Life is Healthy

A few months ago, I published a post about the Pima Indians (Akimel O'odham) of Arizona. The Pima are one of the most heart-wrenching examples of the disease of civilization afflicting a society after a nutrition transition. Traditionally a healthy agricultural people, they now have some of the highest rates of obesity and diabetes in the world.

The trouble all started when their irrigation waters were diverted upstream in the late 19th century. Their traditional diet of corn, beans, squash, fish, game meats and gathered plant foods became impossible. They became dependent on government food programs, which provided them with white flour, sugar, lard and canned goods. Now they are the subjects of scientific research because of their staggering health problems.

I'm happy to report that after more than 30 years of activism, lawsuits and negotiation, the Pima and neighboring tribes have reached an agreement with the federal government that will restore a portion of their original water. Of the 2 million acre-feet of water the Pima were estimated to have used since before the 16th century, the settlement will restore 653,500. An acre-foot is approximately the personal water use of one household. The settlement also provides federal funds for reconstructing old irrigation canals.

Now we will see how the Pima will use it. Will they return to an agricultural lifestyle, perhaps with the advantages of modern technology? Or will they lease the water rights for money and continue to live off Western foods? Perhaps some of both. They are definitely aware that Western food is causing their health problems, and that they could regain their health by eating traditional foods. However, white flour "fry bread", sugar and canned meat have been around for so long they are also a cultural tradition at this point. Only time will tell which path they choose.

This blog does not bring me any revenue, direct or indirect. I publish it as a free service to my friends and family, and anyone else who's interested.

I don't allow advertising at this time, nor am I connected to any of the products or books I've mentioned in any way.

My meager salary is paid indirectly by the National Institutes of Health, which supports my research on neurodegenerative disease. This blog is a personal project of mine and the NIH has no influence over it, or knowledge of it.

My biases are all my own.

But could we get one pic where all of us were looking at the camera and smiling? Um, no.
Updated to add this cute pic of D. and my nephew, in their matching ties. S. had a matching one, too.

Prior to the switch in my thyroid medication, my temperature always ranged around 97. Well, last night I took my temperature, and it was 98.5, That's the highest it's been in years. Before, I always felt cold. Now, for the first time in years, I feel warm. I feel like I'm getting it together, too. And all it took was a little more T-3. So many people are different when it comes to the care of whatever ailment they might have. If we were all the same, we would all look alike. And wouldn't that be scary?

My sister found this when she googled me the other day.

It's funny how something can be simultaneously extremely cool and utterly terrifying.

That's not the final title and it's not coming out until the spring of 2009. Even so, I am embarassed to say how many times I have clicked on this link, just to prove to myself it's still there.

The U.S. National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) is a government organization that educates physicians and the general public about the "dangers" of elevated cholesterol. They have a panel that creates official guidelines for the reduction of cardiovascular disease risk. They contain target cholesterol levels, and the usual recommendations to eat less saturated fat and cholesterol, and lose weight.

They recommend keeping LDL below 100 mg/dL, which would place tens of millions of Americans on statins.

I was reading Dr. John Briffa's blog today and he linked to a government web page disclosing NCEP panel members' conflicts of interest. It's fairly common in academic circles to require conflict of interest statements, so a skeptical audience can decide whether or not they think someone is biased. The 9-member NECP panel was happy to indulge us:

Dr. Grundy has received honoraria from Merck, Pfizer, Sankyo, Bayer, Merck/Schering-Plough, Kos, Abbott, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and AstraZeneca; he has received research grants from Merck, Abbott, and Glaxo Smith Kline.

Dr. Cleeman has no financial relationships to disclose.

Dr. Bairey Merz has received lecture honoraria from Pfizer, Merck, and Kos; she has served as a consultant for Pfizer, Bayer, and EHC (Merck); she has received unrestricted institutional grants for Continuing Medical Education from Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, Novartis, Wyeth, AstraZeneca, and Bristol-Myers Squibb Medical Imaging; she has received a research grant from Merck; she has stock in Boston Scientific, IVAX, Eli Lilly, Medtronic, Johnson & Johnson, SCIPIE Insurance, ATS Medical, and Biosite.

Dr. Brewer has received honoraria from AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Lipid Sciences, Merck, Merck/Schering-Plough, Fournier, Tularik, Esperion, and Novartis; he has served as a consultant for AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Lipid Sciences, Merck, Merck/Schering-Plough, Fournier, Tularik, Sankyo, and Novartis.

Dr. Clark has received honoraria for educational presentations from Abbott, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, and Pfizer; he has received grant/research support from Abbott, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, and Pfizer.

Dr. Hunninghake has received honoraria for consulting and speakers bureau from AstraZeneca, Merck, Merck/Schering-Plough, and Pfizer, and for consulting from Kos; he has received research grants from AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Kos, Merck, Merck/Schering-Plough, Novartis, and Pfizer.

Dr. Pasternak has served as a speaker for Pfizer, Merck, Merck/Schering-Plough, Takeda, Kos, BMS-Sanofi, and Novartis; he has served as a consultant for Merck, Merck/Schering-Plough, Sanofi, Pfizer Health Solutions, Johnson & Johnson-Merck, and AstraZeneca.

Dr. Smith has received institutional research support from Merck; he has stock in Medtronic and Johnson & Johnson.

Dr. Stone has received honoraria for educational lectures from Abbott, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Kos, Merck, Merck/Schering-Plough, Novartis, Pfizer, Reliant, and Sankyo; he has served as a consultant for Abbott, Merck, Merck/Schering-Plough, Pfizer, and Reliant.

In the 'before photo' here Debra Flinn weighs 216 pounds at her height of 5'5".

She decided to take extreme measures to lose weight and planned on walking to a city that was 874 miles away.

It took her 66 days to do it (at an average daily walking mileage of 13 miles). When she got there she was 35 pounds lighter.

See her story and her 'after photo' here.

I finally got my tooth fixed yesterday. It is so much nicer without that sharp-edged tooth. Anyway, my face was numb for close to five hours. Why is it that the numbing seems to get number after you leave the dentist's office? And my breath had that wonderful I've-just-been-to-the-dentist's-office aroma. Gak. That's really hard to get rid of. Today, it feels tender. But not sharp. Yea.

Would you like to know who enjoys reading your blog? Or stay updated with your favorite blogs right from your Blogger dashboard? You can do those things and more with Blogger’s new Following feature.

By following your blog, your readers tell you and the world that they’re a fan of what you post. Your Dashboard now shows you how many followers each of your blogs has. With a click on the Followers icon, you can browse your followers, see what blogs they write, and read the other blogs they’re following.

Now that you know who your Followers are, you can show them off by adding the Followers gadget to your blog’s sidebar. From the “Layout | Page Elements” tab, click “Add a Gadget” and select “Followers” from the gadgets list. The Followers gadget shows the profile pictures of your followers and gives your readers a “Follow This Blog” link to join up, too.

Your followers can stay updated with your blog with the Reading List that we’ve added to the Blogger Dashboard. The Blogs I’m Following tab automatically shows the latest posts from all the blogs you follow. You can follow any blog from your reading list, even blogs that haven’t added the Followers widget or aren’t hosted on Blogger. Just click the “Add” button and type in the blog’s URL.

If you’re a Google Reader user, you’ll now see a special folder in Reader called “Blogs I’m Following,” full of the subscriptions for all of the blogs you follow. You can follow blogs you’ve subscribed to in Reader, too: From the Reading List on your Blogger Dashboard, click “Add,” then “Import from Google Reader.”

And.... there's more to come! We are also in the process of integrating with Google Friend Connect so you can give your readers more engaging social features.

• What is Following?
• How do I add the Followers gadget to my blog?
• How do I use the Blogger Reading List?
• Following a Blog Publicly vs. Anonymously

I have been out of town for a couple of days, spending time with friends at their cottage. We were four adults, four boys ranging in age from 17 months to 11 years and five dogs of various ages and sizes. It was barely controlled chaos and absolute bliss.

I am home now. In a few minutes I will turn off the computer and go curl up with a good book and a slice of my friend M.'s divine lemon pound cake (it contains an entire cup of butter and six cups of sugar. That's before icing) Perhaps I'll even have a ice cold cider with the cake.

In other news, I have a new post up at MyBreastCancerNetwork.Com, called "The Challenge of the Twenty Second Update."

This past week end, I went to a beautiful wedding with my family. In attendance were relatives I hadn’t seen in many years, lots of people I had never met and one of my favourite teachers from grade school.

I always feel a bit of awkwardness at these kinds of events, as I brace myself for the inevitable questions, “What are you up to these days?” or “What do you do?”

No one wants to drop the c-word at a wedding, least of all me.

The big news for this release is following, but we’ve snuck a few other fixes in since last time:

• As reported on Blogger Buster (and elsewhere), the 3rd party Add Widget API was broken. It has been fixed.
• The new button style appears clickable in all browers.
• The Blog List widget can show thumbnails specified in Media RSS feeds.
• Atom feeds now include the blog’s description as the <subtitle> element.
  

The first patient in the New York City area received incision free surgery for obesity as part of the ongoing multicenter TOGA Pivotal Trial at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center.

Drs. Marc Bessler and Daniel Davis performed the TOGA Procedure (for "transoral gastroplasty"), which, like other obesity procedures, is designed to alter the patient's stomach anatomy to give them a feeling of fullness after a small meal. The difference is that TOGA was performed under direct endoscopic visualization with specialized instruments passed into the stomach through the mouth without any incisions.

"This new surgery is an exciting option for severely overweight patients who do not respond to diet, exercise and drug therapy. We hope to show that, like other weight-loss operations, the TOGA procedure will help them to lose weight and improve their health," says Dr. Bessler, principal investigator and director of laparoscopic surgery and director of the Center for Obesity Surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia. He is also an assistant professor of surgery at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

In the new procedure, the surgeon introduces a set of flexible stapling devices through the mouth into the stomach, and uses them to create a restrictive pouch that is intended to catch food as it enters the stomach, giving patients a feeling of fullness after a small meal.

"The benefits of an endoscopic approach are less pain, quicker recovery, shortened hospital stay and decreased complications, as well as a lack of scarring," says study co-investigator Dr. Davis, a surgeon at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center and assistant professor of surgery at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. "Eventually, TOGA may also be an option for patients who are unable or unwilling to undergo more invasive surgery."

A 2006 - 2007 pilot study at medical centers in Mexico and Belgium found that patients receiving the TOGA procedure lost more than a third of their excess body weight. By 12 months, their excess weight loss averaged almost 40 percent.

In the current study, two out of three patients will receive the TOGA procedure, while one out of three will receive a control procedure, which is similar to the TOGA procedure except no pouch is created. After one year, patients will be told which procedure they received, and patients who received the control procedure will be offered the TOGA procedure if they continue to meet the treatment criteria.

Patients enrolled in the clinical trial will be followed for a minimum of 12 months. All study-related medical care will be provided at no charge to the patient, and patients will receive medically supervised nutritional counseling.

The purpose of the TOGA Pivotal Trial is to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the TOGA procedure. Investigators will be evaluating weight loss and changes in obesity-related health problems such as Type 2 diabetes, cholesterol levels and hypertension. If successful, it's hoped that this study will result in FDA approval of the TOGA System, which will allow patients to be treated outside of clinical trials. Currently, the TOGA System is an "investigational device" and can only be used in clinical studies.

NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia plans to enroll at least 15 patients out of a total 275 patients to be enrolled at centers nationwide. Volunteers must be 18 to 60 years old and 100 pounds or more overweight, and must have been unsuccessful with non-surgical weight-loss methods.

Obesity is a global disease affecting over 300 million people, according to the World Health Organization. Obesity causes or contributes to numerous serious medical conditions, including Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, arthritis, sleep apnea and certain types of cancer.

Source: Medical News Today

My arch nemesis Bob was back this year!!!! hehe, He's a great gent I met last year and he insisted on giving me a hard time; but in a good way!
When he saw I was his MC, I swear I saw a grin creep across his face ;)
Great to see you again Bob; no really I mean it, I really do, no honestly; hehe!

This is the first week of four week in a row at Monfrague; so what was instore? Well of course, lots of variety in the participants so that was great, old mixing with young and vice-versa wonderful Spaniards who worked hard and gained the confidence they needed in their English - they got involved in the theatre sections and worked hard on their presentations (or their secretaries did,lol); although karaoke was quite subdued, unlike the party which rocked!

I had worked on a few sketches when I was off and I got to put them into practise this week, they were ok, still a little polish needed I think.
Hopefully they all enjoyed them none the less.

This week seemed to go quickly, which is only a good sign!
Met wonderful individuals and couples such as Paul & Tiffany and Manuel & Adriana (great folks indeed!) and Emma returned (with lots of goodies from the UK for me) and I got to meet the mighty FAZIL!

Mayte did a great job of course, she is very comfortable in the role, now if we could only get her to some emotions!?!?

As typical you can access the photos by clicking the picture below

Vaughan Town - Monfrague - Program 125

Europe once teemed with large mammals, including species of elephant, lion, tiger, bear, moose and bison.

America was also home to a number of huge and unusual animals: mammoths, dire wolves, lions, giant sloths and others.

The same goes for Australia, where giant kangaroos, huge wombats and marsupial 'lions' once roamed.

What do these extinctions have in common? They all occurred around when humans arrived. The idea that humans caused them is hotly debated, because they also sometimes coincided with climactic and vegetation changes. However, I believe the fact that these extinctions occurred on several different continents about when humans arrived points to an anthropogenic explanation.

A recent archaeological study from the island of Tasmania off the coast of Australia supports the idea that humans were behind the Australian extinctions. Many large animals went extinct around the time when humans arrived in Australia, but that time also coincided with a change in climate. What the new study shows is that the same large animals survived for another 5,000 years in Tasmania... until humans arrived there from the mainland. Then they promptly went extinct. That time period didn't correspond to a major climate change, so it's hard to explain it away.

It's a harsh reality that our big brains and remarkable adaptability give us the power to be exceptionally destructive to the environment. We're good at finding the most productive niches available, and exploiting them until they implode. Jared Diamond wrote an excellent book on the subject called Collapse, which details how nearly every major civilization collapse throughout history was caused at least in part by environmental damage. It's been a hallmark of human history since the beginning.

I don't think it will take much to convince you that the trend has accelerated in modern times. Ocean life, our major source of nutrient-rich wild food, has already been severely depleted. The current extinction rate is estimated to be over 1,000 times the baseline, pre-modern level, and rising.

Humans have always been top-level predators. We kill and eat nutrient-dense prey that is often much larger than we are. But today, the extinction of such walking meat lockers has caused us to eat down the food chain. We're turning to jellyfish and sea cucumbers and... gasp... lobsters!

While it's true that we've probably always eaten things like shellfish and insects, I find it disturbing that we've depleted the oceans to the point where we can no longer sustainably eat formerly abundant carnivorous fish like tuna. We need to make a concerted effort to preserve these species because extinction is permanent.

I don't want to live in a future where the only thing on the menu is bacteria patties, the other other other other white meat.

Yesterday, I drove around for a while crying. Then I stopped by a grocery store and bought this delightful treat called a whoppie pie. It was chocolate cake with a creamy vanilla filling. Ten minutes after I ate it, I felt better. I'm not sure if it was the combination of sugar and chocolate, but it was wonderful. I also ate a pint of chocolate ice cream. Some people need a drink. I just need a shot of chocolate, or a pint as the case may be.

The media recently covered an archaeological discovery in Niger that caught my attention. In the middle of the Sahara desert, researchers found a hunter-gatherer burial site containing over 200 graves ranging from about 10,000 to 4,500 years old. During this period, the region was lush and productive.

There were two groups: the Kiffian, who were powerful hunters and fishermen, and the Tenerian, who were smaller pastoralists (herders) and fishermen.

Individuals at the Kiffian sites averaged over 6 feet tall, with some reaching 6' 8". They were powerfully muscled, and found with the remains of elephants, giraffes, pythons, giant perch and other large game.

Not that you have to be Conan the Barbarian to kill an elephant. Forest pygmies traditionally hunt elephants, and there's a picutre in Nutrition and Physical Degeneration to prove it. They use stealth, agility and an intimate knowledge of their prey to make up for their small size and primitive weapons.

Both the Kiffians and the Tenerians had excellent dental development and health. Take a look at some of the pictures. Those are the teeth of a wild Homo sapiens. Straight, free of decay and with plenty of room for the wisdom teeth. They must have had good dentists.

Both cultures also showed a high level of intelligence and empathy. They were found with decorated pottery shards and their bodies were arranged in imaginative and empathetic ways. A man was buried sitting on a tortoise shell. A mother was buried with her two children. Here's the picture. I can't say it better than the LA Times:

Among the Tenerian graves was a heart-rending burial tableaux [SIC!!]: A young woman was lying on her side. Pollen under her body suggested that she was placed on a bed of flowers. Lying on their sides facing her were two young children, their fingers interlocked with hers, leaving a tangle of bones.

Al would've been 50 years old today. I wish I could wish him a happy birthday, but I guess I can't really do that now, can I? Sometime I think about his ashes. I still have them--some in an urn and some in a plastic container because all of his ashes wouldn't fit in a typical urn. I always intended to spread the ashes somewhere in Canaan Valley--that was his favorite place on earth. I remember when the funeral home called and said they just couldn't get him a regular-sized urn and that many times the family chooses to spread the remaining ashes--I thought that would be perfect. But since then I have never been able to let him go. I hang onto the ashes because then I still have him--well, not whole like when he was alive. He's just in a couple of different containers in a bookcase in my bedroom, that's all. But he's still there. (I should say that Al wasn't a fat guy. He just had incredibly large bones. In fact, I had donated his bone marrow and they actually took his hip and thigh bones, and he still wouldn't fit in a regular-sized urn. Now those were some big, ole strong bones.)

Maybe I should let go of the ashes. Maybe it would help me let go of him. I think I'm still hanging onto him. Why? I know he's not coming back. He's not going to need his ashes. I was just thinking: if he does come back, he's going to be really pissed that I gave his suits to charity last Christmas--and I threw out all of his underwear. But what is real? He's not coming back. So what do I do? Figure out how to move on.

As far as exercise goes, I did not go to the gym this morning either. My knee is swollen and stiff. But I've got to keep it moving. So I'll go back tomorrow. And I'll go back to work, too. I just needed a day to collect myself.

This is an excerpt from a post I wrote for MyBreastCancerNetwork.Com. I wrote it last Tuesday morning, before chemo:

When I am done, I will crawl off the bed a lot more slowly than I climbed onto it and my friend will take me home. For the next few days, I will feel like I have the flu. As my physical symptoms improve, my mood will worsen. By Friday, I will have to keep reminding myself that my rage and my sorrow are temporary.

And then Saturday will come and I will feel (more or less) like myself again.

If all goes well, things will continue like this over the next few months. Chemotherapy every four weeks. Clean scans every few months. And my echocardiograms will show that my heart still beats strongly and with regularity.

I am left with little to tell about my life as a cancer patient that is earth shatteringly new. But, as my spouse is quick to point out to me, when you have metastatic cancer of any kind, boring is very good indeed.

"It all translates; at the end of the day, we've all been picked on for some reason or another." ~ Mary J. Blige

Devastating Drought Settles on The High Plains

Cimarron County, Oklahoma, the westernmost county in the state, is “at the epicenter of the drought,” according to staff climatologist Gary McManus with the Oklahoma Climatological Survey (OCS). The land is occupied by wheat farms, corn fields, and pasture. It’s an area of periodic drought; the Dust Bowl years have not yet faded from living memory.

“The area has been in and out of drought since the start of the decade. Mostly in,” McManus said. “But fall of last year was when it really started to get bad. In some places, this year has been as dry or even drier than the Dust Bowl.” As of early August, the Oklahoma panhandle was experiencing its driest year (previous 365 days) since 1921, according to OCS calculations. Through July, year-to-date precipitation in Boise City, Cimarron’s County Seat, was only about 4.8 inches, barely half of average and drier than some years in the 1930s, the height of the Dust Bowl.

The toll of the drought on crops and pasture is evident in satellite-based vegetation images spanning the past year. On NASA’s Terra satellite, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) collects observations of visible and infrared light that scientists use to create a scale, or index, of vegetation conditions. In images from late July 2007, conditions appeared near or only a little below normal compared to the 2000-2006 average. In mid-autumn, however, during the beginning of the growing season for the winter wheat crop, conditions had already started to deteriorate. By late April/early May, the impact of the drought on the area’s crops and rangeland was dramatic.

In late June and early July, conditions in the agricultural lands appeared to improve somewhat. The apparent improvement could be misleading however. Paul Toon, the Cimarron County Executive Director for the Oklahoma Office of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Farm Service Agency, says the Panhandle did receive patchy rains in June and July. But late June or July is also when the season’s winter wheat crop is typically harvested. In crop areas, at least, it may be normal for vegetation to be sparse at that time of the year. So the drought might not seem as dramatic in those areas.

Precipitation in Boise City from January through July 2008 was only 12 centimeters (less than 5 inches), only half of average. The dryness is on par with the worst years of the Dust Bowl decade, which came to be called the “Dirty Thirties.” From 1930 to 1936, the January–July precipitation ranged from 10 to 18 centimeters. (Graph by Robert Simmon, based on data from the Global Historical Climatology Network and NOAA NNDC Climate Data Online.)

Viewed from the ground, the situation is equally discouraging. According to Cherrie Brown, district conservationist for the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in Boise City, subsoil moisture is virtually non-existent. “Any rain that falls is sapped by evaporation in two or three days. Four feet down, there is literally no moisture left in the soil. Recently we were digging as part of a project to decommission a county well, and we dug down to a depth of 7 feet, and there was still no moisture. Even irrigation can’t offset these deficits,” she said. As a result, crops have failed and pasture is severely degraded.

end of excerpt.




This is happening in too many places worldwide simultaneously to simply be attributed to just water waste and mismanagement. From what I see here, these are the classic effects of climate change. And this isn't Australia, Spain, Cyprus, Africa, or Turkey... this is right here in our own backyard and effecting our own people.

Last Sunday would've been my 18th wedding anniversary, and Monday would've been Al's 50th birthday. I'm in the middle of some really deep emotions, and I think I'm going to go nuts if I don't get out of here. I had a friend who promised to there for me through this rough time, but is now gone. So much for that I guess.

I'd like to go get a half gallon of ice cream and eat it all myself. I don't really know what to do with myself. I feel like crying.

In my professional life, I study neurodegenerative disease, the mechanisms of aging, and what the two have in common. I was reading through a textbook on aging a few months ago, and I came across an interesting series of graphs.

The first graph showed the average cardiorespiratory endurance of Americans at different ages. It peaks around 30 and goes downhill from there. But the author of this chapter was very intelligent; he knew that averages sometimes conceal meaningful information. The second graph showed two lines: one representing a man who was sedentary, and the other representing a man who exercised regularly for his entire life. The data were from real individuals. The endurance of the first man basically tracked the national average as he aged. The endurance of the second man remained relatively stable from early adulthood until the age of 70, after which it declined noticeably.

We aren't taking care of ourselves for nothing, ladies and gentlemen. We're doing it because the stakes are high. Just look at Jack LaLanne, the fitness buff. He's been working out regularly and eating a whole foods diet since before I was born, and he's still pumping iron every day at 93.

Has anyone heard this before: When you lose a lot of weight--especially if you are hypothyroid--your body's conversion of T-4 to T-3 will slow down to the point that you will no longer lose weight? T-3 is the thyroid hormone primarily responsible for metabolism. This is the response that is responsible for the dreaded plateau. This is the first time I have ever heard an explanation that makes perfect sense to me. What do you think?

US scientists testing the epilepsy drug vigabatrin (GVG) as a potential treatment for drug addiction, discovered that it also led to rapid weight loss and reduced food intake in genetically bred obese rats.

The discovery by scientists at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, is published in the 20 August advance online issue of the journal Synapse.

Vigabatrin is currently being tested throughout the US in Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Phase II trials for the treatment of cocaine and methamphetamine addiction.

For this latest study, the scientists at the DOE's Brookhaven Laboratory found that rats that were genetically bred to be obese showed a 19 per cent loss of total body weight while rats that were not obese lost 12 to 20 per cent, after less than two months on vigabatrin.

Study leader Amy DeMarco, who works with co-author and senior scientist at the Laboratory, Stephen Dewey, said it appeared that the drug made the animals feel full:

"Our results appear to demonstrate that vigabatrin induced satiety in these animals."

Dewey's team was the first to discover vigabatrin as a potential treatment for addiction. They have been investigating the drug for more than 20 years.

Earlier research at Brookhaven discovered a strong link between obesity and addiction, characterized by similar changes in brain activity of the obese and addicts depedent on drugs like cocaine. This prompted Dewey and colleagues to try and find out if vigabatrin would quench food cravings as it does drug cravings. As Dewey explained:

"Given the growing obesity epidemic, we felt that examining vigabatrin's therapeutic efficacy for obesity was particularly relevant."

For the study, Dewey, DeMarco and colleagues assigned 50 adolescent and adult genetically bred "fat" and normal weight rats either to a control group or to groups that were given varios doses of vigabatrin and monitored them for up to 40 days.

The control group rats were given daily injections of saline, while the drug groups were injected with up to 300 mg of of vigabatrin a day. The injection phases lasted for two periods of 7 to 13 days, with breaks in between.

After 40 days, all the animals treated with vigabatrin weighed significantly less than those that received only the saline injections (the controls).

The biggest weight loss and reduction in food intake was in the group that had the biggest dose, the 300 mg dose of vigabatrin. The obese rats lost an average of 19 per cent of their body weight, and the non obese animals lost between 12 and 20 per cent.

Dewey said that the fact the results occurred in the genetically obese animals "offers hope that this drug could potentially treat severe obesity".

"This would appear to be true even if the obesity results from binge eating, as this disorder is characterized by eating patterns that are similar to drug- taking patterns in those with cocaine dependency," he added.

Source: Medical News Today

Updated to say that my spouse thinks I should have edited my leg out of the second picture. I am feeling extremely lazy today, so I can't be bothered. I think it looks fine, as it is.

Updated again: A very nice reader of this blog cropped the pic for me and I concede that it really does look much better.

I wrote a blog today over at ZenBagLady bidding readers a temporary farewell as I put the blog on hiatus to pursue the book proposal I've committed to writing. I must also do the same thing with Lynn's Weigh, although unlike ZBL, I'll write here once every few weeks because I don't want to lose touch with all of you. And as I said on ZBL, I'll still be posting once or twice a week at Refuse to Regain, so it's not like I'll be completely holed up in my office writing a book.

I feel like I just put my kindergartener on the bus for the first day of school. I know it's necessary to let go of some things for the greater good of another thing, but it's still sad nonetheless. I promise to stay in touch and hope you will do the same.

Below is today's blog over on ZBL:

English can be such a dull language. It’s so practical in terms of pronunciation – mostly clean and repressed – and it often relies on phrases rather than one single word to communicate an idea or action. Not like German where you get to spit and gargle when you talk, and where several words are pasted together into one word to relay meaning.

Today, though, I’m meditating on one English word that is not only fun to say, but holds great meaning for what I’m about to do to ZenBagLady. The word “hiatus” is one of those English words that creates a stop in your jaw, makes you think for a split second about how it feels coming out. Hiatus. If you look at it long enough, it begins to look like a foreign word, from some Pacific island, meaning a flower, maybe. Or a bug.

But what it really means is to take a break. And that’s what I must do. I’ve committed to writing a book proposal and I’m afraid I’ve not given it the time and energy it needs to be the best book proposal I can write. As much as I hate to do it, ZenBagLady will go into hiatus, like a mediocre sitcom, beginning today. However, I reserve the right to publish a blog on occasion, so ZBL won’t be completely gone. It’s a break. An “interruption in space,” according the dictionary.

Thank you for reading the Lady. It’s been a lot of fun writing it these last two years. I’ll still be blogging once a week over on Refuse To Regain with my friend Barbara, and I promise to return ZBL after I get this proposal written.

‘Til next time….auf Wiedersehen, my friends.

Today is Friday. Another week gone.

I was talking to a writer last week who had once written something for Chris Langham. This radio series, along with the brilliant People Like Us, Help and the first series of The Thick of It is now destined never to be repeated. I said that he was therefore just as much a victim as anyone else in this whole sorry saga - those radio repeat fees can sometimes add up to several whole pounds.

I was joking, of course, but with other events this week it did remind me of this song by the brilliant Luke Haines. Enjoy.



If you liked that, check out more of his work - he was also in The Auteurs, Baader Meinhof and Black Box Recorder.

There's a lot to be learned from the Kitava study. Kitavans eat a diet of root vegetables, coconut, fruit, vegetables and fish and have undetectable levels of cardiovascular disease (CVD), stroke and overweight. Despite smoking like chimneys. 69% of their calories come from carbohydrate, 21% from fat and 10% from protein. This is essentially a carbohydrate-heavy version of what our paleolithic ancestors ate. They also get lots of sunshine and have a moderately high activity level.

The first thing we can say is that a high intake of carbohydrate is not enough, by itself, to cause overweight or the diseases of civilization. It's also not enough to cause insulin resistance. I sent an e-mail to Dr. Lindeberg asking if his group had measured Kitavans' glucose tolerance. He told me they had not. However, I can only guess they had good glucose control since they suffered from none of the complications of unmanaged diabetes.

The Kitavan diet is low in fat, but most of the fat they eat is saturated because it comes from coconuts. Compared to Americans and Swedes, they have a high intake of saturated fat. So much for the theory that saturated fat causes CVD... They also have a relatively high intake of fish fat, at 4g per day. This gives them a high ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids, with plenty of DHA and EPA.

Their blood lipid profile is not what a mainstream cardiologist would expect. In fact, it's "worse" than the Swedish profile in many ways, despite the fact that Swedes are highly prone to CVD. This suggests that blood lipids are not causing CVD, but are simply markers of diet and lifestyle factors. That's very easy for me to swallow because it never made sense to me that our livers would try to kill us by secreting triglycerides and witholding HDL. The blood lipid profile that associates best with CVD and metabolic syndrome in the West (but has no relation to them on Kitava) is one that's consistent with a high carbohydrate intake. Where does carbohydrate come from in the West? Grains and sugar maybe?

Kitavans also have very low serum leptin. This may be a keystone to their leanness and health. It suggests that their diet is not interfering with the body's metabolic feedback loops that maintain leanness.

The Kitavan diet is one path to vibrant health. Like many other non-industrial groups, Kitavans eat whole, natural foods that are broadly consistent with what our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have eaten. It amazes me that as humans, we can live well on diets that range from complete carnivory to plant-rich omnivory. We are possibly the most adaptable species on the planet.

The ideal diet for humans includes a lot of possibilities. I believe the focus on macronutrients is misguided. There are examples of cultures that were/are healthy eating high-fat diets, high-carbohydrate diets and everything in between. What they do not eat is processed grains, particularly wheat, refined sugar, industrially processed vegetable oils and other modern foods. I believe these are unhealthy, and this is visible in the trail of destruction they have left around the globe. Its traces can be found in the Pacific islands, where close genetic relatives of the Kitavans have become morbidly obese and unhealthy on a processed-food diet.

One last caveat. I do still believe in the efficacy of low-carbohydrate diets for weight loss and health. The Western diet and lifestyle can damage the metabolism severely, particularly glucose metabolism. It seems to be somewhat reversible, but it depends on the extent of the damage and the individual. People with a history of overweight or poor glucose control should be careful with carbohydrate. It's possible that some people will not be able to handle normal amounts of carbohydrate in any form. Be aware of what your body is telling you.

Recovering from chemo always provides me with an excuse to spend time online getting caught up on the blogs that I love. I am stealing this meme from Average Jane, who also posted the following instructions:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

It took me a while to do (I cut myself some slack when I am in my jammies for days on end) but it was fun.

And I have the following observations:

1- I don't know as much about food as I thought I did. I had to look a lot of these things up.

2-I am not as adventurous as I was in my younger days. Not sure that I would eat frogs' legs now. Or that I would have turned down head cheese, had I been offered it when I was younger.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison

2. Nettle tea

3. Huevos rancheros

4. Steak tartare

5. Crocodile

6. Black pudding

7. Cheese fondue

8. Carp

9. Borscht

10. Baba ghanoush

11. Calamari

12. Pho

13. PB&J sandwich

14. Aloo gobi

15. Hot dog from a street cart

16. Epoisses

17. Black truffle

18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes

19. Steamed pork buns

20. Pistachio ice cream

21. Heirloom tomatoes

22. Fresh wild berries

23. Foie gras

24. Rice and beans

25. Brawn, or head cheese

26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper

27. Dulce de leche

28. Oysters

29. Baklava

30. Bagna cauda

31. Wasabi peas

32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl

33. Salted lassi

34. Sauerkraut

35. Root beer float

36. Cognac with a fat cigar

37. Clotted cream tea

38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O

39. Gumbo

40. Oxtail

41. Curried goat

42. Whole insects

43. Phaal

44. Goat’s milk

45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more

46. Fugu

47. Chicken tikka masala

48. Eel

49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut

50. Sea urchin

51. Prickly pear

52. Umeboshi

53. Abalone

54. Paneer

55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal

56. Spaetzle

57. Dirty gin martini

58. Beer above 8% ABV

59. Poutine

60. Carob chips

61. S’mores

62. Sweetbreads

63. Kaolin

64. Currywurst

65. Durian

66. Frogs’ legs

67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake

68. Haggis

69. Fried plantain

70. Chitterlings, or andouillette

71. Gazpacho

72. Caviar and blini

73. Louche absinthe

74. Gjetost, or brunost

75. Roadkill

76. Baijiu

77. Hostess Fruit Pie

78. Snail

79. Lapsang souchong

80. Bellini

81. Tom yum

82. Eggs Benedict

83. Pocky

84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.

85. Kobe beef

86. Hare

87. Goulash

88. Flowers

89. Horse

90. Criollo chocolate

91. Spam

92. Soft shell crab

93. Rose harissa

94. Catfish

95. Mole poblano

96. Bagel and lox

97. Lobster Thermidor

98. Polenta

99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee

100. Snake