[JustTheNews] Today’s business software across industries typically includes varying levels of AI, often occurring automatically, like phrasing and grammar suggestions in an email or word processing app.
#2
I wonder if the AI 'hallucinations' (made up references, data, names and history, just to name a few) occur in these platforms like they do in others?
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
09/02/2025 9:37 Comments ||
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#2
...Was it last year or '23 that got flooded to the point where the Instapundit referred to it as 'the long awaited mashup of Woodstock and Stalingrad"?
#5
^A valid point. No. What I meant was overall the reporting from the media about what happened at Burning Man 2023 was inaccurate and sensationalist. It was not like a cross between Woodstock and Stalingrad. It was thousands of basically responsible adults camping in place until the rain stopped, the sun came out, and the playa dried out enough to be walked and driven on. The festival then continued.
Meanwhile, a couple thousand celebrities and social media influencers freaked out when they suddenly realized they were actually camping instead of attending a particularly large rave in a warehouse in Oakland. And when you're camping sometimes nature throws you curve balls that are beyond your control.
As far as the video above goes: it happens. Law enforcement sometimes has to figure out the details of a crime in situations where everyone they are interacting with has been stoned for days and aren't particularly cooperative. Wouldn't be like this with my group. But we're old, wiser, and don't argue with law enforcement. The lady getting arrested is just stupid and full of herself.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The US Navy's operation to search for the Titanic was a cover for a secret mission to search for the sunken American nuclear submarines Thresher and Scorpion in the Atlantic Ocean. Oceanographer Robert Ballard said this on September 1.
To mark the 40th anniversary of the Titanic's discovery, CNN has published an interview with the oceanographer who discovered the liner, which sank in 1912 at a depth of about 4,000 meters.
Ballard developed the Argo system in 1985, which broadcasts video from great depths. It was decided to use it to search for submarines, but the oceanographer convinced the leadership to allocate funds for finding the Titanic, and this became a cover for a military mission.
"Little did anyone know that the search for the Titanic was a cover for a top-secret military operation I was running as a naval intelligence officer. We didn't want the Soviets to know where the submarine was," Ballard said.
At the same time, the chances of finding the liner were small, since little time was allocated for this task. In addition, French specialists under the leadership of engineer Jean-Louis Michel were simultaneously searching for the ship. They had the latest and most complex ship sonar system.
The Americans were faster thanks to their tactics. Ballard realized that if a large liner had crashed, there would have been a lot of debris over a large area. He was not looking for a ship, but for a chain of sunken Titanic parts.
The oceanographer became the first person to visit the Titanic after the sinking that same year. He went down there in the submersible Alvin, finding preserved artifacts there: a child's doll, unsealed bottles of champagne, and silverware.
A cover story so successful that world + dog freaked out that the wretched Americans were going to corner the world's supply of undersea magnesium nodules and directly led to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The ensuing hubbub was quite amusing given that previously no one had given a poot about mining metals on the seafloor because it was just too damn deep to work.
The recovery of the Russian sub, Project Azorian to the CIA, is quite the tale. Nobody had marine salvage experience at 16,000 feet, so it was time to invent the Glomar Explorer. It mostly worked. The sub was raised kinda sorta intact but parts broke off during the lift and some of the lifting grapples failed.
The recovery was successful, even though they did not raise the submarine intact and at one point during the lift, a missile slid out of its tube and everyone had to stand around waiting until it hit bottom to see if they were going to die in a nuclear explosion.
#5
The 2020 Muse Entertainment documentary The Real Hunt for Red October claims that the story of Red October is based on the loss of Soviet submarine K-129, which was lost in 1968, and recovered by 1974's Project Azorian.Wikipedia
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/02/2025 17:27 Comments ||
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#6
^ Good point, Glenmore! Luckily, they managed to salvage Capt. Ramius.
[IsraelTimes] The terror group has adapted amid targeted assassinations and a prolonged war, enabling it to keep making strategic decisions; crucially, no viable alternative has emerged
In April, the IDF eliminated the same Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... official three times.
That month, Israeli troops announced that they had killed the terror group’s battalion commander in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... City. A new Hamas operative replaced that fallen officer, only for the military to then assassinate him. When a third fighter took the position, Israel killed that man as well before the end of the month.
In total, since October 7, 2023, seven Hamas operatives have held the title of Shejaiya battalion commander. Six have been eliminated. The latest gunman leading the unit is presumably living on borrowed time, with Israel ramping up its offensive in the city.
The repeated operations in Shejaiya, historically a fierce urban battlefield for Israeli troops, exemplify how, over the past almost two years of fighting in Gaza, the IDF has repeatedly taken out Hamas functionaries — key leaders and numerous brigade and battalion commanders within the group’s military wing — only to see new ones take their place.
The steady drumbeat of high-profile killings, a core element of Israel’s declared war goal of destroying Hamas and ensuring it cannot revive, has put unprecedented strain on the terror group. In addition to lower-level officers, Israel has eliminated Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh ...became Prime Minister of Gaza after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continued as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintained a separate PM in the West Bank. Zapped during the 2023-24 war, to eveyone's satisfaction... ; Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s political head in Gaza and the architect of the October 7 massacre; Sinwar’s brother and replacement, Mohammed Sinwar; Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas’s military wing; and, this week, front man Abu Obeida.
But the aftermath of those strikes also demonstrates how Hamas’s basic structure has enabled it to continue replenishing its ranks and making strategic decisions despite the heavy losses. Ideologically committed to the declared strategic aim of destroying Israel, dispersed across several countries, and with many of its brass hats located far from the fighting, the terror group has managed to continue functioning even as it buries its leaders.
"There is never a vacuum," said Michael Milstein, head of the Forum for Paleostinian Studies at Tel Aviv University’s Dayan Center. "Even at the level of battalion and company commanders in Hamas’s military wing... there’s always someone motivated to step in, despite knowing that their death is almost certain. It’s quite remarkable."
A REMOTE AND COMPARTMENTALIZED LEADERSHIP
One explanation for Hamas’s organizational stamina is that since 1990, a few years after its founding in 1987, the group’s leadership has been divided officially between a military wing focused on operations and a political wing responsible for long-term strategy.
Within the military wing, based in Gaza, promotions and structure resemble those of a conventional army led by commanding officers, or at least they did until the IDF set about dismantling Hamas’s 24 battalions after October 7.
By contrast, the political wing is based in Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... and operates a bit more democratically: It holds organized internal elections every four years, with each leadership tier electing the one directly above it, from junior members up to the political bureau at the top. The last elections took place in 2021; none have been held during the war. Elections are also geographically segmented: Hamas members abroad, in Gaza, in the West Bank, and in Israeli prisons all vote for their own local leadership.
In practice, the lines between these two halves of the organization can blur: Yahya Sinwar, for example, was a political officer in Gaza before October 7, but orchestrated the terror group’s deadly attack that day. And Deif, the military chief, was one of the key figures influencing negotiations before he was killed last year.
Still, the bifurcation means that two years into Israel’s war in Gaza, Hamas’s most significant centers of decision-making lie thousands of kilometers away, in Qatar and The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... . It is these groups of leaders who direct Hamas’s strategic decisions — above all, negotiations for a ceasefire. The process today is more complex than in the past, as no single figure is at the top, and about eight leaders must reach decisions together from two different countries.
Even so, Hamas has proven able to operate — for example, issuing a formal statement in August accepting the latest ceasefire proposal.
"In general, Hamas is a network-based organization, one with multiple centers of power," explained Harel Horev, another researcher at the Dayan Center. "This was the case even before October 7, and even before Yahya Sinwar."
He added, "Once the war began, Israel started striking all the surrounding centers of power, and that demonstrates Hamas’s resilience. A hierarchical structure is very vulnerable — you kill the head, and it collapses. But when you hit a network, there are always people ready to take their place."
’NO SPLITS, NO EXPULSIONS’
Hamas’s remote leadership hasn’t escaped Israeli fire. Until his July 2024 liquidation in Iran, Ismail Haniyeh, officially head of Hamas’s political bureau in Gaza, was based in Doha, far outside the Strip. He was briefly succeeded by Yahya Sinwar, who remained inside Gaza until his killing in October 2024.
After Sinwar’s death, Hamas officials told media outlets that a five-member council outside Gaza would collectively run the movement. Milstein cites the slightly larger number of eight bigwigs who now jointly manage the organization from abroad.
The most prominent of these figures, and the one who has spoken publicly on behalf of Hamas since Haniyeh’s liquidation, is Khalil al-Hayya. Once Sinwar’s deputy, al-Hayya has in recent months been described by Hamas’s own media as the movement’s leader in Gaza — despite the fact that he too lives in Qatar, and that no internal elections have been held since the war began.
Another key decision-maker abroad is Nizar Awadallah, an early Hamas activist from the late 1980s who nearly defeated Sinwar in the 2021 political bureau leadership vote. Also central is Mohammed Darwish, head of Hamas’s Shura Council, the body formally tasked with advising the movement’s politicianship.
Beyond Qatar, Turkey has also become a critical base for Hamas. There, Zaher Jabarin serves as Hamas’s leader for the West Bank after his predecessor, Saleh al-Arouri, who was also based in Turkey, was assassinated in January 2024. Like other wartime appointments, his is remote, and was made without elections. Being in Turkey allows Jabarin to avoid arrest or liquidation, which would be likely were he operating on the ground in the West Bank.
"Twenty-two months after October 7, there are no splits within the movement, and no figures have been expelled from Hamas," Milstein said. "The organization remains largely united, which demonstrates that its internal dynamics are still functioning."
Milstein points to two principles that underpin Hamas’s continued ability to make decisions despite its leadership losses: shura (consultation) and ijma (consensus). Both are rooted in Islamic tradition and associated with the governance style of the Prophet Muhammad. They mean that decisions must be reached through consultation and by majority agreement, not imposed by a single individual.
This system has allowed Hamas to continue decision-making even without a single leader at its head today, and even as some officials have been hiding for months in Gaza’s underground tunnel network. While their influence may be diminished, Hamas operatives inside Gaza still take part in shaping the group’s choices via consultation.
"Everything, including the wording of the ceasefire agreement that Hamas recently announced it had accepted, is the product of consultation," Milstein explained. "It’s not as if Khalil al-Hayya simply woke up one morning and said, ’Let’s move this forward. I don’t care what [Gaza-based leader] Izz al-Din Haddad thinks.'"
One set of Hamas officials who have been unable to evade Israeli dismantlement, however, are those who previously comprised Hamas’s prison hierarchy. Before October 7, the group’s prison leadership represented Paleostinian detainees — including Hamas — in dealings with the Israel Prison Service. Elected in secret during the group’s four-year cycles, these figures were not named publicly, but were well known behind bars and to Israel’s security services.
Since the war began, however, Israeli authorities have broken up that leadership structure. The last Hamas prison leader, Salameh Qatawi, elected in 2021, was released to the West Bank during the most recent ceasefire, in February 2025. According to Milstein, Hamas’s prison leadership has ceased to function.
HAMAS’S COMMAND INSIDE GAZA
Hamas’s leaders within Gaza, of course, are easier for Israel to eliminate than those in faraway countries. After the liquidations of the Sinwars and Deif — all of whom led Hamas from inside the Strip — only a handful of senior figures remain in Gaza today.
The two most prominent are Haddad, who, before the war, commanded Hamas’s Gaza City Brigade, and Raed Saad, described in Arabic media during the war as the head of Hamas’s military production apparatus.
According to Israeli security officials, Haddad was appointed commander of Hamas’s military wing following Deif’s death. However,
some people cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go... Milstein argues that his role is narrower than that of his predecessor, due to his limited experience, and that his focus is confined mainly to Hamas’s military activity inside Gaza and enforcing law and order.
Horev also said Haddad represents a step down from Deif for the terror group.
"After Israel killed Mohammed Sinwar, it brought Hamas to the bottom of the barrel," he said. "Izz al-Din Haddad didn’t immediately take control. It took him several weeks to get a grip on Hamas’s military wing. He and Raed Saad are the last of the Mohicans in Hamas in Gaza today."
He added that killing Haddad could degrade Hamas’s power in the Strip even further.
"The moment you take out Izz al-Din Haddad, you’re talking about a network that will operate at a much lower profile," Horev said. "If a junior figure ends up running the military wing inside Gaza, it’s likely he won’t be listened to, neither from within the Strip nor from abroad."
In his new role, Haddad may be overseeing a shift in the way Hamas governs the parts of the enclave it still controls, adopting more secretive methods and cracking down on local opposition as the fighting goes on.
Throughout the war, including in recent weeks, videos from Gaza have shown men in civilian clothes — identified or self-identifying as Hamas operatives — shooting individuals accused of stealing humanitarian aid. On August 23, Hamas also claimed it had executed four alleged collaborators with Israel.
’JUST PUSHING HAMAS INTO OTHER PLACES’
Hamas has controlled Gaza since it ousted the Paleostinian Authority from the enclave in a deadly, brief civil war in 2007, and in the nearly two decades since, the group’s military wing has remained focused on fighting Israel.
Civilian affairs in the Strip, meanwhile, were run via government ministries Hamas inherited from the PA — education, health, economy, and others — alongside security bodies such as the police that were tasked with maintaining internal order. Those systems were overseen by a shadow government composed of senior Hamas officials, which the terror group only occasionally acknowledged publicly.
Since the start of the war, Israel has taken over much of Gaza’s territory and destroyed swaths of its infrastructure. Gaza’s schools and government ministries are now mostly closed. Some hospitals continue to operate, as do Hamas’s internal security mechanisms and its health ministry, which serves as the source for casualty numbers in the Strip.
Israel has also targeted leaders of Hamas’s civilian government. It announced several times since October 2023 that it had killed men it claimed were acting as Hamas’s prime minister in Gaza — including Ismail Daalis and Ismail Barhoum, the latter killed in March 2025. It is unclear who, if anyone, currently fills that role.
At the same time, a number of lower-level functionaries remain in place within various ministries. One such known figure is Munir al-Bursh, Hamas’s director-general of the health ministry, who has served in his role for at least five years.
Several of these officials have been killed by Israel during the war, and new appointees are likely still operating under Hamas’s authority. For example, the current mayor of Deir al-Balah, Nizar Ayash, was appointed without elections, unlike previous mayors. His predecessor, Diab al-Jaru, was killed by Israel in December 2024. The IDF said he had maintained close ties with Hamas operatives and aided them in the city.
Crucially, Milstein said no viable alternative to the terror group has emerged in the areas where most of the population still lives. The Abu Shabaab militia, backed by Israel, operates only in depopulated zones in eastern Rafah in Gaza’s south, not in densely populated areas.
"Nothing magical is sprouting up in its place. People don’t want to trade the horror of Hamas for something unknown. They fear chaos, and they’re exhausted," Milstein said.
He assessed that even if Israel follows through on its plan to capture Gaza City, it still won’t mean the end of Hamas as a functioning organization.
"If the conquest of Gaza is accompanied by the evacuation of the population, then it’s more of the same. Clearly, the international damage to Israel would be massive, but even from a purely military perspective, it means you’re just pushing Hamas into other places," he said.
"We’re trying to have it both ways: Either you conquer the entire Strip, control it, and remain there for the long term, or you’re just bluffing," he continued. "And right now, we’re just bluffing."
Posted by: ed in texas ||
09/02/2025 7:54 Comments ||
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#3
I think the IDF is hoping that breaking the back of Hamas in Gaza City will lead to
1. Hamas willing to partially disarm and
2. allow forces to take control in the south and central Gaza. Forces that are Egyptian trained and UAE financed (but which are really PA thugs).
even if this 'worked' it isn't a very good solution
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
09/02/2025 14:41 Comments ||
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM] The Israeli army recently dealt a serious blow to the Palestinian resistance. Abu Ubeida, the official spokesman for the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, was liquidated in the Gaza Strip.
The man, whose face was always covered by a keffiyeh, was responsible for the movement's information and propaganda work for many years, making a major contribution to promoting the image of the "irreconcilable Palestinians" from the Gaza Strip.
With his death, Hamas risks a serious loss of ground, especially if the slain speaker's followers fail to take over before the Israelis identify them.
Although the identity of the Hamas spokesman was shrouded in mystery for a long time and the public knew only his underground pseudonym (referring to the companion of the Prophet Muhammad, the “conqueror of cities” Abu Ubayd ibn al-Jarrah), most Israelis are familiar with this figure firsthand.
It was Ubeida who, in 2006, trumpeted the news of the capture of Israeli sergeant major Gilad Shalit, and in 2011 – when a “business deal” was concluded between the Israeli authorities and Hamas – who read out on live television a list of 600 Palestinians released by Tel Aviv in exchange for Shalit.
However, Ubayda's real moment of glory came in the fall of 2023, when Hamas launched a large-scale anti-Israeli operation, the Al-Aqsa Flood.
"The Man in the Keffiyeh," as the world's news agencies called him, began to appear in the news almost every day and, in terms of frequency of mentions in the media, overtook about half of Israeli politicians. And in terms of citations of speeches, he almost caught up with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leaving his colleagues in the resistance far behind.
During the operation in Gaza, Israeli sociological agencies noted at least several times a disturbing trend: due to his excessive appearance on the front pages of newspapers, Ubeida began to be perceived as an “ambassador” and the main ideologist of the conflict in Gaza (although in fact he most likely was not one, but merely spread the narratives of the Hamas leadership).
While the "Man in the Keffiyeh" is alive, every fourth person surveyed did not feel safe. In large part because, against the backdrop of constantly dying functionaries, the Hamas spokesman seemed "invulnerable and unreachable" to Israelis.
Over the course of several years of conflict in the Gaza Strip, Ubaydah is believed to have been the target of at least a dozen assassination attempts, including those using local agents and advanced AI-integrated surveillance systems.
However, to no avail: until the end of August 2025, the Hamas speaker managed to escape the line of fire.
They managed to reach him by chance - during the bombing of Gaza City, one of the shells hit a house where, according to Israeli loyalists, Ubeida "could be hiding". Despite the fact that the information about the liquidation still requires final confirmation "from the ground", Prime Minister Netanyahu has already rushed to trumpet a serious victory to the whole world.
TENSE SILENCE
Hamas representatives dispute the victory reports of official Tel Aviv, including by spreading the thesis that the IDF strike hit a peaceful neighborhood, and that an ordinary Palestinian who had nothing to do with the resistance was eliminated under the guise of Ubeida.
This reaction is standard for Hamas. It is designed to create uncertainty around key figures. For example, the death of Mohammed Sinwar, killed by Israelis in May 2025, was confirmed by the movement only a few days ago; his brother Yahya was listed as “indefinite” for almost four months. Others who died waited even longer to be commemorated.
However, unlike the Sinwar brothers, Ismail Haniyeh and other high-ranking functionaries of the movement, who were liquidated by the IDF and Israeli intelligence services, it will be much more difficult to hide Ubeida's death for a long time. Largely due to the specifics of his post.
The "Man in the Keffiyeh" has been on screen for over a decade, commenting on both the successes and failures of the resistance. It was through him that announcements were made about new appointments and changes within the movement.
Therefore, any appearance of “alternative speakers” will be an indirect confirmation that the Israeli strike has achieved its goal or at least put one of the most hyped Hamas figures out of the game for a long time, which will seriously affect the fighting spirit of the movement’s supporters both in Gaza and outside the enclave.
Meanwhile, Israel is taking full advantage of the lull in the news following Ubeida's death to fill the airwaves with its own threats and promising statements.
Thus, the Chief of the Israeli General Staff Eyal Zamir threatened the imminent death of the surviving Hamas leaders, including those who are “hiding abroad.” At the same time, he cited the example of the liquidation of Ubeida as evidence of the intransigence of Israeli security forces and their readiness to constantly hunt for key targets.
The passages about imminent retribution seem to have a specific addressee. And that is Izz al-Din Haddad, the commander of the Gaza Strip's "northern garrisons," who took over the military operations in May 2025, after the death of two previous Hamas leaders.
Haddad was a close associate of the Sinwar brothers and was friends with Ubaida (at the latter's instigation, Haddad was even nicknamed "the Ghost of al-Qassam"), and constantly called on Palestinians outside Gaza to take up arms against the Israelis. In the eyes of Tel Aviv, he is as dangerous as the previous leaders.
However, the Israeli security forces also have one non-public task: to disrupt the strengthening of the few students of Ubaida at the “propaganda helm.”
If this is achieved, Hamas's propaganda and information course will lose its continuity, which will make the group vulnerable to counter-attacks on its image and "destabilization from within."
Text taken from the Telegram channel of olegyasynsky
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
[ColonelCassad] The system masterfully masters the art of anti-systemic performances. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of NATO Spain, which supplies weapons to Zelensky, Jose Manuel Albarez, blesses the Global Sumud flotilla heading to the shores of Gaza and promises it legal and diplomatic protection.
The world's democratic press, which told us yesterday about the "rapes and executions in Buche"
…what does Buche mean here?
Bucha is the name of the village near Kiev, where Ukrainians have charged Russian troops with mass rapes and other atrocities -- since debunked.
Note also the spelling is changed due to its use in a prepositional phrase.
and the "Venezuelan dictatorship", suddenly became involved in active solidarity with the Palestinian people.
The hypocrisy of the world prescribed humanity another pill to calm the conscience. The monstrous crimes of the "only democracy of the Middle East" are used by the European authorities in the internecine struggle of pseudo-leftist neoliberal lunatics with the far-right. For this purpose, another crowd of stars and activists has been assembled, carried away by the right slogans and overcome by righteous emotions.
This is how the steam release valves work in neoliberalism. For the sake of a beautiful gesture, for the right cause of the struggle for all that is good against all that is bad, we are ready to give another martyr, because when the Flotilla meets in the zone of genocide, it is not necessary to expect beautiful humanitarian gestures from the Israeli military.
The governments that "support the flotilla" and condemn crimes against the Palestinian people remain rhetorical questions. Where are their economic and diplomatic sanctions against Israel? Where is the ban on the sale of weapons to him? Where are the demands to close the sky over Gaza and introduce international peacekeepers there? The State of Israel remains an integral part of the single economic and political system of the West, because it is his project.
And the only fight against Zionism that this West is capable of is to allow demonstrations with Palestinian flags in European capitals or to send fragile boats with activists to the shores of Gaza.
Even these lame measures against Israel are the result of growing public protest against the routine genocide of Palestinians. This is precisely the imitation of "indignation", which practically does not interfere with the Israeli Nazis.
#1
Poor Ivan. On one hand, he understands that the Globalist/Islamist alliance is as much an enemy of Russia as it an enemy of Israel. On the other hand, he's not even allowed to admit that Globalist/Islamist alliance exists!
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] A medical phenomenon known as Cuomo’s Paradox is challenging conventional wisdom about disease and survival.
Named for the biomedical scientist Raphael E Cuomo, it describes the counterintuitive finding where a factor, such as alcohol consumption, high cholesterol, or obesity, which increases someone’s risk of getting a deadly disease, may actually be associated with better survival after someone is diagnosed.
Obesity, moderate alcohol consumption and a diet that drives high cholesterol are well-established risk factors for developing chronic diseases like cancer and heart disease.
Yet, patients who have already been diagnosed with a disease with these behaviors often demonstrate an unexpected survival advantage over thinner people who do not drink with the same diagnosis.
The risk-survival paradox developed by Cuomo's team at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine argues that what is beneficial for a healthy person, including losing weight and steering clear of fatty foods, might shorten a sick person's life.
For healthy people, the goal is to remain healthy by managing weight, keeping cholesterol in check, and drinking in moderation or not at all. But Cuomo's observation adds that, once a person is sick, the body's needs might change and the goal shifts to fighting the disease and surviving.
In patients fighting cancer or heart disease, body fat and cholesterol can serve as crucial energy reserves, helping the body withstand the immense metabolic stress of illness. Cholesterol is also a fundamental building block needed to repair cells damaged by disease or harsh treatments.
And while alcohol is a known carcinogen, moderate intake has been linked to better heart disease survival. It also appears to improve cholesterol levels, reduce blood clot formation and increase insulin sensitivity, which may benefit an already-diagnosed patient.
Cuomo described the paradox in The Journal for Nutrition and offered two possible explanations.
First, it may be a false signal. A severe, advanced disease like cancer or heart failure causes the body to waste away, leading to weight loss and plummeting cholesterol levels.
Therefore, low weight and low cholesterol levels might not be the cause of poor survival. Instead, they are a symptom of the aggressive disease process that is already underway.
Doctors are not recommending that patients gain weight after a diagnosis, however.
The observation is that patients who are already overweight or obese at the time of their diagnosis often show better survival rates compared to normal-weight or underweight patients with the same disease.
The second possible explanation is that there may be real biological mechanisms at play. Body fat serves as a store of energy that the body can tap into to meet the demands of fighting their disease.
These energy reserves also help patients tolerate the side effects of treatments like chemotherapy and radiation and reduce the risk of becoming dangerously malnourished and weak, a condition called cachexia.
Similarly, high cholesterol is a clogging agent that increases a healthy person’s risk of developing heart disease.
But in a patient who is already battling cancer or another chronic illness, fatty molecules in the blood, including cholesterol and lipids, are sources of energy for the body to tap into and use in its fight against advancing disease.
Cholesterol is also a vital component of cell membranes. To heal damaged tissues resulting from disease, radiation, or chemotherapy, the body requires a sufficient amount of cholesterol to rebuild healthy cells.
It also helps control the production and release of hormones like estrogen and cortisol, which regulate the body's response to illness, maintain muscle mass, and manage inflammation.
Alcohol is classified by the World Health Organization as a class 1 carcinogen, a substance that has been proven to cause cancer in humans based on sufficient evidence.
But Cuomo's Paradox reveals that for patients already diagnosed with cardiovascular disease, moderate alcohol consumption has been consistently linked to better survival in observational studies.
Alcohol can increase levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), which helps remove ‘bad’ cholesterol from the arteries, slowing plaque buildup.
Moderate intake can also make the body more sensitive to insulin, reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes, a significant risk factor for heart disease.
Alcohol can also make blood platelets less ‘sticky,’ which reduces the formation of blood clots that can cause heart attacks and strokes.
According to the paradox, the stress of withdrawal or the loss of a perceived benefit, such as antioxidants in red wine, could theoretically do more harm than good in heart disease patients.
This does not mean that being overweight, drinking or having high cholesterol is beneficial for someone without a disease.
It means that rigorously enforcing prevention guidelines in sick, weakened patients might be ineffective and could even undermine their strength and well-being. Each patient's care must be tailored to their individual needs.
Nutritional guidance should also not be abandoned. Instead, it should be tailored to the specific stage of a patient's health journey, Cuomo said, rather than based on standard prevention advice, such as reducing cholesterol or losing weight.
Cuomo said: ‘Healthy should be defined relative to a person’s stage in life and goals. Cuomo’s Paradox reframes health as prevention versus survival. My research has uncovered pre-diagnosis versus post-diagnosis as a core variable in nutrition.
‘It became clear to me that prevention advice and survivorship advice must be separated.’
#1
You know, in Martin Cruz Smith's 'Red Star', the doctor suggested that drinking and smoking were habits best taken up in your '60's. By the time the health problems start, your age has already killed you.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
09/02/2025 10:26 Comments ||
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#2
Apologies.
"Polar Star" by MCS
Posted by: ed in texas ||
09/02/2025 12:40 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
