Changes in Terminology for Childhood Overweight and Obesity

Changes in Terminology for Childhood Overweight and Obesity

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr025.pdf

Statistic software, books etc. websites

Statistic software, books etc. websites

This website listed here comprise a powerful, conveniently-accessible,
multi-platform statistical software package. There are also links to
online statistics books, tutorials, downloadable software, and related
resources.

http://statpages.org/

Russ Lenth's power and sample-size page

Russ Lenth's power and sample-size

A nice website for power and sample size calculation.

http://www.stat.uiowa.edu/~rlenth/Power/#Download_to_run_locally

JAMA -- Beyond Hemoglobin A1c--Need for Additional Markers of Risk for Diabetic Microvascular Complications, June 9, 2010, Hirsch and Brownlee 303 (22): 2291

Beyond Hemoglobin A1c--Need for Additional Markers of Risk for Diabetic
Microvascular Complications

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/303/22/2291

Recent population changes in A1c and insulin among adults with preserved glucose homeostasis

Recent population changes in A1c and insulin among adults with preserved
glucose homeostasis

Attached please find our distribution paper published on Diabetologia
last week (http://www.springerlink.com/content/c5137gn6gh426115/). The
homeostasis concept at a individual level is not new, but this is a new
insight (thanks Henry teaching me this word in English) from a
population perspective. To me, this is an most important study/a
milestone of my diabetic study career so far; it changes my ways of
thinking and ordering all pieces of puzzle of diabetes significantly.

I enjoy the process of this study and very appreciate all the
contributions from the authors, Yiling

Medical News: CODHy: Debate Rages on HbA1c for Diabetes Diagnosis - in Meeting Coverage, CODHy from MedPage Today

Debate Rages on HbA1c for Diabetes Diagnosis

http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/CODHy/20132

Quotes

“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.” ~ Anatole

“Only as high as I reach can I grow, only as far as I seek can I go, only as deep as I look can I see, only as much as I dream can I be.” ~ Karen Ravn

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.” ~ Dr. Seuss

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” ~ Winston Churchill

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” ~ John Quincy Adams

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” ~ Lao Tzu

Word and Phrase search in PDF Files

Word and Phrase search in PDF files - a feature of PDFXChange
http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/word-and-phrase-search-pdf-files
.htm

Don't Be Loopy: Re-Sampling and Simulation the SASR Way

Don't Be Loopy: Re-Sampling (bootstrapping) and Simulation the SAS(r)
Way

http://www.lexjansen.com/wuss/2009/anl/ANL-Cassell.pdf

A French view on obesity as a social construction, with mention of CDC.

A French view on obesity as a social construction, with mention of CDC.

 

http://www.slideshare.net/Poulain/obesit-version-anglaise-1845333

 

Meditation | The Buddha | PBS Video

Meditation | The Buddha | PBS Video

http://video.pbs.org/video/1438055848/

HowStuffWorks - How Force, Power, Torque and Energy Work

If you've read many http://howstuffworks.com/ articles, you've seen a lot of terminology thrown around -- words such as mass, force, torque, work, power and energy. What do the-se words really mean, and are they interchangeable? Go to http://howstuffworks.com/ and find the answer.

Why Dichotomizing Variables is a Bad Idea

This is a nice review from the research perspective, but may be not so practicable without using dichotomized variable of a continuous variable. For example, the criteria of diabetes and hypertension diagnosis are based on dichotomized variables from continuous blood glucose level and blood pressure level.

_From Bob

        It is well recognized in the methodological literature that dichotomization of continuous variables introduces major problems in the analysis and interpretation of models derived in a data-dependent fashion. Nevertheless, dichotomization of continuous variables is widespread in clinical research. Problems include loss of information, reduction in power, uncertainty in defining the cutpoint, arriving at a biologically implausible step function as the estimate of a dose–response function, and the impossibility of detecting a non-monotonic dose–response relation. Uncertainty in how to select a ‘sensible’ cutpoint to group a continuous variable into two classes has led researchers to use either the median or an ‘optimal’ cutpoint. The latter approach gives a highly inflated type 1 error probability, together with biased parameter estimates and variances that are too small [9, 11]. Although some remedies for these diffculties have been developed [9, 21–23], none of the authors of these papers actually recommends the use of ‘optimal’ cutpoints with their proposed corrections. In general, the situation seems hardly to have improved since the advice in 1993 of Maxwell and Delaney [1] to avoid dichotomization, quoted at the beginning of this paper.

Instead of dichotomizing a continuous variable, we prefer to obtain a prognostic index by methodology which combines selection of variables with selection of functions for continuous variables [4, 26]. As stated in an editorial [2] in an epidemiological journal a decade ago, ‘these elegant approaches [fractional polynomials and splines] merit a larger role in epidemiology.’ Clinical researchers should in general avoid dichotomization at the model-building stage and adopt more powerful methods.

Royston, Patrick (2006) Statistics in Medicine 25:127-141

Please share this with your son.

Gentlemen,

Yes gentlemen, you are no longer the little Tiger Cubs we started out with 5 years ago.  Each of you have grown up into nice young men during that time. It has been my pleasure being first a Den Leader and then the Cubmaster for your years in the Pack.  Over these 5 years  have seen you boys grow not only in size but as a human beings.  I hope that Cub Scouts has been a positive experience for you.  For those that have decided to take a break from the Scouting program I hope that you will find your way back to it at some point.  Either in a few years as a Boy Scout or later as an adult with your son in Scouting.  The mission of the Boy Scouts is to instill values in young people and to help prepare them to make ethical choices during your lifetime.  These values can be found in the Scout Oath and Law.  Please remember the 12 point of the Scout Law and try to live your life based upon these 12 points, not only as a youth but also as an Adult.

It has been a pleasure working with you young gentlemen.

YIS

Mr. Alan  

In memory of Dr. John Denis McGarry

In memory of Dr. John Denis McGarry

Dr. Denis McGarry was a great teacher and sage. His lecture affects my way of thinking on diabetes. Unforgettable.

“In 1992, he published a famous paper in Science entitled “What if Minkowski Had Been Ageusic?” (1). In this paper he suggested that scientific concentration on abnormal glucose metabolism had masked the critical importance of abnormal fat metabolism, especially in type 2 diabetes. Subsequent to this paper there was a huge swing by investigators toward the key role of abnormal lipid metabolism in insulin resistance and lipotoxic damage to tissues as diverse as the heart and the β-cell of the pancreas.”

Please find the full article here.

K M Venkat Narayan: A case of well-intentioned public health reductionism?

K M Venkat Narayan: A case of well-intentioned public health
reductionism?

Very good comments.

http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2010/03/04/k-m-venkat-narayan-a-case-of-well-in
tentioned-public-health-reductionism/

Findings - When It Comes to Salt, No Rights or Wrongs. Yet. - NYTimes.com

 

This article may not  be scientifically proved, but I like the title and Effect E. By the way, I don’t like the comparison of smoking and salt, it makes salt such a evil substance like cigarette. We cannot abstain from salt. The question is how much and the answer is it depends…

FDA internal reports unhappy about rosiglitazone (Avandia)

Research Ties Diabetes Drug to Heart Woes

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/20/health/policy/20avandia.html

 

Does anyone know why Avandia increases the risk of CHD? Is because of efficiently lowing the glucose level (too low)? Or any other side-effects.

 

A Lasting Gift to Medicine That Wasn't Really a Gift

A Lasting Gift to Medicine That Wasn’t Really a Gift

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/health/02seco.html?th&emc=th

 

A cell line called HeLa (for Henrietta Lacks) was born. Those immortal cells soon became the workhorse of laboratories everywhere. HeLa cells were used to develop the first polio vaccine, they were launched into space for experiments in zero gravity and they helped produce drugs for numerous diseases, including Parkinson’s, leukemia and the flu. By now, literally tons of them have been produced.

Dr. Gey did not make money from the cells, but they were commercialized. Now they are bought and sold every day the world over, and they have generated millions in profits.

Ukrainian registry of type 2 dm shows U-shaped relation of BMI to mortality

Ukrainian registry of type 2 dm shows U-shaped relation of BMI to mortality
(Heart 2009;95:454-460. doi:10.1136/hrt.2008.150524)

Not too surprising, a common sense is that extreme, fundamental, or radical ends are not good. But one of the interesting figures (finding) is even obese population (≥45) had lower risk of death than low BMI population (<20 for all-cause death, and <21 for CVD death).