day 5 Thursday

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I heard lots of kids running around and playing when I woke up this morning. I'm such a deep sleeper I can sleep through that kind of stuff real easy. It was cold last night had to put another blanket on the bed. Had a new kind of corn flakes today. Since I'm a late person I really only have time to eat the cereal but mama tica puts out other stuff for me to like bread and yogurt. Irsquom not a

Izamal

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Thursday 27.5.2010 day 225IzamalToday we got the buss to the city of Izamal the city if hills it is located right in the middle of the peninsula. It is one of the oldest cityrsquos in Yucatan and itrsquos history is attached to religious events. Izamal was conquered by the Spaniards. We went to the Franciscan Convent that was built from and over one of the Mayan pyramids. It is also famous

On "The Last Frontier" Part I

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On ldquoThe Last Frontierrdquo Part IFlorida markets itself as ldquoThe Sunshine Staterdquo but this is all hype. I donrsquot think that Florida is particularly more sunny than most other places but the nickname helps bring in the tourists I suppose. Alaska however which has dubbed itself ldquoThe Last Frontierrdquo is actually justified in its nickname. One doesnrsquot have t

Fabulous Franz Joseph and Fox Glaciers

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A little under two weeks spent in the north island visiting friends and exploring some of the highlights went by too quickly. I landed in Auckland explored some with my friend Kim and within a few days found myself in Mt. Maunganui on the Bay of Plenty. What a beautiful little town fun and touristy and right on the water. I climbed the mountain on a crisp blueskied day and was rewarded with vie

May 27 camp water

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pictures of water at the camp. the first is a woman drawing water by the bucket. SA trying to discourage since water is not good...but they use it for washing clothes. other pics are water supplied daily by trucks. it is absolutely amazing to me how clean everyone is. they wash themselves daily under the most primitive of conditions. women are scrubbing clothes in a pan of water and draping t

Jobs

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Hey everyone Whangarei was a bust for the job market so Kerstin and I have traveled down to Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty not to be confused with the Bay of Islands. The hostel wersquore staying at is called I kid you not ldquoJust the Ducks Nutsrdquo which just about made me spit out the water I was drinking a similar incident happened when I had to explain to Kerstin and a girl from

May 27 bathing

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Bathing is an effort for them. Little children are bathed in pans or buckets in the camp mostly. Larger children and adults use other methods. See pics.

May 27 camp latrine project

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Sanitation has been a big issue at the camp. SA is working hard to bring conditions up to SPHERE standards. Initially there were portapotties set up and still in use which require daily pumping. Service initially was not always reliable but SA now has a contractor that is reliable. Current project under way is the building of sturdy latrines and engineering drainage piping note the drain

The Singing Siji Last full day in Tibet

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So my last day in Tibet was spent on a tour of Drak Yerpa Monastery a very cool and seemingly out of the way place. It was a good hour or so drive from Lhasa city limits. I was going to go to the biggestholiest lake but my hotel Mr. Yak which I do not recommend to anyone quoted me 1600 RMB for the trip plus meals and entrance fees to be paid by me. I found another tour agency near Barkhor

14th Day On the Road Again

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Hi AllWe spent the day pretty simply. First we slept in and had breakfast. Then went and did laundry at this really big laundry facility. We finished before noon and then Pam wanted to go and geocache people have you ever been to New Bergen New Jersey Well the streets and traffic are crazy and it is a total night mare But Pam found the geocache with much frantic heart stopping and brake squee

The Sound of Milford Sound

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Weeks before I went there I had booked a trip on the Milford Soundfirst a coach was to take me from Te Anau where I would be spendingfour nights over Easter and then a boat trip on the Sound through theNaked Bus Company getting what I thought was a good deal but nothaving any idea what I was going to get. Having spent the last fewyears in South East Asia where Murphy and his Law is prevalentev

May 27 camp structure

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The camp manager has set up a committee system members elected for 3 month term. They are responsible for security within the camp area and interfacing with the SA personnel serving the camp. They take this very seriously meeting me and extending warm greetings to their camp. They toured through the camp with the Camp Manager and myself and seemed genuinely proud of their participation to m

Thursday in Toronto

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Our second full day in Toronto and Rachel Darina and I headed to West Queen West in the west suprisingly of Toronto which is young quirky and funky. It was full of little shops selling expensive designer clothes antique shops tattoo parlours and little cute restaurants. It was quiet because it was a weekday and everyone was at work or school.The weather was and still is great here around

Trans Fats Now Being Replaced With Healthy Fats and Oils – EmpowHer (blog)

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CBC.ca
Trans Fats Now Being Replaced With Healthy Fats and Oils
EmpowHer (blog)
Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian of Harvard Medical School in Boston and his colleagues reported on this situation in a letter to the editors of the New England ...
Stripping Out Trans Fat Doesn't Mean Adding More Saturated FatWall Street Journal (blog)
Food Manufacturers Trimming the Trans FatWebMD
Saturated Fats Are Better Than Trans Fats: PanelFood Processing
U.S. News & World Report -BusinessWeek -CSPI Newsroom
all 244 news articles »

Virtual Heroes, Duke Medical School team up for virtual training – Local Tech Wire (blog)

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Virtual Heroes, Duke Medical School team up for virtual training
Local Tech Wire (blog)
The Raleigh-based firm, which focuses on so-called serious games technology for use in education and training, and the medical school worked together to ...
Virtual Heroes joins Duke ERNews & Observer
Virtual Heroes Launches Partnership with Internationally Renowned School of ...Business Wire (press release)
Virtual Heroes snags deal with Duke University School of MedicineTriangle Business Journal

all 18 news articles »

Stand up for science-based medicine against anti-vaccine fear mongering in Chicago today

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As I’ve pointed out numerous times this week, anti-vaccine loons, led Generation Rescue and a “health freedom” group, have organized an anti-vaccine rally in Grant Park in Chicago from 3 PM to 5 PM CDT. Andrew Wakefield himself will be the keynote speaker, and there will even be some very bad music promoting the anti-vaccine message. The rally, with its wonderfully Orwellian title, The American Rally for Personal Rights, will be pure anti-vaccine activism in support of pseudoscience on display.

Those supporting science-based medicine plan, led by Skepchick Elyse Anders, to be there to promote science over the conspiracy theories and fear mongering that the anti-vaccine movement uses to frighten parents out of vaccinating their children. I realize it’s short notice. I realize that you very likely will be outnumbered, given the combination of short notice and the fact that the anti-vaccine zealots have been organizing and promoting this rally for weeks, if not months. Nonetheless, you’ll be doing me a particular solid if you can show up there. Details are here. There are also going to be satellite rallies in New Jersey, Washington, and New York. They look as though they’ll be much smaller; so, as P.Z. Myers points out, even if a couple of people can go it could have an effect.

Oh, and if you see J.B. Handley, Jenny McCarthy (I don’t know if she’ll be there or not but thought I’d mention her anyway), Andrew Wakefield, Kim Stagliano, or any other prominent anti-vaccine loon with whom I’ve tussled from time to time here and elsewhere, please tap him or her on the shoulder, smile broadly, and tell ‘em Dr. Gorski says hi.

Particularly J.B. Handley, for at least three reasons1,2,3.


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Is Organic Food More Healthful?

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In 1952 Martin Gardner, who just passed away this week at the age of 95, wrote about organic farming in his book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. He characterized it as a food fad without scientific justification. Now, 58 years later, the science has not changed much at all.

A recent review of the literature of the last 50 years shows that there is no evidence for health benefits from eating an organic diet. The only exception to this was evidence for a lower risk of eczema in children eating organic dairy products. But with so many potential correlations to look for, this can just be noise in the data.

Another important conclusion of this systematic review is the paucity of good research into organic food – they identified only 12 relevant trials. So while there is a lack of evidence for health benefits from eating an organic diet, we do not have enough high-quality studies to say this question has been definitively answered. It is surprising, given the fact that organic food was controversial in the 1950s, that so little good research has been done over the last half-century.

It should be noted that we only recently had any rules in the US regarding the label “organic”. According to the USDA:

The Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA), enacted under Title 21 of the 1990 Farm Bill, served to establish uniform national standards for the production and handling of foods labeled as “organic.”

The definition of organic entirely relates to the method of production, not the final product. It involves three principles. One is sustainable farming that is optimal for the environment. That question is beyond the scope of this medical blog. Many people do advocate organic farming for this reason alone, and many of the principles of sustainable farming are being incorporated more generally into agriculture and animal husbandry.

The second principle is the establishment of an ecosystem, using cover crops, crop rotation, and other methods. Again – I want to set aside the environmental questions and focus on the nutritional claims: Does organic farming result in produce that is more nutritious? There are different ways we can approach this question. One is addressed by the systematic review above: Can we measure a health advantage to eating an organic diet? The answer to that question at the present time is “no.” This could be due to the fact that there is no health benefit, or that any benefit is smaller than the studies currently available could detect. Long term modest health benefits are very difficult to detect with clinical trials, and it is therefore difficult to rule out such benefits, but at present there is no evidence of health benefits from an organic diet.

The second way to approach this question is to evaluate the food products themselves: Are they more nutritious? The most recent systematic review of the evidence concluded:

On the basis of a systematic review of studies of satisfactory quality, there is no evidence of a difference in nutrient quality between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs. The small differences in nutrient content detected are biologically plausible and mostly relate to differences in production methods.

There is also a recent study concluding that birds prefer seed that is conventionally produced over seed that is organically produced – likely because conventional production methods result in a 10% higher protein content.

The third issue with organic food is what is not in, or on them – pesticides, hormones and antibiotics. Here, again, we can take the same two approaches as with nutrition: Is there any evidence of a difference between organic and conventional produce, and is there evidence for a health benefit? There seems to be a consensus on the first question. There are lower levels of synthetic pesticides in organic produce and lower levels of hormones and antibiotics in organic meat than in conventionally grown equivalents.  But is this safer for health? The review cited above is also relevant to this question, and essentially there is no evidence for greater safety of organic food over conventional food.

With regard to pesticides, it must also be noted that organic farming, while using methods to minimize pests and the need for pesticides, still uses organic, rather than synthetic, pesticides. For example a rotenone-pyrethrin mixture is commonly used. Such pesticides are not as well studied as synthetic pesticides, often require more applications, and may persist longer in the soil. In fact the use of “natural” pesticides is nothing more than an appeal to the naturalistic fallacy – there really is no evidence for superior safety, and they have not been adequately studied.

There is a recent study which has garnered a great deal of press linking organophosphates – a type of synthetic pesticide – to higher prevalence of ADHD. However, this is a preliminary observational study. While interesting, it really can only be used to justify further research, not any conclusions regarding the effects of organophosphates. (I discuss this article in more detail here.)

It does seem reasonable to minimize human exposure to pesticides. This can be accomplished, at least in part, however, by simply washing all produce thoroughly. I could not find any direct comparisons of organic produce to thoroughly washed conventional produce, but what evidence we do have suggests that residue levels are below safety limits and can be lowered further by washing. This is an area that does require continued monitoring and research, however.

Conclusion

Overall there does not appear to be any advantage for health to organic farming (sustainability and environmental effects being a separate issue). However, despite the fact that organic farming has been around for over 50 years, there is a surprisingly small amount of quality research available. The organic farming industry and popularity of organic products is growing. Organic products are more expensive, and questions remain about whether or not such methods would be adequate to supply our food needs. There may also be hidden health risks or unintended consequences to relying upon organic farming. There may also be benefits that have not been adequately documented. Therefore, this is one area where I think it is reasonable to conclude more research is genuinely needed.


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