Delicious LiveJournal Links for 8-28-2009

[andrewducker]

• Amazon.com: Products tagged with wtf
  WTF???
  (tags: amazon wtf funny)
• As Waistlines Widen, Brains Shrink
  That's the message from new research that found that elderly individuals who were obese or overweight had significantly less brain tissue than individuals of normal weight.
  (tags: health brain medicine obesity neuroscience)
• WPA now crackable within a minute.
  Time to move to WPA2...
  (tags: wifi encryption)
• World faces hi-tech crunch as China eyes ban on rare metal exports
  If you were invested in rare metal mining corporations then I suspect you just made a fortune.
  (tags: china mining technology economics)

Comments

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Oh, *bugger*. (I'd considered the last one...)

[lizw.livejournal.com]

The actual abstract for that brain research is available at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122539667/abstract. A few points to note just off the top of my head:-

1) All subjects were cognitively normal and remained so for five years after their brain scans, so query whether any detected difference actually matters.
2) On a multi-variable regression, BMI was negatively correlated with brain atrophy.
3) There is no mention of controlling for smoking or social background.
4) The supposed atrophy is in different parts of the brain for "obese" and "overweight" subjects, which seems suspicious and possibly indicative of a statistical artefact.
5) Overall brain volume does not vary between the "overweight" and "obese" categories, which again may be indicative of a statistical artefact.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

As for the theory in the article, are a lot of other more obvious self-control problems, notably compulsive gambling. Does it have an effect on brain size?

Other theories (not consistent with the study just being wrong): One from a fat acceptance mailing list-- maybe extreme dieting causes brain shrinkage. However, it's not known what proportion of fat people have dieted to the point of serious malnutrition.

My theory: maybe self-hatred is bad for people's brains.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

All good points - thank you.

[andrewducker]

Thank you for that - that kind of response is why I treasure my friends list :->