Religion and science

We as scientists often like to believe that we are truly neutral in evaluating experimental data and theories. Reams of legitimate literature exists that remains relatively neutral in results discussion, always giving several explanations to experimental outcomes. Unfortunately, literature appears that is driven by philosophical or religious (the two concepts are the same) motivations and are not true scientific inquiry. This kind of literature embarrasses the entire scientific community, invalidates the studies within this biased literature and creates mass public confusion.

This post is about one poorly written book from the vegan philosophy camp, The China Study, by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M Campbell II. I started reading the book and made it through the 4th chapter before giving up. Obviously biased information within the first 81 pages is enough to repudiate anything else within the book.

First, the book is written by a father/son team. This immediately casts a shadow on the results. Why do you need your son to coauthor a book? I will tell you why. No other respectable scientist who needs a careers would put his/her name on such a piece of work.

Second, and more importantly, is science depends upon addressing other findings from within the scientific community and giving appropriate responses to their theories. The author talks about other scientists not giving "open-minded" intercourse to his ideas. This "open-minded" discussion runs two ways and there lies the problem. Everyone is supposed to just accept his simplified animal based protein is the cause of Western disease theory as a fact. Other scientific views backed by years of research are not relevant. Campbell even arrogantly makes the comment in Chapter 1,

....we scientists focus on details while ignoring the larger context. For example we pin our efforts on and our hopes on one isolated nutrient at a time, whether it is vitamin A to prevent cancer or vitamin E to prevent heart attacks. We oversimplify and disregard the infinite complexity of nature.

This entire book is a simplification of three studies stating that animal based protein is the cause of all degenerative diseases like heart disease and cancer (referred to as Western disease). What makes your simplistic idea any better than other scientist's? Did God have a direct communication with you? This is double-speak my friends and shows tremendous bias towards a philosophical idea.

Third, the book's premise are based upon experiments that lack any serious analysis. I could personally rip each of the poorly executed experiments to shreds, but for brevity sake they all have one conclusion without any thorough discussion. Thousands of factors could lead to the found results like nutrition, genetics and other biological mechanisms instead of one simple answer, his anti-meat explanation. This saddens me the most, because anything useful to be gained from the various studies was wasted among the dishonest conclusions. Other deep flaws litter the experiprocedures. It raises a further question, are the results repeatable?

Finally, the author contradicts himself in Chapter 4. The basic premise I outlined in an early blog posting, Supplementing what?, is long term veganism is not found in any large human populations worldwide. It results in malnourishment from lack of certain vitamins and minerals. Poor health is the result. Of course he could not find one of these vegans for his study (they would not live long enough), but he goes on to attack the closest thing. He describes one of his studies' subjects in China as consuming about 1/10 the amount of animal protein than in American diets and his results were on page 80,

We expected that when animal protein consumption an d blood cholesterol were as low as they are in rural China, there would be no further association with Western diseases. But we were wrong.

Maybe the exclusive cause of "Western disease" is not animal protein consumption?

I will stop here because I could fill several posts on this horrendous book. What I am pointing out is sometimes science is distorted with the purpose to sway a select audience. Often, it is for religious or philosophical reasons. In worst case scenarios, it is for outright fraud. In both cases, it is unethical.

Dr. Coffee blog's updates

This post is a continuation from two past posts with new observations. Both topics are on human health and diet.

First update stems from the previous post Supplementing what? in which I warn about the dangers of long term strict veganism. This weekend, I had the luck of meeting an individual who became a Vegan within the last couple of weeks after being a practicing lacto-ovo vegetarian for about a year. It was a sight to see. She was about 10-15 pounds underweight. Her complexion was similar to a ghost, pale white. She is obviously intelligent, but the mental sharpness was not present. This on top of being sick with a cold or flu. Her friend (she was also present) who just started practicing veganism (same time) after being lacto-ovo vegetarian even longer was in the same physical state. I wish both of them would realize they are destroying their own healths'. It seems that these extreme vegetarian types have a cult like following. This trend is very disheartening in the least.

One argument that I read from a vegan propaganda publication this past week concerned the actress Alicia Silverstone. Her source of Vitamin B12 comes from Miso soup. I was not aware of this vitamin source, but I rather doubt the concentration is enough to fulfill an individual's daily requirement without eating several bowls of the soup. This is the very basic problem with veganism. Yes, you can find these necessary vitamins in certain vegan approved sources, but they will not provide enough of the vitamins to an individual for healthy living. I repeat once again, healthy, long term, strict vegan adherents do NOT exist. It is a dangerous lifestyle. One other quirky thing about the article was her description of feeling holistic (??????). I am coming to the conclusion that this general "feeling" comes from a lack of energy and mild hallucinations. Yeah, you feel holy, but what is it really?

The other update is on my own health and is a follow up to the post, Give me a D, Vitamin D, where I discuss a potential Vitamin D deficiency in my own diet during winter. I would my overall feeling as constantly tired even though I am not sick and been sleeping quite well. After taking about 2000 IUs of Vitamin D from store bought vitamins, I felt better the following day. After one week of the supplements, I felt back to normal or similar to summertime. My guess was right, I was lacking Vitamin D in my diet and it was manifesting itself as symptoms similar to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. From now on, I am going to start taking lower doses (~800 IUs) starting in November to prevent this problem from hitting me in the middle of winter again. I am sure this is a very common problem in our modern society that lives indoors during daylight winter hours because of employment.

Supplementing what?

I have been at a quandary on topics to write. Today at work, we had a discussion concerning veganism. First, I will give a definition on veganism and categorize the diet as an extreme form of vegetarianism. The most common form of vegetarianism is lacto-ovovegetarianism or a vegetarian who eats eggs and consumes dairy products. Several variations of the protein loving vege types exist. If the diet is carefully planned, the egg/milk consuming vege types can live long, healthy lives. Be warned, a poor vegetarian diet is just as bad as a poor omnivorous diet though. As your momma said, "Eat your vegetables!"

Veganism takes a further step removing all forms of animal byproducts including dairy and eggs. Animal products have high concentrations of certain vitamins and minerals that may be found in plants, but the plants have low concentrations. These are iron, zinc, calcium, vitamin D, and B12. Removal of all animal byproducts severely limits the intake of these vital nutrients and could lead malnourishment. Supplements are often taken by vegans to fulfill their needs. The one of interest is vitamin B12. B12 is from yeast or bacterial activity, but the only source in modern diets is through animal products. Vegans do not eat any forms of animal products, thus, they will suffer vitamin B12 deficiency over a long period of time. What if they take supplements? Supplements come from a form of living animal byproduct, they are not vegan if B12 is one of them. Other deficiencies will also come into play from lack of these nutrients over a long period of time. Someone may live in good health over a few weeks or months, but any longer that is not possible. No large group of individuals is found worldwide that strictly adheres to veganism as a result. I will make the statement simple and clear. Healthy, strict, long-term vegan adherents are like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, they DO NOT EXIST.

This leads me to the second half of my post, something of interest to vegans, vitamin supplements and their benefits. In a prior post, I spoke about the value of research studies on health and continuing medical care. This study questions the beneficial value of supplemental vitamins. The multitude of vitamins individuals take for various disease preventative purposes may not have that significant of an effect on actually preventing the disease. In some cases, as with antioxidants and heart disease, it may actually be worst than not using the vitamins. (Note: Links do not work in paraphrase.)

The news on antioxidants, the darlings of the vitamin menagerie, is even more troubling. These compounds, which include Vitamins A, C, and E, selenium, beta carotene, and folate, fight free radicals, unstable compounds thought to damage cells and contribute to aging. But not only do antioxidant supplements fail to protectagainst heart disease, stroke, and cancer; they actually increase the risk of death, according to a 2007 analysis of research on more than 232,000 people, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, as well as other studies.

The article does make the statement that in cases of diets that lack certain nutrients (i.e. Vegans) vitamins are recommended and are beneficial. Vitamin supplements are not all bad. As for the preventative ideals concerning disease, this study demonstrates our basic lack of medical knowledge about the complex interactions vitamins have within our bodies. More studies are required in the future to clear our understanding.