[recycled post - first appeared here]
That sound you just heard was millions of dollars of future vitamin revenues being flushed down the toilet. Well, if people bother to read the science news, that is.
Antioxidants Are Unlikely To Prevent Aging, Study Suggests
You mean I can’t just buy some friendly sounding pills at my local health food store or supermarket and effectively treat what ails me and even cheat death? A little background:
In 1956, Denham Harman proposed the theory that aging is caused by an accumulation of molecular damage caused by “oxidative stress”, the action of reactive forms of oxygen, such as superoxide, on cells. This theory has dominated the field of aging research for over fifty years. But now, a study published online today in the journal Genes & Development suggests that this theory is probably incorrect and that superoxide is not a major cause of aging.
In the developmental psychology text I use they still mention this theory. I wonder if it will be erased from future editions.
Here is my favorite passage from the article:
“The fact is that we don’t understand much about the fundamental mechanisms of aging,” says Dr David Gems from UCL. “The free radical theory of aging has filled a knowledge vacuum for over fifty years now, but it just doesn’t stand up to the evidence.”
If nature abhors a vacuum, the human mind seems downright repulsed by one. And thus we rush to fill gaps in our knowledge with supernatural mechanisms and neat and tidy yet half-baked theories.
Patience. The scientific attitude is one of patience.
See if you spot the possible flaw in the study reported on in this ScienceDaily news release: A Sense of Humor Helps Keep You Healthy Until Retirement Age
(I say “possible” because I only read the article once and may have missed something. I’m going to read it again, and will mention the results further down.)
As the title and the first sentence assert — “A sense of humor helps to keep people healthy and increases their chances of reaching retirement age” — the research focused on two variables: a sense of humor and life expectancy. And they’ve found an inverse relation between them.
Life expectancy — that’s pretty straightforward to define and measure. What about sense of humor?
Svebak and his colleagues evaluated people’s sense of humor with three questions from a test designed to measure only friendly humor. The test is not sensitive to humor that creates conflicts, is insulting or that is a variation of bullying, explains Svebak.
The questions revealed a person’s ability to understand humor and to think in a humorous way, Svebak says….
Did you spot the possible flaw to this study (at least the one that immediately came to my mind)?
Need a hint? Think beyond the highlighted variables.
I immediately wondered if they had controlled for types of intelligence. And perhaps personality variables. These could certainly be hidden influences, doing the real work behind the scenes, so to speak.
After a re-read it still seems these variables weren’t controlled for. But I can’t be sure, for I only read the news release — though it was fairly in-depth, for a news release — and I am unable to read the original paper, for it is written in Norwegian.
In particular, I wonder if verbal intelligence was controlled for. And if that variable is somehow related to health. Maybe via education and life style?
I do know that research into risk factors for crime have identified “low verbal intelligence” as one of them….
Oh-oh, just had a thought. Did those studies control for poverty? Man, doing social/psychological science isn’t easy!
And I guess I’ll stop there. Because that’s the point. The social and psychological sciences, and the medical as well, aren’t easy because there are so many darn variables involved. So when evaluating the findings from these fields, we need to be extra careful.
In many ways, birds are like humans. Or maybe humans are like birds. No, that’s not right. Maybe both are animals and, as distantly related animals, share some attributes.
For instance, the behavior of both male humans and male birds is influenced by testosterone levels. While male birds don’t have external testes (can you imagine flying with those? — running upright is bad enough!) they do have internal testosterone-producing gonads. And new research has found that male birds with intermediate blood levels tend to do better.
In Costs and Benefits of Testosterone in Birds we learn that having high enough testosterone is good for a male bird’s mating success and survival. Testosterone gives a guy bird the starch in its spine (not the technical language) to acquire and defend a territory as well as the sexual drive to find/attract mates and . . . mate with them.
But while “enough” is good, “even more” is not better. In fact, it’s worse. The experimenters found that of the birds with their levels experimentally manipulated, those with levels near the wild average did the best. Too high means too much risky behavior, which leads to health-endangering fights and predation, etc. Too little means poorer territory (which includes poorer access to food and less desirable/safe nesting sites)as well as poorer reproductive success.
In another bird study, scientists found Wild Birds Opt for Conventional Food Over Organic, Study Shows.
Lead researcher Dr Ailsa McKenzie:
“We showed that when given free choice, wild birds opt for the conventional food over the organic, and the most likely explanation is its higher protein content.”
It may simply be an unfounded stereotype, but many human males, and a fair share of females, too, seem to prefer a fat and protein laden steak dinner over high-vegetable-content alternatives. For dessert: a calorie-rich but nutrition-poor piece of pie. Why? It’s elemental: our evolutionary history placed a premium on what was then higher value foods: protein and calories. Green leafies — a belly full of that would give you the energy to last a day at best. And for building muscles salad alone gets a failing grade.
While animals — birds and humans and thousands of other types — live in a present environment, their body plans and functioning physiology was shaped years ago, in one past. How well do they fit their immediate environments? Only time will tell.
I’m prejudiced and I know it. Faced with a line-up of suspects and a crime of theft, I’d direct my focus on the obese person. But only if the crime involved chocolate donuts or a freshly baked cherry pie. I imagine.
Wait. Maybe that’s profiling. Is it “rational” profiling? No. I have no evidence to back up my suspicions. It may be the case that skinny folk are actually more likely to steal donuts.
Prejudice runs deep. I’m fairly sure that on some level I hold lesser opinions of very heavy folk. I try not to. And I do use my conscious thoughts to counter-act potentially deep-seated biases.
One line of reasoning people will often give to justify their feelings about the circumferentially-challenged goes something like this:
How could they do that to themselves!? (I.e., eat to the point of obesity.)
There may be two assumptions contained in the above sentiment. 1. Obese individuals are “doing it to themselves:” they lack the will and/or self-control that we thinsters have, 2. By becoming and staying large they are hurting themselves.
Do the obese really lack self-control? I suspect not. I imagine that among a number of other of things, obese people may have a greater drive to eat, thus a normal/average amount of self-control may prove ineffective. They also may live in physical and social environments in which the readily available foods pack more calories than those in the environment of thin folk.
But those are only conjectures on my part. Semi-educated conjectures, but conjectures nonetheless.
As for hurting themselves, recent studies have begun to question the fat = poorer health equation. One I encountered recently had this heading: ‘Obese’ BMI does not harm current health of young adults, study says.
The lead paragraph said:
A study examining the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and illness suggests that a BMI of 30 or above, a signal of obesity according to federal health standards, does not translate into current illness among adults under age 40. [bolds mine]
Hmm.
In addition, researchers found that across all age groups studied, from 25 to 70 years, there was little difference in the current health status in normal-weight vs. overweight people based on the medications they took.
Okay, there may be a problem with “medication use” as an indicator of overall health. Maybe, maybe not. Another study I recall actually found better health in the very old for those who were overweight but not obese.
What the heck is going on? In the least I think we should conclude that the equation between weight and health is not a simple one.
And as for the missing cherry pie — I think my wife stole it. She’ll likely resort to the “entrapment” defense. With a warm, flaky crust like that, and the filling perfectly thick, but not too, packing a blissful balance between sweet and tart — what sane person could resist?
Is this the greatest country in the world? Are we number one? If so, what are we number one at? What are the reasons for the high ranking?
Okay, I can see how for a segment of the population, “we” excel at nationalistic pride. So we’re number one at feeling we are number one. Hmm.
One thing is certain, there are a number of things we aren’t best at. For instance, a recent study wore this headline:
Canadians lead longer, healthier lives than Americans
Well cross that one off the list of things we’re best at.
One of the things about being a freethinker is that I feel free to question and criticize . . . religion, yes, but also such things as popular national sentiments. Heaven forbid.
Is national pride a good thing? Are we really number one?
By asking those questions I have just eliminated the possibility of my ever running for government on the republican ticket. (Nothing lost, there. But still.)
I guess part of my issue is blind allegiance. I strongly doubt that it is a good thing to ex cell at. Another part of it is the making of generic claims. Sure this country is great at a number of things. For one, I am a huge fan of the U.S. Constitution and the principles and practices of civil rights.
Yes, I love my country. But if it weren’t a land of prosperity and personal freedoms, would I love it as much, or at all?
When we love our country, what are we loving? Critical thinkers want to know.
I’m dating myself here, but I’m going to go ahead and do it. I’m going to quote lyrics from a song I remember hearing decades ago.
“Half Breed” by Cher
[CHORUS:]
Half-breed, that’s all I ever heard
Half-breed, how I learned to hate the word
Half-breed, she’s no good they warned
Both sides were against me since the day I was born
That’s the old. Now the news. A study on “mixed-race” people generated these results:
“A random sample of black, white, and mixed-race faces was collected and rated for their perceived attractiveness. There was a small but highly significant effect, with mixed-race faces, on average, being perceived as more attractive.” [source]
So it appears there is an upside, at least today, for being of racially divergent parents. As to the why of the attractiveness, Dr Michael Lewis of Cardiff University’s School of Psychology speculates . . .
“The results appear to confirm that people whose genetic backgrounds are more diverse are, on average, perceived as more attractive than those whose backgrounds are less diverse. This can be taken as evidence for heterosis [hybrid vigour] among human population groups.
Of course, a downside to looking different can still exist, even when the different looks are perceived as attractive. Consider the fact that for ages men have perceived “the opposite sex” — women — as attractive, but haven’t necessarily treated them with dignity, respect and equal rights.
One final thought. I find the results intriguing in that they may reflect what could be described as an extension of an anti-incest instinct. By mixing new genes into a gene pool you can make it healthier.
So go ahead. Love Cher and all those other mixed-breeds. In all sense of the word.
