Seth's Blog

• How not to govern a university
• Smelly fish popular in Korea. “Extremely chewy texture.”
• Popular pain killer associated with doubled risk of atrial fibrillation
• Hunter-gatherer microbiome
• interview of me in Chinese

Thanks to Tyler Cowen.

• Kimchi in crisis. “Interest is waning among younger people. Yet despite struggles at home, kimchi is becoming more popular around the globe.”
• Timing of light and sleep — association with body weight. Thin people wake up earlier than fat people. The reason may be that thin people sleep less than fat people. The paper references two studies that increased morning light and asked if weight changed. One found no effect, the other a significant reduction in body fat.
• I don’t have chronic fatigue syndrome, I have Lyme disease
• Go to the bottom of this entry (Ignored Expert) and click on Real Life for real-life examples of ignored experts.
• Success using probiotic to cure eczema

Thanks to Casey Manion, Phil Alexander, Viorel Tulica, Melody McLaren, Christian Pekeler, Donna Warnock and Tom Passin.

• Oncology researchers make too much of very little.
• deadly delays in newborn blood testing. Do hospital employees = government employees?
• University of Western Australia refuses request for data because requester “made inflammatory statements on [his] weblog . . . including attacks on the character and professionalism of University staff.”
• Benefits of fermented food. “Once all the grains in her diet were fermented, she began to feel normal — for the first time in years.”

• Why I am anti-Komen. “Do you think individuals who donated to Susan G. Komen foundation knew their money would be used to sue other charities who want to raise money like Prom was doing?  . . . Once national news shone a spotlight on Komen’s bullshit move, they backed off.”
• Cardboard standing desk
• Alex Chernavsky finds no effect of soy on brain speed
• Probiotic helps children. Notice that the study was done in Mexico City.

Thanks to Melody McLaren.

When I was a graduate student, I had acne. Via self-experiment, I discovered that the antibiotic my dermatologist had prescribed didn’t work. He appeared unaware of this possibility, although antibiotics were (and are) very commonly prescribed for acne. “Why did you do that?” he said when I told him my results. As I’ve said before, I was stunned that in a few months I could figure out something important that he, the expert, didn’t know. He had years of training, practice, and so on. I had no experience at all. Eventually I gathered additional and more impressive examples — cases where I, an outsider with no medical training, managed to make a big contribution with tiny resources. The underlying message seemed to be that professional medicine rested on weak foundations, in the sense that big conclusions could be overturned with little effort.

Two recent posts  (here and here) on this blog argue that eczema, which afflicts about 10% of Americans, can be cured and prevented with fermented foods. This observation makes perfect sense because of two pre-existing ideas: 1. Eczema is due to an overactive immune system. 2. Fermented foods “cool down” that system (a variant of the hygiene hypothesis). Professors of dermatology failed to put them together, but people outside medicine were able to.

After I learned that eczema could be cured easily and safely, statements by medical professionals about eczema became horrifying. A dermatologist recently wrote about eczema on Reddit:

Eczema is a chronic condition, which includes hand eczema. It’s a condition of dry and sensitive skin. Topical steroids are a useful adjunct in getting your skin clear, and – in certain cases – keeping your skin clear. I tell my patients that the most important thing in management of eczema is the skin care regimen. This means avoidance of irritating factors and restoration of the skin barrier.

The National Eczema Association:

The exact causes of eczema are unknown. You might have inherited a tendency for eczema.. . . Many doctors think eczema causes are linked to allergic disease, such as hay fever or asthma. Doctors call this the atopic triad. Many children with eczema (up to 80%) will develop hay fever and/or asthma.

The Mayo Clinic website: “The cause of atopic dermatitis is unknown, but it may result from a combination of inherited tendencies for sensitive skin and malfunction in the body’s immune system.”  The various remedies listed have nothing to do with the immune system.

What else don’t they know? Doctors have great power over our well-being. Imagine learning that the driver of the car you are in is nearly blind.

After reading Shant Mesrobian’s story of how he eliminated his eczema with fermented foods and a probiotic supplement, Todd Fletcher left a comment:

My eczema and other skin problems of 15 years disappeared completely from regular kefir and yogurt, which I did because of this blog.

I asked for details. (more…)

On this blog, Peter commented:

Lactobacillus brevis also is found in pickled turnips. I’ve used it for weeks and noticed a difference. It seems to clear my lungs [emphasis added] (I probably have a low level infection that once cleared by taking intravenous antibiotics). I buy the Japanese style fermented turnips.

At Mr. Heisenbug, libfree commented:

I’ve taking the probiotic for just this week (twice a day plus some kimchi when I can + I started eating Kimchi at the beginning of last week) and I’ve seen some dramatic improvements. My feet have always had dry, itchy skin which has just disappeared. I have a cronic bunionette, a bunion on the outside edge of the foot, that has softened dramatically. My Rosacea hasn’t changed at all. Sinuses seem better but I’m still holding off on weather this intervention is helping. The most dramatic change has been in my lower respiratory area. My lungs are nearly free of mucus. I don’t remember a time that they were this clear. [emphasis added]

Lungs: canary in the coal mine of modern life?

by Shant Mesrobian

At some point during the last decade, while living in Washington D. C., I began to suffer from hand eczema. Painful red itchy inflamed dry skin covered most of my hands. It was usually triggered by cold dry weather in the fall and winter. It also flared up after a lot of cleaning — when my hands were exposed to a lot of water and soap, which dried them out. I was in my twenties when it began. (more…)

• Sugar for insomnia
• Japanese pickle prevents flu in mice
• Interview with Edward Jay Epstein
• contact lenses that measure blood sugar
• Duke University blunders badly in China. No one wants to attend its new campus in Kushan. A friend of mine called the campus a “real-estate scam”.

Thanks to Phil Alexander, Joseph B. and John Batzel

• Probiotics for colicky babies
• Edward Jay Epstein on diamonds (video). “I bought a diamond for $1500. A day later I tried to sell it. People were offering me one-fourth or one-fifth the price.”
• Internet spreads much better treatment for clubfoot
• Marion Nestle, an NYU professor and frequently-quoted food expert, says it is a “myth”  that “what you eat is more important than how much you eat.” The concept of a body-weight set point was first proposed in about 1950.

Thanks to Carl Willat.

• global warming: predicted versus actual
• possible yogurt strains
• Amanda Ripley, author of The Smartest Kids in the World, on the latest PISA results. “Many complicated countries at the top of these rankings.  Not just Poland (16% child poverty) but Estonia (15% child poverty), Canada (15%) and Vietnam!” 
• Does resistant starch produce optimal gut biota? Maybe not. “TaterTot has low firmicutes!. . . . Slow down on that victory lap, guys.”
• Healthy diets and science. A blog that describes many interesting studies. For example, one study found “those who consumed the most saturated fat had a 36% reduced risk of pancreatic cancer compared to those who consumed the least saturated fat.”
• Accuracy of Doctor’s Data Vitamin D test. The people who run Doctor’s Data have a poor understanding of calibration and related issues, as I’ve said. This is an improvement — at least there is data. But it is still mediocre. Better would be to include description of the conditions of the calibration measurements, such as when, who, where, and, especially, how long between blood spot deposition and measurement procedure (was this value realistic? when a customer uses the test this value may be a week).

I’ve been testing my brain function daily for the last six years. I use a reaction-time test (see digit, type digit as fast as possible) that takes about five minutes. I have gradually improved the test over the years — this is about version 8. One reason for this testing is that I might observe a sudden change. That could suggest a new factor that affects brain function — whatever was unusual before the change (e.g., a new food). This is how I discovered the effect of butter. My score suddenly improved, I investigated. Another sudden change (improvement) happened soon after I switched from Chinese flaxseed oil to American flaxseed oil. I hadn’t realized that something was wrong with the Chinese flaxseed oil. I started brain tracking after I noticed a sudden improvement in balance the morning after I swallowed about five flaxseed oil capsules. Millions of people had taken flaxseed oil capsules, but no one, it seemed, had noticed the balance improvement. Maybe other big changes in brain function go unnoticed, I thought.

(more…)

• Against the new statin guidelines. “For people who have less than a 20 percent risk of getting heart disease in the next 10 years, statins not only fail to reduce the risk of death, but also fail even to reduce the risk of serious illness.” This is one way of saying that although heart disease has been a top cause of death for more than half a century, doctors still have almost no idea how to prevent it. Vast amounts of money and time have been spent studying heart disease, but, judging by the great emphasis on an almost useless method of prevention (statins), the researchers who spent the money and time didn’t do effective research. Cancer could have a hundred different causes. Heart disease, probably not.
• Follow mainstream food advice, increase risk of death. I’ve covered this earlier but it bears repeating. “There was a 30% greater risk of cardiovascular death among the people in the study who ate the cholesterol-lowering oil.” The cholesterol-lowering oil was safflower oil, high in omega-6. According to the Cleveland Clinic and many others, oils high in omega-6 are “heart-healthy”.
• Use of yogurt to prevent infections in hospitals
• Surviving your stupid stupid decision to go to graduate school (a reading list)

Thanks to Phil Alexander and Claire Hsu.

• The promise of Bitcoin (the platform). “Bitcoin encapsulates four fundamental technologies . . . “
• Bacteria and our behavior
• Alternate-day fasting by normal-weight subjects.  “These findings suggest that ADF is effective for weight loss and cardio-protection in normal weight and overweight adults.” The experiment lasted 12 weeks.
• Small interesting psychology experiments. “Whenever I go to a conference, I hate to wear those silly stickers that say “HELLO!  MY NAME IS.” I just write “SATAN” in the blank space.”
• Pomona College dean of students sneers at a more reality-based college. She said: “Discovery, empathy, adaptability is goal of broad-based education, prepares students for life, learning & jobs known & unknown.” As the author, John Tierney, says, “What makes some people at liberal-arts colleges so dismissive of, and condescending toward, institutions that actually train people for careers?” I encountered a similar attitude at Berkeley. At a faculty meeting, I praised someone’s research. Another professor complained that the research was “applied”.

Thanks to Donna Warnock.

A Korean artist named Jihyun Ryou has invented modules to keep food fresh without refrigeration. This connects with the themes of this blog in several ways: using science to find cheap safe low-tech solutions,  minimal solutions (Ryou’s designs use no electricity, I try to find solutions that require no willpower), and increasing (rather than reducing) the microbial content of food. Food stored at room temperature will have more microbes than food stored cold. Ryou says:

I’ve learned that we hand over the responsibility of taking care of food to the technology, the refrigerator. We don’t observe the food any more and we don’t understand how to treat it.

That there could be something wrong with division of labor — handing over tasks to specialists, including specialist machines — is a subtle point. Division of labor works fine for inanimate things, such cloth and furniture and pencils. No economist has realized that animate things (such as our bodies) might be different.

The value of Ryou’s designs partly rests on the variability of living things, as does the value of personal science. Well-educated Americans, in my experience, have little idea what they lose when they hand over care of their body to experts, such as doctors and drug companies. As Ryou says, they lose a kind of mental fitness (“we don’t observe the food any more,” we don’t observe ourselves as closely) and are forced to accept solutions in which what the experts want plays a big role. I discovered the power of self-experimentation when I decided to see for myself if the acne medicine my doctor had prescribed was working. I found it wasn’t, a possibility the doctor hadn’t mentioned.

Early exposure to refrigerated food is associated with Crohn’s disease.

Thanks to Steve Hansen.

• Do they read this blog? “Eventbrite, also in San Francisco, offers a treadmill desk (max speed 2 miles per hour) and a kitchen stocked with a Vitamix blender, fresh fruit, almond milk, hummus, Greek yogurt, flaxseed and kombucha.”
• The high cost of drugs. Note the disinterest in prevention, which is an extreme version of a cheap cure.
• Ars Technica tries home-brewing apple cider. Impressive.
• Stagnation of economics. “The courses are nearly all maths.”
• What caused my bladder cancer?

• Probiotic increases Vitamin D in the blood
• It’s hard to criticize Jared Diamond. “You’re just a nit-picking specialist.” Steven Pinker & Jared Diamond: separated at birth.
• Concern about academic freedom at Duke University’s new Kunshan campus in China. “In a preprandial discussion with [Duke President] Brodhead, the professor expressed concern over academic freedom [at Kunshan] — and Brodhead shot back at him that he is a “worrier.” . . . He told the professor if he ever needed a worrier to serve on a committee, he’d be picked.”  Kunshan sinkhole.
• Butter is not as bad as we’ve been told. “The motto has been, if you want to sell crap, make sure it’s low-fat crap.” Related BMJ article.
• Sleep cleans brain of toxins. Have you heard of the glymphatic system?

Thanks to Claire Hsu.

• Probiotics reduce frequency of colds, Cochrane review finds
• A dentist says prophylactic removal of wisdom teeth is a bad idea. “Ten million third molars (wisdom teeth) are extracted from approximately 5 million people in the United States each year at an annual cost of over $3 billion. . . . More than 11000 people suffer permanent paresthesia—numbness of the lip, tongue, and cheek—as a consequence of nerve injury during the surgery. At least two thirds of these extractions, associated costs, and injuries are unnecessary, constituting a silent epidemic of iatrogenic injury.”
• Duke University trustees defend endowment secrecy in funny ways. “David Rubenstein ’70, the Trustee chair, [says] Duke can keep a student’s grades secret — available only to a few administrators — and the principle is the same with Duke’s money.”
• Self-assembling robots

Thanks to Allan Jackson and Bob Levinson.

• The science of fermented sausage and cheese 
• Fermented food in Australia. “There’s a yeasty funkiness to fermented foods that I find really interesting,”
• Bad medical journalism pushes down good medical journalism. Decline of TheHeart.org. In contrast, I don’t think The New Yorker got worse after it was bought by Conde Nast.
• Whole body vibration. Clearly helps some people in chronic pain (the pain goes away). In other cases, the benefit is less clear.

I found this comment from Art Ayers deep in a discussion on his excellent blog Cooling Inflammation:

Probiotic fermenting bacteria only work in the upper part of the gut, not in the colon. The anaerobic bacteria that work in the colon must be slowly acquired by persistent eating of diverse veggies to provide diverse polysaccharides and uncooked veggies to provide the bacteria.

I agree and disagree. It’s an excellent point that the bacteria near the stomach are quite different from the bacteria deep in the colon. So you need different sources of each. I don’t know what “probiotic fermenting bacteria” are (I was under the impression that all bacteria “ferment”), but, yeah, bacteria that live on lactose (e.g., in yogurt) are going to be quite different than bacteria that live on more complex sugars that are digested more slowly than lactose and thus pass further into the intestine.

To me, this explains why I like vegetables. I have no trouble avoiding fruit, bread, rice, pasta, and so on, but I hate meals without vegetables. Why? This line of thought suggests it is because they supply complex polysaccharides needed for deep-colon health. As Ayers implies, you wouldn’t need a lot. This line of thought suggests how you or nutrition scientists can decide what fermented foods to eat (some for each part of the digestive system).

I disagree about raw vegetables. Like most people, I don’t like raw vegetables. I like the crunchiness but the taste is too weak. That most people are like me is suggested by the fact that raw vegetables are almost never eaten without dip or dressing (which add fat and flavor) or something done to make them more palatable (e.g., sugar and liquid from tomatoes). If raw vegetables were important, even necessary, for health, the fact that they are hard to eat would make no evolutionary sense.

I do like pickled/fermented vegetables of all sorts, such as kimchi and sauerkraut. I believe they are a far better source of the bacteria you need than raw vegetables (they have far more of the bacteria that grow on raw vegetables than ordinary raw vegetables).