No safe level

Puritans frequently state (normally without evidence, naturally) that there is "No safe level" of whatever it is they're being puritanical about,

News

Drinking when pregnant, UK, 14 Nov 2012

Drinking one or two glasses of wine a week during pregnancy can have an impact on a child's IQ, a study says.

Researchers from Oxford and Bristol universities looked at the IQ scores of 4,000 children as well as recording the alcohol intake of their mothers.

They found "moderate" alcohol intake of one to six units a week during pregnancy affected IQ.

Experts said the effect was small, but reinforced the need to avoid alcohol in pregnancy.

Previous studies have produced inconsistent and confusing evidence on whether low to moderate levels of alcohol are harmful in pregnancy, largely because it is difficult to separate out other factors that may have an effect such as the mother's age and education.

But what's this? At paragraph 19?

The researchers said although a causal effect could not be proven, the way they had done the study strongly suggested that it was exposure to alcohol in the womb that was responsible for the differences in child IQ.

Shouting, Scunthorpe, UK, 2 Nov 2012

[...]market sellers in one town have been banned from any shouting, except on Saturday afternoons.

A greengrocer who fell foul of the new rules at Scunthorpe Market in North Lincolnshire has been brought before the county court and landed with a £1,000 legal bill.

Simon Stanley, 45, who became the first casualty of the regulations, has vowed to pack up his stall for good as a result.

His wife has been forced to run the business single-handedly after an injunction barred her husband from working in the market for three months until December 12 for what the council called "offensive and inappropriate behaviour".

Under the Traders’ Charter, the 70 traders can only shout out the price of their goods for four hours after 1pm on Saturdays.

You can 'call off' at Ashby and Brigg after 1pm provided you do not cause an obstruction or a nuisance to other stallholders. At Scunthorpe you can call off after 1pm on Saturday only.

To prevent annoyance to other traders we only allow "pitching" i.e. calling out wares or demonstrating their goods and 'auctions', in certain areas of our markets. Anyone wishing to do this must discuss their proposals with the markets Operations Manager and get written approval in advance.

You should not play music on your stall or have the radio on where shoppers can hear it. We may allow exceptions for demonstration purposes, but the Markets Operations Manager must agree it in advance.

Fizzy drinks, Daily Mail, 2 Nov 2012

A moment on the lips, 30 minutes on the hips: The Coca-Cola calculator that reveals how long it takes to burn off the calories in just ONE CAN

Playing music causes tumors, Daily Mail, 2 Nov 2012

A brain tumour that nearly killed guitar teacher Martin Reed may have been caused by his music playing, he claims.

[...]

A clinical nurse specialist diagnosed him with glioblastoma multiforme, a rare and aggressive form of brain tumour, and he was the only person on their trial that had that grade and type of tumour.

He was told that the growth was not hereditary and there was nothing that he had done to bring it on. They also said that studies had confirmed that mobile phones, microwaves, phone masts and dental work had nothing to do with the tumours.

Mr Reed was also surprised to discover that some patients on the clinical trial who had been diagnosed as having a Glioblastoma tumour were also musicians. He however, had the Glioblastoma Multiforme.

He was told they included an opera singer, a classical pianist and a jazz saxophonist.

Mr Reed, who has been playing the guitar for 30 years, said: 'My surgeon told me that my particular tumour was very rare and accounted for just four per cent of all tumours.

'He said it was a really weird coincidence, but he didn’t have a theory on why it could be.'

Bacon and Egg McMuffins, University of Calgary, 30 Oct 2012

If you start your day with a breakfast sandwich, your blood vessels will start clogging before lunch, a new study has found.

Just one day of eating processed cheese, eggs and meat on a bun, and "your blood vessels become unhappy," said Dr. Todd Anderson of the University of Calgary, who is also director of the Libin Cardiovascular Institute of Alberta and a Heart and Stroke Foundation researcher.

Anderson and his colleagues tested the effects of breakfast sandwiches on [20]normal, healthy university students. They studied the students twice — once on a day when they ate no breakfast, and once on a day when they ate two breakfast sandwiches, totalling 900 calories and 50 g of fat.

That's what was reported in the mainstream media. A "new study." That wasn't in fact a study at all - how could it when it only measured 20 people, twice; one with and one without the thing being measured:

The research is preliminary and doesn't compare the effect of eating a couple of fast-food breakfast sandwiches to a healthier choice such as yogurt and a banana.

Alcohol, Alcohol and Alcoholism(Journal), 29 Mar 2012 (but: 6 Nov 2012)

Women should stick to just one glass of wine a day and those with a family history of breast cancer should abstain altogether as researchers find even moderate alcohol consumption increases chances of developing the disease.

A review of research on alcohol and breast cancer has found that just one drink a day can increase the risk of breast cancer by five per cent.

At least until you actually get cancer. From the same newspaper (using the same picture to illustrate it, naturally):

Women with breast cancer can boost their chances of surviving the disease by drinking a glass of wine a day, according to research.

Those who drink a medium-sized (175ml) glass a day cut their chance of dying within a decade of diagnosis by a fifth - from 20 to 16 per cent, say Cambridge University doctors.

Even drinking half that cut the chance to 18 per cent, they found.

Looks like the Telegraph is after its own Kill or Cure list akin to that of the Daily Mail's.