Maggie's Farm

How Fat, Big Boobs, and Propriety gave us The Stethoscope

Perhaps I am beating a dead horse with this, but I do hate bad science especially when it is transported into policy and public misinformation.  9 Lies About Fat That Destroyed The World's Health

It never hurts to be skeptical. Recent scientific case in point - this morning's link about the honeybee scam.

"I'll go on a diet after the holidays." Right. Sure you will, just like last year.

Being fat in the US is highly correlated with social class. Like academic degrees and choice of clothing, being heavy is a social marker of sorts for men and women.

In a sexist way, men are given some leeway for a few extra pounds but only if they are wealthy, powerful, or brilliant.

Black women, recent immigrants, working class and lower middle-class, and the poor seem to display the most consistent overweight. (In the midwest US, fat in women seems to be near-universal outside of urban centers. What is that about?) Cause, effect, coincidence, or what? I have no idea what it is all about.

One must accept that, in many ways, it is a great success of the western world - to give everybody the opportunity to be fat if they want to be, even if on welfare. (See  Dramatic Increases in Obesity and Overweight Prevalence and Body
Mass Index among Ethnic-immigrant and Social Class Groups in the United
States, 1976–2008)

There was a time, over 100 years ago, when prosperous men displayed their prosperity in their bulging bellies. Fashion and expectations change. In eastern Europe and Russia, fat was good. It meant you had more potatoes than the next house. In the 1600s, fat was popular in western Europe too - see Rubens. Today, see a WalMart aisle. It used to be difficult to be pudgy and today it is difficult to be fit. Fortunately for us, we do live in a fitness-oriented world despite our (mostly) daily lack of manual labor. Fitness makes everything in life better and longer, reduces indolence, lethargy, and fatigue, and puts old age farther into the future. Nothing but sinful laziness stands in our way.

In the Western world today, with its abundance of cheap and tasty carbs, thin has been in for 100 years and being fat has been a public sign of giving up on an energetic life in many aspects: sex, romance, social attractiveness, sports, fun, agility,  and overall vitality.

In my view, you can be too thin, you can be too heavy, but you can't be too rich.

As I have been saying here for years, forget about it. Dietary fat has nothing to do with cardiac disease. Lowering saturated fats does no good. This video h/t SDA

Keeping thin is a good idea, though, for many medical reasons. Yes, people have been conned. Low-fat is foolish, and science and politics is always a mess. Junk science, indeed. Carbs make you fat and harm your arteries, joints, energy, and everything else.

Heart of the Matter Part 1 Dietary Villains from Michael Eades on Vimeo.

That is, unless you are on a low- or zero-carb weight loss diet.

Sugar Is Not Toxic. Reese's and Snickers are Maggie's officially-endorsed Halloween treats.

American pop-cultural history: How Candy Conquered Halloween

Governments try to control what kids eat, and they'd like to control what you consume also.

However, government planning rarely can do anything right not only because central planning can never work but because government is plain dumb.

Dietary fats do not cause vascular disease, and dietary fats do not make you fat. From The Last Anti-Fat Crusaders - The low-fat-diet regimen is turning out to be based on bad science, but the USDA has been slow to catch on:

 The most current and rigorous science on saturated fat is moving in the opposite direction from the USDA committee. A landmark meta-analysis of all the available evidence, conducted this year by scientists at Cambridge and Harvard, among others, and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, concluded that saturated fats could not, after all, be said to cause heart disease.

When your elite team of doctors, unwilling to admit defeat or accept failure, does more harm than good.

Our survival instinct makes death an enemy, but our wisdom tells us that it is not.

Doctors get used to death. As with pastors and undertakers, it's a routine aspect of life.

What are the things which most emotionally engage ordinary Americans? I think love and family, sex, God, money, freedom from government - and death. Two deathy links:

Why I Hope to Die at 75

How We Die: Dr. Sherwin Nuland on the Lifelong Art of Making Our Final Moments Meaningful

The calculus of contagion - In the battle against disease, the difference between a raging epidemic and a passing fever comes down to a single number.

There is some good history of medicine in the article.

Dr. Dalrymple answers all of the common questions:  100 Compelling Health and Medicine Questions

The evolution of the eukaryotic cell is darn interesting.

Some of those organelles used to be independent bugs. Even chloroplasts. Life is a miracle. Our readers do know about Mitochondrial Eve.

National Institute of Health Study: Yes, a Low-Carb Diet Is More
Effective At Weight Control, And Also Results in Fewer Cardiac Risks

Many years too late, the MSM and the government are getting the obvious message which docs have known all along. Unless you do manual work all day and are skinny, you don't need hardly any carbs to be fit and healthy. What carbs to eat very sparingly, if at all, to be strong and lithe? See below the basic list of the bad things which few Americans need to thrive:

All fruit (except strawberries and blueberries). Fruit is just flavored sugar, as are fruit juices
All root vegetables - potato, carrot, beet, etc etc
All grains (including rice, brown rice is especially bad as is quinoa)
All bread, cereal, pasta. It's junk food, but good enough for manual laborers or the starving in Africa
Most dairy (eg milk, ice cream, etc. Fatty cheeses are fine, as are eggs)

Carb-produced fat on your body is the worst thing for your heart, your joints, some cancers, your sex drive, and your youthfulness, vigor, and energy. If you are skinny and fairly muscular, ignore this.

Unless you are too skinny or healthily-skinny, I suggest one to one and a half smallish meals per day, mainly meat, eggs, greens, and vegetables. Why Westerners decided three meals daily was needed is a historical mystery, and very wrong unless you were a farmer or a growing child: most people used to be farmers, who worked until they dropped and their little kids helped all day too. Being overweight was a sign of wealth, and now it sort of functions as a sign of poverty and the underclass.

OK, a sugary dessert once weekly as a special treat. Alcohol as desired. Your hunger and your stomach will shrink quickly, as will your burdensome lard.

You will feel better and more vigorous, if that is what you want. Some people want that, some do not. Our current prosperity gives us that free choice, in the Western world.

We have had a decade or two of some experts preaching that fat and salt will kill you. Many of us docs have been debunking those old claims, to little avail.

Pour on the Salt? New Research Suggests More Is OK

Food without salt really doesn't taste very good. If you're worried about your BP, take a pill.

I've been preaching this ad nauseam but everybody has his own food religion based on superstition, old wive's tales, antiquated misinformation, and various quackeries.

If ignorance floats your boat, then go for it and be happy with the placebo effects, but just do not pretend that it makes sense.

There is no reason at all to avoid dietary fats, and this has been well-known for over a decade. I was wrong - we should be feasting on fat, says Dr. Mosley.

If your triglyceride numbers scare you or your doc, take some statins.

Eat all the carbs you want, too, unless you want or need to lose weight. If you wish to be more slim, trim, and muscular, quit the carbs and exercise hard. And, for God's sake, quit with the stupid organic stuff. It's just marketing. Marketing genius for sure, just like the people who sell water in bottles.

Guidelines have consequences – intended and unintended.

I don't know what practicing clinician has time to write guidelines for other docs, but guidelines are nothing but trouble. The best medical care is both art and science. Knowledge is always incomplete, patients are individuals with unique situations, and all docs have their own preferences and points of view. Guidelines end up being little more than fodder for tort lawyers and time-wasters.

Worst of all, young docs feel as if they have to follow them. Many things go wrong when practicing by the book. Medicine is an art and a science.

Not really. I don't know any doctors who get them.

Annual physical exam is probably unnecessary if you’re generally healthy

My Father and Hospitalists - Obamacare can be deadly. It was for my father.

It's all the rage these days. Salaried docs who work for the hospital on shifts, like nurses.