Information about the Aspen Ideas Festival is here. I am scheduled for a session, The American Wellness Paradox, currently scheduled from 11:00-11:50 a.m., at the East Lawn Tent. This will be a discussion with senior HHS policy advisor, Calley Means. Here’s the blurb on it: “Americans are spending more than ever on healthcare, supplements, wellness trends, and “clean eating,” yet rates of chronic disease and metabolic illness continue to climb. As skepticism fuels the rise of movements like MAHA, debates over what Americans should eat have become deeply cultural, political, and economic. Two influential voices with sharply different perspectives on nutrition and food science explore how food systems, farming practices, consumer culture, and the wellness industry collided to create one of the defining public health debates of our time.”
by Marion Nestle
Oct
27
2012
Weekend nutrifluff: Eat chocolate, win a Nobel Prize
Nutrifluff is my word for sensational research findings based on one, usually highly preliminary, study.
The best nutrifluff I’ve seen in ages is this article in the august New England Journal of Medicine: “Chocolate Consumption, Cognitive Function, and Nobel Laureates.”
The author counted the number of Nobel laureates per capita from Wikipedia and and computed the number for every 10 million people.
He obtained data on per capita yearly chocolate consumption in 22 countries from several sources and ran the correlation.
Bingo! Chocolate consumption correlates with the number of Nobel prize winners.
Correlation, alas, is not causation, but who cares?
Everybody loves chocolate. Enjoy! (In moderation, of course).
