Science for Smart People

Do not be put off by the title, there is no pre-required education or reading for this blog or it's video content. The title will become clear as you watch..... 

I was recently guided to the video below by a colleague of mine. I must confess I hadn't realised just quite how good it would be.

As well as considering the myth that fats are bad for people, the presenter; Tom Naughton, discusses bad science, good science and the scientific process as a whole. Of course, outlining how the mass media interpretation of scientific journal articles is far from scientific, or even logical, or acceptable.

Fundamentally this video de-bunks some myths, but more will help outline how you can be more selective in what you believe, and you can critically evaluate the things you hear on the news, read in the paper, or even hear presented at conferences.

It's around 43mins in length, and I promise will add more to your day than most other things you can think of.



I've also started linking to Tom Naughton's blog on the right hand side, and there's always some interesting and comical words of wisdom so please take a look at that as well.

Be Well

JF

The evolution of dietary recommendations

I have just read a British Medical Journal (BMJ) article, by Nigel Hawkes, emailed to me by a colleague in the USA entitled "."Take dietary truths with a pinch of salt". I would happily re-post the article in it's entirety but I have succumbed to fear of copyright infringement. Here is the link to the abstract.

The key focus of the article is the concept of changing government nutritional recommendations. Beginning with the discussion of margarine as the more favourable alternative to butter, as recommended by (unnamed) Doctors dating back to the 1950's, the article continues to talk about more recent research unveiling the content of trans-fats in hard margarines, and then the health risks associated with consumption of trans-fats.

Margarine, as deadly as the Nazis!?

The disturbing figure admitted within the article is that eliminating trans fats over a 10 year period is estimated to prevent 27,000 deaths, gain 570,000 life years and return a cash benefit of £2 billion in England and Wales alone. This is noted to far outweigh the previously thought benefits of 5% reduction in cholesterol concentrations or in systolic blood pressure or a reduction in salt intake of 3g a day.

The article continues:

'Almost every nutritional "fact" is in reality an opinion, often based on poor quality evidence'

then citing a 2011 article by Prasad, et al., in the New England Journal of Medicine which suggests that around 13% of papers published over the course of a year amount to reversals of previously accepted beliefs. Not wanting to accept one articles take on another I checked this: Prasad, et al., carefully define reversal "to signify the phenomenon of a new trial—superior to predecessors because of better design, increased power, or more appropriate controls—contradicting current clinical practice". The primary article then (conservatively - in my opinion) estimates that it takes about a decade for advice to be reversed.


I guess my point in this blog is to return the palaeolithic theme I have discussed previously. We seem to take on new evidence as gospel with apparent disregard of where it is from. Ultimately showing greater trust for the government and potentially biased health and medical professionals whose research is often funded by large multi-national corporations. My affiliation with palaeolithic diet and lifestyle is derived from the 10,000 years of science, of evolution, not the last couple of thousand years (or less) of changes which we are yet to see the noticeable effects from.

Imagine that trans fat and margarine is guilty of this!

As a final summary to all of this, the original article by Hawkes provides an excellent quote:

"The more dominant that guidelines become, the more dangerous they are"

- evidenced by the guidance towards margarine and the likelihood that deaths attributable to trans fats near holocaust proportions, and would likely have been far greater without the suspicions and scepticisms shown by some of the public.

Ultimately this blog aims to heighten awareness of the underlying issues inherent with publication and opinion of the government or government based associations in regard to nutrition and lifestyle variables.

Be well

JF

Drew Baye's High Intensity Training

I already link to this blog down the right hand side, but in case you don't look at what I link to, then please follow this link:

http://baye.com/evidence-based-resistance-training-recommendations-1/

Drew Baye himself!

Drew Baye is without question one of our generations leading individuals in the area strength training, returning to a no non-sense philosophy indicative of Arthur Jones.

In the linked blog he considers and discusses aspects of my Evidence-Based Resistance Training Recommendations journal article along with other research and experiences, progressive ideas in the are of high intensity training and some of his own philosophies, even discussing Arthur and Nautilus himself.

If you have an interest in health and exercise then Drew's blog is a must.

Enjoy

JF

Library and Anti-Library

"An 'anti-library'?" I hear you say! Indeed. Let me explain.

This concept derives (in my life) from a friend of mine telling me a story about someone with a huge library of books who when asked if he'd read them all answered with a defiant 'no'. The following statement summarised to the point that we should appreciate that there is more to learn than we have learned, and thus more to read than we have read. We might never get through the books that we purchase but at least gathering reading material is an acceptance that we should continue to learn. I prefer the simple quote:

"all we know is infinitely less than all there is to know"

That said, the term anti-library is a reference to the books we own but have not read. Or potentially, plan to read whether we own them or not.

This year I've read somewhere in the region of 26 books ranging from philosophy, to nutrition and health, to travel, sports (basketball and surfing) to social/psychological science, to serious physics. But the following list is simply what remains on my shelf to be read.....

• The Four Hour Body - T. Ferris
• A Little History of the world - E. H. Gombrich
• :59 Seconds - Professor R. Wiseman
• The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing - R. Dawkins
• The Paleo Solution - R. Wolf
• The Talent Code - D. Coyle
• The Red Queen - M. Ridley
• The Drunkards Walk - L. Mlodinow
• A Rough Guide to the Earth
• A Rough Guide to the Brain
• Eddie Would Go - S. Holmes Coleman
• The rise and fall of the third chimpanzee - J. Diamond
• Why Don't Penguins feet Freeze? - New Scientist
• Do Polar Bears get Lonely? - New Scientist
• At Home - Bill Bryson
• The Selfish Gene - R. Dawkins
• All for a few Perfect Waves - D. Rensin

Anyway, I realise this isn't as entertaining or as educational as you might have liked or as previous blogs, but realistically we learn something in everything. At the end of the year I will blog a little more about me, what I've done with the year, and more detail on what I've read and written. In the mean-time perhaps this is a little window into who I am.

Any other recommendations are very welcome

Be Well

JF