Marika Sboros
By Marika Sboros
From Banting to Ebola, mindfulness medicine and in between, here in no particular order is my top 10 list of health stories eliciting fascination, fear and loathing in Biznews in 2014.
1. Banting, AKA the Tim Noakes low-carb, high-fat (LCHF) diet
Actually, this one deserves its Number 1 spot, given the solid science by top US specialists Stephen Phinney, Jeff Volek and others internationally behind it, and the fact that it has demolished one of the most enduring health myths of our time – that saturated fat causes heart disease. The myth has melted into nutrition science’s no-man’s-land, despite some experts (who really should know better) choosing to cling onto it.
Banting takes its name from corpulent mid-19th-century Victorian British undertaker William Banting who transformed his shape and health radically by ditching carbs. Banting has since morphed into LCHF, and is embraced with missionary zeal by people around the globe who have lost fortunes of weight quickly, and say they feel absolutely fabulous.
Cape Town sports scientist Prof Tim Noakes
Banting restaurants and recipes are popping up in unexpected places. In South Africa, internationally renowned Cape Town sports scientist Prof Tim Noakes is an LCHF pioneer. Sweden is the first Western nation to reject low-fat dietary dogma. Watch this space to see who’s next in 2015.
2. 5-a-day fruit and veg numbers game
This should probably be Number 1a, as it’s Banting related. But it’s another mythical nutrition beast that deserves its own space. More so since the number varies widely – and wildly – from country to country, with some saying you should eat 12 or more.
British obesity researcher, nutritionist and Cambridge University graduate Zoë Harcombe skins the 5-a-day myth alive. She’s not saying you shouldn’t eat any fresh fruit and veg, just that you don’t have to ladle them in daily, in high numbers as orthodox dietetitians would have you do.
3. Ebola epidemic
The world’s worst outbreak on record of Ebola is likely to continue till the end of 2015, according to Dr Peter Piot, a UK scientist who helped uncover the virus in1976. It causes vomiting, diarrhoea and bleeding, is spread by contact with bodily fluids of infected people, and has no known cure. At last count, it has killed 8,000 people, including many doctors and nurses. That number’s expected to rise once unreported cases are uncovered.
The first diagnosed case was a year ago: two-year-old Emile Ouamouno in a remote village in southern Guinea who died on December 6, 2013. Days later, his three-year-old sister, mother and grandmother died. In March 2014, the domino effect of Emile’s death began to show, taking even seasoned tropical disease experts by surprise, as the virus spread in the region, showing up in isolated pockets in the US and Europe.
Despite unseemly haste with which untested drugs have been sent to West Africa, one of the best looking drug to fight Ebola so far is survivor’s blood.
4. Anti-cancer arsenal
Dr Otto Warburg
One exciting development is based on research that won scientist Dr Otto Warburg the Nobel Prize For Physiology in 1931, showing that cancer is a metabolic disease. Other research shows that cancer causes “multiple time- and space-dependent changes in the health status of cells and tissues that ultimately lead to malignant tumours”, and that a key weapon to fight it is the ketogenic diet – yes, the one that makes Noakes’ critics work themselves up into a fine frothy.
Another intriguing anti-cancer weapon is CAR, short for chimeric antigen receptor , that takes inspiration – at least in name – from Greek mythology. The chimera of Homer’s Iliad is “a fire-breathing monster with a lion’s head, goat’s body and snake’s tail”. CAR is just as fantastical an immunotherapy mix: the patient’s own T-cells are re-engineered and injected back in the body, creating a “living drug’.
CAR research has sparked a frenzied race between Big Pharma and smaller biotech startups, all wanting the biggest slice of the anti-cancer drugs market’s pie, long before the drugs are even proven safe.
5. E-cigarettes
Clearly, there’s no smoke without fire on health risks of e-cigs. Specialists routinely hail them as a safe way to smokers to quit. The Oxford Dictionary even declared “vape”— the process of inhaling and exhaling nicotine-laced vapour emitted by e-cigarette devices — as its 2014 word of the year. The problem with the silver lining around e-cigs is the cloud of health concerns: Japanese research suggests e-cigarettes may contain 10 times the level of carcinogens as in regular tobacco. Other experts say health risks of e-cigarettes are a smokescreen.
6. Stem cell paralysis ‘cure’
Another “Aha” moment in medical research, which the scientists involved have described as “more impressive than a man walking on the moon”. Darek Fidyka, the Bulgarian man paralysed from the chest down following a knife attack in 2010, would agree. He is learning to walk again after taking part in research by British and Polish scientists, published in the October issue of the journal, Cell Transplantation, that takes even cutting-edge stem cell therapy to new heights. Scientists transplanted nerve stem cells from his nose into his severed spinal column. The scientists can’t say yet whether the results are reproducible, but are testing the therapy in other patients.
7. CVD (no, not cardiovascular disease)
It’s computer vision disorder – the cumulative health effects of too many hours hunched over your computer and starting at its screen. Like cardiovascular disease, computer vision disorder is another global epidemic and a “lifestyle disease”. That’s good news because it means you caused it, so you can cure it – by undoing bad habits such as not blinking regularly and taking enough breaks. For a fuller list, read my blog on top tips for computer vision problems.
8. Brain fog – AKA memory lapses
Yet another acquired syndrome with an increasing incidence worldwide, and among younger people. Memory lapses are not necessarily a natural part of ageing, and don’t always signal the onset of cognitive decline and dementias such as Alzheimer’s, that is also epidemic globally. Brain fog is more benign, though irritating. So if brain fog is making you forget, I’ve listed seven top brain foods to help you remember – walnuts, avos and coconuts among them. Mother Nature has many more to protect your grey matter.
9.The right to die – with dignity
Brittany Maynard
It’s a perennial debate, and the “right to die” movement was infused with new life after the death of beautiful young American Brittany Maynard. Maynard, 29, made headlines internationally when she released a video saying she would end her life on November 1, rather than suffer a lingering, painful, undignified death from terminal brain cancer. She died on the day, with a legally prescribed cocktail of drugs, her husband and mother by her side, at home in Oregon, one of a handful of US states with a “right-to-die” law.
10. Mindfulness medicine
Mindfulness is a concept as old as the hills of ancient India. It’s about learning to live “in the moment”. Meditation is one of its tools, but doesn’t require you to be an ascetic, spending hours on your own in a cave, contemplating your navel. There are ways to short circuit the process, as Harvard University psychology professor, Dr Ellen Langer describes in a three-part series of podcast interviews I did with her.
Langer is known as the “Mother of Mindfulness” for her research into the illusion of control, decision making, ageing and mindfulness theory. She believes mindfulness is the closest we’ll come to a panacea for all ills of body and mind, a gentle “magic bullet” for ageing, including so-called age-related “lifestyle diseases” such as diabetes and cancer.
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