I Can't Get No BMI Satisfaction

from my seedling, but I try. Oh how I try...

First of all my disclaimer… I am not in the public health field, and nor will I ever be. However, I do (as most people should) have an interest in certain findings especially if they relate to me and my family. I have a “pre-teen” girl, so these findings are interesting as I am already aware that she is conscious of her body image. Sometimes she likes it and at other times she doesn’t. I just want to know if I’ll be paying for her therapy for years to come.

The study (soon to be) published regarding overweight children and their "happiness" regarding their self-image has interesting results. What was most surprising is that normal weight boys overall had a more negative image of themselves than girls did. However, girls’ satisfaction with themselves was reduced when their BMI increased.

Girls - Poor body satisfaction
Normal 5.7%
Overweight 10.4%
Obese 13.1 %

Boys - Poor body satisfaction
Normal 7.6%
Overweight 8.4%
Obese 8.1%

Now the reason why this is so interesting is that there have been previous studies that claim that poor body satisfaction can be indicative of their future health (namely eating disorders). The authors also claim that the satisfaction of body image can change over time. Are the children at risk for eating disorders always unhappy with their bodies or just sometimes? I can see that I have to read many more papers to see if someone answered that question. Also, these numbers seem relatively low. Only ~13% of obese girls feel that they have poor body satisfaction?! That is not a lot. Less than 10% of all of the boys in each of the 3 different groups felt they had poor body satisfaction. I am surprised because I expected that over 50% of the obese children would feel that they don't like their bodies from the girls and the boys. Very surprising. (And they took a relatively large sample size; over 2000 girls and boys each were analyzed).

Oh well... I will keep my little seedling active (with hockey, soccer, and dance) and save up some money for her therapy ('cause you know its gonna happen; if not this she will have to go because I kept her too active as a child and she missed lounging around and that ruined her for life). But she will keep questioning her image. I know I still do (and I’m relatively happy with my body… all the parts are in the right places, lol, oh my! how expectation lowers as you get older!)

And Open Access:

Austin, B.S., Haines, J., Veugelers, P.J. (2009). Body satisfaction and body weight: gender differences and sociodemographic determinants. BCM Public Health. (In Press) Accessed (August 28, 2009): http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/9/313/abstract

BioMed Central (2009, August 28). 10- And 11-year-olds Feel Pressure To Have A Perfect Body. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 28, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2009/08/090826191843.htm

Wisdom from Unlikely Places

I just finished reading "The Wisdom Of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels, and the Business of AIDS" by Elizabeth Pisani. It was well written and the narrative format gave a natural progression through her experiences from a somewhat hopeful to a battle-worn epidemiologist. The collective struggle with politicians, religious leaders, and the bureaucratic nightmare that are individual countries and global programmes is nothing short of heroic.

As an inspirational epidemiologist, she does not hide behind organizational red-tape/policies, but truly tells the science and the reasoning behind each prevention method. Use condoms... have needle exchange programs... find ways to protect the people. It doesn't matter who the people are or what they do. They are still people.

If I could nominate her for a Nobel prize, I would. But I have a feeling that there are many people doing the same type of work just like her. However, I do want to hear her on TED Talks. She is truly inspirational and her book is a must-read. You may not agree with the methods or policies and you may not like who the "people most at risk" are, but it is important to know for preventative measures. This IS something that can be fought with good prevention policies, and there are some innocent victims.

'Killer Spices' Provide Eco-friendly Pesticides For Organic Fruits And Veggies

Original Article at ScienceDaily
A new study from UBC about botanical pesticides. Great idea, but I'm not sure if these will be effective (enough) pesticides. The author notes that most of the essential oils are very volatile, and some cannot last longer than a couple hours.

This can create some problems:

- If researchers modify the oil structure or add other compounds to last longer, then "organic" farmers can't use them any longer.
- As well, will they be testing for food safety both before and after the modification? (Herbal remedies are not tested or regulated, and some can be extremely dangerous to your health)

- Will the oils alter the growth of the target plants at all? Some plants create the oils to inhibit growth of neighbouring plants as well as repelling insects.

I feel that this area would need a large amount of research before using, but also look at who is funding research (a botanical pesticide company)... I would be looking for similar research as well to be sure that they are not only publishing data that they like.

I do agree, however, with the concept. This is following the trend of looking to nature for ideas and concepts before starting from scratch (This is going to be this Friday's TED Talk), and using already-tested ideas.

Remember that everything that comes from nature is not necessarily better for you.

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Mistakes were made....

And dammit, they were made by me!

I just finished the book "Mistakes Were Made (but not by me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts" by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson.

The book was a dissection of the reasons why and how people self-justify their actions (as the subtitle clearly states). I found the book very interesting, as well as thought provoking. But the whole time I was reading it, I'm thinking about large and small mistakes I have made and wondering if I have owned up to them....

A very telling point for me was how people would internalize good actions "I did that as I am (smart/good/nice, ect)", while rationalizing bad actions by externalizing the behavior "I did that because (they made me/they started it/they were bad)". And therefore, anyone (not just the evil people) could be made to do horrible things to another person. It is yet another exercise in critical thinking as I continue to make mistakes and justify bad things that I do (mmmm.... really I try not to, but it seems I am one of those people with a lead foot. I will try to change :) *promise!)

Tavris and Aronson also looked at instances in marriage, war, politics, and the american justice system for both self-justification of mistakes and admission of mistakes. Clarity and accountability are not the only things we should be looking for in politicians, but from every person we know.

And the next time you make a mistake remember:

1. apologise sincerely because you DID do it, and

2. don't excuse yourself... we all have choices and you made yours.

Friday TED Talks IX

So I apologise,
and yes, it will probably happen again (Soon, I think as my reg. classes start in 2 weeks!), but I took a little break while I was completing a summer course. Lets just say that cramming a 4 month class into 12 days is not fun.
Anyways, here is another installment of Friday Ted Talks. The video is a little old (gimme a break people!), but still and always relevant.

Micheal Pritchard invents a water filter...
(and he's got balls to drink it after too! Ewwwwww)

and a PRI podcast about science which also talks about water scarcity in parts of the world... Cambodia and the Middle East.

A Boycott Against the Most Evil Fiends There Are...

Soda Pop Companies!!!!I am starting my own boycott ASAP. After watching the 100 mile diet on TFN (The Food Network), I started feeling like I should do that as well. But.... frankly, there are things I just couldn't give up. (Coffee, chocolate... get my drift).

However, I AM going to pledge to stop drinking ALL pop. I refuse to buy it. I refuse to order it in a restaurant. I refuse to receive it (nicely though) at someone else's house. And I even (gasp!) refuse to use it as a liquor mixer.

I'm sure my little seedling will have some hard feelings about this, but the #1 thing given up even after the 100 days finished on the 100 miles was pop. The people felt healthier, lost more weight, and weren't wasting their money on useless "food".

Autism is NOT caused by Vaccinations - A Review

A Broken Trust: Lessons from the Vaccine-Autism Wars
Author: Lisa Gross
Researcher: Sharon Kaufman (Professor of Medical Anthropology @ UofCalifornia)

A paper published in PLoS Biology in May reviews the actions and reactions regarding the anti-vaccination movement. More important, the author, Lisa Gross, has documented research that shows the consequences of propaganda and half-truths have upon the health of the population as a whole. And the surprising fact that it continues…

Now, more than ten years after unfounded doubts about vaccine safety first emerged, scientists and public health officials are still struggling to set the record straight. But as climate scientists know all too well, simply relating the facts of science isn't enough. No matter that the overwhelming weight of evidence shows that climate change is real, or that vaccines don't cause autism. When scientists find themselves just one more voice in a sea of “opinions” about a complex scientific issue, misinformation takes on a life of its own.
Despite overwhelming evidence that vaccines don't cause autism, one in four Americans still think they do [7]. Not surprisingly, the first half of 2008 saw the largest US outbreak of measles—one of the first infectious diseases to reappear after vaccination rates drop—since 2000, when the native disease was declared eliminated(see Figure 2). Mumps and whooping cough (pertussis) have also made a comeback. Last year in Minesota, five children contracted Hib, the most common cause of meningitis in young children before the vaccine was developed in 1993. Three of the children, including a 7-month-old who died, hadn't received Hib vaccines because their parents either refused or delayed vaccination.

Does this reluctance to believe trained professionals indicate a widespread “conspiracy theory”, or is it a horrible meme that has taken on viral traits? The evidence overwhelmingly states that this information is dangerous to the well being of humans, but it still persists, not unlike a cold or the flu. Now when H1N1 Influenza is gaining notoriety for being a pandemic, and also of being a relatively mild flu; most parents (remember one in four in America) believe an idea that is hurting them. Should not the WHO confirm this meme as an epidemic? It is now in other parts of the world as well as Canada…

The same trends have played out in Britain, where one in four parents told pollsters in 2002 that they believed “the weight of scientific evidence supports a link between MMR and autism” [8].
Though state law in the US requires that children be vaccinated to enter school or daycare (although parents may cite philosophical and religious reasons to claim exemptions), vaccination is not compulsory in Britain, and vaccination rates for MMR there dropped from 92% in 1998 to 80% by 2003. Although rates climbed back to 85% in 2006, England and Wales last year saw 1,000 measles cases before winter, breaking a ten-year record [9]. (Immunization rates for other childhood vaccines in Britain were largely unaffected by the MMR scare.)

Not only does this misinformation hurt the parents’ own children, but risks the population as a whole as well.

Had the discovery about thimerosal come at a different time, it might have gone unnoticed, suggests Jeffrey Baker, a pediatrician and the director of the Program in the History of Medicine at Duke University. He argues that rising autism rates, an expanded vaccine schedule, and contemporary attitudes toward environmental risk combined to create what he terms “a perfect storm” [15]. ....
In January, Baker appeared on an Oregon radio call-in show that featured several parents who shunned vaccination. While over 95% of Oregon parents vaccinate their children, only 70% did so last year in Ashland, a small town known for its Shakespeare festival. Nearly 60% of Ashland residents polled told the CDC, in town to hear parents' concerns, they “would expect serious consequences” from vaccines. Such low vaccination rates worry public health officials because they could signal the next epicenter of an epidemic: when vaccination rates drop below a critical percentage, called the “herd immunity threshold,” infection can swiftly spread among unprotected individuals. This threshold varies depending on the vaccine and target disease; for example, the target for measles, one of the most contagious human diseases, is 90% [16].

Celebrities and other non-professional people including parents with unrelated (or nonexistent) education are giving information with an air of professionalism exhorting the public to believe them instead of trained doctors and researchers. (As if those scientists went to school for over 8 years just to get student loans and the letters behind their name….) Personally, I will not let a high-school graduate design or build a bridge that I would use just because “they know better than those engineers because it’s just a big conspiracy to get more money out of the public, and of course the design does not flow with the Chi so it causes cancer!!1!!11!”

Because this problem is widespread, and not just in the United States it cannot only be a symptom of the education system or government as some people have stated. We have popular TV shows dedicated to Mythbusting* common Urban Myths, and they often find them not true. Is the anti-vaccination movement the same as these urban myths, but only because it causes deaths and widespread illness does it garner so much public attention? I believe people need to start their own experiments, collect information and think logically about the information. We need to trust people to do what they are trained to do… however some skepticism is needed as the public has been mislead before (DDT, BisphenolA, etc). So the reasonable solution would take into account both benefits and drawbacks and see which is better and provide research results to the public at no cost.

*among my favorite!

Phytoremediation as an alternative method in Reclamation Strategies

Phytoremediation is the use of plants to clean up toxic levels of heavy metals, organic contaminants or pesticides by the absorption within the plant body and either converting the compound or storing it in the plant material, or immobilizing the contaminant within the soil area. Phytoremediation processes include 1) Phytostabilization, 2) Phytodecontamination 3) Rhizosphere Degredation 4) Phytoaccumulation and 5) Phytoextraction. These processes can safely clean contaminated water, wetlands, soil and air pollutants. As shown above, plants can be used as a natural way to clean up polluted waterways, and can even safetly clean up effluent from sewage contamination.

In all of the processes, except for phytostabilization, plants actively take up the contaminant and process it in a variety of ways which depend on the nature of the contaminant and the plant species itself. Sunflowers have been used to remove arsenic compounds and brassicas to remove lead compounds. Each species has its own growth rate and bioaccumulation rate which are important factors for deciding how to remove contaminants. Seasonal removal of plant material thereby removes the contaminants from the area to be safely disposed or stored in an alternate location. This method requires several seasons for the complete removal, and in fact complete removal of the contaminant may not be possible.

Phytoremediation can even occur inside the home. Air pollution that occurs inside newly built homes, known as off-gassing of new products can affect the health of the residents. NASA had conducted a study in the 80's showing that plants are effective at removing formaldehyde and benzene and other off-gasses from the environment just by growing popular houseplants.

Phytoremediation is not the whole story of course; important microorganisms such as Bacteria and Archaea are invaluable for providing in-house cleaning for a fraction of the work plants require. Already used in all tailings ponds (in the Tar-Sands of Northern Alberta), multiple fermentation Bacterias and methanogenic Archaeas provide the cheap & easy way of converting organic contaminants into methane and carbon dioxide. Of course this takes years as well, but they do not need seasonal removal of organic material like plants do. However, when plants and bacteria/archaea work in concert with each other, it is the fastest method of reclamation and probably safer than most other methods.

Gratao, P.L, et al. (2005). Phytoremediation: green technology for the clean up of toxic metals in the environment. Braz. J. Plant Physiol. 17(1) 53-64.

Meagher, R.B. (2000). Phytoremediation of toxic elemental and organic pollutants. Current Opinion in Plant Biology. 3: 153-162

Meers, E., Hopgood, M., Lesage, E., Verv.aeke, P., Tack, F. M. G. and Verloo, M. G. (2004). Enhanced Phytoextraction: In Search of EDTA Alternatives',International Journal of Phytoremediation. 6(2): 95 — 109.

Van Aken, B. (2008). Transgenic plants for phytoremediation: helping nature to clean up environmental pollution. Trends in Biotechnology. 26(5) 225-227.

Wolverton, B.C., Johnson, A., and Bounds, K. (1989). Interior Landscape Plants for Indoor Air Pollution Abatement Final Report. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Stennis Space Center, MS.

Dirtiness + Microbes = Healthiness?

For those of you who personally know me, you likely know that I have a extremely strong avoidance of germs. I wouldn't say germophobia (or whatever the technical term is), but I have a healthy avoidance of germ spreading practices.


The NYTimes has an article on the spreading of germs. While I agree in theory, this still will not allow me to let others touch my food. The gist is the dirtier you let your house or child get, the healthier they will be. But there is a limit.....


I agree that washing with antimicrobials regularly is bad. And I don't do it. I'm not the most fastidious housekeeper either (dust bunnies are inevitable with a dog like mine!), but a certain level of cleanliness will go a long way.


I have always let my little seedling play in the dirt, with animals, and get generally dirty (camping is great for this), but washing up a little is good too. You never know when there will be a little Clostridium botulinum hiding in the dirt, and a little prevention goes a long way.


I will ALWAYS cook my food (prevention of Listeria, E.coli, and B. cereus infections), but maybe a 5 second rule will start to apply (onto the table, not the floor)?


My microbiology prof always said there are 2 types of microbiologists in this world. One where they become extremely germophobic (her grandfather shook hands with a handkerchief between them), or they become very apathetic towards microbes.


I'm thinking that I'm glad I won't be a microbiologist. :)













Clostridium botulinum

Just a Little Love People...

Alright, whoever said that Canadians are the most mannered/nice people have burning pants right now, because whenever they get behind the wheel they are morons.
Just yesterday I was driving down some alleys (don't ask, its not like I patrol them), and had to move over EVERY time another car came down. EVERY TIME!!!11!!11!!!

The driver, whether female/male, young/old, etc/etc, would stare at me. Finally, I would move over. Is this some kind of Canadian chicken??! (moving verrrrry slowlllllly).

Anyways, the polite & mannered thing to do would for both of us to move to the sides (there is enough room), and each give a little wave. But no, I move to the side, and the other people either ignore me or give me a one fingered salute. Just a little wave. That's all I'm asking. My standards are super low. And yet, people cannot manage this. Where are their moms? Did they teach them no manners?

And this is in alleys! Everytime I get on the roads, I put my life & my daughters in jeopardy. People drive like friggin blind people! And this is in every major city I have ever drove in. Actually, this rant goes for States' cities too. When the population gets over 100,000 people think that they are immune or something.

Well...... I guess all I can hope for is that natural selection works........

Herbal Supplements are Bad News

In today’s and yesterday's paper, another news story about a fatality due to an herbal supplement. While not directly causing the death, this drug hidden in the "herbal medicine" caused the driver to fall asleep while driving. Meanwhile, because these supplements are not regulated to the degree they should be, there was an additional drug in there that was addictive and harmful and is not approved for sale in Canada. The irony is that this additional drug was probably added to actually make the herbal remedy work.

I love plants (obviously) and they are useful medically, but even I am suspicious of the claims made by some of these companies selling herbal remedies. Most of the clinical trials done by researchers were poorly designed, so the claims cannot be attributed to the plants. Conversely, the medicines that are appropriately made from plants have been researched, studied and have been standardized so that everytime you take that ASA (aspirin) pill, you are guaranteed to receive a certain amount of the active ingredient. The active ingredient/compound from the plant has been extracted so that instead of chowing down on a whole tree’s worth of willow bark, one or two pills can do the job.

As of yet (in Canada), there are less regulations regarding herbal remedies than normal, everyday food we consume. All ingredients on normal foodstuffs must be list in order of quantity. We have no such laws regarding herbal medicines. The actual “active herb” may not even be found in the pills, or a minute quantity is found, and the rest is filling. These amounts can vary from batch to batch, so results cannot be verified.

So until more research (by reputable scientists) can be done, please DO NOT buy herbal supplements. Even if they are famous brand names, they are not regulated enough and do not list every ingredient. This is not just a waste of your money, it can ruin your health or kill you like the man from the news story.