Now Will You Stop Drinking That Horrifying Skim Milk

And don’t even get me started on the truly evil soy milk.

Sorry for even more science,  but the funny stuff is hard to come by this week.  And this is my blog and thus about the stuff that is of interest to me.  So if you want quarrel with me about what I post to my blog I say to you, kind sir:

GO START YOUR OWN FUCKING BLOG!

So please to enjoy Stephan Guyenet’s reviewing of  his recently published review of recent research about high fat dairy and its alleged link do obesity and heart disease.

 

 

Here are our basic findings:

• High-fat dairy consumption is not associated with obesity, in fact, 11 out of 16 studies found that higher dairy fat intake is associated with lower body fat and/or less fat gain over time.  None identified an association between high-fat dairy consumption and fat gain, although some did find an association between low-fat dairy consumption and fat gain.
• High-fat dairy consumption is not associated with poorer metabolic health.  Six of 11 studies found that higher high-fat dairy consumption is associated with better metabolic health, while only one found that it was associated with one marker of poorer metabolic health (and this study used an odd design). 
• The association between high-fat dairy intake and diabetes risk is inconsistent.  Zero of eight studies found that high-fat dairy consumption is associated with diabetes risk, and three found that it was protective.  However, three studies also found that low-fat dairy intake was inversely associated with diabetes risk, compared to no association with high-fat dairy, suggesting by inference that the fat content of the dairy could be harmful.  These studies all adjusted for body fatness.  Since body fatness is a key risk factor for diabetes, and dairy fat intake is inversely associated with body fatness, this is obviously a major confound.  We discussed this and other potential confounds in the paper.
• The evidence on cardiovascular disease is inconsistent, with a number of studies suggesting a protective association, a few suggesting a harmful one, and several suggesting no association.
• Dairy fat is a complex substance.  There are major differences in the fatty acid composition of dairy from pasture-raised vs. conventionally raised cows, and many of these fatty acids are bioactive and could influence human health.
• We also discuss the limitations of observational studies in some detail, and many other issues that I won't touch on here.

So stop pouring skim and soy in your coffees and join us cool kids and bask in the luxuriousnessitosity of heavy cream.

It’s Not Just Jokes and Bacon Around Here

Well, maybe bacon.

This blog is primarily about stuff I’m interested in.  For the most part that’s booze, great food, travel, booze, my stories* and bicycling. 

Oddly, one of my seldom blogged about interests is nutrition.  If you are at all interested in the subject and specifically how the government and the media have misinformed us about the relationship between saturated fats, cholesterol and heart disease, then you’ll want to watch this.

What follows is a fascinating history of the lipid hypothesis and despite zero clinical evidence, continues to be the conventional wisdom with regards to heart health.  If you’ve read Good Calories, Bad Calories, you’ve been exposed to much of this information.  But this is still a great, concise lecture on the history of the terrible science used in the nutrition community.

And if you want to know just about everything that is knowable about the relationship between cholesterol and heart disease and you’re not afraid of lots of scientific jargon, read Dr. Attia’s now nine part epic on cholesterol that starts here.

Again, I’m sorry this isn’t funny or contains any of my stolen catchphrases like asshat and douchenozzle.  We’ll return to jackassery in the next posting, I’m sure.

* Currently that means Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones.

PrimaCare

My long (2 weeks?) struggle with a bacterial infection of unknown origin or location is finally over. My white cell count is back to normal after 2 shots of Rocephin and 10 doses of Avelox. And how long did it take for me to find out this datum? Almost 2 hours.

To minimize my wait, I got to PrimaCare this morning, at 8am -- right when it opens. However there were already 5 people ahead of me. So i was not placed in a room until 8:55. There I sat for 15 minutes waiting for a someone to take my blood. In the previous 3 times I went, the test results came back in less than 5 minutes. This time, however, I waited at least 25 minutes for the PA to come in and tell me I'm back to normal. So I finally left at just about 9:50am. And this is not atypical. My first visit lasted almost 3 hours.

I am convinced that there are businesses who's primary purpose is to make you wait. They somehow collect our lifeforce through unseen lifeforce collectors and sell our lifeforce to the super rich like Warren Buffet. PrimaCare clearly has this business model. And I think most car dealers do as well.