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Free Radicals May Not Be Cause of Aging
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at McGill University in Montreal have uncovered strong new evidence that that wildly-accepted mitochondrial free radical theory of aging (MFRTA) is wrong. MFRTA suggests that free radicals cause oxidative damage, which in turn leads to the aging process. This new evidence shows that high levels of Reactive Oxidative species are rather a biological signal used to combat aging then the process itself. This goes against claims of major health benefits from consuming foods and particularly supplements that contain antioxidants."
Jailing the radicals was good?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I mean, how can anything with the word free right there as part of it's name be bad for you?
Like, free porn, or free t-shirts and free guns. So obvious.
Well it's not surprising at all to hear this about free radicals. We all know that libre radicals have a better chance at it.
These molecules are harmless enough in short time scales so there's no pressure to get rid of them. However, they accumulate and eventually gum up the works so to speak.
When can we start seeing attempts to cleave these AGE molecules in-vivo in humans? I want to live longer. Just like some people want to see other planets, I want to see more time.
If free radicals were responsible for (a large part) of aging then blueberry farmers would routinely live to be more than 100. Blueberries supposedly have the highest amount of anti-oxidants (by weight? volume? serving size?) of any food.
Too bad, I love blueberries.
Ya, scientists, pshaw. They're so full of it!
This is why we need to institute mandatory human experimentation!
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
Next they're going to tell us that asbestos actually cures lung cancer and we should sprinkle DDT on our cereal every morning to avoid shingles..
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Well...
"This goes against claims of major health benefits from consuming foods and particularly supplements that contain antioxidants."/quote?
Good thing that worms in a lab are so biologically analogous to humans. Time to stop eating tomatoes, broccoli, and spinach
I stopped doing that decades ago after I grew up and couldn't be forced to eat them. Now I look at my friends who are vegetarians, and am shocked at how old they look compared to my mostly meat-eating self.
I don't think I could give up my tomatoes even if they were...
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
The full title ought to be:
"Free Radicals May Not Be The Cause of Aging This Week!"
I always got the sense that the antioxidant craze was healthwashing run amok. Every time I've looked into it there seem to be as many detriments as benefits. From what I've read, oxidation plays a role in so many different processes isn't it unclear whether its good or bad as a whole?
meep
What would happen if they actually "cured aging". Would our system work if all the sudden people lived to 200 or 500 or... I would almost think, like that STNG episode where they all had to die at 60, maybe you would have to cap it a 100 or 150. If I could live to 100 as healthy as I am now (at 43) I would think that would be a pretty good life.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
More proof my all beer diet is going to make me live forever.
More generally, scientists should not confuse cause and effect. Or even more generally: correlation for causation. That's just bad science.
And yet, it seems to be rather prevalent. Especially in the questionable science of nutrition, where any slightly new idea can lead to a fortune in book sales, diet plans, drug development, etc.
...Noam Chomsky *isn't* making me get older?
Yeah, I guess if free radicals don't cause aging, jailed radicals might.
OTOH... Never mind.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
i took the exact opposite strategy decades ago and became, for want of a better word, Godlike. I smell great too. (that's what all the gorgeous women tell me anyway)
look sig is kool
A lot of proteins in these worms really are, but still, it's insane to jump at these conclusions so quickly...
The article here also has a link to a paper of him from 2009 which seems to be about mice, but then again it's in a low-impact-factor journal. Since his findings would be of great interest for a broad audience this might be a sign of shabby/incomplete research (interesting enough for a big paper but not good enough)...
Can't say more before I'm on a computer with access to the journal to actually read it though.
If ANY diet made you live significantly longer we'd have noticed by now.
Same goes for exercise regimes, eg. If running five miles a day made you live longer we'd have noticed.
We can point to plenty of things that make your life shorter, eg. smoking, eating nothing but junk food, but I'm fairly sure that if you're living a reasonable lifestyle then genetics completely dominates. After that it's probably as much down to happiness as anything else.
No sig today...
Take up smoking and you'll look even younger. It releases tons of free radicals.
Oh yeah? Well, I stopped eating all together, and became like the entire Pantheon all rolled up into one ball of pure awesomeness. The merest hint of a waft of my scent drives all the most beautiful women crazy. Try it.
SSC
I completely understand vegetarian and vegan philosophy, although I'm not interested in participating. But I have noticed the same thing, that all the vegetarians I know are all pasty white and sickly looking, although there are obviously exceptions. Not sure if that is because of the lack of meat, or if just pasty and sickly people are more likely to give up meat. I won't eat veal, and *hate* the way we currently raise animals for meat, but I'm pretty sure we evolved to eat critters. They're tasty, too.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Free radicals don't cause aging, staring at Perl code does. Drives you to drink and makes you lose hair, too.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
As shown by this research: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101128/full/news.2010.635.html
Rather straightforward, isn't it? Why *does* a cell die, anyway? As long as it can grow and replicate, it shouldn't. Except for the telomere TTL-signal. Once we intervene in that, I think aging could be reduced or slowed drastically. I doubt there is much risk of cancer: cancer is when cells don't respond to normal apoptosis signals and keep growing. While removing the TTL-signal could be risky, I'm confident that cells with only the Time To Live removed could still respond normally to other signals. And while cancer *may* be lethal, aging is *always* lethal.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
Oh yeah? Well I started being eaten, and became...well it actually kind of sucks. Also I am typing this with my elbow stubs.
Your brain is not a computer.
So, what you are saying is, cholesterol is a good thing?
Hey! Scientists! Stop ruining nonsensical old X-Files episodes!
You first, tell us how it goes.
Good thing that worms in a lab are so biologically analogous to humans. Time to stop eating tomatoes, broccoli, and spinach
Time to stop eating tomatoes, broccoli, and spinach
People taking coumadin shouldn't be eating too much broccoli and spinach anyway, you insensitive clod!
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Sounds like a disciple of the well-known crackpot Weston Price.
I have noticed the same thing, that all the vegetarians I know are all pasty white and sickly looking
And wrinkly. Why are friends younger than me balding and getting wrinkles? They need some animal protein.
Well it would be a solution to the politician, banker and lobbyist problem in this country.
Our founding fathers removed the guys in charge. Be American. Vote incumbents out.
And after getting eaten you'll smell bad too.
If vegetables are good for your health it does not mean meat is bad.
I eat both neat and vegetables, when people try to guess my age they normally undershoot by ten to fifteen years.
"Researchers at McGill University in Montreal have uncovered strong new evidence that that wildly-accepted mitochondrial free radical theory of aging (MFRTA) is wrong.
Next you'll be telling us midiclorians aren't responsible for our force powers either!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What makes a theory "wildly accepted"? Does it mean there are a bunch of scientists who gather spontaneously at impromptu bonfires and ululate their heathen belief in a carnal fashion?
coughs, colds, fever, and yes, even Cancer. Scientists (mostly on payrolls) claimed all of the above. Part of it was a correlation == causation. Another part was executives telling them what to say.
Now, we have scientists that had found a correlation between aging and radicals. So, they used stats rather than hard proof to claim it. Why? Because SO MANY are in a hurry to be at the top of the heap.
Are radicals associated with aging? It would appear to be. Are radicals the cause of aging? Well, that needs to be researched rather than being declared as such.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
TFA doesn't say how these worms were genetically modified.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Cholesterol is necessary for proper cardiovascular and adrenal function. Most people synthesize enough so that they don't really need to eat a significant amount of cholesterol. However, some people's bodies do not synthesize enough cholesterol to remain healthy (folks with certain adrenal gland disorders for example - more specifically the liver may be functioning what would normally be adequate but due to the adrenal disorder supplemental cholesterol intake may be required to make the adrenal glands function - or go on a concoction of steroids with nasty side effects) and need to eat quite a bit.
So yes, cholesterol intake can be a good thing in some cases. Normally you need minimal cholesterol intake.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
But organic is the way to go! If it's natural, it's good for you
Why do so many people think this is the case? That something manufactured is "not as good" as something natural. I'm sure there are as many cases where this is true as there are where this is false. Yet look at how organic foods have been taking off... I'd rather eat food that was kept bug-free by pesticides, and used fertilizer to make the plants grow to their maximum extent, and had preservatives added to keep the fruit at its tip-top freshness. (I know some organic food companies just add "organic" as a label that doesn't mean anything, but most organic producers follow some (if not all) of those rules.) Oh well... I guess people can eat what they choose, no matter what their rationale may be.
Haven't you noticed how people not so many years agou used to look quite old and frail already in their sixties, but now we are no longer surprised to find that people in their seventies are still physically active and mentally alert?
Yes. Then I realize that old people haven't changed... When I was 10, people in their 40s looked aged, people in their 60s looked very old and frail, and people in their 80s looked like something from a horror movie.
Now that I'm in my 30s, I find people in their 40s don't look so old. And people in their 60s don't look all that much different with the exception of some white/grey hair and a few more blemishes on their skin.
Normally, cholesterol intake does not correspond to serum cholesterol in any case, since your liver makes up the difference. It's not really something to worry about.
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results" - Winston Churchill
I dunno about most people, but I'll buy organic sometimes because it's usually indicative of a more sustainable farming process. I couldn't care less about the "all natural" part, but I do care about promoting intelligent usage of the (limited) resources on the planet.
Then again I'll be dead before it becomes a problem so what do I care.
Or time to find out why stuff like green tea is so good for you it's not for this reason.
If you want to eat a severely restricted diet, then you must spend osme time to consider what replacements to eat to sustain your long-term health, you can't just skip a major food group and rely on things working out by themselves. Some vegans do it, some don't - and suffer after some time.
You can't stay healthy on salad and tomatoes; I know some extremely healthy vegans who eat an extreme variety of foods every day that I don't consume in significant amounts - nuts, sprouts, berries, extreme variety of foreign origin vegetables. But if you take the lazy way of usually eating what your local food places have as vegetarian option, then you probably have an extremely unbalanced diet that's missing or lacking at at least a couple essential aminoacids or vitamins.
That's the problem. With meat you can be lazy - while steak alone isn't balanced either, there have been experiments trying a sustained 100% meat+offal/brains diet for more than a year with no problems identified; but you can't survive on any staple plant alone, you need a diverse mix of them.
[citation needed]
Seriously, you can't just spout something like that and expect us to take your word for it. Is even a single link too much work?
Apparently not accepted for humans in captivity...good news for those of you still living in mom's basement.
Great warrior...hrmph! Wars not make one great.
It would be a less tenable position if the makers of processed food bothered at all to produce healthy products. Try to buy a box of crackers that hasn't had all the soluble fiber removed. You've got like two choices, and they both cost more than the products next to them which likely took more effort to refine.
Personally I'd feel safer strolling down a supermarket drug aisle and popping a random pill than I would walking into the woods and eating a random mushroom. At the same time, I wouldn't trust the research lab telling me the corn-that-produces-its-own-pesticide is just fine for me farther than I could throw the CEOs lexus.
Take a look at the crap nutritional value presented by the refined products, and the amount of corruption of science when it comes to analyzing health effects of some company's latest brainchild, and it leaves plenty of toehold for the "natural is good" meme to take root. If the research was not so clouded by money, and wasn't done almost exclusively on corporate patent-babies, people would be less likely to believe the crap they read on the food supplement sites.
In the end it all comes down to trust, and the ability to verify that trust.
Someone had to do it.
Safe oils are saturated, like butter, coconut oil, and lamb fat.
Sure, if your definition of "safe" is "less prone to accelerate aging but far more prone to give you a heart attack", that is.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
'If you ask most people on the street what causes aging, many would say free radicals, but it's a complex story.'
—Dr. Siegfried Hekimi, McGill University
I'm pretty sure if you asked most people on the street what causes aging, a handful would say free radicals, while most would say time or God. Then if you followed up by asking them, "Don't you think it could be free radicals?" their answer would be "WTF are free radicals?"
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
I could not agree more. "Vegetable" oils are not terribly good for you.
There are some vegetable oils which are good for you, but these tend to be incredibly fresh, low-sulfur, and not from a grain or legume (see: olive oil).
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I have thought about this problem for a long time now. Does the oxidative damage occur first causing aging or does aging lead a reduction in the cell's ability to combat oxidative stress?
A lab at the University of Michigan has done some great work on this, but the still have not quite answered the question.
http://www.mcdb.lsa.umich.edu/labs/jakob/scerevisiae.html
My opinion for a long time follows the article. I don't think that antioxidants from foods prevent DNA damage. I think that fruits and vegetables actually have compounds that are potentially carcinogens, and your body's oxidative stress response is upregulated by these. Yeast cells that are challenged with a low does of an oxidant are better able to handle a higher dose of oxidant than cells that were not. It's akin to whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Bruce Ames who invented the ames test to determine the mutagenic potential of compounds has published articles about how natural carcinogens are just as common as synthetic ones. Plants produce many of their own pesticides which have been shown to be carcinogens. I would highly recommend reading about this for any of you are into organic food choices.
So, fruits and vegetables help us live longer, but possibly by exactly the opposite reason that everyone believes.
most organic producers follow some (if not all) of those rules.)
Nope, they don't.
Organic doesn't mean grown without fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, or preservatives. Not at all. All fruits and vegetables are grown with all three in the process.
The only difference is that the fertilizer, instead of being processed, enhanced, guaranteed free of disease, or synthesized, is all-natural manure, with all the possible contaminants contained within. The pesticides are all-natural, 100 year old recipes, with all of their possible health-effects and negative environmental impact that have been weeded out of modern, synthetic pesticides. The preservatives are, again, all natural, with all of the health issues and contaminant issues and, well, preservation issues, that modern preservatives are always striving to eliminate.
Organic food is almost all grown the exact same was as regular food: on large, industrial farms, in large volumes, for a profit. The only difference is that the expense of Organic food comes from the limited supply (due to demand as well as a higher rate of spoilage), while the expense of normal food comes from making it better, cheaper, and safer.
One thing that should be pointed out is that this article is in the January 2010 issue, and was initially published online in September 2009, so this isn't breaking news, though it looks like research may have continued in the same lab following this paper- there's no reference t paraquat in the paper, for instance. Another, which is touched on in the news article is that the scientists involved do not dispute that reactive oxygen species can have deleterious effects on living organisms- just that aging is not a process of mitochondria being injured by ROS. Their conclusion spells it out:
"FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
Not true at all. Saturated fats don't cause heart attacks, there aren't any studies that show otherwise.
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results" - Winston Churchill
You are free to attempt to bring healthy crackers to the market.
Yes, and he's free to criticise makers of existing products whether he wants to compete with them or not.
When they don't sell, or they spoil on the shelves, then you'll understand why the industry is the way it is.
That doesn't mean that the industry isn't producing crap.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
80+ isn't very old for humans (in fact it's the average in many countries these days...)
A miracle diet for humans would have to do a lot better than that. eg. Calorie restriction in mice makes them live twice as long.
Even a 25% increase in human lifespan would mean people could make it to 150 but that's simply not happening. Not with any known diet or lifestyle.
Given the vast range of lifestyles/diets all over the world you'd think we'd be able to measure something if diets/lifestyles really made much of a difference.
There's no shortage of people looking for a miracle diet/lifestyle so I'm sticking with Occam's razor for now.
No sig today...
What's funny is going in to supermarkets aimed at people who want to save money; almost all of the healthier processed foods are much, much more expensive than in the "yuppie" stores. One cereal I like, which is offered both in a lot of health food and regular supermarkets, costs me $2.89 at a Whole Foods in downtown Manhattan (or San Francisco) and over $5 at every Joe Schmoe supermarket I've been to in the past couple of years -- whether in a major city or a small town. At the first price you'd have a lot of people with modest incomes buy it, while the stores that are supposed to serve those people jack up the prices on the healthier foods. The Newman's line of products seems to be transitioning from being considered health food to being considered a regular option; at some stores their Newman-Os are cheaper than Oreos, while others have them off in a separate health food section and jack up the price 30% (Safeways in San Francisco springs to mind).
Because natural stuff is coming from a system that evolved with humans since they populated the planet. Manufactured stuff isn't bad by default: but since artificial stuff is not tested for all the interactions with the substances that are already present in the environment to see long term effects, and it's produced in the name of profit (if you're less superficial in your view of society it's in the name of control), I'd go for natural stuff given the choice.
Of course natural stuff can be manufactured by the same people and with the same motivations as artificial stuff so the distinction is really between stuff made with love and stuff that screws people over but being natural is a factor not to overlook.
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Well...
"This goes against claims of major health benefits from consuming foods and particularly supplements that contain antioxidants."/quote?
Good thing that worms in a lab are so biologically analogous to humans. Time to stop eating tomatoes, broccoli, and spinach
You share a majority (75%) of your genes with worms, you worm!
We can even swap human and worm genes and they continue to work.
-- Barbie
Not true at all. Saturated fats don't cause heart attacks,
Seriously? The link between increased saturated fat consumption and increased risk of coronary disease is one of the most well-established findings of modern dietary science.
there aren't any studies that show otherwise.
Just to start. It's only page one and over half of them show statistically significant links. You can say there are new studies that cast doubt on these results, or you can say there are methodological problems with these studies that make their results less valid, but to claim there aren't any studies showing the link is both false and irresponsible.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
that is from eating too much of it, the point is that we need to eat less oil in general, rather than eating "unsaturated" because it's "better for us" no it's just bad for you in a different way
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
You don't need to remove the TTL, just reset it every fifty years or so.
A drug that restores the telomeres in each cell could be applied when needed, and then the telomeres would be shortened again at each cell division in the normal way.
There exists such a chemical, it's an enzyme it's called telomerase and it is actually active in a significant proportion of cells in the body. Either way the situation is far more nucanced than just the telomeres.
When they don't sell, or they spoil on the shelves, then you'll understand why the industry is the way it is.
so you agree that making nutritious food is not the priority of the industry.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
all the vegetarians I know are all pasty white and sickly looking
That has not been my experience. I'm not remotely vegetarian, but many of my friends are. And they are not sickly looking at all. Perhaps the people you know where sickly to begin with, and were attracted to vegetarianism in an attempt to fix their weak constitution? Or perhaps they are simply doing it wrong.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
...there have been experiments trying a sustained 100% meat+offal/brains diet for more than a year with no problems identified...
There have been experiments trying that diet for over 8,000 years at least, resulting in the healthiest population on the planet; archaeologists routinely find skeletons of 70+ year olds with all their original teeth, the only population on Earth to produce those.
Said population being Canada's Inuit. Zero carb birth to death except for partially digested stomach contents of prey animals. As there is no edible plant matter whatsoever in the traditional Inuit habitat.
In what is no doubt a complete coincidence, since a modern "healthy" diet with plenty of vegetables was introduced to the Inuit after World War II, obesity, diabetes, and cancer have gone from nothing to epidemic proportions and lifespan is plummeting.
Glad to know that primitive peoples who don't use those kinds of oils are so healthy and age so well...
FYI, coconut oil is not totally saturated (IV 14 or so). Even in its ultrahardened (by hydrogenation) form, it can still undergo oxidative breakdown and form peroxides in one of the early steps. It admittedly does so at a slower rate than highly unsaturated oils.
How do I know? I worked in a quality control lab that measured the iodine value (a measure of saturation) and the peroxide value (a measure of oxidative deterioration) in coconut oils among many others.
Both butterfat (IV 30 or so) and lamb fat (IV also around 30) are not completely saturated. They also undergo oxidative decay of this sort.
Essentially no natural source oil is completely saturated. The only ones I've seen that were have been chemically prepared synthetics (Captex 300 comes to mind)
FYI number 2: The coconut oil is deodorized as well. It also is sometimes hardened with hydrogenation depending on the application.
My facility was set up for kosher processing and we didn't do animal based oils. But many processed animal fats are also deodorized with high temperature steam just like plant oils.
There are a whole range of other questionable things in your post beyond the lack of knowledge of oil chemistry.
There are many well known reasons for accelerated aging of skin in some people. Over exposure to sun. Smoking. Genetics, etc.
I'll bet you anything she's not getting enough vegetables (good ones like green beans or broccoli; lettuce doesn't count). That is far more important than the amount of fat she eats.
Qxe4
In what is no doubt a complete coincidence, since a modern "healthy" diet with plenty of vegetables was introduced to the Inuit after World War II, obesity, diabetes, and cancer have gone from nothing to epidemic proportions and lifespan is plummeting.
Sounds like a variant on something in a play I was once in. (Forgive the paraphrasing, it was fifteen years ago):
A: Curries are all very well, but eat too many and they rot your kidneys.
B: Eurgh. I won't eat any more
A: Once in a while is all right. Everything in moderation! But in your grandfathers day, nobody ate curry. Kidney transplants were unheard of.
As opposed to the cholesterol that your own body makes, for example?
Where are you coming up with this unnatural cholesterol in the diet?
Just who is expensively synthesizing cholesterol and adding it to foods? (As opposed to cheaply getting it from its many many natural sources.)
Manure isn't fertilizer. Composed manure is. Parasites and diseases of mammals do not live through the many months long process of composting. The only things you would find in it are already found in the same dirty soil that all plants are grown in.
Nothing you just said made sense. In short, shut up and/or get a clue.
My dad's wife is not aging gracefully. Her skin is wrinkled like someone 15 years older than she is. One of her regular dishes is fish fried in "vegetable" oil (corn/soy/rapeseed).
Safe oils are saturated, like butter, coconut oil, and lamb fat.
I really need a citation for that. What you said is the exact opposite of what all nutrition/health literature has been saying for the past few decades.
The big problem in the diet of developed countries with oils is not the source of them.
The widely agreed problem with oils in the developed world diet is: "Too much."
They all have similar chemistry and mostly differ in the specific balance of different fatty acids that make them up and in some of the trace chemicals that come along with them.
You may quibble about the type of fats and oils, but you'll get pretty broad agreement that we eat too much fat and oil. And rotund sort that I am, I'm a poster child for it.
The problem is, they tend to taste so good, and humans are poor at abstaining or limiting things which taste good.
Organic doesn't mean grown without fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, or preservatives. Not at all. All fruits and vegetables are grown with all three in the process.
You are just wrong. Fertilizers, sure. They use compost, made from manure and organic agricultural waste. Compost is not manure, by the way.
No pesticides, herbicides, or preservatives are allowed.
I stopped doing that decades ago after I grew up and couldn't be forced to eat them. Now I look at my friends who are vegetarians, and am shocked at how old they look compared to my mostly meat-eating self.
Easiest way to fuck up a vegetarian diet is to take a normal meat-eaters diet and simply cut out the meat. You can't do that and expect to be healthy, you have to actually learn to cook properly - which means more than just cooking good food, it means cooking nutritious food. It is possible to get every nutrient you need, but it'd be quite difficult unless you know exactly what things you need to eat.
Disclaimer: Way back in the mists of time, I went to a vegetarian school. You weren't obliged to be veggie, but meat and meat products weren't allowed on the premises.
We don't get energy from the sun directly so we kill other stuff. :) ) to be human vs. plants so we don't bear responsibility for our needing to survive through others. Just try not to squander resources so that all the stuff that died and will die because of us didn't do it in vain. If you're Christian there's the sin of gluttony no? :D
Veg*ans split hairs on why killing vegetables is different than killing the rest. A life form is a life form. My position is we didn't choose (or recall we did, at least
Nonetheless veg*ans have good points on the effect of what we eat for our health.
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Probably genetics. There's really not a huge amount we can do with the aging process. Balding in particular, barring pharmaceutical intervention, is going to happen like clockwork.
Everything will be taken away from you.
Eh, it's always a really bad idea to draw too many conclusions from non-experimental data. It's not even close to uncommon for people to look at populations, notice a nutritional difference, and attribute it to a different diet. Then it turns out that the isolated breeding population wound up with a genetic quirk that your average person in western cultures doesn't. Hell, even situations where the food did matter, but it only mattered, again, because it was interacting with genetic elements that aren't present in 99.9% of humans on earth.
Everything will be taken away from you.
It would be if the consumers would go to the factory to do their purchasing, but they're too lazy to go to 30 different factories for all of the food they buy every day. Food needs preserved somehow. We used to use incredible amounts of salt, smoke, or lye to do it.
Organic farming uses organic pesticides and preservatives.
that is from eating too much of it, the point is that we need to eat less oil in general, rather than eating "unsaturated" because it's "better for us" no it's just bad for you in a different way
Sure, but OP didn't say anything about eating less fat, he said to eat saturated instead of unsaturated because, according to him, saturated is "better for us" than unsaturated. Although there are also quite a few studies showing that consuming large amounts of monounsaturated fats can actually be really good for us; OP made the inference that since polyunsaturated fats had bad effects, that all unsaturated fats must have the same, then tried to push that inference over on us by claiming saturated fats are healthy. Bullshit.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
It's more like there's a whole host of genetic elements affecting what's a proper diet for you, and you've got to figure out which ones apply.
Dairy, starches, grains, and fructose are four of the most important. For my extreme northern European/Mongol ancestry, lots of the first and none of the last three is best. Take someone whose ancestry is 50 degrees of latitude south of mine, and the chances are pretty good that the exact opposite would be a good diet for them.
It doesn't sound quite right, but it is true that oil that is repeatedly heated is bad nutritionally, though I'm not sure of the details. And I think the harm *is* related to the oil being oxidized.
But this just says don't fry your foods. And limit your use of cooking oil. Rephrased in that way it sounds just like obviously sensible advice.
OTOH, I've never heard it claimed that coconut oil was good for you, except as insulation. I guess that if you do a lot of swimming in cold water it would be good...
I believe that there is good evidence that too much lard and beef fat are bad for your arteries. Possibly not for everyone, because people *are* different, but that's the way to bet. I haven't heard anything specific about lamb fat.
OTOH, I tend to have low cholesterol. I enjoy eating 2-3 eggs a day, as my grandfather did before me. (OTOH, I don't milk the cows or raise the chickens... so I can't necessarily count on the same benefits.) But my cholesterol is low. Both kinds. Worrisomely. Medications don't seem to help, and neither does exercise. (Some people find that exercise raises their HDL levels.)
But I tend to feel that, for me at least, the main problem with the lamb fat is the calories. If you have high cholesterol, your situation might well be different. Claiming that all people have the same biochemistry is a fallacy that we are forced into by being forced to use an oversimplified model by lack of detailed individualized information. (Which doesn't mean that there aren't some true universals, but they don't tend to be properly reported by our current system, which focuses of "things which are generally true".)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
This new evidence shows that high levels of Reactive Oxidative species are rather a biological signal used to combat aging then the process itself.
Then the process itself what? Doesn't seem like the author of this statement made it through the second half of third grade where the difference between "then" and "than" is taught...
That was my first question too. The answer appears to be "No".
What they're claiming is that the evidence seems to indicate that the hypothesis that aging is caused by free radicals is false. This doesn't mean that free radicals are beneficial. (Sometimes they are beneficial. E.g., they are known to sometimes be one of the defenses used invading bacteria. This, however, doesn't mean that they are more generally beneficial.)
The suggestion was made that the purpose of the free-radicals is to activate the cell's stress repair mechanism. This seems a bit dubious to me, but evolution often doesn't design things in the most straight-forward way. So I can't just say "That's too silly to believe" as is my immediate desire.
Basically they're saying is "The evidence refutes the idea that free-radicals cause aging. We don't know why the are created. And we don't know what causes aging. Does anyone have any good ideas?"
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
You know arguments like this are only valid until you realize the obvious :
Nature does not have your best intrests at heart. Rather it's got IT's best intrests at heart. Darwin at work.
Unfortunately, this means that organic farming can lead to some quite horrific ways to die. I'm just naming one, but the list is actually quite lengthy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claviceps_purpurea
The problem is, this disease cannot be detected in wheats without expensive tests, which are therefore not done. However in normal farming the disease is poisoned out preventively, all but guaranteeing it's absence (1 death in over 60 years resulting from normal farming - few people are infected and live). However in the last 10 years cases have skyrocketed (meaning 10-20 cases yearly over the US). Now read the symptoms list ... gangrene, total loss of well ... your brain, immensely violent reactions against everyone and everything (one case described a person attacking a coathook until the muscles of his arm lay on the ground, and even then he wouldn't stop), spasms so powerful they sometimes break bones, sounds fun doesn't it ? Think about it the next "natural wheat" you buy.
But there's lots of fun to be had with "natural" products. Perhaps best to remember though, your parents warning you as a child not to eat anything you find in nature ... there's a reason for those warnings ...
You can be a vegetarian and still make poor food choices. Oreos are a vegan food for example.
You can't judge all vegetarians by your friends any more than I can judge all meat-eaters by the 400 lb guy in the scooter at McDonalds.
We can point to plenty of things that make your life shorter, eg. eating nothing but junk food...
Actually, diet is very important to your health and eating correctly DOES make you live longer than someone eating fries everyday.
Isn't that what I said?
No sig today...
Organic food is almost all grown the exact same was as regular food: on large, industrial farms, in large volumes, for a profit. The only difference is that the expense of Organic food comes from the limited supply (due to demand as well as a higher rate of spoilage), while the expense of normal food comes from making it better, cheaper, and safer.
Are you trolling, or just ignorant? Most people don't know what organic food is, but if you're going to make an argument about it, why not educate yourself on the subject first rather than just spout your own prejudices for everyone on the internet to read?
Food quality has been on a steady decline. Poisons and hormone-mimickers in food are steadily going up while nutrients like minerals and vitamins are going down. Read the studies about it and wonder why this is so, all while buying cheaper food in larger quantities. The long list doesn't end there however, the earth itself is being drained of nutrients due to unhealthy mono-culture and non-stop farming each and every year. For many farmers, this is more important, so there is a big shift today to organic farming, just because of the higher sustainable development factor. If we destroy the earth, famine is not too far away. If we destroy nature or cut outself out from it too much, we may have to turn to genetic engineering to be able to sustain healthy bodies, always fighting new unknown diseases, not a very pleasant prospect except for the medical industry.
Organic farming can be many different ways, with the more extreme end being biodynamic farming. It is true that you can have large farms producing roughly the same yield as "modern farms", at least if you compare nutrients. Many people have the opinion that you can eat less of organic foods, and still feel satiated. So less yield does not necessarily mean less food.
This clockwork-universe mentality that everything to food and life is about proteins, minerals, vitamins, and this obsession of getting rid of dirt and bugs, is well, an hypothesis without basis in nature. Many people believe that there is more to food than what we can measure in its quantities. Life is certainly about more than its parts. If you lack this understanding, you've been living in the city for too long. It's clouding your judgement, so time to take a break off media and city, find some new fresh perspectives in nature.
Why Organic? (Quite interesting introduction)
http://journeytoforever.org/garden_organic.html
Top 10 Reasons for Organic Farming (Showing that the soil and environment is given more importance)
http://www.organic.org/articles/showarticle/article-206
Btw, IANAF (I Am Not A Farmer), however, I know there is alot to organic farming and sustainable development, than our prejudices. Currently living outside major cities, and it does bring a different perspective to life than endless visits to cafes and caffe lattes.
Before you condemn something, at least give it a fair shot first, hmm?
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
I'd go with food made for the sake of love and interest over profits any day.
Well said.
MOD PARENT UP!
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Funny, being vegetarian and looking at others, seeing how old they look, I'm more inclined to believe it has more to do with genes. I believe there is a clockwork in our body, making us older, by programming rather than something that has to happen. I believe there are drugs you can take to supposedly "slow the aging process", but it's not been proven yet.
Especially when thinking about the massive amounts of Cola and candies I've consumed ;-)
Anecdotes, anecdotes..
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
I'd love to see how you would create a double blind trial on this
But organic is the way to go! If it's natural, it's good for you
Why do so many people think this is the case?
I think the reasoning behind this is that natural substances are things we are more likely to have evolved in the presence of, and therefore we are more likely to be able to process. This is not always the case, but on the whole, "natural" substances are a safer bet.
greetings earthlings
I would love for your statements to be true, but do you actually have any evidence or references to back up all these claims, or is everyone just spouting hot air here?
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Sure.
http://web.mit.edu/~sdavies/MacData/afs.sdavies/MacData/afs.course/other/sp275/www/organicmyth.pdf
http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/organic.html
http://www.scribd.com/doc/14079717/The-Seven-Most-Dangerous-Myths-About-Organic
> You can't judge all vegetarians by your friends
> any more than I can judge all meat-eaters by the
> 400 lb guy in the scooter at McDonalds.
His name is CowboyNeal, you insensitive clod!
"It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word."--Andrew Jackson
Funny how this conversation went from soluble fiber to "you hippie, complaining about preservatives!" in one angry AC troll.
Someone had to do it.
Companies can NOT simply add 'organic' as a label their product. It does mean something and can be used if the product does not meet specific criteria.
If you want to claim: "Organic" (or a similar statement):
Your product: Must contain at least 95% organic ingredients, not counting added water and salt.
Must not contain added sulfites.
May contain up to 5% of:
1. non-organically produced agricultural ingredients which are not commercially available in organic form; and/or
2. other substances allowed by 7 CFR 205.605.
Your label MUST:
Show an ingredient statement.
List the organic ingredients as "organic" when other organic labeling is shown.
1 Water and salt included as ingredients must not be identified as organic. (IS)
Show below the name and address of the handler (bottler, distributor, importer, manufacturer, packer, processor, etc.) of the finished product, the statement:
"Certified organic by ___" or similar phrase, followed by the name of the Certifying Agent. Certifying Agent seals may not be used to satisfy this requirement. (IP)
Your label MAY show:
The term "Organic" to modify the product name. (PDP/IP/OP)
"X% organic" or "X% organic ingredients." (PDP/IP/OP)
The USDA Organic seal and/or certifying agent seal(s). (PDP/OP)
The certifying agent business/Internet address or telephone number. (IP)
1 To identify an ingredient as organically produced, in the ingredients statement, use the word, "organic" in conjunction with the name of the ingredient, or an asterisk or other reference mark which is defined below the ingredient statement.
"But organic is the way to go! If it's natural, it's good for you"
This always gives me a chuckle.
google amantin, alpha variant is fine. 100% organic in both senses of the word.
Not good for you.
Yeah, there's a lot of research. Most all of it has problems though. For instance in the Nurses' Health Study, they used Food Frequency Questionnaires, which have significant issues. People drastically under-report consumption of "socially undesireable" foods like Red Meat.
You should read these for some issues with those studies.
http://blog.cholesterol-and-health.com/2009/03/will-eating-meat-make-us-die-younger.html
http://blog.cholesterol-and-health.com/2010/09/new-study-shows-that-lying-about-your.html
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results" - Winston Churchill
Shouldn't it be "widely" ?
No. In this case crazed researchers chanting "Free the Radicals" stormed the barricades, set fire to the labs and forced their theory of mitochondrial breakdown as the root cause of aging on everyone they found. Why do you ask?
Time to stop eating tomatoes, broccoli, and spinach
Irrelevant. There was never any correlation between antioxidants in the diet and antioxidants in the bloodstream. The whole "superfoods" thing was only ever a marketing thing, never anything to do with science. Vegetables are good for you, but it's not because they contain antioxidants.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Saturated fat got a bad rap way back when - I believe Ancel Keys was largely responsible. The long-held belief in alternative medicine was that it was hydrogenated fats that were to blame, not naturally saturated ones. Also, too much polyunsaturated isn't supposed to be healthy as they are prone to rancidity, and should not be used for high-temp frying since they'll form toxic compounds much quicker ( such as HNE ).
Because baked goods benefit from the use of solid fats, when companies started dropping butter and coconut/palm oil, they started using hydrogenated polyunsaturated oils.
That is so mind-blowingly stupid, yet the sheeple keep buying the stuff, thinking they're doing right by themselves and their kids
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Because industrial food manufacturers have adulterated food to the point that it makes you sick, simple as that.
There isn't much need to go organic, but there is a need to go back to natural foods. It would roll back the obesity epidemic.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
I don't think so. Natural foods in the human diet have always had high levels of antioxidants. Also, it's too early to put much stock in this study - they got some results with genetically modified worms that wasn't repeatable with unmodified ones.
The recommendations for healthy living are still the same - eat a variety of foods ( a good mix of colors in fruits and veggies is a good idea ), avoid processed foods when possible, don't smoke, don't eat too much meat, don't stuff yourself, drink adequate amounts of clean water, get some regular strenous exercise and regular sleep, alcohol in moderation
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
(followup to my healthy living tips) and DON'T eat tofu. That crap isn't good for you, ESPECIALLY if you're male. You're better off eating meat or find other sources of vegetable protein, say hemp, beans, or salba.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
"This new evidence shows that high levels of Reactive Oxidative species are rather a biological signal used to combat aging thAn the process itself." Come on, now. news for nerds shouldn't make such basic grammar mistakes. Learn to edit, timothy
You were critically hit for no damage. The bruise will look nice, and maybe the scars will make good party talk.
Well, I would not go as far as to say oils are bad for you like that. He should have been more specific and said hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils are bad for you. I truly do believe they work. I doubted it but thought I would give it a go and lost weight, with no other change in fat or calorie consumption, exercise, sugar intake, or anything...
The studies on paleo diet have been very mixed as yet.
There are people who still eat that sort of diet with little or no processed fats in bush areas of the world still. Though you get claims of long life, it's anecdotal and more often bragging than reality.
The myth of the healthy savage has been around for quite some while, and it crops up repeatedly with relatively little to back it up.
On the other hand, there is good evidence that modern diet has some real downsides especially when combined with being sedentary. We just don't know all the details and combinations yet.
Mom Nature rarely uses single biochemical pathways when several interlinked ones will do. It makes figuring out the straight of it very difficult.
"This is why we need to institute mandatory human experimentation!"
We already have it. It's called living on modern society.
We also have a great variation in the experiments being done, what with the striking variation of how people live and eat worldwide.
The problem is deciding just who would constitute a control group. :)
wreck havoc
... that would be wreak havoc.
The mice that you mention were already telomerase deficient. Putting it back helped some.
The mice had a switchable expression of telomerase. When it was off, they had poor development and some of the symptoms of aging at the cellular level. When it was turned back on, they got better.
This is interesting, but not some magic bullet. It was a bit like showing that mice who can't produce insulin are diabetic, and then when insulin is switched back on, they get better. It doesn't tell you how to cure diabetes.
Humans age differently than mice. Besides, the mice in the study will still get old and die.
There are a lot of other factors in what is a very tangled complex process of aging that varies from one type of creature to another.
God help me I have to say it... In Soviet Russia, the vegetables eat YOU! I feel dirty now
Hard to wipe with no hands.
When someone tells me that the big car companies are supressing the 200 mpg carburetor that will work on a 2 ton vehicle, I call bullshit just on the basis of physics.
When someone tells me that this carburetor is already easily available to play with like a simple change in diet, and yet no one is demonstrably using it successfully. I call bullshit again.
Can diet improve insulin response in type 2 diabetes? Of course! That's why physicians always modify the diet as part of the therapy for it.
So can moderate exercise. Walking daily is a good thing (tm).
Does a magic diet cure it by itself. In a rare and atypical case, maybe. Not likely in most people.
Yes, seriously. For a primer, read Taubes' "Good Calories, Bad Calories" and if you're still interested, check out the *extensive* bibliography and go do your own research if you're still not convinced.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
I might not be a scientist, but i'm pretty sure time causes aging.
Be seeing you...
Form two groups of humans. Feed one group a diet low in antioxidants, and the other group with a diet high in antioxidants but otherwise equivalent. It may be necessary to stop the two groups comparing notes to maintain the double-blind nature of the trial. Observe the aging process in two groups and calculate the statistical probability of the observed aging occurring given either (a) the assumption that antioxidants improve human life expectancy, and (b) the assumption that they do not.
Seems pretty straightforward to me.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Clearly you're not an organic farmer, nor do you apparently know anything about organic farming.
You're right, all crops are fertilized. However, you're mistaken about how organic farms are fertilized. While large commercial farms use fertilizers that have a tremendous load on the environment in both use of fresh water and petrochemicals (read oil), organic farming uses both old and new technologies. Anything from advanced composting and intelligent use of crop stubble to introduced nitrogen fixing bacteria and proper crop rotation. This leads to dramatically enhanced soil fertility and crop yield without the inherent downside of chemical fertilizers.
Likewise you're right, organic farms use pesticides, you're wrong however on the methods and types. Some methods are indeed ancient, and have proven effective even by today's standards. Others are cutting edge including biological pesticides and pheromones (that sicken and kill pests or interrupt their reproduction), use of predatory species, combined crops that mutually deter each others pests, and breakthrough growing methods that dramatically enhance crop resistance without the introduction of toxic chemicals. By the way if you haven't studied the impact of chemical pesticides on farm workers, or the significant amounts of pesticides found in certain foods ( href="http://green.yahoo.com/blog/daily_green_news/332/the-new-dirty-dozen-12-foods-to-eat-organic-and-avoid-pesticide-residue.html" target - "_blank">Dirty Dozen) and their known risk to consumers, you may want to think twice about chowing down on certain fruits and veggies that aren't organic.
You are almost completely mistaken about organic farms being large industrial farms. Most are boutique farms, one reason they have higher prices. Another is that they can command higher prices because people are willing to pay extra for food which are intrinsically cleaner and less likely to end up causing them cancer in 30 years. As far as what you call "normal food" the big four "Big Agro" crops are Wheat, Soy, Corn, and Cotton, and their price is low because their industrial agro-business corporations take tens of billions of your tax dollars home every year in the form of subsidies. If you did some honest accounting, I think you'd find your "Cheap Produce" way more expensive than you ever imagined. Of course that's the problem with these issues. The real world is complex, and simple world views tend to be over simplistic, and filled with mistakes and short-cut generalizations.
By far the most important aspect of modern organic farming, is that it is part of a growing movement to farm in a way that is productive, sustainable, does not poison the earth (look at every major study on mega-farming and the harm it does to the fundamental structure and composition of soil), the water (look at studies on depleted aquifers, toxic farm run-off, and ocean dead-zones caused by careless agricultural practices the world over), and air (ever breath the choking fumes coming from a commercial farm? The release of toxic ammonia, methane, pesticides and other poisonous emissions, not to mention the simple stench of the chemical fertilizers?)
There has been a growing "Strip Mining" mentality regarding most human endeavor, build bigger and better fishing boats until the fish are all gone, build farms that cover entire mid-western states, and burn up the human and natural resources at an ever accelerating pace, turn agricultural land in other places into more suburban sprawls and strip malls. When is enough, enough? When is choosing a path that doesn't end in a depleted environment, a burnt out economy, or a shattered global policy for human interaction going to be a priority for all of us. This isn't an argument for taking less, its a commitment to taking better. There's a great line from the movie "The book of Eli", where Eli tells a young woman that before it all went to hell, "We didn't know what was precious. We threw things away that people kill each other for now..." That's a future worth avoiding. Or
'Nature' doesn't have any interests at heart, any more than gravity or fire or nuclear fusion. You're assigning intentionality to a physical process.
That said, I completely agree that despite the excellent P.R. campaign, organic or "natural" farming can lead to far more suffering for the animals involved. It can also lead to various nasty consequences for the consumers of the produce. Think of it this way - what's happier and healthier, a human living off the land in a rain forest or on a savanna, or a human living in civilized comfort in a first-world city? The former case is far more 'natural' (in the simplistic view espoused by the back-to-nature crowd) than the latter, but then so is dying of smallpox.
Of course, if you actually think about it logically, human nature is to analyse, understand, and manipulate our environment. So living in a high-rise apartment block, watching TV or using a computer, eating cheese and crackers and drinking red wine, is as 'natural' for you or I as living in a hollow tree and eating nuts is for a squirrel.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
That's what happens when you don't get enough soluble fiber in your diet. You get cranky.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Yep, the same thing that kills you around the age of 100 is probably one of the reasons why you're not all that likely to die of cancer at the age of 25.
Many places I have seen use fresh cow shit and chicken shit, fresh as in it was food yesterday, shit today. Nothing about composting at all. The pesticides that are marked acceptable for organic, are just as toxic to humans as the normal stuff, you have to wear and do all the same safety procedures. There is one difference, it doesn't have to rain before you harvest with organics while it does with normal pesticides. Perhaps you should be getting the clue.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
Some places may, but many i have seen use fresh shit. No shit.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
Where's the problem? I go to the local supermarket once a week and buy my food for the next week. All of that is organic. Vegetables etc. wouldn't last much longer anyway, organic or not. And stuff like jam or canned vegetables last years.
This has to be one of the dumber arguments here against organic farming methods.
Don't properly clean and cook your food to kill naturally occurring bacteria and you'll get sick from eating it. That's an argument against organic farming? Try not properly cleaning up after handling raw chicken and see what happens. Try eating produce raised in a non-organic manner without properly cleaning it where the pickers are taking shits in the field and see what happens to you.
BTW, botulism in canned green beans can exist no matter how they are raised. The same procedures must be used to ensure that the end product is free of botulism whether they are raised organically or not. Large scale agribusiness must take the same precautions that people canning the green beans they raised organically in their garden must take. Your ignorance is really something.....
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
My mother often gets mistaken for someone about 20 years younger than she is too. She's 'mostly' a vegetarian (but often will eat a fish or something lean every now and then). Your friends and my family are hardly a large sample group, so not enough evidence to make a theory from, but if it was all we had to go on, then I'd say diet has very little to do with how old people look.
Of course, ageing doesn't necessarily equate to how old someone looks either. Some people have very fit lean bodies that are 'younger' than their age but have faces that only a pit bull would love. :-)
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
People confuse "manufactured" and "heavily processed"
I'm all for taking natural ingredients and industrialising it, but when your treatments of foods becomes overly processed, you're adding corn syrup to everything, or MSG, or E-marked ingredients, or keeping things in plastics which are soluble and act like female hormones, etc.. that's when I start to object.
The reason is because said pesticides and such, when introduced into the body, are scientifically found to be catalysts and/or queuing mechanisms for issues physically.
Say what you will, but the whole "life through chemicals" thing only existed for about 100-150 years, when it comes to food. Everything else being inundated with chemicals wasn't until the 1930's/1940's.
If it's certified organic, it's not just a word anymore than FDA approved. Bad example I guess, but you get the jist :)
Please don't sound like my dad... which is pretty bad since I'm 36 lol
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
It's natural and is on most farms anyway.
You say it like it's an odd thing? It's natural fertilizer, adding minerals to the ground. So many things touch the food between then and now that it's not even a thought...
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Something else to manipulate on their days off from running the country?
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
In the US, the law specifically allows the use of non-synthetic pesticides and other materials.
For example, pyrethrin, a poison derived from some plants, is used as an insecticide.
Copper sulfate, a mineral, is also allowed under USDA rules.
There's a lot of other fun examples, including some that were allowed earlier, but later ended up being banned because of health concerns.
Not sure if that is because of the lack of meat, or if just pasty and sickly people are more likely to give up meat
I think it far more likely that "fashionable" vegetarians and vegans don't bother to actually research what's involved in eating a properly balanced vegetarian diet. It's actually quite challenging to get the full spectrum of vitamins, minerals, and amino acids from entirely non-meat sources (unless you make allowances for eggs, milk, or fish). Entirely doable, yes, but it requires some conscious effort, which is something your average vegetarian bandwagon-jumper isn't terribly interested in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipid_peroxidation
I didn't have time to make a complete post yesterday - the story came up just as I was heading out.
Now if you could have a word with all the moderators who flamed me for disagreeing with "consensus", that'd be great. Thanks. :)
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
CSPI was a big part of the push for removing saturates in the 80s. Until they decided trans fats were worse than saturates, and then they reversed course. So, now we're going back to using more tropical oils.
What idiot modded this as Troll. Wise up, dickhead.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
It isn't rocket surgery. Artificially produced food tends to taste artificial. It's not to say that all applied chemistry is bad, but we've gone so far along that path that modern food is pretty artificial.
Even things like irradiating food are not necessarily evil. The evil is that the manufacturers want to irradiate the food so they can ship it to you with fecal matter on it. Yum. Enjoy your sterilized e coli. But if you like it that way, have at it.
Why is this even on SlashDot?... Why is this even on Slashdot?...Why is this even on Slashdot?
OTOH, I've never heard it claimed that coconut oil was good for you, except as insulation. I guess that if you do a lot of swimming in cold water it would be good...
Really? When I search for 'coconut oil' on Google (no quotes), the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 9th and 10th links are about the benefits of coconut oil.
As for "insulation" - fish need thin oils because saturated fats solidify at temperatures below 60 degrees. Imagine a salmon trying to swim through arctic waters with oils the consistency of fudge.
The reason seed oils are so common, and saturated fats so vilified, is a simple case of 'follow the money'. My post was based on my recent readings of Ray Peat, PhD's site. raypeat.com HTH, thanks for your open-minded post, HAND.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
What idiot modded this as Troll. Wise up, dickhead.
hey, it happens. I didn't post a substantiating link, so the "consensus view of reality" was unimpeded in using their rhetorical hammer to beat down alternate theories.
I did post a few followups - did you see them? Wikipedia has a neat article on Lipid peroxidation, and Ray Peat's site is my favorite for the month. :)
Thanks posting!
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Well, I would not go as far as to say oils are bad for you like that.
take a look at raypeat.com. :)
He should have been more specific and said hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils are bad for you. I truly do believe they work. I doubted it but thought I would give it a go and lost weight, with no other change in fat or calorie consumption, exercise, sugar intake, or anything...
You totally lost me here. What did you do to lose weight? The most likely thing I'd assume is that you stopped eating hydrogenated oils. Did you replace them with polyunsaturated oils, olive oil, coconut oil, or carbohydrates/proteins (say, by steaming your food)?
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
I've read that lipid peroxidation is one reason to be careful with consumption of fish oils, although it can be mitigates by vitamin E. Another alternative is to consume krill oil which (supposedly) doesn't oxidize like say, cod liver or salmon oil, has an unusual antioxidant called astaxanthin and also contains phospholipids.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Sorry, that bit was almost a joke. (Though I haven't heard it claimed that it's good for you, and I'm not going intentionally go looking for misinformation. The bit about "swimming in cold water" is based around pigs eating copra, and laying down a layer of unmetabolized coconut fat, i.e., copra. So the pig fat didn't end up tasting right. It would, however, be good insulation for swimming in cold water, which the polynesians did/do a bunch of. And the polynesians tend to have a genetic mod which causes their fat layers to be distributed all over their body. So it's not totally a joke.
As for fish...yeah, the omega-3's are for fish (non-homeothermic) that swim in cold water. This doesn't mean that we use it the same way. Our biochemistrys (homeothermic) are significantly different. Most of the data used to recommend it are based around population studies rather than around theories. And I trust the population studies more than I trust ANY of the current theories. (Though they *can* hide significant variables that people just didn't think to look for.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.