| Tuesday, November 30, 2004 |  |
| Yerba Mate: Tempest In a Teapot | 14 comments |
| 30 Nov 2004 @ 15:53 Tempest In a Teapot By Kelly Hearn, AlterNet. Posted November 30, 2004. An herbal drink that busts flab, sharpens immune systems and heightens energy without any jittery side effects? Right. If you haven't tried it yet, you've doubtless seen it on the shelves of your local natural foods store or on the drink menu of your favorite coffeehouse. For many people, a strong-tasting, South American tea-like drink called yerba mate has replaced their daily cup of joe. But along with mate's new popularity in the U.S. comes a number of snake-oily claims made by the growing number of companies that sell it. Consumed centuries ago by Guarani Indian tribes in Paraguay (and later perfected by Spanish colonizers and Jesuit priests), yerba mate is widely considered to be a good natural stimulant that may be healthier than coffee, due to a unique combination of alkaloids and relatively small caffeine content. Critics, however, say rising U.S. sales to fad dieters and health food junkies overplay such benefits, offering consumers false science and overblown claims about the drink's chemical consistency and physiological benefits. Jolt Without the Jitters Controversy accompanies vendor claims that mate contains not caffeine, but a safer chemical called mateine, as its major psychoactive drug. Ma-Tea, a mate importer based in Atlanta, Ga., and Noborders.net, are two examples of companies that advertise their product with a commonly found quote attributed to Dr. Jose Martin, director of the National Institute of Technology in Paraguay: "New research and better technology have shown that while mateine has a chemical consistency similar to caffeine, the molecular binding is different." But when contacted at his home in Asuncion, Paraguay, the now ex-director (whose name is actually Jose Martino), said there is no unique chemical structure for mateine and that yerba mate contains caffeine, just like coffee. That's no surprise, say many experts. "In recent U.S. campaigns, yerba mate marketers claim that yerba mate contains mateine," says Dr. Leslie Taylor, an herbalist and author of "The Healing Power of Rainforest Herbs." "The only studies reporting the presence of 'mateine' have been funded and paid for by companies selling yerba mate. Scientists can go into the laboratory to prove or disprove what they want to, or are paid to. This kind of research simply does not disprove the many years of research proving the opposite by scientists and university students that have never sold any yerba mate product and had no ulterior motives to conduct or report their research." Renowned health expert Andrew Weil agrees. Writing on his Web site, he finds "very little scientific support for this distinction, but you will certainly see health claims to that effect on packages of yerba mate and in advertisements for it." Though many mate fans cite the absence of coffee-like jitters, experts say the distinction could be a matter of dosage or differences in accompanying minerals or related alkaloids. Even smell, taste, circumstance and expectations can cause psychoactive effects to vary. Taylor, who has compiled dozens of studies from universities and academic journals, said yerba mate has been assayed to only contain between .7 and 2 percent, with the average leaf yielding about 1 percent caffeine. Relatively speaking, that's much less than coffee. "In living plants, xanthines such as caffeine are bound to sugars, phenols and tannins, and are set free or unbound during the roasting or fermenting processes used to process yerba mate leaves, coffee beans and even cacao beans," she says. "The mateine chemical 'discovered' is probably just caffeine bound to a tannin or phenol in the raw leaf." Pound Foolish Other seemingly exaggerated claims center on yerba mate's ability to help shed pounds. Though the leaves already appear in a number of weight loss pills, the drink itself is becoming popular as an appetite suppressant and meal substitute, thanks to lopsided media coverage and heavy marketing by vendors. Dan Garcia, a mate distributor in Sandpoint, Idaho, says yerba mate sales in the U.S. totaled around $2.5 million last year and now account for some 5 percent of tea sales in the United States. His company, Aviva, which bought its own lab analysis of yerba that's used as a marketing tool, grew 65 percent last year. Aviva was especially boosted by a recent Woman's World magazine article that celebrated mate as "America's Weight Loss Tea." After the article was published, Garcia says, his company's online sales alone grew from $1,500 to $35,000 in one month. But what kind of pound buster is it really? A study published in June in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition by researchers at the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth in the United Kingdom, says, well, not so much. The researchers, who conducted 25 trials and reviewed data on several dietary supplements including yerba mate, concluded that "the reviewed studies provide some encouraging data but no evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that any specific dietary supplement is effective for reducing body weight." Any stimulants, including caffeine and cocaine, suppress appetite. But experts warn about overuse, something companies aren't likely to highlight. Ma-Tea, for example, tells consumers that mate products have been used to substitute for meals. Though the company includes a sentence encouraging well-balanced diets, it goes on to say that "millions have used our products to aid in the control of their appetite or for diet purposes. ... Our product does alleviate feelings of hunger and leave one feeling revitalized. As a meal substitute, our Yerbas provide essential nutrients." Experts like Leslie Taylor find such claims worrisome. "My belief is that yerba mate is a good natural stimulant that contains caffeine," she says. "Personally I think it is generally better than coffee, which contains several alkaloid chemicals that mate does not, chemicals that seem to be hard on the liver and adrenals with excessive consumption. I do not think that yerba mate is any magic bullet for weight loss, nor should consumers purchase yerba mate to lose weight. I also think consumers should remember that too much of a good thing isn't necessarily a good thing." Case in point, she says: "Heavy drinkers of mate in South America were documented with an increased risk of upper-aerodigestive tract cancers, a 1.6- to four-fold increase for heavy drinkers." Though the FDA does not evaluate or test herbs, it does get involved if reports of consumer harm or misbranding or mislabeling occurs. In 2002, FDA officials issued a warning to Dakotah International Inc. for claiming yerba mate reduces blood pressure. Millions of people in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay give mate near religious status, obsessively consuming it throughout the day and making it a hub of intimate social gatherings. It seems certain that yerba mate is getting its North American day. Less clear is whether it will land a respected place in the annals of American herbalism or pass away as another marketing stained, fly-by-night weight loss fad. Kelly Hearn is a correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor and a former science and technology writer for UPI. More > |
| PRODIGY, 12, COMPARED TO MOZART | 0 comments |
| 30 Nov 2004 @ 14:34 PRODIGY, 12, COMPARED TO MOZART CBS News: 60 Minutes Wednesday Transcript November 28, 2004 [link] There is a composer studying at New York's renowned Juilliard School who some say is the greatest talent to come along in 200 years. He's written five full-length symphonies, and he's only 12 years old. His name is Jay Greenberg, although he likes the nickname "Bluejay" because, he says, blue jays are small and make a lot of noise. Greenberg says music just fills his head and he has to write it down to get it out. What's going on in Bluejay's head? Correspondent Scott Pelley spoke with him. ........... Jay wrote a piece, "The Storm," in just a few hours. It was commissioned by the New Haven Symphony in Connecticut. When the last note sailed into the night, Jay navigated an unfamiliar stage, and then took a bow. "We are talking about a prodigy of the level of the greatest prodigies in history when it comes to composition," says Sam Zyman, a composer. "I am talking about the likes of Mozart, and Mendelssohn, and Saint-Sans." Zyman teaches music theory to Jay at the Juilliard School in New York City, where he's been teaching for 18 years. "This is an absolute fact. This is objective. This is not a subjective opinion," says Zyman. "Jay could be sitting here, and he could be composing right now. He could finish a piano sonata before our eyes in probably 25 minutes. And it would be a great piece." How is it possible? Jay told Pelley he doesn't know where the music comes from, but it comes fully written -- playing like an orchestra in his head. "It's as if the unconscious mind is giving orders at the speed of light," says Jay. "You know, I mean, so I just hear it as if it were a smooth performance of a work that is already written, when it isn't." All the kids are downloading music these days. But Jay, with his composing program, is downloading it from his head. The program records his notes and plays them back - that's when the computer is up and running. Jay composes so rapidly that he often crashes his computer. "It's as if he's looking at a picture of the score, and he's just taking it from the picture, basically," says Zyman. Jay's parents are as surprised as anyone. Neither is a professional musician. His father, Robert, is a linguist, and a scholar in Slavic language who lost his sight at 36 to retinitis pigmentosa. His mother, Orna, is an Israeli-born painter. "I think, around 2, when he started writing, and actually drawing instruments, we knew that he was fascinated with it," says Orna. "He managed to draw a cello and ask for a cello, and wrote the world cello. And I was surprised, because neither of us has anything to so with string instruments. And I didn't expect him to know what it [a cello] was." But Jay knew he wanted a cello, so his mother brought him to a music store where he was shown a miniature cello. "And he just sat there. He ...started playing on it," recalls Orna. "And I was like, 'How do you know how to do this?'" By 3, Jay was still drawing cellos, but he had turned them into notes on a scale. He was beginning to compose, and his parents watched the notes come faster and faster. He was writing any time, anywhere. By elementary school, his teachers had no idea how to handle a boy whose hero wasn't Batman, but Beethoven. "He hears music in his head all the time, and he'll start composing and he doesn't even realize it probably, that he's doing it," says Robert. "But the teachers would get angry, and they would call us in for emergency meetings with seven people sitting there trying to figure out how they're going accommodate our son." Jay has been told his hearing is many times more sensitive than an average person's. The sounds of the city need to be shut out manually. But Jay can't turn off the music in his head. In fact, he told us he often hears more than one new composition at a time. "Multiple channels is what it's been termed," says Jay. "That my brain is able to control two or three different musics at the same time - along with the channel of everyday life." "This child told me, he said, 'I'm gonna be dead if I am not composing. I have to compose. This is all I want to do," says Orna. "And when a child that young tells you where their vision is, or where they're going, you don't have a choice." By the age of 10, Jay was going to Juilliard, among the world's top conservatories of music, on a full scholarship. At age 11, he was studying music theory with third year college students. Jay also takes high school courses at another school courses his parents say he will finish when he's 14. Elizabeth Wolff is a concert pianist who works with Jay on his piano technique. Jay writes things he can't even play, and he says he wants to perfect his piano playing, even though he doesn't need the piano, or any instrument, to compose. What happens when he first hears a tune? "At first, I just listen to it, and then I start humming it. And then while walking, and I like walking a lot when I am inspired," says Jay. "Because I walk to the beat of the music. For example, if the beat is (piano), I start rocking. ...And I often start conducting as well." Jay's not a usual 12-year-old, and he knows it. Catching onto baseball isn't as natural as playing piano. Even though Jay's a genius, he's still a kid. What happens when Jay gets bored? "He gets restless, and then he starts improvising. Last week, he took the Beethoven sonata we're working right now, and decided that everything would be kind of interesting upside down and backwards," says Wolff. "So he took the volume and literally did just that. He can do it for you right now. And I couldn't even follow it. But he actually took the clefs and inverted them. The treble became bass, bass became treble, and did it backwards." How does Jay rank among other child prodigies? "To be a prodigy composer is far rarer," says Zyman. "You have to conquer these issues. How do you notate this rhythm? What's the range of the oboe? Can this be played on the piano? How do you compose for the harp? There are hundreds of thousands of bits of information that you need to master to be able to write a piece of music." Talented composers might write five or six symphonies in a lifetime. But Jay has written five at the age of 12. When the music enters Jay's head, he has a lot of confidence about what he puts down on paper. Does he ever revise one of his compositions? "No, I don't really ever do that," says Jay. "It just usually comes right the first time." Sam Adler was a child prodigy himself. Today, he's an accomplished composer and professor of Jay's at Juilliard. He agrees Jay can be great, but only if he is constantly questioning his gift. "Let's take a great genius in the musical world, someone like Beethoven. When you look at a Beethoven score, it's horrendous. He didn't have an eraser. So, he had to cross it out," says Adler. "And it looks as if, you know, he was never satisfied. And that is something that comes with maturity. And I think that's going to happen to Jay." But is it fair to say the potential is there? "Absolutely," says Adler. "Without doubt." |