Against Routine

Dean Ornish on Healing/Atkins Diet

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 23:52:00 +0000

Interview on the Produce Industry

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 02:28:00 +0000

A friend from high school works in the produce industry and I had the opportunity to ask her some questions about the industry.

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You mentioned going to a large produce industry conference. Where was it? Who organized it?

There are several national associations that work with and advocate for the floral and produce industry. One of them is the Produce Marketing Association (PMA). They are a great organization that provides resources for the produce industry, helps to foster young talent in the industry and acts as a voice for the industry with government agencies. There are several other organizations that also provide support for the industry. One of the largest is United Fresh Produce. They function just like PMA. Often they will also work together to address significant needs in the community.

The last convention I attended was PMA’s Fresh Summit. It is the largest convention of its kind offered in the states. It draws more than 15,000 attendees from 70 countries. This year it was in Orlando but it moves from year to year. The focus of Fresh Summit is on fresh fruits and vegetables. It is an opportunity for all of us to get together, display our products/services and talk about key industry trends. Recent trends that received a lot of focus at this Fresh Summit were food safety, traceability and working with/managing Generation Y.

Has working in the produce industry changed how you think about food. Has it changed how you eat?

Produce is a new industry for me and it has definitely changed the way I think about food. First of all, I have a greater understanding for all the hard work and effort that goes into producing our food and bringing it to market. It makes me appreciate how lucky we are to have such a wide variety of quality produce available to us.

I also have become very brand conscious. When I used to go shopping I would buy whatever produce I wanted without paying attention to who was growing it. Now, I will seek out and purchase specific brands of apples or tomatoes, etc. I look for brands that I know focus on quality or that have a specific varietal that I particularly like.

What do you think the most interesting aspects of the produce industry are?

I really love everything about the industry. It is hard to narrow it down to a few most interesting aspects. I think the thing that is most interesting about produce to me is the community. Despite the industry being large and spread nationwide, the community has maintained a small, tight-knit feeling. As a newcomer to the industry, I can meet presidents of some of the larger organizations in the industry (think household names like Dole or DelMonte) and have them remember my name the next time I see them at a trade show. People are also very nice and anxious to be helpful or to welcome people into the community. I think it is rare for a large industry to have so much cohesion.

The science of produce is also really interesting to me. I have learned a lot about the natural process that occurs when produce ripens, what it takes to grow certain types of produce, how much the weather and climate changes can impact crops or how important crop rotation can be to improve quality. The technical details are really interesting. Knowing that bananas, as they ripen, actually produce enough heat for you to feel it if you put them in a box for just a few hours or that kiwi has more citrus than an orange and more potassium than a banana fascinates me!

Lastly, I am enthralled by all the different specialty items that are popular elsewhere in the world but are not widely available in the states. I really like to try a lot of the unique fruits such as mangosteen, rambutan or dragon fruit (pitaya). All of them are very high in nutrients and have unique flavors and textures.

Would you say that people in the produce industry are health conscious in general?

People in the produce industry are just like every other segment in America. Some of them are very health conscious and others aren’t. I guess if there is a difference, it would have to be that people in the produce industry focus more on eating fresh produce daily than others in the nation. There is also a greater push within the industry to really eat FRESH produce versus canned or processed.

Where do you get your produce?

I buy my produce at my local chain grocery store. Quality has become a lot more important to me so sometimes I will shop around if one store doesn’t have what I am looking for. I find that I am almost always able to find high-quality, safe produce at a chain in my area. Also, chains are carrying more options for locally grown and organic produce so you can get all of your shopping done in one place.

What do you think everyone should know about the produce industry?

I hate to sound Pollyanna-ish but I think that people should know that the produce industry is filled with good people. People who are concerned about adapting to changing customer demands for faster, easier, healthier eating options. People who want to continue to increase food safety and quality and guarantee that customers can feel confident when purchasing fresh produce. People who are passionate about what they do and work hard to do it well.

Retuning through a fast

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 11:18:00 +0000

NPR's got a story up of how fasting can get things back in order:

Neufeld says most adults need about 2,000 calories a day. Those calories make energy, or glycogen. Neufeld says it doesn't hurt — it might even help the body — to fast or stop eating for short periods of time, say 24 hours once a week, as long as you drink water.
"You re-tune the body, suppress insulin secretion, reduce the taste for sugar, so sugar becomes something you're less fond of taking," Neufeld says.
Eventually the body burns up stored sugars, or glycogen, so less insulin is needed to help the body digest food. That gives the pancreas a rest. On juice diets recommended by some spas, you may lose weight, but your digestive system doesn't get that rest.
Mark Mattson, a scientist with the National Institute on Aging, says that when we convert food into energy, our bodies create a lot of byproducts we could do without, including free radicals.
"These free radicals will attack proteins, DNA, the nucleus of cells, the membranes of cells," Mattson says. "They can damage all those different molecules in cells.

We're not built to have a lot of excess food all the time.

I think there are going to be shoes dropping in terms of our constant caloric intake and disease. We just aren't built for constant access to all the food we want...

Obama food policy opinion piece

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 15:18:00 +0000

This is a big question in my mind. How directly Obama is going to address food issues.

Check out this opinion piece:

The problem is that agribusiness is grossly unbalanced, flooding Capitol Hill with $1 billion of lobbying efforts the last 11 years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, reaping $177 billion in subsidies the last 12, according to the Environmental Working Group. There is so little accountability in farm payment programs that the Government Accountability Office reported in October that the United States Department of Agriculture paid out a total of $49 million to 2,702 potentially ineligible people whose adjusted gross income was more than $2.5 million and derived less than 75 percent of their income from farming, ranching, or forestry.
The result is government waste and grossly unbalanced supermarket shelves, full of sugars, starches, and fats that are cheap to produce but costly to our bodies and our healthcare system. Can a community organizer from Chicago support community supported agriculture? First, he must display the courage to defend what the likes of Michael Pollan have to say, without apology.

If this is going to happen, Obama is going to have to bring some serious 'tough love' to Americans.

I don't think we realize how addicted to sugar we all are.

Supermarket as pscyhological experiment

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 13:22:00 +0000

The Economist has an article about all of the resources that go into constructing the supermarket experience.

I've touched on this in the past, but it continues to amaze me how much information is behind the presentation of products in a supermarket.

Now Big Brother might be watching what you do:

Technology is making the process of monitoring shopper behaviour easier—which is why the security cameras in a store may be doing a lot more than simply watching out for theft. Rajeev Sharma, of Pennsylvania State University, founded a company called VideoMining to automate the process. It uses image-recognition software to scan the pictures from security cameras of shoppers while they are making their selections. It is capable of looking at the actions of hundreds of thousands of people. It can measure how many went straight to one brand, the number that dithered and those that compared several, at the same time as sorting shoppers by age, gender and ethnicity.

VideoMining analysed people in convenience stores buying beer. Typically it would take them two minutes, with the majority going straight to one brand. “This shows their mind was already made up; they were on autopilot,” says Dr Sharma. So brewers should spend their marketing money outside, not inside, the store. The analysis can also help establish the return on investment to a new advertising campaign by showing what proportion of beer-buyers can be persuaded to consider rival brands. Another study in a supermarket some 12% of people spent 90 seconds looking at juices, studying the labels but not selecting any. In supermarket decision-making time, that is forever. This implies that shoppers are very interested in juices as a healthy alternative to carbonated drinks, but are not sure which to buy. So there is a lot of scope for persuasion.

Michael Pollan on NPR Talk of the Nation

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 07:05:00 +0000

Michael Pollan was on Talk of the nation discussing his book, "In Defense of Food."

Here is the link.

He talks about cultural-based eating vs. science-based eating.

Extra drag on Emergency Rooms

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:47:00 +0000

Emergency rooms are the backstops of health care.

They should be reserved for emergencies.

This isn't a good trend:

A growing number of Baltimore residents are being treated in hospitals for illnesses that could be prevented with routine medical care, a new study has found. The health commissioner says the data show "a fundamental failure" of the city's health system.

City residents are being hospitalized or treated in emergency rooms for such conditions as asthma and high blood pressure at rates that are roughly twice those in surrounding counties and statewide, according to the Rand Corp. study.

I could see how the psychology of an Emergency Room staff could shift when there is a high volume of bodies in the room that are not true emergencies.

This also puts extra honus on the staff to figure out which people are real emergencies, which was previously left to the discretion of the people seeking help.

On all kinds of levels, it seems like this would be problematic.

Have questions about produce?

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:25:00 +0000

I found out my friend from high school works in the fresh produce industry and she's gonna let me interview her for the blog.

Let me know if you have any question suggestions...

Here are the questions I'm working with:

-Has working in the produce industry changed how you think about food. Has it changed how you eat?

-What do you think the most interesting aspects of the produce industry are?

-Would you say that people in the produce industry are health conscious in general?

-What do people think of industrial agriculture - monocultures, heavy pesticide usage, GMOs, farmer subsidies, and processed food?

-Do you get the sense that there is chatter about what an Obama administration might mean for the industry?

-You mentioned the size and scope of the produce being interesting. Are there things you've seen or heard that have really surprised you and changed your views on produce?

-Does the produce industry have celebrities?

-Where do you get your produce?

Mind over Matter

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 18:31:00 +0000

Check out this guy...not sure what possesses and individual to do this but it's an incredible video:

I'm pretty sure I'd be just as amazed even if he was wearing shoes.

Cheap food nation

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 13:47:00 +0000

(via Fast Food News)

Has your diet changed at all with the economic downturn?

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Marion Nestle is interviewed in the vid above. I like her blog.

Here she is at Google. You might want to watch this before the next time you go to the supermarket.

Weekend Dietitian Conversation

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:23:00 +0000

I had the opportunity to talk with a dietitian this weekend at a client's holiday party.

I peppered her with questions and she was very knowledgeable. She has worked as a dietitian in the Army and spent a year in Iraq. Now she is studying to become a physician's assistant.

We talked about everything from fish oil supplements to where troops in Iraq get their fresh produce to food marketing practices.

One idea I will take away: she talked about for weight loss programs, research has shown that diet is crucial in the initial stages for losing weight but that exercise is what really helps keep weight off.

This made me wonder if exercise and nutrition somehow reinforce each other in terms of keeping individuals on the right track for the long term, possibly even on a hormonal level.

I've definitely found that it's easier to keep up with one when I am actively focusing on both.

Obesity Tax in NY

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:48:00 +0000

Policies like this one in New York seem to be gaining more traction on a city and state level.

Inefficiencies are expensive for the body as well as for the body politic:

Gov. Paterson, as part of a $121 billion budget to be unveiled Tuesday, will propose an "obesity tax" of about 15% on nondiet drinks.

This means a Diet Coke might sell for a $1 - even as the same size bottle of its calorie-rich alter ego would go for $1.15.

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The so-called obesity tax would generate an estimated $404 million a year. Milk, juice, diet soda and bottled water would be exempt from the tax.

"I'll just buy less," said Victor Lopez, 55, of Manhattan, as he drank a Coke at a midtown Subway store.

"I don't like to buy Diet Coke," said Amaury Garcia, 16, who works at a flower shop in Penn Station. "I'll just not buy any sodas if it goes up."

Public health advocates welcomed news of the tax, saying it would help the fight against childhood obesity.

"Raising the price of this liquid candy will put children and teens on a path to a healthier diet," said Elie Ward of the American Academy of Pediatrics of New York State.

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This is a move in the right direction.

The incongruence between industrial agriculture policy and health policy in this country is currently staggering.

The healthcare costs nested within consumer choices based on easy access to over-processed food are huge and need to be addressed.

I think that cities and state governments are well positioned to help reprogram consumer choices in this space.

Eventually access to healthy foods, fresh produce needs to be viewed as a societal utility, just like electricity and gas and street lights.

Bringing the Whopper to the world

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 19:30:00 +0000

This is a really strange project: the whopper as cultural ambassador to un-whoppered.

Rats on sugar

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:54:00 +0000

New Princeton study shows some interesting behavior by sugar-eating rats:

The rats drank more alcohol than normal after their sugar supply was cut off, showing that the bingeing behavior had forged changes in brain function. These functions served as "gateways" to other paths of destructive behavior, such as increased alcohol intake. And, after receiving a dose of amphetamine normally so minimal it has no effect, they became significantly hyperactive. The increased sensitivity to the psychostimulant is a long-lasting brain effect that can be a component of addiction, Hoebel said.

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Hoebel has shown that rats eating large amounts of sugar when hungry, a phenomenon he describes as sugar-bingeing, undergo neurochemical changes in the brain that appear to mimic those produced by substances of abuse, including cocaine, morphine and nicotine. Sugar induces behavioral changes, too. "In certain models, sugar-bingeing causes long-lasting effects in the brain and increases the inclination to take other drugs of abuse, such as alcohol," Hoebel said.

Hoebel and his team also have found that a chemical known as dopamine is released in a region of the brain known as the nucleus accumbens when hungry rats drink a sugar solution. This chemical signal is thought to trigger motivation and, eventually with repetition, addiction.

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Hungry rats that binge on sugar provoke a surge of dopamine in their brains. After a month, the structure of the brains of these rats adapts to increased dopamine levels, showing fewer of a certain type of dopamine receptor than they used to have and more opioid receptors. These dopamine and opioid systems are involved in motivation and reward, systems that control wanting and liking something. Similar changes also are seen in the brains of rats on cocaine and heroin.

In experiments, the researchers have been able to induce signs of withdrawal in the lab animals by taking away their sugar supply. The rats' brain levels of dopamine dropped and, as a result, they exhibited anxiety as a sign of withdrawal. The rats' teeth chattered, and the creatures were unwilling to venture forth into the open arm of their maze, preferring to stay in a tunnel area. Normally rats like to explore their environment, but the rats in sugar withdrawal were too anxious to explore.

(via Conditioning Research)

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The behavior piece is pretty crazy - the actually rats stopped exploring.

The idea that 'foods' can have the same effects as 'drugs' makes me think that we need to reconsider how we categorize 'foods' and 'drugs'.

From the neurological perspective, it sounds like the current taxonomy isn't useful and possibly misleading.

Mind Body Connections

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 21:00:00 +0000

Some of the research on mind body connections that's coming out is amazing.

Here is some copy about a study on visual perception of the body and its effect on pain intensity (via Mindblog):

Here we report that, in patients with chronic hand pain, magnifying their view of their own limb during movement significantly increases the pain and swelling evoked by movement. By contrast, minifying their view of the limb significantly decreases the pain and swelling evoked by movement. These results show a top-down effect of body image on body tissues, thus demonstrating that the link between body image and the tissues is bi-directional.

This bidirectional link between mind and body is pretty rich territory for research. It puts more science behind the idea that all disease starts in the mind.

Taken literally as dis-ease, the lack of ease, I think this research is even more salient. The effects of an unquiet mind on the body are very much an unknown variable that hopefully will continue to get attention from researchers.

Episode Two: 8 pounds lighter

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 05:57:00 +0000

This guy is back...and he's lost 8 pounds.

Here is episode 1 if you missed it.

Cancer and Diet

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 23:21:00 +0000

I've read a little about intermittent fasting and it makes sense in terms of evolutionary biology but it's been a challenge to implement in a knowledgeable way.

The research is compelling though...I thought this article was pretty thought-provoking.

Men who halve the amount they normally eat for a week or two once a month could markedly lower their chances of a tumour at a young age.

Animal studies carried out at the University of Minnesota showed wartime eating habits significantly delayed the onset of cancer.
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But the study showed going on a permanent low-calorie diet did not have the same powerful effect.

Scientists think occasional rationing may ward off cancer by constantly adjusting the balance of certain fat hormones.

I know that the body's hormones respond most beneficially to varied amounts/intensity of exercise.

So it makes sense that body's hormones could respond in the same way to varied amounts/intensity of food intake.

In the end, we are designed for lots of activity and lots of food intake as well as little activity and little food intake.

And it sounds like our bodies might need both to maintain it's most natural, disease-free state.

Some of the anecdotes in the article are really good:

In 2004, experts at Harvard Medical School in Boston, found women who regularly rationed their food were half as likely to get breast cancer as those who always ate until they were full.

More recently, researchers studying daughters of women caught in the Dutch famine of 1944-45 found they were more fertile and had a higher number of pregnancies than those born to mothers with better food supplies.
...
The health of Britain's population actually improved after rationing was introduced during World War Two in 1940, finally ending in 1954.
Most people ate less meat, fat, eggs and sugar as they were all in short supply.
Instead, consumption of home-grown vegetables rose dramatically. Infant mortality rates declined and the average age at which people died from natural causes increased.

(via Conditioning Research)

Cancer and Exercise

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 22:55:00 +0000

Mark's Daily Apple has an interesting post up on cancer and exercise. He cites a Swedish study with some impressive results:

And, as the Swedish medical school Karolinska Institutet so bluntly put it, exercise “cuts cancer death in men,” too. The Swedish researchers examined some forty thousand men of varying ages for seven years. Of that group, around 3700 developed cancer; 1,153 died from it. For those cancer patients who also walked or cycled for at least thirty minutes a day, the survival rate increased 33% against those who didn’t exercise at all. An extensive (60 to 90 minutes a day) exercise program was even shown to reduce the incidence of cancer by 16%.

These are real numbers and do not speak to the preventative abilities of exercise in keeping people healthy on a cellular level.

Another posture vid

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 22:50:00 +0000

A little more concerned with aesthetics, but kind of interesting:

I'm getting addicted to this stuff

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 03:49:00 +0000

This stuff tastes awesome. When my girlfriend pointed it out, I didn't want to try it cause it looked pretty nasty.

But now I think I'm an addict.

I'm still looking into the nutritional value, but so far it sounds pretty legit.

Esther Gokhale on posture

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:56:00 +0000

If you've never heard of her, check out the work of Esther Gokhale.

Here she is at Google:

She's done a lot of research into posture-related issues across societies and has a book out on back pain.

Check out this testimonial on her web site:

"I have had significant problems with low back pain and sciatica for more than two decades. At several points I was unable to walk more than fifty yards without squatting to relieve the pain, and required one back surgery for for a slipped disk. Back pain often kept me from sleeping. I tried excercises and pain-killers with mixed and generally poor results. The person who has helped me the most over the years has been Esther Gokhale. My back problem is now essentially under control. I no longer regularly wake up with a sore back and generally am able to walk five or more miles a day with little or no discomfort, and if I avoid cramped long-term sitting I can mostly forget about the back that plagued me for so long."

Paul R. Ehrlich, Ph.D. Bing Professor of Population Studies
President, Center for Conservation Biology
Department of Biological Sciences
Stanford University, Stanford, CA

(If you've never heard of Paul R. Ehrlich, you should stick him in wikipedia.)

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I just finished watching her presentation. It's very interesting and I'm sold. In the end, it's about doing what other people are doing who don't have back pain...

The other piece to this is what issues might arise when your posture is off. She mentions circulation, which I imagine could have huge implications. I am wondering if there is other stuff.

Cat on slide

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 22:55:00 +0000

Who needs a treadmill when you have a slide?

'If it's man-made, don't eat it'

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 03:19:00 +0000

That's what Jack Lalanne had to say about what not to eat.

When a dude can do over 1000 pushups in a row at the ripe old age of 42, I think you should listen to what they have to say...

Here are some other suggestions from Lalanne:

-Exercise 30 minutes a day, three to four times a week. Change your routine every two to three weeks.

-Set short-term fitness goals and follow through.

-Slowly change a few bad habits by starting good habits. For example, substitute white bread with whole-wheat bread or start eating fresh fruit for desserts instead of sweets.

-Eat foods in their natural states and in as many varieties as you can.

-Pass on caffeine, sugar and cigarettes.

-Drink plenty of water.

Episode 1: Putting your money where your mouth is

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:16:00 +0000

Here is one way to motivate yourself to lose weight. Make a 60k bet with your friend.

I'm gonna follow this dude's progress.

(hat tip citydesk)

The case of the chemical lobotomy

noreply@blogger.com (ninjaclectic) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 01:54:00 +0000

At a time when more and more children are getting diagnosed with disordered behavior (specifically bipolar disorder and ADHD) and getting prescribed meds, it's important to historically contextualize phramaceutical drugs and the medical establishment itself.

Once you dig into the progression of treatment for behavioral problems, you realize that pharmaceutical drugs picked up where lobotomies left off...and that members of the medical establishment - who once promoted lobotomies as a legitimate treatment - have profoundly failed the public in the very recent past.

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Walter Freeman was an Ivy League educated, DC-based doctor who came from a family of doctors. His father was a doctor as was his grandfather, who was also a president of the American Medical Association.

Without a background in surgery, Freeman leveraged his credentials as a medical professional and performed lobotomies across the country. He promoted "ice pick" lobotomies, which were initially performed with actual ice picks.

Freeman achieved a significant amount of notoriety and eventually lobotomized JFK's younger sister Rosemary Kennedy.

PBS recently did a really good piece on Freeman. Here is an excerpt (the video is a little graphic):

It wasn't until the 1950s that lobotomies began to lose traction as an effective treatment.

And guess what displaced lobotomies...

Pharmaceutical drugs.

Here is Elliot Valenstein, a neuroscience professor who wrote a book about lobotomies, talking about what caused the lobotomy's demise:

STAY FREE!: Why did lobotomy go into decline?
VALENSTEIN: It started in the middle to late ’50s, at the time of the introduction of neuroleptic drugs--Thorazine and some of the antidepressants. There was a whole group of them that came out in the late 1950s. They were often given in massive doses, and they seemed to be producing the same kind of effects as a lobotomy. If you’ve seen anybody on drugs like Thorazine, their face is expressionless and the saliva’s dripping out of the corner of their mouth. People referred to Thorazine as a chemical lobotomy, and it was much more convenient than performing surgery. It was more cost-efficient because it didn’t require a neurosurgeon and it didn’t require intensive postoperative care. So it very quickly replaced the operations.

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At the end of the day, I'm pretty sure that there are not checks in place to keep the drug industry - which funds a growing number of the drug studies, directly employs doctors, and funds political campaigns - from creating a situation where drugs could be promoted just like lobotomies were.

I think you could argue the climate could be worse than when Freeman set off on his national campaign with his 'lobotomobile.'

As more and more kids are placed on drugs that haven't been clinically tested for children, I can't help but think that these drugs are the equivalent of a chemical lobotomy.

I'm giving the last word to Valenstein:

STAY FREE!: What are the parallels between the lobotomy period and what’s going on today? There’s a lot of enthusiasm for what used to be called somatic treatment, going after mental disease as a physical set of symptoms. You wrote about this in your latest book, Blaming the Brain.
VALENSTEIN: The influence of the pharmaceutical companies is so great these days because of the resources they have at their disposal. There are tremendous economic factors distorting the practice of medicine, just as there were in the lobotomy period. It is hard to find any clinicians or researchers who don’t have vested interests in the development of procedures or drugs. I mean that. Of course, they will deny that funding from drug companies has an influence, but it is so subtle that they’re unaware of it themselves. Studies have shown that if you look at reports on drugs that are competing to treat the same patient population, and if you look at the connection that the people doing the studies have with the companies involved, the results that they find--not only the opinions they express but the actual data--clearly reflect their own vested interest. I don’t think people really lie, but it happens in very subtle ways, like disqualifying patients because they are ill with something else. Those same patients would not be omitted if their outcome supported the conclusions the researcher wanted. And there are professional interests as well: psychiatrists have to compete with social workers, clinical psychologists, counselors of all sorts. Most people who seek help for a mental problem do not go to a psychiatrist. So there’s a strong economic reason why psychiatrists are very supportive of drugs: protecting their own turf. That’s not the only reason, but it certainly has an influence.

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If you're still interested:

NPR did a story on one of Freeman's lobotomy patients here.

Frontline did a really good piece on medicating kids you can watch online here.