Blogs / Discoblog

Former FDA head David Kessler’s much-lauded book The End of Overeating discusses in detail the use of technology by the food industry to provide the maximum caloric/fat bang for the consumer’s buck. And nowhere is this more beautifully illustrated than in the following video, an unusually candid inside look at the making of pork rinds. Which are hardly an example of healthy food (and we’re using the word “food” liberally). Fried pig skin squares, anyone?

In case the shock value from Super Size Me is starting to wear off, here’s an excerpt from the abstract of a paper in the Annals of Diagnostic Pathology. It was published last year, but the point is no less revolting today:

The purpose of this study is to assess the content of 8 fast food hamburger brands using histologic methods. Eight different brands of hamburgers were evaluated for water content by weight and microscopically for recognizable tissue types…Water content by weight ranged from 37.7% to 62.4% (mean, 49%)…The cost per gram of hamburger ranged from $0.02 to $0.16 (median, $0.03) and did not correlate with meat content. Electron microscopy showed relatively preserved skeletal muscle…Fast food hamburgers are comprised of little meat (median, 12.1%). Approximately half of their weight is made up of water. Unexpected tissue types found in some hamburgers included bone, cartilage, and plant material; no brain tissue was present. Sarcocystis parasites were discovered in 2 hamburgers.

Hungry, anyone?

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It’s only Monday, and there’s already a toss-up for worst science article of the week. Scientists at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health seem not to have realized that when it comes to weight gain, we’ve got one thing figured out: The fewer calories you consume, the less weight you put on. So they spent time and resources on a study to reach the following conclusion: Drinking water is less likely to cause obesity in kids than drinking sugar-sweetened drinks like soda and juice.

Weirder yet, the researchers don’t even sound assertive, as if their hypothesis needs further testing—not drinking sugary beverages, they say, “can reduce” excess calorie consumption. Well, yes, it can—and it does.

But while there’s validity, however obvious, to the Columbia  study, the U.K.’s Bath Spa University has just published its own, er, breed of ludicrous research: a study concluding that pet owners look like their dogs.

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•Villagers in England chased away a Google car, saying that Google Street View is, yes, an invasion of privacy—and will also facilitate crime in their area.

•Good news for chocolate lovers: Eating it can help your math skills [ed. note: We refute this claim based on personal experience—we couldn't eat more chocolate, and couldn't be worse at math].

•Gals, take pride: sisters bring more happiness (and balance) to a family than do brothers.

•But any mothers out there, you might want to get your baby formula examined: It could contain rocket fuel.

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The Telegraph published an article this weekend headlined, “Sugary Snacks Help School Children Concentrate.”

Really?

Here’s what actually happened: In a study of 16 kids, researchers gave them fruit juice containing either artificial sweetener or glucose—the natural sugar that acts as the body’s main energy source. The kids who drank the juice with glucose scored better on memory tests than the ones who ate artificial sugar, and appeared to have longer attention spans as well. Study leader David Benton’s main conclusion, then, was that children might perform better in school if they ate occasional snacks, rather than one big meal, and that a snack with some sugar might not be such a bad thing for them.

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A baseball can’t curve without its laces, a tennis ball’s fuzz helps it travel further, and the dimples on a golf ball reduce drag, just like the ridges on a shark. These tidbits of trivia introduced a capacity crowd packed into the purple bleachers of New York University’s Cole Sports Center to the World Science Festival’s “Science of Sports” event Saturday afternoon. Former U.S. Olympic Committee director of coaching Tom Crawford led the event.

The presenters opened with nutrition science, especially important for the young athletes and their families who packed the gym. Three professional basketball players, Leilani Mitchell and Lisa Willis from the WNBA’s New York Liberty and Brevin Knight of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers, helped about 10 elementary school-aged participants pick healthy food from a table. (Here’s a tip: After a workout, drink chocolate milk. Besides refueling you with proteins and carbohydrates, it’s delicious.)

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We’ve discussed how a mother’s diet may influence her baby’s sex. Now there’s research indicating that a baby’s diet may influence his or her future mental health and intelligence. Researchers for the Early Nutrition Programming Project (EARNEST) have found evidence that an infant’s diet can permanently affect the child’s future cognitive development, mental performance, and even susceptibility to mental illness.

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We’ve all been subjected to the health admonition of drinking eight, eight-ounce glasses of water per day—known as 8×8. Humans, apparently, have evolved a chronic water deficit, and must constantly replenish their dessicated bodies with high volumes of fluid until their urine runs clear. Water is supposed to be good for your skin, your weight, your purity, and your brain—which is, afterall, 74% water.

Balderdash, says a new review of the scientific literature by kidney gurus Dan Negoianu and Stanley Goldfarb from the University of Pennsylvania. They found that for the average, healthy individual, there is no evidence that increased water intake benefits organ functioning, appetite, headaches, skin tone, or substance clearance from the kidneys—and the origin of 8×8 is a mystery. The human body didn’t evolve a chronic thirst—it evolved a great capacity for maintaining proper water balance in the face of variable intake.

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