Posts by Bart Janssen
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This gender swapped version of blurred lines highlighted what was so wrong with Thicke's version for me
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I’m only mildly miffed about not being invited
Did she invite her biological grandparents too? :P
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Southerly: Continuing After A Short Interruption, in reply to Lilith __,
Isn’t there a group of people who have antibodies to gluten but who aren’t coeliacs?
Wouldn't surprise me but I don't know. It's worth noting that not all antibody positive results are allergies. Dredging up my well out of date immunology I think IgE is the key alergic response antibody so unless you have an IgE response you don't have an allergy.
One of the reasons this stuff is messy is because until genome sequencing became relatively cheap we knew very little about the gut biome. Most of the bacteria in there can't be cultured. Also there was a certain level of arrogance about the human side of the relationship being the most important.
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Southerly: Continuing After A Short Interruption, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
see if this is tosh or possibly real
Self diagnosis of food allergies (milk, gluten etc) is extremely unreliable. When studies have been done to determine if an actual medically defined allergy exists well over half and sometimes over two-thirds of self defined allergies are not actually allergic.
That uses the medical definition of an allergy which is the generation of specific antibodies.
So the question then becomes why do people feel better when they stop eating a food they are not allergic to? And they do feel better.
The answer is not likely to be simple but one idea that has been gaining more support is that the population of bacteria in ones gut (the gut biome) changes in response to many things, especially of course to antibiotic treatments. The idea is that if your gut bacterial population is "wrong" then you might have problems digesting certain foods.
The problem of course with this idea is nobody knows what a "right" or "wrong" gut bacterial population might be. The best guess at the moment is diversity is good so things like home gardening, owning a dog, not being anal about cleanliness all lead to diverse gut biomes and fewer food "allergies" and things like large doses of antibiotics (which may be needed to save your life) really mess the gut biome up.
As for folks going gluten free and then developing celiacs disease, again a lot of self diagnosed celiacs aren't. But they do get upset tummies. So my guess is by going gluten free you change the gut biome to the point where eating gluten again causes distress. It may well be possible to readapt your gut biome to tolerate gluten (unlikely to be fun). But I doubt they actually develop celiacs, which is a very specific allergic reaction.
None of the above is meant to deny the reality of people's symptoms. The distress is real, but the cause may be more complicated than a "simple allergy".
And here's a journalist's story about some of the recent gut biome work.
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Hard News: This time it's Syria, in reply to Moz,
write it off as so obviously preposterous
I'm sorry if you thought my intent was to write it off. Personally I think all the explanations are preposterous. Nothing makes sense. I'm not saying it isn't possible, it's as possible as all the other equally bizarre scenarios.
That I think that will be the conclusion that history make of this as well
... a senseless act precipitated ... -
Hard News: This time it's Syria, in reply to Moz,
There are enough competing factions, plus enough long-standing feuds within Syria, for one faction to decide that gassing their enemies-who-are-also-rebels is well worth the effort.
I did just say that
Of course given that there are multiple rebel factions one could suppose one faction used the weapons on another faction, but that is a a bizarre theory as well.
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Hard News: This time it's Syria, in reply to Stephen R,
depressing clarity
The bazaar in Damascus. Full of happy shoppers and a few tourists.
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Hard News: This time it's Syria, in reply to Stephen R,
depressing clarity
Roman ruins in Syria
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Hard News: This time it's Syria, in reply to Stephen R,
depressing clarity
Crusader castle in Syria
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Hard News: This time it's Syria, in reply to Finlay Macdonald,
Why are you so keen to believe the usual suspects’ affirmations?
Personally I find the use of chemical weapons abhorent and in this case very confusing.
Assad was probably going to "win" if the UN or US did not intervene, which they seemed disinclined to do. So he had a lot to lose by using chemical weapons. But if he didn't use them why did he prevent the UN inspectors from exonerating him? Was it a rogue element in his army?
But it makes equally little sense for the rebels to use chemical weapons on their own people. And nobody is convinced the rebels even had the capability to use chemical weapons in the first place. Of course given that there are multiple rebel factions one could suppose one faction used the weapons on another faction, but that is a a bizarre theory as well.
None of this makes much sense.
