Nov 30, 2011

Vitamin D and heart disease - suggestive evidence

Medline Plus (NIH) just had a news release about a large study of Vitamin D supplementation and heart disease.  Shows huge effects.  This is a prospective but NON RANDOMIZED study, so as with so many such findings, it may not pan out.  Back in the day, we studied estrogen and heart disease (at OTA), and the large prospective studies showed that estrogen replacement therapy had huge effect on subsequent heart disease.  Too bad, about 10 years later the evidence came out that ERT actually increases heart disease.
So, I am including the news release here just to track what later evidence reveals.
Medline-Vitamin D/Heart Disease

Nov 25, 2011

US Bankruptcy Code Downloadable

Just in case, you never know, when you need to be a friend's lawyer-equivalent, and have lots of time to interpret more arcane laws, here is a link to the US Bankruptcy Code, available in readable format, made available through US Credit Slips web site.

Nov 19, 2011

The newest Republican Front-Runner

I just had to post this to get some relief from the idea of Newt Gingrich as the Republican nominee.  The Borowitz Report had the scoop.

Nov 17, 2011

Gingrich says CBO must go.

Why I'm taking Gingrich seriously, knowing what I know about him from my CBO days, is a mystery to me. I guess it's just that I worry about who the Prez might be if not Obama.  So, here he is at his most Gingrich, espousing the death of CBO BECAUSE OF ITS HEALTH WORK!  Neat!  Thanks to the CBO alumni group for alerting me to this.  Link to Stan Collander's article is here: http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/stan-collender/2416/newt-gingrich-wants-kill-cbo

Nov 11, 2011

First RCT of Vitamin D supplementation in MS shows no benefit of high dose.

Recently reported in Neurology (and available to the public) this was a small trial of short duration of patients with established MS.  Nevertheless, it shows no benefit, and the direction of effect was towards harm, though it was insignificant.  So, while Vitamin D deficiency appears to be causally related to onset of MS, high-doses of D, which raise blood levels to 40ng or more, don't appear to help.  An interesting "patient page" lays out the strengths and weaknesses of the study.

Nov 10, 2011

More environmental hazards of Fracking showing up.

ProPublica's latest report on the inability of the fracking industry to protect our aquifers.  What a surprise!

Nov 7, 2011

The best summary of the causes of the financial crisis

The Washington Post's Sunday business section had a wonderful piece by Barry Ritholtz on the causes of the meltdown:  The Big Lie.
He could have made more of the long-running idiocy of the SEC that anointed the three ratings agencies (S&P, Moodys and Fitch) as the only "nationally recognized" sources of bond ratings, thereby requiring pension funds and insurance companies to rely on those ratings for SEC compliance, and at the same time taking the pension fund managers off the hook for failure -- "What else could I do?  I had to rely on the ratings agencies.  Besides, if I had to do more work, I wouldn't have been able to go home to my beautiful family and our house in the Hamptons (or Martha's Vineyard, take your pick) on the weekends."

Here's some charts he put up on his web site as of 11-20-2011. Ritholtz Charts

Nov 4, 2011

Largest increase in greenhouse gas emissions in 2010, a recession year

This Time Magazine article summarizing the latest findings from the U.S. Department of Energy also has photos of the results of global warming that make it hard to sleep.