Lessons learned from a story of a student that committed suicide

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(6) If after the counseling, the child is less open to his parents, suspect the counselor, and stop the counseling immediately.

Note Lesson (6), which is related to (5). It is probably the most obscure aspect of mental counseling and yet is of vital importance, literally. It's not uncommon for a counselor to say, perhaps casually just like any non-specialist, that the parents are not caring (enough) or not doing a good job. Except in rare cases where the parents or one parent is truly irresponsible, these defamatory words alienate the child from the loving parents. And in view of the fact that an immature child may trust his teacher or counselor more than his parents, these words are particularly damaging, and could inadvertently push the child toward total isolation and possibly suicide.

Eating too much sugar leads to diabetes?

Does eating too much sugar cause type-2 diabetes? The answer has always been "not directly", that is, too much sugar, commonly consumed along with too much unhealthy food, causes weight gain, which contributes to diabetes. But the 2013 article by the UC San Francisco researchers, The Relationship of Sugar to Population-Level Diabetes Prevalence: An Econometric Analysis of Repeated Cross-Sectional Data, is said to give a positive answer to the question. According to news articles such as Quantity of Sugar in Food Supply Linked to Diabetes Rates, and High Sugar Consumption Linked To Type 2 Diabetes, the author of the research article said that “in medicine, we rely on the postulates of Sir Austin Bradford Hill to examine associations to infer causation, as we did with smoking. You expose the subject to an agent, you get a disease; you take the agent away, the disease gets better; you re-expose and the disease gets worse again. This study satisfies those criteria, and places sugar front and center.”

Unfortunately, I can't find much talk about this research on the Internet, especially some time after its publication. Six years have passed and the public opinion on whether there is relationship between sugar intake and diabetes largely remains negative. An 2017 article summarizes various studies, with a general conclusion of "No" to the title question "Does Sugar Cause Diabetes?", citing 16 references, without mention of the 2013 UCSF article.

[2019-11 Update] According to a new article Changes in Consumption of Sugary Beverages and Artificially Sweetened Beverages and Subsequent Risk of Type 2 Diabetes: Results From Three Large Prospective U.S. Cohorts of Women and Men, "[i]ncreasing consumption of sugary beverages or ASBs was associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes, albeit the latter may be affected by reverse causation and surveillance bias." Dr. Weil calls the study "the first to investigate whether or not changes in beverage choice and long-term consumption of sugar or artificially sweetened drinks is associated with the risk of type 2 diabetes."

Do TCM doctors have a shorter life span than doctors of western medicine?

It's a common theme on the Internet of the Chinese language: "台湾中医比西医短命六七岁" (Taiwanese Traditional Chinese Medicine doctors have a shorter life span than doctors of western medicine by six to seven years). Like almost all popular articles written in Chinese, the source of claim is not verified. In this case, it's simply stated as "台湾《联合报》报道" (according to the report of Taiwanese United Daily News), or "根据台湾医学会最新调查" (according to the latest investigation of the Taiwanese Medical Society"), without giving a link.

After some Googling, I managed to locate the earliest webpage that carried this information. At blog.udn.com/giveman/4346332 posted at 2010/08/23 15:08, the blogger attributed this claim to the Taiwanese 衛生署 (Ministry of Health) and 婦產科醫學會 (Taiwanese Gynecological Society) by quoting a reporter by the name of 陳惠惠. Unfortunately, there's no further link. One week later, on 2010/8/30, Professor 黃文璋 (Wen-Jang Huang) of National University of Kaohsiung wrote that "雖未能找到台灣婦產科醫學會的調查報告，但在網路上查到..." (Although the investigative report by the Taiwanese Gynecological Society was not found, I searched and found on the Internet that ..."

Literature search aside, the fact that a statement claiming that TCM doctors live shorter than non-TCM counterparts can quickly become popular and continue floating on the Internet for many years is an interesting one. Indeed, TCM is said to be strong at 养生 (maintaining health) and not so at medical treatment, as most people believe. Then, why would TCM practitioners themselves die younger? If that turns out to be true based on quality statistics, there may be one factor at play: TCM doctors are not fully appreciative of the toxicity of some ingredients (they know but choose to make light of them), or have not kept abreast of some latest studies (as in the case of 马兜铃酸 or aristolochic acid found to exist in much more herbs than previously thought).

Better be fat, if you're a man with cancer

"Obesity associated with longer survival for men with metastatic melanoma"
www.mdanderson.org/newsroom/2018/02/obesity-associated-with-longer-survival-for-men-with-metastatic-melanoma.html

"Obese patients with metastatic melanoma (note: the most dangerous type of skin cancer) who are treated with targeted or immune therapies live significantly longer than those with a normal body mass index... This effect, referred to as the 'Obesity Paradox', principally manifested itself in men... The researchers found no significant differences in survival between women with normal, overweight or obese BMI... Women with metastatic melanoma have long been known to have better outcomes compared to men. In this study obesity overcame that survival disadvantage for men, leading researchers to now look at the possible impact of sex hormones in this effect... Recent studies have shown a similar survival benefit for obese patients with colorectal or kidney cancer."

The researcher, Dr. Jennifer McQuade at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, consistently rated the best cancer hospital in the US, said, “The public health message is not that obesity is good. Obesity is a proven risk factor for many diseases,... Even within our metastatic melanoma population, we would not suggest that patients intentionally gain weight. We need to figure out what is driving this paradox and learn how to use this information to benefit all of our patients.”

Nevertheless, the temptation for a male cancer patient in this situation to gain weight is so strong that the politically correct public health message could be ignored. Unless the cause of this "Obesity Paradox" is soon identified, it may be wise to advise these patients to try temporarily accumulating body fat in order to improve survival. Obesity is no doubt an evil. But what evil is more bad than cancer? The researcher in this study is reluctant to advocate weight gain even in this very specific case. That is understandable as they are neither interested nor specialized in making an exception to the overall healthy advice.

Olive oil: three brands are good

An article is circulating on the Internet titled something like Studies Uncover 14 Fake And 11 Real Olive Oil Brands (With 4-Step DIY Authenticity Test) or its variant. There are a few problems with this article.

• The word "fake" is misused. Those olive oils not meeting the test requirements are not really fake, but mostly just do not have sufficient olive oil component in the blend.
• The DIY authenticity test such as storing olive oil in the fridge to see if the oil solidifies is not reliable.
• The biggest problem may be the brands not matching those in the ultimately quoted research article.

I'd like to focus on the last point. The above mentioned article lists these brands in the section "Who Were Keeping It Real?", i.e. not "fake" in the author's language

    Ottavio
    Kirkland Organic
    Corto Olive
    Lucero
    California Olive Ranch
    Bariani Olive Oil
    Cobram Estate
    Lucini
    McEvoy Ranch Organic
    Omaggio
    Olea Estates

and, at the bottom of the Web page, reveals the source, http://www.healthyfoodhouse.com/14-fake-olive-oil-companies-revealed-stop-buying-brands-now/, which in turn claims to be based on http://livetheorganicdream.com/fake-olive-oil-companies-revealed-stop-buying-these-brands-now/, which finally indicates the trustworthy research done at olivecenter.ucdavis.edu. That 2011 University of California at Davis article, titled Report: Evaluation of Extra-Virgin Olive Oil Sold in California, does not list all the above 11 good brands. I checked each of them against the Report. Only three out of the 11 are truly listed as good brands. They are

    California Olive Ranch
    Cobram Estate
    Lucini

This is not too bad in the sense that we as non-specialists only need to memorize three names when we shop for olive oil at a grocery store.