How to not read an article

It's a good idea to read articles of various opinions, pros and cons, about an idea, new technology, advice on health, or anything, including a person or organization. I closely follow Dr. Andrew Weil, a well-known scientist on preventive, integrated or alternative medicine, on Facebook and through his newsletters. So it was refreshing to read Doctor Andrew Weil: Whose Side Is He Really On?, an article on healthwyze.org. The article reveals the business practice of Dr. Weil, his contract with the advertisement company, the nutrition supplements he's promoting, and the non-profit organization he founded and chaired. It's good to know a little of these details about the person and his organization I regularly follow. I personally never bothered to click the sales links in Dr. Weil's newsletters and never intend to buy the vitamins he recommends (sorry! I buy them from a local store, just to be lazy).

The author of the article may be at an age of vigor overwhelming reason. The numbers in her investigation or quote from somebody else's investigation may be OK. But if the tone of the language is strong, that's a sign that the article could be biased. Then I scroll down to the middle where I read "Cancer is a disease for which the alternative medical community has found cures, and it never recommends either radiation or poisonous 'treatments'." Wow! Cancer can be cured by alternative medicine! I'm sure those regularly reading medical science articles know that a serious health scientist is cautious in saying almost anything, "may help", "may have the effect", "is a risk factor",... I once read that about the only thing that we can definitively say is the cause of cancer is radioactive exposure, and everything else is a risk factor or may cause cancer. Unfortunately, that attitude is absent in this critique of Dr. Weil.

From that paragraph down, I pretty much glanced through to the end. Here's another big difference between it and Dr. Weil's articles: there's no reference to any published research. Single or double blind control studies are the gold standard in medical science. Published research is generally trustworthy. Almost all Dr. Weil's articles mention a publication by who in what journal in what year, delivered to us in a soft, "sage"-like tone. Who do you trust more?

As I said somewhere else, a scholar differs from a lawyer in that while both cannot tell lies, a lawyer can select evidence in favor of his argument, but a scholar cannot. A true, honest, scholar can select evidence that is relevant, but among all the relevant pieces of evidence, he cannot leave aside those against his point of view. Dr. Weil's articles almost always have a caution or caveat near the end apparently mitigating his advice stated in the main part of the article. This does not reduce, but instead add, weight to his persuation.

In short, a convincing article especially on a health science topic, should

* reference published research (indicate journal title, issue, and for our convenience, the authors and their affiliations)
* evaluate not just one side, but both pros and cons, of anything proposed or discussed
* speak in a professional tone (no vehement, over-zealous words, no pumped-up certainty on something the latest research is not certain about)

Best time to drink coffee

If you search for "best time to drink coffee" on Google, you'll be overwhelmed by the links. But only a few linked articles have scientific backing.

A 2010 Brazilian and French researchers' article suggests the meal time for coffee in order to take advantage of the beneficial effect of coffee on insulin, to lower the risk of diabetes. (Incidentally, some unsubstantiated articles link coffee with an increased risk of diabetes!) I did not find any article making a distinction between before-meal and after-meal for coffee. It probably doesn't matter much except on subjective grounds. I personally wouldn't drink too much, too concentrated coffee on an empty stomach, or I would feel nausea.

A group of Oxford researchers suggest 11 AM as the best time for coffee, because that's the time people will take the greatest pleasure in drinking it, according to their mathematical formula.

The rest of the articles are generally opinions, or personal preferences, which nevertheless may be amusing to read.

Tourmaline for health

My family made a trip to China recently. The tour guide took us to a small shop toward the end of the tour, as done to most Chinese tourist groups. The shop's sales pitch in this case is not as annoying as expected. In fact, I learned something new in her talk, particularly the part about tourmaline.

Tourmaline "is a crystal boron silicate mineral compounded with elements such as aluminium, iron, magnesium, sodium, lithium, or potassium". The Wikipedia page has a great deal of info about its physical properties, but not about its biological effect. Some people, presumably the Japanese initially, found that the far-infrared radiation it emits may be useful to certain health conditions. So far so good. From that point on, there's too much fanfare and exageration of its magic power, which I'll dismiss, as does this paper does.

But I'd like to point out one interesting feature of this "magic" mineral, which may or may not have medical effect: heating of body but not skin or air. This special heating achieved by far-infrared radiation differs from that of normal, infrared radiation (or other types of heating, such as convection) in that the latter also heats the skin, and air if not directly contacted. I wrapped a band containing this mineral on my wrist. About ten minutes later, I felt hot inside the wrist. I can imagine its potential use in niche cases such as when the patient needs heat but the skin can not take it for some reason. I sincerely hope a systematic study is done on these specific cases (so the research is more falsifiable, in Karl Popper's term, therefore more scientific), filtering out a large proportion of hype, and keeping the gem in people's verbal praise.

Soybean oil bad does not mean soy bad

On Facebook, Dr. Weil posted a short message "From the morning session of the Nutrition and Health Conf. in Boston: Consumption of soybean oil (usually labeled 'vegetable oil' and common in fried foods and cheap baked goods) has risen 1,000 percent over the last 100 years - a worrisome trend for American health.", followed by tens of comments. Some people are confused about the health benefit of soy because of this message. The reason is that not everything related to soy is bad, or is good. In one posting by Dr. Weil, "omega 6 fatty acids are the type prevalent in most vegetable oils, particularly soybean oil", and another, "Refined soybean oil, the second ingredient on the list, is a cheap vegetable oil that we should all avoid¸ because it is responsible for the excess of pro-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids in the mainstream diet." Because our bodies already have plenty of Omega-6 ever since (perhaps) the Industrial Revolution, we don't need more of it even though we do need a small amount. The ubiquitous soybean oil just makes what we have excessive.

On the other hand, soy or soybeans are not necessarily bad, and may be good. Apparent contradiction about whether to take soy can be clarified, to some extent, by reading the entire Wikipedia Health benefits and Health risks sections. One interesting remark in the long article is by a 2011 research team, "soy isoflavones intake is associated with a significant reduced risk of breast cancer incidence in Asian populations, but not in Western populations". Genes are not created completely equal across all ethnicities. I'm sure more research is needed on non-Asian populations assessing the benefits and risks, but it's almost never a concern for the Asian women, who are generally encouraged to eat more tofu instead of less.

Another interesting, latest, finding is that animal experiment indicates that soy protein can reduce liver fat.

Short and long-term memory for a student

A highly educated person spends about 16 years or almost one-fourth of his lifetime in schools, from elementary school to the highest level of graduate studies. Over these years, he takes more than a thousand exams, tests or quizzes. Depending on the subject he studies in the last few years, it's safe to say half of the exams on average heavily rely on memory of the study materials, or facts and established conclusions on the facts. Memory can be categorized into short-term versus long-term. Which do you think is more important to a high score in those exams? I believe for the majority of them, it's the short-term memory. The teacher goes through a chapter and expects you to remember lots of details, soon followed by a test. These details are only minimally needed for future bigger tests, which are rare anyway. As a result, the students with better short-term memory win.

On the other hand, a professional job requires a good balance of short- and long-term memory. A medical doctor, whose profession strongly demands memorization of a large amount of information, can't do his job well if he easily forgets what he learned one or a few years ago. Even an engineer must have a good memory of certain incidents that happened a long time ago, together with its solution in general (whose details can be searched later). Without accumulation of these experiences, i.e. memory of past incidents, an engineer would remain "junior" in spite of his biological age.

And yet there's indeed benefit in emphasizing the merit of short-term memory, apart from its apparently unfair advantage in taking school tests. Anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that people with strong short-term memory are intelligent, understand complicated issues easily, and study new subjects fast. (I'll search to see if there's research to back this claim.) In addition, scientific study has shown association between Alzheimer disease and loss of short-term, not long-term, memory. Smartness, or intelligence, may indeed go hand-in-hand with short-term memory.