Low Fat Milk Makes You Fat (Obviously)

This will not come as a major surprise to those of us who have read countless similar articles about low fat soda.  Basically, the type of doctors who engage in these sorts of studies have found that kids who drink skimmed milk grow up chubbier than kids that stick to the full fat version.  Which isn't particularly fatty in the first place as it happens.  

Beer = Heart Medicine

I always like the ones where they point out the good in something that probably would only be obtainable on street corners had it been invented 10 years ago.  So yes, beer is good (again).   

This week.

The Greeks have come to this conclusion, Greeks at Harokopio University in Athens to be precise.  Conclusion being that beer is good for your blood vessels and can prevent heart disease.  Well, one beer can.  Far be it from my to cast aspersions on a study which espouses the benefits of alcohol, but to my untrained eye the sample size of 17 people seems a little on the low side.   Surely they could have wandered the streets of Athens and picked up a few more volunteers to drink some free beer?

But hey, let's go with it.  Beer is good for you!


Daily Mail

Smoking Cigarettes: Good (!?)

Researchers at the University of Florida have come up with a surprising Good News story for smokers.  Smoking cigarettes improves self-control, they have decided.   The people they tested were all smokers, of course, so perhaps this story is not quite as positive as it may seem.  People who really, really like cigarettes and who feel a little stressed after prolonged periods of no cigarettes, are then seen to demonstrate improved self-control after smoking a cigarette.

Nice try University of Florida, but back to the drawing board please.

Source:  Times of India

LSD Helps Alcoholism

Of course it does.  It's the perfect solution!  It's the good folks at Harvard who have come up with this little beauty, based on previous studies carried out in the (*sigh*) sixties and seventies, would you believe.  Should I even keep going with this?  Ridiculous...  Anyway, patients were fed LSD and allegedly began to confront their problems in a clear-eyed and realistic way, and...  look this method isn't going to catch on, is it.

Back to the drawing board Harvard chaps.

Source:  Independent (UK) 

Seems Like Red Bull May Not be a Health Drink

The most surprising thing about this article for me was that up until very recently, drinks like Red Bull and Monster had been classified as 'natural health products', rather than the 'aggressive vodka mixers' I had always considered them to be.  Well Canada has now got wise to these energy drinks, after a report revealed that none of them do a goddam thing for you, except getting you wired on caffeine extract.  

I was interested to hear about a Japanese study from the 1970's - the only one to come up with something good to say about energy drinks - which noted the increased swimming ability of rats injected with a glucose compound commonly used in the stuff.   Not quite enough to sway the argument, sadly.


Source:  The Star (Canada)

New Study Reveals Guaranteed Weight Loss Secret

So don't keep us in suspense, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre, what is this miraculous solution to the age old problem?

    "Exercise and diet".

Congratulations gentlemen, you have done your nation a great service with this new Research.  Humankind will look back on this moment with gratitude.  Exercise and diet, eh?  Fascinating...

Source:  Los Angeles Times

Drinking Red Wine is Exactly Like Exercising

The Mayo clinic recently performed a Study where they hung up some rats by their back legs & then injected them with stuff to see what would happen.  Some of the stuff was stuff you can find in red wine, other stuff was not.  The rats given the red wine stuff did better out of the deal.  It was as if they'd been exercising instead of having been clamped by a bunch of scientist types.  Hence the optimistic claim in the news feed below that red wine is 'exercise in a bottle'.  Wow - what a world that would be!  I think we all want this to be true whilst knowing full well that it isn't.  I don't care how buff the wine ingredient drinking rats were, sitting on my sofa guzzling Merlot is just not going to give me those defined abs I'm after.

Source:  CBS News

Marathons: Stop after 50 minutes.

Welcome news for those of us who would rather eat their own ear  than run for an eye-watering 42 kilometres:  Marathons are bad for your health.  That's what US journal 'Heart' has decided at any rate, and it makes a certain amount of sense.  One or two is alright, they say, but don't overdo it.  Duly noted.  According to these fellows, 50 minutes is the maximum amount of exercise you should do in one day, which were this advice to be followed to the letter would result in extremely unsatisfying conclusions to football matches around the world.  

The good doctors end with one of the feeblest pieces of prose ever committed to print, which I shall of course regurgitate here: "running too far, too fast, and for too many years may speed one's progress to towards the finishing line of life".  
I couldn't have put it worse.


Source:  Independent (UK)

Eating Cake for Breakfast Will Make You Thin

Tel Aviv university have come up with this cake-lovers dream diet.  Their experiment consisted of getting a load of fat people and putting them on strict low calorie diets.  Except one group was allowed to pig out on a big breakfast with dessert as part of their calorie allowance, while the other (less fortunate) bunch poked unenthusiastically at porridge and diet yogurt.  I like to picture them all sitting at one big table, split down the middle, with the cake-eaters slowly licking their spoons as they stare unswervingly at their fruit salad munching counterpart.  Well the cake eaters lost more weight at the end of it all, thus allowing fat people everywhere to justify eating Black Forest Gateaux with whipped cream at 7.45 in the morning.  Hurrah!

Source:  Canberra Times

Popcorn: Better That Fruit (not really, but very good anyway)

Popcorn is 'the king' of snacks states a rather casually phrased report from the American Chemical Society meeting in California.  It's a big ball of grain, and has more antioxidants than some fruits and vegetables.  But don't just replace fruit and vegetables with popcorn, as this will not work out well in the long run.  Do replace potato chips and nachos and giant boxes of chocolate with popcorn.  Antioxidants are good for killing viruses in the blood and preventing certain cancers.  This article also claims that they fight aging, but prefaces this remark with the dubious sounding: "people say..".

Well these people say that you should eat more popcorn.

Source:  Toronto Star

Red Meat Makes You Happy

Don't worry about all that negative stuff you hear about red meat - stuff and nonsense!  In fact, if you are a woman and you are eating steak for lunch you will find that the birds start singing, the skies seem brighter, and you will be whistling a merry tune.  Because this study says that red meat eating Aussie sheilas benefit from improved mental health and reduced levels of depression.  Bring that cow over here!  Forget that vegetarian rubbish, and smile.

Source:  Irish Independent

Booze Makes You Fat

The World Cancer Research Fund has teamed up with the British Liver Trust to have a pop at booze.  What has booze ever done to those guys?  The Cancer people are attacking from the angle that drinking alcohol adds more weight than you might imagine, while the Liver Trust add their two cents worth by claiming that a quarter of the (British) population may already have some type of liver damage.  

Coffee - Super Health Drink

Coffee is great for your health!  Not just 'good', Great!  It can reduce risk of heart disease (very, very, extremely slightly).   The speedy caffeine stimulates your nervous system and so kind of stops you suffering from depression, because you're too wired to be glum.  Among it's miraculous properties, coffee can ward off Alzheimers, skin cancer, breast cancer, Parkinson's and gallstones.  Some professor from the Harvard School of Public Health says it has more antioxidants than most fruit and vegetables.  So why have I been bothering with all those green things when I could have just been glugging down litres of life-giving coffee?

Source:  Sault Star (Canada)