Reduced Calorie Diet & Body Mass Index

Reduced-calorie diets seem to help diminish body weight. Sacks and others (2009) report in the New England Journal of Medicine (360:859-873) that eating reduced-calorie meals with differing allotments of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins helped 645 overweight adult men and women, who stringently dieted for two years, lose on average 4 kg (roughly 9 pounds). The findings caught the attention of the national media. Tara Parker-Pope filed a report on them in her column Well for The New York Times already yesterday evening. CNN's Madison Park posted a detailed report about the study today.

The participants of the study conducted at Harvard University and Louisiana State University had body mass indexes between 25 to 40. Body mass index (BMI) was calculated dividing the weight in kilograms by the square of the height in meters (see attached converter). Diets low and high in fat and protein were personalized to provide 750 kcal less per day than the baseline expenditure determined for each person.

Statistical analysis showed that all diets tested diminished body weight noticeably, though not statistically significantly. The various types of diet did not differ significantly in the diminution of body weight. However, encouragement with counseling reinforced weight loss. More persistent encouragement, in particular the addition of physical activity regimens, could have enhanced the observed small differences in effect.

Using the converter below, you may convert your body weight [pounds] and body height [inches] into metric dimensions according to the Système International by entering the appropriate values in the blue boxes and clicking on the green boxes. If you use metric measures, just enter your data in the green boxes. Subsequently, clicking on the body mass index button calculates this value.

[in] :	[cm]:
[lbs]:	[kg] :
	BMI_:

© You may donate for further development through PayPalhere. The converter is available for MySpace users under the App name YourBMItoday.

Addenda

• Keith Devlin discusses ten reasons why BMI may constitute an unrealistic indicator of obesity in an segment broadcast on yesterday's Weekend Edition of National Public Radio (05/07/09).
• According to Will Dunam's post on Reuters dated May 3, 2009, reduced-calorie diets promote longevity possibly through the expression of pha-4 related genes, the products of which are  involved in the balancing of blood sugar (07/14/09).
• Nicholas Wade reports in his post for The New York Times, dated Jul. 9, 2008, on results of a longitudinal research study with rhesus monkeys (Coleman and others, 2009), suggesting that reduced-calorie dieting extends average lifespan  (07/16/09).
• Alex Witchel's article for The New York Times posted Oct. 6, 2009, describes the preliminary results of the first scientifically controlled studies using restricted diets on participants of normal weight. The imposed dietary regimens may be difficult to adhere to, once we are left to our own whim. The studies have not advanced to that point yet. Perhaps, the most insightful result to date is the notion that keeping track of our food intake in a conscientious effort helps (10/09/09).
• The discussion below gave me pause. It would be great, if this example of weight control were the result of pure self discipline (10/16/09):

• On Mar. 4, 2010, Maggie Fox posted a report with the title "Your best diet? It might be in your genes" on a recent study uncovering variations in the genes ADRB2, FABP2, and PPARG that may play a crucial role in the efficacy of diet types. The products of these genes are proteins that influence the secretion of insulin from the pancreas (ADRB2), facilitate fatty acid metabolism, (FABP2), and regulate fatty acid storage and glucose metabolism (PPARG). The study was presented at the American Heart Association's Joint Conference - 50^th Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention - and - Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism - 2010, held in San Francisco last week (Dopler Nelson and others, 2010). The results of the study are based on the examination of 140 overweight women. Four diets were randomly assigned to the participants: Atkins (low in carbohydrates), LEARN (extremely low in fat), Ornish (low in fat), and Zone (balanced). Personal genetic profiles were analyzed in roughly 100 participants, using an assay available from Interleukin Genetics Inc. Over one year, participants with the diet matching their genetic profile lost twice the body weight (5.3 precent) than the participants on mismatched diets (2.3 percent). Note that people on restricted calorie diets lose about 10 percent in the same time span (03/07/10).
• Our body mass index is supposed to range between 18.5 and 24.9 to keep us healthy. Kathrine Rosman provides some interesting facts for the benefits of a little more weight in her Wall Street Journal post with the title "A Case for Those Extra 10 Pounds" two days ago. A few more pounds seem okay, as long as they are not visceral. That's my snag (04/29/10)!
• According to Gautam Naik's post entitled "Gene Curtails Alzheimer's in Mice" on The Wall Street Journal today, Guarente and others (2010) provide evidence that sirtuin 1, the product of the gene SIRT1, the expression of which is induced by reduced-calorie diets, helps prevent the formation of amyloid plaques and memory loss in a mouse model for inheritable Alzheimer's disease (AD). AD mice that had additional SIRT1 inserted into their genome showed the positive results, wheras AD mice that had SIRT1 knocked out off their genome deteriorated extraordinarily fast (07/22/10).
• Rick Wilking provides as with a gallery of slides published online on Reuters yesterday with the title "Big U.S." documenting obesity in America. We may wish to consult the BMI table on slide #33. As long as our BMI is in the white part of the table, we are fine (10/09/10).
• Bruce Grierson informs us in his astounding essay with the title "The Incredibly Flying Nonagenarian" published online in The New York Times today about the achievements of athletes at advanced age, the physiological and genetic basis underlying such incredible performance, and the beneficial effects of physical fitness. Persistent physical exercise routines may slow aging, because the more efficient use of calories may stem the degradation of genes involved in tissue regeneration, enhancing and preserving our physical potential. Watch Olga Kotelko at age 91 (11/25/10):

• According to this Reuters chart with the title "Obesity" published online Dec. 9, 2010, BMI statistics suggest that Italians and French are less overweight than U.S. Americans and Germans. Must be the food (12/16/10)!
• Remaining focused on a regimen of diet and exercise over the long haul is difficult for most. Applications like the SlimKicker may provide helpful support in a playful way (04/20/12).
  
• Excess body weight has reached national proportions. According to Linda Wertheimer's interview with Dr. Ian Roberts at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine with the title "Study: Fat People Burden Earth's Resources" aired on National Public Radio's Morning Edition today, the U.S. is adding the equivalent of more than one billion people in overweight to the Earth's population (06/20/2012).
• According to the latest results of a long-term study with rhesus monkeys conducted by the US National Institute of Aging (NIA) intramural program (Mattison and others, 2012), a reduced calorie diet did not extend life. The difference in outcome compared with the study of Colman and others (2009) may lie in study design. The control monkeys in that study were allowed to indulge in as much food as they could eat, whereas the food supply for the control monkeys in the NIA study was limited (09/29/2012). 

References

• Colman RJ, Anderson RM, Johnson SC, Kastman EK, Kosmatka KJ, Beasley TM, Allison DB, Cruzen C, Simmons HA, Kemnitz JW, Weindruch R (2009) Caloric restriction delays disease onset and mortality in rhesus monkeys. Science 325:201-204.
• Donmez G, Wang D, Cohen DE, Guarente L (2010) SIRT1 Suppresses β-Amyloid Production by Activating the α-Secretase Gene ADAM10. Cell 142:320-332
• Mattison JA, Roth GS, Beasley TM, Tilmont EM, Handy AM, Herbert RL, Longo DL, Allison DB, Young JE, Bryant M, Barnard D, Ward WF, Qi W, Ingram DK, de Cabo R (2012) Impact of caloric restriction on health and survival in rhesus monkeys from the NIA study. Nature doi:10.1038/nature11432.

Secure Virtual Network Computing

With the ever increasing speed of internet data transfer, virtual network computing (VNC) has become a viable alternative to stand alone work stations with duplicate software installations. VNC enables users to access the desktop of a work station remotely via the internet through a slim client computer for the processing of data with heavy-weight applications. Commonly, a window server application needs to be installed on the work station and a viewer application needs to be installed on the client computer to display the work station's desktop. Once the client is connected to the server, the user can work on the server like on any other desktop. Modern VNC versions even allow drag-and-drop file transfer between client and server.

Commercial VNC software is available for Linux/Unix, Microsoft Windows, and Apple's OS X operating systems (e.g. RealVNC). Apple provides simple remote desktop connectivity for its computers in Leopard (ARD 3.2). Redstone Software offers only the Vine 3.0 server for OS X (formerly OSXvnc) free and charges for a sophisticated server/client combination with which you can drag and drop files. However, Chicken of the VNC can be used for viewing on OS X as a free complement to the Vine server.

A great advantage of VNC is that the connectivity between client and server is platform-independent. Their operating systems need not be identical. I currently use TightVNC. TightVNC is an award-winning open source project offering a highly functional package for UNIX- and Microsoft Windows-based operating systems. I installed the server on a computer running Microsoft Windows XP-64. I view the desktop on a machine running Ubuntu 8.10 or on Apple computers running OS X. TightVNC comes with a platform-independent, Java-based viewer that can be used as stand-alone application, provided the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) is installed. JRE is included with OS X and can be easily installed with the Synaptic Package Manager on Ubuntu. In addition, a viewer applet can be accessed on the server through the browser. The latter option does not require any install on the client.

VNC connections commonly use ports with numbers equal to or greater than 5900. The last digits identify the display number. The user needs to register a user account with username and password on the server. The regular login dialog is unencrypted, rendering the server vulnerable to break-ins. This hazard is perhaps tolerable on a local network protected by a firewall. However, if the server is slated to be accessible over the internet at large, unencrypted login exposes the server to excessive risk. Remote login to the server through a secure shell with RSA encryption is preferable and SSH protocols provide this option.

SSH encryption is fairly safe, particularly when passphrase encryption is employed. As additional precaution, the administrator may wish to ascertain that root login is disabled in the SSH configuration script. I once made the mistake to administer a computer with superuser privileges choosing a common English noun as password. I did not know that root was enabled by default as username on port 22 in the SSH configuration script. It took some miscreant five years to guess the password, turning my machine into a reflector for evil data transfer, until the gate keepers found out about it. To preempt complications of this nature in the future, I use sudo these days, if I need to execute commands with superuser privileges.

Remote login to a VNC server from a VNC viewer with SSH entails two steps: first the connection to the VNC server needs to be successfully established via the SSH protocol, and then the viewer has to be opened using the connection. I developed a Java-based application on the intel architecture from open sources for Apple's OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and 10.5 (Leopard) that achieves this goal in a convenient amalgamated process. This sVNC client combines jcraft's SSH login with the TightVNC viewer.

If you like to use the sVNC client, you may wish to download the zipped folder containing the application bundle with a click on the logo on the left (trademark application #77642277, pending). Copy the application to a folder of your preference. Double-click on the application's icon to launch the SSH dialog. You are asked to enter your username @ the VNC server identified by name or IP address. Subsequently, you need to provide a listening port:host:remote port combination, specifying the local host and the ports for the displays. Commonly, you can use the default combination 5900:127.0.0.1:5900. This combination specifies the host and serves from and to displays with the number 0.  If the VNC server uses a different display number, e.g. display 1, change the first number to 5901. If you wish to use a different display on your home computer, you need to change the last number accordingly. There is no need to change the address for the local host.

After you provided this information, the SSH dialog generates RSA keys. Your consent is needed. You must enter your password for the VNC server. The connection is attempted. In case of success, you need to provide your password once more for the VNC viewer, the display of the remote desktop should pop up, and you are ready to go. The configuration options to the viewer can be found in the README file included with the application in the zipped folder.

The client works well for me. If the remote desktop seems unresponsive to clicks, hit the refresh button on the viewer's top panel. The viewer may crash when the server is accessed in a sleep state. Do not be discouraged. The viewer will work on the second attempt. I hope sVNC will be useful to you.

2.5-inch Hard Drive Enclosures: A Journey

Hard drives have become small theses days. I needed a handy external storage device for travels with the laptop. After considering enclosure size and prize range, I opted for a Hitachi TravelStar 200GB 2.5-inch hard drive and sought the enclosure, separately. The latter turned into an adventure.

I looked up enclosures with USB-2.0 connectivity. USB cable and a protective pouch are usually included. The first I ordered from an internet retailer of national renown had a nice steel case and the option to power it with a separate supply that was not included. It cost $30.- and came with a hefty rebate offer. I never received the rebate, because the rebate center did not accept the only proves of purchase I had, that is copies of the order confirmation and the packing slip. You will not see advertisements of this retailer on my sites.

Installation of the hard drive into this enclosure was simple. You had to remove a tiny lock-down screw on each long side, pull out the front of the enclosure with the USB interface, attach the drive to the connector, slip the assembly into the case, and re-secure the front with the screws. Sadly, the drive would not start up.

The next enclosure I bought cost only $10.-. No rebates were involved. Installation was simple. Again, the front needed to be pulled out of from the case, and the drive had to be connected. This time no screws were needed. The drive was supposed to be powered by the USB connection. To my frustration, the drive attempted to start up with plenty of clicks, but did not succeed. What was the problem?

I did not read the specifications in the extended description of the enclosure. Apparently, the USB interfaces of some SATA drive enclosures are limited in the storage size of the drive they can handle. This limitation is not related to the price. I eventually found a suitable enclosure that red.populus offered on ebay for $11.-, shipping and handling included.

The top and bottom shells of Dragonext's USB-2-0 2.5-inch SATA external hard drive case must be slid backward to open the enclosure. The drive must be connected to the interface and secured with four screws to a bottom plate, and top and bottom shells are slid forward over the drive until they snap into the front. Once connected to the computer with the included cable, the drive started up without complaint.

The cable is special in that it sports two USB connectors on the computer-side; one for power and one for data. Taking up two USB connections may seem a nuisance, but constitutes a small inconvenience for a functional case that does not need a separate power supply.

Of course, if you choose to avoid any hassle and are looking for a drive that is more sturdy and extravagant, but bulkier, you may opt for the product below: