samedi 29 septembre 2018

Cholesterol

https://reason.com/archives/2018/09/22/new-research-confirms-we-got-cholesterol

http://reason.com/archives/2017/09/02/fda-doubles-down-on-menu-labeling-rules

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27919361

mardi 25 septembre 2018

Pure EPA could lower CV events of an additional 25%: REDUCE-IT

https://www.vascepa.com/about-vascepa

http://investor.amarincorp.com/news-releases/news-release-details/reduce-ittm-cardiovascular-outcomes-study-vascepar-icosapent

https://www.apnews.com/e9c15bf076708c5c165d7c8e54b2f005

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/09/24/amarin-ceo-on-vascepa-heart-drug-trial.html


The major effect of EPA at 4g/d is an anti-inflammatory effect

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/07/06/1610325114

http://www.pnas.org/content/102/21/7671

https://dysnutrition.blogspot.com/2015/04/gum-and-your-health-w3-pufa-are.html


Indeed aspirin and n-3 are my cocktail for acute inflammatory reactions that cause pain.


EPA and DHA (and also DPA) lead to Resolving, Protectins and Maresins. And Low-dose aspirin (up to 100 mg) leads to more stable lipoxins (lipoxin being derived from arachidonic acid):


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28987723


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19597002


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15471991


But given the bad results of the latest study in elderly individuals https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30221597 I would embrace what you suggest: small dose every other day.

The pro-resolvin angle is really interesting, as is the effects asprin play in that. It would appear a remarkably small dose (say 40mg every other day) may dramatically improve that process.


I believe several folks have mentioned NOT liking the risk/reward story around asprin, but any thoughts on this? Great podcast that digs into this:


https://www.ihmc.us/stemtalk/episode-69/


https://www.wsj.com/articles/surprise-heart-data-is-just-the-beginning-for-amarin-1537803479

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/902478#vp_2

lundi 24 septembre 2018

Douleur, souffrance d'abord un signal

1/ chez l'humain abolir toute forme de douleur et tentativement toute forme de souffrance est beaucoup dangereux que d'en tolérer un niveau acceptable

2/ l'animal est il doté de systèmes de douleur? de souffrance?





Un faucon à queue rouge juvénile mangeant un campagnol de Californie

Sat fats and health

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/704522/Draft_report_-_SACN_Saturated_Fats_and_Health.pdf

samedi 22 septembre 2018

The missing difference: health and illness are not the same issue

https://journals.openedition.org/terminal/2232#tocfrom1n1

Il this paper (in French) the confusion about this difference is total.

Impose a way of life to others according to an ideology: antispecism and fur

The fur on my McMurdo® hood is chemically synthesized. I did not have the choice to buy. Yet I prefer the touch of animal hair to that of this artificial fur but it is not politically correct, why?
Since Derrida junk intellectuals want to impose beliefs in all areas. Antispecism is a sort of egalitarianism not only homo sapiens but all living beings is the ultimate and most extravagant avatar. A priori this belief is in the realm of freedom of expression. It is not the same when individuals seize it to impose it on others and to establish a totalitarian vision of the world including by violence. With attacks on butchers or fur retailers, we are there.


Let's quickly destroy the scientific nail of anti-specism.
There is no scientific proof that there are sealed walls between plant, animal and human. It is extremely stupid to believe that picking lettuce is a neutral action without suffering, but grilling snails is an immoral act. And recent science confirms this (http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6407/1068, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27543416), the plants we eat a leaf suffer and call for help by spreading a message through a neurotransmitter, glutamate, which is the same as in human pain (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22304711). Humans have always used animal muscles for protein, long bones for the marrow, horns for different symbols or creating sounds, hairy skin to protect themselves from the cold. Each one is for the moment free of their choices in the matter but there is no scientific guarantee which is worth to condemn these uses.

But is there an ethical question?
Of course, the manipulation is to focus on the ban on the use of animals and not on the conditions of production. Recent societal developments, despite what the catastrophists say, produce less violence (https://www.liberation.fr/debats/2017/11/17/steve-pinker-la-diminution-fr-violence-dans -the-world-is-a-phenomenon-massive-and-incontestable_1610799). Livestock farming and its constraints must adapt to this evolution. The conditions for killing animals too. There is no need to vandalize a fur store. On the other hand, it is useful to regulate production conditions, eliminate subsidies when they exist and ensure that negative externalities are in the costs. In this field, a bad example is quickly elevated to the rank of generality thanks to the epidemic diffusion of the images in the pipes of information which constitutes a real ethical question: that of the determination of the truth.

Is it possible for humans to survive without predation of the living world?
Life feeds on life and it is impossible to survive with water and some natural minerals. There is no difference between feeding on plants and covering oneself with cotton or flax and eating animals or protecting oneself from the cold with their skin: it is a predation in the living world. Make believe that we will produce meat test tube, fat in the laboratory and everything and everything is a chimaera.

Does the long story help us understand these beliefs?
If societies choose to commit suicide, it has already happened, others will survive because they have placed survival first, including reproduction and moral values second and in relation to the evolution of morals, not the other way around. The human is not the generator of all the evils of the planet, it is programmed to survive in an environment which has not become less hostile than at the Paleolithic. Gaia is not nice she is cruel.

The relatively free societies we live in allow everyone to make their choices and it would be dangerous for groups of postmodern ayatollahs to dictate their way of life to their contemporary.


https://medium.com/@ReasonedVegan/whats-behind-jordan-peterson-s-hostility-to-veganism-cb98bd7b2ae8

Plant pain is real

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6407/1068

lundi 17 septembre 2018

dimanche 16 septembre 2018

A Troublesome Inheritance Genes Race and Human History (N. Wade): excerpts

A Troublesome Inheritance Genes Race and Human History

"The adaptation of Jews to a special cognitive niche, if indeed this has been an evolutionary process, as is argued below, represents a striking example of natural selection’s ability to change a human population in just a few centuries."

"The basis of the common resemblance is that Jews originated in Israel and carry shared inheritance from the Semitic population of the region. As recently as 3,000 years ago, a date that marks the probable beginning of the Jewish religion, Jews were no different from anyone else: they were part of the general Near East population from which today’s Arabs, Turks and Armenians are also descended. But as soon as their religion started forbidding members to marry nonmembers, the Jewish population would have entered into reproductive isolation, much as if it had been placed on a remote island. Some large degree of reproductive isolation is the necessary condition for a population to take its own evolutionary path."

"Yet the idea that there could be meaningful genetic differences between human groups is fiercely resisted by many researchers. They cling to the idea that the mind is a blank slate on which only culture, not genetics, can write, and dismiss the possibility that evolution could have effected any recent change in the human mind. They reject the proposal that any human behavior, let alone intelligence, has a genetic basis. They make accusations of racism against anyone who suggests that cognitive capacities might differ between human population groups. All these positions are shaped by leftist and Marxist political dogma, not by science. Nonetheless, most scholars will not enter this territory from lively fear of being demonized by their fellow academics."



https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/science/studying-recent-human-evolution-at-the-genetic-level.html



East Asian Physical Traits Linked to 35,000-Year-Old Mutation





Gaining a deep insight into human evolution, researchers have identified a mutation in a critical human gene as the source of several distinctive traits that make East Asians different from other races.
The traits — thicker hair shafts, more sweat glands, characteristically identified teeth and smaller breasts — are the result of a gene mutation that occurred about 35,000 years ago, the researchers have concluded.
The discovery explains a crucial juncture in the evolution of East Asians. But the method can also be applied to some 400 other sites on the human genome. The DNA changes at these sites, researchers believe, mark the turning points in recent human evolution as the populations on each continent diverged from one another.
The first of those sites to be studied contains the gene known as EDAR. Africans and Europeans carry the standard version of the gene, but in most East Asians, one of the DNA units has mutated.
Seeking to understand if the gene was the cause of thicker hair in East Asians with the variant gene, a team of researchers led by Yana G. Kamberov and Pardis C. Sabeti at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass., decided to test the gene in mice, where its effects could be more easily explored.

Mice already have EDAR, an ancient mammalian gene that plays a leading role in the embryo in shaping hair, skin and teeth. The Broad team engineered a strain of mice whose EDAR gene had the same DNA change as the East Asian version of EDAR.
When the mice grew up, the researchers found they did indeed have thicker hair shafts, confirming that the changed gene was the cause of East Asians’ thicker hair. But the gene had several other effects, they report in Thursday’s issue of the journal Cell.
One was that the mice, to the researchers’ surprise, had extra sweat glands. A Chinese member of the team, Sijia Wang, then tested people in China and discovered that they, too, had more numerous sweat glands, evidently another effect of the gene.
Another surprise was that the engineered mice had less breast tissue, meaning that EDAR could be the reason that East Asian women have generally smaller breasts.
East Asians have distinctively shaped teeth for which their version of EDAR is probably responsible. But the mice were less helpful on this point; their teeth are so different from humans’ that the researchers could not see any specific change.



Researchers have identified a mutation in a gene that confers several distinct traits to East Asians, including thicker hair. Getty Images

The finding that the gene has so many effects raises the question of which one was the dominant trigger for natural selection.
Dr. Sabeti said the extra sweat glands could have been the feature favored by natural selection, with all the other effects being dragged along in its train.
“We’re the only mammals to have changed their entire hair pattern. So the changes in teeth, hair and breasts — it’s very possible they are the passengers and thermoregulation is the key,” she said, referring to the role of sweat glands in cooling the body.
East Asians are sometimes assumed to have evolved in a cold environment because of their narrow nostrils, which conserve heat, and the extra eyelid fat that insulates the eye. But the Broad team calculates that the EDAR variant arose about 35,000 years ago in central China and that the region was then quite warm and humid. Extra sweat glands would have been advantageous to the hunter-gatherers who lived at that time.
But Joshua Akey, a geneticist at the University of Washington in Seattle, said he thought the more likely cause of the gene’s spread among East Asians was sexual selection. Thick hair and small breasts are visible sexual signals which, if preferred by men, could quickly become more common as the carriers had more children. The genes underlying conspicuous traits, like blue eyes and blond hair in Europeans, have very strong signals of selection, Dr. Akey said, and the sexually visible effects of EDAR are likely to have been stronger drivers of natural selection than sweat glands.
Yet a third view is held by Dr. Kamberov, who believes that each of the effects of the EDAR variant may have been favored by natural selection at a different time. A series of selections on different traits thus made the variant version so common among East Asians. About 93 percent of Han Chinese carry the variant, as do about 70 percent of people in Japan and Thailand, and 60 to 90 percent of American Indians, a population descended from East Asians.
The Broad team is studying EDAR as part of a larger plan to identify all the genetic variants responsible for recent human evolution. Many researchers, including Dr. Sabeti, have devised ways of scanning the human genome to detect the fingerprints of natural selection. But these scans have typically identified large chunks of the genome that contain many genes. There is often no way to tell which gene was the target of natural selection.
A team led by Dr. Sabeti and Sharon R. Grossman of the Broad Institute has now refined the usual scanning methods and identified 412 sites on the genome that have been under selection. Each site is small enough that it contains at most a single gene.
Each race has a different set of selected regions, reflecting the fact that the human population had dispersed from its African homeland and faced different challenges that led to genetic adaptation on each continent. About 140 of the sites affected by natural selection are in Europeans, 140 in East Asians and 132 in Africans, the authors report in another article published Thursday in Cell.
Inserting some of the other selected genes into mice might help explain why they were favored, and point to critical turning points in recent human evolution, Dr. Sabeti said.
In the case of EDAR, putting the gene into mice has only magnified the mystery of why it was selected. But the researchers are not discouraged. “A reflection of good science is that a step forward opens up a lot more questions,” Dr. Akey said.


The two camps in the IQ debate are known as hereditarians and environmentalists. Both sides generally agree that when IQ tests are administered in the United States, European Americans score 100 (by definition—their scores are normalized to 100), Asian Americans score 105 and African Americans score 85 to 90. The African American score is noticeably lower than the European score (15 points, or one standard deviation, say the hereditarians; 10 points, say the environmentalists). So much is agreed. 

The latest study on the dangers of milk does make sense, and here is why




Consumers get to read just about everything and the contrary regarding the benefits or harmful effects of milk on health. There is an urgent need for clarification.


Let us look at this from consumers’ vantage point. You get to hear and read just about everything and the contrary about milk. The simple fact that the same word can be used for something man-made that has never come out of any mammal’s udder (rice milk, almond milk, soy milk…) is baffling in itself, and adds to the confusion. This latest scientific article deals with hip fracture risk and mortality among milk drinkers and cheese eaters. Data does not provide any definite answer. Still, it is possible to draw a few common sense tips from it, based on evidence.


It was an observational study: the research team monitored two large Swedish cohorts, one with 61 433 women (39-74 years at baseline 1987-90) and one with 45 339 men (45-79 years at baseline 1997). They were submitted food frequency questionnaires. The women responded to a second food frequency questionnaire in 1997. Their health status was assessed using health insurance data, in order to know if they suffered from a hip fracture or if they died. This method makes the study very reliable in terms of following up on the patients.


Here are the results:


High milk intake (3 glasses of milk a day or more) was associated with higher cardiovascular and cancer mortality, as well as and with higher fracture incidence in one cohort of women. With male participants, we observed a higher cardiovascular mortality. The risk is limited among men but significant among women.


Why is a cautious interpretation of the results recommended? Well, here we see correlation and not causality. This is not an interventional study and we did not ask a group of people who did not consume milk to start consuming it. Given the observational study design, there is the inherent possibility of residual confounding and reverse causation phenomena.


Let us also note that fermented dairy products consumption was not linked to higher mortality or fracture incidence.


The research team offers several hypotheses to explain the correlation between higher consumption of milk and higher hip fracture and morality. What can we take out of it?


1. “Milk = Calcium = Bone health” is simplistic and most likely erroneous, if we do not account for other factors. This is not news, since milk does not help fighting osteoporosis nor heal fractures (Feskanich D, Willet WC, Stampfer MJ, Colditz GA. Milk, dietary calcium, and bone fractures in women: a 12-year prospective study. Am J Public Health 1997;87:992-7). Bone’s complex structure is more relevant to its health than calcium actually is. If the bone structure is deficient, calcium will not properly be integrated and the bone will break easily. The structure is made out of proteins (50% of bone volume, 1/3 of its mass) and it gets stronger with exercise and vitamin D production due to exposition to the sun. Our indoor, sedentary lifestyle is what weakens the bone. Therefore we need to use our muscles as they pull on the bone, which is what induces bone strengthening. We also need to go out in the sun in order to activate vitamin D production, or take food supplement in the winter to make up for the lack of sun. Those are the prime factors to consider before calcium.


2. Throughout the evolution of the human species, we swapped plants and vegetables for cereals. They contain but little calcium and can promote decalcification because of phytic acid. We ought to avoid calcium supplements, as they increase cardiovascular mortality, at least among men. Therefore milk is really useful for nutrient intake. It should not be the sole calcium intake though, and vegetables are both accessible and affordable, provided we select those in season. We ought to increase the quantity of fruits and vegetables at the expense of processed foods, mostly those derived from wheat (pastries, cake, industrial bread, pasta etc.) for a varied calcium intake. In vegetable leafs (salad, spinach, Swiss chard, parsley, algae) calcium is highly absorbable.


3. Which nutrients other than calcium are essential for the bone? Well, there are at least two.

First of all, proteins: dairy products are a prime source, vegetable proteins, meat and fish. The protein intake among seniors is insufficient.

Then long-chain omega-3 acids: they are synthesized by fatty fish for the most part. The amount in our body really depends on diet and is correlated with a decreased risk of hip fracture among women. Sardines, mackerel, tuna and anchovies are excellent sources of long-chain omega-3 acids.


4. According to this Swedish study and other research, it seems very likely that milk is less adapted to our adult needs than cheese, especially pressed cheese. Why? Several hypotheses are discussed by the authors. In particular, there is one about lactose, the sugar in milk being made of a molecule of glucose and one of galactose (sugar was discovered by Pasteur in 1856). But galactose induces a form of oxidative stress and glucose, hyperglycemia similar to what happens in the body after fruit juice absorption. Oxidative stress and hyperglycemia promote chronic inflammation, which leads to cardiovascular diseases and bone fragility. Hard, pressed, ripened cheese contains less glucose, since it is used by bacteria for fermentation, and a bit less galactose. Some cheeses contain just traces of them. This could explain such a big gap in effects: milk and non-fermented dairy products can have deleterious effects on adults, but are necessary to new-born and children, while other cheeses are neutral. Study authors showed chronic inflammation among milk drinkers, in proportion to their consumption.


5. In view of the stakes, the controversies on milk being “a poison” or “cancer inducing” are senseless. They promote food scares, which are a way to pursue business to some food brands. It is also noteworthy that we consume much less milk than people from Northern countries do. However, when it comes to food recommendations, “one size fits all” simply doesn’t apply. Current nutritional recommendations are just too similar. Some digest lactose very poorly (most notably Asians and Africans), other will digest sheep or goat milk much easier.

These natural adjustments are often made by the consumer himself, since enzymatic resources are linked to our own genomics. Some more difficult cases can be managed by an allergist.

But ultimately, pressed, ripened cheeses are well digested and preferred to milk consumption among adults. Beyond the milk / cheese duality, the dairy products industry has seen its offer evolve a lot these last few years and many more products derived from milk are now available. These industrial dairy products are often made out of little or not-fermented milk, or even skimmed milk. In that sense, they are included in the amount of milk consumed. Furthermore, they are almost always sweetened, which our metabolism can hardly handle anymore. It is best to avoid them since there are already so many sources of sugar (simple sugars, starch of all sorts).


Lastly, this study shows no evidence that fat-free is any better. Quite the opposite in fact: cheeses not correlated with increased mortality are, for the vast majority, made with whole milk. Nothing in this study could tell us to avoid fats from milk or cheese.








Les consommateurs lisent à peu près tout et le contraire concernant les avantages ou les effets nocifs du lait sur la santé. Il y a un besoin urgent de clarification.







Regardons cela du point de vue des consommateurs. Vous pouvez entendre et lire à peu près tout et le contraire au sujet du lait. Le simple fait que le même mot puisse être utilisé pour quelque chose fabriqué par l’homme et qui n’est jamais sorti du pis d’un mammifère (lait de riz, lait d’amande, lait de soja…) est en soi déconcertant et ajoute à la confusion. Ce dernier article scientifique traite du risque de fracture de la hanche et de la mortalité chez les buveurs de lait et les mangeurs de fromage. Les données ne fournissent aucune réponse définitive. Cependant, il est possible d'en tirer quelques conseils de bon sens, basés sur des preuves.










C'était une étude observationnelle: l'équipe de recherche a suivi deux grandes cohortes suédoises, une avec 61 433 femmes (39-74 ans au début de 1987-90) et une avec 45 339 hommes (45-79 ans au début de 1997). Ils ont été soumis à des questionnaires de fréquence alimentaire. Les femmes ont répondu à un deuxième questionnaire sur la fréquence alimentaire en 1997. Leur état de santé a été évalué à l'aide des données de l'assurance maladie, afin de savoir si elles souffraient d'une fracture de la hanche ou si elles décédaient. Cette méthode rend l’étude très fiable en termes de suivi des patients.







Voici les résultats:







Une consommation élevée de lait (3 verres de lait par jour ou plus) était associée à une mortalité cardiovasculaire et cancéreuse plus élevée, ainsi qu'à une incidence de fractures plus élevée dans une cohorte de femmes. Chez les hommes, nous avons observé une mortalité cardiovasculaire plus élevée. Le risque est limité chez les hommes mais significatif chez les femmes.










Pourquoi une interprétation prudente des résultats est-elle recommandée? Eh bien, nous voyons ici la corrélation et non la causalité. Il ne s’agit pas d’une étude interventionnelle et nous n’avons pas demandé à un groupe de personnes qui ne consommaient pas de lait de commencer à le consommer. Compte tenu de la conception de l’étude par observation, il existe une possibilité inhérente de phénomènes de confusion et de causalité inverse résiduels.













Notons également que la consommation de produits laitiers fermentés n'était pas liée à une mortalité ou à une incidence de fractures plus élevées.



















L'équipe de recherche propose plusieurs hypothèses pour expliquer la corrélation entre une consommation de lait plus élevée et une fracture de la hanche et une moralité plus élevées. Que pouvons-nous en retirer?







1. «Lait = Calcium = Santé osseuse» est simpliste et probablement erroné si nous ne tenons pas compte d'autres facteurs. Ce n'est pas nouveau, car le lait ne permet pas de combattre l'ostéoporose ni de guérir les fractures (Feskanich D, Willet WC, MJ Stampfer, Colditz GA. Lait, calcium alimentaire et fractures osseuses chez les femmes: étude prospective sur 12 ans. Am J Public Health 1997; 87: 992-7). La structure complexe de l'os est plus pertinente pour sa santé que le calcium en réalité. Si la structure osseuse est déficiente, le calcium ne sera pas correctement intégré et l'os se cassera facilement. La structure est constituée de protéines (50% du volume osseux, 1/3 de sa masse) et est renforcée par l'exercice et la production de vitamine D en raison de l'exposition au soleil. Notre mode de vie intérieur et sédentaire est ce qui affaiblit l'os. Par conséquent, nous devons utiliser nos muscles lorsqu'ils tirent sur l'os, ce qui induit un renforcement osseux. Nous devons également sortir au soleil pour activer la production de vitamine D ou prendre un complément alimentaire en hiver pour compenser le manque de soleil. Ce sont les principaux facteurs à considérer avant le calcium.










2. Tout au long de l'évolution de l'espèce humaine, nous avons échangé des plantes et des légumes contre des céréales. Ils contiennent peu de calcium et peuvent favoriser la décalcification à cause de l'acide phytique. Nous devons éviter les suppléments de calcium, car ils augmentent la mortalité cardiovasculaire, au moins chez les hommes. Par conséquent, le lait est vraiment utile pour l'apport en nutriments. Ce ne devrait pas être le seul apport en calcium cependant, et les légumes sont à la fois accessibles et abordables, à condition que nous choisissions ceux en saison. Nous devons augmenter la quantité de fruits et légumes au détriment des aliments transformés, principalement ceux dérivés du blé (pâtisseries, gâteaux, pain industriel, pâtes, etc.) pour un apport varié en calcium. Dans les feuilles de légumes (salade, épinards, bette à carde, persil, algues), le calcium est hautement absorbable.







3. Quels nutriments autres que le calcium sont essentiels pour l'os? Eh bien, il y en a au moins deux.







Tout d'abord, les protéines: les produits laitiers sont une source essentielle de protéines végétales, de viande et de poisson. L'apport en protéines chez les personnes âgées est insuffisant.










Ensuite, les acides oméga-3 à longue chaîne: ils sont en grande partie synthétisés par les poissons gras. La quantité dans notre corps dépend vraiment du régime alimentaire et est corrélée à une diminution du risque de fracture de la hanche chez les femmes. Les sardines, le maquereau, le thon et les anchois sont d'excellentes sources d'acides oméga-3 à longue chaîne.













4. Selon cette étude suédoise et d'autres recherches, il semble très probable que le lait soit moins adapté aux besoins de nos adultes que le fromage, en particulier le fromage à pâte pressée. Pourquoi? Plusieurs hypothèses sont discutées par les auteurs. En particulier, il y en a un sur le lactose, le sucre dans le lait étant constitué d'un grain de beauté

mardi 4 septembre 2018

LC diet and the fancy game of meta-analysis

The secret is the sorting of studies and then the studies themselves ...
Le secret c'est le tri des études et ensuite les études elles mêmes...
https://www.escardio.org/static_file/Escardio/Press/ESC%20Congress/2018%20Slides/BanachPressSlides.pdf 




samedi 1 septembre 2018

B12 an issue for vegans not only in India

https://www.nature.com/articles/ejcn201729



Vitamin B12 deficiency is a major threat to public health globally.1,2 The prevalence of vitamin B12 deficiency is highest in resource-limited settings, including South Asia.3–8 Vitamin B12 is obtained in the diet through consumption of animal products, including meat, poultry, fish, eggs and dairy. Several studies have reported low vitamin B12 status in vegan or vegetarian individuals and in low- and middle-income settings, particularly in populations with low intake of animal source foods.9,10 In particular, the burden of vitamin B12 deficiency in India is thought to be among the highest in the world.1 Maternal vitamin B12 deficiency has been associated with greater risk of pregnancy complications, such as spontaneous abortion, low birth weight, intrauterine growth restriction and neural tube defects.11 Children born to women with vitamin B12 deficiency have an increased risk of adverse health outcomes, including deficits in growth and development and anemia.12–14 In the parent-randomized trial in Bangalore, India, daily maternal vitamin B12 supplementation (50 μg/day) with iron and folic acid during pregnancy through 6 weeks postpartum significantly improved maternal vitamin B12 status (Po0.01), breast milk (Po0.01) and infant (Po0.01) vitamin B12 concentrations, compared to iron-folic acid alone.15 Previous studies in Turkey, Germany, Norway and Brazil have reported associations between maternal and infant vitamin B12 status at birth.15–18 However, few prospective studies have been conducted to examine the burden and determinants of vitamin B12 status in young infants, and there is limited data from India.

Alcohol

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)30134-X/fulltext

http://www.lepoint.fr/vin/agnes-buzyn-et-la-radicalisation-17-02-2018-2195798_581.php

Dietary supplements are waste of money

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/proceedings-of-the-nutrition-society/article/micronutrients-dietary-intake-v-supplement-use/7779A04C01ED89B52249B6AA604971BD