Sunday, August 29, 2021

Reducing sugar in packaged foods can prevent disease in millions

 Aug | 27 | 2021

 

Key Takeaways

  • A new economic and health model estimates that cases of cardiovascular disease and diabetes in the US would drop substantially if the food industry reformulates sugary products in 15 food categories.
  • By quantifying the healthcare and societal cost savings of Americans reducing their sugar consumption, the model may spur the launch of a national sugar-reduction policy aimed at food manufacturers.

Reducing the sugar content of commercially prepared foods and beverages will have a larger impact on the health of Americans than other initiatives to cut sugar.

            Siyi Shangguan, MD, MPH
            Massachusetts General Hospital
 

BOSTON – Cutting 20% of sugar from packaged foods and 40% from beverages could prevent 2.48 million cardiovascular disease events (such as strokes, heart attacks, cardiac arrests), 490,000 cardiovascular deaths, and 750,000 diabetes cases in the U.S. over the lifetime of the adult population, reports a study published in Circulation.

A team of researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), the Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy at Tufts University, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYC DOH) created a model to simulate and quantify the health, economic, and equity impacts of a pragmatic sugar-reduction policy proposed by the U.S. National Salt and Sugar Reduction Initiative (NSSRI). A partnership of more than 100 local, state and national health organizations convened by the NYC DOH, the NSSRI released draft sugar-reduction targets for packaged foods and beverages in 15 categories in 2018. This February, NSSRI finalized the policy with the goal of industry voluntarily committing to gradually reformulate their sugary products.

Implementing a national policy, however, will require government support to monitor companies as they work toward the targets and to publicly report on their progress. The researchers hope their model will build consensus on the need for a national-sugar reformulation policy in the US. “We hope that this study will help push the reformulation initiative forward in the next few years,” says Siyi Shangguan, MD, MPH, lead author and attending physician at MGH. “Reducing the sugar content of commercially prepared foods and beverages will have a larger impact on the health of Americans than other initiatives to cut sugar, such as imposing a sugar tax, labeling added sugar content, or banning sugary drinks in schools.”

Ten years after the NSSRI policy goes into effect, the U.S. could expect to save $4.28 billion in total net healthcare costs, and $118.04 billion over the lifetime of the current adult population (ages 35 to 79), according to the model. Adding the societal costs of lost productivity of Americans developing diseases from excessive sugar consumption, the total cost savings of the NSSRI policy rises to $160.88 billion over the adult population’s lifetime. These benefits are likely to be an underestimation since the calculations were conservative. The study also demonstrated that even partial industry compliance with the policy could generate significant health and economic gains.

The researchers found that the NSSRI policy became cost-effective at six years and cost-saving at nine years. The policy could also reduce disparities, with the greatest estimated health gains among Black and Hispanic adults, and Americans with lower income and less education—populations that consume the most sugar as a historical consequence of inequitable systems.

Product reformulation efforts have been shown to be successful in reducing other harmful nutrients, such as trans fats and sodium. The U.S., however, lags other countries in implementing strong sugar-reduction policies, with countries such as the UK, Norway, and Singapore taking the lead on sugar-reformulation efforts. The US may yet become a leader in protecting its people from the dangers of excessive sugar consumption if the NSSRI’s proposed sugar-reduction targets are achieved. “The NSSRI policy is by far the most carefully designed and comprehensive, yet achievable, sugar-reformulation initiative in the world,” says Shangguan.

Consuming sugary foods and beverages is strongly linked to obesity and diseases such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of mortality in the U.S.  More than two in five American adults are obese, one in two have diabetes or prediabetes, and nearly one in two have cardiovascular disease, with those from lower-income groups being disproportionately burdened.

“Sugar is one of the most obvious additives in the food supply to reduce to reasonable amounts,” says Dariush Mozaffarian, MD, DrPH, co-senior author and dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. “Our findings suggest it’s time to implement a national program with voluntary sugar reduction targets, which can generate major improvements in health, health disparities, and healthcare spending in less than a decade.”

Major funding for this study provided by the National Institutes of Health.

Shangguan is an attending at MGH and an instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Mozaffarian is dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. Thomas Gaziano, MD, MSc, is associate professor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and assistant professor  of Medicine at HMS. Renata Micha, PhD, is research associate professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University and associate professor at the University of Thessaly in Greece. 

About the Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The Mass General Research Institute conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the nation, with annual research operations of more than $1 billion and comprises more than 9,500 researchers working across more than 30 institutes, centers and departments. In August 2021, Mass General was named #5 in the U.S. News & World Report list of "America’s Best Hospitals."

https://www.massgeneral.org/news/press-release/Reducing-sugar-in-packaged-foods-can-prevent-disease-in-millions


A Real Leader Steps Up!

 


A deer walks into a small store . . .

A female deer entering a market in Colorado was given pistachio chocolate and escorted out of the market.
The same deer came back with her whole family about half an hour later.

" Honey, quick bring the kids . Follow me. You're gonna love this stuff they gave me."


Vaccine issues

 


Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Trump's epic attack ad against Joe Biden

The True Benefits vs. Side Effects of Statins

 


ARRESTED!

 


Monday, August 23, 2021

What we left behind in Afghanistan

[Forwarded from GEORGENEWS]
Here is a more complete list of US-supplied and left behind equipment list now controlled by Taliban:

-2,000 Armored Vehicles Including Humvees and MRAP’s
-75,989 Total Vehicles: FMTV, M35, Ford Rangers, Ford F350, Ford Vans, Toyota Pickups, Armored Security Vehicles etc
-45 UH-60 Blachhawk Helicopters
-50 MD530G Scout Attack Choppers
-ScanEagle Military Drones
-30 Military Version Cessnas
-4 C-130’s
-29 Brazilian made A-29 Super Tocano Ground Attack Aircraft

=208+ Aircraft Total!!

-At least 600,000+ Small arms M16, M249 SAWs, M24 Sniper Systems, 50 Calibers, 1,394 M203 Grenade Launchers, M134 Mini Gun, 20mm Gatling Guns and Ammunition
-61,000 M203 Rounds
-20,040 Grenades
-Howitzers
-Mortars +1,000’s of Rounds
-162,000 pieces of Encrypted Military Comunications Gear
-16,000+ Night Vision Goggles
-Newest Technology Night Vision Scopes
-Thermal Scopes and Thermal Mono Googles
-10,000 2.75 inch Air to Ground Rockets
-Recconaissance Equipment (ISR)
-Laser Aiming Units
-Explosives Ordnance C-4, Semtex, Detonators, Shaped Charges, Thermite, Incendiaries, AP/API/APIT
-2,520 Bombs
-Administration Encrypted Cell Phones and Laptops ALL operational
-Pallets with Millions of Dollars in US Currency
-Millions of Rounds of Ammunition including but not limited to 20,150,600 rounds of 7.62mm, 9,000,000 rounds of 50.caliber
-Large Stockpile of Plate Carriers and Body Armor
-US Military HIIDE, for Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment Biometrics
-Lots of Heavy Equipment Including Bull Dozers, Backhoes, Dump Trucks, Excavators

Would People Sign a Petition to Repeal the First Amendment?

 


Are Doctors Misleading Patients About Statin Risks and Benefits?


 

A Short History of Slavery

 


Think about it . . .


Friday, August 20, 2021

Revolver’s Jan. 6th Reporting Changed the Game

On January 6th, the regime media, and even much of the Republican Party, immediately declared the Capitol riots an “armed insurrection,” an assault on democracy, and the worst day for the republic since Pearl Harbor or even the Civil War.

For months, Revolver has been doing the investigative work that America’s hundreds of other news outlets are too corrupt or too cowardly to perform themselves. We have watched the tape, read the indictments, dissected the news reports, and punctured the narratives.

By now, the sum total of Revolver’s work is long enough to fill a short book. So here, we have collected all of our 1/6 reporting into a single spot, with short summaries for ease of reference.

Where it all began. In the days after the Capitol incursion, deceased Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick became the Little Saint Hugh of anti-Trumpism. Outlets from The New York Times to the USA Today pushed the narrative that justified the largest criminal manhunt in U.S. history: That Sicknick was bludgeoned to death by a mob of violent Trump supporters.

The famous “fire extinguisher” myth was debunked quickly, yet for weeks on end no further details came out. Why, Revolver asked, did authorities seem so hesitant to release any autopsy of Sicknick? Why was the press reporting Sicknick’s death before his family even knew about it, and in fact, before Sicknick was even actually dead? Why did “Sicknick was killed by a MAGA mob” gradually become “Sicknick died after physically engaging a MAGA mob”? With this first piece, Revolver began the process of blowing 1/6 wide open.

After Revolver’s first report, the Times updated its primary article on Sicknick’s death to note that “new information has emerged” that “questions the initial cause” of Sicknick’s death, an elaborate way of admitting they had initially presented outright fabrications as gospel truth. But in an effort to head off too many questions, outlets like Media Matters and TPM warned that Revolver was part of a brewing “Sicknick truth” movement. While the regime media fought hard to embed a particular narrative in the public’s mind, Revolver noticed the peculiar slowness with which serious criminal evidence was being introduced to the public. Very soon, it would become clear why the FBI wasn’t releasing much evidence: Because what they had was embarrassingly weak.

Three weeks after Revolver‘s initial report, the first big breakthrough came. Newly-leaked information revealed that any effort to turn Sicknick’s death into a murder charge was doomed. The “fire extinguisher bludgeoning” was reduced to a non-lethal attack with a non-lethal weapon resulting in non-lethal charges against the perpetrator. The press strongly implied that this non-lethal weapon was bear spray, but as Revolver pointed out, no actual evidence confirmed that implication. Future developments would once again prove Revolver correct.

Having exposed the sham of the Sicknick blood libel, Revolver moved on to another flimsy pillar of the establishment’s “armed insurrection” narrative of 1/6. Since no guns were actually confiscated at the scene of the incursion, and the only shot fired was by an unnamed officer into the neck of (unarmed) Ashli Babbitt, the claim that 1/6 constituted an armed revolt relied heavily on the claim that insurgents planned in advance to place pipe bombs around the Capitol.

Once again, it fell to Revolver to ask the key questions: With the FBI having so much access to cell phone data, how could they not use that phone data to find the pipe bomb suspect? How could the suspect leave no DNA evidence at all while building their bomb? With so many surveillance cameras around the Capitol, why could the FBI only produce barely two minutes of footage for the public? And most importantly of all, why did the FBI withhold the full versions of the tapes it did release to the public? The FBI’s behavior made no sense if it wanted to catch a criminal suspect… but it made a lot of sense if their primary goal was milking 1/6 to fuel a long-term anti-MAGA narrative.

In mid-March, federal authorities charged Julian Khater and George Tanios with assaulting a police officer after Khater allegedly used bear spray on Officer Sicknick. All kinds of outlets, even “conservative” ones, presented this as providing more clarity about the “assault” on the Capitol on 1/6. But as Revolver explained, the truth was the opposite. The charges against Khater and Tanios were so weak that they actually disproved the notion of any serious attack on Officer Sicknick. Not only that, but the federal indictment declined to show any video, or even still frames, of Officer Sicknick being sprayed. The very plausible interpretation: The FBI couldn’t even back up its own flimsy “assault” case, but was bringing it anyway to prop up the greater narrative of a murderous assault on a Capitol Police officer. And in the process, it was ruthlessly threatening two men with up to 60 years in prison, more than the typical murderer gets, for a “crime” that would plausibly be a misdemeanor if it took place on the streets of Portland.

In the wake of Revolver’s criticisms, the video the FBI was so eager to conceal finally leaked. And it was, naturally, exactly as bad for the prosecution as Revolver suggested. Using digital forensics, Revolver was able to debunk the New York Times’s claim that the video showed Julian Khater using bear spray on Officer Sicknick. In, fact the video shows no spray coming out at all. Not only that, but the FBI may plausibly have mixed up Khater, who was standing a long distance away from Sicknick, with a completely different man in the crowd wearing a similar hat.

Every fact in the video confirmed what Revolver had previously argued: That the FBI was grossly inflating a weak case in an effort to intimidate and terrify the MAGA movement, and bolster the shaky narrative of a January 6 “insurrection.”

One Month Later CNN Finally Admits What Revolver Reported All Along: No Bear Spray Stream in NYT Sicknick Video

Twenty-seven days after Revolver delivered the truth, the regime media and the Department of Justice had to admit defeat. After the long-awaited autopsy confirmed that Officer Sicknick died of natural causes, and there was no evidence he inhaled any chemicals, the DOJ was also forced to abandon its bear spray theory completely.

Supposedly, this left them only with the claim that Sicknick was pepper-sprayed, but Revolver quickly pointed out the the DOJ’s major problem: There was no evidence at all presented of Julian Khater, or anybody else, ever using pepper spray on Sicknick.

Contra the above title, a January 6 commission isn’t confirmed yet, but Democrats are still working to pass it out of the House. Here, Revolver laid out the strategy Republicans should pursue if such a commission is created. Many Republicans have talked about refocusing any investigation on the BLM/antifa riots of 2020. Revolver believes this would be a mistake, though, as it would implicitly accept the regime narrative of 1/6. Instead, Republicans should use a January 6 commission to bring a laser-like focus to every unexplained detail of that day.

Force the FBI, DOJ, and every other relevant agency to tell the truth about any informants and agents they had in the crowd. Find out why Officer Sicknick’s autopsy took months to complete. Demand to know why security was so lax, almost deliberately so. Learn the full story of the FBI’s half-baked pipe bomb investigation, and get access to all the video footage that has been withheld from the public so far. Junk the regime’s precious narrative and demand the truth.

This is the biggest piece of them all and the capstone of the series. Here, Revolver explored the details of the many indictments brought since 1/6, and the number of unnamed sources and co-conspirators who appear to play a critical role in the events of 1/6 and the indictments that came after. Revolver’s findings indicate that Republicans should immediately demand to know how many informants and undercover agents were present on January 6, and how many infiltrators there were within the three groups — the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters, and the Oathkeepers — that have been identified as planning and executing a supposed “insurrection” at the Capitol.

https://www.revolver.news/2021/06/revolver-january-6th-investigative-series-summary/

Afghanistan has a trillion dollars worth of lithium

Donald J Trump @realdonaldtrump
"First you bring out all of the American citizens. Then you bring out ALL equipment. Then you bomb the bases into smithereens—AND THEN YOU BRING OUT THE MILITARY. You don’t do it in reverse order like Biden and our woke Generals did.
No chaos, no death—they wouldn’t even know we left!"
https://gab.com/realdonaldtrump/posts/10678393430425980

BTW: Afghanistan has a trillion dollars worth of lithium. Lithium is being used extensively in batteries, especially for cars. The US government (and other governments) want all cars to be electric soon.  No wonder Biden's handlers wanted the USA out of Afghanistan.


 

Monday, August 16, 2021

What Unites Americans?

How Much Do Doctors Actually Know About Nutrition?

 


Study Finds Fermented Foods May Alter Your Microbiome, Reduce Inflammation, and Improve Your Health

A new study finds that eating fermented foods like yogurt, kimchi, sauerkraut and kombucha increase the diverse of gut microbes — and "may also lead to lower levels of body-wide inflammation, which scientists increasingly link to a range of diseases tied to aging," reports the New York Times (the NYT article is behind a paywall, but I can off this much):
The latest findings come from a study published in the journal Cell that was carried out by researchers at Stanford University. They wanted to see what impact fermented foods might have on the gut and immune system, and how it might compare to eating a relatively healthy diet full of fruits, vegetables, beans, whole grains and other fiber-rich foods... [Among the study's participants], the fermented food group showed marked reductions in 19 inflammatory compounds... For people in the fermented foods group, the reductions in inflammatory markers coincided with changes in their guts.

They began to harbor a wider and more diverse array of microbes, which is similar to what other recent studies of people who eat a variety of fermented foods have shown. The new research found that the more fermented foods people ate, the greater the number of microbial species that bloomed in their guts... Higher levels of gut microbiome diversity are generally thought to be a good thing. Studies have linked it to lower rates of obesity, Type 2 diabetes, metabolic disease and other ills...

Suzanne Devkota, the director of Microbiome Research at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, who was not involved in the new study, said it has long been assumed that eating fermented foods had health benefits but that the new research provides some of the first "hard evidence" that it can influence the gut and inflammation.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/21/08/15/1425258/study-finds-fermented-foods-may-alter-your-microbiome-reduce-inflammation-and-improve-your-health

Things Aren't Working As Well As They'd Hoped!

Thursday, August 12, 2021

2500 year old olive tree destroyed

 A 2500 year old olive tree perished in the wildfires on the Greek Island of Evia this week. The tree, which was fertile and still producing olives, was so large that 10 people could fit along the diameter of its trunk.

Greek geographer and historian Strabo wrote of this tree nearly two thousand years ago. It endured the passing of countless ages, but perished in August 2021.

This tree could survive the ancient world, several hundred years of Ottoman occupation, both world wars, but couldn’t survive modernity. Symbolic.

 


Eric Hoffer: The True Believer and The Nature of Mass Movements

 


Sunday, August 8, 2021

Klaus Schwab: Know him. Fear him.

Klaus Schwab is a German academician (much like Karl Marx). He is also the head of the, very powerful, UN backed World Economic Forum. He is the author of "The Great Reset."

Klaus promises that by 2030, you will have no property, no privacy, and you will never be happier.

He plans for a small group of elites to literally rule the world, and completely restructure all the world's economies. The new world order will function, very much, like the CCP.

Many US billionaires, corporations, and politicians are on-board with his plans. 

He believes the Covid crises a perfect opportunity to move forward with his plan.

 

This is from Time Magazine…

“The COVID-19 pandemic has provided a unique opportunity to think about the kind of future we want.” (did you fill out their survey?)

“A Better Economy is possible. But we need to reimagine capitalism to do it.”

”Redesign capitalism to incorporate social value.”

”It’s time to radically rethink how we work.”

“Covid-19 will change how we work forever. That could make the better world.”

“It’s time to reinvent capitalism post-coronavirus.”

“What will you sacrifice for the truth?”

https://time.com/collection/great-reset/