Monday links

Published 11.21.2016
A collection of interesting links from the weekend's reading. This weekend was busier than most as I took a day trip into Manhattan to meet a friend. Most of our conversation was political in nature, but some of it related to health and nutrition.

• Vinegar rinsing might combat the effects of hard water on hair. As I wrote only this past Friday, my hair is quite short because I'm not one to spend time on it. Additionally, though it's always been thick and coarse, as it has turned gray it's gotten wiry and even harder to deal with. My friend suggested that it might not be due to my hair changing characteristics so much as the effect of the very hard water we have. Hard water means there's a high calcium content in the water that will be evident in scale formation in a coffee kettle (for example). Anyway, the vinegar rinse an easy thing to try, and my friend swears that it improved the texture of her hair. Based on the rinse I did this morning after the gym without shampooing (I shampooed on Sunday), I have to admit that there might be something to it. My hair does feel softer than it typically does after only being rinsed.

• However, dumping acid (even a mild acid that been diluted) on your head daily doesn't seem like a prudent thing to do. There are apparently expensive shampoos designed to offset the effects of hard water, and others use bottled water to rinse their hair. Neither of those options appeal. Neither does getting a new shower head that includes a filter that would have to be replaced every six months because I know how things like that tend to go in my household. Instead, I'm going to give shampoo made with besan flour a try. Besan or gram flour is flour made from chick peas (garbanzo beans). It's inexpensive if you buy it from a Southeast Asian market (one that caters to people from the sub-continent or Pakistan). Besan mixtures can also be used as soap. I rather like the fact that legumes might be as good for my outside as my inside.

• Statins for everyone? Statin use is up, but only in white guys.

  Now data from a large federal survey confirm that the billions of dollars spent on these drugs have not been distributed evenly across the U.S. population. In particular, huge subgroups -- women, minorities, the uninsured -- were significantly less likely than white men to receive statin therapy.

  I had a friend just get put on a statin based solely on her family history of heart disease. She herself seems to have none of the early symptoms, though she does have a thickening of part of her heart muscle, though it's not obstructive. That actual condition was deemed less important than her family history. I'm not a medical professional, but any cardiologist making that diagnosis on me like that would need to provide evidence for it.

• Who is surprised by this? It’s better for menopausal women to eat salads than huge amounts of meat. Vegetable protein is a safer choice than animal sources. In my case, I still eat meat, but chose a couple years ago to eat markedly less meat. That was personal preference though, not a matter of any science finding.

  After adjusting for various confounders, Mohamad Barbour, MD, a resident at Brown University Medical School, reported that women in the top quintile of animal protein consumption had a 61% greater risk of developing heart failure than in the bottom quintile (P<0.0001).

  This would seem to be bad news fro female fans of a low carb high fat diet.

  In addition, Barbour said at the annual scientific sessions of the American Heart Association, women who had the highest intake of vegetable protein had an 18% lower risk of developing heart failure (P=0.054) in multivariate analysis.

  Beans for the win!

• An early (science-based) junk-food diet. Yes, if you eat sugar filled processed foods, you will lose weight and your health markers will improve if you cut calories. Subjects were given supplements to ensure complete nutrients. Protein ingestion was about 18%, fat intake was just under 11% (in other words, a genuine low fat diet). The guy who lost weight eating McDonald's is another example of the same idea. It may not be the healthiest food, but if you reduce calories, you will lose weight.

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Related writings:

• Monday morning tidbits November 7
• Monday Morning Links November 14

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