Category Archives: Pseudoscience

Latest Medical Mea Culpa: Carbs Kill

Scientists are reluctantly, if slowly, arriving at the following conclusion: Carbs kill. The evidence is hard to refute. (Karen De Coster was right, warning way back about “Frankenfoods and The Government’s Fraudulent Food Pyramid.” ) The latest medical mea culpa—from Cambridge University, no less—is summarized by Dr. Barbara H. Roberts at The Daily Beast:

… There are many other recognized risk factors the the American Heart Association ignored, including blood sugar level, low “good” (HDL) cholesterol, insulin levels, and body weight—all of these are influenced by diet.

In fact, most people who have heart attacks don’t have elevations in bad cholesterol. They are much more likely to have metabolic syndrome—a condition that puts you at high risk for diabetes and heart disease. Metabolic syndrome is defined when you have three of the following: high triglycerides (blood fats), high blood sugar, high blood pressure, low “good” cholesterol (HDL-C), and a large abdomen measurement (abdominal obesity).

Interestingly enough, blood triglycerides do not go up with eating fat—they go up if you eat a diet high in processed grains, starches, and sugar. Unfortunately for the proponents of high-carbohydrate diets, high blood triglycerides are a major risk factor for heart disease. In addition, low fat/high carb diets lower protective “good” cholesterol and raise insulin. These diets are implicated in the development of diabetes, which is a potent risk factor for developing heart disease.

The writers of the 2013 statin guidelines based their recommendations on studies that looked at the reduction in the risk of events like heart attacks in people treated with statins, compared to people on a placebo. The AHA dietary guidelines do not cite any diet studies that looked at whether following a specific diet lowered the risk of developing cardiac events—yet they are giving dietary advice. Why?

There might be two plausible reasons. One is the AHA’s moneymaking “Heart Check Program.” The second is the conflict of interest (and curious beliefs) of Robert Eckel—the co-chair of the panel that wrote the guidelines.

The AHA introduced the Heart Check Program in 1995 and it has been quite the moneymaker, as the AHA sells the Heart Check stamp-of-approval to food manufacturers. Food companies shell out between $1,000 and $7,500 to be certified by the Heart Check Program—and then there are yearly renewal fees. The program currently endorses 889 foods as “heart-healthy.”

And the Heart Check Program is not the only way the AHA benefits from Big Food companies. In their annual report for 2012-2013, the AHA lists among its lifetime donors of $1 million or more Conagra, Quaker Oats, and Campbell Soups, among others.

Forty-five percent of these “heart healthy” foods—over 400 of them—are meat; 92 are processed meats—which have been shown to have either neutral or negative effects on heart health.

Even more problematic are the foods containing added sugar. The AHA recommends that women consume less than 6 teaspoons (100 calories) of sugar a day and less than 9 teaspoons (150 calories) for men. Yet there are items that get the nod of approval from the Heart Check program despite being near or at the sugar limit, like Bruce’s Yams Candied Sweet Potatoes and Healthy Choice Salisbury Steak. Indeed, until 2010, the Heart Check imprimatur was stamped on a drink called Chocolate Moose Attack, which contained more sugar per ounce than regular Pepsi.

And until this year, Heart Check approved many foods with trans-fats, which raise bad cholesterol and lower good cholesterol, among other deleterious effects on health, like increasing inflammation and the laying down of calcium in arteries.

Like the dietary guidelines, the AHA Heart Check Program appears to address only the effect of foods on cholesterol level and blood pressure. Meanwhile, since the 1970s, our yearly sugar consumption has skyrocketed along with the incidence of diabetes and obesity. …”

MORE.

Global Warming: An Unfalsifiable Theory

Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Private Property, Pseudoscience, Regulation

The theory of global warming is unfalsifiable, in other words, the theory cannot be falsified or tested and is, therefore, irrefutable. Evidence that contradicts the global warming theory, climate Chicken Littles enlist as evidence for the correctness of their theory; every permutation in weather patterns—warm or cold—is said to be a consequence of that warming or proof of it. Thus, “Snow In May In Chicago” will naturally be taken as evidence for the theory of catastrophic, man-made climate change.

As Karl Popper reminded us, “A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is,” of course, “non-scientific.”

This is not to say that man is not destructive to the environment, or that we should not cherish and take care of nature. We certainly should by understanding that government is not a panacea for the problem. (I don’t know about the wild fires in San Diego this year, but “the cause of a wildfire that burned nearly 150 buildings last summer in San Diego County” was a jeep ignited by the federal Bureau of Land Management):

The root of environmental despoliation is the tragedy of the commons, i.e., the absence of property rights in the resource. One of my favorite running routes wends along miles of lakeside property, all privately owned, and ever so pristine. Where visitors dirty the trail that cleaves to the majestic homes; fastidious owners are quick to pick up after them.

In the absence of private ownership in the means of production, government-controlled resources go to seed. There is simply no one with strong enough a stake in the landmass or waterway to police it before disaster strikes.

Entrusted with the management and regulation of assets you don’t own, have no stake in; on behalf of millions of people you don’t know, only pretend to care about, are unaccountable to, and who have no real recourse against your mismanagement—how long before your performance plummets?

… Private property rights in waterways, or riparian rights in water that abuts private property—these are the best protectors of the ocean and of other state-controlled expanses of water [and land].

A Professor Who Doesn’t Pander

Economy, Education, English, Internet, Journalism, Media, Pseudoscience

Still a tad mild for my liking, but far better than any “critique” provided in mainstream media is Tyler Cowen’s assessment of Nate Silver’s “data-driven journalism.” In “Nate Silver’s 538 is up and running,” Cowen, professor of economics at George Mason University, writes wryly:

… to me these are “tweener” pieces, too superficial for smart and informed readers, yet on topics which are too abstruse for the more casual readers. … Here is Silver’s introductory essay as to what they are about. It is too sprawling and evinces a greater affiliation to rigor with data analysis than to rigor with philosophy of science or for that matter rigor with rhetoric.

In Cowen we may have a rare professor who doesn’t pander to annoying Millennials.

Bipolar Vortex

Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Pseudoscience

On “the unfalsifiable theory of global warming,” “Reincarnation of the Reds” observed, in 2006, what “Freezing Is the New Warming” (by Robert Tracinski) noted on Jan. 13 of this year. My (earlier) version:

On the unfalsifiable theory of global warming: “Evidence that contradicts the global warming theory, climate kooks enlist as evidence for the correctness of their theory; every permutation in weather patterns—warm or cold—is said to be a consequence of that warming or proof of it.”—ILANA (December 29, 2006)