Glimpses of Kansas

 

Coming from New Zealand, it has been a fascinating experience to spend a week in Kansas, in America’s Mid-West.  Kansas is a big state geographically, right in the centre of the USA, but has only 2.5 million people. The economy is driven largely by agriculture, with the Boeing factory at Wichita being the other big industry.  Wichita is the biggest city, and Topeka the State Capital. Somewhat surprisingly, most of Kansas City is actually across the state boundary in Missouri.  There is a major army base at Fort Riley. The centre of agricultural activity is at the University town of Manhattan, where the Agricultural Faculty enrolments are booming. 

These are good times for agriculture in America’s mid West.

Beta-Casein Paper in Journal of Integrative Medicine

I was recently invited to write a paper for the Journal of Integrative Medicine summarising the current state of evidence relating to A1 beta-casein, BCM7 and Human Health. The reference is:
Woodford, Keith 2011. ‘A1 beta-casein, BCM7 and human health’. Journal of Integrative Medicine. Vol 16(2):14-17.
A pdf is attached here.Woodford Jul 2011 Journal of Integrative Medicine

Communicating the A2 story

  One of the challenges of communicating the A2 story is its complexity. Another challenge is that the marketers of A2 milk are constrained by consumer legislation in the claims they can make. But  occasionally a consumer-friendly informative article does appear in the media. Today was one of those days, with an interesting and informative article in  Melbourne’s  ’Sunday Herald Sun’.  According to Wikipedia, The ‘Herald Sun” has a circulation of just over half a million and a readership of 1.5 million.

Today’s A2 article can be found at  http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/milk-minus-mutants-boost-for-the-lactose-intolerant/story-e6frf7jo-1226096018913.

Alternatively, a pdf is attched here:  Milk minus mutants boost for the lactose intolerant

Bovine Casomorphins Transferring to Babies via Human Milk

Yet another paper from Poland, this one published in the peer-reviewed international Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition,(1) is providing insights about bovine (cow) casomorphins finding their way into the blood of babies via human milk. This time the casomorphin is BCM5, which is derived from the breakdown of BCM7, which in turn is derived from A1 beta-casein. Until now I have largely ignored bovine BCM5, and in my book ‘Devil in the Milk” I only mentioned it once (p38). (2) But I can see that in future I am going to have to look at it much more closely.

Milk Proteins and Human Health: A1 versus A2 Beta-casein

Several times a year I present papers on A1 beta-casein and BCM7  to conferences for health professionals, particularly in Australia, where consumers have easy access to the alternative A2 milk. The handout material that I wrote for the Sydney GPs conference on 22 May 2011 is attached to this post as a pdf.  My aim in that paper was to demonstrate the breadth of evidence across a wide range of health conditions, all underpinned by peer reviewed science.  Over the last year of giving this and similar presentations I have noticed how Australian health professionals are becoming much more aware of the A1 versus A2 issue.  milk proteins and human health woodford gpce may2011 final[1]

BCM7 and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is every parent’s worst nightmare. In developed countries it is the biggest cause of death in apparently healthy babies. There are many strategies to reduce the incidence, including putting babies to sleep on their backs rather than on their tummies, not sleeping in their parents’ bed, and being in a non-smoking household. Also, it has long been widely accepted that SIDS is less common with breast-fed babies. But none of these address the fundamental biological cause as to what makes some babies susceptible to a sudden cessation of breathing, followed rapidly by death unless a parent or caregiver is immediately ‘on hand’.

Bovine BCM7 (beta-casomorphin7), which I call the ‘milk devil’, has long been suspected as a villain. This ‘milk devil’, which is an opioid derived from casein (and hence the name ‘caso’ from casein and ‘morphin’ from morphine), is only produced from digestion of A1 beta-casein (1, 2), which itself is only produced by some cows of European breeds. This A1 beta-casein is the consequence of a chance mutation in an ancestor some thousands of years ago (3). Unfortunately this mutated gene is now found in a considerable proportion of European cows.

New Zealand Earthquakes: locations, depths and tsunami

More detailed investigation of earthquake-related documents has now led me to write something further about earthquakes in New Zealand. (For earlier posts about the Christchurch earthquakes see  http://keithwoodford.wordpress.com in the earthquake category.) I have found four GNS maps (www.gns.cri.nz) which, when brought together, seem fundamental to understanding the ‘big picture’.  I have therefore reproduced and interpreted them in this post, using information gleaned from a range of sources.

The Christchurch Earthquake: what we knew in 1996 but ignored

This amazing video, originally screened on TV3 in July 1996 as part of an earthquake documentary, shows how much of what has happened was predicted by engineers and scientists back then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkTy6ogLDX8

The Christchurch Earthquake: tectonic plates and fault lines

In an attempt to understand the Christchurch earthquakes I have been forced to do a lot of reading. There is a lot of good material ‘out there’, but much of it assumes a prior knowledge of geology. Some of the best material for non-geologists  is in the Learning Section at www.gns.cri.nz   Another site that I  found to be very informative was  the Mt Aspiring College website. The starting point (hard to find from the home page) is http://mtaspiring.school.nz/Tephra/Thehowwhatandwhereofanearthquake.htm  (Alternatively, search Google using the terms  ’Mt Aspiring’ and ‘earthquake’.) From there,  go through the various pages within the earthquake section. The nice thing about the Mt Aspiring College material  is that it is put together by professional educators, who know how to write for a non-expert audience, and also know how to put together a professional website.

In this post I report in summary terms what I learned from these plus many other reports and websites. Hopefully, other lay people will find this useful in understanding something of the ‘big picture’, and it is on this basis that I share my learnings.   What I did learn  along the  way is that there is general agreement about that big picture, but the details can be debated, even by the so-called experts.  Despite all the modern tools of science, it is not easy to see everything that is going on deep beneath the earth.

Understanding the Christchurch earthquake: building damage

There are many puzzles as to why some of Christchurch’s  buildings have survived the 6.3  earthquake of February 2011, and others have not. However,  a combination of observations plus document-searching does provide some answers.  In terms of magnitude, this was just a moderate earthquake, but the local effects on  Christchurch have been huge because of its proximity and shallowness. Even within Christchurch, location was of huge importance, but there is more to it than that.