The Cancer Paradox Part 1: Sugar

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs, Health 2 Comments

The Metabolic Model of Cancer has recently been resurrected after lying dormant for slightly less than a century. This 1924 model is predicated upon the work of a physiologist, medical doctor and Nobel Laureate by the name of Otto Warburg who espoused the eponymous Warburg Effect. What has re-ignited interest in this theory is that contemporaneously with the rise in sugar/carbohydrate consumption since the 1970s, the rate of cancers has increased in tandem. Unknown in traditional and primitive societies such as the Inuits some 100 years ago, with the change in their diet to a western style diet, cancer has become one of the leading causes of death in these societies. In the light of this correlation, does the Metabolic Model of Cancer deserve another investigation?

The rate at which the prevalence of cancer is affecting society – already one in every two men and one in every three women will suffer from it. With the current rate of increase being 3%, shortly almost everybody will be afflicted.

Main picture: Dr Otto Warburg, the Nobel Laureate who discovered aerobic glycolysis

Continue reading

Life is Not Fair

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs, Opinion Pieces 3 Comments

This weekend Dianne Kohler Barnard must be rueing the fact that she retweeted a post by Paul Kirk. During the same week, Pravin Gordhan the ex-Finance Minister was accused of being aware that a rogue intelligence unit was operating within SARS during his tenure. This week also saw Riah Phiyega being lambasted after the release of the annual crime statistics. What about the Hitachi imbroglio? Of these which will generate the most controversy?

Today Pravin Gordhan is a senior figure within the ANC government serving as Minister of Cooperative Governance. His tenure as head of SARS can be characterised as highly successful. Unlike similar government departments after 1994, it flourished becoming more effective whereas the rest degenerated into incompetence as ANC cadres were deployed into them. The level of compliance steadily increased as their systems and procedures were streamlined and improved.

Main picture: Dianne Kohler Barnard

Continue reading

What was VW Thinking?

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs 2 Comments

In a democratic society, secrets and malfeasance are exposed at lightning speed. As such, the more influential and well-known an institution is in society today, the higher the standards bar is set. Any failure in this regard will have catastrophic world-wide implications. Think no further than the disaster at Bhophal of a subsidiary of Union Carbide. It would have been pointless for Union Carbide to insist that the safety standards at this plant complied with the local Indian Standards when the standards required in America would have prevented such a tragedy.

Notice what happened in South Africa when KFC was allegedly caught on video “recycling” burnt chicken. Would the same backlash have been experienced if the Take Away Joint had been McCleland’s Luscious Fried Chicken? I doubt it. Perhaps a few lines, if that, in a local newspaper but little else besides.

Continue reading

Was Sir Edmund Hillary the first person to summit Mount Everest?

By Dean McCleland in History, Other Miscellaneous Topics 0 Comment

Arguably for the contrarians, Tenzing Norgay was the first. The facile explanation would be something along the lines of because he led the way or he only stepped aside at the last moment so that Edmund Hillary, the New Zealand beekeeper, could overtake him in order to summit first. What is not factored into this superficial comment is that without Hillary’s finance, determination & wherewithal Tenzing would never have set foot upon the summit. Aside from Tenzing could there indeed have been an earlier person?

Even though the Tibetans & Nepalese had occupied the area adjacent to Chomolungma or Sagarmāthā, as they respectively called Mount Everest for millennia, both are unlikely candidates for two very cogent reasons: technological and religious aside from the fact that Tenzing Norgay had already attempted the climb six times previously and failed. The technological reason is that the majority of climbers require bottled oxygen in order to climb the last 3000 feet. A number of people have attempted a natural climb but that is an extreme rarity even for Sherpas. Even with supplementary oxygen, the average climber is at the limit of their oxygen endurance.

Main picture: Conrad Anker climbing Everest

Continue reading

The Fate of Abandoned Artefacts of Civilisation

By Dean McCleland in Other Galleries 0 Comment

For the most part, mankind’s artefacts are neither durable nor resilient. Left to the elements most man-made objects would have been reduced to their original elements within a century. Even such ancient memorials of a past civilisation such as pyramids and the Sphinx will be reduced to dust within 10 millennia.

Needless to say, it is not merely the dispassionate elements and nature which inexorably destroy man-made artefacts but there is also the intentional laying waste to artefacts of one’s rivals whether political, social or religious.

Main picture: A bridge made out of an abandoned train carriage
Continue reading

Children’s Antics which make their Parents Apoplectic

By Dean McCleland in Other Galleries 0 Comment

Why is it that some kids just have the knack of doing the wrong thing whether it is regarding their room’s walls as a blackboard or attempting to climb into places which they shouldn’t like the toilet. Often it is the family’s animals that are the object of their naughtiness? Whatever it is, at least 10% of children will be egregious offenders whereas the other 90% will be model responsible children. As such they will never be a burden on their parents.

Dream on.

Main picture: Clearly this little boy knows that scibbling on the wall and “colouring-in” the dog were verboten, yet he did it. Why? Is this an indicator of a future delinquent or is it merely an example childhood naughtiness; a passing phase?

Continue reading

The Diet Paradox Part 1: Sugar

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs, Health 0 Comment

For some apparently unfathomable reason, in the Western world since the 1970s the average BMI of the population has spiralled upwards while simultaneously the level of dieting, consumption of diet food and amount of exercise performed, whether in the form of gyming or running, has skyrocketed. How is this possible? Was this sheer co-incidence or happenstance or are there, within the current dieting regime, prospective candidates as the culprit.

 The current suspect is sugar. Like a rabbit trapped in a car’s headlights its apologists and defenders such as the sugar water industry – read Coke – are supine but not immobile. With sugar taxes looming after New York City’s courageous imposition of this punitive measure recently, their muted rational response is quite credible.

Main picture: Will sugar take the mantle as the new tobacco over the next decade or is it being unfairly cast as the villain in the piece?
Continue reading

Photographs to Electrify a Curious Mind

By Dean McCleland in Other Galleries 0 Comment

So many questions never get answered. Not that one is incurious but life is too short or the answer is not readily available. Whatever the reason, one never finds out. Instead of the usual canon of photographs of stunning sunsets or virgin African bush populated with grazing animals, this is an unusual collection of eclectic photographs. Take time to ponder on each.

For instance I have always been fascinated with Mount Everest. For me it defies belief that people would want to climb it knowing that the risk of dying is 1 in 10 and that the risk of losing a digit or a limb is even higher at between 2 to 3 in 10. Yet, for all that, men in the hundreds will not be dissuaded by the deprivations of freezing cold, oxygen sparse altitude and precipitous climbs in order to satisfy an inner yearning, a life-long desire to conquer their fears and the mountain.

Main picture: Climbers ascending the highest mountain in the world and the greatest challenge in their lives

Continue reading

James Frey: A Remarkable Tale in Overcoming Addiction

By Dean McCleland in Books, Other Opinion Pieces 0 Comment

When Janine commanded me to read A Million Little Pieces about a recovering crack head, the remarkable story of James Frey’s battle against addiction, it was never on the short list of books that I would ever read. Never! Not even on the extended list. Firstly I mainly read history but mostly because who wants to read about the travails of a recovering addict. Being an instruction and not a request, to keep the peace in the McCleland household I reluctantly demurred to do as I was instructed. The fact that the book was classified as non-fiction and had been highly recommended by Oprah Winfrey in 2003 as the best book on the subject swayed me slightly as well as the fact that I would be reading my first book on a Kindle.

For the English purists like me, it was quite a revelation. The earthy raw language often without punctuation and with arcane repetition of words is child-like and puerile but it is precisely this debased language by James Frey which brings the story to life. The depravity and the lengths to which an addict will sink in order to obtain their next fix, is evocatively expressed in this cacophony and kaleidoscope of sounds and words all intermingled.

Continue reading

Are the South African Police trustworthy and are they professional?

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs 0 Comment

The recent riots in Etatwa on the far East Rand have brought this question into sharp focus. I was always under the belief that this was a largely white perception. But after listening to [black] listeners phoning into 702 Talk Radio with their experiences, I have comprehensively been disabused of that notion. What has led to this sharp decline in standards and professionalism over the past ten years?

One measure of professionalism is the level of tolerance for corruption within the police force. On this measure, the police score abysmally. Part of the problem was the disbanding of the police’s independent anti-corruption units and placing full responsibility in the hands of the Station Commander. While this might work in a first world environment, within a third culture like South Africa this is a recipe for disaster as has been proved. This arises for two reasons. What happens when the Station Commander is complicit in criminal activity himself/herself but more importantly threatened with death if disciplinary action is taken.

Main picture: They prowl the empty streets by night…… drinking, eating… Our ever-vigilant Police Force in the New South Africa snapped during a refuelling session.

Continue reading