Seth's Blog

There is a long discussion of the Shangri-La Diet here on an Indonesian forum. I like the locations some posters give: “the hottest city in Java,” “space,” “a quiet little house,” “above the earth,” “nowhere to be found.”

Thanks to Mark Schrimsher of CalorieLab. The 2005 CalorieLab post on SLD — now an historical artifact. Why Japanese People in Japan Don’t Get that Fat.

The theory behind the Shangri-La Diet says that the more variable the flavors of your food, the less fattening it will be. The problem with junk food is not just the quickly-digested calories (from bread and sugar), it is also the remarkably constant flavor. Coke tastes exactly the same each time.

A new study has just come out that supports these ideas. Sprinkling essentially random flavors on food (which an SLD forum member called crazy spicing) caused a lot of weight loss:

Alan Hirsch, MD, founder and neurologic director of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago, studied “tastants,” substances that can stimulate the sense of taste. He asked 2,436 overweight or obese individuals to sprinkle a variety of savory or sweet crystals on their food before eating their meals during the 6-month study period. Subjects put liberal applications of the salt-free savory flavors on salty foods and applied the sugar-free sweet crystals on sweet or neutral-tasting foods. They did not know what the flavors were other than salty or sweet. The hidden flavors of the savory tastants were cheddar cheese, onion, horseradish, ranch dressing, taco, or parmesan. Sweet flavors were cocoa, spearmint, banana, strawberry, raspberry, and malt.

A control group of 100 volunteers did not use tastants. Both groups were allowed to diet and exercise if they were already doing so. For both subjects and controls, Hirsch measured weight and body mass index (BMI)—a measure of height and weight—before and after the study.

At the start of the study, the treatment group had an average weight of 208 pounds and average BMI of 34, which is considered obese. After 6 months of using the crystals, the 1,436 subjects who completed the study lost an average of 30.5 pounds, compared with just 2 pounds for the untreated controls. Their BMI dropped by an average of 5, moving them from obesity to the overweight range. Controls had an average BMI decrease of 0.3.

Hirsch theorized that subjects lost more weight than controls did because the tastants made them feel full faster and therefore eat less. However, he did not track the amount of food the subjects ate. Another possibility, he said, is that the crystals improved the taste of bland but healthy foods, such as tofu and some vegetables, causing a change toward healthier eating habits. He said he believes this approach works because, unlike most diets, it is not based on food restriction.

Subjects lost an average of nearly 15 percent of their body weight, results showed. It is not clear whether the apparent weight loss benefits of the tastants would extend past 6 months or to people who weigh less than the obese subjects in this study.

“It could be that the percent of weight reduction would be lower in people who are less obese,” Hirsch said. “In theory, tastants won’t work for people who eat even when they’re full and for people who have lost their sense of smell.”

Hirsch said the tastants worked so well that they contributed to the dropout rate. Some of the subjects stopped the study before 6 months because they already had reached their ideal body weight—an unexpected result, he said.

Hirsch has done similar experiments, with similar results, in the past.

Thanks to Sheila Buff.

If we can believe a movie based on a true story, the doctors consulted by the family with an epileptic son in …First Do No Harm knew about the ketogenic diet but (a) didn’t tell the parents about it, (b) didn’t take it seriously, and (c) thought that irreversible brain surgery should be done before trying the diet, which was of course much safer. Moreover, these doctors had an authoritative book to back up these remarkably harmful and unfortunate attitudes. The doctors in …First, as far as I can tell, reflected (and still reflect) mainstream medical practice.

Certainly the doctors were evidence snobs — treating evidence not from a double-blind study as worthless. Why were they evidence snobs? I suppose the universal tendency toward snobbery (we love feeling superior) is one reason but that may be only part of the explanation. In the 1990s, Phillip Price, a researcher at Lawrence Berkeley Labs, and one of his colleagues were awarded a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to study home radon levels nationwide. They planned to look at the distribution of radon levels and make recommendations for better guidelines. After their proposal was approved, some higher-ups at EPA took a look at it and realized that the proposed research would almost surely imply that the current EPA radon guidelines could be improved. To prevent such criticism, the grant was canceled. Price was told by an EPA administrator that this was the reason for the cancellation.

This has nothing to do with evidence snobbery. But I’m afraid it may have a lot to do with how the doctors in …First Do No Harm viewed the ketogenic diet. If the ketogenic diet worked, it called into question their past, present, and future practices — namely, (a) prescribing powerful drugs with terrible side effects and (b) performing damaging and irreversible brain surgery of uncertain benefit. If something as benign as the ketogenic diet worked some of the time, you’d want to try it before doing anything else. This hadn’t happened: The diet hadn’t been tried first, it had been ignored. Rather than allow evidence of the diet’s value to be gathered, which would open them up to considerable criticism, the doctors did their best to keep the parents from trying it. Much like canceling the radon grant.

The ketogenic diet.

This photo documents something anyone can notice: While we’re sitting, we touch our mouths a lot.

The photo shows the full faces of 22 men; 7 of them are touching their mouths. I have noticed something similar at many faculty meetings. I started to notice this after I read about its observation in a study designed to measure something else.

I’ve known about this for many years but have never read an explanation. Do we enjoy touching our mouths — or is the absence of touch for a long time unpleasant? If so, why?

I like this set of posts about the Shangri-La Diet, especially this:

I had to borrow a black vest for the prom I worked last night. Twenty pounds ago, that vest would have NEVER fit this monkey.

I give credit to my kettleball, and the Shangri-La Diet. When I mentioned the vest situation to the crew during set-up the new guy chimed in, Oh yeah, I lost 40 pounds on Shangri-La. Got a few more to go. I don’t even bring it up to people any more. I’m tired of being told I’m crazy and that it sounds like it wouldn’t work.

Why do I laugh?

I’m glad to have written something so exciting. You can buy it here.

Thanks to Pearl Alexander.

More: A Japanese government program that should help sales: Mandatory waist measurements, with sanctions for being overweight.

From the latest BMJ:

Findings that a leading Harvard professor of psychiatry failed to report substantial payments that he received from drug companies has caused Harvard Medical School, one of its affiliated hospitals, and the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to come under fire.

An investigation by the US senator Charles Grassley showed that the psychiatrist, Joseph Biederman, and two of his colleagues, Thomas Spencer and Timothy Wilens, had altogether received more than $4.2m (£2.1m; 2.7m) from drug companies since 2000.

The financial disclosure forms filed by the three doctors, according to Mr Grassley, “were a mess” and made it seem that they had received only “a couple of hundred thousand dollars” in the past seven years. . .Professor Biederman, at the centre of the scandal, has been widely recognised as one of the most influential psychiatrists in the world. He is a leading proponent of the diagnosis of paediatric bipolar disorder and he is currently conducting a study of the antipsychotic, quetiapine (Seroquel) in children aged 4 to 6 years with bipolar disorder.

Details.

Recently Tyler Cowen and I wrote the following dialogue about Entertainment Weekly, of which we are both big fans. We failed to get it published — perhaps because we broke an important freelancing rule: Never submit a finished piece, as Jack Hitt told Berkeley journalism students. Our loss is your gain. 

SETH When my friends look puzzled that I subscribe to EW I say “entertainment” means art.  It’s about art. They could have called it Art Weekly but they didn’t want to scare people.

TYLER The age of the review has been replaced by the age of the cue.  There’s too much wonderful stuff out there to read pages of reviews.  I want a letter grade and a few sentences on what it is and whether I might like it.  If I love the product I can go read lengthier reviews on the web afterwards, when I understand the context and don’t have to worry about spoilers.  Most critics don’t realize just how much they are dead in the water, and replaced by trusted intermediaries — like EW or favorite bloggers — who offer just a few guiding sentences. I often disagree with EW but I always know where they are coming from.  I can usually gauge my own best guess, relative to the evaluation in their review.

SETH After a reading I overheard a famous author and his friend discuss the B that EW had given his book. “It helped settle debates around the house about who’s the better writer,” he said — his wife’s book had gotten a B+. They agreed that assigning grades to books was shallow. Listening to them, Tyler, I thought what you say: Hey, the rest of us need the time. Sure, there’s something superficial about treating complex artistic productions, such as books and movies and albums, like homework assignments — but why exactly is that bad? I call it the Chez Panisse model. The distinctive style and concerns of Chez Panisse came from mixing haute cuisine with French bistro food — bistro food treated as seriously as haute cuisine. Your blog, Marginal Revolution, is another example. Blogging is just a variation of diary entries, the lowest form of literature — but people such as you are lavishing great care on it and creating new effects. Likewise, EW lavishes great care on the assignment of lowly, shallow grades – the accompanying review, for example. The rest of the magazine also treats “low” culture with great respect. All that praise of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. All that space devoted to American Idol. What I want from magazines is to take me where I wouldn’t have gone. To expand my world. Long ago, The New Yorker managed to often do that. Now, not so often. Now it is EW more than any other magazine that manages to get me to read or watch or listen to stuff I otherwise wouldn’t have encountered. It’s not just reviews; it’s reviews of beach books (“which no poet would deign to touch” as one of Nabokov’s characters put it).

TYLER I find the grades for books are the least reliable section of EW.  Which for me means they are the most reliable section.  If they like a book, I know to stay away.  How could a critic be better or more trustworthy than that? Too many readers are too concerned about affiliating themselves with prestigious magazines, rather than learning something. EW takes us to new places because the magazine covers only what is new, or newly reissued.  Other cultural contributions (dare I call them “products”?) simply don’t exist for the magazine.  That’s what is truly startling about the pages, not what is there but what’s not there. We need to take that seriously, as our culture already operates on that basis.

SETH I once wrote EW to say they should cover radio. I want to know what’s as good as This American Life. What do you think they should cover but don’t?

TYLER I’d like to see more coverage of satellite radio in particular, plus Internet radio, both of which are national. Most of all, I’d like their take on new technologies for consuming culture.  What’s the best way to connect a computer and a television?  Is there anyone you would trust to give a better answer about a simple and cheap method?

SETH I can rent a DVD for $1/day at a local store. At my public library, they’re free for a week. With so much “entertainment” so available, the value of filters goes up. Whether the founders of EW foresaw this or were lucky, I don’t know. I do know that the grades ( e.g., B-) attached to every review are filters of filters. Smart. At EW they are clear on the concept. Entertainment in the EW sense might be America’s biggest export in terms of dollars. It could easily be America’s most influential export, since it enters the brain. So economists should pay more attention to EW, the only magazine that gives a sense of what all this stuff is about and might answer the question of why American entertainment has achieved such world dominance. Does sheer wealth mean a country can make more easily exportable movies and TV shows? Or is it the universality of English that is the secret? I don’t think there is a magazine like EW in any other country. Nor earlier in history. While TV Guide seems to be fading away even as TV is booming, EW, with its much greater emphasis on reviews and broader coverage, is thriving. I think stories teach values — we imitate the hero, don’t do what the bad guy does — and EW is the first magazine to devote itself to this market: What stories are we telling? The values of EW staffers, therefore, get huge leverage. Maybe the magazine is written by about 50 people. Each of them may have more power over what stories people are exposed to– keeping exports in mind — than the President of the U.S. Than anyone else in the entire world! Than the editor of The New Yorker. All 50 of them. Where is EW, with its vast power over our values, taking us — meaning the world? They are probably more pro-gay than the average person. They certainly like The L Word, for example, and think that Ugly Betty is a great show. They have never published a “courageous” (muck-raking) article, such as Silent Spring, but neither do they publish fawning profiles. I think the Must List demonstrates tolerance and acceptance of differences; relatively small and quirky projects make the list. They have embraced reality shows and cable TV, both of which thrive on quirkiness.

TYLER This is getting complicated. Let me try some familiar territory. Here’s what I think of Entertainment Weekly:

TV coverage: A

Movie and DVD coverage: A-

Music coverage: B-

Radio coverage: D

Book coverage: A+

Advertisements: B

The Must List: A

Columnists: A-

Here’s part of the abstract from a recent paper titled “A Low Dose of Dietary Resveratrol Partially Mimics Caloric Restriction and Retards Aging Parameters in Mice”:

We fed mice from middle age (14-months) to old age (30-months) either a control diet, a low dose of resveratrol . . . or a calorie restricted (CR) diet and examined genome-wide transcriptional profiles. We report a striking transcriptional overlap of [the effects of] CR and resveratrol in heart, skeletal muscle and brain. Both dietary interventions inhibit gene expression profiles associated with cardiac and skeletal muscle aging, and prevent age-related cardiac dysfunction. Dietary resveratrol also mimics the effects of CR in insulin mediated glucose uptake in muscle.

This is from the introduction:

Resveratrol, a natural compound found in grapes and red wine has previously been shown to extend lifespan in S. cerevisiae, C. elegans and Drosophila through a SIRT1 dependent mechanism. However, recent studies have failed to reproduce these life extension results and other studies have demonstrated that the ability of resveratrol to activate yeast Sir2 or human SIRT1 is substrate-specific in vitro and resveratrol has no effect on Sir2 activity in vivo . . . . Recently, mice fed a high fat diet supplemented with high levels of resveratrol . . . were shown to have extended lifespan as compared to controls, and several metabolic alterations similar to what is observed with CR.

I first heard of the wonders of resveratrol from James Johnston and Donald Laub, authors of The Alternate Day Diet. Here is a review article about it. The interest of the new study is that a low (i.e., practical) dose is effective.

Thanks to Bob Levinson.

While both of us were waiting for a bus at the Oakland Airport, Andrew Sutherland asked me where I was going. He was from New Zealand, on a two-week visit to America. I asked him what he did. “I’m working on retirement,” he said. He’s in his mid-forties.

When he was 18 years old, he bought his first house for $1000. It was in terrible shape but he was good at making things so he was able to fix it up. Later he owned a bunch of houses in Denedin, where the University of Otago is located, and rented them to students.

“What advantage did you have over your competitors?” I asked.

“The main advantage I had was ignorance,” he said. He didn’t know all the things that could go wrong. “I wasn’t afraid.” Someone who knew more would have been. Geoffrey Bateson said something similar: If I’d known how hard everything was going to be, I would never have done anything. This is the upside of the ignorance that Nassim Taleb talks about.