Ten expert predictions about the world in 2025. All of them are wrong

When it comes to predicting the future, you might as well ask an astrologer as a rational expert.

Fintan O'Toole

Tue Dec 31 2024 - 07:05

 

I thought about making some predictions for 2025. And then I had a look at a detailed report drawn up in 2008 by the US National Intelligence Council on what it thought the world would look like in 2025. It drew on “numerous think tanks, consulting firms, academic institutions, and literally hundreds of experts inside and outside governments here in the United States and overseas”.

But it doesn’t mention the possibility of a banking meltdown or Brexit or a Russian invasion of Ukraine or the mass slaughter of Palestinians by Israel. It suggests that “Russia has the potential to be richer, more powerful, and more self-assured in 2025 if it invests in human capital, expands and diversifies its economy, and integrates with global markets.” It imagines that “resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute could engender some stability as the [Middle East] region deals with a strengthening Iran and global transition away from oil and gas”.

Needless to say, Russia has not become more self-assured and it has reversed its integration into the global economy. The Israeli-Palestinian “dispute” has become an ever-deepening bloodbath and Iran is not “strengthening” but rapidly declining.

The American futurists were confident that “new energy technologies probably will not be commercially viable and widespread by 2025″. Pessimism about the potential of solar and wind power to replace carbon fuels was part of the conservative orthodoxy in 2008. It was happily misplaced.

Here are 10 confident predictions about 2025 made at various points over the last decade by serious experts, all of them wrong:

1. The EU will have broken up by 2025. “The European Union might survive in some sense, but European economic, political and military relations will be governed primarily by bilateral or limited multilateral relationships that will be small in scope and not binding. Some states might maintain a residual membership in a highly modified European Union, but this will not define Europe.” (Stratfor Strategic Forecasting, 2015)

2. We will all be living in a world of augmented and virtual reality. “The screen as we know it – on your phone, your computer and your TV – will disappear and be replaced by eyewear. Not the geeky Google Glass, but stylish equivalents to what the well-dressed fashionistas are wearing today. The result will be a massive disruption in a number of industries ranging from consumer retail, to real estate, education, travel, entertainment and the fundamental ways we operate as humans.” (CERN, May 2015)

[ Trump says Ukraine ‘needs to reach deal’ with RussiaOpens in new window ]

3. We will all be ashamed of our carbon footprints. “In 2025, carbon footprints will be viewed as socially unacceptable, much like drink-driving is today.” (World Economic Forum, June 2020) Alas massive personal carbon footprints – private planes, vast houses, hyper-conspicuous consumption – are still all the rage.

4. Critical thinking about technology will have made great advances. “By 2025 I expect our lives to change dramatically … We will start to be more critical about new things but also learn how to turn this critical thinking into decisions. In short, we humans will stop regressing in regard to applying critical thinking and move on to make better decisions about our uses of digital technologies.” (Marvin Borisch, technologist and author, 2021) Not much sign of this in our age of rampant disinformation.

5. Carbon capture will solve the climate crisis. “A scale-up of negative emission technologies, such as carbon dioxide removal, will remove climate-relevant amounts of CO2 from the air [by 2025].” (World Economic Forum, June 2020) Carbon capture technologies remain staggeringly expensive, unproven at scale and have yet to show that they can have a decisive impact on the reversal of climate change.

[ Cop29 deal which includes new ‘climate finance goal’ criticised as ‘utterly inadequate’Opens in new window ]

6. Technological innovations will deliver quick, cheap healthcare to everyone by 2025. “Engineering biology will deliver simple, low-cost diagnostic tests to individuals in every corner of the globe. As a result, morbidity, mortality and costs will decrease in acute conditions, such as infectious diseases, because only the most severe cases will need additional care.” (World Economic Forum, June 2020) Billions of people barely have access to basic healthcare and even in the rich countries (like ours) access to diagnosis and treatment is grossly inequitable.

7. There will be a referendum on a united Ireland. “Let’s have an All-Ireland Forum on Unity to plan for all aspects of reunification, including a referendum by 2025.” (Mary Lou McDonald, January 2020). A Border poll is extremely unlikely to happen before 2030, and will be most probably much later.

8. Homelessness in Ireland will be on the way to being “eradicated”. So claims the Government’s Housing For All strategy, published in September 2021. In fact, there were nearly 5,000 households who had been homeless for more than six months in 2024 and there will almost certainly be many more in 2025.

9. Artificial intelligence will have made us all rich. “Improvements in AI will finally put access to wealth creation within reach of the masses…” (World Economic Forum, June 2020) The current evidence, summarised by the World Development Forum, is that AI will “widen income disparities within countries, benefiting highly skilled workers, displacing lower-skilled jobs in repetitive tasks, and concentrating wealth among those who control the technology.”

[ Leaving Cert students cleared to use AI in research projectsOpens in new window ]

10. “Trump is finished. The future of the Republican Party belongs to Ron de Santis.” This is a headline from the Telegraph in November 2022. Or “Donald Trump is finished as a serious contender for high office.” (New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, November 2022). How’s that working out for y’all?

There’s a reason astrologers, soothsayers and prophets are still thriving – they are no worse at prediction than most rational experts. When it comes to the future, only three things are certain. The first is that human beings have an innate need to attempt to reduce the unknown to rational predictability. The second is that we are usually wrong – or, if we do get it right, it is at least as likely to be the result of fortune as of brilliance. And the third is that all we can really do is to keep trying to make the new years better than the old ones.

 

 

 

 

Μερικές σκέψεις μου για την Αριστερά - στην Ραδιοβάρκα ο Άγρυπνος

 Στον αέρα των Παραπολιτικών 90.1 - με τον Μάνο Τσιλιμίδη

Εδώ μπορείτε να ακούσετε μερικές σκέψεις μου.

Gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata) fed with polar lipids from olive oil industry by-products: Shelf-life, microbiological and physicochemical characteristics during storage at 2 oC

 The Microbe

Available online 7 December 2024, 100222

Highlights

• •
  enriched seabream fed with lipids from olive-oil industry by-products
• •
  microbiota profile of conventional and enriched fish fillets
• •
  both fish exhibited similar microbiological and physicochemical changes

Fintan O’Toole on his career: ‘You had to learn to live with the fact that some people despised you’

From the Irish Times

The Irish Times columnist has made a new documentary about his life for RTÉ. Here he looks back on a career that he began as the Michelangelo of Tipp-Ex

Sometimes, if I was having a bad day at The Irish Times, I would look out of the window of the offices on Tara Street and gaze for a while at the ugliest building in Ireland. Hawkins House, a grey 12-storey pile that embodied the vandalism inflicted on Dublin in the 1960s, has since gone to its grave unmourned. But it was for me a kind of memento mori. If I was tempted by the lure of self-pity, I would remember the many evenings I had spent cleaning the toilets in Hawkins House. I would tell myself again that, whatever the occasional frustrations of journalism, it sure beats working.

As it happened, our family’s main connection to the world of newspapers was through my mother’s job as an office cleaner at the Irish Press, just down by the Liffey at Burgh Quay. She would get up at 5am and cycle in there to empty the overflowing ashtrays and hoover the floors and, I presume, clean the toilets. She would usually be gone before the reporters arrived for the early shift. Though she did sometimes have to wake the great sports writer Con Houlihan when he slept under his desk after a hard night. She had made the mistake on her first morning in the job of calling the security man to say that a tramp had broken in, but Con – a gentle, shy, dishevelled bear of a man – perfectly understood the reasons for her confusion and was not in the least offended.

As well as contributing to our daily bread, the Irish Press, Fianna Fáil’s semi-official journal, was our daily newspaper. My grandfather, who lived with us, was a de Valera man, so it was the Press and its sister papers, the Evening Press and the Sunday Press, that informed us of the happenings of the world. They were read from cover to cover with an intense interest that did not waver between the death notices, the hurling reports and the epic events of global history. In memory, I seem to have moved seamlessly from the children’s page in the Evening Press to David Marcus’s New Irish Writing page on Saturdays, which is where I first read contemporary Irish poetry and short stories.

It was natural, I suppose, for my mother to hope that I might get a job on the Press. No one in my family had gone to university – my parents did not even go to secondary school – so the world of the white-collar professions was very distant. But the newspaper was familiar territory, and it seemed like an obvious possibility for a son who was patently useless at almost everything.

I edited a newspaper at school. I wrote reports for the Irish Union of School Students. (My first publication was a survey we did on the use of corporal punishment.) I got a small prize for an essay submitted for a Council of Europe competition. At University College Dublin I edited the student newspaper imaginatively titled Student. I was obviously on some kind of trajectory, but I had no idea how all of this could become a career or a way of life.

My only real thought was that I would somehow make a living from writing, and, as I didn’t write fiction, this must have meant some kind of journalism. My mother mentioned my proclivities to Vincent Jennings, who edited the Sunday Press, and he offered to see me. He was very nice, and, as my mother and I sat across from him in what I remember as a rather dingy office, he asked me some questions about what I wrote. I babbled something. He looked at my mother sadly and said, “I’m afraid it’s too late. He’ll be too old by the time he leaves UCD.” I should, he said, have gone instead to the College of Commerce in Rathmines to learn shorthand and typing.

It was obvious that he thought I had already acquired too many notions to ever be any use on a newspaper. I remember he used the word “wordsmith”, which I had never heard before, to suggest what he thought I thought I was. I could tell he did not mean it as a compliment. He stood up and shook my hand and wished me luck in the future.

He was quite right too. I never learned shorthand, and I still practise the hunt-and-peck method of typing. Back then I wrote everything out in an appalling scrawl before transferring it, slowly and laboriously, to the page on the huge old second-hand typewriter my parents had bought me for my 18th birthday. My best friend was the little bottle of a white liquid called Tipp-Ex that you brushed on to the page to blot out your mistakes. I was the Michelangelo of Tipp-Ex.

And the truth was that, although my poor mother was very disappointed that I was not good enough for the Press, I would have been much more worried if the editor had told me that, as soon as I got my BA from UCD, there was a job waiting for me as a reporter for de Valera’s papers. Beneath my diffidence and shyness I was an arrogant young pup. I had no clear idea of what a life in journalism could look like for me, but I had a pretty clear idea that it wasn’t that.

The problem really was the journalism that me and my friends were now reading. It was mostly American – Joan Didion’s The White Album, Norman Mailer’s Armies of the Night, Tom Wolfe’s Radical Chic. But it was also Irish: Nell McCafferty and Maeve Binchy, for example, were writing journalism in The Irish Times that was something other than news reporting, that had the voice and the sensibility and the individuality of good fiction. Vincent Browne had established Magill magazine and Gene Kerrigan was writing riveting long-form pieces that fused scrupulously detailed reportage (usually of stories the newspapers did not cover) with the wit and rhythm of hard-boiled detective novels – Philip Marlowe on the mean streets of Dublin.

Artistic Dublin is a small town, and I could not avoid the people I had to write about, sometimes harshly

I was far from such levels of accomplishment, but I was lucky in that I did have a calling card: drama criticism. I had been going to plays since I was 13 or 14, and I liked to write about them, initially just as a way to define my tastes for myself. It was an endeavour where reporting (this is what I saw) could meet opinion (this is what I felt about it). I felt at home on that crossroads because I could never really write anything that did not have a point of view. Words always arrived from an emotional hinterland of deep feelings about life, especially Irish life in all its absurdities and hypocrisies.

I was fortunate, too, that there was a place where these impulses could be pursued in print. John S Doyle and David McKenna were turning In Dublin from a basic listings bulletin into a current-affairs and cultural magazine. I wormed my way in as drama critic and also wrote longer features about social changes, not least the great surge in religious reaction in the 1980s. The money was terrible, but it was a great place to be. The stable of critics – myself, Aidan Dunne, Michael Dervan, Michael Dwyer – would eventually migrate en masse to The Irish Times. The regular writers included Mary Raftery, arguably the most consequential Irish journalist of her generation, and Colm Tóibín. It was a better school in which to learn the ropes than the College of Commerce – at least for the kind of vessel I was interested in sailing.

Theatre criticism also toughened me up. It was actually harder than writing about politics. Artistic Dublin is a small town, and I could not avoid the people I had to write about, sometimes harshly. Some of them – Hugh Leonard, for example – had much more widely read newspaper columns of their own from which to launch furious counterattacks. In the late 1990s I spent three years as drama critic of the Daily News in New York, where the stakes on Broadway were ostensibly higher. But the job was infinitely softer than it was in Dublin, where WB Yeats’s “great hatred, little room” retained its salience and you had to learn to live with the fact that some people despised you. That is an essential part of the education of any serious journalist.

[ From the archive: Fintan O’Toole on Mary Raftery – The woman who opened our eyesOpens in new window ]

For a few years, at least, it was possible to make a kind of living as a journalist in Dublin without writing for the newspapers at all. Magill and In Dublin were thriving – as indeed were Hibernia and Hot Press. Nobody was making a fortune, but Ireland did have a genuinely independent and alternative media. Browne in particular was full of missionary zeal and vibrant mischief, and he was willing to give space to anyone who seemed interesting to him, regardless of age. When he relaunched the Sunday Tribune he gave me my first permanent job. At 25 I was simultaneously arts editor, literary editor, feature writer and drama critic. It was as exciting as it was insane.

The excitement was not just professional. It was also generated by the strange state of Ireland. On the one hand, it was stultifying – Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael had more than 80 per cent of the vote between them, and the Catholic Church still had a lock on all legislation concerning sexuality, education and healthcare. On the other, things were patently falling apart under the pressure of the Troubles, an imploding economy and mass emigration and unemployment. It was not a great place to live, but it was – with its endless ambiguities and contradictions, the gaping distance between official rhetorics and daily realities – a great place to write about.

[ Fintan O’Toole: My personal history of modern IrelandOpens in new window ]

By 1988, when I was 30 and had a spouse, a child and a mortgage, I was ready to become semi-official myself. I had written a pamphlet called The Southern Question for Dermot Bolger’s Raven Arts Press, a most disobliging piece of work about Charles Haughey and the hollowness of faux patriotism that had been read with a certain relish by Dick Walsh, The Irish Times’ redoubtable political editor. He recommended that I be brought in as a columnist, critic and feature writer, and Conor Brady, the paper’s editor, took a chance on me.

There’s also something about Ireland that, I hope, keeps you honest. It’s intimate. Readers are neighbours, acquaintances, fellow citizens

This too was lucky. It meant that I have enjoyed the enormous privilege of never having to work for a media mogul, an egomaniacal tycoon or a political propagandist. Over 36 years I have never had a column spiked or seriously altered for any reason other than the rulings of libel lawyers. A lot of things I’ve written have undoubtedly seemed wrong-headed to editors, but the right to be wrong-headed is part of the paper’s unwritten constitution. Exasperation has never led to threats of expulsion.

This security has also meant that when I’ve written for publications outside Ireland I’ve had the luxury of not working for those I despise. It has been very easy for me to have principles. Bertolt Brecht’s dictum – “food first, then morality” – is the brutal truth. But I haven’t had to choose between feeding my family and writing what I believe.

 

There’s also something about Ireland that, I hope, keeps you honest. It’s intimate. Readers are neighbours, acquaintances, fellow citizens. Until the mobile phone killed the habit, it was not unusual for me to find myself sitting on a bus behind someone reading one of my columns and commenting on what rubbish it was to the companion beside them. Or, occasionally, meeting people for whom something I had written meant a great deal because it gave voice to feelings they had long held but had not felt free to express.

That intimacy mattered because Ireland was shifting, not just on the large scale of economics and identities and national narratives but in the nature of the conversations we were having with ourselves. What could be seen and said and acknowledged and recognised was changing. Reality itself – the specific gravity of our lived and local truths – was being redefined. It was possible to imagine as a journalist that you were taking part in that conversation, even if it was only by making people so cross at you that they had to articulate for themselves what they were so cross about.

I often wonder whether anyone will again have such freedom, such privilege. Newspapers are under such pressure now, in terms both of money and of the nonstop demand for immediacy, of time, that their capacity to indulge arrogant wordsmiths is increasingly limited. But there will always be those of us for whom journalism beats working.

Fintan O’Toole: A Life in Our Times, which draws on his book We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Ireland Since 1958, is on RTÉ One on Wednesday, December 11th, at 9.35pm

 

 

 

 

 

 

Progression in education system and deprivation linked to smoking

 

Study from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland highlights socioeconomic inequalities in smoking rates

 From the Irish Times

Shauna Bowers

Thu Nov 21 2024 - 06:00

 

 

People who have primary-school as their highest educational qualification are 11 times more likely to smoke daily compared to those with postgraduate degrees, new research has found.

The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) on Thursday published a new study which highlighted the socioeconomic inequalities in smoking rates.

The researchers analysed Healthy Ireland survey data from between 2015 and 2022 with the participation of more than 52,000 adults in Ireland.

According to the analysis, about 20 per cent of people who did not attain further educational qualifications after primary school smoked daily, compared to about 5 per cent of postgraduates — making them 11 times more likely to take up this habit.

The researchers also found those in the most deprived areas are four times more likely to be daily smokers than residents in affluent areas.

Although overall smoking rates in Ireland have declined, socioeconomic inequalities persist and are worsening among the least educated groups and residents in the most disadvantaged areas, the research found.

Prof Frank Doyle, principal investigator of the study, said one of the “most fascinating” findings was if you don’t have friends or family who smoke, then it is “very unlikely you will smoke”.

However, he highlighted how there was a need to not have a one-size-fits-all all approach to reducing smoking rates in the State.

“The overall prevalence is coming down with the interventions such as increased taxes, but it’s not coming down as quickly in lower socioeconomic groups,” he said.

“It’s [smoking] an addiction. It’s probably one of the most addictive substances and a lot of smokers say they want to quit. But things don’t become a rational financial decision when you’re in an addiction.”

Dr Gintare Valentelyte, lead author of the study and Postdoctoral Researcher at Converge: Centre for Chronic Disease and Population Health Research, said the findings show that while smoking rates are falling, those from less advantaged backgrounds are not benefiting equally.

“For tobacco control policies to be effective, they must account for the unique challenges faced by these groups and offer tailored support that addresses the barriers they encounter in quitting,” she said.

Smoking-related harm remains the leading preventable cause of ill health and premature mortality in Ireland, accounting for more than 5,000 deaths annually and a cost to the hospital system of €460 million each year.

The research was funded by the HSE Tobacco Free Ireland Programme, as part of a collaboration with the RCSI School of Population Health.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Πρόληψη της φλεγμονής και των καρδιαγγειακών παθήσεων – Το νέο βιβλίο του Γ. Ζαμπετάκη που καλύπτει τα κενά γνώσης

 

Στο νέο Βιβλίο του, ο Γιάννης Ζαμπετάκης διαλύει τον μύθο της χοληστερόλης, ως αιτία καρδιακών παθήσεων.

 

Ο συνεργάτης του Cibum.gr που αρθρογραφεί καθημερινά ως “Αριστερό Εξτρέμ”, Γιάννης Ζαμπετάκης, έχει γράψει 10 βιβλία σχετικά με την επιστήμη των τροφίμων. Στο πρώτο βιβλίο, συνεργάστηκε με τον Νίκο Γδοντέλη στο βιβλίο τους “HACCP: από το H έως το P”, το 2006. Στο πιο πρόσφατο βιβλίο του που κυκλοφόρησε πριν από λίγες μέρες, αποφάσισε να γράψει για το ευρύ κοινό, χωρίς επιστημονική ορολογία μιας και ήθελε να φτάσει σε όσο το δυνατόν περισσότερο κόσμο ότι γνωρίζουμε σχετικά με τα καρδιαγγειακά νοσήματα.

Περιγραφή του βιβλίου

Σήμερα, οι καρδιαγγειακές ασθένειες είναι η πιο σοβαρή πανδημία για τους ανθρώπους. Πολύ πιο επικίνδυνη από τον covid-19. 18.000.000 άνθρωποι πεθαίνουν κάθε χρόνο από καρδιαγγειακά νοσήματα. Με αυτό το βιβλίο ο Γιάννης Ζαμπετάκης αποφάσισε να περιγράψει τι γνωρίζουμε σχετικά με αυτά τα νοσήματα αλλά και να δείξει πόσο λανθασμένη είναι η προσέγγισή μας σε αυτά τα νοσήματα.

Σήμερα, νομίζουμε (λανθασμένα) ότι η χοληστερόλη είναι η αιτία των καρδιαγγειακών νοσημάτων και οι στατίνες είναι το φάρμακο που συνταγογραφείται σε παγκόσμιο επίπεδο. Αν όμως, οι στατίνες ήταν η λύση, τότε γιατί κάθε χρόνο, ο αριθμός των θανάτων από καρδιαγγειακά νοσήματα αυξάνεται;

Τα ερωτήματα που προσεγγίζει ο συγγραφέας είναι:

1. γιατί δεν πρέπει να εστιάζουμε στην χοληστερόλη αλλά στην φλεγμονή;

2. ποια είναι τα τρόφιμα με αντιφλεγμονώδη δράση;

3. γιατί τα ωμέγα-3 λιπαρά οξέα δεν μειώνουν το καρδιαγγειακό ρίσκο;

4. τι είναι οι μπλε ζώνες και τι μπορούμε να μάθουμε σχετικά με αυτές που θα επιμηκύνουν το προσδόκιμο ζωής;

5. γιατί πρέπει να εστιάζουμε στην προσωποποιημένη διατροφή και άσκηση;

6. τι θα πρέπει να κάνουν οι οργανισμοί (π.χ. ΕΦΕΤ) που προτείνουν διατροφικές παρεμβάσεις και πρότυπα διατροφής (όπως είναι η Μεσογειακή διατροφή);

Με το βιβλίο αυτό έγραψε για αυτά τα θέματα χωρίς δυσνόητη επιστημονική ορολογία και προτείνει μια νέα προσέγγιση στα καρδιαγγειακά νοσήματα μέσα από προσωποποιημένη άσκηση και διατροφή. Το βιβλίο αυτό είναι χρήσιμο για όσους θέλουν να μειώσουν το καρδιαγγειακό ρίσκο αλλά και για τους διατροφολόγους και παθολόγους αλλά και τις ομάδες έρευνας και ανάπτυξης (R+D) νέων προϊόντων της βιομηχανίας τροφίμων.

Σχετικά με τον συγγραφέα

Ο Γιάννης Ζαμπετάκης είναι χημικός τροφίμων. Σπούδασε Χημεία στο ΕΚΠΑ και έκανε το διδακτορικό του στο Πανεπιστήμιο του Leeds στην Αγγλία. Από το 1998, εργάζεται σε ακαδημαϊκές θέσεις στα Πανεπιστήμια του Leeds (Αγγλία), Αθήνας και Limerick (Ιρλανδία). Ο κ. Ζαμπετάκης μελετά τις καρδιοπροστατευτικές ιδιότητες των τροφίμων (και ειδικότερα των πολικών λιποειδών) από το 2000. Έχει δημοσιεύσει πάνω από 110 επιστημονικά άρθρα σε έγκριτες επιστημονικές επιθεωρήσεις και είναι κάτοχος 2 πατεντών. Η φιλοσοφία του σχετικά με το πώς να προσεγγίζουμε τα καρδιαγγειακά νοσήματα περιγράφεται σε αυτό το βιβλίο.

Εδώ μπορείτε να διαβάσετε ένα απόσπασμα από το βιβλίο

 

Autumn colours

 

Autumn visit @ Doughmore bay

 

If you need a reason to stay in bed this bank holiday, here’s what too little sleep is doing to you

From the Irish Times

There’s a good reason why the Guinness World Records team has banned attempts to stay awake

 

n 1946, Randy Gardner participated in a Stanford University study to assess how long humans could go without sleep and whether there were any ill effects. After 11 days and 25 minutes, he finally fell asleep. Waking after a 14-hour nap, he claimed that staying awake for so long had no adverse effects. The researchers, however, thought otherwise, noting that he had suffered from short-term memory loss, paranoia and hallucinations.

While it seems clear that depriving yourself of sleep for such an extended period could not be good for you, the question is, are we all depriving ourselves of much-needed sleep on a daily basis?

While sleep needs vary, short sleep duration is defined as less than seven hours per night. On average, 35 per cent of adults sleep less than seven hours per night. Beyond feeling less than well-rested, the question is whether it has any other negative consequences. As a cardiologist interested in helping people prevent heart disease and live longer, my view on this is clear.

Yes.

While Randy Gardner was not trying for a Guinness world record for staying awake, attempts were banned in 1977 because of the inherent dangers.

According to Netflix, sleep is its biggest competitor

By comparison, though, there are still ongoing record attempts at holding live rattlesnakes in your mouth - it’s 13, in case you were wondering - and how many bees you can cover yourself in, a frightening 637,000. In the eyes of the Guinness World Records committee, these feats hold an “acceptable” risk of being reattempted compared to depriving yourself of sleep for long periods. That should tell you all you need to know.

But what about the impacts of shortened sleep on health? Even four nights of shortened sleep can move people closer to becoming insulin resistant, the precursor state to diabetes. Shortened sleep is also linked to higher rates of high blood pressure, plaque build-up in the heart arteries, heart attacks and strokes. Your efforts at dieting can also be seriously thrown off by shortened sleep. People who have shortened sleep routinely eat 270 calories per day more on average. Even those who do manage to reduce their calorie intake are less likely to lose weight, and more of that weight is likely to be muscle and not fat.

One of the biggest challenges of shortened sleep is its impact on mood and cognitive wellbeing. Recent evidence suggests that high levels of physical activity are linked to lower rates of dementia, except in those who are routinely sleep-deprived. So, for all of you exercising for the cognitive benefits, you might not be getting the gains you should be getting.

The biggest challenge with getting more sleep is that the world incentivises you not to. According to Netflix, sleep is its biggest competitor. With endless competition for our attention, we all know the feeling of staying up that bit later because we want to watch just one more video or extra episode. What’s “just one more episode?” Well, studies of those who had the highest amounts of night-time light exposure show a 20 to 30 per cent increased odds of dying prematurely compared to those with much less night-time light exposure.

Most people don’t even realise that they are currently part of the world’s biggest experiment on sleep, and here, I’m not talking about smartphones. Twice a year, the clocks change by one hour, either giving us one additional hour of sleep or taking one away. When we lose one hour of sleep, the rates of heart attacks increase by 24 per cent. When we gain it back, they come back down, but only by 21 per cent. There is even some evidence to suggest that rates of suicide increase and that judges give harsher sentences when daylight savings changes result in an hour less sleep. So even if your phone doesn’t steal your sleep, daylight savings time just might.

Some people need very little sleep because they carry certain genes that limit their need for sleep, but these gene defects are rare. Others will claim that some of the greatest figures in history got by on very little sleep: Winston Churchill, Bill Clinton and Margaret Thatcher, to name a few. My response to this claim is simple: Bill Clinton had a triple bypass at age 58, Margaret Thatcher developed dementia in her early 70s, and Winston Churchill had his first of eight strokes in his mid-70s. I’m not saying sleep was the only factor here, but you will need to get some better examples if you are going to try to convince me.

To get more sleep, you simply need to stick to the fundamentals. You probably don’t need supplements, and I strongly advise against sleeping tablets. Most people need to go to bed and get up at exactly the same time every single day – yes, that includes weekends. This will train your circadian rhythm to work with you and not against you. Changing time zones interrupts your circadian rhythm, but so does staying up two hours later, which is why we call it social jet lag. Charging your phone in another room, investing in blackout blinds, and keeping your room cool will all help you get a good night’s sleep.

These simple changes have the biggest impact on sleep. Do I think that a few nights of shortened sleep will damage your health? No. Do I think a few decades will? Yes. You don’t need to set any world records; you just need about seven to nine hours most nights.

Dr Paddy Barrett is a preventive cardiologist at Blackrock Clinic and author of Heart: An Owner’s Guide

 

 

 

 

 

New book: Preventing Inflammation and Cardiovascular Diseases: How Food Polar Lipids Can Reduce Inflammation

 

If you have a family member or a friend who suffers from Cardiovascular Diseases (CVD) and is taking statins, this book may be a valuable Christmas gift. I write about the need to personalise our diet and our exercise pattern.

We can fight CVD but don't expect miracles overnight. At the same time, nutrition bodies around the world need to change their dietary guidelines. Food must be our medicine and our greengrocer can become our pharmacist!

 

- - -

Book description

 

18 million deaths annually worldwide are due to cardiovascular diseases (CVD); this renders CVD the most severe pandemic that we must face. This book aims to fill a gap in the literature on how flawed our approach is to prevent and treat CVD.

Our current practice, which focuses on attacking only the cholesterol using statins, is both short-sighted and ineffective. A different approach is suggested in this book, regarding personalised lifestyle and diet choices. Such an approach focuses on the chronic inflammation which causes the formation of thrombus in our arteries, which is the first step to the onset of CVD.

All scientific jargon has been left out and the relevant scientific literature is presented in an easy to follow and understandable way. This book is useful to everyone who wishes to understand how we can prevent CVD without medication but instead through a healthy diet and lifestyle choices.

 

Author's bio

Ioannis Zabetakis is a food chemist with considerable academic experience and a passion for developing novel functional feeds, foods and nutraceuticals to help prevent or tackle cardiovascular diseases. His academic career spans over twenty-five years, working with the University of Leeds (UK), University of Athens (Greece) and University of Limerick (Ireland). His research focuses on how food lipids can inhibit the aggregation of platelets.

Ioannis has been either the co-author or editor of ten scientific books so far (seven in Greek and three in English) and has published over 110 scientific papers (Scopus index h=36). He also holds two patents. This book is his first monograph written in a lay-reader-friendly language.

Ioannis believes that the statin approach against cardiovascular diseases does not work. He is, therefore, an advocate of a healthy and personalised lifestyle and diet choices that can reduce cardiovascular risk. His philosophy is presented in this book.

 

 

An open letter to a Greek minister from tourist-unfriendly Ireland

 from the Irish Times

Greece should not be overwhelmed by the scale of the challenge. It is possible to drive away tourists, as we have shown: start by making it hard for them to get there

 

An imaginary letter from Minister for Tourism Catherine Martin to her Greek counterpart Olga Kefalogianni:

Dear Olga,

I hope you are well. I read with interest a piece in the Financial Times the other day about your problems with over-tourism and the measures you are contemplating to tackle it. I hope you don’t think it presumptuous, but I thought I would share with you a few of the policies we have successfully implemented in Ireland over the years that have helped us avoid the scourge of over-tourism.

The first thing you need to do is make it hard for tourists to get to Greece. I would suggest you take a look at the model we have adopted around the regulation of Dublin Airport. What you do is make the number of passengers who can transit the airport a matter for the local planning authority to decide based on local concerns. Then you make the number of planes that can land at the airport something the aviation regulator decides on a national basis. In the middle, you put in a company to run the airport with a brief to maximise revenues. It has worked very well for us and this year we hope to turn back several million potential tourists because the airport is not allowed breach the cap set by the local authority.

The next thing you want to do is make it hard for tourists to find somewhere to stay once they get here. We have something of a multipronged strategy in this regard.

We started by manufacturing a housing crisis. It’s easily done and I can fill you in on how to do this separately if you are interested.

A housing crisis has several benefits when it comes to preventing over-tourism — primarily a lack of affordable accommodation in the private rental sector near big tourist centres.

This helps in several ways. First, it makes it very hard for tourist businesses to find staff, particularly the low-wage casual staff on which they depend. Any staff who can find accommodation will have to pay handsomely for it. They will need higher wages and this puts pressure on hospitality prices, which helps drive away the tourists.

But what about Airbnbs and other short-term tourist lets, I hear you say? Well, you can clamp down on that via registration and taxation. Again the old housing crisis gives you some cover here. There is an opportunity for a double whammy if you are smart because if you frame the regulation correctly, you can take out most of the bed-and-breakfasts in your prime tourist areas, as we have done along the Wild Atlantic Way.

Access and accommodation are the sweet spots in the battle against over-tourism but there are plenty of other smaller initiatives that can help. One thing we have trialled with some success is to create a climate of fear in your inner cities. This is best done by getting your parliamentary backbenchers to make statements about violent incidents in the centre of your capital city rather than focusing on the actual crime figures which show it to be safe. The media is usually happy to help in the national struggle to discourage tourists from visiting.

There is also taxation. Having first engineered a situation in which many hospitality businesses are struggling to stay afloat, it’s very important that you don’t throw any of them a lifeline by reducing VAT or something equally daft.

Finally, there is the business of how you maximise revenue from your assets. We are charging €125 a pop for getting on to Skellig Michael (which you probably know as the Star Wars Island) by boat. If I can get that out of a rock in the Atlantic with some stone huts surely you can do better than €15 a head for that large rock in the middle of Athens with the ruined temples? Nothing like ridiculous prices to drive away tourists.

Anyway, I hope you found this helpful. Don’t be overwhelmed by the scale of the challenge. It is possible to drive away tourists. Only today I heard the encouraging news from Fáilte Ireland, our tourist board, that there were declines in all parts of the market. Great job.

Believe me when I say that if you follow these simple steps you will soon have a tourist product that only rich Americans can afford. The good news for you is that there are only three million of them who claim Greek heritage. We have to deal with 36 million who say they are Irish. It’s a bit of a headache, to be honest, but we working hard on driving them away too.

Yours,

Catherine Martin

 

 

 

 

 

the moon is bright on both sides if you ...read only a part of scientific literature

 

 

 With some interest and a lot of surprise I read this paper

The differential effects of eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid on cardiovascular risk factors: an updated systematic review of randomized controlled trials

 

The authors have selectively discussed the positive effects of omega-3 acids on biomarkers related with Cardiovascular risk(CR) and the development of Cardiovascular Diseases (CVD) but they ignored the studies that had showed negative impact on CVD.

They have avoided the CV and CVD topic and they focused only to other biomarkers that the studies they present had a positive impact.

However, their paper is the bright side of the moon (i.e. omega-3 fatty acids and heart health).

BUT, what about the dark side of the moon as described here ?

Yannis Zabetakis

αποφθέγματα στη ραδιοβάρκα

Η χθεσινή "Ραδιοβάρκα ο Άγρυπνος" είχε θέμα τα αποφθέγματα.

Στον αέρα της ραδιοβάρκας, κατέθεσα τα αγαπημένα μου.

Μίκης Θεοδωράκης: "Τα τραγούδια μου θα ζουν, όταν τα τανκς θα έχουν σκουριάσει"

Νίτσε : "Ότι δεν σε σκοτώνει, σε κάνει πιο δυνατό"

Γιαγιά μου: "Κάθε πόρτα το καρφί της"

Nicola Tesla: "I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own" 

Βίβλος: "Ερευνάτε τας γραφάς"

Ηράκλειτος: "Τα πάντα ρει"

Ελύτης: "Εάν αποσυνθέσεις την Ελλάδα, στο τέλος θα δεις να σου απομένουν μια ελιά, ένα αμπέλι κι ένα καράβι. Που σημαίνει: με άλλα τόσα την ξαναφτιάχνεις"

= = =

Κλείνω μουσικά με τον Νικόλα τον Πορτοκάλογλου που έκανε τραγούδι την φράση του Νίτσε

Εμπρησμός στα “ΑΒΓΑ ΤΣΑΚΙΡΗ”: Η τρομοκρατική επίθεση με το πρόσχημα της ευζωίας των ζώων

Η διατροφική αλυσίδα, οι ΜΚΟ, η παγκόσμια ελληνική πρωτιά και η αλήθεια.

  Του Γιάννη Ζαμπετάκη

 

Μέχρι σήμερα ο όρος “food terrorist” αφορούσε επιθέσεις με σκόπιμη μόλυνση τροφίμων. Σήμερα (ίσως για πρώτη φορά σε παγκόσμιο επίπεδο) είδαμε μία άλλη διάσταση της τρομοκρατικής επίθεσης εναντίον εταιρείας τροφίμων. Δράστες της φωτιάς στη μεγαλύτερη εταιρεία αυγών της Β. Ελλάδας είναι… “ακτιβιστές” προστασίας των ζώων, που συνήθως (τουλάχιστον στο εξωτερικό) διοργανώνουν σοβαρές εκστρατείες και “επιτίθενται”, με αφίσες, ή με ανακοινώσεις ή με άλλους ευφάνταστους και φαντασμαγορικούς τρόπους όπως πχ η παρεμπόδιση της πρόσβασης σε ένα σφαγείο, με στόχο πάντα την ευαισθητοποίηση του κοινού. Γενικά οι δράσεις των ακτιβιστών προστασίας των ζώων, είναι ήπιες μορφές αντίδρασης και σίγουρα όχι εμπρησμοί που θα μπορούσαν να έχουν και ανθρώπινα θύματα.

Διάβασα με έκπληξη λοιπόν, τα σχετικά με την πυρκαγιά (βλ. εμπρησμό από την “ΜΑΖ”) στην εταιρεία “Αυγά Τσακίρης”, όπως δημοσιεύτηκε στο cibum.gr. “Σε εμπρησμό φαίνεται πως αποδίδεται η πυρκαγιά στις κεντρικές εγκαταστάσεις της Tsakiris Family A.E., στη Νεοχωρούδα Θεσσαλονίκης, την προηγούμενη εβδομάδα, και για την πράξη αυτή υπήρξε τα προηγούμενα 24ωρα ανάληψη ευθύνης με κείμενο σε γνωστή ιστοσελίδα του αντιεξουσιαστικού χώρου, το οποίο υπογράφει η αυτοαποκαλούμενη ομάδα ΜΑΖ (Μέτωπο Απελευθέρωσης Ζωών)”.

Και σαν να μην έφτανε αυτό το γεγονός, όπου μια αυτοαποκαλούμενη ομάδα εμπρηστών θέλησε με αυτό τον τρόπο να καταγγείλει την μη ευζωία του ζωικού κεφαλαίου, ήρθε και το Ελληνικό παράρτημα της ΜΚΟ Greenpeace να ρίξει ακόμα περισσότερο λάδι στην φωτιά “καταγγέλλοντας” ότι χιλιάδες κοτόπουλα κάηκαν ζωντανά! Στην συνέχεια ωστόσο, η ΜΚΟ ανακάλεσε την ανάρτησή της αλλά η ζημιά είχε ήδη γίνει!

Η διατροφική αλυσίδα

Είναι σε όλους μας γνωστό ότι η εντατική γεωργία και κτηνοτροφία είναι μια πραγματικότητα την οποία δεν μπορούμε να την αγνοήσουμε ή να κάνουμε τα στραβά μάτια. Κάθε λεπτό, στα δάση του πλανήτη μας αποψιλώνεται έκταση όσο 27 γήπεδα ποδοσφαίρου! Είναι μια καταστροφή μη αναστρέψιμη.

Τα αίτια αυτής της καταστροφής; Η εντατική γεωργία που απαιτείται για την αύξηση της καλλιεργούμενης γης για φυτά που να παράγουν έλαια, π.χ. σογιέλαιο.

To σογιέλαιο χρησιμοποιείται ως πρώτη ύλη σε μια μεγάλη γκάμα τροφίμων. Μήπως να κάψουμε και αυτές τις εταιρείες παραγωγής τροφίμων επειδή συσχετίζονται με την αποψίλωση των δασών;

Αλλά ας μην κάνουμε τα στραβά μάτια. Ο τρόπος παραγωγής αυγών δεν είναι και ότι πιο βέλτιστο για την ευζωία των αυγοπαραγωγών κοτών. Το έχω δει με τα ίδια μου τα μάτια. Οι κότες μένουν ανά δυο σε εξαιρετικά μικρά κλουβιά που ούτε να στρίψουν δεν μπορούν και έχουν πρόσβαση σε τροφή και νερό. Τα αυγά πέφτουν σε ένα συλλεκτικό υμάντα.

Πάμε τώρα στα κρεατοπαραγωγά κοτόπουλα: τα κοτόπουλα ελευθέρας βοσκής είναι μεγάλη “απάτη” : χιλιάδες κοτόπουλα ζουν σε εγκαταστάσεις πραγματικά κολλητά το ένα στο άλλο. Αλλά αν έχουν έστω και ελάχιστη πρόσβαση σε “κήπο”/αγρόκτημα” εκτός των εγκαταστάσεων, τότε αποκαλούνται “ελευθέρας βοσκής”.

Επίσης, όλα τα κοτόπουλα που καταναλώνουμε έχουν ζήσει για 45 μέρες περίπου και τα χαράματα μιας μέρας κρεμιούνται σε ένα τσιγκέλι, περνάνε μέσα από ένα υδρόλουτρο με υψηλή τάση, αναισθητοποιούνται και μετά κόβεται ο λαιμός τους…

Και όταν οι κότες μεγαλώσουν σε ηλικία (περίπου 1,5 έτος) τότε χρησιμοποιούνται στην παραγωγή ζωμών κότας. Ότι και να κάνουν, κάποια στιγμή θα θανατωθούν…

Το μοντέλο αυτό εφαρμόζεται σε όλα τα ζώα της κτηνοτροφίας. Πρόκειται για ένα κακό μοντέλο αλλά το άλλοθι είναι οι διατροφικές ανάγκες του πληθυσμού: η μεγάλη μας εξάρτηση σε τρόφιμα ζωικής προέλευσης. Πόσες μέρες της εβδομάδας καταναλώνουμε τρόφιμα ζωικής προέλευσης;

Ο τρόπος διαβίωσης που έχουμε επιλέξει με πολλά ζωικά τρόφιμα στο μενού μας προκαλεί μια σειρά χρόνιων ασθενειών αλλά ασκεί και ολοένα αυξανόμενη πίεση ώστε να γίνει ακόμη πιο εντατική η γεωργία και η κτηνοτροφία.

Αλλά υπάρχουν και περιπτώσεις ανθρώπων που αποφάσισαν να κάνουν κάτι για αυτό. Μια τέτοια περίπτωση είναι ο Alexis Gauthier που είχε τα κότσια να μετατρέψει το με Michelin βραβευμένο εστιατόριό του σε εστιατόριο χωρίς καθόλου κρέας στο μενού, ονόματι ‘Studio Gauthier’ στο Λονδίνο.

Ο Gauthier με αυτήν την κίνηση και την αλλαγή φιλοσοφίας έβαλε το δικό του μικρό λιθαράκι για να μειωθεί η κατανάλωση ζώων που έχουν εκτραφεί με εντατικό τρόπο. Μια τέτοια κίνηση μπορεί να γίνει ο καταλύτης για να αλλάξουν και άλλα φημισμένα εστιατόρια το μενού τους.

Ο ρόλος των ΜΚΟ και του περιβαλλοντικού ακτιβισμού

Και ερχόμαστε τώρα στον ρόλο των ΜΚΟ και των ακτιβιστών.

Τo WWF και η Greenpeace είναι οι μεγαλύτερες ΜΚΟ που έχουν στο μικροσκόπιο τους την ευζωία των ζώων που εκτρέφονται είτε για το κρέας τους είτε για άλλα ζωικά προϊόντα. Ο ρόλος τους όμως δεν θα πρέπει να είναι καταγγελτικός και να στρέφεται κατά συγκεκριμένων εταιρειών αλλά κατά της ΕΕ και κρατών και κυβερνήσεων. Μιας και μόνο η ΕΕ και οι κυβερνήσεις μπορούν να αλλάξουν το νομικό πλαίσιο σχετικά με την διαχείριση του φυτικού και ζωικού πλούτου. Με λίγες νομικές κινήσεις, μπορούν (αν θέλουν!) οι κυβερνήσεις και η ΕΕ να βάλουν φρένο στην εντατική γεωργία και κτηνοτροφία.

Παράλληλα, αν θέλουμε να είμαστε σοβαροί περιβαλλοντικοί ακτιβιστές θα πρέπει να έχουμε μια διαφορετική προσέγγιση, πιο δύσκολη αλλά πιο επιστημονική και άρα πιο τεκμηριωμένη.

Οι πραγματικοί ακτιβιστές δεν είναι ούτε εμπρηστές ούτε καταστροφείς περιουσιών, αλλά άνθρωποι που συλλέγουν επιστημονικές πληροφορίες (π.χ. επίπεδα ορμονών σε ζώα) και… φωτογραφίες που να αποδεικνύουν πως η εντατική παραγωγή τροφίμων στη στεριά (κοτόπουλα, χοίροι κλπ) αλλά και στη θάλασσα (έχετε δει κλουβιά ιχθυοκαλλιέργειας και πόσα ψάρια εκτρέφονται εκεί;) δεν είναι βιώσιμο μοντέλο και δεν λαμβάνει καθόλου υπόψη του την ευζωία των ζώων και των ψαριών.

Ας πούμε, μια υποβρύχια φωτογραφία ενός κλουβιού ιχθυοκαλλιέργειας δεν θα είχε πολύ περισσότερη δύναμη και βαρύτητα παρά ένας εμπρησμός; 

Εν κατακλείδι, είναι επιτακτική ανάγκη να κάτσουμε στο ίδιο τραπέζι πολιτικοί, επιστήμονες τροφίμων και περιβαλλοντολόγοι, διατροφικές ενώσεις και οργανισμοί αλλά και ΜΚΟ και ακτιβιστές και να δούμε πώς μπορούμε να σταματήσουμε (ή έστω να μειώσουμε) αυτή την καταστροφή. Τι λέω τώρα; Να ανάψει κανείς ένα σπίρτο είναι τόσο πιο εύκολο…

 

Ταξιδεύοντας στην Ευρώπη και “ιχνηλατώντας” αποδυτήρια και τουαλέτες σε ελληνικές παραλίες

 Πηγή: Αριστερό Εξτρέμ

 

Φέτος το καλοκαίρι, οι διακοπές ήταν κάπως διαφορετικές. Κάναμε (με την σύντροφό μου και τον Θησέα) ένα road trip από την Ιρλανδία στην Ελλάδα, μέσω Ισπανίας, Γαλλίας και Ιταλίας και στον γυρισμό πετάξαμε από Αθήνα στο Δουβλίνο με την αγαπημένη μου εταιρεία (Aegean  Airlines) (δεν γουστάρω να δίνω τα χρήματά μου σε Ιρλανδικές εταιρείες όταν μπορώ να στηρίξω μια Ελληνική!).

Σε όσες παραλίες πήγαμε, παντού υπήρχαν κουβούκλια για αποδυτήρια και τουαλέτα! Σε όλες!

Σε πόσες Ελληνικές παραλίες, υπάρχουν και τα δύο; Και δεν μιλάμε για παραλίες που ακουμπά κανείς € 30-50 για ομπρέλα και ξαπλώστρες. Αλλά από αυτές που είναι ανοικτές στον κόσμο.

Κάναμε μεταξύ μας ένα γκάλοπ για το ποια παραλία είναι η καλύτερη. Ομόφωνα καταλήξαμε στις παραλίες της Νότιας Εύβοιας, όπου δεν υπάρχουν και αποδυτήρια και τουαλέτα! Μόνο αποδυτήρια έχουν μερικές…

Και τουαλέτα; Πίσω από τα βράχια!

Έτσι, θα προωθήσουμε τον τουρισμό μας; Έτσι, θα αυξήσουμε τον ποιοτικό τουρισμό;

Στον γυρισμό (μιας και έχω μαζέψει αρκετά μίλια με την Aegean) είχαμε πρόσβαση στο business lounge στο Ελευθέριος Βενιζέλος. Και μείναμε κατάπληκτοι αλλά και ευχαριστημένοι με τις οινικές προτάσεις της Aegean.

Δοκιμάσαμε ένα λευκό και ένα κόκκινο.

Το κόκκινο ήταν το Seiradi, από τις Κυκλάδες (ποικιλία Μανδηλαριά). https://www.seiradipfc.com/red-new

Απλά υπέροχο!

To λευκό ήταν το Ίαμα (τριποικιλιακό : Ασύρτικο, Μαλαγουζιά και Βραδυανό), από την (αγαπημένη μας) Εύβοια, τόσο αρωματικό και με πολύπλοκη γεύση. https://www.vriniotiswinery.gr/product/iama-white/?lang=en

Πολλά μπράβο στους ανθρώπους της Aegean που επιλέγουν διαμάντια κρασιά! Ένας εξαιρετικός τρόπος προώθησης της Ελληνικής οινοποιίας!

 

 

Plain packaging worked to reduce smoking. Unhealthy food should be next

 From the Irish Times, 14.8.2024

 

Removing branding from cigarette boxes has reduced smoking among young people. We must now do the same with unhealthy food and drinks as childhood obesity can trigger disease in later life 

Prof Donal O’Shea

Donal O’Shea is professor of medicine in University College Dublin, a consultant endocrinologist at St Vincent’s University and St Columcille’s Hospitals, and the national clinical lead for obesity with the Health Service Executive. He is supporting Safefood’s ‘Building a healthier food environment’ campaign.

 

Tobacco brands were among the best-known and most popular consumer brands of the 20th century, thanks in no small part to their instantly recognisable packaging and advertising. Nowadays, most people under the age of 40 would most likely struggle to differentiate one brand of cigarettes from another. The cigarette box, once a fashion accessory and a signifier of self-image, was wiped of its branding with the introduction of the Public Health Act in 2015. It’s an initiative that’s gone a long way to addressing the problem of smoking in young people. Almost 10 years on, the time has come to apply the same thinking to unhealthy food and drinks – especially those targeting children.

Plain packaging involves removing all branding and standardises the packaging to a uniform colour and design. This would help in reducing the consumption of high-fat, high-salt, high-sugar food and drinks; a critical step if we are to make headway with our obesity problem.

Our health service is under enormous strain because of obesity. One in five Irish children have either overweight or obesity, a problem that will track into adulthood. Childhood obesity is linked to accelerated weight gain in the fourth decade of life, the time when we gain most weight at a population level. We are now coming to terms with managing obesity itself as a disease, not a lifestyle choice and realising that, for decades, we have been treating the complications of obesity, such as Type 2 diabetes, cancer, heart disease and dementia. In the same way that we learned smoking tobacco can cause cancer, heart disease and many other illnesses, we now know that a poor diet can have long-reaching health effects and impact our life spans. The health burden of obesity is snowballing, and we need an array of measures that will change the trajectory of our food environment which over time has become increasingly unhealthy.

The proliferation of unhealthy foods and drinks promoted and marketed to us is now a bigger driver of disease than smoking

There is agreement that no single measure will buck the trend of unacceptably high obesity rates. That, however, must not stop us from pursuing changes within the system that might ultimately help. The sugar tax was one step in the right direction. Calorie posting on menus is another evidence-based and effective measure. Three ministers for health (two of whom have gone on to be taoiseach) promised to legislate for it, but it has been successfully opposed by the food and drinks industry. It appears to be dead in Government Buildings.

[ Higher rate of obesity in children from disadvantaged areas in Ireland, conference hearsOpens in new window ]

[ ‘Tide is turning more rapidly than ever in terms of obesity management’Opens in new window ]

We know that plain packaging works – we have the evidence from the tobacco area. Young people immediately find cigarettes less appealing and find the health warnings more striking against a plain background. If applied to food and drinks, plain packaging would ensure that the labelling with all the nutritional content of the product will not be crowded out. Combine this with measures that prevent access and you begin to transfer the learnings from successes in the tobacco space to the childhood obesity space. Healthy vending machines and removing the placement of unhealthy foods away from checkouts would build on the tobacco lessons.

Brand is everything – especially for younger people. Coca‑Cola has been promoting Christmas since the 1920s, sponsoring the Olympics since the 1930s and putting peoples’ names on bottles since 2011. The latter resulted in a surge in consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks by young people in particular – and reversed a downward trend. Plain packaging would have made the “Share a Coke” campaign impossible.

One in five Irish children have either overweight or obesity, a problem that will track into adulthood. Childhood obesity is linked to accelerated weight gain in the fourth decade of life, the time when we gain most weight

There is evidence that children are particularly open to the power of packaging – and that changes to make it plain would reduce the appeal of the products. The food and drinks industry have a very scientific approach to establishing the “bliss point” for a child’s palate for a particular product – the point at which maximal enjoyment is reached for a particular offering. They know that this is different for a three year old, a seven year old and a 12 year old, and they know that different-aged brains will respond differently to cartoon characters, fonts and enticing images. They influence children’s choice and pattern of consumption. Increasingly, the display of products targeting children in shops is at that child’s eye level – just look at the shelves of sweets and confectionery in your local supermarket and compare what is higher up versus closer to the ground.

[ Western diets high in fat and sugar can lead to bowel disease and cancer, Irish study revealsOpens in new window ]

Protecting children’s health is at the heart of Safefood’s new public health campaign, “Building a healthier food environment”. This five-year initiative represents a new approach to public health campaigning, focusing on the factors that influence consumer decision-making, including how foods are packaged and sold to us. Safefood is asking consumers to start a conversation with one another about the food environment and consider ways we can change it.

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From a health or economic perspective, we can’t afford to continue as we are. The proliferation of unhealthy foods and drinks that are promoted and marketed to us is now a bigger driver of disease than smoking. Bold public policy is essential in shaping a food environment that protects our children’s health, so we need to learn from the positive impact of plain packaging on cigarette-smoking behaviour in young people and apply it to unhealthy food and drinks.

 

 

 

 

 

Health Western diets high in fat and sugar can lead to bowel disease and cancer, Irish study reveals

 

                                                  Olive oil: an important ingredient of Med Diet
 

 

from the Irish Times

 

Western diets pose a greater risk of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and colorectal cancer, according to an Irish-led review of what people eat around the world.

The study of six prevalent diets has examined how what we consume impacts our gut microbiome — the community of micro-organisms that live in our intestines — and how the shifting balance of its composition influences our overall health.

The review was conducted by APC Microbiome Ireland (APC), a Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre at University College Cork (UCC), and Teagasc. It is published in the journal Nature Reviews Microbiology.

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The study, led by Prof Catherine Stanton — an APC principal investigator and senior principal research officer at Teagasc, examined Mediterranean, high-fibre, plant-based, high-protein, ketogenic and western diets.

The review reveals how different diets alter significantly the composition and functionality of the gut microbiome, highlighting the production of essential molecules during metabolism such as short-chain fatty acids.

It underscores the detrimental effects of the western diet, characterised by high fat and sugar intake, compared to the benefits of diets rich in plant-based and high-fibre foods.

By contrast, it finds that a Mediterranean diet, high in fruits and vegetables, is effective in managing conditions such as cardiovascular disease, IBD and type 2 diabetes.

“Our review highlights the profound impact of different diets on the gut microbiome. This understanding is crucial for developing dietary recommendations that promote health and prevent disease. It’s fascinating to see how dietary choices can influence the balance of microorganisms in our gut and their metabolic functions,” said Prof Stanton. 

The review offers valuable insights for the food industry and healthcare professionals, guiding them in making informed decisions about diet and health. The detailed analysis of how different diets affect the microbiome provides a foundation for developing targeted nutritional therapies and improving public health outcomes.

“This review is a significant milestone in microbiome research. It provides a detailed look at how dietary patterns shape the gut microbiome and underscores the potential for diet-based interventions in clinical practice. It provides tangible data on how the microbiome is intrinsically relevant to creating health benefits for society,” said Prof Paul Ross, director of APC Microbiome Ireland and co-director of UCC Futures Microbiome and Health.

The review also emphasises the need for exhaustive studies to better understand the causal relationships between individuals, their diet, and micro-organisms. This understanding is vital for advancing precision nutrition and developing microbiome-based therapies tailored to individual health needs.

 

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