Nutrition Science or Fiction?

Recently, I experienced a vivid flashback to a warm winter afternoon in Israel, fifty-or-so years ago.  I, a brash engineering student, in my mother-in-law's spacious kitchen, hotly debating her assertion that sugar is a poison.  As we talked, she leisurely spread a thick layer of shmaltz (clarified chicken fat) on a slice of bread.  When done with the bread, she snuck a few more bites out of the schmaltz dish, then lit a cigarette.  Along with the rest of the family, I abandoned the effort to admonish Savta (grandma) Hanka for her dangerous habits of fat consumption or smoking.  We knew the usual retort, "I will not die young!"  She was about fifty, at the time.

In the following decades, the topic of nutrition seldom rose to the forefront of my attention.  My health and weight were under control, and I had no reason to question the guidelines provided by the nutrition authorities: "Eat mainly carbohydrates, minimize fats, and avoid saturated fats"

Fast-forward to a cold winter in Seoul, 2017.  I am furiously reading all I can about nutrition.  It was Adi's illness that radically changed my interest.  I considered chemotherapy to be the medical equivalent of the US carpet-bombing in Vietnam.  I wanted to find a better way.  First, for Adi to tolerate the "treatment", and then maybe, to replace it.  When I realized that targeted cancer cures are still immature, I shifted my focus to nutrition.  I examined (or skimmed) numerous diet philosophies, ranging the alphabet from the Atkins diet, through Erkin, Ketogenic, Mediterranean, Paleolithic, and more.  Each philosophy promised to burn fat, cure diabetes, reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, and prolong the onset of Alzheimer's.  They all had a charismatic spokesperson, an impressive research validation, and an enthusiastic group of followers.  Not surprisingly, the Internet is full of long-running squabbles between the groups, each claiming to provide the best results.  So how could they all be right?  Diversity of opinion is common in science.  Yet in this field, it seemed to be more pronounced.  However, after I understood the difficulty of conducting conclusive nutrition experiments, I was no longer surprised by the rivalry.

Warning:  The next paragraph is a somewhat technical description of research methods.  Anyone not interested, or already familiar with the topic, feel free to skip it.

Two types of research procedures are typically employed in the Life Sciences.  The more robust method is the Randomized Controlled Trial, the other is an Observational Study.  In the controlled trial, groups are randomly selected from a large population.  The random assignment ensures that they are statistically identical.  One group may receive a new drug, while the other, the "Control" receives a similar-looking pill.  Any difference between the results can be attributed to the effects of the drug.  These studies are very expensive, and in the case of nutrition, often impossible.  Instead, most nutritional research is based on observational studies of some segment of the population.  To compensate for the lack of a control group, the researchers collect all the parameters that they deem relevant.  The data is subjected to statistical analysis, searching for correlations.  However,  the fact that two parameters move together, let's say, people that consume more coffee, suffer more heart attacks, does not prove that coffee causes heart disease.   It may be that a third, unmeasured parameter, is causing both effects.  i.e.  the heavy coffee drinkers, as a group, hold the more stressful jobs.   (This point of logic, is often lost on newspaper reporters.)  Observational studies are prone to several other errors, yet the causes of most infectious diseases, as well as the link between smoking and lung cancer, were discovered that way.  In other cases, results were not so good.  Hormone replacement therapy, which was recommended based on observational studies, caused the death of many women.  The difference is that in the first examples, the effects were very large.  When the effects are small, as is the case in nutritional changes, observational studies do not provide clear conclusions.

To summarize the previous paragraph:  The majority of research papers in this field provide, at best, circumstantial evidence, not a "smoking gun".  I reviewed the claims of the various plans.  I studied the supporting research they presented, which as I read it, seemed very convincing, and then found out, with the help of the competing groups, why that research is not valid.  Eventually, I came to my first observation.

• A nutritional philosophy or plan, no matter how strongly presented, is an opinion, not a scientific finding.

Which left me wondering why, with only weak evidence, do the diet gurus speak with such enormous   certainty?   Nonetheless, I found sufficient evidence to form my own opinions, which led to the flashback I described at the beginning of this post.  I came to believe that Savta Hanka was right in two assertions,

•   Sugar is a poison (I would say "Toxic")
•   Fat will not kill you, nor will it make you fat.  (Except for synthetic trans-fats, which are bad)

She was wrong in her third assertion.

• Fifty-years-old is still young.

Savta Hanka, my apologies.

P.S.  She died after reaching ninety, and not from lung disease.

Old Birds Can Fly

I am not a pretty sight.  My upper arms are bruised red, blue, and black, less visible, yet just as painful, is a bruise on my chest, and my legs hurt when I walk.  Although I am in Colombia, this damage is not the result of a violent mugging, it is self inflicted.  These are the consequences of being an overly ambitious, yet slightly inept, paragliding student.

Bucaramanga, Colombia, is among the world's top paragliding destinations, providing thermals in the morning, and ridge soaring in the afternoon.   As we arrived at the launch site it was hard to decide what to watch, the panoramic view of the city below, or the sky, filled with primary colored parachute wings.  Some pilots were enjoying relaxed cruising way up in the air, others demonstrated aerobatics, and the more adventurous swooped, with great speed, inches off the grass.  Richie, the raspy voiced paragliding school owner, described his operation, and I knew that here, I could finally fill the gap in my flying experience.  I enrolled in a ten-day course.  At the hostel which is part of the school, I met  an international group of students, all of them in their twenties.  Although I chose to commute rather than sleep in the hostel, I got to know and like this friendly group.  I grew especially fond of angelic Ellen, who is always ready to help, and Susan, who, spent seven months in Israel, and chatted with me in colloquial Hebrew.

Due to wind conditions, I ended up practicing the takeoff routine for three and a half days.  The practice consists of  attempting to raise the wing, and then maintain it in the air.  However, it inevitably collapses to the ground.  As this happens, two helpers would rush to my side, and assist in rearranging the wing for the next attempt.  This luxury arrangement, turned out to be less than ideal for me, because it provided almost no rest time.  As the hours and days progressed, my quadriceps were overworked trying to move forward with great force,  my chest bruised while pushing against the harness, and my upper arms were damaged by the straps as I was trying to raise the canopy over my head.  Unfortunately, it would take more practice, before I will learn how to 'finesse it' (Richie's term) rather than apply brute force.



Finally, on the fifth day, I took my first flight (and two consequent ones).  I had a very enjoyable experience in the air.  Even though in principle, a paraglider is not that different from any of the other aircraft I piloted, it is the first time that I controlled one by shifting my weight.  The feel and the sound of the air rushing past my face added an extra dimension to the flight, a sensation that in some ways was similar to windsurfing.

At the end of that day, I realized that I may have miscalculated what a seventy one year-old body can do.  The difficulty lay not learning the skills.  Aside from my usual flexibility challenge, I could perform almost as well as the younger set. The difference was the extended recovery time which my body required, but did not get.  Day by day, I was feeling more pain and getting more tired.  The allure of flying kept me going, but on the sixth day (a bit sooner than God) I decided to stop and rest.  I accomplished the main part of my goal.  I could quit now, and without (too many) regrets, continue happily on my travels.

For a video of my first Takeoff, click the link below.
First Takeoff (video)