Seth's Blog

I am in Beijing. The smog is bad. It is more humid than usual and the air is dirtier than usual. At his blog, James Fallows, who is also in Beijing, has posted  pictures and pollution measurements. (Incidentally, Eamonn Fingleton, an excellent writer, will be guest-blogging there. In Praise of Hard Industries is one of the best business/economics books I’ve read.)

The effect of smog on health isn’t obvious. Maybe you know about hormesis — the finding that a small dose of a poison, such as radioactivity, is beneficial. It has been observed in hundreds of experiments. It makes sense: the poisons activate repair systems. Even if you know about hormesis, you probably don’t know that one of the first studies of smoking and cancer found that inhaling cigarette smoke appeared beneficial: inhalers had less cancer than non-inhalers. R. A. Fisher, the great statistician, emphasized this (pp. 160-161):

There were fewer inhalers among the cancer patients than among the non-cancer patients. That, I think, is an exceedingly important finding.

This difference (a negative correlation) appeared in spite of two positive correlations: Heavy smokers get more cancer than light smokers; and heavy smokers are more likely to inhale than light smokers. It is far from the only fact suggesting the connection between smoking and health isn’t simple.

So I am not worried about Beijing smog. The real danger, I think, is not eating fermented foods. Which, thankfully, is infinitely more under my control.

Joseph Buchignani, a businessman in Shenzhen, has suffered from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) since he was a teenager. He is now in his 20s. By trial and error, he discovered that a meat-only diet eliminated his IBS. However, it also caused craving for carbs. Because carbs caused IBS, he couldn’t simply eat carbs. He tried many ways of getting rid of the craving for carbs: eating more animal fat, eating less animal fat, eating oil, eating lard, and eating different kinds of animals and cuts of meat. He varied how he cooked the meat, eating  especially fresh meat, and eating fresh whole fish. All of these attempts failed. He did not try taking a multivitamin pill.

Finally he tried adding egg to the meat. That eliminated his craving for carbs. It made his diet much more sustainable.

This is fascinating for four reasons.

1. Sure, some cravings reflect nutrient deficiencies. (Not all cravings: An alcoholic craves alcohol.) But in the cases I know about, there is an obvious or semi-obvious connection between the craving and the deficiency. For example, people who chew too much ice (pagophagia) crave ice to chew. They are iron-deficient. Eating iron eliminates the pagophagia. Long ago, a craving to eat something crunchy would have led you to eat bones. Bone marrow is high in iron. So the craving makes sense. In contrast, there is no obvious or semi-obvious connection between carbs and eggs.

2. It suggests that a paleo diet is a good place to start looking for the ideal diet. Paleo ideas suggest a high-meat diet. But no matter how long you study what Stone-Age people ate, you will not figure out that eggs will eliminate carb cravings.

3. Like many people, especially those doing paleo, I eat mostly meat and vegetables (a conventional low-carb diet). Unlike most low-carbers, I also eat lots of fermented foods. I don’t crave carbs, perhaps because of the lactose in yogurt or the sucrose in kombucha. It hadn’t occurred to me to start eating eggs regularly but Joseph’s discovery suggests I should try it.

4. Joseph’s personal science led him to discover something highly useful and completely non-obvious.

Since the Educational Testing Service is responsible for measuring intelligence, it is disturbing when they appear . . . not intelligent. A Chinese student of mine sent me the following question, which appears in a set of study questions. You are supposed to identify the “flaw” in the argument.

The article entitled ‘Eating Iron’ in last month’s issue of Eating for Health reported that a recent study found a correlation between high levels of iron in the diet and an increased risk of heart disease. Further, it is well established that there is a link between large amounts of red meat in the diet and heart disease, and red meat is high in iron. On the basis of the study and the well-established link between red meat and heart disease, we can conclude that the correlation between high iron levels and heart disease, then, is most probably a function of the correlation between red meat and heart disease.

By “is a function of” I suppose means “is due to”. Sure, there are several imperfections, unstated assumptions, in every argument, including this one, just as every piece of research has several imperfections. But are there obvious important flaws in this argument? I think it is reasonable to assume that red meat is the main source of iron.

Since many scientists have trouble interpreting  correlations (they think “correlation does not equal causation” is not misleading) presumably an ETS question writer has even more trouble. And this question reflects that. But maybe not.

This is the best magazine article I have read in a long time. The subtitle is “What Egypt Learned from the Students Who Overthrew Milosevic”, a good description. The Serbian students who overthrew Milosevic had several lessons for budding revolutionaries in other countries, such as Egypt and Burma. One was/is:

Do a small thing and if it is successful, you have the confidence to do another one and another one.

Much like my advice about science: Do the smallest easiest thing that will tell you something. You will learn more from it than you expect. If someone criticizes a study for being “small” they are saying “1 + 1 = 3″. If someone does a large study that fails, they are saying the same thing.

Via Long Form. I knew little about the author, Tina Rosenberg, before this. I am looking forward to reading the book about peer pressure from which this article was taken.

• “As reprehensible as many [drug] industry practices are, I [Marcia Angell] believe the behavior of much of the medical profession is even more culpable.”
• Richard Posner, judge and erstwhile economist, reveals he is unfamiliar with Thorstein Veblen.
• Notes on nonviolence by Gene Sharp. “They struggled against slavery, achieved voting rights for the disenfranchised, seceded from empires,
  undermined dictatorships, broke down racial segregation, strengthened exploited workers with the tools of the strike and economic boycott, restored independence to colonized nations, freed intended victims of the Holocaust, spread and defended civil liberties, achieved higher standards of living, ended discrimination, paralyzed an empire, and even defeated totalitarian systems.”
• Careerism in the military. Many similarities with careerism in health science. Careerism in health science is one reason many health problems, such as obesity and autism, are getting worse.