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gayregis · 3 years

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As much as i hate twn it's been very interesting seeing the surge of interest around the witcher and seeing how people outside of poland/EE interpret it and what they focus on? Like I dont mean this in any negative way at all but in a "its fascinating how people's cultural background shapes how they look at foreign art and it's weird to be part of the original culture that produced it and not the alien culture consuming it like it is with american movies or something" like it's just Fascinating

it is interesting, i don't have much to add as an american, but i think this should be an open discussion. i think cultural background definitely shapes how one sees characters interact, reads lines that were said, etc...

in my experience, what i've appreciated is reading the books once just to get my first impressions, then going through it over the past couple of years with additions and translation notes from a variety of sources (polish mutuals and other eastern european people on here that post about the witcher, r/wiedzmin commentary, random wordpress blogs, etc) to get a better understanding of what's going on in certain contexts and understanding some of the cultural differences. because i believe translator notes do not just begin and end with "this is what this word means," but rather are needed to understand whole characters and scenes, because of a variety of aspects. for translation in the sense of translating words, the syntax and diction changes a lot from the polish to english official UK translation. of course, some change is inevitable because of the way that polish and english grammar works. but in some cases it's so severe that it changes how the prose sounds and in many cases changes how the characters come off. @karanfile has spoken about this, where in english geralt is pretty wordy, whereas in polish geralt is brisk and curt, and it makes them entirely different characters.

here is also, of course, context surrounding cultural references, such as torque saying “goodnight” at the end of edge of the world, or the bounds of reason/limits of the possible with regards to villentretenmerth and sheepbagger. the witcher does draw on a variety of european mythology (and even extends as far as japanese mythology in season of storms), and many tales are utilized and inverted. but i think where an american audience will know sh’eenaz and duke agloval from hans christen andersen’s the little mermaid, we will be completely in the dark when it comes to princess adda, torque... i have seen many american and british reviews of the witcher praising it for its uniqueness and never-seen-before quality in including kinds of creatures from slavic mythology, and i can’t help but chuckle a bit because it’s not really a matter of uniqueness, just that the american and british audience are not familiar with the mythology! plus, since it loses that “familiarity” like these characters are living in a strange, inverted rendition of a story from your childhood, the message highlighted right on the page that “THIS IS A SERIES ABOUT INVERTING FANTASY TROPES” can be missed sometimes (though i also feel like it still remains obvious, with main characters who are blatant inversions of their tropes...)

another thing i have noticed (also spoke about this with karanfile and others in the discord) especially is how love and romance is interpreted by polish and american audiences. i was reading this wordpress article by sylwia of warsaw about the differences between how polish and american cultures concieve of friendship (i was thinking about how geralt calls dandelion his przyjaciel as his first introduction). (also here is another good article by her on the subject). a few things which came to my mind from reading this, and these thoughts are about broad cultures, not individuals!:

americans generally seem to not recognize that “a friend” can mean someone very close. the word “friend” basically stands in for any kind of friendly relationship, you may spoken to someone once or have known them closely for 20 years, and both are your “friend.” it is also suggested usually that one’s friend is at odds with their boyfriend or girlfriend, i.e., it’s usually suggested that people will prioritize their boyfriend or girlfriend over their friend, nevermind how close either relationship might be to their friend (again, there’s only one real word for “friend”). there is also attitude against this, in a counter-culture manner, in which you get the “bros before hoes” type of sayings. this attitude i think affects how many americans see geralt and dandelion’s relationship - i.e., it is read that dandelion is just geralt’s “friend,” so he is not important to geralt, and that being “friends” doesn’t insinuate any closeness, and is “lesser” to romance. this i think also affects how many geraskiers from twn have changed the dynamic between geralt and jaskier in their fanon, because much “happy” or “ideal” geraskier content is of them calling each other pet names, doting on one another, being overly and overtly romantic. geralt and dandelion have never acted like this in either netflix or the books, and in the books where they are actually friends, they do not treat each other like this and there is nothing to suggest that if they had a romantic relationship that their dynamic would change to fit this idea of what romance is like.

similarly, dandelion’s floweriness and “hyper-romance” (i have no idea how else to phrase it) in the books has been interpreted by some american fans as being genuine, cute, sweet, romantic, and admirable -- when it’s pretty clear that the intention is to make him look foolish and absurd. when he flirts with women such as detchka in eternal flame (the landlord’s daughter), he whines some bullshit (UK translation, made even more flowery and out-of-place by david french, “Forest dryad! Sylph! Fairy! O, Divine creature, with eyes like azure lakes. Thou art as exquisite as the morn, and the shape of thine parted lips are enticeingly…”) geralt and dudu (in the form of dainty) cringe at his performance. and this is who dandelion is, he plays with love and acts embarassingly dramatic and forward about it. but to an american audience, this behavior comes off as sweet, romantic, dreamy, desirable... not utterly stupid like it’s intended to?

i also think about geralt and yennefer. this is barring actual qualms about the writing of their relationship itself, but i have also seen american fans say that they do not act like a couple because they are not constantly doting on one another. and of course, misinterpreting yennefer’s sarcasm about the house dream in time of contempt as a genuine response (i do believe she also longed for a home, but was simply teasing geralt for being so optimistic as to think that they could ever achieve something like that, as it seems improbable (especially to her, as she is older than him and has seen more of life)).

bringing it back to what you have said, anon, i think “romance” is something the american audience definitely bangs their fists on the table to demand, and focuses very closely on couple relationships. not that this isn’t the case in ANY other countries’ cultures, but from my experience, a tie in for deep, blinding romance it seems to be essential to american storytelling. this is unfortunate to me because i believe romance is only one element which makes the witcher strong.

this attitude is also highly reflected in netflix’s witcher series, as they did not show how geralt and jaskier are close friends, did not show how geralt is ciri’s father, and did show geralt and yennefer together, BUT with the caveat that they ruined their entire relationship and made geralt insanely dominant, merciless in rebuking and taking advantage of yennefer. romance is prioritized and it’s only a certain type of romance that is...?

i invite more discussion on this post, if anyone else has thoughts, reblog at will

#ask #anon #the witcher #the witcher netflix #me: 'i dont have much to add' / me: [adds]

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thetwistedrope · 4 years

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Hello, regarding the YHWH spirits they have been reported to me by a professional occultist. He said he had visited my astral space and found out thousand of spirits related to YHWH who were trying to deceive me, to enslave me etc... He's also said I had even one on my third eye filtering my psychic visions... I have to say it's been years that I practice cartomancy and all my results always turn out to be manipulated. Because the cards always rule in favor of my enemies.

They always say completely nonsensical things etc. And these answers do not come from my soul so they have to come from somewhere else. That's why I've believed him when he said that I was enslaved by YHWH spirits. I thought they were the ones manipulating my tarot spreads etc. Now this occultist seems completely obsessed with YHWH spirits. I have other enemies which obviously aren't related to YHWH and he still insist that they are YHWH spirits in disguise...

So really I don't know what to think anymore... He has visited my astral space so is it possible that he's made up some spirits who weren't truly there? I'm unable to astral travel so I can not check. Besides he's told me that the spirits were cloaked. I just wonder if it's possible that he made up all these spirits? That it'd all come from his imagination? All of this is really uncanny to me. And once again I have never astral traveled so I don't know how plausible it would be to make things up

I’m probably the worst person to ask, tbh, because I’m always highly suspicious of anything anyone tells me. Over the years, I’ve talked with a lot of people, and people have gotten a lot of impressions about stuff related to me, and its a very rare day indeed when someone says something that actually strikes a note for me.

That is to say that it takes a lot to get past all of my discernment filters, and I tend to caution people to be the same way.

For example, its possible this person didn’t make stuff up, but also just got the wrong idea about whatever they came across. It’s possible there were cloaked entities, but misinterpreted what their intent or purpose was. It’s possible he went to the wrong location astrally. It’s possible he’s just not very good at travel. Any number of things could cause a reading to come out sideways, it’s not always malicious in nature. That being said -- a lot of people suck at what they market themselves to do. You always have to do your due diligence before assuming something is accurate.

That’s also why its imperative to get multiple sources and methods to discern whether something is actually accurate or not. It’s one thing to get one weird reading, its another to get multiple readings from multiple readers and have them all line up similarly in nature.

It’s why it also helps to have people you can sorta bounce ideas around with to ensure that you’re not missing something that is obvious to someone else (caveat: these people have to be willing to tell you you’re off base or wrong, otherwise this becomes dangerous).

All of this is to say that the person who looked into your situation could be right, but he could also be super duper wrong. If I were you, I’d go look into other possibilities, and seek out other means to see what is going on before jumping to any actions or conclusions. Esp if you didn’t make some sort of known contract. Is there even a reason for you to suspect that this is accurate? Why would YHWH send beings after you to begin with? What made you believe there was something wrong that warranted investigating?

These all help you to determine whether what you’re receiving from someone is accurate or not. Once you determine the accuracy, then you can begin to come up with an action plan -- if one is even warranted.

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paleorecipecookbook · 6 years

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Will a Low-Carb Diet Shorten Your Life?

Last week, a new study was published in The Lancet that claimed to find that both very-low- and very-high-carb diets shorten our lifespan. Predictably, the mainstream media jumped on this finding without doing a shred of due diligence—more on that below—and we were subjected to splashy headlines like this:

Low-carb diets could shorten life, study suggests (BBC News)

Low and high carb diets increase risk of early death, study finds (CNN)

Low-carb diet may cut years off life, study suggests (Newsweek)

Your low-carb diet could be shortening your life (Fast Company)

Paleo fail: meat-heavy low-carbohydrate diets can shorten lifespan, researchers say (South China News)

I’ve been writing about health and nutrition for more than a decade now, and without fail, at least once a year a study like this is published. I could set my watch to it.

Understandably, my Twitter, Facebook, and email accounts blow up with messages from concerned readers, who want to know if the diet they are following is going to kill them.

Each year, my response is the same: no, your nutrient-dense, whole-foods diet that includes animal products is not going to give you a heart attack, increase your risk of cancer or other chronic diseases, or shorten your lifespan. In fact, it’s likely to have the opposite effect.

Why Eating Low Carb Won't Kill You

This year, it’s no different. In this article, I’m going to give you seven reasons why you should take the recent Lancet study with a huge grain of salt. If you’ve been following my work for some time, I hope you’ll recognize many of the shortcomings of the study, because you’ve seen them before:

Using observational data to draw conclusions about causality

Relying on inaccurate food frequency questionnaires (FFQs)

Failing to adjust for confounding factors

Focusing exclusively on diet quantity and ignoring quality

Meta-analyzing data from multiple sources

Unfortunately, this study has already been widely misinterpreted by the mainstream media, and that will continue because:

Most media outlets don’t have science journalists on staff anymore

Even so-called “science journalists” today seem to lack basic scientific literacy

The devil is always in the details, but details aren’t sexy and don’t generate clicks.

Most people—medical professionals and the general public alike—will just read the sensationalized headlines and assume that they are true. The percentage of the population that will find their way to a critique of the study like this, read it in its entirety, and comprehend it, is disappointingly low. This is what we’re up against. So, if you are reading this, please share it with anyone that you think would benefit.

Are you concerned about recent news regarding low-carb diets? Don’t be. Here’s why eating low carb isn’t likely to shorten your lifespan.

With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at the issues with this study.

1. The Data Were Observational, and Significant Caveats Apply

As I explained in a podcast called “A Beginner’s Guide to Scientific Research,” an observational study is one that draws inferences about the effect of an exposure or intervention on subjects where the researcher or investigator has no control over the subject. It’s not an experiment where they are directing a specific intervention (like a low-carb diet) and making things happen. Instead, the researchers are just looking at populations of people and making guesses about the effects of a diet or lifestyle variable.

An example of an observational study would be in comparing rates of lung cancer in smokers and nonsmokers. They might look retrospectively at groups of people who smoke and groups of people who don’t smoke, see what the rates of lung cancer are in each of those groups, and then draw some conclusions.

Repeat After Me: Correlation Is Not Causation

One of the key things to understand about observational studies is that you can’t establish causation from observational studies. You can establish a correlation or an association between two variables, but you can’t establish causation conclusively.

If you take a class on research methodology, you’ll often hear some silly examples of how observational data can be misinterpreted. Consider the statement, “The more firefighters that are sent to a fire, the more damage gets done.” Obviously that’s not how it works. It’s not that more firefighters are causing the damage. It’s that when fires are worse, more firefighters are required to fight it, so the causation there is reversed.

Another one would be, “Children who get tutored get worse grades than children who don’t get tutored.” Again, the causality is reversed. Children who are not getting good grades are more likely to hire tutors, or their parents will.

Consider a more relevant example. For decades, observational research suggested a correlation between dietary cholesterol intake and heart disease. This led to public health recommendations to limit cholesterol in the diet and generations of people unnecessarily torturing themselves with egg white omelettes (or even worse, Egg Beaters!), boneless, skinless chicken breasts, and (gasp!) margarine. Today, we now know that dietary cholesterol does not contribute to an increased risk of heart disease, and virtually all industrialized countries in the world—including the United States as of 2016—do not suggest limits to intake of cholesterol in their dietary guidelines.

It boils down to this: observational studies are good for generating hypotheses, not for proving that a specific variable causes a specific outcome.

To do that, you need a randomized, controlled trial (RCT). In an RCT, study participants are randomly assigned to two groups: a treatment group that receives the intervention being studied, and a control group that does not. The participants are then observed for a specific period of time.

This Lancet study was observational, not experimental. They simply observed participants over a 25-year period and assessed outcomes. As we’ll discuss below, this creates significant potential for error when attempting to draw conclusions.

2. The Study Data Came From Questionnaires, Not Observation of What Participants Ate

Do you accurately remember what you ate on March 15th, 2014? How about during the month of November 2015? I didn’t think so. Yet this is exactly the methodology in the studies analyzed in this report to determine participants’ carbohydrate intake.

More specifically, the underlying studies used FFQs. In an FFQ, researchers ask participants how much they ate of certain foods over a given time period. Not surprisingly, FFQs have been criticized for their inaccuracy for several reasons: (1, 2)

People tend to underreport foods socially considered “bad,” like red meat and alcohol

People overreport foods socially considered “good,” such as vegetables and fruits

People may not know all the ingredients in restaurant or prepared foods

People don’t weigh or otherwise measure portion sizes

People find tracking every bite and meal inconvenient

People are human and just can’t remember every little thing they eat

People’s diets tend to change over long periods of time

Also, as you might suspect, the further back in the past participants are asked to recall their diet, the less accurate an FFQ will be. In the Lancet study, the subjects’ diets were only assessed twice throughout a 25-year period, separated by an interval of six years.

This means that people were asked to report on what they ate over a previous six-year period. And even then, the FFQs only covered 12 years of that 25-year period.

So, one way to think about the Lancet paper is that it’s an analysis of self-reported answers on two questionnaires about how much carbohydrate participants ate over a period of a quarter century.

3. Confounding Factors Were Not Adequately Controlled For

One of the biggest problems with observational studies is that it can be difficult, if not impossible, to isolate the influence of a single variable. Human beings don’t live in highly controlled environments, and there are numerous factors that impact our health and lifespan, ranging from genetics to air and water quality, from socioeconomic status to lifestyle and behavior.

This is why most nutritional studies are met with heavy criticism. A recent article from the Mayo Clinic Proceedings even claimed that because nutrition studies “cannot be reliably, accurately, and independently observed, quantified, and confirmed or refuted,” they do not follow the scientific method and should be regarded as “pseudoscience” at best. (3)

Let’s use a simple example. Imagine you’re a scientist and you want to find out whether eating red meat increases the risk of heart attack. You recruit participants and ask them to track how much red meat they consume over 20 years. Then, you measure how many heart attacks occurred throughout the study period.

When examining the data, you notice a strong correlation between red meat consumption and heart attack. In other words, the people who ate the most red meat were the most likely to have a heart attack, and the people that ate the least red meat were the least likely to have a heart attack.

Case closed, right? Not so fast. What if the people who ate the most red meat were also more likely to smoke cigarettes, have high blood pressure and diabetes, eat more refined carbohydrates and sugar, not eat vegetables, and not exercise? In this scenario, it’s impossible to know whether the higher rate of heart attacks was caused by eating more red meat, any of these other single factors, or a combination of some or all of them.

The Healthy User Bias

The scenario I just mentioned is not hypothetical—it’s incredibly common. It’s so common, in fact, that it even has a name: the “healthy user bias.” I discussed this in detail in a 2014 podcast called “Heart Attacks and Red Meat—Correlation or Causation?,” but here’s the short version. People who engage in a behavior perceived as healthy are more likely to engage in other behaviors that are also perceived as healthy, and vice versa.

So, because red meat has been perceived as “unhealthy” for so many years, on average, people that eat more red meat are more likely to:

Smoke

Drink too much

Eat too much sugar

Not exercise, etc.

Of course, most researchers are well aware of the influence of confounding factors and the healthy user bias, and the good ones do their best to control for as many of these factors as they can. But even in the best studies, researchers can’t control for all possible confounding factors, because our lives are simply too complex.

In the Lancet paper, researchers included a study if it controlled for at least three of the following factors:

Age

Sex

Obesity

Smoking status

Diabetes

Hypertension

Hypercholesterolemia

History of cardiovascular disease

Family history of cardiovascular disease

That’s a step in the right direction. However, it still leaves huge room for confounding factors and healthy user bias. For example, say one of the studies controlled for age, sex, and whether participants were obese. That still leaves many factors—smoking status, diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, history of cardiovascular disease—that could affect the outcome.

It opens up the possibility that people who were following a very-low-carb diet were more likely to have an underlying health condition like diabetes, hypertension, or high cholesterol, or that they were more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors like smoking. And in fact, that’s exactly what happened in the Lancet study. According to the authors:

“Participants who consumed a relatively low percentage of total energy from carbohydrates (i.e., participants in the lowest quantiles) were more likely to be young, male, a self-reported race other than black, college graduates, have high body mass index, exercise less during leisure time, have high household income, smoke cigarettes, and have diabetes.” [emphasis added]

That’s not surprising, is it? People who follow diets—whether very-low-carb or very-high-carb—are far more likely to have some kind of health problem that led them to start the diet in the first place. Unfortunately, this study didn’t adequately control for this almost certain fact.

This is bad enough. But it gets worse when you consider the confounding variables that weren’t even on the researchers’ list, such as:

The amount of fresh fruits and vegetables consumed

The amount of sugar they consumed

The quality of protein, fat, and carbohydrate they consumed

How much physical activity they engaged in

The question of diet quality—whether the person was eating primarily fresh, whole, nutrient-dense food or highly processed, refined food—is especially important. In the United States, we know from other research that the majority of Americans eat mostly processed and refined food. For example, a study published this year found that 60 percent of the calories Americans consume come from not just processed food—but ultra-processed food. These foods do not impact the body in the same way that fresh, whole foods do. I’ll discuss this more below.

4. Macronutrient Quality Is More Important Than Quantity

Researchers have long debated whether low-fat or low-carbohydrate diets are best for weight loss and overall health. Regardless of the macronutrient content, however, most long-term studies have reported little success in achieving and maintaining significant weight loss. In 2016, I wrote an article called “Carbohydrates: Why Quality Trumps Quantity,” in which I argued that the answer to obesity and metabolic disease lies not in how much carbohydrate we eat, but rather what types of carbohydrate we eat.

Earlier this year, a landmark study published in JAMA supported this argument and suggested that the same principles apply to fats. The researchers found that on average, people who cut back on added sugar, refined grains, and processed food lost weight over 12 months—regardless of whether the diet was low carb or low fat.

I wrote about this study in detail in an article called “Why Quality Trumps Quantity When It Comes to Diet.” Here’s the TL;DR: when the subjects focused on real, whole foods and cut processed foods out of their diet, they lost significant weight, without having to count calories or restrict energy intake.

Now, this study focused on weight loss, but it’s ludicrous to assume that the same distinction between real, whole foods and processed, refined foods wouldn’t apply to a study looking at longevity.

Consider two hypothetical people:

A person on a low-carb diet that eats primarily refined fats like industrialized seed oils (found in most processed foods and in foods cooked in restaurants)

A person on a low-carb diet that eats primarily natural fats from fresh, whole foods (meat, fish, avocados, nuts, seeds, etc.) prepared mostly at home

Is it logical to predict that these two people will enjoy the same health, protection from disease, and lifespan? Of course not. Yet that is exactly what the Lancet study did assume.

Decades of nutrition research have myopically focused on the quantity of protein, fat, and carbohydrate we eat, without considering the quality. In my mind, this is perhaps the single biggest shortcoming of the bulk of nutrition research.

5. It’s Possible to Follow a Diet That Is Both Low in Carbohydrates and High in Fresh, Nutrient-Dense Foods

It should be clear by now that the participants that were following a low-carb diet were not following a Paleo-type low-carb diet that is rich in natural, whole foods. The researchers themselves point this out:

“By contrast, the animal-based low carbohydrate dietary score was associated with lower average intake of both fruit and vegetables (appendix pp 9, 10).”

But of course it doesn’t have to be that way. A common misconception of the Paleo diet is that it’s “meat heavy,” rather than “plant based.” But consider someone who is abstaining from eating grains, dairy products, and processed and refined foods.

What might their plate consist of? A serving of protein (fish, poultry, meat), and typically two to three servings of non-starchy vegetables. Depending on their carbohydrate intake, they may also eat whole fruits (especially those lower in sugar, like fresh berries) and even starchy tubers like sweet potatoes and yams that are relatively low in carbohydrates. These foods will often be supplemented with healthy fats like nuts, seeds, avocados, or olives.

This is NOT the diet that was studied in the Lancet paper. Therefore, if this is the diet that you’re eating, the results in that paper do not apply to you.

6. Humans Can Thrive on a Variety of Macronutrient Ratios—as Long as They’re Eating Whole Foods

The Lancet study suggested that the optimal range of carbohydrate intake for a lengthy lifespan is between 50 and 55 percent of calories. Is it plausible to assume that humans can only live for a long time within such a narrow range of carbohydrate consumption? No.

That would have put us at a significant evolutionary disadvantage. Humans evolved in diverse environments around the world, and studies of contemporary hunter–gatherer populations demonstrate that we can thrive on a broad range of macronutrient ratios as long as we are following a traditional, whole-foods diet.

Carbohydrate Intake Varies in Ancestral Diets

For example, the Kitavan Islanders of Melanesia live as horticulturists, with little access to Western foods. Carbohydrates make up 60 to 70 percent of their energy intake (higher than the recommended 50–55 percent range in the Lancet study), much of that coming from fruit or tubers with a fairly high glycemic index. (4) Their saturated fat intake is also high.

Yet despite obvious similarity between Kitavan and Western diets in both macronutrient composition and glycemic index, Kitavans boast levels of fasting insulin and blood glucose that are even lower than the levels deemed healthy in Western populations. (5, 6) They also have lower levels of leptin and a virtual absence of diabetes, atherosclerosis, and excess weight. (7, 8, 9)

On the other end of the spectrum, analyses of hunter–gatherer populations, including the Masai, Kavirondo, and Turkhana, suggest that a low-carb diet (between 22 and 40 percent of calories, again lower than the 50 to 55 percent range in the Lancet study) with high intake of unprocessed meat and saturated fat does not result in poor cardiovascular or metabolic health. (10) (For more on this, see my special report on the truth about red meat.)

Critics of the Paleo diet and ancestral nutrition claim that there’s no point in studying what hunter–gatherers eat, because they all die when they’re 40 years old. This is incorrect, as I explain in this video.

While it is true that, on average, hunter–gatherers have shorter lifespans than people living in the modern, industrialized world, those averages don’t consider important challenges that are largely absent from modern life: high rates of infant and early childhood mortality (30 to 100 times higher) and deaths to trauma, warfare, and exposure to the elements, most of which are caused by a complete lack of emergency medical care.

Yet anthropological studies of modern hunter–gatherers have shown that when they have access to even the most rudimentary form of medical care (think a half-day’s walk to a rural clinic), they live life spans roughly equivalent to our own. (11, 12) But in contrast to us, they reach these ages without acquiring many of the chronic, inflammatory diseases that characterize our old age—like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and Alzheimer’s.

Consider two articles recently published in The New York Times examining the absence of chronic disease in the Tsimané, a subsistence farming and hunter–gatherer population in Bolivia.

The first article, Learning from Our Parents’ Heart Health Mistakes, reported on a study showing that the Tsimané have a prevalence of atherosclerosis 80 percent lower than ours in the United States and that nine in 10 Tsimané adults aged 40 to 94 had completely clean arteries and no risk of heart disease. (Note that the study included adults between 40 and 94 years of age; clearly they are not all dying when they’re 40!)

In a follow-up article, researchers even put to rest the old canard that hunter–gatherers don’t have “diseases of civilization” like diabetes and cardiovascular disease because they don’t live long enough to develop them:

“The Tsimané suffer from high infant-mortality rates, but those who reach adulthood live about as long as most other people, making it possible to measure their health outcomes up to age 90 and beyond.”

This in spite of the fact that the Tsimané have high rates of infection with parasites, and consume 72 percent of calories from carbohydrates—far higher than the 50 to 55 percent range suggested in the Lancet paper.

7. Meta-Analyzing Data From Multiple and Heterogeneous Sources Opens the Door to Confirmation Bias

A meta-analysis is the statistical procedure for combining data from multiple studies. They play an important role in research, but they’re also plagued with several disadvantages, which Wikipedia does a good job of summarizing. They include publication bias, statistical challenges, and, most relevant to this discussion, an “agenda-driven bias”:

“The most severe fault in meta-analysis often occurs when the person or persons doing the meta-analysis have an economic, social, or political agenda such as the passage or defeat of legislation. People with these types of agendas may be more likely to abuse meta-analysis due to personal bias. For example, researchers favorable to the author's agenda are likely to have their studies cherry-picked while those not favorable will be ignored or labeled as "not credible." In addition, the favored authors may themselves be biased or paid to produce results that support their overall political, social, or economic goals in ways such as selecting small favorable data sets and not incorporating larger unfavorable data sets. The influence of such biases on the results of a meta-analysis is possible because the methodology of meta-analysis is highly malleable.”

Another term for agenda-driven bias is “confirmation bias.” This is defined by Wikipedia as "the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or theories.”

Was this an issue in the Lancet paper? While we can’t be sure, it’s certainly a possibility. The paper was published by a research group that included Walter Willett, a physician and researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health who is notorious for his advocacy of a low-fat, plant-based diet. This alone is not necessarily cause to suspect confirmation bias.

However, in an unprecedented turn of events, Willett was censured in an editorial and feature article in the prestigious journal Nature for “promoting over-simplification of scientific results in the name of public health and engaging in unseemly behavior towards those who venture conclusions that differ to his.” (13)

Willett co-authored a study claiming to link aspartame with cancer, but the study was retracted by Harvard at the last minute because the data did not support that conclusion. Meanwhile, the damage had already been done by sensational media headlines like “Aspartame Causes Cancer.” Sound familiar?

In an interview with NBC News about this incident, Dr. Steven Nissen, chair of Cleveland Clinic’s Cardiovascular Medicine Department, said:

“Promoting a study that its own authors agree is not definite, not conclusive and not useful for the public is not in the best interests of public health.”

What’s more, it later became clear that this study had been rejected by six journals, before finally being published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, where—surprise, surprise—Willett is a member of the editorial board.

Unfortunately, this is the reality of medical research today. I’ve written extensively about how financial conflicts of interest and fraud impact scientific findings (see “Behind the Veil: Conflicts of Interest and Fraud in Medical Research,” and “Why Are Scientists and the Public So Often At Odds?”).

But don’t take it from me. In a 2009 article called “Drug Companies & Doctors: A Story of Corruption,” a physician, the former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, said:

“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.”

Consider, also, a paper called “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False,” by John Ioannidis, a Professor of Medicine and of Health Research and Policy at Stanford University School of Medicine and a Professor of Statistics at Stanford University School of Humanities and Sciences.

Ioannidis explains that in many research papers, “Claimed findings may be accurate measures of the prevailing bias.” Clearly, he struck a nerve; this paper is now the most widely cited paper ever published in the journal PLOS Medicine.

In other words, most published research findings support the status quo; they’re not necessarily based on solid evidence. Often, the research that builds on an initial study ends up perpetuating questionable findings. It’s like building a house of cards: a paper gets published that references another paper; then, a third paper gets published that references that second paper, which referenced that first paper, and so on. The assumption is that the evidence in that first paper was correct—but what if it’s not? The edifice of peer-reviewed research is not as perfect as we tend to believe.

If you’re still with us, congratulations! You now have a clearer grasp of the problems with most nutrition studies than the vast majority of journalists working today. My hope is that, armed with this knowledge, you can protect yourself from sensationalized headlines that are based on agenda-driven, poorly designed studies—and continue to follow whatever version of a nutrient-dense, whole-foods diet works best for you.

What are your thoughts on this study? Are you currently following a low-carb diet? Let me know below in the comments.

The post Will a Low-Carb Diet Shorten Your Life? appeared first on Chris Kresser.

Source: http://chriskresser.com August 21, 2018 at 09:13PM

#paleo #recipe #food #delicious #healthy #yum #diet

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torritgrey · 3 years

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Retouch varnish

Susan yes, I have. Nothing bad will happen. That is the intended application. You can even apply a final varnish over a retouch varnish. That is what I do when I want to get one out quickly... I use a retouch varnish and then tell the client that the painting can be given a final varnish down the road if desired. If you need to send something to a show quickly you can do this too... then give the pieces their final varnish 6 months or so later.

One way you can look at a retouch varnish is as a sort of faux varnish. It unifies the surface sheen like a normal varnish does but remains workable and allows oxygen to permeate the surface. The ability of the retouch varnish to "breathe" in that sense allows you to apply it once the surface has become touch-dry. A normal varnish is never recommended at that stage because it seals off oxygen from the painting, and that's what leads to cracking over time if the paint under the surface hasn't cured yet.

I feel that Gamvar, since you mentioned it, is widely misunderstood. I even misinterpreted it when I was learning. It isn't like a retouch varnish. It doesn't breathe. Too many people are under the misconception that it does and that you can apply Gamvar as soon as your painting becomes touch-dry. While it is true that some paintings can get an application of Gamvar at that stage, the vast majority of them cannot. The reason lies within one small caveat -- the surface has to be touch-dry AND the thickest area of paint in the work has to be firm. Basically what it means is that only the thinnest applications of paint will be ready for Gamvar after a few weeks. The rest need to wait a while, up to the recommended 6-months. Impasto applications need to be checked over time. You need to be able to poke them with a paper clip or something (Gamblin recommends a fingernail but I don't know that I'd ever do that) and make sure that the paint is indeed firm and not still mushy. *** I'd recommend it over other options simply because it's easier and it doesn't support less than optimal practices for your painting.Anyone who follows my posts can tell you that I don't support using mediums without justifiable reasons. This doesn't mean I am saying that other views or practices are incorrect, but if anyone asks me I always tell them to serve the painting. Oiling out a painting after it's finished doesn't serve the painting... it only serves the varnish. Since a varnish isn't necessary, neither is oiling out post-painting. That isn't what oiling out is supposed to be for, after all.Some, including Gamblin themselves, will argue that oiling out this way restores the surface and prepares it to accept a varnish. This is not false, but the truth is that it isn't an optimal move. Rather it seems to be only a fix for deeper issues and problems with the structure of the painting itself, many of which can be avoided with best painting practices.If you (a) prepare your canvas correctly before you start, (b) oil out between layers properly, and (c) follow the fat over lean guidelines, you'll probably never find yourself in a situation where you need to coat the painting with oil after it's finished. Adding a layer of pure oil (without pigment in it) to a painting serves no purpose other than to add an unnecessary coat of fat. A varnish, by itself, is supposed to unify the surface. If it doesn't, you likely need to look back into how you've structured the painting...Remember, colors sink due to absorption into the substrate (painting surface). If you prep your surface well enough it will not absorb excess oil, and therefore greatly reduce the amount of color sinking, and that reduces the likelihood that you'll even need to oil out at all. Of course you can do it, but it is only meant to restore oil to sunken areas while you are creating the painting, not after you've finished it. I usually find that I only need to do it between the first and second layers.

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roundthatcorner · 7 years

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“I said what I said, and it was wrong, or it was taken wrong, and now it's all this...”

BASICALLY.

So the furor, such as it is, that has resulted from a fairly innocuous post of mine seems to have taken on a bit of a life of its own, so I feel somewhat responsible and need to address certain things. A lot of what's been said seems frankly disconnected from anything I actually wrote, so I'm going to cover some but not all of the misconceptions – particular themes have been chosen because honestly some of the ideas I've been credited with are quite hurtful, to me personally and I think to a few other people. I'm not 'at'-ing people because I'm not sure it would be at all fruitful or worthwhile to do so, and I'm not going to rebut things line-by-line because that seems more counterproductive than anything. My goal here is to hopefully dampen 'the controversy' (again, such as it is!) rather than inflame it.

On the one hand, I stand by the bulk of what I said – there's been some serious misinterpretations going around, some of which are genuinely baffling – but I can also see that my tone and my contextualization could have been improved. I do 'read' a little bratty or something in that post, which is something I should try to improve upon in the future. As for this post, I'm trying to essentially be the opposite of how I sounded there – be, like, very straightfoward and emotionally open and hopefully not stick my foot in it, or whatever. I'm basically a pathologically shy and conflict averse person, and totally just hoped that this would blow over, so all of this is way beyond my comfort zone. I hope people will see that this post is very much heartfelt, and imbue their reading of it with some generosity towards me and my intentions.

Anyways, the bulk of it, in which I pick out those misinterpretations that I would find it particularly upsetting to let stand as somehow representative of how I think:

a) Re John and being a fan: I love John. I can seriously count on one hand the number of people I love and admire more than John, and the subset under consideration for that isn't, like, 'famous people I like' or 'musicians', it's 'everybody who has ever existed.' I quite simply adore John and if I didn't I wouldn't expend the effort I do into trying to understand him. The implication that I can't possibly be a Beatles 'fan' (said in quotes, no less! Super disheartening), let alone a longtime fan is quite bizarre and insulting. I mean, I think there's a base presumption of 'grace' we should try to extend to other fans: none of us think any of them were or are irredeemable; we are all here because we love them; we all want to see them clearly and fairly. I am (clearly!) not some troll shouting 'John sux!' or whatever. It's not a mark of love for me or anyone to refuse to see John as he was – and by this I don't mean that not seeing John exactly as I do is a failure of anyone else, or deliberate, or that my interpretation is accurate, or whatever, just that FOR ME to limit my interpretation in order to 'keep' John sufficiently lovable or whatever would be silly. John was/is plenty lovable! I don't need to 'protect' myself from whatever dark places may have existed in his mind because I am entirely capable (as I think we all are) of loving him through that (not in spite of that, but THROUGH it, with empathy for him). I don't have to love or accept everything about John to love him – I don't have to love Yoko, or heroin, or Allen Klein, or stupid anti-Semitic cracks, or whatever (which is not to compare those things straightforwardly – obviously – but to make the point that it's okay to dislike things John liked!). We don't owe it to him as fans to make excuses for him; what we owe him is the same as what we owe any human being, which is just to try to understand where he's coming from. That's all that I was trying to do in my post – just delineate the thought processes he may have been having. I don't think I need to surround every discussion about John with 5 dozen caveats about his mental health issues or drug use simply because I have assumed that we all know these things and accept them as the (only) basis for further conversation (and actually I did reference both of those as clear sources of his behavior – I don't know that I can much more explicitly reference his suffering mental health than to say he was experiencing a break with reality). Furthermore, the idea that John's behavior during the final years of the Beatles was at least in part based on virulent paranoia directed at Paul as well as a desire to punish him is not something I came up with – it's a somewhat standard interpretation at this point. Even Paul (who also manages to love John while acknowledging his faults!) has admitted that John became very paranoid, jealous, neurotic, etc. Michael Gerber from Hey Dullblog once commented something like, to paraphrase, the hardest thing to accept as Beatles fans is that John broke up the Beatles and he did it willfully and deliberately...I don't know that that's THE hardest, but it's certainly up there. It's incredibly emotionally draining to consider the dynamics at work during the break-up, but I also think it's worthwhile to do so as honestly as we can, because we love them all so much and because they have so much to teach us, even when it's through this painful, agonizing shit.

b) Re things assumed about me or what-have-you: It strikes me as really quite unfair to assume that because I've never discussed certain things on this blog (or in that specific post), that I don't understand or have never experienced them and am coming at them from a position of somewhat cruel disengagement or w/e. The title of the blog isn't 'Bisexuality, Mental Illness, Drug Addiction & Me', so I really didn't consider it under the purview and have generally refrained from inserting too much of 'myself' (or at least myself non-filtered through Beatles). I don't talk about feminism, or cats, or Mad Men or make-up or agile software development or robotic vacuums because despite my interest in all of them, that's not the intention of my tumblr. Nevertheless, some grotesque oversharing in hopes of re-assembling/salvaging some of what's been misconstrued:

- I am bisexual...too...like many people are. This gets back to the whole 'text doesn't always telegraph meaning particularly well', but the paragraph for which I was criticized for sounding like a Nat Geo narrator or w/e...as I was writing it I was actually getting quite emotional thinking of...John, like, maybe discovering his sexuality at 16, because that was the exact age where I was literally writing in my diary in cryptic little coded comments about being attracted to girls, and then blacking the comments out and tearing them out of the journal and ripping them up because I was SO fucking ashamed and scared and alone with all of it. Basically, I am not at all looking at this from the perspective of an outsider, let alone a heteronormative outsider.

- To be accused or w/e of not understanding or being unsympathetic to mental illness is more than a little ironically funny to me, because literally the reason I started this blog, writing fics, etc is because after over a decade on anti-depressants, I went off them about six months ago (lest this too be misconstrued, I am not advocating this (or un-advocating it), it simply is). My brain has therefore been 'allowed' to loop incessantly/unconstrainedly on the Beatles for the first time since I was fifteen – so mental illness is quite literally why I'm here! Funny stuff. I don't want or need or feel obliged to go into much more detail about this, so let it suffice to say that I have deep understanding and sympathy for mentally ill people, for John in particular, and I fully appreciate the impact of mental illness on a person's behavior, and any flippancy is, ah, semi-literally gallows humor.

- If I sound hardened or unsympathetic with regard to drug addictions...it's partially because I am on some level. I invite anyone who takes issue with this to go re-live their childhood with the trauma of multi-generational drug and alcohol abuse that I lived with, because I will guess that anyone who is less than saintly, as we all are, will end up just as jaded about it as I am, just from the inescapable daily grind of taking care of addicts. Sorry to sound fairly bitchy about this point, but...idk, man, it's always really really difficult to have people be like, “have you considered their feelings? Have you devoted enough of your life to ritually gutting yourself on the pyre of this or that person's addiction?” Like, yes? Sorry, all the mornings where I had to make sure my dad hadn't choked to death on his vomit before I got on the school bus have kind of drained my sympathy. Nonetheless, some of my favorite people are junkies...

c) Re Linda and Paul: I would never disrespect their relationship, and this is far and away the most upsetting thing to have people skew, because I admire what they were able to create and sustain SO much – it means so much to me in terms of what is possible even from the blackest fucking depths. Linda could have been another Francie, or Heather Mills, or Yoko, and GOSH, how much fucking poorer the world would have been, how much darker. Linda and his kids gave Paul something to live for, a whole second life after the center fell out of his first. They were actually able to make a happy life that was snatched from total chaos and despair – that's so incredible and awe-worthy to me. When I said that Paul chose Linda over dying, I was not putting down their relationship, or devaluing it or her (I think she is maybe the most admirable person in all of Beatle-dom), or anything even remotely like that. For me, there is no deeper compliment to give someone than to say that they chose to keep going when they could've died. I mean, compliment is not even the word for it, I honestly don't think I have the capacity to express this..but, like, this is soul-deep for me, the deepest, sincerest possible feeling. I derive enormous comfort and strength on literally a daily basis from the choice Paul made in the winter of 1970. Believe me when I say I would never denigrate Paul's experience or Linda's role in it or the love and commitment they showed each other.

d) Re interpretation versus facts: There's some criticism based on me presenting my ideas as facts. I don't think I did this – I couched the thing repeatedly with 'conjecture' (in all caps!), 'my interpretation', 'I think', 'maybe' and 'may', 'a range of possibilities', 'possibly', 'presumably', 'might', etc. I was not presenting what I said as verifiable fact but as my evolving understanding of what may have happened. Besides...all of us are here because we think there was or could have been a romantic/sexual component to John & Paul's relationship. This is not something that is at all verifiable (and it even very often requires that we assume people are lying!). Practically everything we say is conjecture based on our very unorthodox interpretation of sometimes conflicting/contradictory/bewildering information, and I am no more (or less) guilty of presenting my ideas as fact than, I think, anyone here.

e) Re Yoko: I get the sense that this was the main initial point of disagreement in all of this, and the rest of it was kind of...throwing stuff and seeing what stuck (unfortunately some of it seems to have). This is actually the only intractable issue – it's not one based on misunderstanding or a failure on my part to be clear enough. I dislike Yoko exactly as much (or more!) as I conveyed in the original post, and I have good reason for it. Pretty much every day of my life I learn something about her or about the world, relationships, responsibility, children, how a person should treat others, etc, that makes her behavior that much more noxious, inexcusable, and reproachable. Once upon a time I was thirteen and believed wholeheartedly in the Ballad of John & Yoko narrative – but as an adult, I simply can't countenance it. If we were not talking about 'John and Yoko' but rather about 'Joe and Sally Schmoe', or my brother and his girlfriend, or the next case on the docket in the local family court, there would be no question that this was a profoundly unhealthy and damaging relationship. Like...are most love affairs as enormously, relentlessly destructive as theirs was? Is there anyone from John's pre-1968 life that was allowed to really remain a part of his life post-Yoko? What kind of healthy romantic relationship cuts a person off from everything else? Is 'all that I know is just what you tell me' anything other than a deeply disturbing sentiment? Some of this can be laid at John's feet but on the other hand his 25 year old secretary (as well as every other significant person in his life except for his parents and probably Mimi) was able to coax him into being a BETTER person, whereas he only seemed to become an unhealthier and more damaged person the longer he spent with Yoko (and the feminism thing...like, the most feminist thing he could have done would be sending Cynthia an additional $10,000 a month – 'look at the one you're with' or were with, after all). I can't say that Yoko didn't love John but I will say that she didn't love him well – based on the standards for human relationships and interaction that we are willing to apply to normal people. To quote John Dunbar (who is definitely a longtime John fan!), “If I had set out to destroy John Lennon, I could not have done any better than to introduce him to Yoko Ono.”

If anyone wants to talk any more about this, please message or ask me (I will likely not respond to asks in the interest of not encouraging divisiveness or whatever, but I do appreciate what I’ve been sent). I can't control what anyone posts, obviously, and there are maybe still sensitive and insightful things to be said about some of it, so go ahead if you feel the need. For my part I probably won't engage any further publicly, especially since it's been unhelpfully dug into the ground (over...and over...and over) and there's a certain amount of like...willful misconstruing that's going on that’s just not worth getting into.

And just because it came on shuffle, and because sometimes Paul is exactly what one needs him to be, I'll end by saying:

“Is it better to love than to give in to hate?

Yeah, we'd better take good care of each other,

Avoid slipping back, off the straight and narrow”

#nerves man nerves #if i disappear for a while or longer #don't worry or whatever idk #i am just #easily stressed and over-sensitive #yikes at all of this just yikes #going to go throw up now lol

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shapesnnsizes · 6 years

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Will a Low-Carb Diet Shorten Your Life?

Low-carb diets could shorten life, study suggests (BBC News)

Low and high carb diets increase risk of early death, study finds (CNN)

Low-carb diet may cut years off life, study suggests (Newsweek)

Your low-carb diet could be shortening your life (Fast Company)

Paleo fail: meat-heavy low-carbohydrate diets can shorten lifespan, researchers say (South China News)

I’ve been writing about health and nutrition for more than a decade now, and without fail, at least once a year a study like this is published. I could set my watch to it.

Understandably, my Twitter, Facebook, and email accounts blow up with messages from concerned readers, who want to know if the diet they are following is going to kill them.

Why Eating Low Carb Won't Kill You

Using observational data to draw conclusions about causality

Relying on inaccurate food frequency questionnaires (FFQs)

Failing to adjust for confounding factors

Focusing exclusively on diet quantity and ignoring quality

Meta-analyzing data from multiple sources

Unfortunately, this study has already been widely misinterpreted by the mainstream media, and that will continue because:

Most media outlets don’t have science journalists on staff anymore

Even so-called “science journalists” today seem to lack basic scientific literacy

The devil is always in the details, but details aren’t sexy and don’t generate clicks.

Are you concerned about recent news regarding low-carb diets? Don’t be. Here’s why eating low carb isn’t likely to shorten your lifespan.

With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at the issues with this study.

1. The Data Were Observational, and Significant Caveats Apply

Repeat After Me: Correlation Is Not Causation

carbohydrate intake.