Thursday, May 03, 2007

Fat Update 2

So, it seems, the calorie restrictionists now have hard evidence about the life extending effects of eating very little. Naturally, I got involved with this while writing my change-your-life-read-it-now book on immortality. This new research seems to support the hormesis hypothesis about CR. Eating too little causes low level stress because the body thinks that it is still two million years ago on the African savannah and that it has run into a period of food scarcity. This causes the old soft machine to, so to speak, get its act together and slow down all the processes that might kill it. In the light of my many posts on the matter of fat, I have to say that I am not happy about this. Food fascism is already rife and, if CR becomes popular, we can expect more fabulously unpleasant TV shows in which rancid, opportunist health Kommandants deride the bloated bodies of the poor. When confronted with this nonsense, remember the Nut Diet is all you really need. However, these new findings suggest that we might be able to develop a drug that mimics the CR effect but does not require us to eat very little. This is the Kelso Strategy, named after the evil doctor in Scrubs whose favourite meal is a 16 ounce steak and a fistful of blood thinners. Basically, you use modern medicine to do what you like. Some call it the Best Defence as it was George Best who came up with the brilliant scheme of getting a new liver in order to carry on drinking.
All of which is really only a preamble to the terrible news that Scrubs might be coming to an end. This show is my most reliable consolation, each night I watch it to forget.

19 comments:

  1. I've read your book, Byran, and it didn't change my life. In fact, I'm even more determined now not to change even one little thing. The Best Strategy might be something to fall back on, I suppose, but having opened with what I call the Georgie Gambit (sacrifice nothing early on and hope for the best), I think I'll just stick to my guns. Nobody likes a quitter.

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  2. The chicken shish kebab I had last night was, to borrow a phrase, a great consolation. And an entirely guilt-free one. Which is exactly what I needed after the footy.

    No self-deluding, masochistic diet regime can match that, as far as I can see. Everything in moderation.

    Your book is a consoling victory for common sense, Bryan. It seems, like Neil, it didn't change your life. But I do hope you are at least remembering to take the aspirin.

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  3. The last thing I read about aspirin was that it causes strokes once you get past about 70. You can't win.

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  4. This medical live-forever crap is the new pay for purgatory. Why-ever did the originators of the franchise opened it up to others ?. Its about time they took it back, as at least they had an end in mind.
    You need to watch the olive oil intake as it drives the lipid levels through the roof, ie. from a normal 4 up to a mind blowing 9+. Some medical idiots, do not factor in this change in diet.
    Scrubs ending ?. That's truly tragic.

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  5. Agree, agree, agree. On another related matter which takes us back to the cereal fiasco, Sainbury's are now stocking Kids' satsumas - the nutritionally balanced range, we are told. They are quite tiny so maybe the CRs would be happy with them.

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  6. Agree, agree, agree. On another related matter which takes us back to the cereal fiasco, Sainbury's are now stocking Kids' satsumas - the nutritionally balanced range, we are told. They are quite tiny so maybe the CRs would be happy with them.

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  7. Don't panic, Bryan. By the time we get to Web 4.0, your personality will be fully uploaded onto this blog anyway. And 'Bryan' won't need the aspirin.

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  8. How do you know I am not already uploaded? How do I?

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  9. Andrew hat gesagt...

    I hope you don't mind my mentioning it, Bryan, but you have a marked fondness for "consolations."

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  10. And just to hat gesagt that concepta has seriously overdrawn on the permitted ration of the word, agree.

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  11. I have a marked fondness, Andrew, for consolations.

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  12. I have a marked fondness for "inverted commas".

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  13. For all you know, Bryan, your digitally preserved self could already be merging with Jeff's and Amanda's to form a terrifying new species of uber-blogger: Bryanda Archeryard.

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  14. The BBC article contains at least one mistake: They write that "the consequences for humans of cutting calorie intake by about 60% [are unclear]", but CR folks don't CUT calories by 60%, they EAT 60% of normal intake, cutting by 40%.

    You need to watch the olive oil intake as it drives the lipid levels through the roof...

    It does appear as though virgin olive oil raises lipid levels, but it does so by raising HDL cholesterol levels, and decreasing LDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels. Overall, that's good.

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  15. I noticed that mistake, Oro. People might endanger their lives cutting by 60 per cent.

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  16. there's a reason why "console" rhymes with "dole." But either way, you've lost something. americans never want the consolation prize -- we wanna *win*!

    just had a lovely interview with your jim crace. you'd never think such a sweet man had written such a dire book about apocalyptic america ("the pesthouse").

    so often, with writers and painters and so forth, the art is markedly different from the artist. for all I know, lucien freud is a happy-go-lucky ping pong player and miriam stoppard a savager of personal relationships.

    which leads me to ask: bryan, are you in reality an unfunny, pompous twit? I mean, the opposite of how you present yourself on this blog?
    dear lord, I shall be so sad if that is so. j'espere que non...Say it ain't so, Bryo.

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  17. Susan, I thought I was playing the unfunny pompous twit on this blog. Clearly I failed. My real self is a happy-go-luck gagster for whom the glass is not only half full but also the first of many. In Sevenoaks once I was almost arrested simply for skipping lightly down the road humming Follow the Day by the Polyphonic Spree. Kent has no sense of fun. It's why they had an earthquake.

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  18. 100 years from now we will all be dead. And if the Earth heats up as the global warmers tell us it will, then we will all be dead a lot sooner. And those of us who enjoy a good meal can have the last laugh at those who starved themselves in hopes of living forever.

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