My twins couldn’t bear the sound of me eating lunch. Now we know why

When the scientific research backs one’s hunches, when the data strongly suggests that one is on the right side of history in a  family argument, it’s always encouraging, a morale-booster. So I was delighted to read on Friday morning of a report published in Biology Today of research conducted by a team of neurologists at Newcastle University confirming that misophonia does exist. It is that acme of modernity, a thing.

Misophonia, hatred of sound, is a 21st-century ailment, the term first being used by audiologists Pawel and Margaret Jastreboff in a paper in 2000. And it is a modern condition which caused no end of aggravation in my attempts to host a family meal in the new millennium. When our twins, Daisy and Freddie, were in their early teens, the serving of, say, Sunday lunch would be quickly followed by first Daisy – and, often swiftly thereafter, her brother – running screaming from the dining room.

In any list of parenting rules “the family that eats together stays together” is usually in the top five, often on the podium. It provides a reliable, and easy, chapter for the “how to parent” practitioner and reams have been written on the subject. With luck, Dr Sukhbinder Kumar’s report might give them reason to pause.

It certainly provides some solace for those of us whose attempts at starting, let alone completing, a Sunday roast for all the family unravelled – as they used to in our household – with the twins, heads in hands, attempting to evade the cacophony of sound allegedly emanating from my whereabouts as I attempted to complete my first mouthful of chicken.

A ridiculous state of affairs which made for, quite simply, impossible eating conditions and which chipped away at my fragile confidence in my cheffing abilities. No one wants the food they serve up to cause so much, and such evident, physical pain. Sunday lunch is meant to be a convivial affair.

But so it goes. All I was trying to do was serve up a roast chicken for my family, the minimum anyone can demand as their lot in life. But, at its most extreme, simple plating up was sufficient to trigger the twins’ misophonia. The mere prospect of my eating sometime in the near future being more than sufficient for at least one of them to get the hell out of Dodge. And while the twins being absent was preferable to them being present and in pain, the whole palaver was sufficient to render me incapable of eating.

Ninety-three per cent of people who were suffering from it claimed that eating, breathing and chewing were the trigger

Dr Sukhbinder Kumar

They had effectively neutralised what made them anxious, but the anxiety induced by the threat of what had been neutralised was so great that they were incapable of hanging around for long enough to discover that they had nothing to fear any more.

The fear of fear itself was so strong as to prevent them discovering that they had nothing to fear … but the fear of fear itself … of course. And so the mind goes.

Things are much better now that the twins are in their twenties. We merrily have Sunday lunch in front of the telly, watching MasterChef on the iPlayer, plates on our laps. A complete no-no in the parenting manual maybe, but it works for us. Watching other people cooking distracts from any gannet-style sounds that may, or may not, be being made by certain people eating.

Kumar sees further improvements to come. “In my laboratory we are interested in how the brain processes emotions, particularly from sound,” the doctor tells me as his findings are published.

“We started with a study published in 2012 in the Journal of Neuroscience into harsh sounds – like chalk on a blackboard – and recorded the subsequent brain activity in 15 or so people.”

The results were unexceptional: an unpleasant sound sounds unpleasant. It was the response that was interesting, because a swath of people contacted Kumar to ask him if he had also investigated the effect of eating and breathing and chewing. All of which are prime triggers for misophonia.

“My laboratory is headed by Professor Tim Griffiths, who is also a neurologist,” says Kumar. “So as a first step we invited a group of four people to attend the clinic he runs. After the interviews, we were really surprised to see how homogeneous the symptoms were and how similar were the triggers.”

They investigated further. “Ninety-three per cent of people who were suffering from it claimed that eating, breathing and chewing were the trigger, and anger and anxiety the dominating emotion triggered,” Kumar says.

For the misophoniac, someone eating can cause an intense fight-or-flight feeling. With hindsight, I can be grateful that one or other or both of the twins didn’t stave my head in as I was concentrating on my chicken rather than run screaming from the room.

Kumar carried out his tests and the results revealed that “the average age when people notice their symptoms is 12 and it tends to start with the focus on a particular family member, perhaps a daughter with her father, and then gradually expands to other people. It is not the loudness of the sound per se which is the trigger, but the way in which the sounds are interpreted and the meaning attached to them. It is the perception of the sound rather than the sound itself.”

The science is in. Bingo! I am not a gannet.

And, double bingo, neither of the twins’ misophonia is particularly acute, in that it hasn’t expanded to that many other people. They can, for instance, sit happily opposite a boyfriend/girlfriend open-mouthedly chomping away without flinching. Not all misophoniacs are so fortunate. Some cannot even go into work, so great is the distress caused by the trigger sounds that they might encounter. Others cannot go to the cinema for fear that, in the dark, someone might crack open the popcorn. They have no option but to see unpopular films at unpopular times.

They will be relieved, however, that their anxiety has a physical base, that it is caused by abnormal connections between this frontal lobe area and an area called the anterior insular cortex, which means that for sufferers a sound is amplified in both, whereas for others any increase in activity in the anterior insular cortex is balanced by a diminution in the frontal lobe.

“A lot of people will remain sceptical”, says Kumar, “but our data will help convince people that something real is happening in the brain.”

The next steps are to discover the exact nature of the activity being produced and to search for possible therapeutic cures. At present the misophoniac has to self-medicate via canny use of headphones or evasive action. God knows what they did before Sony Walkmans.

All data, of course, is double-edged and Kumar’s findings may well be taken advantage of by the nation’s gannets. There are people who cannot eat softly. And as lunch has moved, depressingly and relentlessly, from El Vino’s to El Desko, some think it socially acceptable to hover over their Tupperware – nearly always containing tuna – making the most godawful sounds. They now have an out: “Nah, mate, I think you’ll find it’s you that’s got the problem. Seriously, have you thought about seeing someone about your misophonia?”

MORE UNUSUAL SYNDROMES

Paris syndrome
A form of depression that affects some visitors to Paris. It is most noted among Japanese tourists, who arrive with a romantic view of the city, only to find it does not meet their expectations and that Parisians can be rude. In 2006 the BBC reported a dozen or so Japanese people having to be repatriated each year as a result of delusional states and depression caused by Paris syndrome.

Alien hand syndrome
Individuals experience sensation in both hands, but find one of them (usually the left) acting of its own accord. The syndrome can happen after brain surgery or a stroke. The “alien” hand can do complex tasks: undo buttons or remove clothes. Some individuals have been slapped or punched by their own hand.

Alice in Wonderland (Todd’s) syndrome
This condition, which sufferers usually grow out of in their teens, distorts perceptions, making objects or parts of the body appear smaller or larger than they are. Episodes normally last less than an hour.

Jerusalem syndrome
Visitors to the city experience religious delusions, such as the belief that they are a Bible character. In one case an Irish teacher arrived at a Jerusalem hospital convinced she was about to give birth to Jesus, when she was not even pregnant. The phenomenon can affect individuals of various religious backgrounds, but they normally recover after leaving the city.

Glass delusions
Sufferers believe they are made of glass and at risk of shattering. It was common in the 17th century, when clear glass was new and considered magical, but there are still rare cases today.

Foreign accent syndrome
Individuals suddenly find their voice taking on a foreign accent, usually as a result of a stroke. Between 1941 and 2009 there were 62 recorded cases.
Rebecca Ratcliffe

My twins couldn’t bear the sound of me eating lunch. Now we know why

The New York Occasions Meals Author Who Is Always Out To Lunch

Does New York Occasions meals writer Mark Bittman get anything right?  I doubt it.  I after tried his recipe for challenging-boiled eggs and the yolks have been runny.

I ate the eggs anyway, but Bittman’s pronouncements about policy are significantly less palatable, and I’m afraid that some credulous readers really swallow them.  His latest commentary, “Leave Natural Out of It,” is yet another hash of uninformed opinions and misinformation.

It is tedious to deconstruct a Bittman column simply because there is constantly so much incorrect with it, but let’s deal with a number of misapprehensions and misrepresentations.

O  Bittman does seem to be to have backed down from his rabid antagonism toward crops genetically engineered with the most present day, precise and predictable tactics.  He now concedes grudgingly that they “are probably harmless” and that “the engineering itself is not even a little bit nervous making.”  (This building, from a skilled wordsmith?)  In reality, right after far more than four billion acres planted around the world and far more than 3 trillion meals containing genetically engineered substances consumed in North America alone, there has not been a single ecosystem disrupted or a tummy ache confirmed.  (Couldn’t we get rid of the probably, Mark?)

Leading: Lesser cornstalk borer larvae extensively damaged the leaves of this unprotected peanut plant. (Picture Number K8664-2)-Photograph by Herb Pilcher. Bottom: Following only a number of bites of peanut leaves of this genetically engineered plant (containing the genes of the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) bacteria), this lesser cornstalk borer larva crawled off the leaf and died. (Picture Quantity K8664-1)-Photo by Herb Pilcher. (Photograph credit score: Wikipedia)

O  “[T]o date G.M.O.’s [genetically modified organisms] have been utilized by companies like Monsanto to maximize revenue and more getting rid of [sic] the accumulated knowledge of generations of farmers from agriculture.”  And how, specifically, is this distinct from the organizations that make implements like tractors, combines and farm-management software, that have modernized farming practices and produced them a lot more worthwhile?

O  Large agribusiness companies using the new methods “have not been effective in moving sustainable agriculture forward (which is related since that was their claim).”  The evidence argues otherwise.  By enhancing weed manage and decreasing the want for plowing, genetically engineered herbicide-tolerant crops allow a lot of farmers to adopt and maintain no- or reduced-tillage manufacturing programs, which final results in important reductions in greenhouse gasoline emissions.

According to a current complete examination, “Based on cost savings arising from the quick adoption of no-till/reduced tillage farming systems in North and South America, an further six,706 million kg of soil carbon is estimated to have been sequestered in 2012 (equivalent to 24,613 million tonnes of carbon dioxide that has not been launched into the global atmosphere).”

Equally essential, the higher yields and drought resistance of some genetically engineered crops make them a lot more sustainable than standard crops and, particularly, than organically grown ones.  As discussed under, natural agriculture is the scourge of sustainability.

O  Bittman retreats into the deepest, darkest recesses of his parallel universe with his allusion to the “intensive and nearly unregulated use of…agricultural chemical compounds.”  In reality, agricultural chemical substances are subject to some of the most stultifying, burdensome, expansive and high-priced regulation on the planet, courtesy of the relentlessly risk-averse Environmental Safety Agency.  (Isn’t there an editor who reads Bittman’s copy prior to it’s published?)

Lastly, we come to Bittman’s continuing slavish and uncritical devotion to natural agriculture: “Eating natural meals is unquestionably a greater choice than consuming nonorganic foods at this point, even so, it’s a privilege” [italics in unique].  That is unquestionably nothing at all a lot more than silly, sentimental twaddle, specifically in see of a 2012 research by researchers at Stanford University’s Center for Health Policy published in the Annals of Internal Medication.  They carried out a meta-examination in which outcomes from the scientific literature had been combined.  Data from 237 studies were aggregated and analyzed to figure out whether or not organic foods are safer or more healthy than non-organic meals.  The researchers concluded that fruits and veggies that met the criteria for “organic” have been on regular no much more nutritious than their far less costly traditional counterparts, nor had been people meals much less most likely to be contaminated by pathogenic bacteria like E. coli or Salmonella.  In addition, even though non-natural fruits and veggies did have higher pesticide residues, a lot more than 99 % of the time the amounts were beneath the permissible, extremely conservative safety limits set by federal regulators.

Bittman’s phobia about chemical pesticides in agriculture is so, well, jejune.  The huge bulk of pesticidal substances that we consume occur in our diet plans “naturally,” and they are existing in natural foods as nicely as conventional ones.  In a landmark investigation post published in the Proceedings of the Nationwide Academy of Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, biochemist Bruce Ames and his colleagues discovered that “99.99 % (by excess weight) of the pesticides in the American diet regime are chemical compounds that plants make to defend themselves.  Only 52 natural pesticides have been examined in substantial-dose animal cancer exams, and about half (27) are rodent carcinogens these 27 are shown to be current in many widespread food items.”

The bottom line of Ames’ experiments: “Natural and synthetic chemical compounds are equally very likely to be positive in animal cancer exams.  We also conclude that at the reduced doses of most human exposures the comparative hazards of synthetic pesticide residues are insignificant.”

In other phrases, consumers who purchase overpriced natural meals in buy to steer clear of pesticide publicity are focusing their focus on .01% of the pesticides they consume.

Contrary to Bittman’s views, if you care about the atmosphere, eating organic food is much more of a sacrilege than a privilege.  Natural farms generate far much less foods per unit of land and water than conventional ones.  The reduced yields of organic agriculture — normally 20%-50% lower than conventional agriculture — impose different stresses on farmland and especially on water consumption.

The New York Occasions Meals Author Who Is Always Out To Lunch

Pupils must remain indoors at lunch to steer clear of smog, says United kingdom government adviser

The skyscrapers of the Canary Wharf spot in London shrouded in smog. Photograph: Matt Dunham/AP

Schools in locations affected by serious air pollution ought to preserve pupils indoors at lunchtime to steer clear of them struggling asthma attacks and possibly lifelong lung injury, a key government adviser is urging.

Prof Frank Kelly mentioned children need to be stopped from employing the playground in the course of school hrs to minimize their exposure to the smog that is affecting south-east England and is expected to spread to the Midlands and East Anglia.

Kelly is the chair of the Division of Health’s Committee on the Health care Effects of Air Pollution and a member of the Department for Atmosphere, Food and Rural Affairs’s Air Good quality Specialist Group.

His tips comes soon after some colleges in the capital made a decision to maintain their pupils indoors on Wednesday as a precaution.

Asked if that was sensible, Kelly informed the Guardian: “As a common response this is a good approach as young children tend to run around outdoors and as a result breathe deeper. Therefore on days like this they will be inspiring a good deal a lot more pollution if outside than when they are breathing typically (hopefully) inside.”

The policy should apply to morning and afternoon breaks, as nicely as lunchtime, Kelly explained. “Tips would be the very same for breaktimes if pollution levels were elevated at the school area.”

Pupils with asthma might require to resort to their inhalers, although people with other breathing conditions could suffer serious harm if exposed to the higher level of pollution currently being noticed in London, Kelly warned.

“Besides those young children whose asthma may possibly be exacerbated by pollution and who would then need to have to improve their medicine, the main situation is relevant to pollution publicity on a chronic basis as recent proof indicates that lung development is restricted. If there is no subsequent catch-up lung growth then this respiratory deficit is carried forward via existence,” he mentioned.

Bowes and Chesterfield major colleges in Enfield, north London, kept children within on Wednesday. “When colleges are faced with circumstances like these we have to determine what is very best for children. In the absence of any formal guidance from government we made a decision to preserve youngsters inside today as a precaution,” stated Tom Sheldon, chair of governors at both schools.

“But we cannot do this forever, and in London we face the much wider issue of poor air high quality each day. The Saharan dust will pass, but London will proceed to fail its citizens on air quality. Children’s establishing lungs are at specific risk, the two prolonged- and brief-term.

“We urgently want an intensive programme of pollution reduction in the capital.”

Leanne Stewart’s son George suffered an asthma attack throughout his half-mile walk to college in Eltham, south-east London, on Wednesday morning.

“It truly is usually fairly an easy walk but I am nevertheless breathless now. I could come to feel my chest getting tighter and tighter and my son, who’s eight, had to quit and have his inhaler. I went light-headed and had to get a bus back. It truly is only half a mile and I generally do it twice a day, no difficulty,” mentioned Stewart.

“I have by no means had that difficulty just before. My son felt like the air wasn’t receiving into his lungs so I am worried about him these days, but I’ve just texted him and he explained he’s fine.”

Meanwhile, the British Lung Foundation urged men and women in affected places who cycle, walk or run to perform to steer clear of undertaking so at rush hour and to use backstreets if feasible, and for folks with lung problems such as asthma to stay away from doing strenuous physical exercise outside.

“Heavy air pollution, of the variety we’re seeing in many places across the Uk at the second, can have a substantial influence on men and women with pre-current respiratory conditions this kind of COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease] and asthma, worsening signs such as coughing and breathlessness,” explained Dr Keith Prowse, the charity’s honorary health-related adviser.

“When ranges of air pollution are substantial, men and women with these problems, or any person else who finds themselves coughing or wheezing in times of higher pollution, must avoid strenuous workout outside, specifically close to pollution hotspots this kind of as occupied roads. If the option is accessible, working out in an air-conditioned gymnasium or sports activities hall is preferable.”

Prowse extra: “If they cycle, run or stroll to work, commuting at instances other than rush hour or along back streets is also a good idea. People with lung circumstances who use a reliever inhaler should make positive that they carry it with them. If they truly feel their condition is worsening at all, they ought to make contact with their GP.”

Pupils must remain indoors at lunch to steer clear of smog, says United kingdom government adviser

College Lunch Film Says Unhealthy Cafeteria Fare Is Everyone"s Issue

In his new documentary Lunch Hour, director James Costa’s cri de coeur about college lunch is not accompanied by slaughterhouse footage worthy of Upton Sinclair—though offered schools’ dependence on so-known as “factory farms,” it surely could. As an alternative, some of its most unsettling visuals demonstrate a common fluorescent-lit day in the cafeteria, the place several little ones pass on the nutrition-bad offerings. Numerous U.S. colleges, his movie factors out, invest as small as 90 cents per meal.

That penny-pinching (in spite of federal subsidies) helps them meet budgets amid privatization of services and tight state budgets and that feat will get far more complicated by the day. But it comes at a steep price, specifically for the roughly 17 million children whose primary entry to meals is at college. Alternatively of green greens and balanced meals, they get mystery meat, fries, and an overwhelming sum of sugar and dairy. Tiny wonder, then, that the nation faces a spiraling

A scene from the new documentary ‘Lunch Hour’

epidemic of weight problems. “We have no budgets and no concern about what we’re pumping into our little ones, and we wonder why they really don’t like foods,” marvels Rachael Ray, 1 of the film’s notable speaking heads. “We dumbed down their palates.”

Rachael Ray, Tv host, entrepreneur and voice in the movie ‘Lunch Hour.’

Costa’s movie, which is out this month on iTunes and other streaming platforms, is riding a wave of interest in food that has brought books like Quick Food Nation, The Omnivore’s Dilemma and movies like Food Inc. to broad audiences. And it doesn’t have the college lunch group to itself. A fourth grader named Zachary Maxwell just lately produced a brief film, succinctly titled Yuck, about his lunchroom trials. A 2011 feature documentary, Lunch Line, examined the Nationwide School Lunch Plan.

Costa’s tack is exclusive, nevertheless, in that it does not seek to overwhelm with depressing stats or information (thought there are a lot) and it also foregrounds the ambiguity of a dilemma that has crept in with also-minor fanfare. A school principal frets about the ethics of educating little ones proper from wrong in the classroom and then serving up unhealthy and unappetizing meals. A medical doctor confesses to plying her little one with hot fudge sundaes when he was handled for a broken arm. And many of the speakers admit their personal culpability in the issue and the film, particularly in its cautiously hopeful 2nd half, diligently avoids turning out to be an activist polemic, even however Costa is a prominent figure in schooling circles. He is board chairman for the Hunt’s Point Alliance for Youngsters, which emphasizes collaborative relationships in neighborhoods and colleges.

“I did not want audiences to truly feel like they have no energy or they’re just overwhelmed,” the director informed me. “What I attempted to do is say, ‘I’m at fault, you are at fault. We just want to repair this.’ If you just start blaming folks, then nothing will get done.”

One frequent narrative in well-known culture is to demonize the cafeteria workers, but Lunch Hour makes the clear stage that they are a faulty target. “You actually can’t blame the lunch individuals. They are just provided these quite restricted substances to work with and an unrealistic fiscal target to hit.”

He stated the light bulb came on once he did the easy thing of visiting college cafeterias and having to pay focus to kids’ reactions and misgivings in excess of what’s on the tray – which gets to be a recurring motif in the film.

“It manufactured me so unhappy,” he explained. “The youngsters looked so unhappy going up there. I just started asking yourself, ‘what are we saying when we give children food that looks like that?’”

Very first Lady Michelle Obama functions with little ones from Washington’s Bancroft Elementary School to break ground for a White House garden. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Initial Lady Michelle Obama has had similar queries, and has garnered help but also accusations of nanny-ism just by planting an natural garden outdoors the White House.

“The status quo likes every little thing precisely how it is,” Costa says. “It’s big business performing school lunch. When men and women assault her for being the food police, they are really just safeguarding the status quo, which is one thing we cannot do any longer.”

College Lunch Film Says Unhealthy Cafeteria Fare Is Everyone"s Issue