Blood Pressure

Jenson Button crawled in fifth place at the Brazilian Grand prix to take the Formula 1 World Title for 2009.  The only remaining race in the F1 season is  the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – then the rounds of who sponsors who will begin once again.

New to sports sponsorship are the latest group of drinks companies who are lobbying for acceptance with their latest blends of alcohol and caffine stimulation drinks – one up on poor relation taurine based Red Bull these turbo pops are fast growing in popularity.

So how is this different than a rum and coke? Irish cofee? etc. Drinkers have been mixing alcohol with caffiene forever. Now it’s wrong because the industry is doing it for us?

The drinks, which are sold under names such as Joose, Four Loko and Liquid Charge, typically combine malt liquor, vodka or another alcoholic beverage with caffeine or other stimulants.

In the US health-advocacy groups are urging government to closely regulate caffeinated alcoholic drinks, a small but fast-growing category popular among younger drinkers.

Proponents of tougher regulation are calling for everything from outright bans to warning labels stating that mixing caffeine and alcohol could carry health or safety risks.

A primary concern of the groups is that caffeine and other stimulants may mask feelings of drunkenness, which could lead users to act recklessly, such as driving while intoxicated.

Some thoughts about the health effect of these drinks

An excellent example of how researchers can twist around correlation to show whatever causation they set out to prove. I would suggest that the type of people who drink red bull and vodka, instead of something a little less party-ish, are the type of people who are more likely to do stupid things in general, and probably are out to get smashed regardless of how much caffeine the government does or doesn’t allow them to mix with their liquor. You may as well come out with a study that shows people who drink jack daniels are more likely to gt in bar fights than people who drink johnny walker – that must mean that common whiskey gets you drunker than a good scotch, right?

Even if we did put labels on these drinks, there’s still millions of helpless consumers out there mixing jack and coke. Surely a major public health campaign would have to happen. How about: if some actual hard science comes out about this, we just wait and see if it gets around without the government having to do anything, much like the common knowledge that alcohol makes you drunk?

The long half-life of caffeine makes it a less than genius decision to consume at 9 pm (which only increases alcohol’s effect on sleep quality), the notion that it can sober you up is less than genius, and the the plan to be awake enough to get drunk and be an idiot all night is also, yep, less than genius. But an idiot with a pencil can cause harm to himself and others if motivated/bored enough, not a reason to get rid of pencils. Caffeine can increase respitory rate as well, allowing me to smoke more cigarettes on the patio Saturday morning, shall we have an article on that?

Sounds like these drinks are pretty much the same as a rum and Coke.

A better use of regulatory oversight would be in monitoring products like Red Bull that are marketed to kids. High school students with a backpacks full of sugar-caffine charged beverages seems to me to be the greater health risk.

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Omega 3 Fish Oils – Something Fishy with New Legislation

If you buy various margarines and spreads such as sun flower and vegetable oil based spreads the labling will say they’re good for you because they contain Omega 3 oil.

Now 20 of the world’s leading scientists who specialise in fats have signed a petition saying that the rules should be changed because that is misleading – Professor Jack Winkler of London Metropoloitan University has co-ordinated the petition and this interview is transcribed.

What’s happening is that some companies are putting vegetable or cheap  fish oils into their products and slapping a strong claim that they are high in omega 3 which implies that they will deliver the same health benfits for health and heart as the more expensive fish oils but they don’t.

The new regualtions make this legally permissable it would legalise the deception to consumers.

Fish Oils Best Omega 3? What about flowers and vegetable Oils?

You say fish oils – I thought that some of the omega 3 came from vegetables and plants such as sun flowers?

Thats right and they are cheaper – the companies want to use cheaper plant oils but use a claim that implies they are as good as more expensive fish oils and that is somehting that this new regualtion would make legally permissable even though it is substantively misleading.

Fish Oils Best for Omega 3s

The cheaper oils aren’t actually bad for you?

No – we actually want to claim – we have a big public health problem here – we eat too few of these healthy omega 3s – the best way to get them is to eat fish, but we don’t eat enough fish and we never will.

Add Omega 3 oil to food people like to eat

The second best way to do it is to take the food that people actually like to eat, and put the healthy omega 3s into them, fortify them. If we do that the companies will gain a commercial advantage and public health will be improved but we’ve got to have rules to make sure they do it properly and this rule will allow them to engage in trickery.

This rule is a European regulation and if it goes ahead things will effectively stay the same.

Claims such as “heart healthy omega 3 and 6″ will still be able to be made even on cheap sun flower and vegetable oil based products.

When the new law came in in 2006 there was a transition period – so all claims that existed before the law could continue but that transition period expires on the 19th january 2010 – there is a rush to get legislation in place but are making a cods of it – technicla term in the fatty food science industry.

Rather than put “heart healthy omega 3″ on the label we want them to be able to put “high in omega 3″ but the only if they are the real omega 3s – the omega 3 from fish oil that deliver the cardiovascular benefits, the mental benefits.

If we do that then we give manufacturers the incentive to put good things into food – if they only put the cheap stuff in they shouldn’t be allowed to make the healthy claims.

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