13Aug

Scientists and doctors call it the obesity paradox—the idea that while obesity may increase the risks of developing heart disease and diabetes for most people, it might actually be protective, offering the possibility of longer survival, in a few lucky individuals.1

Certainly, if you’re among the throngs of people struggling to deal with a higher than recommended body weight, the idea that maybe, just maybe, you are probably hoping to be one of those lucky few who doesn’t need to be concerned.

Alas, the problem is that the obesity paradox is not so much a puzzle as it is more likely a myth for most of us.

Can a High BMI Be Ignored—the Obesity Paradox—Even If You Have Diabetes?

The question of whether the obesity paradox holds true for those with type 2 diabetes (T2D) is especially important, since link between overweight and the development of diabetes and heart disease is well-established.1 This concern becomes more pressing when your fat settles around the waist, increasing your risk of heart problems.2

In a recent intensive review of the research,3 investigators confirmed that the obesity paradox doesn’t hold water for most everyone with type 2 diabetes. In addition, the higher your level of body fat, the greater the likelihood that you will develop diabetes, if you haven’t already, and that other chronic conditions will follow in due course.

Body fat, in simple terms, poses a real danger to your health, and anyone who tries to convince that you are safe from disease isn’t doing you any favors. Take the findings from another recent study—the authors show that when fat settles around the organs (so-called visceral fat)—it is dangerous enough to reduce your longevity even if you’re weight is in the healthy range.3

This type of abdomenal fat, also known as central obesity, has long been known as the riskiest form of overweight. In fact, a bigger waist circumference is likely to shorten your lifespan by about 14 years

 

13Aug

A Finnish study that included researchers from UCLA, the DNA from nearly 20,000 people was harnessed to identify genetic mutations that may increase the risk of diabetes, high cholesterol and other diseases and conditions. The outcomes suggest the potential for using genomic sequencing to uncover variations that may increase the risk for several common health problems, including heart disease, obesity and metabolic syndrome. The researchers also identified genetic differences that may result in below-average height and weight.

The study, ‘Exome sequencing of Finnish isolates enhances rare-variant association power’, published in Nature, the authors from UCLA, Washington University, the University of Michigan, the University of Helsinki in Finland and 18 other institutions found 26 potentially harmful genetic variations. Nineteen of those variations are either unique to or 20 times more likely to occur in the Finnish population examined for the study.

“Over the last few years it’s become apparent that, if we want to identify the genetic variations that contribute to common diseases or common traits, we are going to need to sequence the genomes of large numbers of people. And that’s an idea that has become affordable to accomplish only within the last few years,” said Freimer. “It’s also become clear that what we’ve thought of as really large studies might not be large enough to find these genetic variations. Populations, like those in northern and eastern Finland, have grown in isolation in recent centuries so that they’re much more homogeneous than populations in the US, or in larger European countries, where genetic variations like these are pretty rare.”

He explained that the study was envisioned as one that would gauge the effectiveness of specific genome sequencing at uncovering these genetic variants that may lead to common diseases and traits. As with other countries in the Nordic region, Finland has, for many decades, put a lot of resources into studies assessing the different traits of populations such as this one. So, the trait data they needed were already there.

“Finnish heritage disease is a genetic disorder that is significantly more common in people from Finland. It includes 36 rare diseases, including those that are uncommon in larger and more diverse populations,” he added. “Additionally, our study found dozens of new associations to genetic variations that are related to specific traits. And we know that, based on what those variations do, they could be damaging and have the potential to cause disease. These variations never would have been associated with those traits in more diverse populations, because they would have been so rare and more difficult to find. So, what we see is that these genetic variations are anywhere from 10 times to infinitely more frequent in Finland compared to other populations.”

The researchers learned that sequencing – not the entire genome but the genes within the genome – is more affordable than whole genome sequencing and just as reliable for finding variations that have a pretty strong effect on common traits such as height, weight and cholesterol level.

They also found that the strategy of sequencing large samples of people to find genetic variants that influence disease will work. But in populations like that of the US, or large European countries like the UK, it will take sequencing, not of 20,000 people, but of several hundred thousand to millions of people before you get the same type of finding.

The US has launched a precision medicine effort, called All of Us, which ultimately does intend to sequence more than one million people. However, even in large, diverse populations, like in the US, there are people in some regions who do not move around as much as people in other regions. And, in those populations, the genetic variations could be more clustered, like the ones in Finland.

“That suggests to me that precision medicine will have to take those regional differences into account. You can’t expect one type of precision medicine to work for an entire country,” he concluded. “There are some people who ask, ‘Should we really be devoting the resources to sequencing large human populations?’ And I think the study shows us it is worth the investment.”

3Feb
[tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”In February, L.L.Bean ended its legendary lifetime return policy to clamp down on customers who were taking advantage and using it to replace heavily worn products.” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:25″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”“Increasingly, a small, but growing number of customers have been interpreting our guarantee well beyond its original intent. Some view it as a lifetime product replacement program, expecting refunds for heavily worn products used over many years,“ the company’s executive chairman, Shawn O. Gorman, wrote in an email announcing the policy changes to customers. But it isn’t all doom and gloom for L.L.Bean customers, as the store still offers a very reasonable one-year window for returns. And it’s not alone — a whole host of US retailers offer customers incredible return policies.”][tm_spacer size=”lg:63″]
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[tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Use psychological pricing methods.” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”Costco has one of the most generous return policies of any store. Any product can be returned to Costco warehouses for any reason. The only restrictions are on electronics, which must be returned within 90 days.”][tm_spacer size=”xs:30;lg:35″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”Ikea gives customers a 365-day return window for a full refund unless the product in question is a mattress, which can only be exchanged once.”]
[tm_spacer size=”xs:30;lg:52″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”Given that a year is a long time to hold onto a receipt, the store can also help you out by searching for an order using your credit- or debit-card number.”][tm_spacer size=”xs:30;lg:68″]
[tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Demonstrate the differences” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”L.L.Bean previously offered an almost unbelievably generous return policy – customers could bring back any items bought at L.L.Bean if they felt it didn’t live up to their expectations. The guarantee covered the item’s full lifetime.”][tm_spacer size=”sm:30;lg:68″][tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Offer a money-back guarantee” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”In February, the store reduced the return window to one year, which is still considerably better than a lot of stores.”][tm_spacer size=”sm:30;lg:68″][tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Test your offer and price, and be creative.” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”REI also used to offer a no-questions-asked return policy where customers could return used items for cash. The return window has now been reduced to one year, but customers are still able to trial the products during that time.”]
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3Feb
[tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Lambert here: Funny, I’ve just been thinking about how Bernard Mandeville, who wrote The Fable of the Bees — the moral of which is that “the pursuit of self-interest robustly benefits the common good,” just as Wilson puts it — actually knows nothing about bees, and so would do very well in today’s neoliberal economics departments.” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:25″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”In a previous essay, I announced a new concept of the invisible hand to replace the old and erroneous idea that the pursuit of self-interest robustly benefits the common good. The new version is based on examples of the invisible hand that exist in nature, such as cells that benefit multi-cellular organisms and social insects that benefit their colonies. These lower-level units don’t have the welfare of the higher-level units in mind. They don’t even have minds in the human sense of the word. Instead, they exhibit behaviors that have been winnowed by higher-level selection to benefit the common good. Higher-level selection is the invisible hand.”][tm_spacer size=”lg:63″]
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[tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Use psychological pricing methods.” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”Absorbing this fact leads to a robust conclusion about the design of our own societies. We must learn to function in two capacities: 1) As designers of social and economic systems; and 2) as participants in the systems that we design. As participants, we need not have the welfare of the whole system in mind, in classic invisible hand fashion. But as design­ers, we must. The invisible hand must be constructed, which would be a contra­diction of terms according to the old concept.”][tm_spacer size=”xs:30;lg:35″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”Yet, this does not mean that the invisible hand must be constructed by centralized plan­ning, the main alternative to laissez faire economic policies that is typically imagined. Instead, the design process needs to be evolutionary, iterative, and collaborative, resulting in mechanisms that work like the invisible hand, even though they never could have arisen on their own. This constitutes a middle path between laissez faire and centralized planning that could be a breakthrough in solving the problems of our age.”]
[tm_spacer size=”xs:30;lg:52″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”I have stated the new concept of the invisible hand in terms of evolution, which provides the strongest and most general theoretical foundation that one could ask for. However, the concept has also been formulated by others from different perspectives.”][tm_spacer size=”xs:30;lg:68″]
[tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Demonstrate the differences” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”The root of the Invisible Hand’s current failure is that nature and future generations have neither money, votes or property rights. As a result, their needs are completely ig­nored by the pricing pro­cess and (absent government regulation) by all economic decision-makers. It is no won­der that nature is trashed and future generations forsaken for the sake of short-term gain.”][tm_spacer size=”sm:30;lg:68″][tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Offer a money-back guarantee” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”The remedy to both crises — destruction of nature and concentration of wealth — is to create new forms of property that represent and benefit nature, future generations and all of us together as co-inheritors of common wealth. “][tm_spacer size=”sm:30;lg:68″][tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Test your offer and price, and be creative.” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”This is where system design comes in. If markets as they now exist aren’t sufficiently self-regulating, and we don’t want centralized control by government, then changing the mix of property rights is the only other imaginable solution.”]
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3Feb
[tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Yves here. This Real News Network interview with MIT’s Theodore Postol (the second part of a series) discusses some of the history in the fraught relationship between Russia and the US which spurred Putin to invest heavily in technologies that could circumvent some of our core weapons platforms.” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:25″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”It’s The Real News. I’m Aaron Maté. This is part two of my conversation with Theodore Postol, Professor of Science, Technology and National Security Policy at MIT. We’re talking about Russian president Vladimir Putin’s recent speech where he announced upgrades to his country’s nuclear arsenal, calling it a response to the US withdrawal from the ABM treaty in 2002, as well as the recent Nuclear Posture Review issued by President Trump.”][tm_spacer size=”lg:63″]
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[tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Use psychological pricing methods.” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=” Several points of the renewed US nuclear strategy which lower the threshold of using nuclear weapons provokes great concern. You can reassure anyone in any way behind the scenes, but if we read what is written and what is written is that it can be launched in response to an attack with conventional weapons or even a cyber threat.”][tm_spacer size=”xs:30;lg:35″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”In fact, as Putin said it, certainly since 2004. He actually signals 2004 as a time where there was a decision made in Russia that you couldn’t talk to the Americans and we’re just going to have to go ahead and build some weapons to make it clear to them that there’s no possible advantage they can gain from missile defenses.”]
[tm_spacer size=”xs:30;lg:52″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”He made that pretty clear in his speech. And the issue of using low yield nuclear warheads in conventional military situations or in response to a cyber attack, first of all, I don’t know how you would know where the cyber attack came from. “][tm_spacer size=”xs:30;lg:68”]
[tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Demonstrate the differences” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”I think when you look carefully at the issues associated with cyber attacks, it’s so easy to conceal the true perpetrator, the identity of the true perpetrator. It would be a remarkable, remarkably reckless thing to do, to respond in any military way to a cyber attack without absolutely having the information that clearly showed you knew who did it.”][tm_spacer size=”sm:30;lg:68″][tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Offer a money-back guarantee” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”And against anybody who’s even modestly competent, even some of these hackers who really are not very competent people, you can hide your address, your location from anybody you’re attacking. So, it’s kind of a crazy, thoughtless and dangerous kind of statement to be making that you’re going to use nuclear weapons or any kind of military force in response to a cyber attack.”][tm_spacer size=”sm:30;lg:68″][tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Test your offer and price, and be creative.” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”So, it shows a kind of reckless attitude on the part of the Department of Defense people and ignorance, or ignorance, or recklessness and ignorance among the people who wrote the Nuclear Policy Review, and I’m afraid that that is evident in a whole bunch of things they say. “]
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3Feb
[tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”The US is a large and often very disparate country, yet the parts we hear about the most are the parts that are most the same.” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:25″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”Blue cities and well-off suburbs where you can always find a Starbucks, a Whole Foods, an Apple Store, people with their noses in their smartphones, and other artifacts of what back in the day was called yuppiedom. Another facet of this sort of provincialism is that the too much of what passes for political and economic reporting that goes beyond those enclaves tends to be based on convenience.”][tm_spacer size=”lg:63″]
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[tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Use psychological pricing methods.” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”So while stories on neighborhood gardens or police abuses in poor city neighborhoods are important, they are still over-represented relative to the sprawl of the US. That’s one reason why reporters going to interview people in places like Iowa or Oklahoma or that recently discovered state, West Virginia, too often come off like exercises in ethnography.”][tm_spacer size=”xs:30;lg:35″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”I try not to be guilty of this sort of thing yet worry that I am. I spent most of my childhood in blue-collar towns dominated by one or two manufacturing plants. All the kids I knew lived in houses I thought we nice even though some were small with tiny yards and modest modern furniture.”]
[tm_spacer size=”xs:30;lg:52″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”Parents took pride in being good members of their community and doing their best for their kids. But it seems that being a responsible adult is no longer valued; only “special” people, per Thomas Frank, deserve esteem and rewards, and they use that to justify cutting themselves bigger and bigger pieces of the collective pie.”][tm_spacer size=”xs:30;lg:68″]
[tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Demonstrate the differences” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”However, since I don’t travel much, I have only very limited window into how people outside the top 10% or 20% are getting by. When I visit Birmingham, while there are more foodie restaurants and more McMansions going up in the good ‘hoods, the poor ones seem to be stuck in the same place or maybe even doing a bit worse. “][tm_spacer size=”sm:30;lg:68″][tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Offer a money-back guarantee” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”There’s a stretch I go through on the way to the airport that even had a collapsed house that it disgracefully took the city over 18 months to tear down that if anything is slowly getting even more desperate-looking. There’s another, just a three or four minute drive from some of the pricey houses that looks to be occupied by the economic stratum called “battlers” in Australia.”][tm_spacer size=”sm:30;lg:68″][tm_heading tag=”h5″ custom_google_font=”” font_weight=”600″ text=”Test your offer and price, and be creative.” line_height=”1.4″][tm_spacer size=”lg:23″][tm_heading tag=”div” custom_google_font=”” text=”It’s full of 1940s and 1950s starter houses on generous-sized lots, but in a district with bad schools. That looked like an area with the potential to be a sleeper for people who didn’t have kids. But its proximity to large malls that are now full of empty stores looks to have kept this enclave in a deep freeze.”]
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