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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday January 25 2020, @02:02PM   Printer-friendly
from the it-does-a-body-good-(in-small-doses) dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

[...]Research on 5,834 U.S. adults by Brigham Young University exercise science professor Larry Tucker, Ph.D., found people who drink low-fat milk experience several years less biological aging than those who drink high-fat (2% and whole) milk.

[...]Tucker investigated the relationship between telomere length and both milk intake frequency (daily drinkers vs. weekly drinkers or less) and milk fat content consumed (whole vs. 2% vs. 1% vs. skim). Telomeres are the nucleotide endcaps of human chromosomes. They act like a biological clock and they're extremely correlated with age; each time a cell replicates, humans lose a tiny bit of the endcaps. Therefore, the older people get, the shorter their telomeres.

And, apparently, the more high-fat milk people drink, the shorter their telomeres are, according to the new BYU study, published in Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity. The study revealed that for every 1% increase in milk fat consumed (drinking 2% vs. 1% milk), telomeres were 69 base pairs shorter in the adults studied, which translated into more than four years in additional biological aging. When Tucker analyzed the extremes of milk drinkers, adults who consumed whole milk had telomeres that were a striking 145 base pairs shorter than non-fat milk drinkers.

-- submitted from IRC

Larry A. Tucker. Milk Fat Intake and Telomere Length in U.S. Women and Men: The Role of the Milk Fat Fraction. Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity, 2019; 2019: 1 DOI: 10.1155/2019/1574021


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by RamiK on Saturday January 25 2020, @08:22PM (6 children)

    by RamiK (1813) on Saturday January 25 2020, @08:22PM (#948589)

    ANY study that cites the "Mediterranean Diet" as any sort of proof is full of shit. The diet has nothing to do with health - it turned out to be normal human genetic variance in large populations. But like all bad science, it's going to take a generation to die.

    A quick review of recent and most cited shows the term is actively being used by medical researchers: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?scisbd=1&q=Mediterranean+Diet [google.com]

    The problem of dietary fat is entirely genetic...

    Nature just run a story showing how increased activity and dietary changes can overcome genetic susceptibility: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41525-019-0099-2 [nature.com]

    Most nutrition and medical research agrees saturated fats are too abundant in our "western" diets for the vast majority of people. Are there exception? Sure. There people out there celebrating 90yr/old after smoking two packs a day for 70 years. I met them. Doesn't mean much as far as what medical bodies should recommend to the general population and to food industry regulatory bodies.

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  • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday January 25 2020, @10:20PM (5 children)

    by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Saturday January 25 2020, @10:20PM (#948627) Journal

    And many doctors still cite low seretonin in the brain as the cause of depression even though there is no proof, and plenty of proof that SSRIs cause increased suicide rates over both the short and long term. The Mediterranean diet is another such myth.

    Also, there are people who don't have a problem with eating a high fat diet because of mutations. This is easily proven by a combination of blood tests and arterial scans. Runs in families. In such cases, it's not like their bodies resist damages caused by bad habits - the fat is rapidly taken up and used by the body. As it should be. Humans have a genetic defect that causes fat to deposit in coronary arteries. Most other hominids don't. Instead they get fibrotic masses. Not healthy either way, except in the case of humans who get neither.

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    • (Score: 2) by Booga1 on Saturday January 25 2020, @11:04PM (1 child)

      by Booga1 (6333) on Saturday January 25 2020, @11:04PM (#948637)

      Well, I would have to ask, "compared to what?" I have a hypothesis that the Mediterranean diet is healthier than the "Twinkies and McDonald's diet."
      I can only force a sample of one, so I know which one I'd pick if I had to test that hypothesis.

      • (Score: 1, Troll) by barbara hudson on Saturday January 25 2020, @11:13PM

        by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Saturday January 25 2020, @11:13PM (#948642) Journal
        Humans are like cockroaches - really hard to kill. DNA analysis shows that there were many times in the past that our entire population was almost wiped out, but here we are. Our lifespan continues to increase, except in the US where it has declined for 3 years running. Blame Trump, because the increased suicide rates among farmers thanks to his trade wars, the increased fatalities from drug and alcohol all coincided with his election and cutbacks in the social safety net.
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    • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday January 26 2020, @01:16AM (2 children)

      by RamiK (1813) on Sunday January 26 2020, @01:16AM (#948688)

      And many doctors still cite low seretonin in the brain as the cause of depression even though there is no proof, and plenty of proof that SSRIs cause increased suicide rates over both the short and long term.

      First of all, I'm talking about researchers not doctors. And in the literature most of the meta agrees they don't do better more than placebo.

      That being said, doctors and medical authorities keep prescribing SSRIs for the same reason parents check under the bed for monsters: Placebos work and there's a genuine risk in taking it away from patients that believe in it while it also conductive to the rest of the treatment for doctors to able to say "take this and go to therapy" instead of "go to therapy" as if they're shoeing them away. I believe it was around here where I heard how in Germany some clinics instruct doctors to prescribe actual placebos (sugar pills) when referring to psychiatric / psychological care for that reason as well. They also give them a whole list of side-effects and tell them to phone back just so the patients feel they're being looked after.

      The Mediterranean diet is another such myth. Also, there are people who don't have a problem with eating a high fat diet because of mutations

      Hold on now. Seems you're mixing things up. This is the bad stuff by the following order per importance:

      1. Obesity.
      2. Carbs.
      3. Saturated fat.

      So, when talking about no.3, we're assuming no caloric surplus otherwise there's obesity which fucks everything up regardless. I'm also assuming no deficit since you literally burn through it all when cutting anyhow so you only really want high proteins to keep the muscles from breaking apart but otherwise you can eat anything up to the caloric limit.

      So, in that context, the Mediterranean diet is simply a name space for high protein, high fat, low carbs, low saturated fats diet. It's actually quite close to the Atkins-like bacon and milk diet we're enjoying. Just slightly better. How much better? Well, I'm thinking, 3-5years worth telomere length speaking :D

      How relevant is it? Well, from what I read, about 90% of the population is stuck dealing with no.1 and no.2 with the regulations over emphasizing no.3, almost entirely ignoring no.2 and failing to deal with no.1. So, with this in mind, the researchers basically just started advocating the Mediterranean diet as a catch all. Sure, most people would be fine with just cutting on the carbs and getting their BMI in check. But there are a LOT of skinny young people getting heart attacks despite doing cardio and eating right due to no.3 so they figured they might as well cover all their bases. And as for an added bonus, there's this new telomere length thing now so they clearly weren't all wrong recommending it.

      Maybe it's too much of fad. But it's not a myth. It's just over rated a bit. Still, it's easy to find good recipes googling Mediterranean diet cook books so I'm not complaining.

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      • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday January 26 2020, @01:35AM (1 child)

        by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Sunday January 26 2020, @01:35AM (#948696) Journal
        Where do you think doctors get this shit from. Researchers funded by drug companies.

        Also, telomeres are bullshit. They can grow longer, as they did in the astronaut twins where one spent a year in space. Upon return, his telomeres were shorter, but they grew back to their normal length. The research assumes this is not possible. Same as I assumed it wasn't possible because nobody checked it until recently.

        So telomeres are not an indication of aging, because people don't grow younger as they age unless they're Benjamin Button.

        All those reports of Scott Kelly aging faster in space than his twin Mark on earth turned out to be both premature and wrong, unless you believe that he got younger upon return.

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        • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday January 26 2020, @03:49AM

          by RamiK (1813) on Sunday January 26 2020, @03:49AM (#948755)

          Where do you think doctors get this shit from. Researchers funded by drug companies.

          And the food industry. The unsaturated fats thing started when the industry tried to push in trans fats, then resisted their removal, then resisted replacing saturated fats with unsaturated, then finally accepted it but tried to push more carbs in.

          But the thing is, for every bad paper, there's a dozen good ones that the regulator ignores and no one mentions. Now at least researchers are required to reveal funding sources in most publications so we're starting to see less and less fake science. Doesn't change the fact the administration simply ignores the science... But still, the science is better at least.

          telomeres are bullshit

          First of all, they're biomarkers, not aging itself. That being said, I think you got your facts critically wrong not reading the next paragraph through:

          When Bailey’s team analyzed the telomeres in Scott’s white blood cells, they found that the average telomere length in these cells actually increased during the mission. “It was exactly the opposite of what we had imagined,” Bailey says. “We proposed that, in fact, because of all the really unique stresses and exposures to things like microgravity, space radiation and isolation … [it] really seemed like they would accelerate telomere loss in space.”

          Once Scott touched back down on Earth, Bailey’s team observed that his average telomere length decreased to roughly match pre-flight levels. In the months following the flight, however, a greater number of telomeres were lost or critically shortened. This could be a concerning finding, as telomere shortening and loss is associated with aging and susceptibility to age-related diseases, including cardiovascular problems and cancer.

          ( https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/nasas-twins-study-creates-portrait-human-body-after-year-space-180971945/ [smithsonianmag.com] )

          So, the telomeres elongated during spaceflight but shorten back and even further shortened once back on earth for a while eventually being shorter than his brother's. But again, just bio markers. They reflect age over time in the same sense wrinkles can tell how you're aging. Some days will be drier... Sometimes I'll get facial dandruff... Sometimes you'll shine like a 12 year old... Doesn't change the fact they add up, aren't getting fuller and I'm getting old. At least, where gravity is involved...

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