Clapham Junction
I’ve rarely caught a train from this station, but the Train Timetable site said that by travelling via Tottenham Hale, Vauxhall and Clapham Junction was the quickest way to get through London. I was actually travelling from Stansted Airport to Winchester.
Note the Hot Ribena. I used to like that, but now because it is made from wheat glucose, it gives me the runs.
One of the problems of being a coeliac. But the EU says that wheat glucose is fine for me, so it must be OK!
It bloody well isn’t!
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.
If You Don’t Like the Message, Shoot the Messenger
Professor David Nutt‘s sacking by Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, is a classic case of, “if you don’t like the message, shoot the messenger”.
I should say now that I have never knowingly taken any illegal drugs. I say knowingly, as I might have had some cake with cannabis in it in the 1960s or 70s. On the other hand in those days, I rarely ate cake, so probably that route of illegal imbibing was closed.
I don’t smoke, although I’ve had perhaps a hundred cigarettes in the past, but I do drink some alcohol. I wish sometimes I do drink less. But at least since my wife died, I’ve probably only been near the drink-drive limit once. And that was on my birthday. And at home too!
Now, I’m very much an anti-smoker and don’t let anybody smoke in my house, cars or office. I’m also pretty much against illegal drugs and a lot of legal ones too. As a coeliac, I know how ill a banned substance can make my body. And that is only the gluten found in wheat, barley and rye.
So I think the best advice is to avoid anything that has a negative affect.
But I still drink alcohol. On the other hand, if a doctor, said to me that I mustn’t drink it, I would find something else like Belvoir Ginger Beer to waste my money on.
Read Professor Nutt’s bio and research history and you’ll see that the word eminent was designed to be used for him. So when Johnson sacks him for speaking the truth, we should all take note. On the one hand, we should read and take action on what the Professor says and on the other we should distrust even more what Prudence and his wretched Government, try and bambozzle us with.
A Pleasant Surprise
I enquired about booking a box at Ipswich Town Football Club and we were discussing food, when I said that I was a coeliac. The lady at the other end said that was not a problem, provided they had a day’s notice. She said that they were increasingly being asked for gluten-free meals in their catering and their chefs were trained accordingly.
What was also good, was that the lady on the phone knew all about it, without referring to a chef or a manager.
Let’s hope this is a sign to come for mass catering.
White Horse, Brancaster Staithe
My late wife and I ate several times at this pub on the North Norfolk Coast.
Today, I had to visit a friend in the area and we had lunch in the restaurant. For a bad day in October, that was cold and looked to be turning wet, the restaurant was full. Perhaps it was more a day for eating and drinking rather than walking.
I said that I was a coeliac and I was told that everything on the menu was either naturally gluten-free or could be modified.
So I had salmon and potato fishcakes. I can’t remember the last time I had any decent fishcakes.
With a pint of Aspall‘s cyder as well.
Heaven!
Note that the group also have a similar and equally good pub called the Fox at Willian. This is useful as it is close to junction 9 of the A1(M). It’s so much better than the Service Area a few kilomtres to the north.
Ridiculous Holiday Compliants
This list on the Telegraph‘s web site is very funny!
I have highlighted the one about Goa. It was a very good place for a coeliac to have a holiday. The thought makes me want to go back!
Medical Misdiagnosis
According to Professor Graham Neale at Imperial College, about 15% of conditions are misdiagnosed by the NHS. 15% is not one in six as the Times states. It’s actually nearer one in seven!
I heard him on Radio 5 last night and he was saying that this is one of the biggest problems facing health systems around the world.
Too right it is!
Let’s assume that we can cut this level by ten percent. On a straight economic case, it should cut the health care bill by at least one percent. So getting to grips with this is a major challenge that will bring enormous benefits.
The Times talks of one possible IT-based solution.
The NHS in Scotland has launched a pilot project where computer software with a diagnosis checklist is installed in GP surgeries to prevent errors. The programme, involving 25 GP surgeries, uses a commercial company called Bluebay, that gives doctors access to written information on how best to treat certain conditions.
I must admit, that I do have a special interest and knowledge of misdiagnosis. As I am a coeliac, and moderate a group on the Internet about it, I’ve come across quite a few who have been misdiagnosed for years.
But then you can see the problem, if like me you have bad skin, joint pains, severe dandruff, gallstones, mild depression and migraines, would you have thought that the problem was a gluten-intolerance?
The other problem is that there is no record of diagnosis. To me as someone who analyses data for a living, it is a goldmine, that could give a rich vein of results. Doctors always state reasons why this should not happen. But then pilots have had an anonymous reporting system for years. No-one ever complains about that!
We do not need major changes to get a decent increase in efficiency. We just need doctors and other health professionals to make the best use of the information that could be readily available.
And judging what I said earlier on saying sorry, they could learn from that too!
Norman Borlaug
I’d never heard of Norman Baulaug until yesterday. But as his obituary in the Times today stated.
Norman Borlaug has, in the opinion of many experts, saved more human lives than any other individual in history. He was the grandfather of the “Green Revolution” in which, between 1961 and 1980, wheat crop yields doubled, tripled and sometimes quadrupled around the world. His experiments with hybrid wheat strains and nitrogenous fertiliser created strains of the staple food impervious to pests, bad weather and poor soil, enabling the world to support a far greater human population than many thought possible after the Second World War. Yet his methods and message fell out of favour, to the detriment of millions — especially in Africa.
Read the full obituary and you get a flavour of someone who was not only a great scientist, but someone who was a deep thinker. He warned against population growth and felt that his advanced crops would only give a breathing space.
But it still did not prevent others from rubbishing his achievements.
Therein lies the rub. Some of his methods of using lots of fertiliser may well be challenged, but we all should agree with his policy of growing crops on the productive land. Surely, this should leave more land for other more idealistic uses. He even signed an agreement with one of founders of Greenpeace on this.
But one paragraph in the obituary is this.
Others followed his example, and India’s wheat crop increased from 12 million tonnes in 1965 to 17 million in 1967. That year Pakistan, a country dependent on wheat imports, imported 42,000 tonnes of seeds. It was self-sufficient in seed stocks 12 months later.
It just shows how if you are more efficient, things can a lot better.
If I have a gripe with him personally, it is that the greater part of his work was with wheat! I can’t eat it or wheat products because I’m a coeliac.
But as I repeat many times. It will not be politicians who get us out of the mess that they have created, but the scientists and engineers. We need a lot more like Norman Borlaug.
Cornflour
My mother was a traditional English cook, so when she made a sauce, she didn’t use flour. She used cornflour. Often it was Brown and Polson. As it was gluten-free, this was actually good for me and probably helps to prove the theory I have that good proper cooking is actually better for you. Flour is a cheap way of putting bulk into ready made and processed food.
There has been a discussion on the UK-Coeliac group about cornflour and corn in general.
This illustrates the differences between English all over the world.
Farmers in the UK and probably a lot of other places, use corn as a general term for any cereal, including wheat and barley. They call maize, maize. Whereas in the US, maize is corn.
All confusing. Truly we’re all dvided by a common language.
To make matters worse, according Wikipedia, cornflour in Australia is made from wheat. The article also talks about cornstarch, the name used for cornflour in the US.
It all makes me, want to do more cooking from scratch.
Thunder Thighs Are Good
That is the message being posted on the news this morning, but it is not quite that if you read the news report.
I heard it that if your thighs were less than 60 cm. then this was bad for your heart. It’s actually, if your thighs are less than 55 cm., then this is true. Here’s what the report says.
The study looked at more than 2800 men and women with an average age of around 50.
It found that the risk of heart disease more than doubled for both men and women who had a thigh circumference of less than 55 centimetres.
Those participants with thighs between 55 and 60 centimetres received a protective effect against heart disease, the study reports.
But that protective effect reduced for people with thighs above 60 centimetres in circumference.
So because my thighs are only 48 cm. (19 in.) does that put me at risk? Possibly not, as my waist is only 75 cm. (30 in.)?
Probably not, if I read the next bit.
Associate Professor David Cameron-Smith, of Deakin University in Melbourne, says this is very powerful research.
He says a growing body of research is showing the increased risk of heart disease associated with living a sedentary lifestyle.
According to Cameron-Smith, thigh circumference is a broad indicator of physical activity and muscle mass is related to how much exercise you do.
I don’t live that sort of lifestyle all the time. In fact when my fitness was last checked a few months ago, it was probably that of a man ten years younger than me. It wasn’t always so and has improved over the last few years since I was diagnosed as a coeliac and have gone on a gluten free diet.
I also get a lot of exercise trying to find good clothes that fit properly.
The Anonymous Widower 