cynical answer: everybody's gotta die sometime, and I'd rather die sooner loving my coffee than die later without it's wonderful flavour.
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Yeah. Studies on coffee are always jumping all over the place. First it makes you lose weight, then it makes you gain weight. It reduces liver disease. :confused:

I figure if I ride the two cups a day thing, I can just get a little of column A and column B.
 
Chad Sexington

Chad Sexington

I remember once, after a nutritionist friend of the family's had left our house after we'd had them over for a dinner and she held counsel on all the various things that can harm you in food, my mother commented, "I think bubblegum is the only thing left that won't kill me."
 
Dei

Dei

Everything is bad for you, everything will kill you. It's really just a matter of how quickly. ;)
 
Shakey

Shakey

Chad Sexington said:
I remember once, after a nutritionist friend of the family's had left our house after we'd had them over for a dinner and she held counsel on all the various things that can harm you in food, my mother commented, "I think bubblegum is the only thing left that won't kill me."
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Unless you swallow it. It will sit in your stomach for 7 years!
 
strawman

strawman

New study on exercise and sleep has interesting implications, particularly for those trying to use exercise to improve their insomnia:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/21/how-exercise-can-help-us-sleep-better/?src=me&ref=general

Still, the preliminary message of these findings is heartening. If you habitually experience insomnia and don’t currently exercise, Dr. Baron said, start. Don’t, however, expect that you will enjoy or even complete workouts that occur on the day after a broken night’s sleep, or that you will sleep better hours after you’ve exercised.
The process is more gradual and less immediately gratifying than the sleep-deprived might wish. But the benefits do develop. “It took four months” in the original study, Dr. Baron said, but at that point the exercising volunteers “were sleeping at least 45 minutes more a night.” “That’s huge, as good as or better” than most current treatment options for sleep disturbances, including drugs, she said.
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Chad Sexington

Chad Sexington

BananaHands said:
Oh and The Difference Between Natural and Chemically Induced Sleep.

Which is interesting, I've been prone to ride the Advil PM / Melatonin train when my insomnia kicks in.
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The author of this article, one "Doctor" Garber, is Stuart H. Garber, D.C., Ph.D. President, California Homeopathic Medical Society. He has a doctorate, but he is not a doctor as in, a medical physician, and he sells his own brand of homeopathic remedies. Hmm. Agenda!

I am suspicious of his motives in writing the article; not that sleep deprivation isn't a problem, I have terrible insomnia. I note he picks out a few extreme examples -sleep eating hundreds of calories, sleep driving- not referring to the millions more where no side effects are found, or much less serious ones exist. He also neglects to mention that, according to the very article he linked, upon switching to another "popular" sleep aid, these sleep-acting problems stopped; the article itself makes no attempt to relate the number of people on Ambien and the number experiencing it, only briefly quoting a doctor who said that the cause is unclear and happens in people who are "susceptible."

Furthermore, he completely leaves out drugs known as 'sleep deepeners' which are specifically designed to ensure you have a deep sleep, because of now-known failings of other drugs to achieve this. (My sample size in terms of their efficacy on that front is just myself, and anecdotal evidence isn't evidence, but, I'd be running on 2hrs/sleep nearly every day if it wasn't for my "sleep deepeners".)[DOUBLEPOST=1377538955,1377538513][/DOUBLEPOST]Unrelated to my criticism: my favourite side effect of Ambien as listed on the drug resource page has got to be "drowsiness." Uhm.. It damn well better!
 
Chad Sexington

Chad Sexington

The more I read about this guy, the more every scepticism bell rings. He is a charlatan. I appreciate his YouTube video where he explains homeopathy works because diluting a substance over and over removes its toxic properties, while increasing its kinetic energy so it is more curative. Yeah... That's... That's not how that works, guy.[DOUBLEPOST=1377544212,1377543977][/DOUBLEPOST]"Heal different!" his site announces, meanwhile, every product contains the disclaimer: "This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease."
 
drawn_inward

drawn_inward

Cajungal said:
It's funny, people lump homeopathy in with any non-modern medicine now. I've heard the term used about herbs, holistic or spiritual stuff, anything that's non-traditional.
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Yes, true homeopathy is at best nothing more than placebo, and at worst poison. Sadly, it's still widely used in India. I was offered all kinds of odd little sugars spheres for a stomach ache when I was there. I humbly accepted them and then dumped them down the drain and took my cipro like a good boy.

Herbal =/= homeopathy

but homeopathy can = herbal (just highly diluted and ineffective).
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Water has memory! It's science, people! The only reason it doesn't work is because water also remembers all the poo that's been in it.
 
BananaHands

BananaHands

Staff member
This isn't exactly surprising, but...
Proof That Fast Food Salads Are Anything But Healthy

The nutrition content of salads turn out to be approximately the same as their counterparts without the health halo. In fact, in terms of calories and fat content, salads rarely fare much better than the unhealthy sandwiches and burgers we associate with fast food restaurants.
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So hey, get those ten chicken nuggets instead of the grilled chicken salad at BK.
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
BananaHands said:
This isn't exactly surprising, but...
Proof That Fast Food Salads Are Anything But Healthy

So hey, get those ten chicken nuggets instead of the grilled chicken salad at BK.
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ARGH! This is one of my pet peeves! They compare calories and fat and declare that the nutrition content is the same? No comparison of fiber, vitamins, minerals, sodium, sugar, etc. There is a lot more to nutrition than fat and calories.

Also, no consideration for if you actually use the entire packet of dressing, because some people eat a dressing soup, but I don't.

This article is nothing but FUD.
 
BananaHands

BananaHands

Staff member
Regular Marijuana Use on the Rise
In 2012, about 7.3% of Americans ages 12 or older reported regularly using marijuana. That's up from 7% of Americans in 2011. Although it's only a slight increase, the real contrast exists between 2012 and 2007, when 5.8% of Americans said they regularly used weed.
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Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

More Deaths, Illnesses Linked to Energy Drinks
The new reports follow this week's revelation of FDA reports linking 92 illnesses and 13 deaths to 5-Hour Energy shots. The FDA previously said it was investigating the deaths linked to Monster Energy.
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Officer_Charon

Officer_Charon

If you ingest 'em against the recommended daily amounts, then YES! You are going to suffer ill effects. It's not fucking rocket surgery!

Christ, let the fucking mundanes die... then maybe they'll stop leeching my suppllies of the stuff.

I drink, at my WORST (best?), 2 of the tall twist-top Monsters (24 oz?), mixed with 2 5-hour Energies, with PLENTY of water to flush the kidneys (at least 1 gallon) over the course of an 8-hour shift.

That's a lot, I know, but I'm not shotgunning, them, for fuck's sake...
 
strawman

strawman

I'm not entering this bacon and cheese quarter pounder meal into myfitnesspal. Granted, I had a thousand calories left for today after lunch, but I'm guessing this is more than that...
 
BananaHands

BananaHands

Staff member
stienman said:
I'm not entering this bacon and cheese quarter pounder meal into myfitnesspal. Granted, I had a thousand calories left for today after lunch, but I'm guessing this is more than that...
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I like myfitnesspal, but I've been trying to cook more homemade meals and it's such a pain to add them.
 
strawman

strawman

Yeah, I had a salad for lunch and I would have had to measure and enter 5 separate ingredients. It's worse with homemade lasagnas and other more complex dishes. The spreadsheet lover inside me wants it all entered properly so I have protein, vitamin, etc information. But if I go too far it'll be too much trouble and I won't do it.
 
Chad Sexington

Chad Sexington

stienman said:
Yeah, I had a salad for lunch and I would have had to measure and enter 5 separate ingredients. It's worse with homemade lasagnas and other more complex dishes. The spreadsheet lover inside me wants it all entered properly so I have protein, vitamin, etc information. But if I go too far it'll be too much trouble and I won't do it.
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Wait, do you have your own spreadsheet or just myfitnesspal's?
 
strawman

strawman

No, I don't use a spreadsheet for my food, myfitnesspal takes care of it enough for my needs. It, in fact, scratches that itch for me perfectly so I'm not tempted to do the spreadsheet thing...
 
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