Fat Head

Gender Bias Is Preventing Women From Getting ‘Life-Saving’ (And Damaging) Statins

Tom Naughton April 18, 2019 30 Comments

Goodness, this whole gender-bias problem is getting serious. In the Fat Head Report video I posted earlier this week, vegan doctor John McDougall explained that humans developed a reputation for being proficient hunters because of gender bias – the men were the hunters, you see, and were actually lousy at it. But they bragged and lied and bragged and lied about their hunting abilities, over and over, so anthropologists were fooled into thinking humans were great hunters. Apparently this was part of a plan to repress future generations of women living in civilized countries.

Well, okay, perhaps gender bias among hunter-gatherer tribes doesn’t bother you. But what about gender bias in being prescribed life-saving statins? It’s a serious issue, according to a recent article in the U.K. Telegraph:

A worrying gender divide in the prescribing of life-saving statins to women with Type 2 diabetes has been uncovered by researchers.

An analysis of prescriptions shows that although women are more likely to have high blood pressure and cholesterol than men – putting them at greater risk of heart problems – they were less likely to receive protective medication.

I see. Women are more likely to have high blood pressure and cholesterol than men – putting them at greater risk of heart problems. So obviously women have more heart attacks than men.

A study of 80,000 people diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in England between 2006 and 2013 found that 11.6 per cent of women and 12.8 per cent of men went on to develop cardiovascular disease.

Uh … wait a minute. Something doesn’t make sense here. Let’s look at those two quotes again …

Women are more likely to have high blood pressure and cholesterol than men – putting them at greater risk of heart problems.

11.6 per cent of women and 12.8 per cent of men went on to develop cardiovascular disease.

So the women are at greater risk despite a lower actual rate of cardiovascular disease. Got it. The average age for having a first heart attack among men is 65, by the way. For women, it’s 72. The higher blood pressure and cholesterol is clearly doing a number on women. But back to the gender-bias problem:

Yet women were 16 per cent less likely to receive cholesterol-lowering statins than men, and 26 per cent less likely to be prescribed ACE inhibitors, which helps relax blood vessels and lowers blood pressure.

Tsk-tsk! What the heck is wrong with those doctors, prescribing life-saving statins to a smaller percentage of women than men? Those gender-biased MDs must not care if women die from heart disease. Maybe they’re afraid the women will eventually reveal that whole men are actually lousy hunters story. That has to be it. What other reason could there be for not prescribing life-saving statins?

I can think of one. Howzabout we take a peek at data from The NNT, a site maintained by doctors for doctors. Here’s a description of what they do from the home page:

We are a group of physicians that have developed a framework and rating system to evaluate therapies based on their patient-important benefits and harms as well as a system to evaluate diagnostics by patient sign, symptom, lab test or study.

We only use the highest quality, evidence-based studies (frequently, but not always Cochrane Reviews), and we accept no outside funding or advertisements.

And using the highest-quality, evidence-based studies, here’s what they concluded about giving statins to people who don’t already have heart disease:

Benefits in NNT
None were helped (life saved)
1 in 104 were helped (preventing heart attack)
1 in 154 were helped (preventing stroke)

No lives saved. Just one non-fatal heart attack prevented for every 104 people treated with statins. So much for those life-saving statins.

Here’s what the NNT doctors found for harms from statins:

1 in 50 were harmed (develop diabetes*)
1 in 10 were harmed (muscle damage)

If gender bias prevents doctors from doling out as many statins to women, perhaps more men should identify as women, never mind the expanded restroom privileges.

Call it lucky timing or whatever, but just a week before the Telegraph article appeared, a new study on statin side effects was released. Keep in mind, according to the studies conducted by statin-makers, the incidence of adverse drug reactions is very low. Really, really low. Heck-nothing-to-worry-about low. Now check out these figures:

Among 556 patients (418 men; 138 women) taking statins, 237 ADRs were reported (186 men; 51 women). The incidence of ADRs was 40.7%, and more frequent among patients at “high CV disease (CVD) risk” and “moderate CVD risk” than other risk categories.

The incidence of ADRs among statin users was 42.6%, and frequent ADRs (49%) were noted in patients with high CVD risk.

Adverse drug reactions in more than 40% of the population studied, climbing to nearly 50% in patients at high risk of cardiovascular disease.

So of course, the authors wrote this as the final sentence in the abstract:

Early identification of these ADRs should improve patient adherence to life-saving statin treatment.

Head. Bang. On. Desk.

How exactly does early identification of side effects improve patient adherence?

Well, Mr. Patient, we’ve detected that the statin you’re taking is inducing diabetes, damaging your liver, screwing up your muscles and causing your cognitive abilities to decline. Good thing we caught it early. Now keep taking your statin.

I have my own bias. I’m biased against stupidity and bad logic. It takes a fair bit of both to think not enough women are taking statins.

Big Pharma Is In Your Genes

Tom Naughton April 17, 2019 20 Comments

Lori Miller, who comments frequently here on the blog, sent me links to a couple of interesting posts she wrote about 23andMe. Here’s a quote from the first one:

GlaxoSmithKline, one of the world’s largest drug makers, recently bought a $300 million stake in 23 and Me, a genetic testing company. The two also signed an agreement giving GlaxoSmithKline exclusive rights to customer data. The data is de-identified, aggregate customer information.

Yikes. Now why would a pharmaceutical giant want to own a big piece of 23andMe? I’d like to believe them that the data is de-identified, but my paranoid side can’t help but wonder: wouldn’t GlaxoSmithKline just loooove to know whose genes make them potential customers for the company’s drugs?

Moving on to the second post:

23andMe, the genetic testing company, sent me a new report saying I have a 64% chance of developing diabetes based on my genetics. Having at least three diabetic grandparents and hypoglycemia from the time I was a kid, I already figured I was a case of diabetes waiting to happen if I didn’t take precautions.

If I followed 23andMe’s crappy advice, I’d probably become one of those cases. GlaxoSmithKline, maker of the diabetes drug Avandia, owns a $300 million share of 23andMe. Some of 23andMe’s advice for avoiding diabetes is good–avoid added sugars, refined flour and potatoes. Thanks to the work of journalists, bloggers, podcasters, and a few renegade doctors and researchers who attacked the low-fat orthodoxy, they have to throw that in now to avoid losing all credibility. But their advice on what to eat instead isn’t very helpful for filling you up and keeping you from snacking on foods with flour and sugar:

Hmmm. I sent my DNA sample to 23andMe last year because Chareva’s mom bought us the kits for Christmas. The only mild surprise is that I’m 0.4% West African (which means I’m more African than Elizabeth Warren is Cherokee). Other than that, no big surprises. I’m roughly three-quarters Irish, which I already knew.

Now I kind of regret ever sending them my DNA. I don’t think they’ll do anything evil with it, you understand, but I don’t like knowing they’re in bed with GlaxoSmithKline. As Lori mentions, do we really believe a drug-maker is interested in passing out dietary advice that would reduce the market for diabetes drugs?

The Fat Head Report: Things I’ve Learned From Vegans On Twitter

Tom Naughton April 15, 2019 24 Comments

Yup, our vegan pals on Twitter have some interesting theories …

Here’s the transcript of my narration:

Today I want to share some interesting things I’ve learned from vegans on Twitter.

Now, I don’t have anything against vegans. If you choose not to eat animals foods, I really don’t care. If it makes you feel virtuous to eat a highly processed fake hamburger instead of a real one, be my guest. And I suspect most vegans are happy to mind their own business.

But of course, some vegans consider it their mission in life to show up everywhere, including Twitter, and preach to the rest of us about why we shouldn’t eat meat.

And some of them make some very powerful arguments using what we’ll call vegan facts. Which are kind of like real facts. Except they’re not true.

Like this one: Tom Brady is solely on a plant-based diet.

Hmm. If you’re posting on Twitter, I assume you have access to the internet, which means you could very quickly learn that Tom Brady wrote a book describing his diet and training routines.

And there several reviews of the book, including this one from the Boston Globe, which tells us Brady often eats fish for lunch. And it tells us Brady’s book includes recipes for burgers made out of chicken or salmon. And by the way, he drinks bone broth.

There’s another review of Brady’s book in Men’s Health, and it says nothing about him skipping animal foods, but it does tell us he avoids white sugar, white flour and white rice.

And for some reason, he also avoids pineapples, which mean Brady is unaware of this vegan fact: for 60 million years of human development me strictly ate fruit. Our anatomy has not changed. We are still 100 percent frugiverous.

Wow, turns out human beings have been around a lot longer than we thought. Because according to anthropologists, the first humans evolved somewhere around three and a half million years ago.

They were also about three feet tall and looked something like this. Just like the people you see today, since our anatomy hasn’t changed.

And as far humans being 100 percent frugivorous, well of course. Obviously, my northern European ancestors survived the long winters by importing fruit from somewhere near the equator.

And explains why early humans painted all those pictures of fruit on the inside of their caves.

Oh, wait, those appear to animals. Including paintings of humans hunting animals.

Well, we can explain that one away by tossing out this vegan fact: meat was a delicacy for Neanderthals.

And our tweeter knows this because I’m no sprinter. I wouldn’t OF caught any gazelle.

Yeah, I’m going to agree with you there. You probably couldn’t. But why would you believe your ancestors couldn’t? Well, apparently it’s because that’s what vegan doctor John McDougall says. Here’s an example from a recent interview.

But wait a minute. Neanderthals, paleolithic humans, Native Americans who followed the buffalo herds. How did all these humans get a reputation for being such proficient hunters?

Ahhh, that explains it. Humans got their reputation for being great hunters because of gender bias. We were actually very bad at hunting, which is why meat was a delicacy for Neanderthals, and why we only ate meat on special occasions like Christmas and Easter.

So we’ve finally solved the mystery of why humans painted their caves with pictures of themselves hunting fifteen to thirty thousand years ago. They were decorating for Christmas. Or Easter. Or some other special occasion where they ate meat.

But apparently early humans had a lot of those special occasions, because scientists have used something called isotope analysis to determine exactly what the Neanderthals ate. You have to admit, it’s pretty awesome when a delicacy makes up 80 percent of your diet. That’s like me living on lobster in a nice caviar sauce.

So why would anyone believe this nonsense? Well, humans form conclusions in a couple of different ways. People who are more rational tend to be objectivists, and they think like this. If it’s true, I’ll believe it. People who are more emotional tend to be subjectivists, and they think like this. If I believe it, it’s true.

And that’s nothing new. Aristotle wrote about it more 2,000 years ago. And it’s probably been that way for the 60 million years that humans have been around, with the same anatomy we have today, and living 100 percent on fruit.

Swamped

Tom Naughton April 11, 2019 12 Comments

The title of the post says it all. I’m reading and replying to comments, but it will be the weekend before I have time to post anything. We’ve got some tight deadlines at the programming job on a big-ass project with multiple moving parts. I’ve been working loooooooong hours, weekends included, to make sure my part is done on time.

At least they pay me well for my efforts.

Now back to work …

State-Level Members Of The Anointed: We Demand The Feds Regulate Us! (And Everyone Else, Too.)

Tom Naughton April 4, 2019 48 Comments

I’m not usually surprised when The Anointed make wacky decisions. But I have to admit, their latest move had me doing a bit of head-scratching, at least temporarily. We’ll start with a few quotes from an article in Reason magazine:

A recent rule change regarding school lunches was greeted with relief by some school districts, who had found that federal mandates from the Obama administration led to food waste, less lunches sold, and more kids buying meals from vending machines. Additionally, schools were still allowed to serve sugary flavored milk, but for some reason it had to be the less nutritious nonfat version.

You no doubt recall how well the “more whole grains, lower fat, more fruits and vegetables!” mandates in The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 worked out. Kids were dumping their lunches in the trash. The Anointed replied by telling kids to adjust their taste buds and stop complaining.

The changes approved by the Trump administration are relatively minor—more time to comply with reduced sodium levels, no need for flavored milk to be nonfat, and lower whole-grain requirements for some foods—but they address some of the chief criticisms from public schools across the country.

Not exactly a return to local control, but it’s a start, right? The notion that kids (or adults) need low-sodium diets is of course utter nonsense. So is the belief that milk is better for us if it’s nonfat. And healthywholegrains? Don’t get me started.

But the point is that public schools now have some additional flexibility. You’d think the states would be relieved. What state official could possibly object?

Wait for it …

Some state attorneys general don’t like that. They’re now suing in federal court to make the Obama-era lunch standards permanent. The lawsuit was filed by attorneys general in California, D.C., Illinois, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, and Vermont. The eternal whackjobs at the PETA-esque Center for Science in the Public Interest have filed a separate lawsuit also challenging the changes.

Head. Bang. On Desk.

The suit argues that the recent changes are illegal because Agriculture Department officials didn’t provide scientific justification. This is pretty hilarious, considering the sloppy science that the Obama administration relied on when instituting its “Smarter Lunchrooms” program. Many papers from the lead architect of the initiative have since been retracted, after fellow researchers found inconsistencies, errors, and evidence of fraudulent data.

Yes, of course the federal nutrition mandates were based on sloppy science. That’s not what has me banging my head on my desk. It’s the fact that state attorneys general are suing to demand that the federal government regulate school lunches in their states.

Why the @#$% would any state official want that? If politicians in Minnesota and California and Illinois want low-sodium, low-fat meals served in their schools, then for chrissakes, make it a state law. Why would they want the federal government to tell them what to do?

I think I know the answer, but first, let me share an analogy (which I didn’t originate, but don’t remember who deserves the credit):

Suppose you live in a town with several grocery stores that cater to people with different preferences. The pure-foodies happily shop at Whole Foods and pay higher prices for the high quality. The budget-conscious people buy in bulk at Aldi. The vegetarians shop at Mama’s Meatless Marvels. The meat-lovers shop at Bob’s Big Butchershop.

You know what that kind of decentralized decision-making produces? Peace. Tranquility. Civility. No one is forced to live according to anyone else’s preferences, so people get along.

Now suppose some genius decides all the grocery stores in town should be run by The Central Grocery Committee, which orders all the stores to carry the same foods – with the list of allowable foods being determined by the committee, of course.

Now instead of consumers simply buying what they prefer, they will be locked in eternal battles with each other. The vegetarians demand more shelf space for meatless foods. The meat-lovers want a butcher shop in the store, which the vegetarians vehemently oppose. The food purists want the high-quality stuff to dominate the shelves, while the budget-conscious want cheap foods they can buy in bulk. So everyone with a strong preference becomes obsessed with controlling who sits on the committee.

This, of course, leads to bitter divisions and smear campaigns whenever there’s a vacancy to be filled on the committee. A meat-friendly nominee is accused by vegans of being a child-molester. A vegan nominee is accused by carnivores of beating her children. Friendships are ruined by heated debates about which nominees are Good People or Bad People. No matter who ends up winning a seat on the committee, half the consumers are convinced the Worst Person In The World just acquired the power to determine which foods will available.

The bitterness and acrimony only came about for one reason: decisions were turned over to a central authority, which means every decision is a winners-take-all proposition. No matter what decision the central authority makes, a big chunk of the public is going to be pissed off – always.

The United States was supposed to function like those independent grocery stores. The states were supposed to be more or less independent of each other, with a federal government empowered to enforce the rights spelled out in the Constitution, to adjudicate disputes between states, and to provide a common currency, a common defense, and some common infrastructure.

As Nassim Nicholas Taleb explains in Antifragile, that’s pretty much how Switzerland functions even today. The federal government is quite small, and the provinces make most of their own decisions. If one province adopts a policy that works, the others learn from the success and can adopt a similar policy – or not. Sometimes what works for one province isn’t a good idea for another. If a province adopts a policy that turns out to be a huuuuge mistake, the other provinces learn what not to do – but they’re not harmed in the process. Meanwhile, the Swiss aren’t at each other’s throats when elections come around, because they’re not voting to decide who gets to make Big Decisions That Apply To Everyone In The Country.

Given how much happier and less combative people are when decisions are decentralized instead of centralized, and given how decentralized decisions are far less likely to become tragic mistakes that affect everyone, why would anyone at the state or local level demand to be regulated by the federal government?

I’m pretty sure I answered my own question earlier:

You know what that kind of decentralized decision-making produces? Peace. Tranquility. Civility. No one is forced to live according to anyone else’s preferences, so people get along.

The Anointed aren’t happy with a society where no one is forced to live according to anyone else’s preferences. In fact, they want a society where everyone is forced to live according their preferences. They’re the equivalent of vegans who want a Central Grocery Committee to take over a town’s stores and outlaw meat for everyone. (They’ll settle for mandatory Meatless Mondays for now.)

The attorneys general in New York, California, etc., aren’t worried that their own states won’t force the low-fat, low-sodium, healthywholegrains diet on kids; they’re worried that my state won’t force that diet on kids. They want bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. to decide what kids in Franklin, Tennessee are allowed to eat for lunch. They want The Central Grocery Committee applied to the entire country.

Relaxing the federal mandates (which were based on scientific hogwash anyway) is a small step in the right direction. Ditching them completely and getting the federal government the hell out of the diet business would be a full step in the right direction.

But as long as we have The Anointed in power anywhere, they’ll fight it all the way.

Astroturf And Wikipedia

Tom Naughton April 3, 2019 17 Comments

Remember the kerfuffle when a rogue editor at Wikipedia targeted Fat Head for deletion? He was, you’ll recall, the same editor who deleted articles about Malcolm Kendrick, Uffe Ravnskov, Jimmy Moore, and pretty much anyone who recommends low-carb diets or disputes the Lipid Hypothesis.

In the video post I put up earlier this week, I included a snip from a TED talk given by Sharyl Attkinsson, a former CBS reporter who’s been writing and speaking regularly about fake news, Astroturf campaigns, etc. (I just bought her book The Smear on Audible.com.) In the full speech, she talks about what’s wrong with Wikipedia. Jump ahead to about 3:50 in the speech if you don’t want to watch the whole thing.

Anonymous Wikipedia editors control and co-opt pages on behalf of special interests. They forbid and reverse edits that go against their agenda. They skew and delete information in blatant violation of Wikipedia’s own established policies with impunity.

Yup, sounds about right.