The scientist who found the smoking-cancer link was called Mueller. It seems that his studies were excellent, and certainly the statistical treatment of it was state-of-the-art, though it would not meet modern standards. This is what I was told by Kevin McConway of the Open Uni. He had heard of Mueller but did not know about the book.

The amazing thing is how modern the regime’s preoccupations were: they discouraged smoking and alcohol, encouraged vegetarianism and even had laws about pesticide residues and food additives. But of course at the heart of it was preserving a healthy race, staying fit to fight/produce babies.

There are twp things I’d take you up on. One is the correlation between social class and mortality rates. Of course middle-class people do less dangerous jobs, smoke less and live in better quality housing. But surely one of the reasons middle-class people live longer is because they eat better?

The second is the idea that the correlation between smoking and lung cancer came as a surprise. I know Richard Doll always claimed this was the case but I read recently that the original government brief for his research asked him to look at whether smoking might be a cause of lung cancer. (But the fact that I read it somewhere doesn’t of course make it true…)

If it were all harmless, that’s one thing, but isn’t echinacea supposed to be rather toxic in moderately high amounts?

Get some new friends: ones that enjoy intellectual stimuli.

So whilst taking the one-a-day multivit and mineral (MVM) complex may afford you psychological if not actual health insurance, the fantastic claims about B COMPLEX!!!!, VITAMIN C!!!!, VITAMIN E!!!!! are falling apart as conventional, well conducted studies fail to demonstrate their over-hyped benefits for the well fed, western populations.

In 2003, the Expert Committee on Vitamins and Minerals concluded that over 20 nutrients commonly consumed at beyond-nutritional need level had inadequate evidence to support a robust ’safe upper limit’ level – instead, suggesting ‘guidance’ maximal intakes instead http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/vitmin2003.pdf. So current consumers taken in by the ‘vitamin pill for every il’ hype are our ‘guinea pigs’ for future research…..

Just when will the media take an ‘emperors new clothes’ approach to the increasingly bizarre rantings and recommendations of the meeja nutritionists exploiting column inches and broadcast time for self-aggrandisement and opportunities to push their endorsed wares?

I h

Bang on. But it wouldn’t fill too many column inches, and would soon cease to be newsworthy in the repetition. Much better to keep finding something new, make it very complex, and preferably stir up a controversy that will only result eventually in the product being remembered enough to sustain the marketing.

Works for all concerned, especially those with whole new careers being the media interface du jour for lazy other media seeking a quick way to fill some space or time as well.

Shame it only reached the audience of the New Statesman who, I would hazard, have already suspected as much. Bet there’s still a few ‘out of sell-by date’ bottles of vits to counter ague and ill-humours lurking in the back of the cabinet, though.