Health
The easy way to stop smoking - permanently
Want to stop smoking permanently? Then why not kill yourself? According to the Daily Mail, the stop-smoking wonder drug Champix can make some users suicidal.
It’s not a big surprise if true - I tried the previous wonder drug, Zyban, and stopped taking it after a few weeks because its side-effects terrified me - but I don’t know whether Champix has similarly suicidal effects. It’s hard to tell: I took it before and shortly after Baby Bigmouth was born in an unsuccessful attempt to stop smoking, and I did indeed feel like hurling myself under a lorry. But then, all new parents feel like that, don’t they?
Still no cure for colic (but there are a few things worth trying)
One for the parents and parents-to-be: one in five babies gets colic, which typically develops at about two weeks of age and hangs around until twelve weeks before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived. Nobody really knows what causes it, but if you’ve experienced it (or are currently experiencing it) you’ll know how hellish it is.
For the uninitiated, colic is defined as inconsolable crying for three hours, three times a week, for a period of three weeks. That three hours - and in many cases it’s more - isn’t three hours on and off; it’s three hours of constant, heart-rending, teeth-grinding crying that you cannot do a single thing about (babies have two distinct cries: there’s crying, which is awful, and there’s full-on colicky bleating, which is an incredibly upsetting noise. If bad people don’t use recordings of colicky babies in their interrogations, they should).
It’s not fun, it usually starts in the evening and ends in the wee small hours - in other words, when you’re at your most tired and least able to cope with it - and having done quite a bit of looking into it I’m not surprised to discover that the rates of post-natal depression among women with colicky babies skyrockets. Sites that suggest colic is entirely the mum’s fault for not thinking positively enough don’t exactly help.
As I’ve mentioned, nobody really knows what causes it but current thinking is that it’s a collection of various different factors. However, for what it’s worth I can recommend four things that really do seem to make a difference:
* Lactase. Some babies have difficulty digesting lactose, which is present in breast milk and formula milk alike. There’s an enzyme in their guts called Lactase, and its job is to break down lactose; unfortunately before 12 weeks some babies don’t produce enough because their digestive systems are still very immature. For those babies - and baby Bigmouth appears to be one of them - putting a few drops of lactase in each feed can dial down the colic so instead of three hours of constant crying, you get 20 minutes of yelling, a ten minute break, ten minutes of yelling… it’s a vast improvement.
Downside? it isn’t cheap. The main brand, Colief, is £10 for a teeny tiny little bottle that’ll last you about four or five days. Then again, two quid per day to reduce colic is a bloody bargain.
Incidentally, that doesn’t mean the baby has a lactose intolerance. That’s very rare, although judging by the shelf space supermarkets devote to soy formula lots of people clearly think their kids are intolerant.
* Slings. Carrying your little bundle of joy around in a sling seems to reduce colic. I’ve no idea why that should be the case, but it really does seem to work. The difference can be dramatic - it doesn’t guarantee that every night will be colic-free, but it means that a bad night is a relative rarity. As a bonus, slings also act as hands-free kits for kids so you can get on with other things, such as popping speed to keep you awake and drinking insane quantities of alcohol to improve your mood.
* Driving. Getting your little darling into the car and heading out just before colic o’clock can postpone the onslaught, and if you’re lucky reduce its duration to boot. And it means you get out of the house.
* Wireless headphones. Sometimes a colicky baby can’t be comforted at all, and all you can do is keep the baby close until the episode ends. Wireless headphones mean at least you can watch telly in the meantime.
As ever, your mileage may vary. I’m just sticking this up here on the off chance Dr Google brings a parent here rather than to one of the “it’s your fault for not being cheery enough” sites.
Wi-fi grows tits on bulls, or something
I’ve just been given a press release (thanks, Paul) showing that Wi-Fi may be linked to autism - if by “linked” you mean “not linked”. It’s toss, of course, based on studies by a nutritionist and the infamous Wi-Fi “expert” Dr Carlo, a regular subject of Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science blog. An extract:
The autistic children followed specific detoxification protocols in an environment that was mitigated with regard to sources of EMR including mobile phones and WiFi. Heavy metal excretions were monitored from hair, urine and feces over periods ranging from several weeks to several months. The researchers found that with protocols administered in the mitigated environment, heavy metals were cleared from the children?s bodies in a pattern dependent on time and molecular weight. The heaviest metals, such as mercury and uranium, cleared last. In many of the children, the decrease in metals was concomitant with symptom amelioration.
It’s a classic of its kind, actually. Not only does it have killer wi-fi, but it also has the heavy metals/autism link - which doesn’t exactly have a happy history:
An autistic boy died after receiving an unproven treatment that some people believe may cure the neurological and developmental disorder, officials said.
Abubakar Tariq Nadama, 5, had received his third treatment of chelation therapy at a doctor’s office Tuesday before going into cardiac arrest, said Deputy Coroner Larry Barr.
…Some people believe that autism can be linked to a mercury-containing preservative once commonly used in childhood vaccines, and these people sometimes advocate chelation therapy, which causes heavy metals to leave the body through urine.
…Howard Carpenter, the executive director of the Advisory Board on Autism-Related Disorders, said it was just a matter of time before there would be a death linked to the therapy.
“Parents of children with autism are desperate. Some are willing to try anything,” Carpenter said.
Buried in the wi-fi/autism study:
…the study was a retrospective observation based on subjects with severe autism whose parents chose to pursue alternative metal detoxification methods after other traditional approaches had failed.
In other words, desperate parents who were willing to try anything.
Expect to see it in the papers tomorrow.
ASA clouts Clarins for phone fear nonsense
Remember those Clarins ads for face cream to protect you against evil electromagnetic fields? They’ve just been spanked by the advertising standards authority.
We told Clarins not to state that electromagnetic waves generated by modern-day devices or domestic communications equipment could damage or age skin or to imply anti-ageing and pro-health efficacy claims for Expertise 3P unless they held robust scientific evidence to support that. We also told them not to make an undue appeal to consumers fear of the harm that could be caused by man-made electromagnetic waves.
[Via The Inquirer]
Mobile phones and electrosensitivity, again
When I wrote about electrosensitivity for PC Plus a few months back, I mentioned that while every study to date had found no evidence that the condition was anything other than psychological, a key study at Essex University was taking place to look even more closely at the issues. The results are in, and guess what? There’s still no evidence that electrosensitivity is anything other than a psychological condition.
There’s much more here at Bad Science, and of course the newspapers are beginning to cover it too (although probably not on their front pages, I suspect).
Usual disclaimer here: I think that people who believe they are electrosensitive are indeed suffering. But while they believe that electromagnetic fields, particularly those from Wi-Fi and mobile phones, are causing their condition, there’s absolutely no evidence to support that claim. And the more scientists look at it, the more solid the “it’s got nothing to do with electromagnetic fields” case becomes. Something is making them sick, but it could be the nocebo effect: if you believe something will make you ill (mobile masts, a gypsy curse, a black cat crossing the road the wrong way) then it may well make you ill.
Aaaanyway. Comment number one on the Daily Mail’s report on the study, which notes that this is one of the largest and most detailed studies into electrosensitivity, is:
“In the short term at least.”
Note these words.
What about the long term?
*Sigh*
Update
The BBC quote from Powerwatch is interesting:
“So whilst it cannot be entirely ruled out that a small minority are truly sensitive, the proportions of any truly sensitive people are likely to be far lower than the 3% - 35% that has been quoted.”
Credit where credit’s due, that’s a decent response.
Even assuming that some people are genuinely electrosensitive (which I very much doubt), the research says the majority of ES sufferers are ill because of psychological factors. Hopefully some common sense will prevail and we can actually start treating them and making them better instead of chasing after electronic bogeymen.
Just ’cause you feel it doesn’t mean it’s there
I haven’t been called a child killer for a while, so let’s talk about Killer Wi-Fi again, shall we?
Gary Robertson’s show on BBC Radio Scotland this morning was about mobile phone masts, although inevitably killer wi-fi featured in there too. Gary’s a decent bloke and I do wonder what he makes of some of the callers, but what struck me about this morning’s programme wasn’t the depressingly predictable range of opinions - “yeah, well, scientists say there’s no danger but they always say that, don’t they? I mean, they say alien abduction isn’t real but I was taken into space last week and anally probed” and all that crap - but the way the killer wi-fi “debate” is yet again being fuelled by crap reporting.
What I mean by that is: in addition to the usual stuff, several of the callers talked about the recent Panorama programme about killer wi-fi, which countless bloggers have debunked and which various concerned parties have filed formal complaints about (if you didn’t see it, here’s a two-word summary: scaremongering bollocks). The fact that a BBC TV programme has covered wi-fi and suggested it’s a killer, it seems, is proof: forget science, Panorama says it’s evil!
Yeah, and Panorama said that cricket coach was murdered too.
In the war on booze, let’s attack Luxembourg
An interesting graphic in The Economist shows different countries’ average alcohol consumption - and we’re not at the top of the list. No, it seems Luxembourg is the land of the piss-heads, and we’ve fallen behind Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Moldova and the Czech Republic. None of these countries, as far as I’m aware, has the same level of drink-fuelled disorder as our sceptred isles. Hmmm, maybe it’s not the level of consumption that’s the problem…
[Via Fark]
Ow
Sorry if anyone’s waiting on emails, really exciting blog posts etc - a slipped disc means I can’t spend much time in front of the computer, so I’m spending most of my time lying on the floor feeling sorry for myself. And munching drugs, of course.
A little business idea
The Scottish Executive’s war on booze is stepping up, with talk of price controls, making booze harder to get and, if doctors have their way, raising the legal age to buy booze in shops (but not pubs) from 18 to 21. Given that I have an estate car and England’s only an hour or two away, I feel a business venture coming on…
If it weren’t for smokers, smokers wouldn’t be so unpopular
As pubs go, my local is fairly smoker-friendly: there’s a nice outside area with an awning to keep off the rain (when they remember to put it up), halogen heaters to stop you freezing, and a bunch of benches and tables you can park your arse on while you puff. Plenty of ashtrays, too: a bunch of permanent wall-mounted ones, and ones on each bench.
The area is fenced off, and beyond the fence is some nice landscaping. Last time I was outside there - a few weeks back - it was grass. Tonight, it’s a solid carpet of cigarette butts. Hundreds, maybe thousands of the things.
OK, it’s a pub, so people are going to be there, a bit pissed, a bit clumsy. But the sheer number suggests that it’s more than that; it means that lots of people are going out there for a smoke and deliberately ignoring every single ashtray. Maybe I’m out of the loop and ashtrays are uncool, but whatever the reason the end result is that when non-smokers go out there - which they do, it’s a beer garden - they’re going to think that smokers are a bunch of inconsiderate wankers.
So when the Scottish Executive announces a new anti-smoking drive such as, I dunno, making us wear bells in public while we’re pelted with rotten tomatoes, or when pubs make their beer gardens non-smoking and effectively ban people from having a cig in the open air, the non-smokers will go “bloody right! Wankers, the lot of ‘em!” Considerate smokers can argue till they’re hoarse (which won’t take long, thanks to the cigs) that the mess is caused by an inconsiderate minority, and they’re right. But nobody will listen.
So thanks a lot, folks. Once again a minority of wankers makes life that little bit more shitty for everybody else.