Done yesterday (20100325 Th)

[mdlbear]

0325 Th
  * up 5:55; W=198; drugs, nose
  @ What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie? - NYTimes.com (from @rowanf)
     These researchers point out that there are plenty of reasons to suggest
     that the low-fat-is-good-health hypothesis has now effectively failed the
     test of time. In particular, that we are in the midst of an obesity
     epidemic that started around the early 1980's, and that this was
     coincident with the rise of the low-fat dogma. (Type 2 diabetes, the most
     common form of the disease, also rose significantly through this period.)
     They say that low-fat weight-loss diets have proved in clinical trials and
     real life to be dismal failures, and that on top of it all, the percentage
     of fat in the American diet has been decreasing for two decades. Our
     cholesterol levels have been declining, and we have been smoking less, and
     yet the incidence of heart disease has not declined as would be
     expected. ''That is very disconcerting,'' Willett says. ''It suggests that
     something else bad is happening.'' 
    ...
     The crucial example of how the low-fat recommendations were
     oversimplified is shown by the impact -- potentially lethal, in fact --
     of low-fat diets on triglycerides, which are the component molecules of
     fat. By the late 60's, researchers had shown that high triglyceride
     levels were at least as common in heart-disease patients as high
     L.D.L. cholesterol, and that eating a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet
     would, for many people, raise their triglyceride levels, lower their
     H.D.L. levels and accentuate what Gerry Reaven, an endocrinologist at
     Stanford University, called Syndrome X. This is a cluster of conditions
     that can lead to heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. 
  @ Does high-fructose corn syrup make you fatter? - maybe not.
    (from acelightning--The difference between science and science reporting...)
  * need to update the "hot news" section of steve.savitzky.net -- ancient.!
  @ Bad Things Happen When Politicians Think They Understand Technology
  @ Kobo eReader Looks Pretty Nice for $150
  @ Bogus DMCA Takedown Is Not Copyright Infringement And Not Libel
  @ Full ACTA Draft Leaked... EU Wants Injunctions Against The Possibility
    You Might Infringe EEEEEEvile 
  @ The Cloud is a Lie | Snipe.Net
  @ Laptop Bags for 17-inch Macbook Pro | Snipe.Net
  * ping Johno and Stoph re: Callie's music stand
  * walk -- Safeway via the back hill
  * Seattle: change hotel.  Hilton: 206-244-4800  Doubletree: 206-246-8600
    * 0323 email $friend re:room
    * conf# doubletree: 81900094  ($160/night) Fri-Sun
    * change room not to be handicapped; 2 beds, no down or feathers
    x extend hotel stay for Norwescon to include Wed?
    nightmareish web/phone experience.  Not happy.
    Got a bit snappish with the rep; not so good.
  * make sure things are go for Wed. AM - flight time 6:55, so leave 5:45
  * added SW to Hilton profile.  Need the 5 zeros in front of the number
  % brain-fried all afternoon, since the hotel stuff.  Do Not Like.
  @ "Weaning the Web off of Session Cookies: Making Digest Authentication
    Viable (pdf)"  (from LWN)
  @ Matt Blaze: The Spy in the Middle "A decade ago, I observed that
    commercial certificate authorities protect you from anyone from whom they
    are unwilling to take money. That turns out to be wrong; they don't even
    do that much." 
  * buy: Centrum cardio or silver
  * Date night: El Torito, drive afterward
  * Bills; Colleen's transfer.  A little late.  Paid Encompass with SW
  * bath 10:45; bed 11

Not all that good a day. What started out as a simple attempt to see whether I could adjust my hotel room for Norwescon, and maybe move to the con hotel, ended up stretching into a two-hour nightmare that left me drained of mental spoons for the rest of the day. Turns out it was mostly due to cookies. The fact that Doubletree and Hilton share the same damned cookies didn't help.

Alongside of that, here's "Weaning the Web off of Session Cookies: Making Digest Authentication Viable (pdf)". Good luck with that, but one can hope. (There are simple ways of not using cookies for form sessions, too, including passing the session key in a hidden field. General principle: if I start a new login session in another tab, I ought to get a new session and not get hooked back up to the old oe.

Something that somebody has put in their LJ (or a feed) is mucking up the navigation on my friends page. The arrow keys and middle mouse button don't work. Weird, annoying, and took a couple of hours to diagnose. Perhaps I'm losing my edge?

Speaking of losing, here's What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie? - NYTimes.com (from @rowanf)

These researchers point out that there are plenty of reasons to suggest that the low-fat-is-good-health hypothesis has now effectively failed the test of time. In particular, that we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic that started around the early 1980's, and that this was coincident with the rise of the low-fat dogma. (Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, also rose significantly through this period.) They say that low-fat weight-loss diets have proved in clinical trials and real life to be dismal failures, and that on top of it all, the percentage of fat in the American diet has been decreasing for two decades. Our cholesterol levels have been declining, and we have been smoking less, and yet the incidence of heart disease has not declined as would be expected. ''That is very disconcerting,'' Willett says. ''It suggests that something else bad is happening.''

...

The crucial example of how the low-fat recommendations were oversimplified is shown by the impact -- potentially lethal, in fact -- of low-fat diets on triglycerides, which are the component molecules of fat. By the late 60's, researchers had shown that high triglyceride levels were at least as common in heart-disease patients as high L.D.L. cholesterol, and that eating a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet would, for many people, raise their triglyceride levels, lower their H.D.L. levels and accentuate what Gerry Reaven, an endocrinologist at Stanford University, called Syndrome X. This is a cluster of conditions that can lead to heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.

Back to watching my carbs.

More, mostly depressing, links under the cut, as usual.

Comments

[rowanf.livejournal.com]

Boy the politician one and the SSL one are grim.

And I'm so thinking on going on an Atkin's diet again. It was the only one that ever worked for me... until I went back to carbs and gained it all back.

[andyheninger.livejournal.com]

Have you had a chance to read Michael Pollan's books - The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food? If not, I can't recommend them enough. Omnivore is the better book; Defense has more in the way of suggestions on what & how to eat.

The evidence against a low fat diet has been building for decades now, but I'm not so sure that Atkins isn't just as bad an overreaction in the opposite direction. Especially if the meats and oils that it emphasizes are largely the product of our dysfunctional corn/soybean/chemicals/feedlot industrialized food system.

Pollan does a nice job of stepping back and taking a much broader view of food and human nutrition than someone like Atkins.

[rowanf.livejournal.com]

I read the Omnivore's Dilemma but not Defense of Food. I am pretty careful about the sourcing of the meats I eat (everything I eat really). My main problem with Aktin's diet is the lack of crunchiness. I am a cracker person and the only Atkins allowable food that crunches is pork rinds. So I don't know what I'm *really* going to do. I'm just very dissatisfied with my current weight.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

Wow, you linked to me! I'm flattered - thanks! And feel free to join the mosh pit discussion yourself, of course. (I really didn't expect to get anywhere near this much notice and/or participation from just posting links to a couple of articles... but I saw a number of people linking to the Princeton study, and only one - elfs - linking to the rebuttal, and I figured it would be a good idea to post both for the sake of clarity... and suddenly there are so many comments that LJ has to collapse the page!)

[marypcb.livejournal.com]

have you see www.thehealthyskeptic.com - he blogs on the common health myths like this

[mdlbear]

I've run across posts there a couple of times, but don't follow it closely.

[rowanf.livejournal.com]

that would be http://thehealthyskeptic.org/