Links for September 11, 2017: insect burgers, lessons from the PURE Study, death row food, and plastic in the water

I'm not bothered at all by the thought of insect larvae burgers. Are you?

For reasons I can't figure out, Swiss law allows use of only mealworm larvae, house crickets and migratory locusts. But apparently they taste fine:

The burger itself has little white specks of rice inside with traces of carrot, paprika, chili powder and pepper. After a hesitant bite, the main flavors that come out are the spices. The texture is curious, a bit like a meaty falafel with a crunch. An aftertaste lingered — but maybe that was just my subconscious playing tricks.

Sales are apparently brisk in a very limited release so far. 

See also: Chapul cricket bars, which are delicious, and the Impossible Burger.

Marion Nestle points out what we already know about the PURE Study (that's Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology): Fruits, veggies, and legumes are good for us.

And refined carbohydrates and sugar are bad. The study's "high fat" diet didn't even approach the amount of fat that most of us eat (18-30% versus 35% in the US), so it's impossible to really say what the study proved in regards to fat intake. 

See also: David Katz on PURE, James Hamblin on PURE.

On death row, food rivals porn as an obsession for inmates.

Text below, in case you want to avoid reading the grisly details of a murdered family:

The second-most-prevalent obsession is food. Longo says he actually has two photo collections: nude women and gourmet cuisine. His letters to me are filled with food cravings: "a salt bagel with a full plain cream cheese schmeer from Einstein or Brueggers — toasted, of course"; "a cinnabon with a good cup of coffee"; "a pizza"; "honey-dripping baklava." To make the institutional meals more palatable, the men sometimes hold death-row dinner parties. Several inmates will pass their trays down the row to one cell — frequently, to Longo's. He'll combine all the food together, add commissary-bought items like hot sauce, peppers, and shredded cheese, then rebuild the plates "Cadillac style," as it's called, and send the trays back.

How all this plays into the choice of a last meal, I don't know.

94% of US tap water is contaminated by plastic fibers

I cannot find data on bottled water, but considering that most of it is packaged in plastic, I suspect it's no better. Why does this matter? Well, besides the ick factor, plastics have a notorious reputation in the endocrinology world as "endocrine disruptors," meaning that they exert a hormone-like effect on tissues. The most notorious chemical within plastics with this effect is bisphenol A, which among other effects acts as an estrogen mimic.

Links for July 25, 2017: Cooking oil, Saving lives in New Jersey by raising the smoking age, and the cult of statin denial

Which cooking oil should you use?

In the above and linked infographic (from the outstanding work of informationisbeautiful.net), look for oils with a big green bar, a small red bar, and no blue at all. Here's olive oil, which is generally recognized as being one of the best oils health-wise for cooking:

This dovetails nicely with the recent re-discovery that coconut oil isn't great for you (link here; look toward the bottom).

I've become a big fan of sauteeing with avocado oil, which you see at the top of the graphic, because of its high smoke point and high monounsaturated fat content. Don't take this as an endorsement of its health effects, though. Almost no data exists on the topic. 

New Jersey just raised its smoking age, and it will probably save lives. 

"About 90 percent of adults who become daily smokers report first using cigarettes before 19 years of age, and almost 100 percent report first use before 26, according to the IOM report."

Is denial of the benefits of statin medications a cult?

"We are losing the battle for the hearts and minds of our patients to Web sites developed by people with little or no scientific expertise, who often pedal 'natural' or 'drug-free' remedies for elevated cholesterol levels."

Whether or not these websites collectively reach the threshold of "cult," their message definitely causes people to die younger than they should. (link is subscription only)

Sausage Linkfest April 21, 2017

Like them or not, soda taxes seem to work. That is, they work to reduce sugar-sweetened beverage consumption. Time will tell if we can trace any health benefit back to them, like we did with trans fat bans. 

School shouldn't start before 8:30, say the sleep people.

Biking to work is associated with a 41% reduction in the risk of dying over five years. Biking was also associated with 45% lower rates of cancer and a 40% lower risk of dying of cancer. And, as has been noted here before, it's associated with having a shitload more money in your bank account.

Even short-term corticosteroid use is harmful, says a review in the BMJ, with accompanying coverage from the NYT. This is ironic, considering a very recent well-publicized study advocating for 10 mg of dexamethasone in place of antibiotics for sore throat. So a couple comments: first, even the "low-dose" steroids the BMJ article talks about constitute a potentially huge dose (20 mg daily). Second, 10 mg of dexamethasone is just a gigantic, chemotherapy-level dose. It is saved by the fact that dexamethasone has a half-life of only ~3 hours, so most of it is gone by the second day. But still...whatever happened to chicken soup and time for things to get better? *sigh* I guess dexamethasone isn't any worse than the cursed "Z-Pak" that urgent cares seem to hand out like Halloween candy. 

Richard Link-later April 18, 2017

Banning Trans Fats in NY reduced heart attacks by 6%. If this is true, it's astonishing. Researchers compared admission rates for the composite of myocardial infarction and stroke between New York counties implementing the ban in its eateries versus those that did not. The restricting counties showed an additional 6% drop in admissions relative to non-restricting counties after adjustment for an already-declining trend across the state. The difference became significant 3 years after implementation of the bans and benefitted men and women equally.

Newer, novel (and astonishingly expensive) diabetes drugs seem to have lower hypoglycemia, heart, and death risk than good old insulin: even though this study had a lot of warts (industry-funded, retrospective, yada yada), I'm having a harder and harder time justifying the addition of insulin to high-risk patients' regimens.

"My V-steam cost $50, which is a lot to pay for sitting over hot vapor. Is your money well spent on this stuff? It depends on what you’re looking for."

It's a "fear social media" bonanza! First up was Hidden Brain on the dangers of curating your social media presence to look universally positive:

And then (and then!) Ezra Klein, a journalist I've heard my fair share of thoughts from in regards to how social media doesn't make him happy, interviewed Cal Newport about his notoriously fuddy-duddy views on social media, which I'll cover briefly in the very near future on this very blog.

I was asked recently to name a book that changed my life. The book I chose was Cal Newport’s “Deep Work,” and for the most literal of reasons: it’s changed how I lived my life. Particularly, it’s led me to stop scheduling morning meetings, and to preserve that time for more sustained, creative work. Which is all to say that I’m a bit obsessed with Newport’s work right now, and especially his account of how the digital environment we inhabit is training us out of concentration and into distraction in ways that are bad for us, bad for our work, and ultimately bad for the world. Most of the conversations on this podcast are how to think about things differently. This one is too, but it’s more importantly about how to do things differently, and why you should do them differently. We discuss: -How Newport defines depth when it comes to work -Why the information revolution boosted productivity up until the 2000s, but then stagnated -What he thinks is problematic about the constant accessibility of technologies like email, Slack, and other communication tools -His perspective about how we’re still in an early age of the internet, and what looking back at periods like the Industrial Revolution can teach us about using new technology to work smarter -How to take productive breaks, rather than flicking through email and Facebook and Twitter -How “flow work” and deep work overlap, and how they’re distinct from each other -Why he consumes and produces information more slowly and more traditionally—through newspapers and radio, and why that might benefit people who work in the knowledge economy -His vision of the workplace of the future I hope you get as much out of Newport’s ideas as I have. Books: -Jaron Lanier, “You Are Not A Gadget” and “Who Will Own The Future" -Douglas Rushkoff’s “Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus”

For past thoughts on social media, check here and here.

And PS--I mean fuddy-duddy in the most admiring, sincere way, obviously.