Vox Clamantis

Wine

The LA Times puts a damper on my sophisticated life of wine and cheese parties:

If you think a glass of wine in the evening is good for your heart, think again.

The long-held belief that moderate drinking reduces your risk of a heart attack or dying is based on flawed data and is most likely wrong, according to a study released today.

A couple glasses of wine aren't going to hurt you, the study found, but they aren't going to help you much either. Heavy drinking, of course, is unquestionably bad for you.

Despite all this, if you are going to have a drink, red wine is still better than the rest. The article is most important for its methodology, not necessarily its conclusion. I still consider this an open question. Here is the study.

Maverick's 2006

Maverick's Surf Contest was held yesterday in Half Moon Bay, CA. Here is a quicktime video from Surfline, with music by ASG. The SF Chronicle also has video coverage, sans music - it's still impressive. There are stories all over the web. Here's the Chronicle, and here's Surfline. Grant "Twiggy" Baker, a 32 year old big wave rider from South Africa won the event. That earned him 30k, which should have him living a rock star's life in SA. Waves were about 20 feet, with some reportedly as large as 50 feet. Maverick's remains controversial since its inception. The Coast News has an article on what the surf contest has meant to the area. Also check out MavSurfer, which has photos, videos and even a blog.

Do you know what's in your yogurt?

From the WSJ (free link):

Food makers may not want to dwell on it, but the ingredient that gives Dannon Boysenberry yogurt and Tropicana Ruby Red Grapefruit juice their distinctive colors comes from crushed female cochineal beetles. Too much information? Some consumers would say there hasn't been nearly enough. [emphasis added]

Pressed by consumer advocates, the Food and Drug Administration is expected to publish a food-labeling proposal online today that would require companies to disclose when a food contains beetle-derived colorings including vivid-red "carmine" and bright-orange "cochineal" (pronounced coach-in-EEL). The public has 60 days to comment before a final ruling is made.

Under current FDA regulations, food labels must identify certain man-made colorings by name, such as FD&C Red No. 40. But for carmine, cochineal and other naturally occurring ingredients, companies can use terms such as "color added" or, oddly, "artificial color."

Bugged by the loophole, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington public-health advocacy group, and a small but vocal group of consumers who are allergic to the ingredients have pushed for stiffer rules. Joining the chorus are vegetarians, who don't want to eat insects, and consumers observing kosher dietary practices. Products containing carmine "may look like kosher," but they aren't, says Rabbi Moshe Elefant, chief operating officer of the kosher division of the Orthodox Union, a leading certifier of kosher products. "There are a lot of people who will not be happy to know that they are eating products that contain dried beetle."

I predict that some Whole Foods types will care. Expect zero impact on obesity. If nothing else, Fear Factor doesn't seem nearly as wild anymore. I'll eat your beetles.

Fund Free Mammograms

Supposedly the Breast Cancer Site is not getting enough hits on their daily counter. The daily counter, if you're not familiar with the site, helps fund free mammograms for women through corporate sponsorship. I've been getting emails about this, so rather than forwarding them to friends I'll just post it here:

Visit The Breast Cancer Site at www.thebreastcancersite.com today and every day to click on the pink "Fund Free Mammograms" button and help fund free mammograms for homeless, working-poor and uninsured women.

This simple action costs you nothing, but makes early detection and survival possible! Funding is paid by site sponsors and goes to the nonprofit National Breast Cancer Foundation, which uses it to fund programs that provide free mammography screenings to women in need. You can click once per day.

Pass it along as a way to fight breast cancer all year long!

www.thebreastcancersite.com/

Yo mama's so fat...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Fatter rear ends are causing many drug injections to miss their mark, requiring longer needles to reach buttock muscle, researchers said on Monday.

Standard-sized needles failed to reach the buttock muscle in 23 out of 25 women whose rears were examined after what was supposed to be an intramuscular injection of a drug.

Two-thirds of the 50 patients in the study did not receive the full dosage of the drug, which instead lodged in the fat tissue of their buttocks, researchers from The Adelaide and Meath Hospital in Dublin said in a presentation to the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

From Reuters (emphasis added). See Mark Morford at the SF Chronicle for commentary. There are several reasons for our increasing obesity, but I blame it all on Sir Mix-A-Lot.

The limited reach of my blog

I posted earlier about a few simple steps we can all take to stay healthy. As I was walking down the escalator to the metro I passed a couple of guys who were not walking. As I passed, I noticed one guy lean over the side of the escalator and blow his nose by that method most affectionately known as the "okie blow." For those unfamiliar with this technique, simply close one nostril by applying pressure with your finger, and then blow all the snot out of your other nostril. No tissue required. If you lack skill, you'll likely end up with snot on your shirt. Yeah, not so hygienic. Luckily, this guy was a pro and he shot his snot into the plants alongside the escalator. Still, not so hygienic. Nor is it particularly charming, especially since I hadn't had my requisite pots of coffee to wake up. If you wish to not contaminate others, and stay healthy yourself, avoid this behavior, unless you're skiing, in which case it's fine. Or if you're in Kentucky. Then it's fine too.

All the small things

So now that China has confirmed that Avain Flu has been transferred to humans, I'd like to suggest a few minor behavioral changes. For two views on big policy bigthink, see Tyler Cowen and Brad DeLong. My comments fall under Tyler's second bullet point.

First, I am regularly surprised by how many men do not wash their hands after using the restroom. This happens regularly. Maybe they feel they will get dirtier since other men are also touching the sink, but that's not legit. What is also scary is that these are, mostly, congressional staffers - the ones who will write up any Avian Flu legislation, if things come to that. I can't comment on female behavior, of course.

Second, Baja Fresh used to offer moist towelettes to their guests. They still may, though they don't  around here. Further, we should all appropriate Japanese traditions and clean our hands with hot towels before eating and again following the meal. Barring a steaming towel, the moist towelettes seem fine. Props to Meskarem (a DC restaurant) for giving guests moist towelettes after the meal. Using soap and water is preferable of course; it just may not be practical for those on the go.

Finally, if you do not have a tissue handy, do not blow your nose in your hands and then try to shake my hand or put your hands on the hand rails in the metro. While this may be a little better than not covering your nose at all, it would be better still if you bent your arm at your elbow and sneezed there.

Ultimately it may be Microsoft that saves us all. The Xbox 360 goes on sale at midnight and I expect that trains, buses, and malls will be mighty quiet for the next few months as people sit in awe in front of their televisions and try to thnk up clever excuses to ditch school/work/life/ and all other social responsibilities.

See the Avian Flu blog for in-depth coverage.

D.A.R.E.

Drugs are really expensive. An economist goes undercover to figure out why:

It's 2 a.m., and we're sneaking through the dark hallways of Robert Taylor Homes, one of the nation's poorest housing projects. Cold air rushes through the chain link fence that serves as an outer wall. Barely muffled sounds echo from behind the painted cinder blocks. Karen tugs at my arm, and we duck into a smoke-filled room. She lives here, on Chicago's South Side. I live on the North Side. Karen is black. I am white. She is here to sell bags of pot. I am here to solve a mystery.

Taking the expressways, it's a ten-minute drive from Robert Taylor Homes to Lincoln Park. If you had a nickel bag of marijuana on the seat next to you, its selling value would double during the short trip, from $5 to $10. This could never happen on the open market. What economists call arbitrage would quickly set in, as people bought massive quantities on the South Side to sell on the North. But this is the black market, with peculiar rules stemming from its own peculiar nature.

For starters, there is no official contract enforcement on the black market. With the government out of the picture, disputes are often resolved by private force. So dealers and buyers take precautions to minimize disputes. Buyers go to dealers with a good reputation, and dealers try to feel out new customers to make sure they aren't dangerous, or cops. It is the risks of dealing that push black-market prices higher than their open-market counterparts. Dealers factor in the risks of their business tacitly, without formal T-balance accounting. But even the greenest dealer I spoke with had some idea as to how much profit justifies how much risk.

Demand for pot is generally not very price-sensitive. For a typical customer paying a typical price, the cost of getting high is about $2, less than the cost of a fast-food meal. Someone who's developed a tolerance for the weed would need about $6 worth -- but that's still cheaper than a movie. As a result, the limits of what a dealer can charge are set by his competition, not his customers. And because the wholesale price of marijuana tends to be about the same throughout Chicago, retail price differences tend to be a function of transaction costs. One might expect such costs to be relatively uniform throughout the city. Yet the price of marijuana is approximately 60% higher, gram for gram, on the North Side.

To investigate why this substantial price difference exists, I spoke to a number of dealers from different parts of the city. Two were typical: "Karen" from the South Side and "John" from the North Side.

Here is the rest.

Carb loading for the MCM

Tomorrow is the 31st annual Marine Corps Marathon. Racers are resting today, doing random things like picking up packets and making sure they have all their supplies organized. Many are getting ready for a big plate of pasta tonight. That's probably not the best idea.

From an evolutionary perspective, fat was the prefered endurance fuel. The sorts of carbohydrate-laden foods and drinks modern athletes consume did not exist; in fact, there were no simple carbs 100,000 years ago. Our ancestors ate wild plants that were very high in antioxidants and consumed as much fat as they could, meaning that the lean animals they ate had to be processed to capture all their fat content.

From Art De Vany. Art is an econ professor (emeritus) at UC Irvine (you can read more about him here.) He is well known for eating the caveman diet before it was chic. He also thinks marathons are very bad for you (here are his top 10 reasons not to run, as if you needed any convincing.)

The current emphasis on carb loading may just be the result of too much money flowing from sports drink manufacturers and others with vested interests. You should read his post if you are in the health training industry or if you are about to run in tomorrow's race. And the best of luck to you. I'll be asleep.

T2

I offered my recommendations about tea earlier. Andrew Weil is an even stronger advocate (not that you should ever trust a man with a beard.) From his most recent book, Healthy Aging:

The least processed form is white tea from parts of China. Often quite expensive, it brews into a beverage that is almost colorless or very pale and has a most delicate flavor. Next on the scale is green tea, which comes in many varieties and qualities from places as diverse as India, China, and, of course, Japan. It is somewhat lower in antioxidant activity, stronger in color and flavor. Next is oolong tea, produced in quantity on the island of Taiwan and on mainland China. Intermediate in color, flavor and antioxidant activity between green and black tea, it ranges from inexpensive, forgettable forms (Chinese restaurant tea) to exquisite brews that are the most expensive teas in the world, $10,000 a pound and more. Black tea, produced in great quantities in India, Ceylon [Sri Lanka], and Argentina, has been the form most familiar to Westerners. It is what we get in ordinary tea bags (usually the cheapest stuff of all) and what North Americans consume as iced tea. Finally, there is the curious pu-erh tea of China, very dark in color, with flavor notes of earth and tobacco and the least antioxidant activity. When brewed it can resemble coffee, and a tea importer friend of mine thinks it's the best form to use when trying to persuade coffee drinkers to switch to a healthier caffeinated drink.

I recommend drinking tea, especially white, green, and oolong, regularly -- up to four cups a day.

If you are going to drink 4 cups, go easy on the sugar. Please. Honest Tea makes a wide selection of organic teas and are my choice (their green tea is good, though "gunpowder" green teas do not agree with everyone.) There are plenty of fancier teas available, if you're a high-end type.

Weil will be on Larry King Live tonight, for any that are interested.