By: Diana Nicholson

Diana Nicholson — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 20:16:06 +0000

November 7, 2007
More conflicting advice on healthcare :
National Post, in typically Canadian understated fashion, says “Being slightly overweight may not risk health” and the New York Times reports “for the first time, causes of death to specific weights, they [researchers] report that overweight people have a lower death rate because they are much less likely to die from a grab bag of diseases that includes Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, infections and lung disease. And that lower risk is not counteracted by increased risks of dying from any other disease, including cancer, diabetes or heart disease.” while the Independent trumpets “Now doctors say it’s good to be fat”, adding “After years of anti-obesity public health advice, a major new study causes an outcry by concluding that the overweight live longer”.
November 10, 2007
Josh Freed has the final word
“Last week, a fat new French study of 63 countries declared up to two-thirds of the world is now overweight. We are rapidly turning into Planet Fat, so shockingly overweight we may soon wobble off our orbit.
… My only hope, according to these studies, is to convert to the new “No-Fun Diet” that permits you one 10-ounce steak every two years, with a thimble of wine and a forestful of fruits and vegetables at every meal. Under this diet, I won’t necessarily live a lot longer, but it will certainly seem a lot longer…. I visualize these researchers in a room somewhere, toothpick-thin and sharing a lunch of three broccoli spears, five asparagus tips and a small bottle of vitamin D-enhanced Evian water as they dream up new fat measurement systems to make us all feel alarmed and depressed and hopeless about being who we are.
… Fortunately, just when I’d thrown in the towel and decided to eat myself to a quick death, another new fat study came out last week that declared the opposite. In a sample of 2.3 million Americans, the Centres for Disease Control found that moderately overweight people actually live a little longer than underweight people - and even normal ones.
The study’s astonishing conclusion? Being 15 or 20 pounds overweight may actually be good for you and protect you from many diseases. The findings have led to world-wide headlines like “Chubby Could be the New Healthy” and “Fat May Be Fit.”
Studies are complex, just like the relationship between fat and food - and many other things in life.”

By: Diana Thébaud Nicholson

Diana Thébaud Nicholson — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 21:16:51 +0000

‘ADROIT’ CHINA PLAYS DOLLAR Yuan takes advantage of volatile markets
Jacqueline Thorpe, National Post
November 08, 2007
The ease with which the world’s biggest Communist country has managed to become king of the capitalist world’s playground should be enough to make any Wall Street financier blush.
That’s because the astonishing rush of the loonie, which continued as it moved above US$1.10 yesterday, is not just about soaring oil prices and a robust domestic economy, but how the People’s Republic of China is adjusting its currency — and in so doing managing to bend the world’s foreign exchange markets to serve its own interests. …
Whether this will ultimately allow for the smooth transition of the emerging market giant into the global economy — not a bad thing for anyone — or end in a protectionist backlash remains to be seen. Either way, it is a high-stakes game that is adding another dash of volatility to financial markets already seething with global credit woes.
The volatility picked up dramatically yesterday after comments from two Chinese officials suggested the country may diversify some of its vast horde of US$1.4-trillion foreign exchange reserves — built up by being Wal-Mart to the world — away from U.S. dollars into stronger currencies like the euro.

Comments on: Wednesday Night #1340

By: Diana Nicholson

By: Diana Thébaud Nicholson