Two new studies are bound to disappoint those who still want to believe water makes a difference in weight management.

The first of these studies, Increasing water intake influences hunger and food preference, but does not reliably suppress energy intake in adults, asked participants to drink 500, 1000, 1500, or 2000ml of water in the morning before an all you can eat lunch buffet to see if doing so reduced how much people ate. The researchers found that even drinking 2L of water before lunch didn’t reduce how many calories were consumed at the buffet.

The second, Complementary and compensatory dietary changes associated with consumption or omission of plain water by US adults, compared the self-reported dietary intake patterns (which you should know aren’t generally thought to be be reliable) of individuals who had days recorded with and without water intake to see if there were a difference in calories reportedly consumed. There wasn’t.

As to how pervasive the belief that water is a key player in weight management, you might be surprised by how many people I meet in my office who believe water drinking makes or breaks an effort, though when you consider the fact that 63.4% of adults in a recent US survey of weight loss practices cited water drinking as one of theirs, maybe it shouldn’t be all that shocking.

In my mind the only thing that’s surprising is that I would have thought it to be fairly self-evident, that water drinking was an incredibly minor player at best, because if drinking 8 or more glasses of water a day contributed even moderately to successful weight management, we’d see a great many more success stories walking around.

[That said, if you replace all your regularly consumed caloric beverages with water, well that might lend a hand.]

       

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Sometimes there isn’t much time for the Lunchtime Scoot. Whether it’s during lunch period in senior year, between double shifts at the hospital, or wedged amongst meetings at the office, you’ve really got to get your move on and get your groove on if you’re going to fill that belly while the clock’s clicking. And […]

The post #738 Going out for lunch and coming back to a way better parking spot appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.

I have not written a post for many months as I have been on quite an adventure. I would like to share the details of that adventure with family and friends. Many of my posts will be personal and reveal some secrets. Stay tuned. Just wanted you to know …

Crisp breezes chip at your cheeks as you shiver and slide to school. Blades of grass are stiff with frosted dew on their tips, your breath puffs in cold clouds in front of you, and little puddles on the sidewalk get that thin film of ice across the tops, just waiting for you to do […]

The post #739 Stepping on barely frozen puddles appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.

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Robert O’Conner, in Medium, with his expert thoughts on glycophosphate (RoundUp) and cancer.

Andrew Kniss, in his blog, with his expert thoughts on glycophosphate and cancer.

Lynn Johnson, in National Geographic, with an incredible story about Katie Stubblefield’s face and life.

       

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Thick and muggy, hot and humid, the sweltering summer sun beats down on your lazy day. Yes, you lay sprawled on your sweaty couch, pleading with your open windows to blow a breeze across the room. Instead, the dusty air hangs heavy and every breath you take feels like sucking wind from a bathroom hand […]

The post #740 Slurping all those little ice crystals floating in your freezing cold glass of Coke appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.

Montreal, QC – Justin Trudeau, Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, will join supporters for two events in Montreal on Sunday, August 19, 2018: a grassroots fundraising reception with Antoni Porowski, and the 2019 Liberal nomination event for Papineau. Sunday August 19, 2018 10:15 AM – Pride Pride Brunch Reception with Justin Trudeau and […]

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The 2018 Ocean Bridge cohort gets to know each other while taking their first steps on a Haida Gwaii beach. (Photo: Matthew Miller)

Health Canada’s latest neonic ban is good news for insects, says ecologist

Tracking wide scale animal migrations from space

Zombie gene in elephants comes back to life to kill cancer cells

Bee pheromones may be useful as an elephant repellant

Earth simply cannot make enough food to feed everyone a North American diet

Repeat item

Moon’s orbit around the Earth would change its hypothetical tides

Natan Obed is president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national organization that advocates for the people of Inuit Nunangat and works to Inuit language and culture. (Photo: ITK/Adam Scotti)

Sure, it’s a little bit extremely disgusting, but the gross out factor pales in comparison to the massive release you feel when a waxy boulder comes tumbling out of a cave on the side of Head Mountain. Remember: there’s nothing to be embarrassed about because this is just The Magic of the Human Body. Yes, […]

The post #741 When a chunk of earwax randomly falls out of your ear appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.

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Walk into an old hardware store and take a big whiff. Come on now, just tip that head, sniff those fumes, and bring back a big brainful of love and memories with these gems: • Hot, rubbery tires. Chinese chemical plants, hot vials of liquid rubber, and the musty stench of ocean liner storage bays […]

The post #742 That rubbery metal smell of old hardware stores appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.

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In Canada, we know that diversity is a tremendous strength – and we’ve fought hard together to secure and defend the rights and freedoms of all Canadians.

Sabrevois, QC – Justin Trudeau will join local Liberals and Liberal MPs from the South Shore on August 16, 2018 for a summer corn roast in Sabrevois. As part of the Liberal Party of Canada’s Summer of Action campaign, volunteers across Canada have been starting thousands of new conversations with Canadians on the doorstep – […]

A house in New Brunswick painted to look like the Acadian flag. (Photo: Graham H./Pixabay [CC0])

Acadia today is both a place and a people. While the term is often used to refer to a vast swath of the Maritimes, including New Brunswick and parts of Nova Scotia, it can also refer to the Acadian people, who are spread out around the world and are “right fiers” (“very proud”) of their East Coast heritage. If all you know about l’Acadie is lobsters, fiddleheads and Evangeline, here are five facts to help you “fêter” the Acadian national holiday, celebrated each year in Canada on August 15.

A curious swift fox stares down the lens of an automatic wildlife camera near Medicine Hat, Alta. (Photo courtesy Nature Conservancy of Canada)

A family of at least five swift foxes was recently spotted in the tall prairie grasses south of Medicine Hat, Alta. — a positive sign for the resurgence of a species that was declared extirpated, or locally extinct, in Canada in 1978.

Give yourself a break and peel them off a bit early. AWESOME! Photo from: here — Follow me on Instagram —

The post #743 Ditching the high heels and walking home in bare feet on the sidewalk after a long night appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.

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This morning The Calgary Herald published a column by  Licia Corbella, entitled “Family of jailed Saudi blogger angry over Trudeau”.  In it Corbella criticized government’s twitter diplomacy efforts in the Raif Badawi case, directly quoting members of the man’s family.  As you will note by clicking through the link above, that column is now gone.  Mr. Badawi’s wife, in  a series of tweets early this afternoon, called the story “fake news”.  Those tweets are also gone, as is all reference to the story in Ms. Corbella’s twitter feed.  I contacted The Herald and asked if they had yanked the piece, and they responded as below:

The column has been removed at the request of Ensaf Haidar (wife of imprisoned blogger Raif Badawi) due to the sensitive nature of the family’s situation.

— Calgary Herald (@calgaryherald) August 14, 2018

So there appears to have been a severe cock-up on the journalism front by Ms. Corbella, the precise details of which remain obscure.  It wouldn’t be the first time.

Haida Gwaii is often called “The Edge of the World.” That phrase came to take on new meaning for Ocean Bridge participant Jay Matsushiba. (Photo: Dax Justin/Canadian Geographic)

A grizzly in Banff National Park, Alberta. (Photo: Carlos Marrero Reiley/Can Geo Photo Club)

Grizzly bears, bald eagles, gray wolves and the American alligator: These are just a few species brought back from the brink of extinction with the help o…

Today will be discussing a study that had kids randomly assigned to taking either 8g oligofructose enriched inulin (prebiotic) per day or placebo (maltodextrin) for 16 weeks.

The study’s pre-registered primary outcome measure, as recorded in ClinicalTrials.gov, was change in baseline fat mass at 16 weeks.

Secondary outcome measures (as recorded) were changes in baseline appetite at 16 weeks (assessed with visual analog scales and an eating behavior questionnaire), and objective appetite measures including a weighed breakfast buffet, weighted 3-day food records, and serum satiety hormone levels.

(Not preregistered as an outcome of interest? Body weight change or BMIz score.)

Outcome wise, here’s a snapshot of the study’s abstract:

Reading through the study, here’s what I found as outcomes:

• According to their 3 day food diaries (but be aware, food diaries are notoriously inaccurate), there was no difference in 3 day energy intake between the prebiotic and placebo arms.
• When all ages were included in the analysis, there was no difference in all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet energy intake between the probiotic and placebo arms, BUT, by dividing the kids into those between the ages of 7-10 and 11-12, suddenly, but only in the older group, kids ate less breakfast in the prebiotic arm, while in the younger group, they ate more.
• The hunger hormone ghrelin was found to be significantly elevated in those taking the prebiotic (an increase of 28%) from baseline, whereas placebo was not demonstrably different from baseline (an increase of 8%).
• There was no difference reported in subjective post-breakfast buffet hunger in either group
• There was no difference reported in subjective eating behavior questionnaires between groups, but parents reported improvements in fullness, but equally in both prebiotic and placebo groups.
• The primary outcome of change in baseline fat mass was not mentioned anywhere in the study.

The authors’ conclusions about a prebiotic supplement that was shown to markedly increase hunger hormone levels, that didn’t decrease 3 day food diary energy intake, that didn’t change all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet energy intake (unless you arbitrarily after the fact divided up the kids into those aged 7-10 and 11-12), and where the study’s registered primary outcome wasn’t mentioned in the study itself sure look differently than what you might expect, with their concluding sentence being,

“This simple dietary change has the potential to help with appetite regulation in children with obesity“

I also found it surprising that the study was free to read, and given the incredibly unexciting findings, it’s more difficult to imagine the authors paying for its open access. Easier to imagine the company that makes the prebiotic that a randomized controlled trial published in an impactful journal explicitly concluded, “has the potential to help with appetite regulation in children with obesity” (even though it didn’t), paying the extra fees as open access articles generally gather more citations.

As to what Beneo, the manufacturer of the prebiotic used in this study had to say, I found these quotes in an article published on the trade-zine Nutraingredients at the time of the study’s publication,

“Beneo regards this research of highest importance“,

and despite the study not even remotely coming to this conclusion also added,

“The intake of 8g of prebiotic inulin (Orafti Synergy 1) in a glass of water prior to dinner is a simple dietary intervention that supports children in their weight management efforts. The results show that they were naturally eating less (YF: no they didn’t) than the control group having maltodextrin“

Beneo also put out an excited press release to publicize the study.

And you can bet your bottom dollar, it’s studies and conclusions like this one that supplement companies use to suggest great benefits to their products, and it’s also studies like this one where I wish the journal employed open peer review as I can’t fathom how this one got through as is.

Lastly, while the authors didn’t report any conflicts of interest with this particular study, the supplements and placebos were provided by Beneo, and it was noted that one of the authors had previously enjoyed funding from Beneo. Unfortunately there is no mention as to who paid for this study’s open access.

       

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Picture a loud, clanging factory with assembly lines zig-zagging all over the place, steam bursting out of pipes, and slick oil spills laying on cold, concrete floors. Then add blaring sirens, honking forklifts, and scraggly guys in cargo shorts and workboots trudging by with brooms now and then. That chaotic jungle of a factory is […]

The post #744 That smooth feeling on your teeth right after you get your braces taken off appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.

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[Dear remaining readers: apologies for neglecting this blog of late—pressing assignments, alas. Stay tuned for more in a while. Until then, join me in abominating this dreadful spectacle of politically-correct historical erasure. Down the memory hole. Right out of…

When someone offers to crack that final white chicklet out of their crinkly plastic checkerboard, it just sort of dawns on you: you’ve got a new best friend. AWESOME! Photo from: here — Check out my Youtube channel —

The post #745 Someone giving you their last piece of gum appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.

I’m a mess in the morning. Drool drips down my cheeks, my mouth hangs open like a mailbox, and my eyeballs roll around their sockets in slow motion. Hair scraped sideways, underwear bunched up and twisted, I dry-swallow and slowly stumble out of bed while trying to form my first thoughts of the day. Inside […]

The post #746 Getting that last tiny, rock-hard crumb out your eye after you wake up appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.

Timothy Caulfield, on NBC think, on the uselessness of multi-vitamins for all (happy to find this story for reader Pug Piper).

Jen Gunter, on her blog, with her combined personal and professional take on menopause.

Laurie Penny, in Longreads, covers Jordan Peterson, the intellectual this generation deserves.

[And if you don’t follow me on Twitter or Facebook, here’s a recent podcast I did where we chat about a whole slew of things including the app we’re (slowly) developing, research on the DIET score, and why I think social media and physician champions are likely to extend the lifespans of today’s fad diets]

       

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