Seth's Blog

From an excellent interview with Gary Taubes:

Martin: You write that the “enterprise” of diet, obesity and disease research “purports to be a science and yet functions like a religion.” In what ways?

Taubes: Simple. The researchers and authority figures in this business seem utterly uninterested in finding out whether what they believe is true or not. It’s as though their God, whichever one that might be, told them that obesity is caused by eating too much — by gluttony and/or sloth — and so they believe that unconditionally, and no amount of contradictory evidence, no failure to explain the actual observations can convince them to question it. They have unconditional faith that they know what the truth is, and there’s no place for this kind of faith in the pursuit of science. Science requires skepticism to function. Religion requires faith.

I agree with Taubes about the facts: Obesity “authority figures” do “seem uninterested in finding out” etc. Yes, it resembles religion, not science. Taubes’s summing-up, however, is one-sided. To say “science requires skepticism” is to miss the point that science also requires paying attention — finding, noticing, thinking about facts you can’t explain. Religion doesn’t. The Atkins Diet caused millions of people to lose plenty of weight in a way that mainstream weight-control theories could not explain. No one powerful in obesity research managed to notice this was a puzzle worth trying to explain.

Science isn’t just about testing ideas (Taubes’s “skepticism”); it also requires generating them. I’m hoping if I blog about this often enough I will find a humorous way to say it.

Thanks to Dave Lull.

The press release had a curious title: “Omega-3 fatty acids protect against Parkinson’s.” The certainty suggested an experiment, but Parkinson’s is too rare to study prevention experimentally. The press release turned out to be about a rat study that used a drug called MDPT to cause brain damage that resembles Parkinson’s. Rats given a high-omega-3 diet suffered much less damage — apparently none — from the drug.

Rats given the high omega-3 diet had much less omega-6 in their brains than control rats — one more reason, in addition to the Israeli Paradox, to think that omega-6 may be just as bad as omega-3 is good. Omega-3 may act by displacing omega-6 (they are almost identical physically).

The results could have been taken to suggest both (a) eat more omega-3-rich foods, such as fish and (b) eat less omega-6-rich foods, such as most nuts and vegetable oils, but only the first recommendation reached the public.

The year isn’t over, but we have a winner:

I am going to learn Russian.

I feel so enchanted when I gaze into his handsome face. His eyes are so commanding. I cannot look away.

Should I try the Shangri-la diet?

“He” is a co-worker. She has tried many other diets without success.

At the November meeting of the Psychonomic Society, a group of experimental psychologists, I gave a 15-minute talk (PowerPoint) about my omega-3 research. (Anyone know how to add audio to a PowerPoint file?) Almost all the data in the talk I’ve posted here, but it had one not-blogged idea, which I summarize like this:

optimize brain –> optimize body

The intake level of a nutrient that optimizes brain function should be close to the level that optimizes the function of everything else. In particular, the omega-3 intake that makes the brain work best should be close to the level that makes the rest of the body work best. This is because the brain and the rest of the body are bathed in the same blood.

It is easy to see why this is so. I have many electrical appliances: clock, telephone, TV, microwave, refrigerator, laser printer. In spite of vastly different innards and functions, all of them run best when their electrical supply is very close to house current. The electric current that makes my laser printer work best is very close to the electric current that makes my refrigerator work best. Of course, this is by design. LIkewise, the different parts of our body, although doing vastly different things, have all been adjusted by evolution to work best with the nutritional equivalent of house current. Just as we might study laser printers to learn what current to use with our refrigerator, we can study the brain to learn what nutrients optimize immune function.

This is a new idea in nutrition (at least, new to me). It is supported by and explains some of the most interesting data I’ve posted. It explains why Tyler Cowen’s gums got so much better so quickly — because he was taking almost exactly the best amount of flaxseed oil for his gums. Tyler chose his intake of flaxseed oil based on my behavioral data, which suggested the best amount was between 2 and 3 tablespoons/day. The gums and the brain could hardly be more different, but the best level for the brain turned out to do a wonderful job of healing his gums. Same thing with Anonymous and sports injuries.

By the way, this shows the scientific value of blogging. My gums got better, too, but not as impressively as Tyler’s. I didn’t have a lot of injuries to heal. The big improvements noticed by Tyler and Anonymous were “accidents” (unintended consequences). Science thrives on accidents; blogging, it turns out, is a new way to generate them.

Last year this commercial was everywhere in Japan:

Tarako means cod roe, a popular flavor in Japan. Here is a long version.

Thanks to Pearl Alexander.

Because of reading Jane Jacobs, I could begin to understand this fascinating post by E. M. Risse about trade vs import replacement. I hadn’t before heard his point that between-region trade tends to favor people at the top of the economic food chain. I’m not sure I completely understand Risse’s post but I am intrigued enough to want to look at his (four-volume!) book, The Shape of the Future, shape meaning settlement pattern.

Ulcerative colitis is a disease of too much inflammation. The Mayo Clinic recommends several dangerous and expensive anti-inflammatory drugs. Based on its effect on inflamed gums (gingivitis), I suspect flaxseed oil would be very effective, much safer, more convenient, and much cheaper, assuming you get the right dose (about 2 tablespoons/day).

Flaxseed oil is not on the Mayo Clinic list. Nor is any other source of omega-3. In a store today I ran into a woman seeking herbal treatments for ulcerative colitis. She hadn’t heard of using flaxseed oil.

Does anyone reading this have direct experience about what happens when you take flaxseed oil for ulcerative colitis?

The Mayo Clinic website doesn’t say anything about using flaxseed oil (or other omega-3 sources) to treat gingivitis. (And the Mayo Clinic claims expertise on alternative medicine.) Nor does it say gingivitis is caused by too much inflammation. In two weeks, you can see for yourself they are wrong.

Here‘s a nice post about dietary puzzles in which a group of people who should have a high or low rate of heart disease don’t. For example,

Spanish paradox. Those naughty Spaniards are eating more fat and less carbs and getting LESS heart disease, now there’s a surprise. Good thing their medical system is so marvelous.

Sri Lanka paradox. In Sri Lanka they eat <25% calories from fat and still get lots of heart disease. Tut tut.

I have blogged about the Israeli Paradox. These paradoxes go away, the author notes, “when you realize saturated fat is not the cause of heart disease.”

Elsewhere on his blog he discusses studies that found that eating less fruits and vegetables improved health. Thanks to Dave Lull.

Not unrelated to all this, Ken Carpenter, a co-author of mine and an excellent speaker, is giving a talk next week in the Nutrition Department at UC Berkeley titled “When Nutritionists Go Wrong”. It is on Wednesday, December 19, 2007, at 4:10 pm Room 114 Morgan Hall. Ken has written wonderful books and articles about the history of nutrition and I am eagerly awaiting this talk.

Michelle Nguyen told me that in Palo Alto, professional contacts expect you to have a blog. If you don’t have a blog, you’re not a serious person.

At a recent wine tasting, I encountered the other, nicer side of the coin. I met Colleen and Vanessa, two of the three women behind Wishbone Clover, a blog without a theme. “We just blog about what we care about,” Vanessa said (as I have guessed). It’s a way of talking to each other and, oh yeah, other people can read it.

I said I had a blog, too.

“Have you ever been stalked on your blog?” Colleen asked. This might be the friendliest question I’ve ever been asked at a party.

“Stalked?” I said.

She meant that someone had repeatedly left very nasty comments on her blog, such as “you draw like a 4-year-old” (she is a graphic designer and often posts drawings).

I said no, most comments are favorable. No one has ever left nasty comments.

She explained that she had been at a museum party in Boston and a woman at the party thought that she (Colleen) had been hitting on her (the stalker’s) girlfriend. that’s what caused the stalking. It really upset her.

The women behind Wishbone Clover met when they worked at Wells Fargo. All three were told working at Wells was an “awesome opportunity”; all three left. Colleen now works at another bank. Vanessa is a writer; she has a writing job at UCSF and writes fiction. I forget what the third one does.

Wishbone Clover has a great list of categories, including aggrieved, I am so mad right now, glimpses, special guest star, exchanged (conversations), and the mysterious hlp. I especially liked an entry called “My Mother’s Royal We.” It begins:

One recent morning I chatted, via IM, with my BFF, EB. I noticed a quirk in our conversation: when I describe some difficulty, especially related to poorly behaved gentlemen, she tends to respond in the third person, for example:

We don’t have time for that bullshit. Let’s drug his drink, leave him in Nebraska, and see how he fares.

However, she doesn’t like it when her mom uses the royal we. “We don’t like raw fish,” her mom once said.

At a wine tasting, I was chatting with two women who are friends.

Me (to one of them): How did your friend entice you to come to this event?

Woman: She told me I was coming.

Laughter.

Type of joke: ?. Actually, it was the truth. Even armed with my idea that laughter is caused by sudden pleasure I still find it very hard to say why we laughed. How odd this is! Laughter is a big and important part of life. Visible, common, highly desirable — yet mysterious.