April 22, 2015
Why I Continue to Buy U.S. Real Estate... And You Should, Too
From DailyWealth
Why I Continue to Buy U.S. Real Estate... And You Should, Too
By Dr. Steve Sjuggerud
Monday, April 20, 2015
At this moment, far more of my own personal net worth is in north Florida real estate than the stock market.
Longtime DailyWealth readers know I've been recommending U.S. stocks for years. But the value today in Florida real estate is incredible. And it isn't just Florida.
Housing and real estate in most of America is cheaper than almost anyone realizes.
I've personally concentrated my investments out of stocks and into real estate because of this incredible opportunity. And you should consider doing the same.
Let me explain...
What brings new home buyers into the market? What makes them finally pull the trigger and buy?
For the typical home buyer, housing value has little to do with actual home prices. And it has everything to do with monthly payments.
"Can I afford the monthly payment on this home?"
That's the question home buyers have to answer before pulling the trigger. And right now, the answer for most folks is "yes." Here's why...
Two things have happened... 1) we saw the worst bust in house prices in generations and we still haven't fully recovered and 2) mortgage rates are near all-time lows, below 4%.
I don't think people really understand how incredible current mortgage rates are. The chart below shows mortgage rates since 1900. As you can see, today's sub-4% levels are unprecedented...
With mortgage rates this low, housing is now more affordable than ever. (Affordability combines home prices, mortgage rates, and incomes.) And that means home prices could still move significantly higher.
How much could home prices move?
Read more from DailyWealth >>
Why I Continue to Buy U.S. Real Estate... And You Should, Too
By Dr. Steve Sjuggerud
Monday, April 20, 2015
At this moment, far more of my own personal net worth is in north Florida real estate than the stock market.
Longtime DailyWealth readers know I've been recommending U.S. stocks for years. But the value today in Florida real estate is incredible. And it isn't just Florida.
Housing and real estate in most of America is cheaper than almost anyone realizes.
I've personally concentrated my investments out of stocks and into real estate because of this incredible opportunity. And you should consider doing the same.
Let me explain...
What brings new home buyers into the market? What makes them finally pull the trigger and buy?
For the typical home buyer, housing value has little to do with actual home prices. And it has everything to do with monthly payments.
"Can I afford the monthly payment on this home?"
That's the question home buyers have to answer before pulling the trigger. And right now, the answer for most folks is "yes." Here's why...
Two things have happened... 1) we saw the worst bust in house prices in generations and we still haven't fully recovered and 2) mortgage rates are near all-time lows, below 4%.
I don't think people really understand how incredible current mortgage rates are. The chart below shows mortgage rates since 1900. As you can see, today's sub-4% levels are unprecedented...
With mortgage rates this low, housing is now more affordable than ever. (Affordability combines home prices, mortgage rates, and incomes.) And that means home prices could still move significantly higher.
How much could home prices move?
Read more from DailyWealth >>
April 21, 2015
Power Profiles: Joseph Gerard
"I was introduced to Market America when I was working at a bank.There was a gentleman
who came in and when I opened up his account, he had a lot of money and I was immediately
interested into that. And basically, from there I asked him what he did, how he got involved and
immediately got interested right away...."
who came in and when I opened up his account, he had a lot of money and I was immediately
interested into that. And basically, from there I asked him what he did, how he got involved and
immediately got interested right away...."
April 20, 2015
FLECKENSTEIN: 'How are you supposed to actively short stocks in this environment?'
From BusinessInsider
FLECKENSTEIN: 'How are you supposed to actively short stocks in this environment?'
JENNIFER ABLAN AND DAVID GAFFEN, REUTERS
APR. 19, 2015,
NEW YORK (Reuters) - In January 2014, veteran short-seller Bill Fleckenstein said he was readying a new fund to bet on falling stock prices. More than a year later, he's still waiting to launch that fund.
Despite lackluster U.S. economic data, a world grappling with slow growth, concern that Greece and Ukraine could default on their debts, the U.S. stock market has been more than resilient. Even after a selloff on Friday, major indices are less than two percent from all-time highs and volatility measurements have been close to their lowest levels for 2015.
"How are you supposed to actively short stocks in this environment? It has been impossible," Seattle-based Fleckenstein told Reuters.
His frustration is shared by others dedicated to betting on declines, if not for the broader market then for individual stocks that look overvalued. Outside of the hard-hit energy industry, most sectors have performed well over the last several months, and dedicated short funds have been stung.
Equity markets continue to benefit from ultra-low interest rates and other moves by central banks aimed at stimulating demand in major economies.
"It all comes down to free money and that old saw — 'don't fight the Fed,'" said Jeff Matthews, who runs Ram Partners, a Naples, Florida-based hedge fund.
Through the end of March, Credit Suisse's index that measures the performance of short-biased funds is down 4.4 percent, while its market-neutral index — measuring funds that match long and short bets — is off by 1.6 percent. In comparison, CSFB's broad index of all hedge funds is up 2.6 percent.
Since October, long-short equity funds — which take long positions in stocks expected to increase in value and short stocks expected to decrease in value — have been gravitating more to long bets than at any time since August, according to the Credit Suisse data. In particular, they have been pulling back on unprofitable short positions taken earlier in the year.
"It has been unremittingly horrible for someone like me who has been long value, short over-hyped stocks," said Sydney, Australia-based short-seller John Hempton of Bronte Capital. "It would be more fun if I could go back to making money rather than spending my days thinking about risk management."
Investors like Hempton and Fleckenstein are happy to forget 2013 and 2014: the S&P 500 gained 29.6 percent and 11.4 percent in those years, while Credit Suisse's index of hedge funds with a dedicated short bias lost 25 percent and 5.6 percent, respectively.
Read more from BusinessInsider >>
FLECKENSTEIN: 'How are you supposed to actively short stocks in this environment?'
JENNIFER ABLAN AND DAVID GAFFEN, REUTERS
APR. 19, 2015,
NEW YORK (Reuters) - In January 2014, veteran short-seller Bill Fleckenstein said he was readying a new fund to bet on falling stock prices. More than a year later, he's still waiting to launch that fund.
Despite lackluster U.S. economic data, a world grappling with slow growth, concern that Greece and Ukraine could default on their debts, the U.S. stock market has been more than resilient. Even after a selloff on Friday, major indices are less than two percent from all-time highs and volatility measurements have been close to their lowest levels for 2015.
"How are you supposed to actively short stocks in this environment? It has been impossible," Seattle-based Fleckenstein told Reuters.
His frustration is shared by others dedicated to betting on declines, if not for the broader market then for individual stocks that look overvalued. Outside of the hard-hit energy industry, most sectors have performed well over the last several months, and dedicated short funds have been stung.
Equity markets continue to benefit from ultra-low interest rates and other moves by central banks aimed at stimulating demand in major economies.
"It all comes down to free money and that old saw — 'don't fight the Fed,'" said Jeff Matthews, who runs Ram Partners, a Naples, Florida-based hedge fund.
Through the end of March, Credit Suisse's index that measures the performance of short-biased funds is down 4.4 percent, while its market-neutral index — measuring funds that match long and short bets — is off by 1.6 percent. In comparison, CSFB's broad index of all hedge funds is up 2.6 percent.
Since October, long-short equity funds — which take long positions in stocks expected to increase in value and short stocks expected to decrease in value — have been gravitating more to long bets than at any time since August, according to the Credit Suisse data. In particular, they have been pulling back on unprofitable short positions taken earlier in the year.
"It has been unremittingly horrible for someone like me who has been long value, short over-hyped stocks," said Sydney, Australia-based short-seller John Hempton of Bronte Capital. "It would be more fun if I could go back to making money rather than spending my days thinking about risk management."
Investors like Hempton and Fleckenstein are happy to forget 2013 and 2014: the S&P 500 gained 29.6 percent and 11.4 percent in those years, while Credit Suisse's index of hedge funds with a dedicated short bias lost 25 percent and 5.6 percent, respectively.
Read more from BusinessInsider >>
April 19, 2015
Spring-clean your pantry — and your arteries! — for a healthy, fresh start to the season.
From ClevelandClinicWellness
Spring-clean your pantry — and your arteries! — for a healthy, fresh start to the season.
by Cleveland Clinic Wellness Editors | April 18, 2015
As the sun shines brighter and warmer, open your windows, turn up the tunes, and spend a morning creating a healthier kitchen pantry. First, take stock of what’s in your cabinets — a missing sock, your lost keys, six-year-old spices, perhaps? — and look for opportunities to fill ’em with more nutritious choices. A good place to begin: flours and oils. Replace those bags of stripped white flours with varieties made with 100 percent whole wheat (which should be stated clearly on the label). You’ll add more phytonutrients, soluble fiber and essential vitamins when you eat intact carbs.
Next up: Learn how to cook with alternative flours made from nuts, seeds, legumes and even plants. They’re packed with good nutrition (flaxseed, spelt and rye flours contain four times the amount of fiber as white flour), and they taste amazing. Plus, you’ll gain instant “artisanal” cred using these wholesome alt products. While you’re at it, go ahead and ditch any cooking oils that have developed a funny odor or have been in the pantry for more than a few months. Rancid oil can oxidize and develop free radicals, beating the heck out of your healthy cells. Replenish with high-quality extra-virgin olive oil (and keep it in a cool dark place), which is not only terrific for your heart but wins the flavor jackpot! Use it for marinades, to cook sautéed or roasted veggies, or in salad dressings.
ClevelandClinicWellness >>
To your health!
Spring-clean your pantry — and your arteries! — for a healthy, fresh start to the season.
by Cleveland Clinic Wellness Editors | April 18, 2015
As the sun shines brighter and warmer, open your windows, turn up the tunes, and spend a morning creating a healthier kitchen pantry. First, take stock of what’s in your cabinets — a missing sock, your lost keys, six-year-old spices, perhaps? — and look for opportunities to fill ’em with more nutritious choices. A good place to begin: flours and oils. Replace those bags of stripped white flours with varieties made with 100 percent whole wheat (which should be stated clearly on the label). You’ll add more phytonutrients, soluble fiber and essential vitamins when you eat intact carbs.
Next up: Learn how to cook with alternative flours made from nuts, seeds, legumes and even plants. They’re packed with good nutrition (flaxseed, spelt and rye flours contain four times the amount of fiber as white flour), and they taste amazing. Plus, you’ll gain instant “artisanal” cred using these wholesome alt products. While you’re at it, go ahead and ditch any cooking oils that have developed a funny odor or have been in the pantry for more than a few months. Rancid oil can oxidize and develop free radicals, beating the heck out of your healthy cells. Replenish with high-quality extra-virgin olive oil (and keep it in a cool dark place), which is not only terrific for your heart but wins the flavor jackpot! Use it for marinades, to cook sautéed or roasted veggies, or in salad dressings.
ClevelandClinicWellness >>
To your health!
April 18, 2015
Fill Your Diet with Intact Carbs to Look and Feel Fantastic!
From ClevelandClinicWellness
Fill Your Diet with Intact Carbs to Look and Feel Fantastic!
by Roxanne B. Sukol, M.D., M.S.
In my post about stripped carbohydrates I explained that not all carbs are the same. There is an important difference between carbohydrates with an intact fiber matrix, the way nature intended, and stripped carbohydrates, in which the fiber matrix has been removed. Whereas my prior post focused on stripped carbohydrates, this one is about intact carbohydrates.
What Exactly Are Intact Carbs?
Just as there are four major sources of stripped carbohydrate, there happen to be four major sources of intact carbohydrate: vegetables, beans, fruits, and grains (whole, of course). While most people easily identify grains as carbohydrates, and some include fruits as well, many people still do not think of vegetables and beans as carbohydrates. However, these four types of plants — vegetables, beans, fruits and grains — comprise the carbohydrate category.
Here’s a quick tip for eating healthy: Look for colorful foods. The widest variety of color and texture comes from the carbohydrate group, especially the fruits and vegetables. Proteins are mostly brown. Oils are mostly yellow, but fruits and vegetables? Rainbow City! It looks like Mom was right all along: If you want to increase the nutritional value of your diet, eat your vegetables. In fact, eat more produce of all types. Eat as large a variety of colors as you can.
From Intact Carbs to Stripped Carbs
In contrast to intact carbohydrates, sugar, white flour, white rice, corn starch and corn syrup are stripped carbohydrates derived, respectively, from these raw materials: sugar cane, wheat, rice, and corn. While the raw versions contain large amounts of fiber and other nutrients, the stripped versions do not. In addition to sugar cane, dates and beets constitute two other raw material sources of sugar. Dates and beets are both nutritional powerhouses in their raw forms, but when they’re stripped of their fiber, color, and phytonutrients, all that remains is the sugar and calories.
Why Are Intact Carbs Stripped?
One important reason that intact carbs are stripped has to do with shelf life. The first part of a grain to become rancid, or go bad, is normally the germ. The germ of a wheat kernel is filled with oil, and oils are, by their very nature, fragile. They are easily oxidized, susceptible to the oxygen in the air around them. Oxidation causes oils to become rancid, and rancid oil is the enemy of shelf life. The unpleasant odor of a rancid product is hard to forget, and not easily hidden. The longer a product can be kept on the shelf, the more likely it is to be sold before it goes bad. And not surprisingly, food manufacturers want to avoid throwing away food that has turned rancid because it’s really just throwing away profit. Vacuum packing is one way to prevent oxidation of baked goods. Another way is to make those baked goods from flour that has been stripped of its germ.
Read more from ClevelandClinicWellness >>
Fill Your Diet with Intact Carbs to Look and Feel Fantastic!
by Roxanne B. Sukol, M.D., M.S.
In my post about stripped carbohydrates I explained that not all carbs are the same. There is an important difference between carbohydrates with an intact fiber matrix, the way nature intended, and stripped carbohydrates, in which the fiber matrix has been removed. Whereas my prior post focused on stripped carbohydrates, this one is about intact carbohydrates.
What Exactly Are Intact Carbs?
Just as there are four major sources of stripped carbohydrate, there happen to be four major sources of intact carbohydrate: vegetables, beans, fruits, and grains (whole, of course). While most people easily identify grains as carbohydrates, and some include fruits as well, many people still do not think of vegetables and beans as carbohydrates. However, these four types of plants — vegetables, beans, fruits and grains — comprise the carbohydrate category.
Here’s a quick tip for eating healthy: Look for colorful foods. The widest variety of color and texture comes from the carbohydrate group, especially the fruits and vegetables. Proteins are mostly brown. Oils are mostly yellow, but fruits and vegetables? Rainbow City! It looks like Mom was right all along: If you want to increase the nutritional value of your diet, eat your vegetables. In fact, eat more produce of all types. Eat as large a variety of colors as you can.
From Intact Carbs to Stripped Carbs
In contrast to intact carbohydrates, sugar, white flour, white rice, corn starch and corn syrup are stripped carbohydrates derived, respectively, from these raw materials: sugar cane, wheat, rice, and corn. While the raw versions contain large amounts of fiber and other nutrients, the stripped versions do not. In addition to sugar cane, dates and beets constitute two other raw material sources of sugar. Dates and beets are both nutritional powerhouses in their raw forms, but when they’re stripped of their fiber, color, and phytonutrients, all that remains is the sugar and calories.
Why Are Intact Carbs Stripped?
One important reason that intact carbs are stripped has to do with shelf life. The first part of a grain to become rancid, or go bad, is normally the germ. The germ of a wheat kernel is filled with oil, and oils are, by their very nature, fragile. They are easily oxidized, susceptible to the oxygen in the air around them. Oxidation causes oils to become rancid, and rancid oil is the enemy of shelf life. The unpleasant odor of a rancid product is hard to forget, and not easily hidden. The longer a product can be kept on the shelf, the more likely it is to be sold before it goes bad. And not surprisingly, food manufacturers want to avoid throwing away food that has turned rancid because it’s really just throwing away profit. Vacuum packing is one way to prevent oxidation of baked goods. Another way is to make those baked goods from flour that has been stripped of its germ.
Read more from ClevelandClinicWellness >>
April 17, 2015
S&P to start its correction today, analyst warns
From YahooFinance
S&P to start its correction today, analyst warns
CNBC | April 17, 2015, 3:00 AM
Bullish short-term traders might do well to take their foot off the gas Friday, with two technical analysts telling CNBC that major global benchmarks were set for a short correction over the next month.
Delving deep into the technicals, Yacine Kanoun, managing director at PivotHunters, a portfolio management firm based in the U.K., highlighted that Germany's blue chip index, the DAX (^GDAXI), has already dipped by 3 or 4 percent since last week.
He now expects further falls in the short term on both the DAX and the U.S. benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC).
"Definitely the market is going to correct here," he told CNBC Friday. "I think the correction has started on the DAX, and the S&P 500 we are probably on the top today."
He said the expiry of options contracts - a type of financial instrument - on Friday would herald the start of a correction in the U.S., which which would follow the German bourse lower over the next month and lose 10 percent from its current peak.
Meanwhile, Steve Miley, technical strategist at TheMarketChartist.com, also told CNBC Friday that the DAX would "likely correct further and go slightly lower into next week."
He offered a bottom for the DAX of around 11,650 points, to occur sometime next week. This would mean a 6 percent drop from its peak of 12,374 points on April 10.
The index is currently at 11,998 points and has seen stellar gains of 22 percent this year on the back of quantitative easing by the European Central Bank. The S&P 500 is currently at 2,104 points and has edged 2.2 percent higher so far this year.
PivotHunters' Kanoun spoke of a "convergence" between major global benchmarks this year, especially the S&P 500 and the DAX.
"Now they are in sync, from here I think they are going to move in parallel, " he said. Miley expects the opposite for the S&P 500 and told CNBC that a "bullish leadership" could start to shift back to the U.S. and predicts new record highs into next week.
Miley expects the opposite for the S&P 500 and told CNBC that a "bullish leadership" could start to shift back to the U.S. and predicts new record highs into next week.
Kanoun might be cautious in the short-term, but he also believes the correction will be followed by hefty gains. The S&P 500 will finish the year near 2,200 points, he said, and the DAX could even hit 13,500 points.
Read more from YahooFinance >>
S&P to start its correction today, analyst warns
CNBC | April 17, 2015, 3:00 AM
Bullish short-term traders might do well to take their foot off the gas Friday, with two technical analysts telling CNBC that major global benchmarks were set for a short correction over the next month.
Delving deep into the technicals, Yacine Kanoun, managing director at PivotHunters, a portfolio management firm based in the U.K., highlighted that Germany's blue chip index, the DAX (^GDAXI), has already dipped by 3 or 4 percent since last week.
He now expects further falls in the short term on both the DAX and the U.S. benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC).
"Definitely the market is going to correct here," he told CNBC Friday. "I think the correction has started on the DAX, and the S&P 500 we are probably on the top today."
He said the expiry of options contracts - a type of financial instrument - on Friday would herald the start of a correction in the U.S., which which would follow the German bourse lower over the next month and lose 10 percent from its current peak.
Meanwhile, Steve Miley, technical strategist at TheMarketChartist.com, also told CNBC Friday that the DAX would "likely correct further and go slightly lower into next week."
He offered a bottom for the DAX of around 11,650 points, to occur sometime next week. This would mean a 6 percent drop from its peak of 12,374 points on April 10.
The index is currently at 11,998 points and has seen stellar gains of 22 percent this year on the back of quantitative easing by the European Central Bank. The S&P 500 is currently at 2,104 points and has edged 2.2 percent higher so far this year.
PivotHunters' Kanoun spoke of a "convergence" between major global benchmarks this year, especially the S&P 500 and the DAX.
"Now they are in sync, from here I think they are going to move in parallel, " he said. Miley expects the opposite for the S&P 500 and told CNBC that a "bullish leadership" could start to shift back to the U.S. and predicts new record highs into next week.
Miley expects the opposite for the S&P 500 and told CNBC that a "bullish leadership" could start to shift back to the U.S. and predicts new record highs into next week.
Kanoun might be cautious in the short-term, but he also believes the correction will be followed by hefty gains. The S&P 500 will finish the year near 2,200 points, he said, and the DAX could even hit 13,500 points.
Read more from YahooFinance >>
April 16, 2015
How Flavor Drives Nutrition
From WSJ
How Flavor Drives Nutrition
For more than 50 years, our food has been getting blander—but the best diets turn out to also be delicious
By MARK SCHATZKER
April 9, 2015
For nearly a half century, America has been on a witch hunt to find the ingredient that is making us fat. In the 1980s, the culprit was fat itself. Next it was carbs. Today, sugar is the enemy—unless you’re caught up in the war on gluten.
And none of it has worked. Obesity is now closing in on smoking as our No. 1 preventable cause of death. The U.S. has rarely failed at anything the way it has failed at weight loss.
Perhaps that is because we’re missing a crucial piece of the food puzzle. Oddly enough, all those diet gurus and bureaucrats hardly ever ask the simplest question: How does it taste? We’ve fixated on what food does inside the body, but we’ve almost totally ignored why it gets there in the first place. Even a child knows: We eat because food is delicious.
We have been trained to see this as a bad thing. After all, if food weren’t so appetizing, we wouldn’t eat so much of it. But the human body takes flavor very seriously. Our flavor-sensing equipment occupies more DNA than any other bodily system. If deliciousness is our enemy, why are we programmed to seek it out?
Every other animal depends on taste and smell to identify nutrients crucial to life. Insects use flavor chemicals to distinguish between food and poison. Diabetic lab rats instinctively avoid carbs. Sheep who are deficient in essential minerals, such as calcium or phosphorus, will crave flavors associated with them. And monkeys infected with gut parasites will eat specific leaves that alleviate their conditions. “Flavor,” says Fred Provenza, a behavioral ecologist and professor emeritus at Utah State University, “is the body’s way of identifying important nutrients and remembering what foods they come from.”
Humans are no different. In the 18th century, sailors ravaged by scurvy were gripped by intense longings for fruits and vegetables. Pregnant women are nauseated by foods that their bodies perceive as toxic.
But perhaps the most striking proof of such nutritional wisdom comes from a 1939 study in which a group of toddlers were put in charge of feeding themselves. They were offered 34 nutritionally diverse whole foods, including water, potatoes, beef, bone jelly, carrots, chicken, grains, bananas and milk. What each child ate, and how much, was entirely up to him or her.
The results were astonishing. Instead of binging on the sweetest foods, the toddlers were drawn to the foods that best nourished them. They ate more protein during growth spurts and more carbs and fat during periods of peak activity. After an outbreak of mononucleosis, curiously, they consumed more raw beef, carrots and beets. One child with a severe vitamin D deficiency even drank cod liver oil of his own volition until he was cured. By the end of the experiment, one doctor was so impressed with the toddlers’ health that he described them as “the finest group of specimens” he’d ever seen in their age group.
These toddlers knew nothing about carbs, fat or gluten. They just ate what tasted good to them.
A 2006 paper in the journal Science shed light on the chemistry underlying those flavor cravings. Scientists Stephen Goff and Harry Klee discovered that the 20 most important flavor compounds in tomatoes are all synthesized from important nutrients, such as omega-3 fats and essential amino acids. In other words, what makes a tomato nutritious also makes it delicious. This undeniable link, they wrote, suggests that flavor compounds “provide important information about the nutritional makeup of foods.”
Read more from WSJ >>
How Flavor Drives Nutrition
For more than 50 years, our food has been getting blander—but the best diets turn out to also be delicious
By MARK SCHATZKER
April 9, 2015
For nearly a half century, America has been on a witch hunt to find the ingredient that is making us fat. In the 1980s, the culprit was fat itself. Next it was carbs. Today, sugar is the enemy—unless you’re caught up in the war on gluten.
And none of it has worked. Obesity is now closing in on smoking as our No. 1 preventable cause of death. The U.S. has rarely failed at anything the way it has failed at weight loss.
Perhaps that is because we’re missing a crucial piece of the food puzzle. Oddly enough, all those diet gurus and bureaucrats hardly ever ask the simplest question: How does it taste? We’ve fixated on what food does inside the body, but we’ve almost totally ignored why it gets there in the first place. Even a child knows: We eat because food is delicious.
We have been trained to see this as a bad thing. After all, if food weren’t so appetizing, we wouldn’t eat so much of it. But the human body takes flavor very seriously. Our flavor-sensing equipment occupies more DNA than any other bodily system. If deliciousness is our enemy, why are we programmed to seek it out?
Every other animal depends on taste and smell to identify nutrients crucial to life. Insects use flavor chemicals to distinguish between food and poison. Diabetic lab rats instinctively avoid carbs. Sheep who are deficient in essential minerals, such as calcium or phosphorus, will crave flavors associated with them. And monkeys infected with gut parasites will eat specific leaves that alleviate their conditions. “Flavor,” says Fred Provenza, a behavioral ecologist and professor emeritus at Utah State University, “is the body’s way of identifying important nutrients and remembering what foods they come from.”
Humans are no different. In the 18th century, sailors ravaged by scurvy were gripped by intense longings for fruits and vegetables. Pregnant women are nauseated by foods that their bodies perceive as toxic.
But perhaps the most striking proof of such nutritional wisdom comes from a 1939 study in which a group of toddlers were put in charge of feeding themselves. They were offered 34 nutritionally diverse whole foods, including water, potatoes, beef, bone jelly, carrots, chicken, grains, bananas and milk. What each child ate, and how much, was entirely up to him or her.
The results were astonishing. Instead of binging on the sweetest foods, the toddlers were drawn to the foods that best nourished them. They ate more protein during growth spurts and more carbs and fat during periods of peak activity. After an outbreak of mononucleosis, curiously, they consumed more raw beef, carrots and beets. One child with a severe vitamin D deficiency even drank cod liver oil of his own volition until he was cured. By the end of the experiment, one doctor was so impressed with the toddlers’ health that he described them as “the finest group of specimens” he’d ever seen in their age group.
These toddlers knew nothing about carbs, fat or gluten. They just ate what tasted good to them.
A 2006 paper in the journal Science shed light on the chemistry underlying those flavor cravings. Scientists Stephen Goff and Harry Klee discovered that the 20 most important flavor compounds in tomatoes are all synthesized from important nutrients, such as omega-3 fats and essential amino acids. In other words, what makes a tomato nutritious also makes it delicious. This undeniable link, they wrote, suggests that flavor compounds “provide important information about the nutritional makeup of foods.”
Read more from WSJ >>
April 15, 2015
Mohamed El-Erian says this is how to invest as the dollar soars
From MarketWatch
Mohamed El-Erian says this is how to invest as the dollar soars
By Joseph Adinolfi
Published: Apr 13, 2015
Bet on headwinds for U.S. companies; debt issues in emerging-markets
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — As the dollar appears to once again be racing to new heights against the euro, Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser at German insurance giant Allianz, says investors should try to benefit from its surge higher.
El-Erian recommends keeping bets small — and having plenty of cash on hand to take advantage of massive dips.
The strong dollar DXY, +0.03% will likely create headwinds for U.S. and emerging-market companies, El-Erian said Monday in a column in the Financial Times, a phenomenon he refers to as “financial breakage.”
U.S. companies will find it harder to compete with rivals in Europe and Asia, while the U.S. economy remains too weak to stomach such setbacks.
Companies based in emerging-market economies that are overexposed to dollar-denominated debt are likely headed for a rough patch -- but, as El-Erian notes, central banks can use their balance sheets to protect these companies from default.
Positioning should be balanced, El-Erian argues, “combining exposures that favour the dollar versus other major currencies (particularly the euro_ with hedged European versus U.S. equities positioning and, on the government bond side, U.S. bonds versus German bonds.”
And bets on emerging-market assets should be reconfigured to focus on countries with large amounts of foreign currency reserves and limited dollar-denominated debt.
In a time of such intense foreign-exchange volatility, keeping a substantial amount of cash on hand would be a smart move.
“After all,” El-Erian said, “we should never forget the growing phenomenon of limited liquidity provision during periods of greater market volatility. And volatility is what awaits markets.”
April 14, 2015
New Alzheimer’s treatment fully restores memory function
From ScienceAlert
New Alzheimer’s treatment fully restores memory function
Of the mice that received the treatment, 75 percent got their memory functions back.
BEC CREW18 MAR 2015
Australian researchers have come up with a non-invasive ultrasound technology that clears the brain of neurotoxic amyloid plaques - structures that are responsible for memory loss and a decline in cognitive function in Alzheimer’s patients.
If a person has Alzheimer’s disease, it’s usually the result of a build-up of two types of lesions - amyloid plaques, and neurofibrillary tangles. Amyloid plaques sit between the neurons and end up as dense clusters of beta-amyloid molecules, a sticky type of protein that clumps together and forms plaques.
Neurofibrillary tangles are found inside the neurons of the brain, and they’re caused by defective tau proteins that clump up into a thick, insoluble mass. This causes tiny filaments called microtubules to get all twisted, which disrupts the transportation of essential materials such as nutrients and organelles along them, just like when you twist up the vacuum cleaner tube.
As we don’t have any kind of vaccine or preventative measure for Alzheimer’s - a disease that affects 343,000 people in Australia, and 50 million worldwide - it’s been a race to figure out how best to treat it, starting with how to clear the build-up of defective beta-amyloid and tau proteins from a patient’s brain. Now a team from the Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) at the University of Queensland have come up with a pretty promising solution for removing the former.
Publishing in Science Translational Medicine, the team describes the technique as using a particular type of ultrasound called a focused therapeutic ultrasound, which non-invasively beams sound waves into the brain tissue. By oscillating super-fast, these sound waves are able to gently open up the blood-brain barrier, which is a layer that protects the brain against bacteria, and stimulate the brain’s microglial cells to activate. Microglila cells are basically waste-removal cells, so they’re able to clear out the toxic beta-amyloid clumps that are responsible for the worst symptoms of Alzheimer’s.
Read more from ScienceAlert >>
New Alzheimer’s treatment fully restores memory function
Of the mice that received the treatment, 75 percent got their memory functions back.
BEC CREW18 MAR 2015
Australian researchers have come up with a non-invasive ultrasound technology that clears the brain of neurotoxic amyloid plaques - structures that are responsible for memory loss and a decline in cognitive function in Alzheimer’s patients.
If a person has Alzheimer’s disease, it’s usually the result of a build-up of two types of lesions - amyloid plaques, and neurofibrillary tangles. Amyloid plaques sit between the neurons and end up as dense clusters of beta-amyloid molecules, a sticky type of protein that clumps together and forms plaques.
Neurofibrillary tangles are found inside the neurons of the brain, and they’re caused by defective tau proteins that clump up into a thick, insoluble mass. This causes tiny filaments called microtubules to get all twisted, which disrupts the transportation of essential materials such as nutrients and organelles along them, just like when you twist up the vacuum cleaner tube.
As we don’t have any kind of vaccine or preventative measure for Alzheimer’s - a disease that affects 343,000 people in Australia, and 50 million worldwide - it’s been a race to figure out how best to treat it, starting with how to clear the build-up of defective beta-amyloid and tau proteins from a patient’s brain. Now a team from the Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) at the University of Queensland have come up with a pretty promising solution for removing the former.
Publishing in Science Translational Medicine, the team describes the technique as using a particular type of ultrasound called a focused therapeutic ultrasound, which non-invasively beams sound waves into the brain tissue. By oscillating super-fast, these sound waves are able to gently open up the blood-brain barrier, which is a layer that protects the brain against bacteria, and stimulate the brain’s microglial cells to activate. Microglila cells are basically waste-removal cells, so they’re able to clear out the toxic beta-amyloid clumps that are responsible for the worst symptoms of Alzheimer’s.
Read more from ScienceAlert >>
April 12, 2015
A new understanding of Alzheimer’s
From HarvardGazette
A new understanding of Alzheimer’s
Findings point to role of natural selection in disease
February 25, 2015
By Peter Reuell, Harvard Staff Writer
Although natural selection is often thought of as a force that determines the adaptation of replicating organisms to their environment, Harvard researchers have found that selection also occurs at the level of neurons, which are post-mitotic cells, and plays a critical role in the emergence of Alzheimer’s disease.
Using the principles of natural selection, Lloyd Demetrius, a researcher in population genetics at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, and Jane Driver, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, have proposed a new model of Alzheimer’s that suggests mitochondria — cellular power plants — might be at the center of the disease. The study, which builds on earlier work by Demetrius and David Simon, an associate professor of neurology at HMS, was described in a recent paper in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
“We felt that, in order to explain the exponential increase in Alzheimer’s with age, we had to move away from the nuclear genome and look at what is going on with the energy-producing organelles,” Demetrius said. “That led us to a completely different model for the disease. We do not rule out the nuclear genes as playing a role … but, for the late-onset form of Alzheimer’s, we envision a mechanism based on the fact that mitochondrial DNA has a high mutation rate and that the organelles generate less energy with age.”
The prevalent model of Alzheimer’s is known as the amyloid cascade model. Proposed more than two decades ago, the amyloid hypothesis says that Alzheimer’s is primarily driven by the accumulation of beta amyloid in neurons. The accumulation is thought to be triggered by a mutation in the nuclear genome. A number of clinical trials have been conducted based on the model, but none have shown positive results. That prompted Demetrius and Driver to take a hard look at the fundamental underlying assumptions.
“A lot of people are realizing now that we have been focusing on the usual suspects — genetics and proteins ― and that’s brought us to a point where, despite billions of dollars in research, we are no closer to a disease-modifying therapy,” Driver said. “Of course, that’s not to suggest that genetics isn’t important, but I think what we haven’t done is to take the 20,000-foot view and ask if it is even logical to expect that changes to one protein could be responsible for an age-related disease. It just didn’t add up.”
The genetic mutation model could explain early onset Alzheimer’s, but this form of the disease accounts for only about 5 percent of cases.
“The late-onset cases, however, are quite different,” Demetrius said. “They increase exponentially with age, and that is one of the most striking characteristics of the disease. As you age, the chances of getting it increase.”
In the model Demetrius and Driver describe, the disease’s first step is what they call “mitochondrial dysregulation.” The process is largely part of the natural course of aging.
As a person ages, the researchers say, the mitochondria in the cells generate energy less and less efficiently. Mitochondria, with their own DNA, are akin to the descendants of simple organisms that lived in a symbiotic relationship inside more complex ones. The mitochondria that produce cellular energy from nutrients such as glucose, in a process called oxidative phosphorylation, are incredibly efficient.
However, the process has the side effect of producing oxygen-free radicals, which can damage mitochondrial DNA and proteins. Random mutations can further damage mitochondrial structure and function. The accumulated harm leads to an energy deficit, triggering a compensatory event that Demetrius and Driver call “metabolic re-programming” — unaffected mitochondria increase output, by upregulating oxidative phosphorylation, to make up for the energy deficit.
Read more from HarvardGazette >>
A new understanding of Alzheimer’s
Findings point to role of natural selection in disease
February 25, 2015
By Peter Reuell, Harvard Staff Writer
Although natural selection is often thought of as a force that determines the adaptation of replicating organisms to their environment, Harvard researchers have found that selection also occurs at the level of neurons, which are post-mitotic cells, and plays a critical role in the emergence of Alzheimer’s disease.
Using the principles of natural selection, Lloyd Demetrius, a researcher in population genetics at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, and Jane Driver, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, have proposed a new model of Alzheimer’s that suggests mitochondria — cellular power plants — might be at the center of the disease. The study, which builds on earlier work by Demetrius and David Simon, an associate professor of neurology at HMS, was described in a recent paper in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
“We felt that, in order to explain the exponential increase in Alzheimer’s with age, we had to move away from the nuclear genome and look at what is going on with the energy-producing organelles,” Demetrius said. “That led us to a completely different model for the disease. We do not rule out the nuclear genes as playing a role … but, for the late-onset form of Alzheimer’s, we envision a mechanism based on the fact that mitochondrial DNA has a high mutation rate and that the organelles generate less energy with age.”
The prevalent model of Alzheimer’s is known as the amyloid cascade model. Proposed more than two decades ago, the amyloid hypothesis says that Alzheimer’s is primarily driven by the accumulation of beta amyloid in neurons. The accumulation is thought to be triggered by a mutation in the nuclear genome. A number of clinical trials have been conducted based on the model, but none have shown positive results. That prompted Demetrius and Driver to take a hard look at the fundamental underlying assumptions.
“A lot of people are realizing now that we have been focusing on the usual suspects — genetics and proteins ― and that’s brought us to a point where, despite billions of dollars in research, we are no closer to a disease-modifying therapy,” Driver said. “Of course, that’s not to suggest that genetics isn’t important, but I think what we haven’t done is to take the 20,000-foot view and ask if it is even logical to expect that changes to one protein could be responsible for an age-related disease. It just didn’t add up.”
The genetic mutation model could explain early onset Alzheimer’s, but this form of the disease accounts for only about 5 percent of cases.
“The late-onset cases, however, are quite different,” Demetrius said. “They increase exponentially with age, and that is one of the most striking characteristics of the disease. As you age, the chances of getting it increase.”
In the model Demetrius and Driver describe, the disease’s first step is what they call “mitochondrial dysregulation.” The process is largely part of the natural course of aging.
As a person ages, the researchers say, the mitochondria in the cells generate energy less and less efficiently. Mitochondria, with their own DNA, are akin to the descendants of simple organisms that lived in a symbiotic relationship inside more complex ones. The mitochondria that produce cellular energy from nutrients such as glucose, in a process called oxidative phosphorylation, are incredibly efficient.
However, the process has the side effect of producing oxygen-free radicals, which can damage mitochondrial DNA and proteins. Random mutations can further damage mitochondrial structure and function. The accumulated harm leads to an energy deficit, triggering a compensatory event that Demetrius and Driver call “metabolic re-programming” — unaffected mitochondria increase output, by upregulating oxidative phosphorylation, to make up for the energy deficit.
Read more from HarvardGazette >>
April 10, 2015
Stocks surge: Nikkei tops 20,000, Europe hits 15-year high
From YahooFinance
Stocks surge: Nikkei tops 20,000, Europe hits 15-year high
By Marc Jones | Reuters
LONDON (Reuters) - World shares approached record highs on Friday, as hopes of more easy money from top central banks pushed Japan's Nikkei past 20,000 points for the first time in 15 years and European stocks reached similar heights.
The stock market push was complemented by another low for euro zone bond yields, after Greece repaid a loan tranche to the International Monetary Fund to keep alive its hopes of more aid.
Subdued Chinese inflation also led to talk of additional stimulus from Beijing, and upbeat data from major economies like the United States and Germany kept oil on course for a weekly gain of almost three percent.
The dollar (.DXY) was on course for its best week since 2011. The euro (EUR=) weakened and sterling (GBP=) tumbled on the day after the UK reported unexpectedly poor industrial production data.
"We look set for a strong finish to the week for European markets with further declines in European yields and the euro acting as the catalyst for new multi-year highs this week," Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, said in a note.
Buoyed by gains in Asia and the latest slide in the euro, the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 share index (.FTEU3) reached a 15-year high in early trading and headed for its ninth week of rises in the last 10. [.EU]
Germany's DAX (.GDAXI) also scored a record high[.EU]. Britain's FTSE 100 (.FTSE), France's CAC 40 (.FCHI) and the region's other main indexes all made ground.
Along with the ECB's stimulus programme and the weak euro, news that Greece had made a 450 million-euro loan payment to the IMF and secured extra emergency funding from the ECB for its banks also helped the mood.
Greek markets were closed for an Orthodox Greek holiday, but Greek bonds were heading for their best week in two months with yields down almost 3 percent. German Bund yields were also grinding back towards record lows. [GVD/EUR]
"There was a bit of relief that they made that repayment yesterday and it looks like they're going to be able to pay that T-bill next week," Rabobank fixed income strategist Lyn Graham-Taylor said.
"But the market is whipping around. We're very, very far from any sort of resolution that gets us through the next six months to a year."
DOLLAR BULLS
The dollar was on track for its first weekly rise in a month as jobless claims data eased concern about the U.S. labour market and attention shifted back to the chances the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates this year.
Against a basket of top currencies, the dollar rose almost half a percent to a three-week high in morning trade in Europe, bolstered by diverging bond yields in the U.S. and euro zone that should pull capital into the world's largest economy.
Federal Reserve policymakers hinted this week that the U.S. may raise rates sooner than many expect, while European central banks have introduced negative interest rates and are printing money.
Against the euro, the dollar was up half a percent at $1.0607 (EUR=) its strongest since March 19. The euro has fallen more than 3 percent this week.
Sterling (GBP=) also slipped close to a five-year low against the dollar, after data showed British industrial output barely grew in February and construction shrank.
"It's hard to avoid the conclusion that carry trades are playing a part. Note that German bond yields out to 8 years are now in negative territory, the euro is very much a funding currency," said David de Garis, senior economist at NAB.
Among commodities, Brent crude oil futures remained firm after rising on Thursday on strong German economic data and uncertainty about negotiations on Iran's nuclear program.
Brent (LCOc1) was little changed at $56.51 a barrel. But U.S. crude slipped 0.3 percent on the day to $50.36. Gold (XAU=) was also flat at $1,194.71 an ounce, down 1.3 percent so far this week following a three-week run of gains.
Stocks surge: Nikkei tops 20,000, Europe hits 15-year high
By Marc Jones | Reuters
LONDON (Reuters) - World shares approached record highs on Friday, as hopes of more easy money from top central banks pushed Japan's Nikkei past 20,000 points for the first time in 15 years and European stocks reached similar heights.
The stock market push was complemented by another low for euro zone bond yields, after Greece repaid a loan tranche to the International Monetary Fund to keep alive its hopes of more aid.
Subdued Chinese inflation also led to talk of additional stimulus from Beijing, and upbeat data from major economies like the United States and Germany kept oil on course for a weekly gain of almost three percent.
The dollar (.DXY) was on course for its best week since 2011. The euro (EUR=) weakened and sterling (GBP=) tumbled on the day after the UK reported unexpectedly poor industrial production data.
"We look set for a strong finish to the week for European markets with further declines in European yields and the euro acting as the catalyst for new multi-year highs this week," Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, said in a note.
Buoyed by gains in Asia and the latest slide in the euro, the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 share index (.FTEU3) reached a 15-year high in early trading and headed for its ninth week of rises in the last 10. [.EU]
Germany's DAX (.GDAXI) also scored a record high[.EU]. Britain's FTSE 100 (.FTSE), France's CAC 40 (.FCHI) and the region's other main indexes all made ground.
Along with the ECB's stimulus programme and the weak euro, news that Greece had made a 450 million-euro loan payment to the IMF and secured extra emergency funding from the ECB for its banks also helped the mood.
Greek markets were closed for an Orthodox Greek holiday, but Greek bonds were heading for their best week in two months with yields down almost 3 percent. German Bund yields were also grinding back towards record lows. [GVD/EUR]
"There was a bit of relief that they made that repayment yesterday and it looks like they're going to be able to pay that T-bill next week," Rabobank fixed income strategist Lyn Graham-Taylor said.
"But the market is whipping around. We're very, very far from any sort of resolution that gets us through the next six months to a year."
DOLLAR BULLS
The dollar was on track for its first weekly rise in a month as jobless claims data eased concern about the U.S. labour market and attention shifted back to the chances the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates this year.
Against a basket of top currencies, the dollar rose almost half a percent to a three-week high in morning trade in Europe, bolstered by diverging bond yields in the U.S. and euro zone that should pull capital into the world's largest economy.
Federal Reserve policymakers hinted this week that the U.S. may raise rates sooner than many expect, while European central banks have introduced negative interest rates and are printing money.
Against the euro, the dollar was up half a percent at $1.0607 (EUR=) its strongest since March 19. The euro has fallen more than 3 percent this week.
Sterling (GBP=) also slipped close to a five-year low against the dollar, after data showed British industrial output barely grew in February and construction shrank.
"It's hard to avoid the conclusion that carry trades are playing a part. Note that German bond yields out to 8 years are now in negative territory, the euro is very much a funding currency," said David de Garis, senior economist at NAB.
Among commodities, Brent crude oil futures remained firm after rising on Thursday on strong German economic data and uncertainty about negotiations on Iran's nuclear program.
Brent (LCOc1) was little changed at $56.51 a barrel. But U.S. crude slipped 0.3 percent on the day to $50.36. Gold (XAU=) was also flat at $1,194.71 an ounce, down 1.3 percent so far this week following a three-week run of gains.
April 9, 2015
U.S. Economy: Why We're Headed for a Bumpy Ride in 2015
From ProfitConfidential
U.S. Economy: Why We're Headed for a Bumpy Ride in 2015
~ By Michael Lombardi, MBA
Monday, April 6, 2015
Don't be fooled by what you hear from the mainstream media and the politicians. The U.S. economy continues to struggle. In fact, looking at the economic data closely, it suggests we are headed for an outright slowdown.
Consumer spending makes up two-thirds of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) and right now, Americans are refusing to spend, as evidenced by meager consumption figures.
Between November 2014 and February 2015, personal consumption expenditure declined by 0.3%. (Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis web site, last accessed March 31, 2015.) All this time, we were told Americans would spend more because gas prices were declining; that didn't happen.
Consumer spending looks to be flat, as Americans are opting to save as opposed to spend. In February, Americans saved 5.8% of their disposable income—a multi-year high. Between November and February, the personal savings rate in the U.S. increased by 32%. (Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis web site, last accessed March 31, 2015.)
Other factors I look at to assess the health of the U.S. economy are saying our growth is in trouble.
In February, orders for capital goods at the durable goods manufacturers declined 2.6% from January. Orders for capital goods have declined in six of the last seven months. Since July of 2014, capital goods orders at the durable goods manufacturers have declined 43%. (Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis web site, last accessed March 31, 2015.)
An economic slowdown for the U.S. seems inevitable. The economic data being released suggest the opposite of what we are hearing from the mainstream media. How can we have economic growth when the majority of what's included in the GDP (consumer spending and capital goods) is contracting?
Dear reader, the first quarter of 2015 is behind us and during that quarter, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down. For months, the stock market has been running ahead of itself. But now that corporate earnings are actually in contraction (the first-quarter 2015 estimate is that earnings growth for the S&P 500 was negative 4.9%) the weak economy is starting to affect corporate America (despite record stock buybacks) and the market. As I have been writing since the beginning of the year, we're in for a bumpy ride in 2015.
U.S. Economy: Why We're Headed for a Bumpy Ride in 2015
~ By Michael Lombardi, MBA
Monday, April 6, 2015
Don't be fooled by what you hear from the mainstream media and the politicians. The U.S. economy continues to struggle. In fact, looking at the economic data closely, it suggests we are headed for an outright slowdown.
Consumer spending makes up two-thirds of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) and right now, Americans are refusing to spend, as evidenced by meager consumption figures.
Between November 2014 and February 2015, personal consumption expenditure declined by 0.3%. (Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis web site, last accessed March 31, 2015.) All this time, we were told Americans would spend more because gas prices were declining; that didn't happen.
Consumer spending looks to be flat, as Americans are opting to save as opposed to spend. In February, Americans saved 5.8% of their disposable income—a multi-year high. Between November and February, the personal savings rate in the U.S. increased by 32%. (Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis web site, last accessed March 31, 2015.)
Other factors I look at to assess the health of the U.S. economy are saying our growth is in trouble.
In February, orders for capital goods at the durable goods manufacturers declined 2.6% from January. Orders for capital goods have declined in six of the last seven months. Since July of 2014, capital goods orders at the durable goods manufacturers have declined 43%. (Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis web site, last accessed March 31, 2015.)
An economic slowdown for the U.S. seems inevitable. The economic data being released suggest the opposite of what we are hearing from the mainstream media. How can we have economic growth when the majority of what's included in the GDP (consumer spending and capital goods) is contracting?
Dear reader, the first quarter of 2015 is behind us and during that quarter, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down. For months, the stock market has been running ahead of itself. But now that corporate earnings are actually in contraction (the first-quarter 2015 estimate is that earnings growth for the S&P 500 was negative 4.9%) the weak economy is starting to affect corporate America (despite record stock buybacks) and the market. As I have been writing since the beginning of the year, we're in for a bumpy ride in 2015.
April 7, 2015
‘Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies,’ with Prof. Siddhartha Mukherjee, Begins March 30 on PBS
From ColumbiaUniversityNews
‘Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies,’ with Prof. Siddhartha Mukherjee, Begins March 30 on PBS
“History tells us where we’ve been, what mistakes we’ve made, what we’ve learned and how that knowledge is slowly being transformed into prevention, treatments and a cure.”
March 9, 2015
(Editor's Note: The first installment of Ken Burns presents Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies premiers March 30th at 9:00 p.m. EST on PBS.)
For much of the 20th century, cancer was a word to be whispered, a topic avoided in polite conversation, its diagnosis a virtual death sentence. The stigma was such that in the 1950s, when a woman called The New York Times to place an advertisement for a breast cancer survivors group, she was greeted with a long pause. “We can’t place such an ad because it uses the words ‘breast’ and ‘cancer,’” she was told. “What if we call it ‘diseases of the chest wall’?”
“In the 1950s you would be confused about cancer because there wasn’t enough information,” says Siddhartha Mukherjee, an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University Medical Center and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. “That has changed dramatically. Today you could be confused about it because there’s too much information, and it’s coming from every direction.”
Mukherjee, who recounted the anecdote in his 2010 book, marvels at how far cancer research and care has come in the five years since then. The book has now been adapted into a three-part PBS documentary that will air nightly at 9 p.m. from March 30 to April 1. Ken Burns is the executive producer and Barak Goodman (JRN’86) is the director.
Mukherjee, Burns and Goodman were at Columbia on March 24 when the University hosted a media briefing on the future of cancer research. Speakers and panelists included Katie Couric, a co-founder of Stand Up to Cancer, and Columbia researchers Kenneth Forde, Stephen Emerson and Thomas Maniatis.
"Many people outside Columbia know Sid for his remarkable book, and now many more will learn the history he's told through the PBS series," said Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger. "We know him as a respected biomedical researcher and clinician whose work whose collaboration with colleagues across the University plays a role in our precision medicine initiative, which holds such promise for cancer and so many other medical challenges."
The main impetus for his book, and the documentary, was to illustrate where cancer research is and where it is headed. ”There’s no better road map than looking at history,” Mukherjee said. “History tells us where we’ve been, what mistakes we’ve made, what we’ve learned and how that knowledge is slowly being transformed into prevention, treatments and a cure.”
Q What compelled you to write The Emperor of All Maladies in the first place?
A patient asked me, “What is it that I’m fighting?” And I found it embarrassing that in 2006, we could not provide patients with a very simple answer to where we were in the war on cancer. So I wrote the book for patients, but I really wrote it for myself, and for the field, to try to update myself, and others, as to where we were.
Read more from ColumbiaUniversityNews >>
‘Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies,’ with Prof. Siddhartha Mukherjee, Begins March 30 on PBS
“History tells us where we’ve been, what mistakes we’ve made, what we’ve learned and how that knowledge is slowly being transformed into prevention, treatments and a cure.”
March 9, 2015
(Editor's Note: The first installment of Ken Burns presents Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies premiers March 30th at 9:00 p.m. EST on PBS.)
For much of the 20th century, cancer was a word to be whispered, a topic avoided in polite conversation, its diagnosis a virtual death sentence. The stigma was such that in the 1950s, when a woman called The New York Times to place an advertisement for a breast cancer survivors group, she was greeted with a long pause. “We can’t place such an ad because it uses the words ‘breast’ and ‘cancer,’” she was told. “What if we call it ‘diseases of the chest wall’?”
“In the 1950s you would be confused about cancer because there wasn’t enough information,” says Siddhartha Mukherjee, an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University Medical Center and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. “That has changed dramatically. Today you could be confused about it because there’s too much information, and it’s coming from every direction.”
Mukherjee, who recounted the anecdote in his 2010 book, marvels at how far cancer research and care has come in the five years since then. The book has now been adapted into a three-part PBS documentary that will air nightly at 9 p.m. from March 30 to April 1. Ken Burns is the executive producer and Barak Goodman (JRN’86) is the director.
Mukherjee, Burns and Goodman were at Columbia on March 24 when the University hosted a media briefing on the future of cancer research. Speakers and panelists included Katie Couric, a co-founder of Stand Up to Cancer, and Columbia researchers Kenneth Forde, Stephen Emerson and Thomas Maniatis.
"Many people outside Columbia know Sid for his remarkable book, and now many more will learn the history he's told through the PBS series," said Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger. "We know him as a respected biomedical researcher and clinician whose work whose collaboration with colleagues across the University plays a role in our precision medicine initiative, which holds such promise for cancer and so many other medical challenges."
The main impetus for his book, and the documentary, was to illustrate where cancer research is and where it is headed. ”There’s no better road map than looking at history,” Mukherjee said. “History tells us where we’ve been, what mistakes we’ve made, what we’ve learned and how that knowledge is slowly being transformed into prevention, treatments and a cure.”
Q What compelled you to write The Emperor of All Maladies in the first place?
A patient asked me, “What is it that I’m fighting?” And I found it embarrassing that in 2006, we could not provide patients with a very simple answer to where we were in the war on cancer. So I wrote the book for patients, but I really wrote it for myself, and for the field, to try to update myself, and others, as to where we were.
Read more from ColumbiaUniversityNews >>
April 5, 2015
After shifting fads, time for a clear-eyed look at fat in our diets
From LA Times
After shifting fads, time for a clear-eyed look at fat in our diets
Oils from walnuts, avocados and fish are among the more healthful fats.
By LILY DAYTON | March 7, 2015
th national headlines touting the message that low-fat diets are out and high-fat diets are in, people who once shunned butter are slathering it on toast, melting it in sautés and even plopping it into their coffee. And though the media has glorified saturated fat, it turns out that the main problem with the past decades' low-fat trend is that it has been misinterpreted.
"There is no real low-fat controversy," says Dr. David Heber, founding director of the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition. "The problem wasn't low fat; the problem was that when we lowered fat content, we increased carbohydrate and sugar content." Heber gives the classic example of SnackWells fat-free cookies, popular in the 1990s. With zero fat, SnackWells were considered more healthful than regular cookies, but they were only palatable because they contained high amounts of refined sugar and carbohydrates.
The low-fat fad emerged in the 1980s, following a growing body of research that linked a diet high in fats to increased cardiovascular disease risk. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's food pyramid reflected the wisdom of the time: The base showed bread, rice and cereal, which Americans were urged to eat plentifully; the tip of the pyramid depicted fats and oils to be used sparingly. Breakfasts of eggs and bacon were replaced with bowls of cereal; steak dinners were swapped for plates of pasta.
By the 2000s, mounting evidence showed that different fats had differing health outcomes. Saturated fat in particular was associated with increased cardiovascular disease risk, and unsaturated fats were shown to have a protective benefit.
Then, in 2014, a controversial meta-analysis published in the Annals of Internal Medicine was widely misconstrued to promote a diet high in saturated fat. Newsstands screamed, "Eat butter," and the saturated fat trend gained momentum. But in reality, the analysis showed not that saturated fat is good for us but that, when compared with diets low in fat but high in refined carbohydrates, a diet high in saturated fat is almost a wash in terms of cardiovascular disease risk.
Aside from misinterpretations of study results, the analysis itself had fundamental errors that prompted an international outcry from scientists. The authors had mixed up the results of one study they analyzed, omitted key studies from their analysis and failed to mention what people consumed as replacements when they ate less saturated fat. A corrected version of the paper was posted on the journal's website.
"When talking about diets, we always have to think about what the trade-off is," says Dr. Frank Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health. "If you cut back on saturated fat, you're going to replace it with either unsaturated fat or carbohydrates. The type of replacement can have a major impact on health outcomes."
Diets low in fat and high in refined carbohydrates are associated with increased triglycerides and decreased levels of HDL ("good" cholesterol), factors that are linked to metabolic disorders and cardiovascular disease. Since the low-fat trend of the 1980s, rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes have skyrocketed, and heart disease is still the No. 1 cause of death in America.
Read more from LA Times >>
After shifting fads, time for a clear-eyed look at fat in our diets
Oils from walnuts, avocados and fish are among the more healthful fats.
By LILY DAYTON | March 7, 2015
th national headlines touting the message that low-fat diets are out and high-fat diets are in, people who once shunned butter are slathering it on toast, melting it in sautés and even plopping it into their coffee. And though the media has glorified saturated fat, it turns out that the main problem with the past decades' low-fat trend is that it has been misinterpreted.
"There is no real low-fat controversy," says Dr. David Heber, founding director of the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition. "The problem wasn't low fat; the problem was that when we lowered fat content, we increased carbohydrate and sugar content." Heber gives the classic example of SnackWells fat-free cookies, popular in the 1990s. With zero fat, SnackWells were considered more healthful than regular cookies, but they were only palatable because they contained high amounts of refined sugar and carbohydrates.
The low-fat fad emerged in the 1980s, following a growing body of research that linked a diet high in fats to increased cardiovascular disease risk. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's food pyramid reflected the wisdom of the time: The base showed bread, rice and cereal, which Americans were urged to eat plentifully; the tip of the pyramid depicted fats and oils to be used sparingly. Breakfasts of eggs and bacon were replaced with bowls of cereal; steak dinners were swapped for plates of pasta.
By the 2000s, mounting evidence showed that different fats had differing health outcomes. Saturated fat in particular was associated with increased cardiovascular disease risk, and unsaturated fats were shown to have a protective benefit.
Then, in 2014, a controversial meta-analysis published in the Annals of Internal Medicine was widely misconstrued to promote a diet high in saturated fat. Newsstands screamed, "Eat butter," and the saturated fat trend gained momentum. But in reality, the analysis showed not that saturated fat is good for us but that, when compared with diets low in fat but high in refined carbohydrates, a diet high in saturated fat is almost a wash in terms of cardiovascular disease risk.
Aside from misinterpretations of study results, the analysis itself had fundamental errors that prompted an international outcry from scientists. The authors had mixed up the results of one study they analyzed, omitted key studies from their analysis and failed to mention what people consumed as replacements when they ate less saturated fat. A corrected version of the paper was posted on the journal's website.
"When talking about diets, we always have to think about what the trade-off is," says Dr. Frank Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health. "If you cut back on saturated fat, you're going to replace it with either unsaturated fat or carbohydrates. The type of replacement can have a major impact on health outcomes."
Diets low in fat and high in refined carbohydrates are associated with increased triglycerides and decreased levels of HDL ("good" cholesterol), factors that are linked to metabolic disorders and cardiovascular disease. Since the low-fat trend of the 1980s, rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes have skyrocketed, and heart disease is still the No. 1 cause of death in America.
Read more from LA Times >>
April 3, 2015
U.S. job growth brakes sharply, clouds Fed rate hike timing
From YahooFinance
U.S. job growth brakes sharply, clouds Fed rate hike timing
Reuters
By Lucia Mutikani
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. employers added the fewest number of jobs in more than a year in March, the latest sign of weakness in the economy and one likely to further delay an anticipated interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve.
Nonfarm payrolls rose 126,000 last month, less than half February's pace and the smallest gain since December 2013, the Labor Department said on Friday.
The weakness was concentrated in the goods-producing sector, which has been hurt by a strong dollar and lower crude oil prices. Leisure and hospitality also saw a sharp slowdown in jobs growth, suggesting harsh winter weather could have dragged on hiring.
While the jobless rate held at a more than 6-1/2-year low of 5.5 percent, the workforce shrank. The labor force participation rate returned to a more than 36-year low reached late last year.
"The report confirms the emerging narrative of slowing growth momentum seen in the other economic indicators. It will weaken the argument for a mid-year (rate) hike," said Millan Mulraine, deputy chief economist at TD Securities in New York.
The tepid increase in payrolls ended 12 straight months of job gains above 200,000 - the longest streak since 1994. In addition, data for January and February were revised to show 69,000 fewer jobs created than previously reported, giving the report an even weaker tone.
After its robust stretch, the jobs figures now appear more in line with other signals from consumer spending to housing starts and manufacturing that have suggested the economy grew at a sub-1 percent annual rate in the first quarter. Economists had forecast that payrolls would rise 245,000 last month.
Prices for U.S. government debt rallied as investors pushed back their expectations for a Fed rate hike, while U.S. stock index futures fell about 1 percent. The dollar dropped against a basket of currencies.
The U.S. central bank has kept overnight interest rates near zero since December 2008, but a number of officials have said an increase will likely be considered at its June policy-setting meeting. While economic growth is expected to rebound, it appears increasingly unlikely the Fed will have sufficient signs of strength in hand by then.
"Now the timing for the lift-off could be delayed to September or even to December. The June date is not off the table, however, assuming the economy and employment rebound," said Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at California State University Channel Islands in Camarillo.
Read more from From YahooFinance >>
U.S. job growth brakes sharply, clouds Fed rate hike timing
Reuters
By Lucia Mutikani
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. employers added the fewest number of jobs in more than a year in March, the latest sign of weakness in the economy and one likely to further delay an anticipated interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve.
Nonfarm payrolls rose 126,000 last month, less than half February's pace and the smallest gain since December 2013, the Labor Department said on Friday.
The weakness was concentrated in the goods-producing sector, which has been hurt by a strong dollar and lower crude oil prices. Leisure and hospitality also saw a sharp slowdown in jobs growth, suggesting harsh winter weather could have dragged on hiring.
While the jobless rate held at a more than 6-1/2-year low of 5.5 percent, the workforce shrank. The labor force participation rate returned to a more than 36-year low reached late last year.
"The report confirms the emerging narrative of slowing growth momentum seen in the other economic indicators. It will weaken the argument for a mid-year (rate) hike," said Millan Mulraine, deputy chief economist at TD Securities in New York.
The tepid increase in payrolls ended 12 straight months of job gains above 200,000 - the longest streak since 1994. In addition, data for January and February were revised to show 69,000 fewer jobs created than previously reported, giving the report an even weaker tone.
After its robust stretch, the jobs figures now appear more in line with other signals from consumer spending to housing starts and manufacturing that have suggested the economy grew at a sub-1 percent annual rate in the first quarter. Economists had forecast that payrolls would rise 245,000 last month.
Prices for U.S. government debt rallied as investors pushed back their expectations for a Fed rate hike, while U.S. stock index futures fell about 1 percent. The dollar dropped against a basket of currencies.
The U.S. central bank has kept overnight interest rates near zero since December 2008, but a number of officials have said an increase will likely be considered at its June policy-setting meeting. While economic growth is expected to rebound, it appears increasingly unlikely the Fed will have sufficient signs of strength in hand by then.
"Now the timing for the lift-off could be delayed to September or even to December. The June date is not off the table, however, assuming the economy and employment rebound," said Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at California State University Channel Islands in Camarillo.
Read more from From YahooFinance >>
April 2, 2015
Gold Bullion: Setting Up Investors for Massive Rewards
From ProfitableConfidential
Gold Bullion: Setting Up Investors for Massive Rewards
By Michael Lombardi, MBA • Wednesday, April 1, 2015
Looking at the demand and supply situation for gold bullion, it doesn’t look like the precious metal’s price will stay at the current level much longer. Quality gold mining companies are very attractive right now at their depressed stock prices.
Gold Bullion Demand Surging in 2015
In March, gold imports in India were expected to increase to 100 metric tons, up from just 25 tons in February. If it actually happens, this will be a 300% month-over-month increase in demand for the precious metal. (Source: Bloomberg, March 2, 2015.) Since the Indian government has scrapped import restriction on tariffs on gold bullion, we have been noticing huge jumps in monthly demand, suggesting buyers of the yellow metal are coming back very quickly.
In 2014, combined, India and China purchased more than 1,600 tons of gold—that’s almost 60% of the global 2014 mine production of 2,860 tons. (Source: U.S. Geological Survey web site, last accessed March 27, 2015.)
And world central banks are continued buyers of gold bullion. In 2014, they purchased about 500 tonnes of the metal. (Source: World Gold Council, February 12, 2015.) (In 2015, I expect them to buy more.) So if India and China bought 1,600 tons of gold last year and central banks bought 500 tonnes (about 550 tons), that means just three players absorbed 2,150 tons of the 2,860 tons of gold produced last year. That doesn’t leave much gold (even just for jewelry) for the rest of the world.
Gold Bullion Supply Side Facing Hardship
While demand is strong for the precious metal, supply has peaked.
According to Goldcorp Inc. (NYSE/GG), one of the biggest miners, gold production will hit its peak this year. Production of the precious metal will decline from this year on. (Source: Goldcorp Inc. web site, last accessed March 27, 2015.)
There are two reasons why the supply of the yellow metal is declining. First, there hasn’t been a new major gold discovery in years. Gold discoveries peaked in the mid-1980s. In 1985, there were about 150 million ounces of gold discovered. In 2013, this number was less than 20 million ounces.
Second, as gold prices fell from their $1,900-an-ounce peak to $1,200, gold mining producers slashed their gold exploration budgets and took mines offline where production at $1,200-an-ounce gold didn’t make sense.
Where To Next for Gold?
I’ve harped on about it over and over again in these pages: don’t be too concerned about what happens to the price of gold on a daily or even monthly basis. In the short-term, every market is fueled by emotions, irrationality, and, in gold’s case, maybe even manipulation. But in the long run, the prices for all forms of investment regress to the mean; supply and demand eventually set proper prices.
In the long-term, I believe gold will break well above its 2011 price high of $1,900 an ounce. This makes quality gold mining companies very attractive right now at their depressed stock prices.
Gold Bullion: Setting Up Investors for Massive Rewards
By Michael Lombardi, MBA • Wednesday, April 1, 2015
Looking at the demand and supply situation for gold bullion, it doesn’t look like the precious metal’s price will stay at the current level much longer. Quality gold mining companies are very attractive right now at their depressed stock prices.
Gold Bullion Demand Surging in 2015
In March, gold imports in India were expected to increase to 100 metric tons, up from just 25 tons in February. If it actually happens, this will be a 300% month-over-month increase in demand for the precious metal. (Source: Bloomberg, March 2, 2015.) Since the Indian government has scrapped import restriction on tariffs on gold bullion, we have been noticing huge jumps in monthly demand, suggesting buyers of the yellow metal are coming back very quickly.
In 2014, combined, India and China purchased more than 1,600 tons of gold—that’s almost 60% of the global 2014 mine production of 2,860 tons. (Source: U.S. Geological Survey web site, last accessed March 27, 2015.)
And world central banks are continued buyers of gold bullion. In 2014, they purchased about 500 tonnes of the metal. (Source: World Gold Council, February 12, 2015.) (In 2015, I expect them to buy more.) So if India and China bought 1,600 tons of gold last year and central banks bought 500 tonnes (about 550 tons), that means just three players absorbed 2,150 tons of the 2,860 tons of gold produced last year. That doesn’t leave much gold (even just for jewelry) for the rest of the world.
Gold Bullion Supply Side Facing Hardship
While demand is strong for the precious metal, supply has peaked.
According to Goldcorp Inc. (NYSE/GG), one of the biggest miners, gold production will hit its peak this year. Production of the precious metal will decline from this year on. (Source: Goldcorp Inc. web site, last accessed March 27, 2015.)
There are two reasons why the supply of the yellow metal is declining. First, there hasn’t been a new major gold discovery in years. Gold discoveries peaked in the mid-1980s. In 1985, there were about 150 million ounces of gold discovered. In 2013, this number was less than 20 million ounces.
Second, as gold prices fell from their $1,900-an-ounce peak to $1,200, gold mining producers slashed their gold exploration budgets and took mines offline where production at $1,200-an-ounce gold didn’t make sense.
Where To Next for Gold?
I’ve harped on about it over and over again in these pages: don’t be too concerned about what happens to the price of gold on a daily or even monthly basis. In the short-term, every market is fueled by emotions, irrationality, and, in gold’s case, maybe even manipulation. But in the long run, the prices for all forms of investment regress to the mean; supply and demand eventually set proper prices.
In the long-term, I believe gold will break well above its 2011 price high of $1,900 an ounce. This makes quality gold mining companies very attractive right now at their depressed stock prices.
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