Tuesday 01-19-16

No food is healthy. Not even kale.

 
Not long ago, I watched a woman set a carton of Land O’ Lakes Fat-Free Half-and-Half on the conveyor belt at a supermarket.
“Can I ask you why you’re buying fat-free half-and-half?” I said. Half-and-half is defined by its fat content: about 10 percent, more than milk, less than cream.
“Because it’s fat-free?” she responded.
“Do you know what they replace the fat with?” I asked.
“Hmm,” she said, then lifted the carton and read the second ingredient on the label after skim milk: “Corn syrup.” She frowned at me. Then she set the carton back on the conveyor belt to be scanned along with the rest of her groceries.

[Forget government guidelines. Here’s how to eat better, in 6 easy steps.]

The woman apparently hadn’t even thought to ask herself that question but had instead accepted the common belief that fat, an essential part of our diet, should be avoided whenever possible.
Then again, why should she question it, given that we allow food companies, advertisers and food researchers to do our thinking for us? In the 1970s, no one questioned whether eggs really were the heart-attack risk nutritionists warned us about. Now, of course, eggs have become such a cherished food that many people raise their own laying hens. Such examples of food confusion and misinformation abound.

Eat butter every day and other government dietary advice we no longer follow. The United States government once considered butter and margarine as one of seven food groups to consume daily. Look back at other advice that unfortunately is no longer a part of the FDA's dietary guidelines. (Jayne W. Orenstein/The Washington Post)   “This country will never have a healthy food supply,” said Harry Balzer, an NPD Group analyst and a gleeful cynic when it comes to the American food shopper. “Never. Because the moment something becomes popular, someone will find a reason why it’s not healthy.”  Here, Balzer used the most dangerous term of all: “healthy.”  We are told by everyone, from doctors and nutritionists to food magazines and newspapers, to eat healthy food. We take for granted that a kale salad is healthy and that a Big Mac with fries is not.
In the 1970s, few questioned the prevailing opinion that eggs were a heart attack waiting to happen. Now they are among our most beloved ingredients. (Mark Gail/The Washington Post)  I submit to you that our beloved kale salads are not “healthy.” And we are confusing ourselves by believing that they are. They are not healthy; they are nutritious. They may be delicious when prepared well, and the kale itself, while in the ground, may have been a healthy crop. But the kale on your plate is not healthy, and to describe it as such obscures what is most important about that kale salad: that it’s packed with nutrients your body needs. But this is not strictly about nomenclature. If all you ate was kale, you would become sick. Nomenclature rather shows us where to begin.“ ‘Healthy’ is a bankrupt word,” Roxanne Sukol, preventive medicine specialist at the Cleveland Clinic, medical director of its Wellness Enterprise and a nutrition autodidact (“They didn’t teach us anything about nutrition in medical school”), told me as we strolled the aisles of a grocery store. “Our food isn’t healthy. We are healthy. Our food is nutritious. I’m all about the words. Words are the key to giving people the tools they need to figure out what to eat. Everyone’s so confused.” 

Last March, the Food and Drug Administration sent the nut-bar maker Kind a letter saying their use of the word “healthy” on their packaging was a violation (too much fat in the almonds). Kind responded with a citizens’ petition asking the FDA to reevaluate its definition of the word.
If I may rephrase the doctor’s words: Our food is not healthy; we will be healthy if we eat nutritious food. Words matter. And those that we apply to food matter more than ever.
Kraft cheese slices cannot be called cheese but must be labeled “cheese food” or a “cheese product.” Pringles cannot be called “chips” but rather “crisps.” Yet packaged foods can be labeled “natural” or “all-natural” — what exactly is the difference between the two, anyway? — with little regulation.

Pork rinds are an indulgence, sure, but are they “unhealthy”? They’re practically pure protein. (Kate Patterson/For The Washington Post)

Here is a word we think we understand: protein. Protein is good, yes? Builds strong muscles, has positive health connotations. That’s why “protein shakes” are a multibillion-dollar business. Pork cracklings do not have positive health connotations because we think of them as having a high fat content. But pork cracklings are little more than strips of fried pig skin. Skin is one of the many forms of connective tissue in all animal bodies and is composed almost entirely of protein, typically undergirded by a layer of fat. When these strips of pig skin are fried, most of the fat is rendered out and the connective tissue puffs, resulting in a delectable, crunchy, salty crackling. I therefore recommend them to you as a “protein snack” during your on-the-go day.
Given the infinitely malleable language of food, it’s no wonder American food shoppers are confused.
What is “mechanically separated meat,” a standard ingredient in the turkey bacon and chicken sausages popularized because of our low-fat love? “Do you know what that is?” a grocery store owner asked me. “They basically put poultry carcasses in a giant salad spinner.” Whatever winds up on the walls of the spinner in addition to meat — bits of cartilage (protein!), nerves (I have enough of my own, thank you), vessels, bone fragments — is scraped off and added to the mixing bowl. “Mechanically separated meat” engages our imagination only when someone attaches new words to it, such as “pink slime.”

The label might tell you it’s “enriched,” but it doesn’t tell you that the bread’s ingredients were first stripped of their natural benefits. (PAUL J. RICHARDS/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)

“Refined” is another critical food word. Generally, refined means elegant and cultured in appearance, manner or taste, or with impurities removed. Yet that is what food companies have been calling wheat from which the endosperm and bran have been removed, leaving what is in effect pure starch, devoid of the fiber, oils, iron and vitamins that make wheat nutritious.
That’s not refined, Sukol said, “that’s stripped.” Flour stripped of the nutrition that makes it valuable to our bodies but reduces shelf life.
Because it has been stripped, we must “enrich” it. “Enriched.” “Fortified.” Good, yes? To make rich, to make strong. Food companies added the iron they took out during the refining process, but not enough of what we need. “Refined flour — this resulted in B vitamin and iron deficiencies,” Sukol said, “so they added vitamins and iron. And what do they call that? Enriched and fortified. But they forgot to add folate, vitamin B9, until the 1990s.”
What we don’t know, Sukol said, is how those additions, not to mention the diglycerides and sulphates, combined with the lack of fiber, will affect our metabolism in the long run. So far, she said, “it has resulted in diabetes and metabolic syndrome.”
We will be healthy if we eat nutritious food. Our food is either nutritious or not. We are healthy or we are not. If we eat nutritious food, we may enhance what health we possess.

This is not a judgment on what you choose to eat. If you hunger for a cheese product grilled between bread that’s been stripped of its nutrition, along with a bowl of Campbell’s tomato soup (made with tomato paste, corn syrup and potassium chloride), fine. It was one of my favorite childhood meals. Just be aware. Buy fat-free half-and-half if that’s what you like; just know what it is you’re putting in your body and why.

Because, and this is the judgment call, fat isn’t bad; stupid is bad. And until we have better information and clearer shared language defining our food, smart choices will be ever harder to make.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/no-food-is-healthy-not-even-kale/2016/01/15/4a5c2d24-ba52-11e5-829c-26ffb874a18d_story.html

'Miraculous' results from new MS treatment

A pioneering new stem cell treatment is reversing and then halting the potentially crippling effects of multiple sclerosis.

Patients embarking on a ground-breaking trial of the new treatment have found they can walk again and that the disease even appears to be stopped in its tracks.

“I started seeing changes within days of the stem cells being put in. I walked out of the hospital. I walked into my house and hugged Isla. I cried and cried. It was a bit overwhelming. It was a miracle”

Patient Holly Drewry

 Holly Drewry, 25, from Sheffield, who was wheelchair bound after the birth of her daughter Isla, now two.

But Miss Drewry claims the new treatment has transformed her life.

She told the BBC’s Panorama programme: “I couldn’t walk steadily. I couldn’t trust myself holding her (Isla) in case I fell. Being a new mum I wanted to do it all properly but my MS was stopping me from doing it.
“It is scary because you think, when is it going to end?”
 
The treatment is being carried out at Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield and Kings College Hospital, London and involves use a high dose of chemotherapy to knock out the immune system before rebuilding it with stem cells taken from the patient’s own blood.
Miss Drewry had the treatment in Sheffield. She said: “I started seeing changes within days of the stem cells being put in.
“I walked out of the hospital. I walked into my house and hugged Isla. I cried and cried. It was a bit overwhelming. It was a miracle.”
Her treatment has now been reviewed and her condition found to have been dramatically halted. She will need to be monitored for years but the hope is that her transplant will be a permanent fix.
She is now planning to get married.
For other patients, the results have been equally dramatic. Steven Storey was a marathon runner and triathlete before he was struck down with the disease and left completely paralysed: “I couldn’t flicker a muscle,” he said.
But within nine days of the treatment he could move his toe and after 10 months managed a mile-long swim in the Lake District. He has also managed to ride a bike and walk again.
“It was great. I felt I was back,” he said.
Mr Storey celebrated his first transplant birthday with his daughters. His treatment has been reviewed and, like Miss Drewry, there was no evidence of active disease.
The treatment – which effectively ‘reboots’ the immune systems - is the first to reverse the symptoms of MS, which has no cure, and affects around 100,000 people in Britain.
Stem cells are so effective because they can become any cell in the body based on their environment.
Although it is unclear what causes MS, some doctors believe that it is the immune system itself which attacks the brain and spinal cord, leading to inflammation and pain, disability and in severe cases, death.

"Since we started treating patients three years ago, some of the results we have seen have been miraculous. This is not a word I would use lightly, but we have seen profound neurological improvements"

Professor Basil Sharrack

Professor Basil Sharrack, a consultant neurologist at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: "Since we started treating patients three years ago, some of the results we have seen have been miraculous.
"This is not a word I would use lightly, but we have seen profound neurological improvements."
During the treatment, the patient's stem cells are harvested and stored. Then doctors use aggressive drugs which are usually given to cancer patients to completely destroy the immune system.
The harvested stem cells are then infused back into the body where they start to grow new red and white blood cells within just two weeks.
Within a month the immune system is back up and running fully and that is when patients begin to notice that they are recovering.
However specialists warn that patients need to be fit to benefit from the new treatment.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/12104774/Miraculous-results-from-new-MS-treatment.html

Proposed law would allow warrantless cell-phone searches

BARRE CITY, Vt. - On a cold, sunny Thursday afternoon, Deputy Jean Miguel Bariteau of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department spots the driver of a red hatchback using his cell phone. When Bariteau pulls him over, it's a straightforward call to write a ticket. He saw the driver use his phone, and the young man behind the wheel admits it.
If the man behind the wheel had denied violating Vermont's distracted driver law, checking the phone records would have helped the deputy make his case. But a search like that requires a warrant.
Lawmakers want to make it easier for officers like Bariteau to enforce Vermont’s 2014 ban on using hand-held devices while on highways. They’re asking Vermonters to give up some of their privacy in exchange for safer roads. But even the chief sponsor of the bill said he hasn’t “really thought about” what, exactly, would be fair game for a warrantless search under his bill.
H.527, introduced by Rep. Martin LaLonde, D-South Burlington, would allow law enforcement officers to see a driver's phone or other electronic device, to see if it was being used. LaLonde said he doesn’t intend for police to be able to take a person’s phone back to his squad car and rummage through it.
“Essentially, it’s ‘show me your text log,’” he said.

But opponents say the proposal goes too far, and even LaLonde said he isn’t sure if the bill can “thread the needle” between giving law enforcement better tools and protecting privacy.
LaLonde’s bill is an amendment to the 2014 ban, and like that act, it refers to “portable electronic devices.” Opponents worry this could lead to searches of tablets and laptops as well as phones. LaLonde said he’s primarily concerned about texting, but cares more about the “activity” of distracted driving, no matter what the device.
Unprecedented move
No other state allows warrantless searches to combat phone use while driving.
This dramatic expansion of implied consent comes with serious problems, said Allen Gilbert, executive director of the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
“It’s hard to believe this won’t be found unconstitutional,” he said, calling the bill “vague and over-broad.” The bill also is vague when it comes to the justification for the stop. A person could be sneezing, he said.
Computers and cell phones have become devices that hold tons of personal information. A police officer could pull over someone who had glanced down momentarily, demand to search his or her phone, and discover private medical information, Gilbert said.

Rep. Martin LaLonde, D-South Burlington, explains his proposed ammendment to a bill that would prohibit teachers strikes at the Statehouse in Montpelier on Wednesday, April 8, 2015. (Photo: GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS)

In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court held that searching the contents of a phone without a warrant is unconstitutional.
LaLonde said he looked at the precedent of breathalyzer tests. Anyone who drives a vehicle on a highway in Vermont is implied to have given consent to take a breath test if an officer suspects him of driving drunk. Refusing to do so can be introduced as evidence in a criminal proceeding.
Under LaLonde’s bill, a driver who refuses police access to his phone would get the same penalty he’d get if he was, in fact, texting. The bill also expands the definition of texting to include voice-activated texting, which is no less distracting than texting by hand, according to the Vermont Highway Safety Alliance.
In Gilbert’s view, there’s also a significant difference between a breathalyzer and a phone search: Alcohol metabolizes, and drunkenness doesn’t last. Phone data doesn’t get digested, so police can easily get a warrant if they want to look inside a phone.
“There’s no need to break down one of the most fundamental protections we have in our lives,” he said.
LaLonde's bill is not the only one that tackles the issue of implied consent as it relates to driving. Another proposed bill would amend the implied consent provision of Vermont’s existing drunk driving law so that a test would be required of a driver who was involved in a collision that caused a serious injury or death. As the law reads now, police need reasonable suspicion that the driver has alcohol or drugs in his system to administer a breathalyzer.
Legislative theme
Highway safety is becoming a “theme” the House is tackling this year, LaLonde said. According to the Vermont Highway Safety Alliance, distracted driving causes 24 percent of crashes. There were over 50 fatal accidents on the state’s roads last year, and close to 2,000 injuries.
The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hear testimony about the bill on Tuesday. Even if his bill goes nowhere, expanding implied consent could remain on the table.
Distracted driving is one of the biggest public safety issues facing Vermont, LaLonde said, and detection and enforcement are proving difficult.
LaLonde said he ran his bill by the Legislative Counsel’s office and David Cahill, who at the time was the executive director of the Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs. Cahill was recently sworn in as a state’s attorney.

A driver uses a cell phone while stopped at a light in Burlington on Wednesday January 13, 2016. (Photo: GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS)

Cahill said he hadn’t seen the most recent language in the bill.
“Distracted driving is relatively new to all of us and we’re still learning about it,” he said. He agreed with the ACLU’s position that police should be required to get a warrant to access personal information stored on a phone. He said LaLonde’s proposal may not be the answer.
“We may be headed toward treating a smartphone like an open bottle of alcohol,” he said. Having a phone out, instead of in a glove box or in the trunk, is too tempting, he said.
Members of law enforcement also expressed hesitations about the bill. Orange County Sheriff Bill Bohnyak, president of the Vermont Sheriffs Association, said he would support the bill, though he doesn’t want to infringe on anyone’s rights.
It’s easy, he said, for people to say they weren’t texting when they’re pulled over. They say they were reaching for a cigarette or a soda. Often, his deputies have to give a warning instead of a ticket since they can’t prove distracted driving.
Bohnyak would like to see more emphasis on educating drivers about the dangers of texting while driving. High-visibility enforcement — which combines an increased police presence with a media campaign -- has been shown to reduce distracted driving in states like Connecticut, California and New York, according to studies done by the Governors Highway Safety Association.
“But it boils down to money,” Bohnyak said, adding that his department sees crashes daily, and lots are related to texting or being on a cell phone.
Deputy Bariteau, who spends hours patrolling the roads of Orange County looking for distracted drivers, said he’s concerned about some of the practical aspects of LaLonde’s proposal. For example, he said, there are a lot of different phones out there, and officers might not know how to use all of them.
“If you make a law, it’s gotta be enforceable for us,” he said.
As for Rep. LaLonde, he said the idea of a cop asking to see his phone doesn’t bother him.
“Personally, if I’m in a car and I’ve been text messaging, I should expect narrow privacy,” he said.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/01/17/warrantless-cell-phone-searches/78938740/