-- The journal article is:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(24)00115-7/fulltext
It's yet another rubbishy diet study. They anaysed their data using extreme quartiles, which means that they threw away half of their data before testing it, which in turn usually means that there were NO correlations in the full dataset. And even then they got only marginal hazard ratios. For instance:"After adjustment for potential confounders, a 10% increase in the contribution of plant-sourced non-UPF in diet was associated with a 7% reduced risk of incident CVD (adjusted HR 0.93; 95% CI 0.91–0.95) and a 8% reduced risk of incident coronary heart disease (adjusted HR 0.92; 95% CI 0.90–0.94)"
Relationships as weak as that are often not replicable so the study is most safely seen as failing to show that diet has any certain effect on health at all. In plain speech, eat what you like. The best thing to do for your health is probably to have friends
Eating a plant-based diet is good for your health, but not if those plant foods are ultra-processed, a new study has found.
The findings show that all plant-based diets aren’t the same, and that plant foods can have very different effects on your health depending on what manufacturers do to them before they reach your plate.
The new research, published on Monday in the journal, Lancet Regional Health-Europe, found eating plant-derived foods that are ultra-processed – such as meat substitutes, fruit drinks and pastries – increases the risk of heart attacks and stroke. But when plant foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains and nuts are only minimally processed – meaning they are cleaned, cut or squeezed before packaging but served largely as they are found in nature – they have a protective effect against cardiovascular disease. The study treated freshly squeezed fruit juices as unprocessed.
Ultra-processed foods have faced intense scrutiny from health authorities in recent years. What’s unusual about the new study is that it zeroed in on the health effects of ultra-processed foods that begin as plants, comparing them with minimally processed plant foods. Given that plant-based foods are generally healthy in their natural state, the research suggests that there’s something uniquely damaging about ultra-processing that changes a food in a way that can harm a person’s health long term.
“The artificial and heightened flavours of these foods can lead people to become addicted to these flavours, making it difficult for them to appreciate the natural flavours of real foods such as fruits and vegetables,” says Fernanda Rauber, the lead author of the new study and a researcher at the Centre for Epidemiological Research in Nutrition and Health at the University of São Paulo in Brazil.
The new study analysed data on 118,000 adults who were followed for roughly a decade as part of the UK Biobank, a study that has been tracking the health and lifestyle habits of people throughout the United Kingdom. As part of the long-running study, the participants answered questions about their diets, habits and environments on different occasions and provided biological samples, and health and medical records. The findings included:
The more ultra-processed foods people consumed, the higher their likelihood of dying of heart disease.
Every 10 per cent increase in kilojoules from plant-derived ultra-processed foods was associated with a 5 per cent higher likelihood of developing cardiovascular disease and a 6 per cent higher risk of coronary heart disease in particular.
For every 10 per cent increase in the consumption of whole plant-based foods — those that were not ultra-processed — the participants had an 8 per cent reduction in their likelihood of developing coronary heart disease and a 20 per cent reduction in their risk of dying of it. They also had a 13 per cent lower risk of dying of any cardiovascular diseases.
Many of the foods studied were not foods people would typically consider a plant food. But the main ingredients in many junk foods come from plants, such as cane and beet sugars, wheat flour, corn, potatoes, fruit juices and vegetable oils.
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Why Even ‘Woke’ Companies are Turning Their Backs on Toxic HR Diversity Schemes
More bosses are pulling the handbrake on costly diversity initiatives after realising they have allowed toxic identity politics to enter their workplace and wasted millions of pounds on pointless schemes. The Telegraph has more.
Behind office doors, HR departments at some of Britain’s biggest businesses have recently been feeling defensive and on the back foot.
Increasingly laid at their doors is the blame for allowing toxic identity politics to enter the workplace, and wasting millions of pounds on pointless diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) schemes.
Pointing the finger are belt-tightening senior leaders scrutinising their returns amid soaring wage bills, with some even feeling betrayed for being shepherded by HR into the vicious culture wars.
Christoffer Ellehuus, the Chief Executive of workplace training company MindGym, says: “A lot of them are blaming HR for not having reined it in and having had a much clearer business focus about what they were doing.”
Fuelling this blame game are recent findings that Britain’s diversity drive is “counterproductive” despite businesses spending millions of pounds on ultimately ineffective workplace initiatives.
It was the conclusion of an independent report commissioned by Kemi Badenoch, the Business Secretary, which discovered popular so-called ESG (environmental, social and governance) practices had little to no tangible impact on boosting diversity or reducing prejudice.
Ms. Badenoch in March warned British companies against outsourcing or delegating to workplace training consultants with “potentially conflicting incentives” which are ultimately selling “snake oil”.
She told the Times: “There are lots of people who just cook up stuff and say, ‘Oh, I’ve got a course. Why don’t you buy my course?’ … They’ve been making money out of selling stuff that is not evidence-based.”
Badenoch’s report is damning for HR departments who now face questions from their superiors about why they fell prey to so-called snake oil sellers in the first place.
This includes decisions to roll out divisive training programmes in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, designed to spread awareness around unconscious bias, white privilege and gender pronouns.
However, what were sold as quick fixes to create a fairer workplace – in online training sessions as short as 30 minutes – many have discovered to be little more than fashionable fads with damaging consequences.
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Srbija walks both sides of the street
Srbija is a significant arms producer. The Zastava factory has been producing quality rifles and other weapons for many decades
Serbia is secretly increasing munitions sales to the West, strengthening Ukraine's defences. At the same time, the country did not join Western sanctions against Russia. Putin is losing an ally…
The British newspaper The Financial Times estimates that Serbia has exported € 800 million ($ 858 million) worth of munitions to its Western allies since Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. These weapons then found their way to Kiev via third countries.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić called the situation a business opportunity. At the same time, Vučić stressed that he will not take sides in the war. "This is a part of our economic revival and important for us. Yes, we do export our ammunition," he said in an interview with the Financial Times.
"We cannot export to Ukraine or to Russia . . . but we have had many contracts with Americans, Spaniards, Czechs, others. What they do with that in the end is their job", he also said. " I need to take care of my people, and that’s it. That’s all I can say. We have friends in Kyiv and in Moscow. These are our Slav brothers."
Serbia is not a member of NATO or the European Union. At the same time, Serbs are traditionally attached to Russia and distrustful of the West.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/putin-stabbed-in-the-back/ar-BB1oMK8K ?
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DOJ challenge to laws Banning Sex Changes for Kids Doesn’t ‘Hold Water,’ Legal Expert Says/
The Constitution doesn’t protect sex-change procedures for minors, an expert in civil rights law told The Daily Signal as the Supreme Court announced it would weigh the issue after its next term begins in October.
The highest court in the U.S. agreed Monday to hear a Justice Department lawsuit against a Tennessee law, passed last year, that bans gender surgeries and cross-sex hormones for those under 18.
The Biden administration alleges that the state violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause by excluding children who say they are transgender from “essential medical care.”
The administration’s claims “don’t hold water” because a variety of laws reserve significant decisions for adults, Sarah Parshall Perry, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told The Daily Signal.
“States have the power to democratically enact laws that protect minor, vulnerable populations—as evidenced by age limits on alcohol, tobacco, contracting, driving, and more,” Perry said. “The Supreme Court has long recognized that minors lack the maturity and intelligence to make life-altering decisions.”
“To overcome this judicial history,” she added, “the DOJ would have to successfully argue that the laws are discriminatory in nature and violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.”
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has sued multiple Republican-controlled states for restricting sex-change procedures. Its petition to the Supreme Court argues that such laws “discriminate based on sex and transgender status” and therefore must pass a judicial standard known as intermediate scrutiny.
“In other words,” Perry told The Daily Signal, “Tennessee would have to prove the law furthers an important government interest and must do so by means that are substantially related to that interest.”
“Even under this heightened standard … the state’s defense would stand,” said Perry, who previously was a senior counsel in the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights as well as a civil rights litigator. “There can be no more important interest than protecting vulnerable adolescents from the life-long complications of these interventions, and the possibility of debilitating regret.”
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority issued an emergency order in April that allowed an Idaho ban on such medical procedures to take effect amid a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union.
The Tennessee case before the high court will decide the fate of children in at least 25 states that have passed similar restrictions.
The Supreme Court’s next term begins in October and a decision in the case is expected by July 2025.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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