On 23 Sep 2004 06:51:40 -0700, Chet Hayes wrote:
Kevin Stevens wrote in message ... In article , (Roman Bystrianyk) wrote: In a study in today's Journal of the American Medical Association, mortality rates were 65% lower among elderly people who combined a so-called Mediterranean diet with 30 minutes of daily exercise, moderate drinking and no tobacco use. What a useless freaking study! How much lower was the mortality rate among elderly people who combined ANY diet plan or WOE with 30 minutes of daily exercise, moderate drinking, and no tobacco use?! Don't like your initial results? Keep adding factor elements until you see a number you like. Ridiculous. KeS I wouldn't blast the study based on short excerpts from news organizations. The news usually goes for the simple, easy, overall message. If you look at the actual study, it was done to determine the effects of the diet, excercise, moderate drinking, no smoking, both together and seperately. It appears to be well designed and covered a 10 year period. There were benefits to all components, the combined effect was just the best result. But without data like true mortality (not the BS "relational" mortality), the study is useless. It's like the study that gave two drugs to two different groups of people. The average LDL level dropped farther with one drug, and the relative number of deaths due to heart disease also dropped farther with that drug. The authors said that this "proved" that lowering LDL was beneficial, when that's not what the study proved at all. (What it indicated was that if you took one drug and not another your relative risk of heart disease was lower.) Without access to the real data, none of us know what the results of this study are. -- Bob in CT Remove ".x" to reply |
"Chet Hayes" wrote
effects of the diet, excercise, moderate drinking, no smoking, both Moderate drinking? No smoking? That doesn't sound like any person from the Mediterranean that I've ever known. -- Bob Kanyak's Doghouse http://www.kanyak.com |
Matti Narkia wrote in message . ..
22 Sep 2004 16:01:54 -0700 in article (Tony Lew) wrote: (Roman Bystrianyk) wrote in message . com... http://www.healthsentinel.com/news.p...st_item&id=264 Liz Szabo,, "We should all eat like a Mediterranean", USA Today, September 22, 2004, Link: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/...ean-usat_x.htm Two new studies confirm the health benefits of eating the Mediterranean way. In a study in today's Journal of the American Medical Association, mortality rates were 65% lower among elderly people who combined a so-called Mediterranean diet with 30 minutes of daily exercise, moderate drinking and no tobacco use. Although experts say there is no single Mediterranean diet, doctors say cuisines from these regions favor olive oil rather than butter and include lots of legumes, nuts, seeds, grains, fish, vegetables and potatoes but little meat and dairy. Little dairy? Really? Then what do the mediterraneans do with all the cheese they make? Export it? Feed it to the dogs? The best example of Mediterranean diet is the traditional Cretan diet, which contains relatively low amount of dairy products. Only fermented dairy products, feta cheese and yoghurt made of goat or sheep milk are used. And yes, Mediterranean countries do export cheese.\ Then why is it called the "Mediterranean" diet when most Mediterraneans don't eat like that? |
In article , Tony Lew
writes Although experts say there is no single Mediterranean diet, doctors say cuisines from these regions favor olive oil rather than butter and include lots of legumes, nuts, seeds, grains, fish, vegetables and potatoes but little meat and dairy. I have no idea which part of the 'Meditteranean' this is supposed to describe, but it's not a part I've ever visited. The Greeks scarf down vast amounts of potatoes, bread and sugar, the Provencals (who fit the bill best) like lamb and beef, and cheese too, and the Italians eat meat and cheese. It's a fantasy. And there are plenty of obese people in Southern Italy, Greece and Spain. -- Jane Lumley |
In article , Tony Lew
writes Although experts say there is no single Mediterranean diet, doctors say cuisines from these regions favor olive oil rather than butter and include lots of legumes, nuts, seeds, grains, fish, vegetables and potatoes but little meat and dairy. I have no idea which part of the 'Meditteranean' this is supposed to describe, but it's not a part I've ever visited. The Greeks scarf down vast amounts of potatoes, bread and sugar, the Provencals (who fit the bill best) like lamb and beef, and cheese too, and the Italians eat meat and cheese. It's a fantasy. And there are plenty of obese people in Southern Italy, Greece and Spain. -- Jane Lumley |
23 Sep 2004 09:52:07 -0700 in article
(Tony Lew) wrote: Matti Narkia wrote in message . .. 22 Sep 2004 16:01:54 -0700 in article (Tony Lew) wrote: (Roman Bystrianyk) wrote in message . com... http://www.healthsentinel.com/news.p...st_item&id=264 Liz Szabo,, "We should all eat like a Mediterranean", USA Today, September 22, 2004, Link: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/...ean-usat_x.htm Two new studies confirm the health benefits of eating the Mediterranean way. In a study in today's Journal of the American Medical Association, mortality rates were 65% lower among elderly people who combined a so-called Mediterranean diet with 30 minutes of daily exercise, moderate drinking and no tobacco use. Although experts say there is no single Mediterranean diet, doctors say cuisines from these regions favor olive oil rather than butter and include lots of legumes, nuts, seeds, grains, fish, vegetables and potatoes but little meat and dairy. Little dairy? Really? Then what do the mediterraneans do with all the cheese they make? Export it? Feed it to the dogs? The best example of Mediterranean diet is the traditional Cretan diet, which contains relatively low amount of dairy products. Only fermented dairy products, feta cheese and yoghurt made of goat or sheep milk are used. And yes, Mediterranean countries do export cheese.\ Then why is it called the "Mediterranean" diet when most Mediterraneans don't eat like that? As I understand it, the name originates from _traditional_ Mediterranean diets. During last decades the diets may have deteriorated also in the Mediterranean area. _Traditional_ Mediterranean diets have common features which distinguishes the Mediterranean diet pattern for example from American, English, German, Northern European, or Japanese diet pattern. Best features of Mediterranean diets have been analyzed and many studies have used a scoring system for measuring the adherence to the best common features of traditional Mediterranean diets. In these scoring systems generally above median consumption of beneficial components and below median consumption of detrimental components increase the adherence score. Generally, beneficial components are vegetables, legumes, fruits and nuts, cereal, and fish, and detrimental components are meat, poultry, and dairy products. Therefore, if a person uses for example a lot of meat and dairy products, his/her adherence score will be lower. The scoring system used in the subject study Mediterranean Diet, Lifestyle Factors, and 10-Year Mortality in Elderly European Men and Women. The HALE Project. Kim T. B. Knoops, MSc; Lisette C. P. G. M. de Groot, PhD; Daan Kromhout, PhD; Anne-Elisabeth Perrin, MD, MSc; Olga Moreiras- Varela, PhD; Alessandro Menotti, MD, PhD; Wija A. van Staveren, PhD JAMA, September 22/29, 2004; 292:1433-1439. URL:http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/292/12/1433 is described there as follows: "To assess the association of diet and the lifestyle factors with mortality, a low-risk group was defined for diet and lifestyle factors. For dietary intake, the low-risk group was defined as those who had a score of at least 4 on a modified version of the Mediterranean diet score proposed by Trichopoulou et al.4 The modified Mediterranean diet score comprised 8 components: ratio of monounsaturated to saturated fat; legumes, nuts, and seeds; grains; fruit; vegetables and potatoes; meat and meat products; dairy products; and fish. Intake of each component was adjusted to daily intakes of 2500 kcal (10.5 MJ) for men and 2000 kcal (8.5 MJ) for women. The sex-specific median intake values were taken as cutoff points. The diet score varied from 0 (low-quality diet) to 8 (high-quality diet). For the components monounsaturated fatty acids to saturated fatty acids (MUFA to SAFA) ratio; fruits and fruit products; vegetables and potatoes; legumes, nuts, and seeds; fish; and grains, a value of 1 was assigned to persons whose consumption was at least as high as the sex-specific median value, and 0 to the others. The vegetables group of the original Mediterranean diet score was replaced by the vegetables and potatoes group because the European classification system (EUROCODE) was used when the 2 food groups were assessed together.16 For meat and meat products and dairy products, a value of 1 was assigned to persons whose consumption was less than the sex- specific median and 0 to the others. The low-risk group for alcohol was defined as those who consumed more than 0 g of alcohol per day. Alcohol consumption was initially divided into 3 groups: 0 g, 1 to 29 g, and 30 g or more of alcohol per day. However, the Kaplan-Meier survival curves of the 3 alcohol groups showed no difference in survival between participants who consumed between 1 g to 29 g of alcohol per day and those who consumed 30 g or more alcohol per day. For smoking, individuals were considered to be at low risk if they had never smoked or had stopped smoking more than 15 years ago.17-19 Individuals with a score in the intermediate and the highest tertile on the Voorrips or Morris questionnaire were considered the low-risk group for physical activity.14-15 A lifestyle score was calculated by adding the individual scores for diet, physical activity level, smoking status, and alcohol intake. Individuals scored 1 point if they belonged to the low-risk group for diet or a particular lifestyle factor and 0 if they belonged to the high-risk group. In total, an individual could obtain 4 points: 1 point for a Mediterranean diet and 3 points for the healthful lifestyle factors." This scoring system left out alcohol from Mediterranean diet score, because it was included as a separate factor. Other scoring systems have included alcohol. The above cited "the Mediterranean diet score proposed by Trichopoulou et al.4" is described in the study Trichopoulou A, Costacou T, Bamia C, Trichopoulos D. Adherence to a Mediterranean diet and survival in a Greek population. N Engl J Med. 2003 Jun 26;348(26):2599-608. PMID: 12826634 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] URL:http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/348/26/2599?ijkey=954de3729cd4bf6a762b30acdf92d99b1f97f24 6 as follows: "A scale indicating the degree of adherence to the traditional Mediterranean diet was constructed by Trichopoulou et al.6 and revised to include fish intake.35 A value of 0 or 1 was assigned to each of nine indicated components with the use of the sex- specific median as the cutoff. For beneficial components (vegetables, legumes, fruits and nuts, cereal, and fish), persons whose consumption was below the median were assigned a value of 0, and persons whose consumption was at or above the median were assigned a value of 1. For components presumed to be detrimental (meat, poultry, and dairy products, which are rarely nonfat or low-fat in Greece), persons whose consumption was below the median were assigned a value of 1, and persons whose consumption was at or above the median were assigned a value of 0. For ethanol, a value of 1 was assigned to men who consumed between 10 and 50 g per day and to women who consumed between 5 and 25 g per day. Finally, for fat intake, we used the ratio of monounsaturated lipids to saturated lipids, rather than the ratio of polyunsaturated to saturated lipids, because in Greece, monounsaturated lipids are used in much higher quantities than polyunsaturated lipids. Thus, the total Mediterranean- diet score ranged from 0 (minimal adherence to the traditional Mediterranean diet) to 9 (maximal adherence)." "A scale indicating the degree of adherence to the traditional Mediterranean diet was constructed by Trichopoulou et al.6" in the above excerpt refers to the study Trichopoulou A, Kouris-Blazos A, Wahlqvist ML, Gnardellis C, Lagiou P, Polychronopoulos E, Vassilakou T, Lipworth L, Trichopoulos D. Diet and overall survival in elderly people. BMJ. 1995 Dec 2;311(7018):1457-60. PMID: 8520331 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] URL:http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/311/7018/1457 An excerpt from the "For analysis the frequency of consumption of different food items was quantified approximately in terms of the number of times a month the food was consumed, as done by Graham et al4 and Katsouyanni et al.5 Thus, daily consumption was multiplied by 30 and weekly consumption by 4, a value of 0 was assigned to food items rarely or never consumed. Food items were considered in groups as recommended by Davidson and Passmore6 and used by Graham et al,4 Dales et al,7 and Trichopoulou et al.8 Food frequencies were translated into food quantities in grams per day on the basis of standard portion size estimations, and they were further adjusted to daily intakes of 2500 kcal for men and 2000 kcal for women. Nutrient intakes for individual people were estimated by multiplying the nutrient contents of a selected typical portion for each specified food item by the frequency that the food item was eaten a month and adding these estimates for all food items. Data on the nutrient composition of Greek foods and recipes were based on a nutrient database developed in Greece by the department of nutrition and biochemistry, National School of Public Health.9 The estimation of portion size was based on the results from previous validation studies.3 10 11 Composite scores are often used to describe total diet; these scores are necessary for the evaluation of epidemiological associations,11 12 although they require some operational definitions. We used the food groups recommended by Davidson and Passmore6 in devising a score except that we combined starchy roots with cereals and did not consider sugars and syrups for which no systemic health implications have been documented over and beyond their contribution to net energy intake. The traditional Mediterranean diet is also defined in terms of these food groups with the addition of moderate intake of ethanol13 14 and therefore can be reasonably scored in terms of eight component characteristics: high monounsaturated:saturated fat ratio; moderate ethanol consumption (there were no men who drank more than seven glasses of wine a day and no women who drank more than two glasses of wine a day so that no study subject could be considered a heavy drinker); high consumption of legumes; high consumption of cereals (including bread and potatoes); high consumption of fruits; high consumption of vegetables; low consumption of meat and meat products; and low consumption of milk and dairy products. We used as a cut off point for all characteristics the corresponding median values specific for each sex. We a priori hypothesised that a diet with more of these components has beneficial health effects whereas a diet with fewer of these components would be less healthy. These considerations are based on the collective epidemiological and biological evidence as summarised in the report of the National Academy of Science1 and a recent critical overview.15 In our study sample only 34 subjects (or 19% of the total) were found to have two or fewer of the eight desirable dietary components, whereas 104 subjects (57%) were found to have four or more of the eight desirable components, a reasonable pattern given the attachment of elderly rural Greeks to their traditional diet. The statistical analysis was undertaken by modelling the data through Cox's proportional hazards regression.16 This approach takes into account not only the event of death but also the time until its occurrence. An assumption in the model is that the rate ratio is constant over follow up time. Initially, eight Cox's models were developed; these controlled for age at enrolment (in three month intervals), sex (0=female, 1=male), and current smoking status (0=non- smoker, 1=smoker) and evaluated alternatively the eight individual components of the diet score adjusted for energy. An additional Cox's model was developed that controlled for age at enrolment, sex, and current smoking status and evaluated the total diet score as a predictor of the hazard of death. Survival curves were plotted by using the Kaplan- Meier method." -- Matti Narkia |
23 Sep 2004 09:52:07 -0700 in article
(Tony Lew) wrote: Matti Narkia wrote in message . .. 22 Sep 2004 16:01:54 -0700 in article (Tony Lew) wrote: (Roman Bystrianyk) wrote in message . com... http://www.healthsentinel.com/news.p...st_item&id=264 Liz Szabo,, "We should all eat like a Mediterranean", USA Today, September 22, 2004, Link: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/...ean-usat_x.htm Two new studies confirm the health benefits of eating the Mediterranean way. In a study in today's Journal of the American Medical Association, mortality rates were 65% lower among elderly people who combined a so-called Mediterranean diet with 30 minutes of daily exercise, moderate drinking and no tobacco use. Although experts say there is no single Mediterranean diet, doctors say cuisines from these regions favor olive oil rather than butter and include lots of legumes, nuts, seeds, grains, fish, vegetables and potatoes but little meat and dairy. Little dairy? Really? Then what do the mediterraneans do with all the cheese they make? Export it? Feed it to the dogs? The best example of Mediterranean diet is the traditional Cretan diet, which contains relatively low amount of dairy products. Only fermented dairy products, feta cheese and yoghurt made of goat or sheep milk are used. And yes, Mediterranean countries do export cheese.\ Then why is it called the "Mediterranean" diet when most Mediterraneans don't eat like that? As I understand it, the name originates from _traditional_ Mediterranean diets. During last decades the diets may have deteriorated also in the Mediterranean area. _Traditional_ Mediterranean diets have common features which distinguishes the Mediterranean diet pattern for example from American, English, German, Northern European, or Japanese diet pattern. Best features of Mediterranean diets have been analyzed and many studies have used a scoring system for measuring the adherence to the best common features of traditional Mediterranean diets. In these scoring systems generally above median consumption of beneficial components and below median consumption of detrimental components increase the adherence score. Generally, beneficial components are vegetables, legumes, fruits and nuts, cereal, and fish, and detrimental components are meat, poultry, and dairy products. Therefore, if a person uses for example a lot of meat and dairy products, his/her adherence score will be lower. The scoring system used in the subject study Mediterranean Diet, Lifestyle Factors, and 10-Year Mortality in Elderly European Men and Women. The HALE Project. Kim T. B. Knoops, MSc; Lisette C. P. G. M. de Groot, PhD; Daan Kromhout, PhD; Anne-Elisabeth Perrin, MD, MSc; Olga Moreiras- Varela, PhD; Alessandro Menotti, MD, PhD; Wija A. van Staveren, PhD JAMA, September 22/29, 2004; 292:1433-1439. URL:http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/292/12/1433 is described there as follows: "To assess the association of diet and the lifestyle factors with mortality, a low-risk group was defined for diet and lifestyle factors. For dietary intake, the low-risk group was defined as those who had a score of at least 4 on a modified version of the Mediterranean diet score proposed by Trichopoulou et al.4 The modified Mediterranean diet score comprised 8 components: ratio of monounsaturated to saturated fat; legumes, nuts, and seeds; grains; fruit; vegetables and potatoes; meat and meat products; dairy products; and fish. Intake of each component was adjusted to daily intakes of 2500 kcal (10.5 MJ) for men and 2000 kcal (8.5 MJ) for women. The sex-specific median intake values were taken as cutoff points. The diet score varied from 0 (low-quality diet) to 8 (high-quality diet). For the components monounsaturated fatty acids to saturated fatty acids (MUFA to SAFA) ratio; fruits and fruit products; vegetables and potatoes; legumes, nuts, and seeds; fish; and grains, a value of 1 was assigned to persons whose consumption was at least as high as the sex-specific median value, and 0 to the others. The vegetables group of the original Mediterranean diet score was replaced by the vegetables and potatoes group because the European classification system (EUROCODE) was used when the 2 food groups were assessed together.16 For meat and meat products and dairy products, a value of 1 was assigned to persons whose consumption was less than the sex- specific median and 0 to the others. The low-risk group for alcohol was defined as those who consumed more than 0 g of alcohol per day. Alcohol consumption was initially divided into 3 groups: 0 g, 1 to 29 g, and 30 g or more of alcohol per day. However, the Kaplan-Meier survival curves of the 3 alcohol groups showed no difference in survival between participants who consumed between 1 g to 29 g of alcohol per day and those who consumed 30 g or more alcohol per day. For smoking, individuals were considered to be at low risk if they had never smoked or had stopped smoking more than 15 years ago.17-19 Individuals with a score in the intermediate and the highest tertile on the Voorrips or Morris questionnaire were considered the low-risk group for physical activity.14-15 A lifestyle score was calculated by adding the individual scores for diet, physical activity level, smoking status, and alcohol intake. Individuals scored 1 point if they belonged to the low-risk group for diet or a particular lifestyle factor and 0 if they belonged to the high-risk group. In total, an individual could obtain 4 points: 1 point for a Mediterranean diet and 3 points for the healthful lifestyle factors." This scoring system left out alcohol from Mediterranean diet score, because it was included as a separate factor. Other scoring systems have included alcohol. The above cited "the Mediterranean diet score proposed by Trichopoulou et al.4" is described in the study Trichopoulou A, Costacou T, Bamia C, Trichopoulos D. Adherence to a Mediterranean diet and survival in a Greek population. N Engl J Med. 2003 Jun 26;348(26):2599-608. PMID: 12826634 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] URL:http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/348/26/2599?ijkey=954de3729cd4bf6a762b30acdf92d99b1f97f24 6 as follows: "A scale indicating the degree of adherence to the traditional Mediterranean diet was constructed by Trichopoulou et al.6 and revised to include fish intake.35 A value of 0 or 1 was assigned to each of nine indicated components with the use of the sex- specific median as the cutoff. For beneficial components (vegetables, legumes, fruits and nuts, cereal, and fish), persons whose consumption was below the median were assigned a value of 0, and persons whose consumption was at or above the median were assigned a value of 1. For components presumed to be detrimental (meat, poultry, and dairy products, which are rarely nonfat or low-fat in Greece), persons whose consumption was below the median were assigned a value of 1, and persons whose consumption was at or above the median were assigned a value of 0. For ethanol, a value of 1 was assigned to men who consumed between 10 and 50 g per day and to women who consumed between 5 and 25 g per day. Finally, for fat intake, we used the ratio of monounsaturated lipids to saturated lipids, rather than the ratio of polyunsaturated to saturated lipids, because in Greece, monounsaturated lipids are used in much higher quantities than polyunsaturated lipids. Thus, the total Mediterranean- diet score ranged from 0 (minimal adherence to the traditional Mediterranean diet) to 9 (maximal adherence)." "A scale indicating the degree of adherence to the traditional Mediterranean diet was constructed by Trichopoulou et al.6" in the above excerpt refers to the study Trichopoulou A, Kouris-Blazos A, Wahlqvist ML, Gnardellis C, Lagiou P, Polychronopoulos E, Vassilakou T, Lipworth L, Trichopoulos D. Diet and overall survival in elderly people. BMJ. 1995 Dec 2;311(7018):1457-60. PMID: 8520331 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] URL:http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/311/7018/1457 An excerpt from the "For analysis the frequency of consumption of different food items was quantified approximately in terms of the number of times a month the food was consumed, as done by Graham et al4 and Katsouyanni et al.5 Thus, daily consumption was multiplied by 30 and weekly consumption by 4, a value of 0 was assigned to food items rarely or never consumed. Food items were considered in groups as recommended by Davidson and Passmore6 and used by Graham et al,4 Dales et al,7 and Trichopoulou et al.8 Food frequencies were translated into food quantities in grams per day on the basis of standard portion size estimations, and they were further adjusted to daily intakes of 2500 kcal for men and 2000 kcal for women. Nutrient intakes for individual people were estimated by multiplying the nutrient contents of a selected typical portion for each specified food item by the frequency that the food item was eaten a month and adding these estimates for all food items. Data on the nutrient composition of Greek foods and recipes were based on a nutrient database developed in Greece by the department of nutrition and biochemistry, National School of Public Health.9 The estimation of portion size was based on the results from previous validation studies.3 10 11 Composite scores are often used to describe total diet; these scores are necessary for the evaluation of epidemiological associations,11 12 although they require some operational definitions. We used the food groups recommended by Davidson and Passmore6 in devising a score except that we combined starchy roots with cereals and did not consider sugars and syrups for which no systemic health implications have been documented over and beyond their contribution to net energy intake. The traditional Mediterranean diet is also defined in terms of these food groups with the addition of moderate intake of ethanol13 14 and therefore can be reasonably scored in terms of eight component characteristics: high monounsaturated:saturated fat ratio; moderate ethanol consumption (there were no men who drank more than seven glasses of wine a day and no women who drank more than two glasses of wine a day so that no study subject could be considered a heavy drinker); high consumption of legumes; high consumption of cereals (including bread and potatoes); high consumption of fruits; high consumption of vegetables; low consumption of meat and meat products; and low consumption of milk and dairy products. We used as a cut off point for all characteristics the corresponding median values specific for each sex. We a priori hypothesised that a diet with more of these components has beneficial health effects whereas a diet with fewer of these components would be less healthy. These considerations are based on the collective epidemiological and biological evidence as summarised in the report of the National Academy of Science1 and a recent critical overview.15 In our study sample only 34 subjects (or 19% of the total) were found to have two or fewer of the eight desirable dietary components, whereas 104 subjects (57%) were found to have four or more of the eight desirable components, a reasonable pattern given the attachment of elderly rural Greeks to their traditional diet. The statistical analysis was undertaken by modelling the data through Cox's proportional hazards regression.16 This approach takes into account not only the event of death but also the time until its occurrence. An assumption in the model is that the rate ratio is constant over follow up time. Initially, eight Cox's models were developed; these controlled for age at enrolment (in three month intervals), sex (0=female, 1=male), and current smoking status (0=non- smoker, 1=smoker) and evaluated alternatively the eight individual components of the diet score adjusted for energy. An additional Cox's model was developed that controlled for age at enrolment, sex, and current smoking status and evaluated the total diet score as a predictor of the hazard of death. Survival curves were plotted by using the Kaplan- Meier method." -- Matti Narkia |
"Roman Bystrianyk" wrote Liz Szabo,, "We should all eat like a Mediterranean", USA Today, Yes indeed. Let's see... If I eat like they do (traditionally) in La Camargue, in southern France, will that be "Mediterranean" enough? http://frenchfood.about.com/od/beefveal/r/gardiane.htm http://www.enprovence.com/ljones/cuisine/cuisi001.html http://berncity.tripod.com/provence.html (Note the wild boar stew.) -- Bob Kanyak's Doghouse http://www.kanyak.com |
Bob in CT wrote in message ...
On 23 Sep 2004 06:51:40 -0700, Chet Hayes wrote: Kevin Stevens wrote in message ... In article , (Roman Bystrianyk) wrote: In a study in today's Journal of the American Medical Association, mortality rates were 65% lower among elderly people who combined a so-called Mediterranean diet with 30 minutes of daily exercise, moderate drinking and no tobacco use. What a useless freaking study! How much lower was the mortality rate among elderly people who combined ANY diet plan or WOE with 30 minutes of daily exercise, moderate drinking, and no tobacco use?! Don't like your initial results? Keep adding factor elements until you see a number you like. Ridiculous. KeS I wouldn't blast the study based on short excerpts from news organizations. The news usually goes for the simple, easy, overall message. If you look at the actual study, it was done to determine the effects of the diet, excercise, moderate drinking, no smoking, both together and seperately. It appears to be well designed and covered a 10 year period. There were benefits to all components, the combined effect was just the best result. But without data like true mortality (not the BS "relational" mortality), the study is useless. And did you read the actual study to see what data was recorded and reported before coming to the conclusion that the study was useless? It's like the study that gave two drugs to two different groups of people. The average LDL level dropped farther with one drug, and the relative number of deaths due to heart disease also dropped farther with that drug. The authors said that this "proved" that lowering LDL was beneficial, when that's not what the study proved at all. And what does drawing incorrect inferences have to do with this? In this example, you're right, the data doesn't show that the lowering of LDL was the mechanism, only that the drug reduced the incidence of heart disease. That would certainly be jumping to conclusions. What evidence do you have that this was done with the current study? (What it indicated was that if you took one drug and not another your relative risk of heart disease was lower.) Without access to the real data, none of us know what the results of this study are. OK, but without access how do you know it's useless based on a news report excerpt? |
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