Here’s a Friday palate cleanser for ya:

Elie Mysal, in The Nation, with the depressing truth behind why Elizabeth Warren won’t be America’s next president. 

Sharon Otterman, in The New York Times, with an absolutely shocking story of enabled antisemitism from New Jersey (and I don’t shock easily)

Derek Murphy, in Wired, on marathon cheaters and their investigators

[And if you don’t follow me on Twitter or Facebook, here’s the segment I did yesterday on CTV’s The Social where we chatted about many things COVID19 (if geoblocked outside of a Canada, a VPN spoofing a Canadian server ought to work]

       

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So last week saw the Canadian launch of timbits cereal and as evidenced by the number of people have sent press releases about it to me, not everyone is pleased.

Timbits, for readers who don’t know, are donut holes from Canadian donut chain giant Tim Hortons.

People are upset because apparently this sugary cereal is over the top and somehow extra wrong or extra awful.

But why?

Tim Horton’s certainly isn’t in the business of protecting or promoting public health. Nor is Post Foods. Nor should anyone expect either to be.

Presumably the sugar is a concern for people, and at 17g per cup (4.25 teaspoons), it’s definitely not an insignificant amount, but it’s not more than many other sugary cereals, and is in fact less than Post Raisin Bran which packs 24% more sugar at 21g (5.25 teaspoons) per cup.

All this to say, it’s difficult to get angry with Tim Horton’s or Post Foods for trying to sell food as selling food is literally their only job, and frankly this food isn’t any worse than comparable foods they’re already selling.

So what should the cereal aisle make people angry about?

How about laxity in advertising laws that allows for cartoon characters to be festooned on boxes of sugary cereals and prey on children? Or laxity in front-of-packaging laws that allow Froot Loops boxes to brag about their whole grain or vitamin D content? Or the failure of our government to create a front-of-package warning system like the one that was enacted in Chile.

What would life in Canadian cereal aisles look like if we followed Chile’s lead?

Here’s Frosted Flakes before and after Chile’s laws came into effect

Sure looks great to me.

(And for the grammar police, ‘donut’ is how Tim Horton’s spells doughnut)

       

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Read time: 5 mins

I was driving with my 13 year old daughter on Saturday and we were just chatting. I asked her what was trending these days on her TikTok stream (in the past she’d been served up antisemitism)? Apparently it’s fat shaming Lizzo.

I asked her to share some videos with me.

She sent over 10 in less than a minute.

Some representative examples to follow, but all this to say, TikTok, while hugely entertaining, is a cesspool of hate and bullying, and if your children use it, probably worth asking them every once in a while what’s trending on their streams so that you can take the time at least to talk about it.

@noahswitzer98

Everyone please ##stop making ##lizzo memes ##fyp

♬ original sound – noahswitzer98

@nickring4

When you lose Lizzo while your whale watching 😂 ##greenscreen ##lizzo ##meme ##xyzbca ##xyzcba ##joke ##fyp ##memes ##tiktokmemes ##comedy ##comedicgenius

♬ ITs ANIT new girlfriend of your ex – its_anit

@yaboyg35

##greenscreenvideo ##lizzo ##meme ##tacticalnuke ##mw2

♬ original sound – yaboyg35

       

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Hmmm — I’ve been saying for years that SOMEBODY in Trump’s inner circle is a Russian asset.  I am convinced that someone very close to him has been feeding him all the pro-Putin and pro-Russian stuff he has been parroting since 2016, convincing him that the Russian world-view is correct, leading him to say things like how unfair it is that Russia is out of the G7, etc.

Economists who study unemployment expected the new figures to be a bloodbath — but they didn’t think they would be this bad.

I find myself reading a number of the advice columnists these days. And as I read about all the problems people have with their families, I often think of this great poem:

This Be The Verseby Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

Someday I will share this with my own adult children, if I ever have the courage.

Read time: 5 mins

Baffin Island, where a fragment of one of Earth’s ancient continents was found. (Photo: iStock)

The Earth’s ever-changing physical geography has intrigued humanity for centuries, with scientists working to explore the history of ancient landforms and how they diverged to form the continents we know today. Now, researchers in Canada can add a new piece to this puzzle.

James Hamblin, in The Atlantic, on how yes, you’re probably going to get the coronavirus.

Peter Daszak, in The New York Times, welcomes you to the age of pandemics.

Vivian Wang, in The New York Times, with the bad good news that most coronavirus cases are likely to be mild.

Zeynep Tufekci, in Scientific American, on what you can do to prepare for when the coronavirus spreads to your country.

       

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I’m very glad to see that Canadian authorities are taking these scams seriously: A Burnaby, B.C., man has been identified as a suspect in an RCMP investigation into organized crime groups;accused of scamming Canadians by posing as Canada Revenue Agency…

This evening at the local Metro  I saw something resembling “panic buying”.  Not quite at that point. Nobody got violent.  More like the kind of lineups you see before the Superbowl or a long-weekend.  Except everyone, everyone, was…

Here are some good animal tweets:

Read time: 3 mins

Timber wolves in captivity at the Haliburton Forest & Wild Life Reserve’s Wolf Centre. The centre aims to educate the public about the animals and the role they play in their ecosystem. (Photo: Sharon Gallina/Can Geo Photo Club)

The year was in its last few bone-chilling hours when Peter Schleifenbaum got the call that a timber wolf from his 324-square-kilometre forest sanctuary near Haliburton, Ont., was on the loose. At first, he wasn’t too worried. Alarms like that happened every few months and, so far, all had been false.

“Maybe the world is telling us to slow down a little bit, you know?” he said.

As more people are trying to stay healthy while not being able to leave their homes, YouTube’s yoga star becomes more popular than ever.

Read time: 10 mins

Dexter Filkins, in The New Yorker, with the definitive piece on who was Qassem Suleimani

Isaac Chotiner, also in The New Yorker, on the rise in antisemitism from both the left and the right.

Amanda Mull, in The Atlantic, on how modern life gets in the way of our home cooked best intentions

[And if you don’t follow me on Twitter or Facebook, My first byline for the New York Times is a balm for aggressive New Year’s resolutions, nutrivangelistic diet gurus, magic food stories, and all other forms of healthy living hyperbole]

       

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Things are awful and they’re going to get worse – the economy is going to tank, maybe worse than it did in 2008, and hundreds of thousands of people are going to lose their jobs. 

Visited The Elsy (LCBO) today.  I notice that while they’re knifing each other over toilet paper at the Walmart across the parking lot, here everything is calm.  People believe that Water and wipes are essential, booze some kind of peripheral…

Forest fires have left colourful scars on the hills near Dease Lake, B.C. (Photo: Richard Eckert/Can Geo Photo Club)

Spring floods and summer forest fires are facts of life in some parts of Canada. Normally, emergency services in high-risk areas are well prepared to deal with the natural disasters common to their landscapes. 

But as the world battles the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency agencies are stretched to their limits.

Here’s some tweets I enjoyed this week.
And doesn’t it always seem that January DRAGGGGS while February goes so FAST?

TAKE. NO. CRAP. 💅🏻

pic.twitter.com/iBVE1fuQNC

— Jay Arnold 🏳️‍🌈 (@JadedCreative) February 11, 2020

Expectation vs Reality. pic.twitter.com/0PDhoroVe8

— Darwin Award 🔞 (@AwardsDarwin) February 5, 2020

I’m not sure he totally qualifies as a Good Boi™ with that food theft at the end – 🤣🤣🤣 – but he’s definitely both adorable and hilarious! https://t.co/1qpw17TXTm

— Julie Ritt (@faeryfancier) February 2, 2020

When you’re trying to end an argument, but your bird won’t let you. 🔊
(🎥: Imgur user MrPuckett) pic.twitter.com/KXYTv3Olq3

— Clare Logan (@withchillies) January 19, 2020

Good joke…

Interviewer asks Michael Bloomberg what he thinks about a possible situation where two billionaires are running against each other for the presidency

Bloomberg says ” Who’s the other one ? “

— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) February 5, 2020

If we’re being honest about these democratic candidates not only would any of them be better than this president but any of their personal assistants would be better. So let’s get the primaries over with, try not to be too mean to each other & get this guy the hell out of office.

— Mike Birbiglia (@birbigs) February 10, 2020

Hooooly shit.

An audience member asks Warren if she ever wonders, “Who is going to be my Mike Pence? Who is going to look at me with adoring eyes?”@ewarren: “I already have a dog.”pic.twitter.com/svyS5dkCRw

— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) February 10, 2020

Last week I posted about a 5:2 intermittent fasting study that demonstrated terrible adherence with a 58% 5:2 drop out rate by the end of year one and where the average loss was 11lbs.

In response, Erik Arnesen shared another year long 5:2 intermittent fasting vs. continuous energy restriction study where the drop out rate at the end of year one was just 7% and the average loss was 20lbs! (and actually I blogged about this one in the past – tl;dr no difference in outcomes but 5:2 participants were hungrier)

If the diets were identical, why the tremendous difference in adherence and weight loss at a year?

Sure, could be different patient populations, but I’m guessing the much larger factor was the service provision. Because at the end of the day that’s a huge part of what’s being measured in any organized diet study. Not just in terms of how many visits or touch-points a particular program has, or what collateral materials and support they provide their participants, but also the rapport development, motivational ability, and teaching skills of the service providers themselves.

Having led an inter-professional team for 16 years, I can tell you that who you’ve got helping your patients/participants has a tremendous impact on their outcomes even within the same program’s delivery.

So the next time you consider the outcomes of any study’s diet arm, a question worth pondering is how much of those outcomes are consequent to the prescribed diet itself, and how much are consequent to the health care professionals administering it?

       

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Read time: 6 mins

This photo by Maxwel Hohn, titled “Painted Pillars of Campbell River,” was selected as the winner of the Urban Wildlife category in Canadian Geographic’s 2019 Canadian Wildlife Photography of the Year Competition.

A Canada lynx kitten stares intently over the top of a snowbank, surveying its surroundings. A northern pygmy-owl seems to frown amid a whirl of snowflakes. An underwater pillar decorated with sea stars, anemones and urchins rises toward the dim glow of the surface. Canada’s biodiversity is breathtaking in its beauty and variety, but it’s also vulnerable to climate change and the encroachment of human activities on critical habitat.

Jennifer Yang, in The Toronto Star, speaks with 3 of Toronto’s health care heroes.

Adam Rogers, in Wired, explains what convalescent plasma is and how it might help treat COVID19.

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, being Ed Yong and writing an incredible piece on how this pandemic might end.

David Enrich, Rachel Abrams and Steven Kurutz, in The New York Time, on the sewing army rising up to help.

Helen Branswell, in STAT, summarizing all the we’ve learned to date about the SARS-CoV2 virus.

Daniela J. Lamas, in The New York Times, writing as a critical care physician in Boston on the unfathomable reality she’s facing there.

Siddhartha Mukherjee, in The New Yorker, on how the coronavirus behaves inside of our bodies.

       

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I started out planning to write about a different paper – a one year post intervention followup of people who had completed a prior year of being randomly assigned to 5:2 style intermittent fasting (IF) (2 days a week consuming 400-600 calories) vs. continuous energy restriction (typical of eating less daily) which showed that there was no difference between the two, but when I read it I realized the story was in the initial intervention, not the follow up.

The initial intervention involved randomly assigning 332 people to one of 3 dietary interventions:  Continuous (daily) energy restriction (CER), week-on, week-off energy restriction, and a 5:2 intermittent fasting pattern involving 5 days of habitual intake and 2 very low energy diet days each week.

Of the only 146 completers, no differences were found between the different diets in terms of weight loss, adherence, change in lipids, or fasting glucose.

And most of that is consistent with other studies of 5:2 IF which have found that it’s no better or worse than any other approach when it comes to weight loss and biochemical changes. But what’s not consistent is adherence being the same, wherein other studies tend to see more people quitting IF.

Digging the tiniest bit deeper into this two things stand out. Adherence was abysmal for both CER (49% drop out rate) and IF (58% drop out rate). But what was different here was what was involved in the CER arm. Women randomized to the CER arm were aimed at consuming only 1,000 calories daily for a year, while men were aimed at only 1,200 calories daily. That’s a life-suckingly low number of calories for anyone to be aimed at and honestly it surprises me that researchers (and peer reviewers) would think that degree of continuous restriction would be worthy of study.

All this to say, that people were just as likely to report adherence to a misery inducing 1,000-1,200 calorie per day diet as they were to a 5:2 IF approach does not reflect well on the enjoyability (and consequently the broad applicability) of 5:2 style diets.

And for the inevitable trolls, I’m not knocking 5:2 IF. If you love it, terrific! Don’t stop! But don’t anyone expect it’s a panacea for all comers.

       

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Taxes work to decrease purchasing, and the higher the tax, the greater their impact. Period.

Which is why it’s always struck me as odd when people question whether or not sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes would affect SSB purchases (and consequently consumption).

But let’s leave that odd debate aside for a moment. If the goal of SSB taxes is to decrease added sugar consumption (which it explicitly is, while it is explicitly not about weight loss as societal obesity is not singularly caused by SSB consumption, and decreasing SSB consumption is healthy at every weight), it would appear that SSB taxes will decrease sugar consumption even if they don’t decreasing purchasing.

How?

Because when SSB taxes are enacted, the beverage industry reformulates its products.

And at least according to this bulletin from the World Health Organization, they do so not insignificantly!

Of the 83 products they surveyed in both 2014 (before the SSB tax) and in 2018 (after the SSB tax), the mean sugar content decreased by 42% (from 9.1 g/100mL to 5.3 g/100m) while the mean energy content decreased by 40% (from 38 kcal/100mL to 23 kcal/100mL). Putting this into the context of a standard 355ml can – that would represent 2.45 fewer teaspoons of sugar and 53 fewer calories per can.

And this was in response to a fairly nominal tax. Presumably larger taxes would drive larger (or more expansive) reformulations which of course would also be coupled with decreased purchasing.

All this to say, this is yet another reason why if you’re living somewhere without an SSB tax, my bet is that it’s a matter of when, not if, you will be.

       

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“China’s agricultural industry has collapsed.”

Read time: 6 mins

Gretchen Reynolds, in The New York Times, answers questions as to the safety of exercising in the face of COVID-19

Cornelia Griggs, in The New York Times,  a critical care physician in New York, explains why she needs you to know that the sky is falling.

Yascha Mounk, in The Atlantic, tries to explain why people aren’t staying home despite incredible risks and ramifications of not doing so.

Ashleigh Tuite and David Fisman, in The Globe and Mail, both infectious disease epidemiologists, with their thoughts on how we might slow the burn of the COVID-19 forest fire.

Aaron E. Carroll and Ashish Jha, in The Atlantic, with their thoughts on how we can beat this coronavirus.

Pam Belluck, in The New York Times, needs you to know that though children uniformly have much milder cases of COVID-19 than adults, some will become seriously ill.

Manny Fernandez, in The New York Times, with a sobering read on how the coronavirus will impact the already impoverished.

       

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Read time: 10 mins

Read time: 7 mins

Darkest Hour was on, so I was able to watch this great scene again today: