Depression and Processed Food
There is a serious report in The British Journal of Psychiatry linking levels of depression with processed food. They are not sure that there might be other factors involved, but the evidence is fairly clear of the link. As it is published in a peer-reviewed journal, everything is obviously scientifically-correct.
On the BBC web site there is an article with a video, where a guy describes how he cured his depression. Watch it! The first thing he says is that he cut out wheat!
Here’s what I said in a letter to the author of the study.
I was very interested to read the summary of your research and hear about it on the BBC this morning.
I used to suffer mild depression, despite being a very successful scientist and engineer, who created two multi-million pound companies. My diet was good, as my late wife tended to believe in proper cooking and we did eat quite a bit in very good restaurants. However, on trips to the US, I always felt worse and often came home early. Could this be because North America has wheat in everything and I was living on burgers?
But in 2003, I was diagnosed as a coeliac and went on a strict gluten-free diet. Since then I’ve really not suffered from that type of depression, although I’ve had to get over the death of my wife from cancer of the heart and my youngest son is now suffering from serious pancreatic cancer. I may be very unhappy and almost desperate at times, but I can talk my way through the problems and it is very different to the depression, I’ve had in the past.
So the question I have to ask, is the missing factor in your research gluten and sensitivity to it?
Only one in a hundred of the UK population are coeliacs, but I understand that your study used middle-aged people. I have a feeling, that many when they approach fifty could benefit by going on a gluten-free or low-gluten diet.
Keep up the good work.
I certainly would prefer to try a natural and balanced diet, than indulge in a few chemicals for depression.
Oxford Street Gets a Cross
In 2005, there was an article about putting a monorail along Oxford Street. I wrote the following, which was then picked up by the Evening Standard and was published as a letter.
I read with interest an article in the Evening Standard yesterday and feel I should comment about a proposed monorail for Oxford Street.
I should explain that I am an engineer with a lot of experience of transport projects around the world, mainly because the software I wrote, Artemis, was used to plan them.
I am also an inveterate traveller and have experience of a very large number of cities around the world. That experience is usually as a tourist and includes the Sydney monorail, the escalators of Hong Kong and the underground walkways of Perugia. I should also say that I visit the Oxford Street area at least once a month for shopping, eating or business.
I will agree with the plan, where the monorail gives the whole street a connection and a focus, but I believe that a moving walkway suspended over the street below would be much more flexible and inherently better.
- It could be built in stages, with perhaps a spectacular star over Oxford Circus as a first phase to move people from say Regent Street North to Oxford Street East and West without getting involved in the fearsome crowds at road level.
- Walkways are basically hop-on and hop-off. So if you see a shop or something else that interests you, then all you do is wait to the next hop-off point and exit.
- As the walkway progressed down Oxford Street, it could rise and fall so that it was level with the floors of the major stores. How much would John Lewis pay for an entrance at first floor level?
- Stops would be much more frequent than a monorail.
- Walkways are a fail-safe system in that when the motor breaks, the system is still walkable. What happens when a monorail breaks down as the Sydney system did when I rode it?
- Walkways can add spurs as required to Conference Centres, attractions and also to move people well away from Oxford Street.
- As they would run effectively from Tottenham Court Road to Marble Arch, they would take the pressure off the Central Line.
- Just as in Hong Kong it would be covered in a clear plastic roof. Video screens could be included under the roof to sell advertising.
- Security is important and I’m sure the Police would like a high-level walkway from which to view the crowds below.
- Bulges and platforms could be attached to the walkway, so that cafes and other attractions could be setup. If access is provided to stores on route, there would be no problems as to servicing these cafes.
- The whole system has to be commercial. Imagine a platform just by Selfridges which sells the Wallace Collection, with a down escalator pointing that way.
I also agree with the views of making Oxford Street a two way bus-only lane. But they must be Heritage walk-on walk-off buses. i.e. Routemasters. They should be free and they could turn at Marble Arch and Centre Point.
Best of luck with the project anyway.
But I still say a moving walkway would be better and infinitely more flexible.
I now see that Oxford Street has a Japanese-style crossing.
This looks interesting!
Happy Birthday M1
Today marks the fiftieth birthday of the M1 motorway.
The first time I went on the motorway must have been soon after the road had opened in my father’s MG Magnette. This car would have been the equivalent to something like an Audi A4 these days. But it only had a 1.5 litre engine with twin SU carburetors.
I remember the road fondly as I drove or hitched from London to Liverpool in the mid-1960s, whilst I was at university. In one instance, I drove the whole way in my Morris Minor with a big-end gone.
Now I rarely use the motorway, as if I’m going north, it’s easier to use the A1. And when I go west, all I do is cross it.
Scientifically-Correct
Some years ago, I had a letter published in The Times, criticising Greenpeace for measuring exhaust emissions in a very unscientific way. They were trying to make a point, but their methods were very wrong. I used the term scientifically-correct in the letter. A few months later I was phoned by the OED and asked where I’d got the phrase. I said that it’s use was obvious and I’d used it for years. So I don’t really claim any first usage on the term, although it may be the case. But I very much doubt it.
But it illustrates how I think. You must get your facts right, even if they end up with a set of thinking that is politically incorrect.
My reasons for being so strong on this, is that sometimes a researcher finds something that is totally against the general view and his peers stop publication and rubbish the research. There was a Horizon program some years ago about how the body works and how a Glasgow professor of veterinary science proved everybody wrong. But it took him years to get his research accepted.
So when Alan Johnson fired Professor David Nutt for speaking the truth, you can have no doubts as to who I think is right.
I also applaud his colleagues who are now saying they have resigned or will do so.
But this row means that what scientist, doctor, engineer or computer scientist would advise Prudence and his rabble, when they know that their good advice will be totally ignored.
The Anonymous Widower 