[Newspoetry] Dieting is a faster way to die? Expert Guidance

[DL Emerick]

"Fire those skinny people!!!"  That's what employers would do if they read
the latest significant findings on the complicated links between weight and
mortality.  Sure, fat people do die of some diseases at faster rates than
skinny folks do.  But, the offset is that fat enables people to survive most
other killer diseases - with the upshot that skinny people run far greater
mortality risks than fat folks do.
See News article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/06/AR2007110601
436.html.
Begin Excerpts:  "The most surprising finding was that being overweight but
not obese was associated only with excess mortality from diabetes and kidney
disease -- not from cancer or heart disease. Moreover, the researchers found
an apparent protective effect against all other causes of death, such as
tuberculosis, emphysema, pneumonia, Alzheimer's disease and injuries. An
association between excess weight and nearly 16,000 deaths from diabetes and
kidney disease was overshadowed by a reduction of as many as 133,000 deaths
from all other deaths unrelated to cancer or heart disease. Even moderately
obese people appeared less likely to die of those causes. 
"Although the study did not examine why being overweight might guard against
dying from some diseases, Flegal [the principal CDC researcher] said other
research has suggested that extra heft might supply the body with vital
reserves to draw upon to fight illness and aid recovery.
"The researchers used widely accepted federal definitions of "overweight"
and "obesity" based on body mass index
<http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/bmi/adult_BMI/english_bmi_calculator/bmi_ca
lculator.htm> . A BMI between 25 and 30 classifies someone as overweight and
above 30 as obese. For example, a 5-foot-4-inch adult is considered
overweight at 146 pounds and obese at 175. 
"The researchers calculated that in 2004, obesity was associated with as
many as 112,000 excess deaths from heart disease and more than 45,000 deaths
from diabetes and kidney disease. Obesity was not, however, associated with
an overall excess in cancer deaths, though it was linked to as many as
19,000 excess deaths from malignancies commonly blamed on fat, including
breast, uterine, ovarian, kidney, colon, esophageal and pancreatic cancer.
Typical expert confusion at results:  "The study, published today in the
Journal of the American Medical Association
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Journal+of+the+American+Med
ical+Association?tid=informline> , was greeted with sharply mixed reactions.
Some praised it for providing persuasive evidence that the dangers of fat
have been overblown.  But others dismissed the findings as fundamentally
flawed, saying an overwhelming body of evidence has documented the risks of
being either overweight or obese."  End_Excerpts.
One could explain most expert disagreement quite easily, by asking who is
funding their research.  Big-pharm companies are backing tons of
"independent" researchers, to provide evidence of the needs for big-pharm's
solution to every alleged illness: new, expensive medications, of some
alleged benefit to some alleged medical problem, when it is narrowly
defined, without much or any consideration for any other effects, even
dangerous side-effects that out-weigh any therapeutic benefit of the
products.
Induced mass-hypochondria (IMH):  Big-pharm knows that a person who doesn't
think that he's ill will never buy their products.  More importantly, if
doctors can't be persuaded that a patient is sick (or would benefit from a
drug), then the doctors won't tell the patient: "take this drug or suffer."
Now, doctors already are self-interested in finding signs of illness in a
patient: a perfectly healthy population would put the "medical-'care'
community" largely out of work.  To be sure, doctors also continuously
suffer from several varieties of professional anxiety.  These
doctoring-phobias arise from the redoubling fears of failing to find some
illness in a patient or of failing to prescribe some allegedly proper
(up-to-date) treatment for that illness.
Exploiting IMH: the fears of doctors:  These fears are commonly known as
tort-lawyer-distress (TLD).  A doctor suffering from TLD will make large
contributions to foolish political causes that promise to immunize doctors
from its ravaging effects.  The GoP for decades has preyed upon the victims
of TLD, because fearful (but fairly rich) doctors can be expected to pony up
large sums of campaign money (aka bribes) for their immunization treatments.
So, how good are experts, anyway?  "Do ya feel lucky, punk?  Do ya?"  There
is little discernible evidence that experts are all that expert, if one
defines what any given type of expert is supposed to be able to do, better
than the ignorant or the uninformed "ordinary" person.  The reasons for this
failure of expertise, to serve any useful universal social function, are
profound.  First, of course, experts do not like to evaluate each other,
because of the blow-back effect, in part: if you judge another, you might be
judged by them.  Moreover, secondly, whenever an expert colleague is exposed
as a sham, the risk of the entire profession being exposed as a sham is
greatly enlarged - the endangered (expert) community effect will cause the
herd of experts to protect as much of the herd as possible.
Indeed, when I was inducted to the Missouri Bar, some years ago, I was
appalled at one banquet speech afterwards.  Mind you, the audience of that
speech was probably the most receptive one for this kind of speech: they
were all new members, largely deeply in debt for the costs of their
professional "expert" educations.  So, what was the content of the offensive
speech:  "Just remember, always, there's always plenty enough out there to
go around for all of us to become very well-heeled - as long we don't mess
up this sure thing called our professional practices..."  Sigh.  Even after
three-some long and tedious years in law school, I was still naively and
hopelessly optimistic, still ever hopeful that most lawyers were not or
would not be "in it for the money".  I'd not only say "A fool and his money
are soon parted," but also, more accurately, "No fool ever parts with his
money without expert help."
See related story, today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/business/07leonhardt.html.  David
Leonhardt reports on "When Trust in an Expert is Unwise."  Reputation,
according to prevalent market theorists, would the key: good experts would
become better known than bad experts - hence, good experts would "naturally"
drive bad experts out of the market, by virtue of their greater successes
and fewer failures.  Well, this is the "micro-economic" explanation to
justify essentially "unregulated" capitalism: "naturally, the market will
regulate itself and nothing can be better than natural self-regulation by
invisible market forces that always, inevitably produce the best of all
possible worlds".  (In micro-economic theory, "invisible market forces" is
the name of the hidden God.)
The truth is stranger than these market fictions.  The real question is
simpler: is ever wise to trust an alleged expert at anything?  The general
answer seems to be "NO": never routinely trust an expert to do for you what
you could and should be doing for yourself.  And, if you can't do it
yourself, then maybe you shouldn't be doing it at all.  Following experts is
a fatal social disease, though occasionally, as Skinner found, a random
schedule of reinforcements seem to make it worthwhile.  The seeming benefit
of expertise is largely illusory - we all too desperately desire to believe
that our problems can be solved and that someone can do it for us.  Sigh.
Well, that's my expert opinion on expertise, take it for what it worth, and
remember, I am an expert, please.   (Gratuities gladly accepted: see hat by
door.)
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