Severe diets wont help you to live longer -- but some less restrictive diets will

Association of Low-Carbohydrate and Low-Fat Diets With Mortality Among US Adults

Zhilei Shan et al.

Key Points

Question  What are the associations of types of low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets with mortality among US adults?

Findings  In this cohort study of 37 233 US adults 20 years or older, overall low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets were not associated with total mortality, but a healthy low-carbohydrate diet (lower amounts of low-quality carbohydrates and higher amounts of plant protein and unsaturated fat) and a healthy low-fat diet (lower amounts of saturated fat and higher amounts of high-quality carbohydrates and plant protein) were associated with lower total mortality.

Meaning  The associations of low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets with mortality may depend on the quality and food sources of macronutrients.

Abstract

Importance  It is crucial to incorporate quality and types of carbohydrate and fat when investigating the associations of low-fat and low-carbohydrate diets with mortality.

Objective  To investigate the associations of low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets with total and cause-specific mortality among US adults.

Design, Setting, and Participants  This prospective cohort study used data from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1999 to 2014 from 37 233 adults 20 years or older with 24-hour dietary recall data. Data were analyzed from July 5 to August 27, 2019.

Exposures  Overall, unhealthy, and healthy low-carbohydrate-diet and low-fat-diet scores based on the percentage of energy as total and subtypes of carbohydrate, fat, and protein.

Main Outcomes and Measures  All-cause mortality from baseline until December 31, 2015, linked to National Death Index mortality data.

Results  A total of 37 233 US adults (mean [SD] age, 49.7 [18.3] years; 19 598 [52.6%] female) were included in the present analysis. During 297 768 person-years of follow-up, 4866 total deaths occurred. Overall low-carbohydrate-diet and low-fat-diet scores were not associated with total mortality. The multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios for total mortality per 20-percentile increase in dietary scores were 1.07 (95% CI, 1.02-1.11; P = .01 for trend) for unhealthy low-carbohydrate-diet score, 0.91 (95% CI, 0.87-0.95; P < .001 for trend) for healthy low-carbohydrate-diet score, 1.06 (95% CI, 1.01-1.12; P = .04 for trend) for unhealthy low-fat-diet score, and 0.89 (95% CI, 0.85-0.93; P < .001 for trend) for healthy low-fat-diet score. The associations remained similar in the stratification and sensitivity analyses.

Conclusions and Relevance  In this study, overall low-carbohydrate-diet and low-fat-diet scores were not associated with total mortality. Unhealthy low-carbohydrate-diet and low-fat-diet scores were associated with higher total mortality, whereas healthy low-carbohydrate-diet and low-fat-diet scores were associated with lower total mortality. These findings suggest that the associations of low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets with mortality may depend on the quality and food sources of macronutrients.

SOURCE 





Gender, sex and using non-binary pronouns

When I was in middle school, my history teacher told our class that no one was fully male or female, that we were all comprised of masculine and feminine traits. It was hard for us to fully comprehend, and I recall a few uneasy chuckles, but it marked the beginning of my grasping that gender identity exists along a spectrum. This made acceptance of transgender identity a non-issue for me when “gender” pronouns recently turned into a controversial topic.

Still, I have come to reject the use of non-binary pronouns, believing you should be referred to by whatever sex you happen to be. The reason I do so — even at the risk of being fined $250,000 in New York or running afoul of administrators at Stanford — is that when interacting with someone, my intuitive reference point is one’s biological sex, not his or her sexual identity (gender).

That is, I look past the expression of self which I accept and even celebrate as their right, to try and discern what sex they are. The process is swift and automatic, perhaps even evolutionary, a way of ordering the world and even determining who anatomically is a prospective mate. In other words, we may call them gender pronouns but they’ve always operated for me, and I suspect for the majority of Americans, Pew Research found, who see the addition of “gender” pronouns as illogical, as sex pronouns.

As it turns out, much of what we claim relates to gender actually concerns our physical, biological selves.

In being asked to tick off a “gender” box at the doctor’s office, you’re really being asked about your sex; your gender can’t, for example, tell the doctor whether to check you for prostate cancer. Public restrooms are designed with your sex in mind. So are bras and blue jeans, and, for better or worse, crash test dummies and science equipment. In police reports, substituting your preferred gender for sex make it harder to corroborate a victim’s rape claim.

This is not to take issue with where you relieve yourself or what you wear. It is to point out that the pronoun police and the rest of us are applying pronouns to people through fundamentally different lenses, one emphasizing who a person feels like (culturally), the other who the person is (anatomically).

Neither usage, though, indicates the user’s attitude toward trans people. (I for one am committed to calling trans people whichever sex they turn into after reassignment surgery, and in the meantime fully accept their gender nonconformity.) Thus, the claim in places like New York that those who refuse to comply with a pronoun of one’s choosing are discriminatory is baseless — and itself runs the risk of being discriminatory against a whole range of people, from the anatomically and grammatically correct to people of faith. A Virginia teacher is suing after being fired for not using a student’s preferred pronoun on religious grounds.

Further, forcing others to expand their gender vocabulary often hinders greater acceptance and integration. A friend who recently participated in a video game design competition balked at congratulating the winning team because the seeming contradiction between its members’ gendered and biological selves left him fearful he might address them by the “wrong” pronoun. Unfortunately, another friend who is transitioning to becoming a man refused to accept our differing views on when it’s acceptable to be called by a new pronoun and we haven’t spoken since.

Demanding special pronouns can also come across as narcissistic and leave people feeling bullied, which they naturally resent, threatening tolerance and good will.

It’s mostly white liberals (or perhaps more accurately, woke white “liberals”) who favor preferred pronouns. Nearly half of Democrats don’t see the point, and clear majorities among Latinos, blacks and whites don’t either, according to a recent poll. Even readers of The New York Times are dissenting, with readers responding to an op-ed bashing “those traditional, uselessly gendered pronouns” by saying that adding pronouns “is a power play,” “pretty silly as well as confusing,” “imposing your will on others,” “a gift to the queer-haters out there,” “an example of painfully theatric political correctness” that is “absurd” in its “attitude that we must all conform to make everyone else feel special and perfect all the time” (culled from the six most popular reader responses).

Commendably, new “gender” pronouns seek to bridge the disconnect between what transgender people are and what they feel like, but this simplifies rather than expands on their identity. If, for example, someone claims to be a “himer,” all that tells me in the vaguest of terms is that the person is not comfortable being called a man or a woman. (If it really matters that I acknowledge your gender dysphoria, you’re better off saying, I’m a man or a woman but I feel like … fill in the blank. That’s more transparent and contextual, and I’m more likely to empathize.)

So, rather than try, and politically charging our interactions in the process, we would be better off renaming “gender” pronouns themselves — to say “anatomical” or “sex” pronouns (and a third available to intersex individuals). This would be more in line with how they typically function, and limit false expectations of what non-binary pronouns can achieve. It will also free us to be more substantively inclusive.

SOURCE 




World's Tiniest Surviving Preemie Shows Abortion Isn't in Line With Science or Common Sense

Last summer the nation’s imagination was captivated by a beautiful newborn baby girl called Saybie, who left the hospital weighing 5 pounds, 6 ounces. Doctors said she was born in December only 23 weeks into her mother’s pregnancy and was just about the size of an apple, weighing less than 9 ounces.

Her parents were told that Saybie — a name used by her care team — couldn’t survive. But Saybie’s parents didn’t give up hope. Modern medical science saved this tiny baby’s precious life and she is now thriving.

The San Diego hospital where she was born said Saybie is believed to be the world’s smallest surviving newborn, according to the Tiniest Babies Registry kept by the University of Iowa.

I and other pro-life Americans noted on Twitter and other platforms that Saybie is living proof that science is on the side of the pro-life cause. Her very survival must raise questions for our nation regarding current law on abortion.

The late Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun famously said regarding the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision by the Supreme Court that legalized abortion nationwide: “If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment.”

And, of course, we are there now. Sonograms — 3D, 4D, and HD — have settled the question of when life begins. At conception, a child has his or her own DNA separate and apart from the mother. We can see the baby’s beating heart as early as 18 days. At 30 days the developing little boy or girl has a nervous system.

At 12 weeks the child has fingernails. At 20 weeks the baby has all the major organs we have, along with toenails and eyebrows. The child can sleep, can hear, can respond to the mother’s voice, and can feel pain.

Clearly, sweet Saybie was not just a clump of cells, nor was she ever “a part of the mother’s body.” Saybie was and is a distinct and precious human being with intrinsic value. And now she has the opportunity to grow up and hopefully live a full life for many decades to come.

Reports say that doctors performed an emergency cesarean section because Saybie’s mother’s life was in danger; yet, precious Saybie and her mother survived.

Sadly, 31 states currently allow an abortionist to take the life of other babies at the same stage in development as Saybie. Why do the lives of their children not matter?

According to abortion advocates, life depends upon the state of mind of the mother — whether the child is “wanted.” That’s a nonsensical argument refuted by science.

Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry make billions of dollars each year from scared mothers and dead babies. We are at a tipping point in our nation in which the facts can no longer be denied. Roe v. Wade is no longer in line with either science or public opinion.

People of conscience refuse to ignore the human right of a living human being to not be dismembered and discarded by a utilitarian society that finds the baby inconvenient.

More and more Americans agree and are overwhelmingly rejecting the radical abortion extremism we have seen in states like Virginia and New York.

Recent pro-life legislation in states like Missouri, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana is partly a response to the left’s rejection of truth. Americans are now in the process of setting new boundaries, given these undeniable scientific facts of human life like Saybie.

Roe v. Wade must go because it is no longer supported by science or common sense. States will fight out their own boundaries, but one thing is certain: Saybie is living proof that science is pro-life.

SOURCE 





Australia: Dozens of vegans storm a steakhouse and ruin people's dinners in protest against eating meat - but run away scared when the police are called

Vegan activists have stormed a Queensland restaurant as part of a protest against the meat industry.

Protesters held up signs and repeated the chant 'it's not food, it's violence' in the middle of the Black Hide Steakhouse in Brisbane at the weekend.

The protest was part of a global movement by activist group Direct Action Everywhere.

The group live-streamed the protest to Facebook, urging animal rights supporters to share the video and spread their message. 

'We're at a steakhouse to disrupt normalised violence,' the woman filming the video said. 'We have around 25 dedicated animal rights activists standing in solidarity for animals that are needlessly slaughtered for food.

'We have the choice to end violence with our dollar and in 2020 there is no longer an excuse to pay for someone else's suffering.'

The diners appeared uncomfortable as the group stood in the middle of the restaurant chanting and holding their signs.

Others stood out the front of the steakhouse confronting those who entered the restaurant with their message against meat.

The group are well known for their activities in Western Australia, where they have held several marches and protested outside abattoirs and butchers shops near Perth.

Direct Action Everywhere spokesman Arcadiusz Swiebodinksi said the group planned more protests in Queensland.

'We came here to Brisbane because its a very heavy animal agriculture state here in Queensland and animals need to be spoken for everywhere, he told 7 News. 'This is just the beginning.'

One diner said he was unhappy about having his dinner interrupted. 'Don't interrupt other people's life everyone has got a right to make a choice - they can make there's.  Let the people here who like eating steak make theirs,' he said.

Others offered their support to the steakhouse on social media.  'Hi, sorry you had to put up with those vegan d**k heads last night. We love eating your steak,' one person wrote.

The protest lasted less than 20 minutes, and by the time police arrived the activists had already left.

SOURCE  

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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