Sometimes I Go Over the Top
Friends sometimes accuse me of being a bit boring as I keep banging on about gluten.
But then I read this at Gluten Connection, which advertises a new book. This is an extract.
Millions of Americans are enduring painful and chronic conditions. Most doctors are mystified. Drugs usually offer little help. Most of these conditions have one thing in common… It’s called gluten sensitivity. It’s caused by a widely used food ingredient. It can lead to a wide range of serious health conditions and…it can affect up to 81% OF ALL AMERICANS!
If you are gluten sensitive, your body does not have the ability to break down and digest gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye. Your body reacts to gluten as if it were a virus. It launches an immune reaction that can cause or worsen a wide range of chronic health problems.
So perhaps I’m a bit understated.
Michael Obiora
It helps me and many other coeliacs, when a celebrity, an actor or anybody in the public eye, says that they are coeliac.
So three cheers for Michael Obiora, who has said he’s a coeliac.
He actually seems to have suffered from a multitude of problems, that I didn’t have. So I’ve been lucky! I wish him all the best.
Ignorance of Asbestos
There is an article on BBC Breakfast this morning about asbestos. There just seems to be a lot of if we don’t think about it, then it’ll be alright.
But!
Between 1968 and 1972, I worked for ICI. I seemed to remember that they had banned it then and were removing it whenever they had found it. This was some years before bans started to be introduced in the mid-1980s.
So I’m rather surprised that there is still so much of it about.
Fathers at Their Children’s Births
I was present when all three of my children were born. And that was in the early 1970s. In fact most of the fathers I knew in those days had been present.
I think it helped everybody, even if it was just to hold hands at a stressful time. In fact, by the third my wife was getting to enjoy childbirth a lot more and it was a much better occasion.
I can’t father children any more, so it won’t happen, but would I do it again? Yes!
But then we have this article in The Times. It contains this.
Michel Odent, a leading French obstetrician and author, will argue that men should not be present in the delivery room when women give birth, as their anxiety can be catching and make labour longer, more painful or likely to result in a Caesarean section. Men now attend more than 90 per cent of births in the UK, a proportion that has grown significantly since the 1950s.
Dr Odent believes that the birth process had become too “masculinised” in recent years, and delivery of babies would be easier if women were left with only an experienced midwife to help them, as used to be the case.
“It is absolutely normal that men are not relaxed when their partners are giving birth, but their release of adrenaline can be contagious,” he said yesterday. “When a woman releases adrenaline she cannot release oxycytin, the main hormone involved in childbirth, which can make labour longer and more difficult.”
In my view he’s talking rubbish.
I Don’t Drink Enough
Sometimes research gives you a lift.
Spanish research has now shown that drinking a bottle of wine a day is good for your heart. It’s published in the magazine, Heart, so it’s probably been peer-reviewed.
I’ll drink to that!
But on the other hand if I drunk that much every day, I’d never get any work done!
Sophia Loren Looking Good
I just had to link to this article about Sophia Loren in the Daily Mail.
She’s looking very good at 75.
Aspall Cyder in Greene King Pubs
My local pubs, which are Greene King, have now started serving Aspall Cyder on draught. I’m not sure whether this is Greene King policy, but I suspect that as Aspall is a Suffolk brand and we tend to be parochial, you can’t sell Strongbow against a proper local cyder. So I suspect that Greene King have had to allow their landlords to stock a rival product, as Aspall is distributed by Adnams.
If you haven’t tried it yet, draught Aspall Cyder has made me forget all about trying to find any decent gluten-free beer.
Power to the Computer Programmer
I’m impressed by the article in The Times about the new scanner at the London Chest Hospital. The cost of each scan is around £500 which might seem a lot, but if it can detect a problem that saves a life, it’s peanuts! Incidentally, in its previous incarnation, this hospital was Bart’s, who did a wonderful job on my mother-in-law. And did it twice!
I’m also pleased that the next scanner goes in at my local hospital, Addenbrooke’s.
We will be seeing a lot more devices like this. Some will be big and massively expensive and will be limited to regional centres like Addenbrooke’s. I’d always prefer to travel to get the best treatment.
But think next time you are in the GP’s surgery. He, or in my case she, has massive levels of computing power on their desk. Could we not see equipment plugged into the USB ports on their computer to scan for such things as skin cancer?
I’m too old at 62 to develop ideas like that, but I know there are programmers out there who can create applications like that. The rewards would be massive for worthwhile applications.
Go and create!
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.
Catch Them Young
The second story on BBC Breakfast News is about dealers selling cheap cigarettes out of tab-houses. It highlights how many of these cigarettes are sold to children. My friend in Addenbrooke’s is there because of a smoking related disease. And she started as a child, because the local newsagent would sell her cigarettes because that was one of the ways he could make a profit.
Unfortunately, we can’t sue him, as the shop is now shut and I have a feeling it shut because he got lung cancer. I could say that the newsagent got his just deserts, but I won’t, as nobody no matter how bad their crime deserves that.
But we must do more to stop this evil trade.
In the BBC report, they suggest higher punishments for those caught smuggling cigarettes. It probably wouldn’t work, but I’d get a lot of satisfaction to see smugglers getting banged up for a few years.
The Anonymous Widower 