A report has come out on the most popular drugs that are taken. Nearly all of them could be avoided if people would just toss this whole "low-fat" crap, dump the excess carbohydrates (especially sugar and HFCS) and start eating more saturated animal fat.
At number two, with 94 million prescriptions is generic Zocor, or simvastatin, a cholesterol lowering medication. And if you've read Uffe you'll know that this is unnecessary drivel. We have a population a little over 300 million... so that's almost one prescription for every three people in the country!
Metformin (for diabetes) is on down the list at 48.3 million prescriptions. Type 2 diabetes is a completely avoidable disease in most cases, and yet we have how many people with diabetes?
What else is on the rise here? Anti-psychotics. I think that the ad they run on television for Abilify is designed to MAKE you depressed. Seriously. Anyway, I suggest you read Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker. Big pharma has pushed anti-depressants and other anti-psychotics as 'wonder drugs' and they are not. They're possibly worse than the statins. Most people would see their mood improve if they'd just eat more saturated fat, for example butter or coconut butter/manna.
If your doctor tries to prescribe something you should ask questions and research it before agreeing to take it. It is your health that is at stake after all.
The only pill you should be taking is the red one.
Showing posts with label anxiety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anxiety. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Oh noes! Trans fats might make you depressed...
o_O
Articles are popping up today about how trans fats cause depression. Now, I'm not saying artificial trans fats are good, quite the opposite. It seems they cause damage on a cellular level as well. But you know what else isn't good? The quality of research that has been put into some of these articles. Like this one:
Where do these people get off? I'd really like to know. I'd like to know how you can have a survey of people and act like it's a clinical trial. I'd like to know how you can have confounding variables out the wazzoo and act like you've controlled for a single variable. I'd also like to know why these people don't understand that CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION. It's so simple, and yet soooooo beyond the grasp of your basic nutrition "expert" or "journalist".
I don't need to point out that industrial cakes, biscuits and fast food are very high in carbohydrates. But did they decide that carbohydrates cause depression? No. Of course not.
But the thing that is really wrong with this article, and why I decided to write about it, is that it equates naturally occurring trans fats with the industrially manufactured ones. There are trans fats in nature, but they are not the same in chemical structure as the commercially developed ones. The most common one, Conjugated Linoleic Acid does indeed occur in dairy, eggs and meat. (Of course, those are all bad for you! Run away!) What's ironic, is CLA is known to be an anti-carcinogen. Yeah, how does that grab ya? Certain forms of CLA also reduce inflammation and thereby prevent cardiovascular disease. What was that about not eating eggs, whole milk and meat?
And even Time jumped on the band wagon, and failed to do any research on the difference between artificial and naturally occurring trans fatty acids:
Articles are popping up today about how trans fats cause depression. Now, I'm not saying artificial trans fats are good, quite the opposite. It seems they cause damage on a cellular level as well. But you know what else isn't good? The quality of research that has been put into some of these articles. Like this one:
"Of all these, the participants with a high level of consumption of trans-fats, artificially present in industrial cakes and biscuits and in fast food, and naturally in certain full-fat milk products, "showed an increase in risk of depression of up to 48% compared to those participants who did not consume these,"..."
Where do these people get off? I'd really like to know. I'd like to know how you can have a survey of people and act like it's a clinical trial. I'd like to know how you can have confounding variables out the wazzoo and act like you've controlled for a single variable. I'd also like to know why these people don't understand that CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION. It's so simple, and yet soooooo beyond the grasp of your basic nutrition "expert" or "journalist".
I don't need to point out that industrial cakes, biscuits and fast food are very high in carbohydrates. But did they decide that carbohydrates cause depression? No. Of course not.
But the thing that is really wrong with this article, and why I decided to write about it, is that it equates naturally occurring trans fats with the industrially manufactured ones. There are trans fats in nature, but they are not the same in chemical structure as the commercially developed ones. The most common one, Conjugated Linoleic Acid does indeed occur in dairy, eggs and meat. (Of course, those are all bad for you! Run away!) What's ironic, is CLA is known to be an anti-carcinogen. Yeah, how does that grab ya? Certain forms of CLA also reduce inflammation and thereby prevent cardiovascular disease. What was that about not eating eggs, whole milk and meat?
And even Time jumped on the band wagon, and failed to do any research on the difference between artificial and naturally occurring trans fatty acids:
"The results of the study may be especially bad news for Americans. While the average Spaniard gets about 0.4% of his or her calories from trans fats — mostly from natural or whole-food sources like milk, butter, meat and cheese — Americans log an average of 2.5% of total calories from trans fats. Americans not only eat more overall, but also eat worse-quality food, getting many trans fats from sources like processed snack foods and fried or fast food."What do these "journalists" get paid to do? Copy and paste? It took me five minutes to find out about CLAs, and to realize they're not the same as artificial trans fats. But more than that, I realize that this "study" is flawed, and not even worth considering as evidence of anything, except that out of 12k people, a few got depressed.
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