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The problem is all the junk "food" that's been processed to hell (eg cereal, cookies, chips, soda). Among other things, junk food generally has very little fiber which would otherwise make you feel fuller, help remove fat, burn calories from digestion, and regulate sugar absorption. The best thing you can do is eat as much raw plants as you can, instead of processed crap. Just buy a box of bananas, some other fruit for flavor, and whatever veggies you like, then blender it all up!
Side note: Plant juices are better than soda in many ways, but there isn't any fiber to slow down sugar absorption, so it might be just as bad as soda in that aspect.

Fiber: http://www.webmd.com/diet/fibe...
NutritionFacts.org: https://www.youtube.com/channe...
Durianrider: https://www.youtube.com/channe...

Technically the link was with antiperspirants and not deodorants and was debunked years ago.

Jesus, using Snopes on Slashdot. What's the world coming to?

http://www.snopes.com/medical/...

http://www.webmd.com/skin-prob...

[John]

Most women are not that aggressive. Most men are.

You can't pretend that is some kind of biological difference though.

It is. It's a proven fact. It's not true for all animal species, but for ours it is.
http://www.webmd.com/balance/f...

Again, these are generalizations. The bad part about generalizations is that they are only generally true, but humans tend to take things that are generally true and apply them to everyone that meets the criteria. Women are generally less aggressive than men, but I still bow to my sons female Tai Kwon Do instructor when we enter the building. I don't want her to kick my ass.

Really what has been happening to children in the last 50 years or so is an ascending curve of influences, combining to create a new "First World Race"(so to speak).
The effects of these influences have been studied and can be easily found on this "internet library".

Here are a few:
1. The increased intake of Sugar in the American diet.
2. The ill affects of Multi-Tasking
3. How the overuse of consumer electronics is ruining sleep patterns
4. Kids don't play outside as much or at all

So, in effect, we have a new generation that is:
less likely to play outside, interact/understand/empathize with the natural world, can't remember as much due to being able to look things up instantly online, is more likely to display symptoms of ADD/ADHD due to over-intake of sugar and ADD/ADHD drugs, has a much shorter attention span than previous generations, etc, etc.

None of this is any sort of conspiracy, but rather is due to the way technology and our modern world has "evolved" in the last half century.

To me one of the interesting things to note here is that less affluent children don't display these issues because they don't come from families who can afford the ADD-Constantly Connected-Sugar Ridden lifestyle that is now the norm in the middle and upper classes in the First World.

We are now and will continue seeing the affects of this "evolution".

Supposedly that's the tune to hum to yourself to get another earworm song out. Top 10 earworms.

Oh and I forgot, at least one treatment for it, Flagyl, actually makes you feel worse. But at least then you're done and can stop taking it.

As a bonus, while you're on Flagyl you can't even drink to forget your problems.

That's ok, you won't want to, as you'll be too busy moaning that you're dying already, provided it doesn't kill you. That is one of the "side effects" not listed there but was on the bottle I saw that you should immediately contact your physician for...

Nowadays, everybody and their dog gets depressed at some point during the year, and prescribed medicine.

Sadly this is literally true

Maybe watches work for desk jockeys?

I always found the strap was annoying when letting my wrists rest near a keyboard.

Watches also interfere with your sleeves when wearing a dress shirt.

Watches were fun for a while when I was young, but I never missed them after I started using my phone as a watch and it would take quite a bit of compelling reasons beyond what I see now to get me to wear a watch again.

Well, if you learned to keyboard properly and wore shirts that fit properly you may still be wearing a watch. You're not supposed to rest your wrists on something while typing. It's like playing the piano. Your wrists are supposed to be elevated with you hands flat, parallel to the floor and fingers naturally angling down to the keys. Dress shirt sleeve cuffs should terminate just behind the opposing joint of the thumb and not constrict around your wrist so jewelry (watches, bracelets) doesn't get caught easily. Might want to try French cuff shirts. Sounds like the boat may have already sailed for you though. I don't wear watches often these days either, unless I am getting dressed up, but the right clothing does help the getting caught problem. As for they keyboarding, you may want to work on your technique to prevent any long term injuries, or to mitigate any existing ones. I learned piano before typing so I had a bit of a head start on proper wrist-hand posture when I did finally start typing.

No, I won't attempt to teach the basics of rhetoric and logic here, I studied them for years in a formal environment as opposed to you pointing to Wiki articles for fallacy definitions.

I'm sure you're well aware, then, of the argument-from-authority fallacy. I dare not link to Wikipedia, of course. That would make me a bumbling amateur, right?

Attempting to nitpick the name of the fallacy won't change the fallacy from true to false either, so it's a poor argument all around.

I wasn't being obtuse. I really don't get you.

Herd immunity does not claim 100% is needed, so you are again using fallacy arguments. You said yourself that some people can not be vaccinated so you provide an impossible condition and you know it.

Well, you not being vaccinated probably means one more potential carrier, right? ('Probably' because of the chance it wouldn't have worked on you.) The only way this doesn't affect me is if I'm 100% guaranteed to be immune. (Or, I suppose, if I'm 100% guaranteed never to meet you, or if I'm already infected.) I don't see that I can be missing much here, but if this reasoning is unsound, please point out in what way.

You not getting a vaccination doesn't affect me much, sure, but without 100% effective vaccinations, it surely has to affect me some non-zero amount. (The impossibility of 100% effective vaccinations doesn't affect the reasoning here.)

I was not unclear with what you replied "What?' to, so try and work on your reading and comprehension skills.

Condescension doesn't strengthen your position, but I thought it was clear: I don't know where you're getting this from: the irrational and fallacy ridden separation you attempt to make between people that "can't" and people that "won't" get vaccinated. I certainly wasn't trying to make any such distinction.

Regarding the facts, then: there seems to be a 1 in 1,000,000 risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome, and it's also not good for people with severe egg allergies. Regarding whether flu shots have saved lives, this source says it's unclear. (It's still possible it's saved many people from a few unpleasant days of flu, mind, and that alone could make it worthwhile.)

Even if you're right that flu shots in particular aren't worthwhile, vaccinations have proven themselves on other diseases. I don't think anyone would argue that flu shots are the most important vaccination.

I'm sure you're well aware, then, of the argument-from-authority fallacy. I dare not link to Wikipedia, of course. That would make me a bumbling amateur, right?

As stated, nitpicking a fallacy name does not make a fallacy true. A fallacy is still a fallacy, and falsity is still falsity. Faulty logic most often can be described using numerous "named" fallacies depending on the point of reference. Continuing to debate the point will never make faulty logic good logic, it's nitpicking and diversionary.

Well, you not being vaccinated probably means one more potential carrier, right? ('Probably' because of the chance it wouldn't have worked on you.) The only way this doesn't affect me is if I'm 100% guaranteed to be immune. (Or, I suppose, if I'm 100% guaranteed never to meet you, or if I'm already infected.) I don't see that I can be missing much here, but if this reasoning is unsound, please point out in what way.

You just said probably, which is a correct statement. Then again you claim you want a 100% guarantee. No such guarantee is possible no matter what the circumstanc

No, I won't attempt to teach the basics of rhetoric and logic here, I studied them for years in a formal environment as opposed to you pointing to Wiki articles for fallacy definitions.

I'm sure you're well aware, then, of the argument-from-authority fallacy. I dare not link to Wikipedia, of course. That would make me a bumbling amateur, right?

Attempting to nitpick the name of the fallacy won't change the fallacy from true to false either, so it's a poor argument all around.

I wasn't being obtuse. I really don't get you.

Herd immunity does not claim 100% is needed, so you are again using fallacy arguments. You said yourself that some people can not be vaccinated so you provide an impossible condition and you know it.

Well, you not being vaccinated probably means one more potential carrier, right? ('Probably' because of the chance it wouldn't have worked on you.) The only way this doesn't affect me is if I'm 100% guaranteed to be immune. (Or, I suppose, if I'm 100% guaranteed never to meet you, or if I'm already infected.) I don't see that I can be missing much here, but if this reasoning is unsound, please point out in what way.

You not getting a vaccination doesn't affect me much, sure, but without 100% effective vaccinations, it surely has to affect me some non-zero amount. (The impossibility of 100% effective vaccinations doesn't affect the reasoning here.)

I was not unclear with what you replied "What?' to, so try and work on your reading and comprehension skills.

Condescension doesn't strengthen your position, but I thought it was clear: I don't know where you're getting this from: the irrational and fallacy ridden separation you attempt to make between people that "can't" and people that "won't" get vaccinated. I certainly wasn't trying to make any such distinction.

Regarding the facts, then: there seems to be a 1 in 1,000,000 risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome, and it's also not good for people with severe egg allergies. Regarding whether flu shots have saved lives, this source says it's unclear. (It's still possible it's saved many people from a few unpleasant days of flu, mind, and that alone could make it worthwhile.)

Even if you're right that flu shots in particular aren't worthwhile, vaccinations have proven themselves on other diseases. I don't think anyone would argue that flu shots are the most important vaccination.

Maybe you should check again: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medline...
"Exercise not only helps your immune system fight off simple bacterial and viral infections, it decreases your chances of developing heart disease, osteoporosis, and cancer."

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH...
""Nutrition plays an important part in maintaining immune function," explains George L. Blackburn, M.D., Ph.D., associate director of the division of nutrition at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. "Insufficiency in one or more essential nutrients may prevent the immune system from functioning at its peak.""

People with weaker immune systems are more likely to contract diseases and have them for longer and so spread them around more.

So, again, now that you know this, why not lock up those who eat junk food and who don't exercise, or force them at gunpoint to eat vegetables and do push ups? Such people otherwise pose a health risk to everyone else. That is a fact based on what people at the NIH and Harvard have said.

The same for the other things I mentioned which all affect the immune system. See also:
http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-...

Many things make contracting and spreading disease more likely (poor diet, lack of exercise, lack of sleep, lack of vitamin D, lack of iodine, lack of nursing, sending kids to public school, going into a shared workplace every day, etc.). Why do you call at least some of those "an individual choice that does not affect the well-being of others" when clearly they all increase the risk of disease transmission? All of these choices affect the well-being of those around us. What of the immuno-compromised child who is going to die because your kid spread around the flu contracted in part by vitamin D deficiency, too much sugar, and not enough exercise?

Also, the fact is, vaccinations at best only protect to some degree against catching specific disease. These other things protect against catching almost any disease whether there is a vaccine for it or not. If forcing people to get vaccinated against their will for the public good is a good idea, why not force people to do these other things too?

For example, since people who eat poorly have a greater risk of contracting almost any communicable illness and spreading it around, why allow people to pick what food they want to eat each day for example? Clearly a government appointed dietitian (backed by gun-wielding police) would do a better job of deciding what you should eat each day than you could and thus do a better job of protecting the public health against widespread illness, injury, and death, right? Likewise for those who do not exercise enough. Cops should force people to exercise at gunpoint if needed, right? No less than the NIH and Harvard provide the supporting evidence,

Not laughing enough also is bad for you immune system.
http://www.mayoclinic.org/heal...
"Negative thoughts manifest into chemical reactions that can affect your body by bringing more stress into your system and decreasing your immunity. In contrast, positive thoughts actually release neuropeptides that help fight stress and potentially more-serious illnesses."

So, people who do not laugh enough are a health risk to those around them. It would seem then that people thus have no constitutional right to be dour sour pusses, since that puts everyone around them at health risk. So, why not set up a police force who force people to laugh by watching funny websites? Or do laughter yoga? And otherwise incarcerate them if they don't comply?

Although, like anything, I guess that could go too far:

One of the bigger problems youre not addressing is the assumption that if an herb has beneficial effects, then it must have no negative ones by virtue of being "herbal". Of course, this isnt true; one only has to remember that nightshade is of course completely "natural" and "herbal" and also terribly poisonous.

Some examples:
St Johns Wort can have a number of bad drug interactions, can work poorly with folks with bi-polar disorder, and can have a number of other undesirable effects.
Pennyroyal is apparently highly toxic, and can damage kidney and liver.

Etc etc-- see http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-.... But of course people see "herbal" and think "must be good for you".

Hmm, it would seem you have never heard of blood in urine, http://www.webmd.com/digestive.... Where blood can pass, so can any other infection within the body, not just urinary tract infections. This is for disaster zones, people will be injured, under extreme stress and concentrated in rescue zones subject to a full range of infectious diseases, all bodily fluids should be considered risky and need to be contained and treated. Treating just the main problem and ignoring all other problems is just plain stupid.

Funny. Years ago I thought I remember research that said the reverse. Can't find it though - Google seems crappier nowadays (you just get zillions of hits for the 2014 item).

Even reduce premature births: http://www.dentistrytoday.com/...

Generally periodontal disease seemed linked to higher heart disease: http://www.webmd.com/heart-dis...
So maybe the particular mouthwash used was bad?

If you'd ever had a colonoscopy, you'd really appreciate the non-invasive method of detecting colon cancer. It was mentioned in TFA, BTW.

Sorry, but this device ain't gonna fix that. As per their webpage they use a test for CEA as a marker for recurrence of cancer. This is not even an effective screening test, and nothing that isn't already available. Better get your prep ready, you're gonna get probed again!

Professor Bob Nagele (from the med school I'm attending now) has had a blood-based Alzheimer's test since 2011: http://www.plosone.org/article...

Using human protein microarrays to characterize the differential expression of serum autoantibodies in AD and non-demented control (NDC) groups, we identified potential diagnostic biomarkers for AD. The differential significance of each biomarker was evaluated, resulting in the selection of only 10 autoantibody biomarkers that can effectively differentiate AD sera from NDC sera with a sensitivity of 96.0% and specificity of 92.5%.

I would change my diet very quickly and take up jogging:

Is Alzheimer’s Type 3 Diabetes?
http://opinionator.blogs.nytim...

Also, I would look specifically at anti-inflammatory diets, because Alzheimers, like many chronic modern diseases, is linked to chronic inflammation (in this case, in the brain):

> Since the late 1980s, various studies have found hints that the chronic inflammation found in Alzheimer’s hastens the disease process

See the connection?

http://www.webmd.com/diabetes/...

Inactivity and obesity increase the risk for diabetes, but exactly how is unclear. Recent research suggests that inflammation inside the body plays a role in the development of type 2 diabetes.

The good news: An "anti-inflammatory" diet and exercise plan can help prevent and treat type 2 diabetes.

The effects of inflammation are familiar to anyone who has experienced a bug bite, rash, skin infection, or ankle sprain. In those situations, you will see swelling in the affected area.

With type 2 diabetes, inflammation is internal.

No. Children, at least, can tolerate fevers up to 108 without long-term effects.
NONSENSE!
108 Fahrenheit is close to certain death or brain damage:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What...

WikiAnswers, without a source, is not really a very reliable source of information. "Up to" 108 turns out to be up to 107.6 according to that source. Note that all of the lower temperatures say nothing of brain damage. So, according to your source, you can tolerate temperatures up to 107.6.

Let's try some other sources.

Johns Hopkins:
"Fevers with infections don't cause brain damage. Only body temperatures above 108 F (42 C) can cause brain damage."
"...fevers from infection usually don't go above 103 or 104 F. They rarely go to 105 or 106 F. While the latter are "high" fevers, they are harmless ones."

NIH:
"Brain damage from a fever generally will not occur unless the fever is over 107.6 F. Untreated fevers caused by infection will seldom go over 105 F unless the child is overdressed or trapped in a hot place."

WebMD:
"High fevers may make your child uncomfortable, but they rarely cause serious problems. There is no medical evidence that fevers from infection cause brain damage. The body limits a fever caused by infection from rising above 106 F."

Yes, I know everyone "learned" that fevers above 104 F are bad and should be mitigated. We also learned that different sections of the tongue are responsible for different tastes. Your school textbook probably had a picture of the Bohr model of an atom. It turns out that often the things we learn aren't true.

Case is closed - except for the new report about it helping stop the progression of HIV http://www.webmd.com/hiv-aids/news/20131126/multivitamins-may-help-fight-hiv-progression-study-suggests

And to add to my previous post. Let's just enumerate a list of some of the vitamin brands sold by a couple of the big name pharma companies.

Bayer:

One A Day
Supradyn
Flintstones Vitamins
Pluravit
Elevit
Redoxin

Pfizer:

Centrum
Emergen-CStresstabs
Clusivol
Trihemic

Oh and to throw in, Pfizer even has a web page extolling the virtues of taking vitamins. Funny since you would have us believe they are against them, no?

GlaxoSmithKline:

Cetebe
Rutinoscorbin
Scott's Emulsion

For people who hate vitamin supplements it's amazing how many brands just those 3 companies alone sell, no? And that's not including all the other nutritional supplements they sell which would add at least another 10 or 12 items. So this notion that big pharma hates vitamins, etc. is pure bunk.

Correction. Hyperactivity was treated with - uhhh - dammit - can't remember the name of the drug right now. The stuff was basically a tranquilizer, it made the kids into dopey zombies, lethargic little turds. Still thinking, resorting to Google - - -

This page says benzedrine, but that's not the trade name with which I am (was) familiar. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3000907/

From this page, I recognize adderal and ritalin, but that's not what I'm searching for. http://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/guide/adhd-stimulant-therapy

I'm simply experiencing a mental block at the moment, and I'm failing to find the stuff that was commonly prescribed in the middle to late '70's. Need something to jog my memory.

Here's one set of search terms I used: www.google.com/search?q=history+of+ADHD&oq=history+of+ADHD&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i60l3.3579j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

And this is why Weight Watchers subtracts 4 calories per gram of dietary fiber before dividing by 35 to get the PointsPlus value. It's also how low-carbohydrate foods during the Atkins fad could get away with mentioning attractive "net carb" counts in large type absent an official FDA definition of "low carb".

It doesn't matter what the politicians call it. It IS an abortifacient.

Maybe you will believe wikicrap?

Or, perhaps Web MD?

I know! The God Damned Manufacturer of the drug

But I don't expect you to follow any of the links, even the ones to the government site and the manufacturer's site. You are too invested in your open erroneous opinion.

That is the case here. The courts acknowledge that the guy is a great dad. They acknowledge that the his home is healthy and happy. They acknowledge that he has been raising his kids with full legal custody. Their response to this is to issue full custody in their state, and when the police come because of domestic violence in the mother's house, they arrest the kids. Issue shared custody between the mother and the state of Illinois. Issue a court order that the children cannot leave the state of Illinois. Start drugging the kids because their instance that they want to go back home to their father in California makes them victims of the mental disorder Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Thus instead of sending the kids home, they drug them. One of the two they physically tortured with the excuse that they needed to keep sticking him with needles to draw blood in the attempt to figure out why he insists that he wants to go home to his father.

If your poop is black and tarry, you have more pressing issues than where your gasoline will come form decades from now.

Why? My son had a phone at 4. It allowed and still allows him to have far more freedom than many of his peers.

Peers who are also 4.

What freedoms does a person who is just learning to navigate stairs really need? I mean, over the freedoms that the typical 4-year-old would have?

That freedom has allowed him to develop both socially and intellectually at a rate that is far greater than what he could have under the tethered leash of a child who cannot leave his parent's sight.

Funny, I've heard the same thing, almost verbatim, from the hippy parents that feed their kids nothing but granola and dress them in burlap sacks. It's almost as if every parent is under the impression that their method of parenting is superior to all others, despite a complete lack of scientific evidence...

Which came first: kids, or parental egotism?

WTF? You demand a citation, then spill a bunch of false information, I mean "informed opinions", with no citation at all. WebMD says you are totally wrong. It's fat.

It doesn't say anything of the kind.

WTF? You demand a citation, then spill a bunch of false information, I mean "informed opinions", with no citation at all. WebMD says you are totally wrong. It's fat.

No citations there!

Beer guts ain't fat, that's not how your body works...Beer guts are enlarged, hardened livers

Citation needed.

"An excess of visceral fat is known as central obesity, the "pot belly" or "beer belly" effect, in which the abdomen protrudes excessively....A study has shown that alcohol consumption is directly associated with waist circumference and with a higher risk of abdominal obesity in men, but not in women, in the present population." -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_gut#Relationship_with_Alcohol_Consumption

"Itâ(TM)s not necessarily beer but too many calories that can turn your trim waistline into a belly that protrudes over your pants. Any kind of calories -- whether from alcohol, sugary beverages, or oversized portions of food -- can increase belly fat. However, alcohol does seem to have a particular association with fat in the midsection." -- http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/the-truth-about-beer-and-your-belly

Yes, ascites is a real thing, but it's not what the term "beer belly" refers to.

Citation please!

I think you're almost certainly wrong (no citation, this is just informed opinion) - particularly when it comes to people who drink home brew or other beers that have a fair amount of live yeast in them. Part of a beer gut is intestinal irritation causing swelling - and that can be caused by yeast. Part of it is a swollen liver - caused by the alcohol. Probably only a relatively small proportion is fat.

WTF? You demand a citation, then spill a bunch of false information, I mean "informed opinions", with no citation at all. WebMD says you are totally wrong. It's fat.

Other studies have shown a link between gum disease and heart disease. So whether you don't want cancer or don't want a heart attack, brush your teeth!

(The American Heart Association disagrees)

"Are you nuts? Tell that to the over 30,000,000 people in the US alone with HPV. Yeah they say they have a vaccine now for it, but that's for younger kids who haven't had much, if any sex. "

First, I wrote NEARLY. I didn't write "all".

Second: [A] HPV often goes away by itself. [B] While it isn't curable (yet) it *IS* treatable. And [C] as you mentioned, vaccines are available so it will only be less of a problem in the future. That isn't an argument against my point, it is an argument for it.

It's getting better. A cure for herpes is probably right around the corner (shingles "vaccine" being an example of a treatment for people who are already infected with a different but just as nasty form of herpes). And there are treatments for people who are currently infected (encyclovir, for example).

And even AIDS is falling to medical technology. A number of people have been CURED.

So yes, it's getting better. Far better than ever before.

Are you suggesting Dr. Joel Fuhrman is lying (or self-deluding) about this patient? It only takes one anecdote to prove a possibility:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/HeartDisease.aspx
"John Pawlikoski is a typical patient I see everyday. I am reporting his case here because he has been my patient for 10 years now, so I can report on his long-term results. He first came to see me at the age of 65 with a history of steadily worsening angina. His chest pains interfered with his daily life, so he was unable to perform physical work. He had a stress thallium test which suggested multi-vessel coronary artery disease. He then underwent a cardiac catherization, which revealed a 95 percent stenosis of the left anterior descending artery and had diffuse blockages throughout the left circumflex. He had normal heart function. His cholesterol was 218, with an LDL of 144. He weighed 180 pounds. He was on two medications - one for high blood pressure and nitroglycerin to relieve chest pains.
Within a few weeks of following my dietary recommendations, his chest pains ceased, and he no longer required nitroglycerin. In two months, his weight dropped to 152, a loss of 28 pounds in eight weeks. He remains exactly at 152 pounds today, 10 years later. He has been entirely well these last ten years and is extremely physically active. He takes no medication, and his blood pressure is normal. His LDL cholesterol runs about 80, and his stress test has normalized too. He has no signs or symptoms of heart disease."

Or that Esselstyn is lying (or self-deluding) about these patients?
http://www.heartattackproof.com/patientprofiles.htm

More lies, including by a comment here which might be a paid shill?
"Caldwell Esselstyn MD - Reverse Heart Disease Study"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X31QKDhQUY
"yycman1 wrote: I'm 45, and it will be one year in Nov. since I switched to a vegan diet to address my high cholesterol and blood pressure. ï After just 5 months, I was off 5 different medications...2 for high cholesterol, 2 for high blood pressure and one for prostate. My doctor was so impressed, he told me I made him want to eat better. A vegan diet really does work to reverse cholesterol and blood pressure issues. I was inspired by Bill Clinton to try this. I also lost 18 lbs. without exercising. Amazing!"

Or that Ornish is lying or self-deluded here?
http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/features/can-you-reverse-heart-disease
"In his 2007 book The Spectrum, Ornish describes patients waiting to undergo a heart transplant -- those with the worst possible damage -- who enrolled in his program while on the transplant list. Some of them, he says, improved so much that they no longer needed a transplant.
"Our studies show that, with significant lifestyle changes, blood flow to the heart and its ability to pump normally improve in less than a month, and the frequency of chest pains fell by 90% in that time," Ornish says. "Within a year on our program, even severely blocked arteries in the heart became less blocked, and there was even more reversal after five years. That's compared with the natural history in other patients in our study, in which the heart just got worse and worse.""

And T. Colin Campbell is full of it, too?
http://www.tcolincampbell.org/courses-resources/article/reversing-heart-disease-with-diet/category/cardiovascular

Still, as Upton Sinclair said:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not und

I have a home office so... I actually kick my chair out and do sit ups, squats, toe touches, leg lifts, and cat rolls {yeah I know my wife laughs too}.

I do up to number 12. The hardest part is getting into a habit of doing it everyday and not stopping. 15 - 20 repetitions 3 times a day don't even break a sweat.

http://www.webmd.com/back-pain/lower-back-pain-10/slideshow-exercises

You may have a higher sex drive than most females. You may even have a higher sex drive than some males.
But overall, males have a much higher sex drive.

society hasn't quite gotten rid of the old double-standard

In the privacy of their homes, males masturbate much more often than women.
To say nothing of the availability of porn ... largely targeted at males. Even when it features dudes, it's usually aimed at the gay community.

I'm VERY curious why some feminists feel as though women must have an equal sex drive to males ??? As though having a weaker sex drive is a bad thing. As a female, do you mind responding to that?

Yeah but it's unrealistic to expect people to give up carbs entirely. If you work out a lot (as in me) or have a physically stressful job then you need carbs to not feel like shit 24/7.

I have yet to find any evidence that is convincing that GMO wheat is unhealthy simply by virtue of being a GMO. The only "study" I've seen uses extremely sloppy methodology over only 5 years, and "hammers the point home" with a bunch of pictures of completely unrelated disorders causing massive benign tumors. These are the same tactics PETA uses, and are equally disgusting and shameful. There has not been a single study done that has conclusively proven GMOs are bad. I welcome evidence to the contrary.

Either way people are going to eat noodles of some kind one way or another. Spinach noodles are as close as you can come to "healthy pasta" which is why I suggested it. I hope I don't ever have to use pasta to make my food stretch again, but for some it's necessary.

Personally if I don't eat at least some carbs I can't function. Personally I will become hypoglemic and it greatly reduces my mental function. This is not a short term thing, as the longest no-carb diet I've done was 8 weeks. I become ketonic as well, and was strongly advised by my doctor never to do it again.

Carbs are absolutely required, but not refined carbs. There is a big difference between a potato and hamburger helper/ramen. There is a massive difference between refined carbs in fried foods and the carbs in say apples. You may not eat carbs, but a lot of people do not feel even remotely close to 100% without carbs. Personally going without carbs would be a major issue, but even for people without blood sugar issues it would be. I've had A1Cs done and I'm not even pre-diabetec...I'm just predisposed to hypoglycemia for whatever reason.

Either way you can't eat fats and proteins as 100% of your diet. You can link me to whatever book from whatever doctor you wish, but they are a minority for good reason. If taken too far of course you can develop things like insulin resistance and obesity. Your brain needs carbohydrates plain and simple. Anyone that says anyone ONE thing is the problem in the context of health is wrong every single time. You can't completely dismiss fats as a problem in our society for one food. Maybe grains are the largest problem, but they are closely backed by fats and sugars. Lipids are more readily converted into lipids...and SIMPLE sugars are converted almost equally readily.

Health is a lot more complicated than just one factor. As to your body needing carbs here are two "relatively trusted" sites that give more info:

http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20081212/no-carb-diets-may-impair-memory
http://www.fi.edu/learn/brain/carbs.html

It's not that your brain needs the carbohydrates, as it can get it's energy from glucose. It's the ketone and aldehyde buildup due to the much higher conversion energy that impairs you . Also GMO doesn't equal bad. In my experience (albeit with a higher predisposition) was minor shaking, confusion, and unbearable fatigue.

I agree corn subsidies absolutely need to end GMO or not. The excess is used for corn syrups of various varieties any of which is highly addictive. Sugar is not necessary for a healthy diet in any way shape or form.

One last little point, I think such studies are often overstated but not necessarily deliberately so--rather, with the genuine belief that the assumptions and generalizations being made are valid. I can't back that up, of course, but it's the feeling i get from reading recommendations and interpretations, and it mirrors the kind of thinking I see more often than I'd like in scientists in my own field (auditory neuroscience)

Ok, so I can get into some of the half-formed reasons I have for avoiding the elusive category of "processed foods". Mostly, I eat the way I do because I enjoy it. I love food: growing it, buying it, cooking it, and eating it. But I have this idea that eating foods prepared from fresh ingredients that will go bad within a week is generally a healthier choice too. To put these ideas into words, you'll have to then permit me some unverified ideas and a lot of hand waving as I try to figure this out even for myself right here. "Processed foods", here, is simply a perhaps lazy attempt at a plain-english, loose-fitting label that tends to encompass the foods I would consider part of this group. In general, they are packaged foods with oddly long shelf lives and mostly sugar or salt for flavor. I tend to believe that the reason that this is necessary to make these things palatable is related to my fundamental objection: that, despite what the "nutrition facts" labels says, my body recognizes that I'm eating filler. Not two years ago, I based my entire diet off of reading the nutrition label. Now, I mostly ignore it, read the ingredients list instead, and have found that easier and more successful than my previous strategy for staying fit & healthy. I suppose I do sort of subscribe to the idea that if it's similar to how we've been eating throughout human history, it's probably a good way to sustain ourselves, and that this can't necessarily be said of food chemistry developed in the last century or so. Specific objections might include:

(1): Foods that are uncannily shelf-stable cannot necessarily be said to be as healthy as the picture on the box implies. For example, hydrogenated fats are used to replace the unsaturated fats that would typically go rancid over time. Ok, we've covered the trans fat thing. But then there are ideas like:

(1a) Preservatives are added to make the food inhospitable to microbes. Now, I don't know that there's necessarily a difference between using, say, sodium benzoate vs sodium chloride, which I don't generally object to as much, e.g., in salt cured meats. I'd still only eat the latter in moderation, and would just as soon assume, for my own purposes and as a very loose generalization, that the less easily a food can be broken down by bacteria or fungus in the environment, the more trouble my digestive system (including my gut bacteria) may have in breaking down and properly absorbing the nutrients. Maybe that's complete bollocks.

(1b) Other nutrient loss due to the food's life. For example, vitamins oxidize or otherwise break down with time. Also with heat, often applied to sterilize the food in order to get a longer shelf life. Allegedly this is sometimes known and countered by refortifying the foods with supplemented vitamins / minerals, but I also subscribe to the belief, fueled partly by studies like those mentioned in TFA and here (but yes, I know I'm generalizing without sufficient evidence), that this may be largely ineffective. Other components of the food, such as phytonutrients, may also not last just because the food isn't going "bad". Foods break down, and I little reason to believe that the nutrition label is a particularly meaningful descriptor of a food that for all I know has been months or more from factory to shelf to plate. This leads us nicely to:

(2): trust. I'm sure you know as well as I that labels such as "all natural" and "heart-healthy" are little more than marketing slogans. Many companies seem

I think you should revise point #1. Im a vegetarian too, and Ive seen many studies like this one: http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20130508/fish-oil-supplements-dont-protect-against-heart-trouble-study where it shows that fish oil supplements are not effective. You need to eat more of the fish to get the actual effects.

VItamin D can be found in mushrooms, fish and several other foods.

What ever happened to the claim that Lanza was on fanapt? Others said he was on other psychoactive drugs with potentially violent side effects.

I read that the autopsy only screened for illegal drugs & alcohol. If he was on drugs with known violent side effects, it seems like quite a leap to ignore those and go looking for inherent biomarkers. Has the list of his prescribed meds ever come out?

The rate of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) has more than doubled among middle-aged adults and the elderly over the last decade....

It's actually a growing* problem in retirement homes.

*n.p.i.

They also usually stop requiring care before they get too old, and really start costing a ton to maintain.

Stop with the misinformation please. It would be great for insurers if smokers all got lung cancer and died within 2-5 years of getting the disease. That would actually results in lower costs for healthcare.

What really happens is most smokers do not get lung cancer. They get more long term, debilitating conditions,

  1. emphysema - very expensive to treat (ie. live with, not curable)

  2. chronic cardio/heart disease (strokes, heart failure, etc. etc.)

  3. dementia and Alzheimers
http://www.webmd.com/smoking-cessation/news/20101025/smoking-linked-to-alzheimers-and-dementia

    4. long term cancers, of almost all types (colon, pancreatic, throat, mouth, etc. etc. etc.)

And a metric ton of other chronic diseases. If they all died, there would be no real cost increase. But they don't. They linger with these terrible, debilitating conditions for years and decades, costing everyone a foot and a leg.

Indeed. Consider the false confession of John Mark Karr in the JonBenet Ramsey case:

"Some false confessors have a pathological need for attention," Saul Kassin, PhD, a distinguished professor of psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and professor at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., says to explain confessions like Karr's.

"That is what everyone is speculating in the Karr case," he says. "The pathology is such that that need predominates. And everything else fades into the background." Even the risk of prison or death.

While it's certainly not the most likely scenario, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that Snowden craved attention and so claimed responsibility for something he didn't do. I can't think of an easier way to gain instant fame/notoriety of this magnitude.

Maybe he was considering leaking information, got beaten to the punch, but decided he wanted to be the one in the history books anyway.

Maybe he's sacrificing his own freedom to protect a friend who would have more to lose if revealed as the actual source of the leak.

Or maybe the simplest explanation is the correct one, and Snowden's confession is true. But we need supporting evidence before we can make this conclusion, and that's why it may be premature to call him a criminal. (To my knowledge it's not illegal to make a false confession to the public rather than the police.)

It's true that a stressful environment can indeed contribute to the risk of depression, and also that for most people, modern life is indeed stressful in a lot of new ways. To support your point:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park
""Nothing that we tried," Alexander wrote, "... produced anything that looked like addiction in rats that were housed in a reasonably normal environment.""

I'd agree there are many factors involved in depression, including all the factors that may stand in the way of eating better (including lack of money for healthier food, misinformation, initial lack of motivation, peers, time, negative self-talk, misinformed professionals, chemical dependencies, bad relationships, difficult working or living conditions, no access to nature, social status, etc.). So, yes, even when you know you should eat better, there can still be a lot of hurdles in the way. A related film including a truck driver trying to get out of a downward spiral:
http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/

You could think of nutrition as like your car's tires, which are the interface between the car and the reality of the road. If your tires are bald, you are most likely going to have an accident on slippery roads, no matter how good the rest of the car is. But if your tires are bald, maybe you spend so much time paying for car repairs that you don't have money or time to go to the tire shop for new ones? And it is hard to think about investing in new tires when all the mechanics at car repair places that you go to (which don't sell tires for some reason) are telling you (based on years of their own training) that the reason you are having so many accidents is because you need an oil change, or a new transmission, or need to install all wheel drive, or remove the roof to make the car into a convertible. Still, it is true you'd probably have less accidents even with bald tires if, say, the roads were not so windy or made of slippery glass due to bad public policy... So, yes, depression is multi-factored in that sort of way (and more, since, following the analogy, how grippy your bald tires are might still be some function of exactly how you turn the steering wheel perhaps to make the most of some remaining patches of tread near the edges perhaps).

Still, please do your own research on diet and mood and you may be surprised. A starting point: https://www.google.com/search?q=diet+and+mood

From the first result:
http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/food-to-balance-your-mood
"In a study of 200 people done in England for the mental health group known as Mind, participants were told to cut down on mood "stressors" they ate, while increasing the amount of mood "supporters." Stressors included sugar, caffeine, alcohol, and chocolate (more of that coming up). Supporters were water, vegetables, fruit, and oil-rich fish. Eighty-eight percent of the people who tried this reported improved mental health. Specifically, 26% said they had fewer mood swings, 26% had fewer panic attacks and anxiety, and 24% said they experienced less depression."

I know, one can quibble about whether they had a control group, whether that was "double blind" experiment, and so on.

Or another:
http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/01/28/healthy-diet-can-improve-mood/50908.html
"The results showed a strong day-to-day relationship between more positive mood and higher fruit and vegetable consumption, but not other foods."

Consider, if someone cruel were to take a rat and feed it nothing but sugar water, the poor abused rat is going to sicken and die, and probably be pretty cranky throughout the process of dying. Rats need a variety of nutrients. Why expect anything different

Doctors should diagnose based on full spectrum data collection. Not simply based on what they see and think at first glance. That's like a climatologist looking at a clear blue sky on a good day and saying "look, no smog. Clearly climate change is not caused by man made pollutants!!! No need to look any further into this."

On second though, perhaps a car analogy would work better. Can somebody help me out here? :)

Sorry - no car analogy [they usually suck in any case :) Yes, a thorough examination should of course be done, that goes without saying. To be fair, only "A small percentage" (I've read that the real number is slightly above 1%) *actually* has any physiological excuses, but a doctor should be on the look-out for those, and additionally be able to work with attitudes and mental "disorders" affecting the patient's weight control. In the end, except for those 1%, it comes down to eat less, move more. Even though actually doing that could prove somewhat hard, it's the only way weight loss is going to happen.

With respect Runaway, that thinking right there is exactly the problem.

Obese != unhealthy life choices (at least not in all cases)

Take for example the 250lb person who eats right, jogs, and works out every day vs the 145lb person who never exercises, eats cookies, and pounds beer and soda but for some reason never gains a pound.

I used to know a guy of the former variety, except he weighed about 250 kg. His body mass was a lot of fat, but his personal best bench press was 243 kg. In a Norwegian strength thest where you lie on your back and use your feet to push weights straight upwards on rails, he piled on all the weights he could find (about 600kg), and subsequently asked me and a buddy to perch on top, and he nailed it. I've also seen him on the ski slope. He's quick and agile, because he has almost superhuman strenght, ample to support his large bulk. Working as a door man a trick of his was famous; he grabbed two ~100kg sacks of food waste in *each hand* and carried them two flights of stairs down and then 100m to the container. In another situation, written up in the local paper, he restrained a huge body-building type by lifting him up, putting him gently face down on the ground, and placing his hand on the guys back. He couldn't move.

He started losing weight after being told to do so by his doctor to (his body is *hard* on his heart and other organs), but he dropped it because "I couldn't maintain my strenght, and suddenly everything was wearying". He obviously was comfortable being enormous. In most cases, though, I agree with Runaway that obesity stems from unfortunate life style choices.

Even though yes, you are simply eating too much in the thermodynamic sense, it rapidly becomes a stigma where the patient is 'at fault', rather than the underlying medical condition. In this way, victimisation of obese patients is counter-productive.

Sure some people simply have no self-control - but is that because they are bad people, or because there is some factor at work that makes it hard for them? The blame game for obesity is a bit like accusing people with a birth mark of being in league with the devil and burning them - we should know better by now.

I'm very lucky that I stay relatively thin and somewhat athletic without significant excercise, despite eating whatever I want. But I can imagine how hard it would be to accept that I'd have to change my food- and exercise habits in order to lose weight, knowing that I basically have to keep doing it for life. I am not sure I would be able to do so myself, if the need should arise down the line. I did gain about 7 kgs over the past 6-7 years (I'm 37), so I might have to start considering it :)

However, your AC parent is correct, although he stated it in a somewhat aggressive manner. "A small percentage" of overweight people (I've read about 1% cited from an MD in a news article which I can't find at the moment) have some physiological condition which makes it impossible or extremely difficult to lose weight. Thus the cold, hard reality is that the vast majority simply eats too much and moves too little. To be flippant, "being too fond of cake" is usually not a medical condition. Of course there are also various mental "disorders" of different severities, often connected with the overweight itself, which can make it very hard to focus on a healthy lifestyle.

This still indicates that the vast majority of overweight people need to be aware of the fact that yes, they are responsible for their weight, and that they themselves are ultimately the only ones that can do something about it, even though it can be damned hard. There is no need to go it alone, there are a lot of programs one can join, I imagine that is also the case in the US, but you need to instigate the change *yourself*.

On a side note, there are some loud people who skew the public opinion against obese people. A notable example in Norway is Jørgen Foss, the spokesman for the Norwegian National Association of Overweight People, who is a complete clown. He might possibly be the worst spokesman for any organisation ever, as he keeps harping on about how he's completely innocent and unable to to anything about his weight, that some people prefer to be huge, and stuff like that. He dismisses lifestyle changes as a measure (claiming it's impossible), and frowns on programs which could actually help people (there's supposedly no reason for him to even try, as a program wouldn't help him anyway; he would just continue overeating). That doesn't exactly tend to instill any sympathy in me.

Another spokesperson for the same organisation famously complained that "Not even the chairs at McDonald's are big enough. Some of us have experienced that the chairs are stuck to us when we get up." This is not a satirical article, nor did the statement seem to be uttered in jest. In the QA session she very aggressively dismisses any suggestion that laying off the snacks and junk food (of which she consumes a substantial amount) is a viable course of action.

Shit like this seriously harms their cause, and is very much the wrong message to send to people in that situation IMO.

Cause yours is the second reply that got the point wrong.

But since I am lazy... I'll refer you to this post for most of it and just reply to things specific to your post here.
Sorry. It's late here and I'd like to get some sleep.

...the tattoos and piercing...
Personally, I do not have a problem with any of these. While I have done these in my past, (except the tattoos and piercing) and I still drink (but no longer to excess) They can now and in the future cost you a job; even at a future "young person" company. It is one thing to hire some of these people in the IT industry that most /.'ers are familiar with, but there are only so many jobs there and not everyone can do that work. How many businesses will be willing to hire someone with multiple tattoos that can not be covered up or facial piercings (e.g. nose rings, lip and brow piercing, etc.) Many will need to be in sales, and trust me, even young companies (especially young growing companies) are not willing to alienate their customers especially if they need to sell to the conservative "will somebody think of the children" crowd.

Sometimes they will just be needed to meet with clients. Even as a developer, I have needed to do this... One ex-employer specifically told me (after I was hired) that after technical interviews I was essentially hired, and the face to face interview was only to prove that I "clean cut." If I had tats, noticeable piercing, or even body odor, it would have killed the deal. The fact is if you meet with clients you represent the company, and they want a professional image.

Remember, the professional image is more than skin deep. If a client or customer loses your business card and/or contact information, they may google your name to try to find it. (or may do this just because they can...) If they do not like what they see, they will contact the business owner, and you will be forced to work on a different account, or if there is not enough work, you will be let go. You are only employed to bring value to a company. If you can do this or if others do it much better, do not expect to be employed very long.

Read my reply I linked above? Good.

Now... think about a society where tattoos and piercings are ubiquitous, say... as being black or female.
Then, replace instances of tattoos or piercings being mentioned in your quote with nouns "black" or "woman" or "gay" or "handicapped".
Yeah... It's that kind of a thing.

On a side note, I have neither nor do I find them appealing (still talking about tattoos and piercings)... but looking around, both are considered perfectly normal and akin to jewelery today.
Not something reserved only for sailors and savages anymore.

If their clients are not as open-minded

Clients are as open minded as the society they come from is. Again... not today.
Generation or two down the road. Maybe sooner. Who knows.
Like I said... Today tattoos are like... pierced ears 20-30 years back. Short skirts on girls and long hair on guys before that.
Or oral sex today.

What I really want to know is if taking vitamin C adversely affects BCG treatment for bladder cancer. http://www.webmd.com/cancer/bladder-cancer/bacillus-calmette-guerin-bcg-for-bladder-cancer

http://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20130304/c-section-rates-vary-widely-at-us-hospitals

"Cesarean delivery is the most common surgery in the United States, performed on 1.67 million women each year. Cesarean rates increased from 20.7 percent in 1996 to 32.8 percent in 2011, according to the Minnesota researchers."

You can recover relatively quickly after normal birth, but after getting a big honking hole cut in you, you can barely move for days, and it's about 2 weeks to go move around normally.

Of course, before civilization, mothers all recovered quickly after normal birth, because all the ones with complications which would prompt a c-section would just die. Thus, all that's left are the mothers who can walk around shortly after birth (unless they die in subsequent child births).

Thank you for providing statistics that provide neither cause nor effect that are also based on estimates. Those same statistics also do not in anyway shape or form counter the op's argument that "More people end up homeless from relatively minor psychological issues than drug issues". Those stats you quote don't even seem to fall too far out of the general population abuse of alcohol (30%) and most drug users are employed.