Depression, Alzheimers, Cereal, and Greed

This week I learned / was reminded that:

• depression is far more complicated than pharmacology,
• Alzheimer’s drugs have a 90% failure rate,
• corporate food conglomerates have disgusting sway over dietary guidelines, and
• we have more of a profit / policy problem than a climate problem.

“The main areas of serotonin research provide no consistent evidence of there being an association between serotonin and depression, and no support for the hypothesis that depression is caused by lowered serotonin activity or concentrations. Some evidence was consistent with the possibility that long-term antidepressant use reduces serotonin concentration.”

Why It Matters:  This is more pressure from an increasingly insidious and predatory pharmaceutical industry.  I do not detest medications, even synthetic ones – necessarily.  However, this is anti-science; literally selling a “solution” to a problem you don’t have.  But wait, there’s an app for… er, another prescription for that.

PubMedMélissa Mialon

“Our analysis found that 95% of the committee members had COI with the food, and/or pharmaceutical industries and that particular actors, including Kellogg, Abbott, Kraft, Mead Johnson, General Mills, Dannon, and the International Life Sciences had connections with multiple members.”

Why It Matters:  No one reading this newsletter needs reassurance of the malicious class warfare going on in the proxy of food systems (“eat ze bugs!”).  When 60% of your “research funding and membership board” comes from a “conflict of interest” we are far past “doing science.”

AAAS logoCharles Piller

“You can’t cheat to cure a disease. Biology doesn’t care.”
~ Matthew Schrag, Vanderbilt University

Why It Matters:  Did I mention, “science.”  Heard anyone in the last two years say “follow / trust the science”?  I’ll let the Fauci-Gates enthusiasts stew on that quote in the context of other recent research on a now famous disease.  What / who are we trusting again?  If you think COVID devastated the economy, wait 20 years for the onslaught of diabetes-obesity turned Alzheimer’s.

Grazed perennial grasslands can match current beef production while contributing to climate mitigation and adaptation

“The United States has enough land to support current beef production with grazed perennial grasslands.”

Why It Matters:  Some good news in the anti-meat world… I’m more and more convinced we do not have a climate problem, but a soil problem.  “Agroecological transformation like this is limited only by our imagination and policies that incentivize agriculture for the public good rather than profits for a few.”  See the theme?  We’re being snookered and lied to for profit – make people hate each other, divide, conquer, sell a “solution.”