Re: Bad News for Junk Food Loving Mice


"Quentin Grady" <quentin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:t9hcj4t2lvmphlninu4e7soabbrieinmjr@xxxxxxxxxx
On Sat, 29 Nov 2008 17:24:31 -0600, High Miles <2Blues17@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Research on mice links fast food to Alzheimer's

Fri Nov 28, 2008 1:44pm EST

LONDON (Reuters) - Mice fed junk food for nine months showed signs of
developing the abnormal brain tangles strongly associated with Alzheimer's
disease, a Swedish researcher said on Friday.

I'm trying hard to dispel the image of mice sitting around in hotted
up cars scoffing hamburgers. If that isn't your picture of junk food
then already this experiment is a crock. We don't have an operational
definition of junk food. It brings me back to the day when I taught
eleven and twelve year olds the basics of scientific method. Having
an operation definition was one essential so experiments were
reproducible by other scientists.

I tried finding the original research paper on scholar google but
didn't turn it up. Guess it is in Pubmed somewhere.

The findings, which come from a series of published papers by a researcher
at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet, show how a diet rich in fat, sugar and
cholesterol could increase the risk of the most common type of dementia.

I'm puzzled that they include three possible causes setting up a
situation where guilt by association could occur. Let's say it is
really the sugar that causes the problem. The fat and cholesterol get
blame because they were there at the time. It may be the fat.
Let's say they actually mushed up hamburgers and fed them to the
mice. Some fats contain trans fats, some don't. Some fats are fresh
some get reused. If real hamburgers were used how to they know some
unnamed component such as salt is not a key factor.

"On examining the brains of these mice, we found a chemical change not
unlike that found in the Alzheimer brain," Susanne Akterin, a researcher
at
the Karolinska Institutet's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, who led
the
study, said in a statement.

"We now suspect that a high intake of fat and cholesterol in combination
with genetic factors ... can adversely affect several brain substances,
which can be a contributory factor in the development of Alzheimer's."

Whoops the sugar has escaped. It suggests the scientists have some
historic bias.

Alzheimer's disease is incurable and is the most common form of dementia
among older people. It affects the regions of the brain involving thought,
memory and language.

While the most advanced drugs have focused on removing clumps of beta
amyloid protein that forms plaques in the brain, researchers are also now
looking at therapies to address the toxic tangles caused by an abnormal
build-up of the protein tau.

It could be a very interesting and informative experiment. One needs
to see the details before deciding whether it is or is not a crock.
--
Quentin Grady ^ ^ /
..
I did a search for it also, but using a different Google link. Many links
turned up, such as this one:

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE4AR48G20081128

Since the research was done in Sweden, there's a possibility that the
research report hasn't been translated to English yet.

Robert Miles




.

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