Global warming, carbon emissions and hyperactive government policy: when less is more.

How much progress has the UK made in reducing its greenhouse gas emissions?

A little?  Just about kept emissions from increasing?

Why we should be wary of the tobacco companies

There have been reports today that five tobacco companies are trying to sue the USA Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over new laws that will come in to place in September, forcing them to display graphic health warnings on their products. These are similar to warnings used here in UK, and in many other countries around the world.

Putting aside for a moment their farcical suggestion that this removes their constitutional right to free speech, it has brought a more alarming fact to my attention; namely that this is the first legal change to cigarette packaging in 25 years. How has the USA government allowed them to get away with so much for so long? Of course a large part of the answer is the financial control that these companies have; their lobbying has funded campaigns to keep shop displays of smoking products, and allegedly funded grass-roots organisations denouncing governmental smoking laws as ‘nannying’.

Lies, damn lies and public sector deficits

Across the western world,  governments are struggling with high public debt.  After much melodrama the US congress increased the amount of money the US government can borrow.  In the UK net public sector debt has increased from 37.5% of GDP in 2007 to 61% of GDP in 2011.  The coalition has set itself the target of eliminating the public sector deficit over the next four years.  They claim that there is no alternative to cutting government spending, and unless government spending is reduced, the UK may be unable to afford to pay its debts and may risk default on its debts.

These claims are false. It remarkably simple to check whether a country,  a company or individual is likely to default.  When borrowers’ likelihood of default increases the interest rate they are forced to pay on their debt goes up.  For example, Greece is currently teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and currently it must pay 14% on its government debt.  So what has happened to the interest rate on British government debt? 

What Didn't Kill Mozart

Not one for bronzing up

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart may have been stricken with many ailments, but if you were to believe recent reports, it was vitamin D deficiency that principally led to him to an early grave.

It’s not to be denied that Mozart could have been as ivory in complexion as the keys that he struck to earn his keep: the man lived at a northerly latitude—where the winter sun isn’t strong enough to induce the synthesis of vitamin D in the skin—and if his personality were to be put in musical terms, he was allegedly something of a nocturne.  Unlike other vitamins, there’s no vitamin D in most food sources, and the majority is obtained from exposure to sunlight. At the time of Mozart’s death (1791), there was little knowledge of vitamin D, let alone ways of measuring his status, so for all we know he could well have had insufficient or deficient levels of the vitamin. But there are two big ambiguities that should temper unsubstantiated chatter about Mozart having succumbed to his dappled lifestyle.

Generation F?

Those born in 1983 will pay on average £187,000 to the government over their lives, net of the benefits and services they receive.  Conversely, those born in 1933 will receive an average £150,000 in payments and services over their lifetime, net of benefits and services.  This was highlighted in the fiscal sustainability report recently published by the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR).

The figure below charts how much people will give or receive from government, adjusted for inflation, over their lifetimes.  People born before 1953 are net beneficiaries.  In contrast, people born after 1953 will pay more in taxes than they receive in services and benefits.

Raise A Glass To The Birth Cohort

In yesterday’s post, Suzi pointed out how Children of the 90s has helped her research, and last Friday, BBC Breakfast had a feature on a study that is already a couple of years old, yet remains very much in its infancy. As with Children of the 90s, ‘Born in Bradford’ is a longitudinal cohort: a study which recruits a group of participants, sometimes well before their birth certificates are signed, and follows them during the course of their lives (often alongside their parents and/or other relatives). Herculean efforts are put in to record buckets of information about them along the way. Such a study is an immensely rich and important resource.

Studies begin with certain goals in mind and develop over time to address new research questions and shifting paradigms in medicine. For example, early work from Children Of The 90s helped to resolve contention about which way we should lie our babies at night to lower the risk of cot death (that’s face up, new parents!). Nowadays, the participants are collectively entering their third decade walking this earth, and continue to help us answer questions about the incalculable complexities of maintaining good health in the 21^st century.

Many types of information and measures are recorded by cohorts (all with the consent of participants, of course). These can range from simple questionnaires about things like family income and leisure activity preferences to in-depth measures taken at medical examinations, including blood samples used to measure various biochemical properties. Since the advent of the human genome project in 2003, we are increasingly being able to survey the genetic information of participants to explore what effects our DNA can have on our propensity for developing certain traits or diseases.

Pot Luck – does smoking cannabis really increase your chances of becoming psychotic?

Paranoia. You’re being watched. The people on the street are not who they seem; they’re following you. You’re sure you’ve seen that man before, he must be a spy. It might sound like James Bond’s inner monologue, but these are some of the sensations you can feel while intoxicated after smoking cannabis. They’re also some of the symptoms of psychosis, a disorder of the mind which has been linked to cannabis use. Feeling paranoid when you’re high is not the same as developing a condition like psychosis. The effects of intoxication are gone after a few hours; psychosis as a disorder can involve episodes like this lasting for days, or longer. Currently the government believes that cannabis use as a teenager increases a person’s risk of developing psychosis, but the scientific evidence is not so clear cut.

Although cannabis is illegal, it is a widely used drug. A 2004 report from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction found that two in five 15 year olds in the UK had tried cannabis, and one in ten had done so more than 50 times the previous year. Because of this, you might expect there to be lot of youngsters with psychosis, but it’s a very rare disorder. David Nutt, the ex-government drug advisor, has pointed out that although the use of cannabis has increased dramatically over the last few decades, the number of people with psychosis over the same time period has not increased at the same rate. If there was a direct link between cannabis use and likelihood to develop psychosis, you would expect to see both either increase or decrease together. If there is a link between cannabis use and psychosis it is likely to be complicated, and it is still not clear in which direction an effect occurs. It may be that the link is seen because people with psychosis find that smoking cannabis alleviates some psychotic symptoms, such as social anxiety, so they self medicate.