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Hello friends.

Greetings from Montecito, where the weather is phenomenal. And we’re leaving it all to head back to the heat dome in Dallas day after tomorrow.

I’ve been back a few days from the conference in San Diego, which was terrific, and have been covered up. We brought Rod Tayler back with us for a few days. Rod is a doc from Australia who runs an event there much like LowCarbUSA here called LowCarbDownUnder. MD and I spoke there last October at the event in Sydney.

We all met up for lunch Tuesday with Anthony Chaffee and his girlfriend, who happened to be stopping off in the area for some R&R. Anthony gave a great presentation last week, which, at some point, will be available on YouTube. I’ll post it when it is made public. Dr.Chaffee is an elite athlete and has followed a carnivore diet for years. If you want to know anything about the virtues of a carnivore diet, especially vis a vis its effect on performance, take a look at the link above.

Along with all the above, we’ve had the fam from Little Rock descend upon us. Eldest grandchild of that bunch, Ben, is getting ready to start college at Thomas Aquinas, so most of the Little Rock fam, including little Robbie, are here for his send off.

So a busy, busy week. If this Arrow isn’t as long as normal, you know why. Things should get back to normal next week when we’re back in Big D.

All three of our sons and Ben are graduates of Catholic High School for Boys in Little Rock. There are two high schools in Little Rock with a lot of notoriety. One is Central High School, which is a public school made famous by the Crisis at Central High back in the 1950s. The other is Catholic High, which is famous for it’s own history, its quality education, and its discipline. Here is the sign that is posted on the front door of the office after school starts in the fall.

This sign first appeared a few years ago, and our youngest son—Ben’s father—was outraged that the school had gone soft. He wrote

‘Bou was Father George Tribou, the curmudgeonly old priest who ran the school for 35 years right up until the day he died. Despite his unwavering strictness, he was dearly loved by all who knew him. We had him to dinner at our house a number of times. He was a great raconteur and despite running a tight ship at the school, he knew how to be judicious in his strictness. His aim was to turn a pack of rowdy boys into good citizens and good men. And believe it or not, all the kids loved him for it. There were ‘Bou tales by the dozens circulating around our house. The world could use a few more like him.

And, in my curmudgeonly opinion, the world could use a lot less coddling of students.

Before I get to the poll responses and emails, I would like to address a couple of other issues.

After almost every Arrow I write, I get long comments and/or emails taking me to task for something that appeared in the Odds and Ends section. These readers spend a lot of time writing these comments and emails in which they argue that whatever article I included was dead wrong, and they want to tell me why. In great detail. When I put articles in the Odds and Ends, they are usually something I happened to come across that kind of tweaked my curiosity, so I figured others might find it interesting as well. Just because I put it in there doesn’t necessarily mean I’m a firm believer in or even maybe agree entirely with whatever was written.

If I come across something that truly rings my chimes, then I write about it and muster my arguments as to whether I agree with it or am against it. But articles I come across that I might find interesting and/or intriguing, but not interesting or intriguing enough to devote a lot of words to, I put in the Odds and Ends.

I grab these things things and put them up all during the week. By the time the newsletters go out, I couldn’t list all the stuff I posted without going back and looking at it. Then, they day after I post, invariably someone will email me or go through the polls or comments and write You are absolutely wrong about this or that, and, in most cases, I don’t have a clue as to what they’re talking about. Then they tell me why I’m wrong (not why the article I posted is incorrect, but that I am wrong, as if I wrote the article), and it finally dawns on me that it is one of the tidbits in the Odds and Ends that someone took offense to.

If you come across an article in the Odds and Ends that you seriously disagree with, I implore you to write a letter to the person who wrote the article and take me out of the loop.

Speaking of being told I’m wrong… Every week I get at least two emails or poll responses that say, You are wrong about [fill in the blank]. In these cases it is about something I’ve written. And the fact that I might be wrong isn’t couched in any way that might imply the person writing me could possibly be in error. Nothing along the lines of, You and I may differ on this one… Or, I may be wrong, but I’ve always understood the issue to be… Or, maybe I misunderstood you. Are you saying that… Nothing ever like any of these. It’s always, You are wrong.

One of my favorite books is The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. I’ve probably read it at least a dozen times, and I always find something new in it. Heraclitus said, "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river, and he's not the same man." In the case of books, it’s pretty much is the same book, but it is a different man who reads it a year or two later.

Ben was an extremely bight man, and from an early age he pretty much wore his brightness on his sleeve. He was able to refute most arguments thrown at him, and he did so in an arrogant way. Soon the townspeople were avoiding him, because, basically, they thought he was an asshole.

He decided to start his own self-improvement program by coming up with all the virtues he could think of, writing them down, then putting them into practice. He found that it was tough to practice them all at once, so he decided to faithfully work on one specific one each week. He came up with 13, so he figured that over a year, he would spend four weeks on each one, and by the end of the year, he would be much improved as a human.

As he was putting this list together, he asked various people what they though these virtues should be. One elderly friend who had seen Ben attack other peoples’ arguments enough times told him he needed to work on pridefulness.

Here’s what he wrote about it in his autobiography:

Here is what I’m talking about. I just read an article on the Scott Peterson situation. Apparently, new DNA evidence that might exonerate him has come to light, so his attorneys are trying to get a new trial. I know absolutely nothing about the whole situation. The entire country was mesmerized by the trial, but, for whatever reason, it didn’t really capture my attention. If I had been glued to the tube, all I would have seen would have been what the media reported on it, which is only a fraction of what was presented to the jury. And, as we all know, the media is selective in what they choose to report.

At the end of the article linked above, there were comments. When I read it, this was the first comment. I doubt this guy knows any more about the situation than I do, but he is absolute in his certainty:

To put a coda to this whole thing, if you think I’m wrong, don’t hesitate to tell me. But just to keep my bile in check, do so like ol’ Ben learned to do. I don’t really mind being told I’m wrong, because that’s the only way I can get smarter. As the old saying goes, if you’re wondering about something, post it on the internet. If you’re wrong, a thousand people will correct you. Like all of Ben’s neighbors in Philadelphia, I just would prefer to be corrected in a kinder, gentler way.

Before I get to the polls and comments, let me tell you about a discovery I made in San Diego.

X3 Band Discovery

I have a set of the X3 bands in both Montecito and Dallas. They are made to fit in a carry-on bag, but I hated schlepping them back and forth, so I got two sets.

But I travel to a lot of places besides Montecito and Dallas. If I’m driving, it’s no problem to throw the bands, bar, and baseplate in the car. Flying is another matter. The bar and bands are no big deal, but the base plate is heavy. And although it does indeed fit in a carry on, it adds a lot of weight. And reduces the capacity. Since I’m 6’2”, I need a lot of space to pack clothes and size 12 shoes, so every little bit of space taken up means fewer wearables I can take.

We drove to San Diego for the conference, but I decided not to take the base plate and try the system by just standing on the bands. Given the timing of the trip, I figured I was going to have just one workout down there, and if the setup didn’t work without the baseplate, then all I missed was part of one workout, which wouldn’t be the end of the world. (The baseplate isn’t required for every exercise, so that’s why I would miss just part of the workout.)

As it turned out, it worked fine. I did my entire workout on Friday without a hitch. I stood on the bands to do my squats and dead lifts without an issue. It’s a little easier with the baseplate, but not so much so that I will hog the baseplate around with me when I travel from now on. Unless I’m going to be gone for a long time—then I will consider the baseplate. But if I’m going to be gone that long, I’ll probably take a bag to check, so adding the baseplate wouldn’t be a big deal.

Also, while on the subject, I’ve made greater gains without so much misery by doing the movements in slow motion. I can’t believe I co-wrote an entire book on the subject and then somehow forgot everything I learned during the research phase.

Here are my recommendations if you do decide to do a variable resistance program with bands (or with the appropriate machines).

• Start with the lowest strength band.

• Do the exercise using perfect form as shown on the instructions.

• Do the movement slowly with zero momentum.

• Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth.

• Never take the stress off the bands.

• Do the exercise until you can’t move it at all.

Let me explain.

Start with the lowest strength band and work up slowly. It makes it easier to use perfect form. Perfect form focuses the resistance on a particular set of muscles. If you don’t use perfect form, you recruit other muscles, and it’s more difficult to get to failure. Do the movements slowly. It will seem easy at first, but all of a sudden, it will become more difficult.

You will suddenly find yourself breathing hard. Breathe in through your nose. Air circulating across the sinuses stimulates the production of nitric oxide, which dilates the arteries, helping with blood flow and oxygen transfer.

Don’t take the stress off the bands. What I mean by this is don’t let the tension decrease until you can’t move the band any longer. For instance, if you’re doing a chest press, don’t go to full arm extension, because you will be transferring the stress from your muscles to your bones. Same thing when you let it come back to your chest. The second you get it back, start pressing again, so that the muscles are constantly under stress.

In my view, based on all the research I did for the Slow Burn book, this is the best way to build strength and muscle mass.

BTW, one of the poll responses to The Arrow week before last was the one below. The reader had given me three stars. Here is why.

Sigh.

Emails, Comments, and Poll Responses

Advertisements

I got a number of poll responses and an email or two about the ads on the last two Arrows. As I mentioned, the new platform I use finds advertisers for me. I signed up for three without knowing how they actually worked. I didn’t realize they would take up as much space and look so much like the body of the newsletter. The last one of the three I signed up for will run today, but I’ll set it off somehow so people will know it is an ad and not a product I use and recommend myself. Having said that, the platform found another ad for me for a product I do like. I’ll run it next week. But that may be the last.

Dr. Mercola…Again

A bunch of people notified me that despite my best efforts, the YouTube video of the Mercola-Shanahan discussion did not start at where I thought I had it cued. The time stamp for the part I discussed is 1:04:42.

A reader wrote:

There are two different units of measurement of various lab values. For glucose levels, the one commonly used in the United States is in milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl), while the one used in most of the rest of the world is millimoles per liter (mmol/l). I suspect this reader is not from the US because a reading of 2 would have to be in mmol/l. The conversion factor is 18. You multiply the mmol/l value by 18 to get the mg/dl. So a reading of 2 would convert to 38 mg/dl. Which is extremely low.

I’m not saying Dr. Mercola is lying, but I would say that 38 mg/dl would be way, way out of the ordinary on a high carb diet especially. Back in the 1960s, George Cahill, a professor at Harvard performed long-term starvation studies on patients that would not be allowed today due to Institutional Review Boards and Ethics Committees. He found blood sugar levels as low as 25 mg/dl (after small doses of insulin) in some of his subjects. And this with no change in consciousness or ability to cogitate. As far as I know, those are the lowest blood sugar values ever observed. And they were in people totally keto adapted who were given small doses of insulin just to see how low blood sugar could go.

The experiment was stopped at the 25 mg/dl level. Since we don’t really know for sure how low blood sugar can go in totally keto-adapted people, we don’t really know if glucose is actually necessary for life as long as there are plenty of ketones. We suspect glucose is necessary because red blood cells require it. But, as far as I know (and admittedly, I haven’t made an exhaustive study of the phenomenon), we don’t really know how low we can get glucose levels in the keto-adapted before symptoms arise.

Given all that, a blood glucose level of 38 gm/dl is pretty low. Remember, the keto-adapted subjects were give insulin to get their blood sugar levels down to 25 mg/dl. If Dr. Mercola is consuming 500 grams of carbs per day, he is definitely not in ketosis, nor is he keto adapted. Which makes the likelihood of a true reading of 38 doubtful.

The reader may be misquoting what Dr. Mercola reported. I would like to see where he said that, so I could confirm it. It may have been in the video linked above, but I, like most everyone else here, didn’t watch the whole thing.

As I think I’ve written, I’ve spoken to Dr. Mercola on the phone a couple of times, but I’ve never been a reader of his columns. Every now and them one of my blog readers would send me a Mercola column that I would read, but that’s about it. So I don’t know what he has been writing about over the years.

Based on what I’ve read recently, it appears that he has recently switched from a long-time ketogenic diet (feel free to kindly set me straight if this isn’t the case) to an extremely high-carbohydrate diet. A long-term ketogenic or low-carb diet tends to restore and/or maintain metabolic flexibility.

Metabolic flexibility (which I need to write about in more detail at some point) is basically defined as the ability to respond quickly to changes in metabolic or energy demands depending upon the prevailing conditions or activity. For the most part, kids have great metabolic flexibility. They can eat pretty much whatever they want, and the body parcels it out to storage and burning. As people get older, they start to lose their metabolic flexibility. Diabetes is a common example of a loss of metabolic flexibility.

When people develop a bit of glucose intolerance and insulin resistance, they lose metabolic flexibility. If they eat carbs, their blood sugar rises. Ultimately, they will muster enough insulin to deal with the blood sugar induced by the carbs. But it will take some time. Meanwhile, their blood sugar will be higher than it should be, all the while causing damage to their arteries.

A perfect example of good metabolic flexibility can be seen in kids on a car trip. If you’re on a long drive with a kid, and you make a pit stop, most of us use the restroom then grab something to drink. The kids get their sugar-filled drink and the adults grab some coffee or ice tea of whatever. Thirty minutes later the kids are whining that they need to pee. You, who have drunk way more than they, don’t need to pee.

What happened?

The kids have excellent metabolic flexibility. They drink the sugary drink, their insulin goes up and drives the sugar into their liver and muscles, and their kidneys get rid of the excess fluid. And they have to pee.

You, the adult, don’t have the same metabolic flexibility, so you tend to retain the fluid, even if there are no carbs involved. You don’t have to go, but the kids do. Now, granted, the kids do have smaller bladders, but they probably didn’t drink as much as you.

One of the ways to improve metabolic flexibility is to go on a low-carb/ketogenic diet. The kind of diet Dr. Mercola was allegedly on for years. If he was on that diet, he should have pretty good metabolic flexibility, so maybe his blood sugar is fairly low despite eating all the carbs. I don’t think it is 38 low, but it could be low.

But if he continues, I suspect his metabolic flexibility will deteriorate.

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Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)

I touched a live wire with that one. Responses were all over the place.

First, let me say that the only thing I know about ECT comes from the half day or so I spent watching maybe a half dozen elderly veterans receive it. And the article I linked last week. Plus, of course, playing Dr. Spivey in the college play, but that doesn’t really count.

I’m going to list some of the responses and emails I received. You can draw your own conclusions. I know almost nothing about it, so can’t really discuss it intelligently beyond what I saw and that one paper.

Here are the responses in no particular order:

I agree re Dr. Ede’s book. I was totally pissed because I missed her talk. I’ll have to catch it when the videos go up. As I think I mentioned, I got the date wrong as to when the conference started. It was late Wednesday night when I discovered it started the next morning and not Friday, as I had thought. MD and I got up and left at the crack of dawn, but we didn’t make it in time for Dr. Ede’s talk. I did get to visit with her for a while and sort of catch up, but not nearly as much as I would have liked. She had to leave early Sunday to get back to Boston. I carried my underlined and annotated copy of her book with me almost the whole time I was there, but the only times we actually ran into one another, I didn’t have it with me. So it is still unsigned.

The entire day Friday was devoted to the use of the ketogenic diet in the treatment of psychiatric disorders. And I missed half of it. But I have read Dr. Ede’s book, which covers most of it. If I did have a psychiatric disorder, I would try the ketogenic diet before drugs, ECT, or anything else. It works wonders.

There you have it re your fellow readers thoughts on ECT.

/

Lipids and Heart Disease

Here is one that came in the comments. I think it is an important question this reader asks.

For those wondering what Peter Attia wrote about heart disease recently, here is a link.

Peter Attia and I are friends. He’s been to our place in Tahoe before we sold it, and the last time I actually saw him in the flesh, MD and I had dinner with him and his wife at his house in San Diego. At that time, he was a low-carb advocate. But since then, things have changed, and I don’t know what inspired the change.

Despite being friends, we have a major disagreement about the lipid-heart disease issue. But there is nothing wrong with friends disagreeing, even doctor friends disagreeing about medical issues. It happens all the time. I don’t agree with anyone 100 percent, and probably neither does Peter.

Many medical journals have pro and con debates on various drugs, procedures, and other medical issues. Doctors who read those journals then have to decide which expert’s advice to follow when treating their own patients. And, I suppose, patients need to decide which experts advice they want to follow based on their own research or intuition.

Peter made his case in his post linked above, so now I’ll make mine. And it will be abbreviated, because I could go on for multiple Arrows if I really got into the weeds on the subject.

The whole idea that elevated cholesterol causes heart disease is called the lipid hypothesis. It is still called the lipid hypothesis and not the lipid fact, because although there is an association, causality has never been proven.

Back in the 1970s and 1980s millions of dollars were spent on testing the lipid hypothesis, and it all came to naught. Then statins came along and more tens of millions (if not hundreds of millions) were spent on testing them. These were all randomized, placebo-controlled trials, and they all pretty much came to naught.

They did show a small decrease (in terms of absolute risk) in reducing both fatal and non-fatal myocardial infarctions. The drug companies then converted these very small decreases in absolute risk into much larger relative risk numbers, which are bogus. But that’s what drug companies do. They convert small absolute risk numbers into much larger relative risk numbers, but keep the side effect numbers listed as absolute risk numbers. (If you don’t understand the difference between relative risk and absolute risk, here is what I wrote about it years ago.)

Now you might think that if statins show even a small reduction in absolute risk for heart attacks, why not take them? Especially if you are considered at high risk.

You’ve seen only half the equation.

First, statins are not benign drugs. They, like almost all drugs, come with a plethora of side effects. By taking them, you put yourself at risk for developing one or more side effects.

When the multiple multi-million dollar statin trials were run, they showed (as mentioned above) a small decrease in absolute risk for heart attack, both fatal and non-fatal. But, much to the disappointment of the drug companies, these trials did not show any decrease in all-cause mortality (except for one small group, which I’ll discuss shortly).

All-cause mortality means death from any cause. And since statins did bring about a reduction in fatal heart attacks, they did not make the subjects as a group live any longer. Which, of course, means the statins perhaps caused other issues that killed some people while preventing deaths from heart disease in others.

The small group mentioned above who received some slight benefit from statins in terms of a decrease in all-cause mortality were men under 65 who had experienced a heart attack. Not men under 65 who had supposed risk factors for heart disease, but men under 65 who had actually had a heart attack.

Considering the population at large, this is a fairly small group.

The various expensive studies of statins showed that women of all ages did not benefit from statins in terms of a reduction in all-cause mortality. Men over 65 did not benefit in terms of a reduction in all-cause mortality irrespective of whether or not they had had a heart attack. And men under 65 who had never had a heart attack did not benefit in terms of a reduction in all-cause mortality.

Here is a link to an excellent article written in the business press (of all places) summarizing the statin situation back when all these studies were freshly completed. It is not filled with medical jargon and is well worth your time to read.

I’m not the only one saying statins are pretty much worthless. A few years ago I was approached by a scientific journalist (who herself is a PhD) from Australia to give an interview about saturated fats as part of a two part series on a popular Australian TV series. Here was my segment.

She also did a segment on statins featuring some practicing physicians as well as a few academic physicians. The two shows, especially the one on statins, turned out to be some of the most watched shows in Australian TV history.

As you might imagine, all the mainstream docs were pissed beyond belief. And they raised holy hell with the network (ABC) over the shows, which resulted in both of them being jerked from the network website, Vimeo, YouTube, and anywhere else they might be found. And they canned the journalist for good measure.

It has all blown over now, so the shows are available on YouTube. Here is the one on statins.

As I mentioned above, all the statinating doctors in Australia were mightily pissed, because many, many viewers of the show discontinued their statins. In their hysteria, they all claimed thousands of people would die as a consequence. I haven’t noticed any press reports coming out of Australia about a massive uptick in cardiovascular deaths after this show.

The last report I saw about statin use in the United States said that in 2012-2013 there were 39.2 million people on the drugs. It can only have gone up by now. Even 39.2 million is a large percentage of the adult population.

I took a look at the number of deaths from heart disease in the United States over the past 50 years and put a vertical red line right about when statins really starting going. It’s difficult (for me, at least) to find graphs showing the actual incidence of heart disease over this same time period, so deaths will have to do as a proxy.

The above looks like many of the vaccine graphics we’ve all seen. Deaths from heart disease had been on a downward trend over time. Interestingly, since the advent of statins, the deaths have started to level out. If statins were such wonder drugs, one would think the lines above would have taken a sharp down turn since everyone and his brother is on the drugs.

Why do you think deaths from heart disease are on a downward slope?

A couple of reasons. We’ve developed a lot of new techniques to jerk people from the jaws of death. Clot busting drugs, for example.

But there is another big reason. Smoking is a huge risk factor for heart disease, and smoking levels have plummeted. I would attribute most of the decline in deaths from heart disease to the decrease in smoking.

When you combine the dramatic decrease in smoking with the increase in life-saving techniques, that would seem to pretty much account for the decrease in deaths from heart attack. Doesn’t really look to me like statins made a big difference. To me, at least.

My primary issue with cholesterol-lowering drugs is that they interfere with a basic biological function. Just about every cell in the body has the machinery to produce cholesterol. Given that that is indeed the case, it would seem contrary to nature and the forces of natural selection to encumber us with such machinery if cholesterol were not important. And if it is important—and it truly is—why would we want to take a drug that gums up its production in an effort to treat a disease that has never been proven to be caused by cholesterol? And if we do take a drug that inhibits the production of a substance nature has endowed all of our cells to produce, what are the long-term consequences?

As to the second part of this reader’s question, yes, I think calcium scans are useful. But they need to be evaluated properly. I wrote about how to do that back in earlier issues of The Arrow, which I don’t think are available any longer. Let me know if you would like for me to go over it again.

Simplesse

I’m starting to go through a list of commonly found food additives to see what they really are. And as I do, I will reveal what I discover about the ingredients we all see on the food labels that are often misleading.

We’ll start with Simplesse, one you see often, but not by its trade name. You usually see it on the label as whey protein concentrate.

Whey protein is good for us. It gives us a lot of essential amino acids, including leucine, which helps activate the mTOR complex that drives muscle synthesis. So, whey protein concentrate (Simplesse) must be good for us, right?

Well, not exactly.

Food technicians are magicians. They can do all kinds of things to various foods to make them taste like other foods or improve mouth feel or flavor.

In the case of Simplesse, manufactured and sold by CP Kelco, these technicians have turned whey protein into fat. They haven’t really turned it into fat, but they have microparticulated it in such a way that it has the taste of fat and the mouthfeel of fat, so sort of a fat substitute. You would swear you were eating fat if you ate something with Simplesse in it.

So, what’s the problem?

Fat contains 9 kcal per gram. Protein contains 4 kcal per gram. Manufacturers of processed foods like to keep the caloric intake down, so Simplesse is perfect. They can substitute it for fat in their products, and you won’t know the difference. But your brain and gut will.

If you eat a given number of calories of fat, you will activate a number of feedback systems that you aren’t aware of that end up triggering satiety. When you eat a fat substitute that has the consistency and mouthfeel of fat, you will experience a pleasant sensation, because the combination of fat and carbs are wonderful. Your mouth is happy, but your brain and gut know better, so you eat more.

The pernicious thing about Simplesse is that it is deceptive on the label: Whey protein concentrate. How could that be bad?

The online brochure reveals a lot.

So even though it is only about half protein (and God only knows what makes up the other half), it “supports a whey protein label claim.”

Now you know why you see Whey protein concentrate on a ton of ultra-processed foods. You, like me, probably thought that was a good thing.

Where the Heck Did This Come From?

My son was scrolling through Instagram and this popped up. Though I do have a recollection of going to the feed store and even writing about it, I have no memory whatsoever of this video being made. Weird. Had to have been years and years ago.

meathealth

111K followers

View more on Instagram

Odds and Ends

• Great WSJ article on pig-butchering scams shows how not to get caught up in one. They all start with unsolicited text messages supposedly sent accidentally.

• I love this tweet:”Someone dumber and lazier than you is making 10x the money because they are too dumb to doubt themselves." I love this reply even more.

• If you’ve ever wondered why toilet paper rolls are getting smaller and smaller (a subject, I, myself have never wondered about), here is the answer.

• Are ultra-processed foods the tobacco of the 21st century? Cancer rates in young people are increasing. Are UPFs the cause?

• A small-time scam and fraud artist was arrested and charged in connection with a scheme to extort Elvis Presley’s family out of millions and steal their ownership in Graceland. Looks like she tried to move up to the big league.

• From the What-will-they-think-of-next department: Hellman’s Is Releasing a… Mayo-Inspired Fragrance. Don’t buy it for me.

• Lahaina's more than 150-year-old banyan tree is coming back to life after devastating fire.

• CrimeCon, the true-crime conference where everyone pays except the main attractions, all of whom foot their own expenses.

• Desertification was supposed to be the 'greatest environmental challenge of our time.' Why are experts now worried about greening?

• In our long march to dystopia , we are currently seeing an acceleration of the corporate consolidation of the entire global agri-food chain.

• What causes income inequality? Here is one writer’s opinion.

• Short (~2 mins) explainer video on stem cells.

• High school dropout consumes the entire Western canon of philosophy while working in a Safeway warehouse. Now is making his living discussing it on a podcast. I absolutely love stories like this.

• Thirty-six flights were cancelled and 201 delayed at a Japanese airport on the weekend after a pair of scissors went missing in a store near the boarding gates. The scissors were later found in the store. A little overkill, maybe?

• World's oldest known person, a Spanish woman born in California, dies 'happy' at 117.

• The number of Americans ages 100 and older is projected to more than quadruple over the next three decades, from an estimated 101,000 in 2024 to about 422,000 in 2054.

• Weird story. A postcard arrives at its intended destination in Wales 121 years after the date on its postmark. Was “UK” commonly used in an address in 1903, or would it have been more likely to be Wales? I don’t know the answer.

• Scientists develop new technique that removes more than 98% of nanoplastics from water. If this pans out, it is fantastic news. Fingers crossed.

• 600 years of coral at Fiji shows the ocean was just as warm in 1400 AD as it is now.

• The last elephant in South Africa’s national zoo has been released back into the wild after 40 years of captivity. I wonder how the elephant—named Charlie—will survive after being away from its habitat for four decades.

Newsletter Recommendations

This week the Bride’s always-recommended Outlander MD looks at a scene in Episode 607 of the popular tv series involving the throat-slashing murder of a young woman named Malva Christie. She explains what happened to her anatomically, muses on who might have done it, and focuses on the surgical technique of Claire’s repair of the wound post-morten to make the body ‘more presentable’.

Video of the Week

The VOTW this week is a follow up to last week’s VOTW, which was about the great calorie con. This weeks is another explainer video that is quite good. In it an attractive young woman educates a couple of males, both of whom are grievously infected with the like virus, on what calories are and how they were discovered. Another noteworthy particular of this video is that it is the first time ever I’ve agreed with everything Marion Nestle has to say. From last week’s video, you learned why calories are not a particularly useful measurement; this week’s shows you where the whole idea came from. I probably should have posted these in reverse order, but I didn’t come across this one till a couple of days ago.

Time for the poll, so you can grade my performance this week.

That’s about it for this week. Keep in good cheer, and I’ll be back next Thursday.

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This newsletter is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not, nor is it intended to be, a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment and should never be relied upon for specific medical advice.

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