All:

"T. Francesca Skelton" wrote:
>
> Just caught the tail end of an interview with the guy who wrote the new book
> on the Okinawans. He lived among them for several years and studied them.
> He claimed that they eat, on average, a couple of servings of soy a day.
> They have less Alzheimers and dementia than the general population, just as
> they have less of the other diseases of the elderly. This would seem to
> dispute the soy-dementia theory.

Nope!

(a) The Okinawans are on CR. They ought therefore to be expected to have
lower rates of any particular disease you care to mention than the
general population.

(b) I believe that the above statement is whatcha call yer "anecdotal
evidence." Has this guy presented any rigorous evidence on either soy
consumption or AD incidence amongst the Okinawans vs. the general population?

(c) This data point, even if rigorously demonstrable & CR were not a
factor, would still be a weak piece of evidence, because it COMPARES
populations, & doesn't address the tofu consumption & AD incidence
WITHIN the Okinawan population. The Japanese smoke more than Americans,
and are less likely to die of lung cancer. So? Ecological studies suck!

(d) [The big one]. This is a straw man argument. No one is suggesting,
and the data do not hint, that tofu increases your odds of AD. The data
shows precisely an increase in incidence of dementia OTHER THAN
Alzheimer's. And no, I'm not just waving my hands: this is an important
point in both the data outside of White's study, and in the proposed
mechanism (inhibition of tyrosine kinase by phytoestrogens, w/consequent
buggering of long-term potentiation) for the effect. See:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crsociety/message/6334

-Michael

--
End Corporate Rule: www.igc.org/trac/globalization/ and clean up the
physical ( www.greenpeace.org ) and mental ( www.adbusters.org )
environment!
“Spend the money, mobilize the scientists, and hunt down death like an
outlaw.” -Alan Harrington. "If scientists don't play God, who will?"
-James Watson “Not even immortals can afford to waste time.” -Mike O’Gara

_______________________________________________
crsociety mailing list
To unsubscribe: http://lists.uchicago.edu/mailman/listinfo/crsociety