Kleiber's law and its possible implications for obesity

var citeN=0; Kleiber's law (citeN=citeN+1;document.write(Number(citeN)) 1) is one of those “laws” of nature that is both derived from, and seems to fit quite well with, empirical data. It applies to most animals, including humans. The law is roughly summarized through the equation below, where E = energy expenditure at rest per day, and M = body weight in kilograms.Because of various assumptions made in the original formulation of the law, the values of E do not translate very well to calories as measured today. What is important is the exponent, and what it means in terms of relative increases in weight. Since the exponent in the equation is...

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Monday Meeting: The Rubbish Diet Challenge Wk 2

After such a great start to Week 1, which saw our bin slimmers sorting out their recycling systems at home and getting familiar with what can be recycled locally, this week's challenge will take them to a whole different level when it comes to their waste busting mission.Whilst last week's challenge was to recycle as much as they could, this week's focus moves to eliminating other waste through what they buy.  There are even more mini challenges to contend with this week, which will have the rubbish dieters scouring the shelves of the supermarkets and checking the packaging to see which products will suit their recycling bins and their rubbish...

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The Friday Journal: It's all been happening in Week 1

What a week it's been.  Very much of a whirlwind really, which kicked off in great style on Monday launching on BBC Radio Suffolk from Bury St Edmunds' Household Waste Recycling Centre.It really is incredible to see how much can happen in just five days. News coming in from the households participating in the challenge includes great discoveries of local recycling facilities that will help keep all sorts of materials out of the bin.There have been challenges too, including one household, which was trying to find a convenient Tetra Pak recycling bank. Hopefully that will be resolved.  The bin slimmers have also been organising new storage...

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The Rubbish Diet: The sponsored approach

It warmed the cockles of my heart yesterday, to discover that there were even more bin slimmers officially on board, aiming to reduce their household waste over the next 8 weeks, and one of them had extra news to share.It came in the form of Joanna Boardman, who has not only pledged to see how low she can go, but has also registered her challenge on the DoNation website in the hope that she can also gain some sponsorship for her efforts.  Now, before you think I'm going to ask you to empty out your spare change, if you haven't come across it before, the DoNation scheme is a sponsorship site with a difference.It asks supporters not to delve...

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Meet the bin slimmers

Each week, I will be introducing some of the volunteers who have signed up for the Rubbish Diet challenge, so that we can find out more about their rubbish, the issues that arise and their plans for slimming those bins.For Week 1, I'd like to introduce you to two people from Suffolk, Ness and Terry-anna.Meet Terry-annaTerry-anna lives with her partner in Ipswich, which falls under the district of Ipswich Borough.When she first volunteered for the challenge she mentioned that she threw out between 2 -3 bags of rubbish every fortnight. However, already at the start of the challenge this week, she'd already slimmed this down to one and a half bags...

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Educating the family

Sometimes the family can make you scream!So, we're only in Day 2 of the Rubbish Diet Challenge and several of the volunteers - and other folk  - are already confessing their first major hurdle ... and that's the recycling bin saboteurs who strike when their backs are turned!The question I've been asked is how the heck do you educate other family members to get on board with your goal of slimming that bin!This is a tricky one, especially if others in your household don't have the same amount of patience as you, or even think that recycling is a futile exercise,  And then there's the issue that recycling is often not as straight-forward...

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All diets succeed at first, and eventually fail

var citeN=0; It is not very hard to find studies supporting one diet or another. Gardner and colleagues, for example, conducted a study in which the Atkins diet came out on top when compared with the Zone, Ornish, and LEARN diets (citeN=citeN+1;document.write(Number(citeN)) 1). In Dansinger and colleagues’ study (citeN=citeN+1;document.write(Number(citeN)) 2), on the other hand, following the Atkins diet led to relatively poor results compared with the Ornish, Weight Watchers, and Zone diets.Often the diets compared have different macronutrient ratios, which end up becoming the focus of the comparison. Many consider Sacks and colleagues’ conclusion,...

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Monday Meeting: The Rubbish Diet Challenge wk 1

Welcome to Week 1 of The Rubbish Diet Challenge, 2012.Do pull up a chair and settle yourselves in.  My name's Karen. I'm a blogger, housewife and self-confessed waste geek and over the next eight weeks, I am going to take you through a programme of talking about utter rubbish.The aim of the challenge is simple: to slim your bin over the next 7 weeks before attempting a zero waste week. But we won't worry about that now.  I don't want to give you the collywobbles.And of course the reason for the challenge is to cut the amount of valuable resources that currently end up in landfill or indeed incinerators, as a result of a lack of recycling facilities, insufficient knowledge or insufficient incentives. We all lead busy lives, so I hope this challenge will provide a short break with...

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My thoughts and hopes for The Rubbish Diet Challenge

It's the eve of the Rubbish Diet Challenge and I realise that part of me feels quite nervous but excited too. Who knows what will happen over the next few weeks as 8 households endeavour to slim their bins in public.As four of these households are based in Suffolk, I will be officially launching the challenge live on BBC Radio Suffolk just after 10am, quite appropriately in an outside broadcast from our local Household Waste Recycling Centre in Bury St Edmunds. So if you get a chance, do listen into the Mark Murphy show, which is also launching its own Don't be a Tosser anti-litter campaign on the same day.In the meantime, here's a video I made earlier today about my thoughts on The Rubbish Diet Challenge... warts and all.  See you again tomorrow for the first Monday Meeting, where I...

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Weight loss, Watt loss!

See that bin on the left?That's our rubbish bin.No, not the big one.But that little one.The teeny-tiny one on the left-hand-side. Yes, I know it looks like an ordinary bathroom bin, but it actually is the main one for our household waste, and resides in the kitchen.The bin on the right-hand-side used to be our rubbish bin, but during my very first zero waste challenge, it was promoted to handle our recycling.  As our rubbish gradually got lighter and the bin bag became slimmer, we didn't need such a huge bin, so downsized a little...or rather a lot.  During the last few years we've also been doing the same with our energy usage.  ...

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The Rubbish Diet Challenge 2012 - And you're invited!

Next Monday on 23rd Jan, I am launching the Rubbish Diet Challenge 2012.And I am inviting you to take part, along with your friends and family and even colleagues at work.Your mission will be to find ways of slimming your rubbish bin and you will have 8 weeks to do it.  In the final week, if you want to push the limits and create a name for yourself, there's even the chance to attempt a Zero Waste Week.Rubbish and waste management is still a huge problem in the UK and even though recycling targets and are being increased and often met by local authorities, we still have a long way to go in tackling the wider issue of waste reduction.I believe...

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Saving energy on the hob!

As part of the British Gas SmartMums campaign, looking at ways, to save energy around the home, I have been asked to illustrate some ideas on video.So here's me, getting underway with Sunday dinner, demonstrating the advantages of using a steamer instead of a hob full of old saucepans.__________________________________________________I’m a British Gas Smart Mums Ambassador, working with BritMums and British Gas to highlight energy issues in the home.Take part in the Smart Mums Watt Loss Challenge now!Meet the Smart Mums AmbassadorsGrab the badge to show you’re a Smart MumFind out how smart meters can save you mo...

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The China Study II: Wheat’s total effect on mortality is significant, complex, and highlights the negative effects of low animal fat diets

var citeN=0; The graph below shows the results of a multivariate nonlinear WarpPLS (citeN=citeN+1;document.write(Number(citeN)) 1) analysis including the variables listed below. Each row in the dataset refers to a county in China, from the publicly available China Study II dataset (citeN=citeN+1;document.write(Number(citeN)) 2). As always, I thank Dr. Campbell and his collaborators for making the data publicly available. Other analyses based on the same dataset are also available (citeN=citeN+1;document.write(Number(citeN)) 3).    - Wheat: wheat flour consumption in g/d.    - Aprot: animal protein consumption in g/d. ...

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Where will it end up? Tracking my mobile with O2 Recycle

Look! That's my scared face, which says, "I don't really want to let go of this phone, but now I'm here and I promised I'd do it, I suppose I'm going to have to let you take it."Have you ever recycled a mobile phone? I hadn't until today, despite having owned six of the things ever since I got my very first phone in 1998.  Look, it was such a momentous occasion back then, we even captured it on camera!  It was so big, I almost needed two hands to hold it up my ear!Christmas morning, 1998. I'd never wear that dressing gown with FaceTime!It's sad to think that phone is still packed away somewhere in my loft.  When recovered,...

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Ground meat treats: Beef and bison meatza

var citeN=0; At the time of this writing, there was no Wikipedia article for the term “meatza”, which surprised me a bit given the number of recipes on the web. In fact, I could not find anything concrete about the dish’s tradition or  history.Another thing that surprised me about this dish is how much my family and I like it. It has become a regular weekend treat for us for quite some time now.The recipe below is for a meal that feeds 4-8 people. Like in my previous recipe for a zucchini and onion meatloaf (citeN=citeN+1;document.write(Number(citeN)) 1), the ground beef used here has little fat, and thus a relatively low omega-6...

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My 5 year phone challenge....eeek!

I'm not sure whether this latest confession will demonstrate my inner lunacy or permanent state of wishful thinking, but eh oh, I'll show and tell and see what comes.  I'd be interested in the debate.The thing is, I've just got a brand new spanking smartphone, an all singing and dancing top model iPhone.  It's been on my geeky-gadget list for the last 18 months and as my old phone began to fall apart / regularly freeze / randomly self-boot .... along with many other tedious failures, the seduction of the iPhone became more and more tempting, so much so that it looked as though finally it would make it to my Christmas list for 2011.And...

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