It's no surprise when an activist group trots out a lone, non-peer-reviewed study in an effort to bolster its case, but you would think that government regulations rest on a stronger scientific foundation. Guess again.

Are you surprised to learn that each cup of eggnog you sipped merrily over the holiday season set you back 306 calories per cup? And that slice of pecan pie, another holiday favorite, cost you anywhere between 500 and 800 big ones at the calorie counter. If you ate a large tub of popcorn (with butter) and an accompanying 32-ounce Coke at the movie theatre over the holidays, then you satisfied a 2,000-calorie per day intake requirement in a single sitting.
Were you unaware of how many calories you were packing away or did you know and continue eating anyway?

I was encouraged by a recent article in the Wall Street Journal saying that an epidemic of BSE-related human disease in the United Kingdom is probably not going to happen. The article cited UK Department of Health statistics indicating that the number of cases of variant Creutzfeld-Jacob disease (vCJD), the human version of BSE, had likely peaked, and might well be on the decline. In 2000, twenty-eight Britons died of vCJD, and that number decreased to seventeen in '02 and eighteen in '03.

This week marks the fortieth anniversary of the first time the U.S. government declared smoking a serious danger to health, the Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health, published January 11, 1964. With evidence of over 7,000 biomedical research articles on the topic, the committee of the Surgeon General declared, "Cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the United States to warrant appropriate remedial action."

The Food and Drug Administration's announcement of its intention to ban weight loss or "athletic performance enhancing" products containing ephedra is good news. However, it took over 100 deaths, including that of a major league baseball player, over 10,000 recorded complaints, and countless scientific studies for the FDA to ban this dangerous supplement.

The American Council on Science and Health releases...
Cigarettes: What the Warning Label Doesn't Tell You Information Tobacco Companies Don't Want Teens to Know About the Dangers of Smoking

I must interrupt your usual HealthFactsAndFears.com programming just briefly to note that its editor me will be on one of those fashion makeover TV shows that are all the rage lately, specifically Style Court on the Style Network, at the following (Eastern) times:
Thursday, Jan 8: 8pm and 11pm Friday, Jan 9: 9am and 4pm
(If you have digital cable, you may well have the Style Network.)

"I plan to serve beef for my Christmas dinner," [Secretary of Agriculture Ann M.] Veneman said, "and we remain confident in the safety of our food supply."
Responded [former USDA veterinarian Lester] Friedlander: "She might as well kiss her (behind) goodbye, then."
From an article by Steve Mitchell of UPI, December 23, 2003

Summarized by: William D. Evers, Ph.D., R.D. Department of Foods and Nutrition Purdue University West Lafayette IN