Saturday, January 4th, 2020
Stephan: The American diet is so bad that 39.6% of Americans, over 70 million, 35 million women, and 35 million men are obese. 99 million, 45 million women and 54 million men are overweight. Life expectancy in the U.S. has been declining for the last three years. Why? One of the main reasons is the American diet is largely made up of processed foods. Here is the latest data.
These refined carbohydrates could be feeding the bad bacteria in the small intestine,” said researcher Marit Zinocker, “and that’s where inflammation starts.”
Credit: Getty
The case against processed food just keeps getting stronger. But, amazingly, we still don’t understand exactly why it’s so bad for us.
In two papers published in the BMJ in May 2019, the more ultraprocessed — or industrially manufactured — foods a person ate, the more likely they were to get sick and even die. In one study, they were more likely to suffer from cardiovascular problems. The other linked an ultraprocessed diet to a higher risk of death from all causes.
Those studies followed a first-of-its-kind randomized controlled trial, out of the National Institutes of Health: Researchers found people following an ultraprocessed diet ate about 500 more calories per day than those consuming minimally processed, whole foods. Then, a December paper in JAMA Internal Medicine found that the more ultraprocessed food a person ate, the higher their risk of Type 2 diabetes.
Sure, potato chips, cookies, and hot dogs are chock-full of salt, […]
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Saturday, January 4th, 2020
Stephan: Yet another confirmation of a trend -- in this case The Great Schism Trend -- that SR picked up, and brought to the attention of its readers five years ago. Here is the latest bad news.
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Life in the U.S. is increasingly divided into two realities — one in which things have almost never been better and another in which it’s hard to imagine them being worse.
Driving the news: Bankruptcies led more companies to announce job cuts last year than at any time in more than a decade, WSJ’s Aisha Al-Muslim reports (subscription), citing data from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas.
Details: Despite the latest jobs report from the Labor Department showing the unemployment rate near a 50-year low, 2019 saw the third highest number of total layoffs in the decade, with nearly 600,000 people losing their jobs, a 10% increase over 2018.
- There were more job cuts related to bankruptcy in 2019 than in both 2008 and 2009, during the Great Recession.
- 2019 was the year the oft-invoked healthy American consumer carried the economy, but U.S. retailers announced 9,302 store closings, a 59% increase from 2018 and the highest number since Coresight Research began tracking the data in […]
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Saturday, January 4th, 2020
BETH MOLE , - arsTECHNICA
Stephan: Big Pharma strikes your pocketbook again.
Leading drug makers rang in the new year by once again raising list prices of their drugs—this time on more than 250 of them, according to an analysis reported by Reuters.
Data examined by healthcare research firm 3 Axis Advisors found that major drug makers including Pfizer Inc, GlaxoSmithKline PLC, and Sanofi SA, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co, Gilead Sciences Inc, and Biogen Inc hiked prices this week.
The larger price tags applied to a range of medications, from blood thinners to cancer therapies and treatments for respiratory conditions, HIV, arthritis, and multiple sclerosis.
Nearly all of the increases were below 10 percent, according to the 3 Axis analysis. So far, the median price increase is around 5 percent, though additional price increases could still be announced.
Pricing hikes of less than 10 percent are relatively low; drug makers have made headlines in recent years with abrupt, eye-popping increases, such as 879 percent and an infamous hike of more than 5,000 percent. Amid backlash for the hikes—and […]
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Friday, January 3rd, 2020
Jake Johnson, - EcoWatch/Common Dreams
Stephan: Wake up world. Australia is one variation of the future under climate change. But far from the only variant. Vanishing birds Vanishing Bees. Growing extinctions. Dying coral. The breakdown of ocean ecosystems. Massive fires. We read the news every day, but what are we doing? Nearly nothing.
A kangaroo tries to move away from nearby bushfires at a residential property near the town of Nowra in the Australian state of New South Wales.
Credit: Saeed Khan/ AFP/Getty
Ecologists at the University of Sydney are estimating that nearly half a billion animals have been killed in Australia’s unprecedented and catastrophic wildfires, which have sparked a continent-wide crisis and forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes in desperation.
News Corp Australia reported Wednesday that “there are real concerns entire species of plants and animals have been wiped out by bushfires following revelations almost 500 million animals have died since the crisis began.”
“Ecologists from the University of Sydney now estimate 480 million mammals, birds, and reptiles have been lost since September,” according to News Corp. “That figure is likely to soar following the devastating fires which have ripped through Victoria and the [New South Wales] South Coast over the past couple of days, leaving several […]
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Friday, January 3rd, 2020
Taran Volckhausen , - Mongabay
Stephan: I think you could make the case that humanity will destroy itself over its greed and failure to recognize that everyone must have a decent measure of wellbeing to stop the despoliation of nature.
Human activity is already threatening 80% of the world’s forests with destruction or degradation. Deforestation is also putting ecosystems and 50% of the world’s biodiversity at risk, along with forest peoples.- Atop that, dense intact tropical forests serve as vital carbon sinks. But forest loss accounted for 8% of the world’s annual CO2 emissions in 2018, while intact tropical forest loss from 2000 to 2013 will result in over 626% more long-term carbon emissions through 2050 than previously thought, according to new research.
- Zooming in on just one example, 17% of the Amazon has been cleared at one time or another. Another 20% has been degraded. In 2019, the deforestation rate there shot up 30% from the year before. The risk is that climate change combined with deforestation could lead to an Amazon forest collapse, with huge releases of carbon.
- If tropical nations, and nations consuming forest products, but had the political will, then the world’s forests could be conserved. One approach: create buffers around intact tropical forests by reducing road networks while reforesting. Also, give indigenous groups more […]
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