Smoking Still Takes a Heavy Toll in China

The Medscape report, Smoking Still Takes a Heavy Toll in China, based an article in the January 8, 2009 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, is no surprising. Too many stupid Chinese men still believe smoking paints for them an image of maturity and masculinity, while ignoring the great health risk, and oblivious to the fact that smoking actually is linked to impotence. Smokers are costly. Indeed they're mostly using their own money, but all. For those heavily using tax payers' money to treat their smoking related diseases, they'd better die sooner to relieve the society of unnecessary financial burden and create cleaner air to others.

Some quotes of the article:

"They estimate that in 2005, 673 000 deaths were attributable to smoking in China..., the majority of which (538,200) were among men." "The prevalence of tobacco smoking has been continuously high in adult men (around 60%)." "[S]ome of those in government are beginning to understand that revenue gained from tobacco taxation is far less than the healthcare costs associated with smoking."

Cooking oil comments

[Originally posted at http://bbs.anjia.com/dispbbs_4_245846_1_1.html ]
> 中国食用油的制作方法分压榨（物理）和浸出（化学）两种，浸出
> 是用一种化学物质把油弄出来，产油率比压榨方式要高，但是用浸出
> 方式里面的一种化学物质吃下去永远都会积蓄在体内，几十年也排不出去的，所以
> 现在中国得各种各样癌症的人那么多，经常食用这种浸出油一定出问题。尤其是食
> 用油是我们每天都吃的东西，一定得好好关注。
> 如果经济条件允许的条件下，最好用橄榄油是最好了。[If you can afford, it's best to use olive oil.]

Olive oil is the best, but it lacks Omega-3 fatty acid. So you either need to supplement Omega-3 by taking tablets or capsules you buy from a nutrition store, or buy olive oil fortified with Omega-3, and of course eating plenty of fish is recommended too.

Also, peanuts, peanut oil, or anything made from peanuts have a trace amount of aflatoxin, a very potent carcinogen (cancer-inducing agent). There's no peanut oil that is completely free of this toxin.

Dr Weil's "Eating Well For Optimum Health"

My neighbor, a pharmacist working in the same hospital as I, lent the book to me, Dr. Andrew Weil's Eating Well For Optimum Health: The Essential Guide to Bringing Health and Pleasure Back to Eating. I'm about half through. I just checked the readers' reviews on Amazon. It's amazing; even with 135 reviews, it's still 4-star (normally when the number of reviews goes up, the rating goes down).

This is an extraordinary book on health, nutrition, and general and his "integrative" medicine. Dr. Weil is a graduate of Harvard Medical School (HMS). While excellent education doesn't automatically translate to excellent real-life experience, I generally have more trust in people attending a more competitive school than otherwise; their intelligence and ability to self-teach to keep up with new discoveries in science play a role here. That aside, Dr. Weil has extensive clinic experience and travels and/or talks to people around the world, Eskimos, Native Indians, Africans, and of course those an ordinary traveller would also have a change to talk to.

The pharmacist neighbor is a "picky" lady. Sure enough, the book she recommends is not a disappointment at all. It thoroughly examines macronitrients (fat, protein, carbohydrates including sugar) and micronutrients (vitamin, calcium, etc) in words perfectly understandable to readers with higher education not specialized in medicine. (My Ph.D is in analytical chemistry.) I believe the technical accuracy is pretty much guaranteed, based on my other readings over the years, and some memory of basic knowledge of biochemistry. The writing is clear and logical, and as a bonus, occasionally entertaining; after he reveals the "secret" why an Atkins diet follower can lose weight quickly but get no further afterwards, he "suggests" eating high-fat cheese cake, and only cheese cake, to lose weight. You sure will lose weight, because you're so fed up with cheese and stop eating. There's so much new stuff in the book to a non-professional like me. We don't lack Omega-6, but Omega-3, and so their ratio is not right; we shouldn't blame fat indiscriminately, but should know what oil is good or bad and why (olive oil is good overall but remember it lacks Omega-3, etc). I wish the book index was more extensive to help the book serve as a reference for easy lookup.

Dr. Weil unintentionally demonstrates his appreciation for the health benefit of Oriental, and of course Mediterranean, diet. With Chinese origin in my background and personal interest in traditional Chinese medicine, I feel gratified to read that, and hope my Mom and Dad and others in China live a better longer life. In case you didn't pay attention, there's not too much of variety of vegetables in a typical American grocery store compared to one in China town; in other words, Americans probably don't eat with as wide a selection as Chinese. Not that everything Chinese eat is good (some eat exotic animals and get uncurable diseases). But generally a greater variety of food is a good thing. Nevertheless, obviously unhealthful features of Chinese food should not be overlooked, deep oily stir-frying, possibly smoking of pork, etc.

The book was published in 2001. Some new findings were not incorporated. For instance, the risk of taking vitamin E supplements was not well known until recent years.[note] Readers should always have a balanced reading "portfolio" even if emphasis is placed on honest and earnest researchers like Dr. Weil.

[note] 1. Supplemental Vitamin E May Increase Heart Failure Risk
2. WHS: Women's Heath Study -- Aspirin and Vitamin E for the Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, "qualified success for aspirin in cardioprevention, but no benefit associated with the use of vitamin E."
3. Meta-analysis Results Suggest High-Dose Vitamin E Increases All-Cause Mortality

Alcohol drinking linked to breast cancer

Just because it offers cardiovascular benefit doesn't mean you can ignore its adverse effect.

http://www.dor.kaiser.org/dors/news/Sept2007_alcohol_breast_cancer.shtml
Cohort 70,000 people, time span more than 20 years. Quite convincing. "women who drank between one and two alcoholic drinks per day increased their risk of breast cancer by 10 percent compared with light drinkers who drank less than one drink a day. The risk of breast cancer increased by 30 percent in women who drank more than three drinks a day."

http://my.clevelandclinic.org/be_well/wine_health_benefits_qa_bewell0808.aspx
Practical advice. "If you want to drink wine, limit your intake to four glasses or fewer per week, and be sure to take a multivitamin every day." "increased risk could be somewhat offset by ingesting the recommended daily amount of folate or folic acid (400 mcg). Both are forms of Vitamin B9. Folate occurs naturally in green, leafy vegetables, citrus fruits and dried beans, while folic acid, which is better absorbed, is synthetic and mainly found in multivitamins."

Some researches show that it's alcohol in wine or champaigne that is responsible for the positive cardiovascular effect. But now you face a dilemma, especially if you're a woman of the age for breast cancer. The above articles didn't say, but you can still eat dark chocolate, or many other good things, and exercise, for the health of heart and blood circulation.

2009-07 update:
Moderate Alcohol Intake and Cancer Incidence in Women, Journal of the National Cancer Institute

Beijing Olympics: When do sports and health go together?

In China, teachers and parents often associate sports with health. No doubt if you want better health, regularly doing exercise is a must. On the other hand, pushing people to limits in sports often goes in the wrong direction of a healthy life. Not everyone in China agrees with that view, or immediately realizes it. Failing to realize this danger, thousands of parents send their kids, usually one per family, to sports schools known for Spartanic training. While we cheer for the Olympics to be held in Beijing next month, anticipate extraordinary influx of visitors and money, and the boost of national pride too tightly interwoven with sports, we should never forget the boys and girls, now men and women, that failed to achieve the absolute top, and all because of over-training and inhumane treatment, failed in health, and subsequently failed financially and in personal life. Read NPR's renowned reporter Louisa Lim's heart-breaking report Many Chinese Athletes Find No Glory In Retirement. These retired athletes' miserable life is not a hot topic in China, not among many parents and teachers, and particularly not hot during the frenzied cheers for the upcoming Olympics.

All we need is a sober mind. Be cool, be healthy. Tell your friends, those dads and moms, and teachers, that sports is not health unless moderation is practiced. Beijing Olympics is just an event. National pride comes from 1 out of 1 million. While you root for the 1-millionth, remind yourself of the 999,999 that may become another "Zhao Yonghua, 31, spent much of the past decade in bed". I believe only when the whole country stops treating gold medals as national pride this fanatically will sports and health be closer in concept.

(To have a balanced view, read all four of Ms Lim's reports at China: Glory For The Nation)