Exercise kills! (Health)

[Edwin]

I think that to describe Roy Meadows as having been railroaded is very wide of the mark but whether or not he was doesn't alter the injustice of the closed family Court system in certain cases nor the false premise of the salt poisoning accusations.

The whole acceptance of prosecutor created scenarios is something that should be raised on its own.

[GrouchoMarxthespot]

[Edwin]

Too much salt is poisonous and drinking sea water kills but the body can, given fresh water, excrete any surplus salt without any trouble which is why deliberate poisoning with salt is difficult if not impossible. Vomit or piss, the body does it.

There is a condition called salt diabetes, diabetes insipidus, which could well be the reason for fatal levels of salt in the blood of alleged victims. Meadows is the author of the paper on salt poisoning used to convict adults in charge of children where diabetes insipidus could have been the cause.

[Mick Harper]

I seem to remember this case. The parents were accused to the bemusement of everybody else who had never heard of such a method of child abuse.

This is reminiscent of the Middlesborough Anal Rape cases (or as Viz Comic called it The Bottom Inspectors) where all of a sudden (ie an 'expert' had a theory) a child's swollen rectum was taken as conclusive evidence of abuse. Result: dozens of children taken into care from one town. Even though, as people pointed out, this is in fact quite rare.

Did Meadows become an expert on salt specifically in order to convict?

[Edwin]

Without revealing confidences, I was actually asked to check on someone associated with that case who had applied for a post as a social worker. Only using published media I should add but this was pre-internet days when electronic searches were an esoteric mystery.

The results showed that staff shouldn't be sent away on courses lest they become converts to the latest fad.

[GrouchoMarxthespot]

[Mick Harper]

Good to find out I wuz right as usual. According to a Cochrane Review (ie a summation of all published trials) people who took anti-oxidant vitamin pills lived slightly less long than people who didn't. (Test sample: 200,000)

[Chad]

[Chad]

[Mick Harper]

I don't think so. I took the material from last Saturday's Guardian Bad Science column which clearly takes these things into account:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/26/bad-science-vitamin-pills-lead-you-to-take-risks

PS Did you like the way I took this Cochrane Review thing as the most familiar procedure in the world? First I'd heard of it, natch.

[Hatty]

Clearly the Guardian columnist didn't take 'these things into account'. In real life as opposed to lab conditions people who take vitamins are health-conscious and it's reasonable to assume most had a valid reason (or thought they did) to be worried in the first place. It's not good science.

[Mick Harper]

The Cochrane Review took it into account. It's too elementary not to.

[Chad]

Strange... I've done a search on the entire Cochrane Review Library list and the only report on 'antioxidant vitamins' is in relation to their efficacy in preventing macular degeneration of the retina with age (they had no effect).

I even opened the search to include all reviews with 'vitamin' in the title... and still nothing fit the bill.

But the methodology of these reviews is such that I would tend to go along with the conclusions... As I said though, it's strange I couldn't find reference to this particular one.

[Mick Harper]

I did the same thing but when I came to a dead end I decided to apply 'careful ignoral'. The story was just too good.

[Ishmael]

In spite of themselves, orthodoxy appears to be catching up to us in every area of research.

Exercise Hurts Heart