Ray Peat Ideology and Philosophy

I have already introduced one of Peat’s great quotes that illuminates a philosophy very near and dear to my heart – and I assume to the hearts of many of the readers of this blog who enjoy the pursuit of health as an exploration instead of a regurgitation or defense of a limited viewpoint.

“Once we accept that knowledge is tentative, and that we are probably going to improve our knowledge in important ways when we learn more about the world, we are less likely to reject new information that conflicts with our present ideas. The attitude of expectancy will allow us to apply insights gained at one level of generality to other levels. No particular kind of knowledge will have such authority that it will automatically exclude certain possibilities in another field of knowledge.”

He goes further with this concept in one of his books, highlighting a quote by Keith Jarrett…

“People expect beautiful melodies. But I already know the melodies. So does everybody else. Rather than look for more beautiful melodies, everyone’s purpose should be to find blind spots.”
~Keith Jarrett

And then Peat discusses it, weaving into the talk one of my most prominent personal beliefs – that when the work you do is meaningful and you are passionate about it, you don’t need distractions from it with mindless entertainment (except for 80's movies). The worst possible life is having nothing meaningful to do at all – which is, often to their downfall when they do obtain it, the ideal of many hopeful retirees and worshipers of neo-liberal financial excesses. But overall the point of the following quote is very similar to the most prized advice that I offer to people in my personal life, which is to find out what you love to do more than anything in the world, and figure out how to support yourself doing it.

“Our present lives are usually divided between routine work and entertainment. The entertainment is supposed to enliven us, to help us recover from the deadening effects of routine work. Some people put great energy and concentration into their hobbies, because they find the activity intrinsically interesting. Such intrinsic value and interest is what should be demanded of our work. But for many people, free time is routinized too. To them, Jarrett’s suggestion sounds like nothing but hard work. This is where the whole person has been affected by a certain approach to work, and work is seen as something to avoid – the idle rich seem to have found the only satisfactory life.”

Nothing strikes a chord with me in terms of high-quality longevity, and maximizing the regenerative potential of your body and mind to keep growing and producing new tissues into old age more than this simple Peat quote…

“A person’s vitality is drawn forward by meaningful work, that is, we grow to meet the demands of an important opportunity.”

And I will openly admit that Peat’s great philosophy about life, health, science, and its pollution by commercial interests makes me take his work more seriously. After all, I share many of these sentiments, and can see with absolute clarity the joint efforts by industry, media, medical organizations, educational institutions, and even the health and fitness industry itself in the perpetuation of simple-minded theories, myths, blatant mis-information, and distractions.

“A scientific attitude is of great importance, but we must recognize that science has absolutely nothing to do with the ‘consensus of the authorities.’ You are less likely to do the wrong thing if you believe that ‘the authorities are always wrong,’ because then you will begin to question their assumptions, evaluate their evidence, and examine their reasoning.”


“When you start looking for ulterior motives, you might conclude that your physician is greedy, that your chemistry professor has a contract with the rubber company that makes ice cream, and that food producers are so pleased with their profits that they don’t care about the increasing numbers of deformed and mentally retarded babies, or the increasing rate of cancer and diabetes. If you do this, then you are probably involved in a demystification of the world. Eating good food can alter your consciousness; so can thinking about how we’re going to get it.”

Involved in a demystification of the world… Priceless.

And we all know Ray, who wrote many a book on women’s hormones, fertility, and health issues, loves the ladies, and Ladies Love Cool Ray (LL Cool Ray)…

“The ideas in this book have been described by some as the physiological side of women’s liberation, but of course there are political implications here too: why should we give privileged status to a profession which commits millions of unnecessary hysterectomies or which waits until the last quarter of the twentieth century to determine whether surgery is the best treatment for acute appendicitis (it isn’t), or to the drug companies which fabricate their ‘safety and effectiveness studies’ out of thin air, and then hire academic shills to promote their products, or to the food industry which adulterates and degrades our foods with the false excuse that this is required for economical mass distribution? Instead of giving them a privileged status, their criminal acts should be recognized and treated as such.”

Anyway, quotes like this don’t spill out from the mind of a pea-brained health guru with a relentless hard-on for self-promotion and no substance to back it up. Ray has put a very respectable amount of high-quality thought into the conclusions that he has come to in his cumulative experiences as a scientist, researcher, and health advisor. As well-educated and skeptical critics, we will move forward and discuss many of the stances he has come to take over the years…

…while also being immature jackasses that picture Ray, naked except for a large bejeweled sombrero, with a bowl of Jello, painting nude women. Speaking of which, if Grassfed Mom still has that creepy Peat quote about a penis being a “warm dream” that I sent you, please post it in the comments. It’s unbelievable.

Speaking of sombreros, you know Ray is clubbin’ tonight for Cinco de Mayo with that thing!
“Jello shots young college-aged, progesterone-filled, well-lubricated vixens!”

If you liked this article, you might also enjoy my free eBook on How to Raise Your Metabolism

Neuroethics: The Brain and Religious Beliefs

This is the second in a series of three posts looking at how the brain processes complex beliefs in the domains of morality, religion and politics.  Jordan Grafman, Ph.D. presented at the May 3, 2011 Warren Frontiers of Neuroscience lecture series in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  Grafman summarized research he had conducted in these three domains. 

An fMRI study published in PNAS in 2009 outlined some of Grafman’s research team efforts related to brain processes and religion.  In the introduction of this study manuscript, they cite work from the Baylor Institute of Religion survey on religious beliefs in the United States.  This survey data appears to support three distinct elements of religious belief: 

• God’s perceived level of involvement:  a dimension ranging from a strong feeling of God’s (or a supernatural force) being involved in life to feeling that there is no purpose in life or God is far removed from the world
• God’s perceived emotion: whether one perceives a God or supernatural force as positive (forgiving, protecting) or negative emotionally (angry, punishing).
• Religious knowledge-a factor that can be sub-divided into doctrinal religious knowledge and experiential knowledge (i.e. personal experience with prayer or attending church) 

Participants in the fMRI study were recruited for having a wide range in the ratings on the three distinct elements of religious belief.  They were then scanned while being asked whether they agreed or disagreed with a variety of statements related to the three elements.  Statistical analysis examined brain region activation for each of the elements and these regions (and circuits) were then compared to already known cognitive and social networks in the brain.

God’s perceived involvement appeared to activate brain circuits very similar to those activated in Theory of Mind tasks.  Theory of Mind is the cognitive ability to comprehend others may have beliefs, desires, emotions and intentions that differ from one’s own.  Theory of mind tasks (and in this experiment judging God’s perceived involvement) activated complex frontal, temporal and occipital cortex regions.

In contrast God’s perceived emotion tasks activated fewer regions.  Those with a perception that God was a loving being, activated a region in the right middle frontal gyrus while those with a perception of God as angry activated a region in the left middle temporal gyrus.   These regions are known to be activated when processing emotional Theory of Mind information.  The right middle frontal gyrus area is an area known to be linked to “positive emotional states and suppression of sadness”.

Regions activated with religious knowledge statements differed between experiential versus doctrinal domains.  The figure above shows regions activated by experiential religious knowledge in the top series of scans and that activated with doctrinal religious knowledge in the bottom two scans.  Experiential religious knowledge statemenst activated a wide range of regions including the occipital cortex known to be key in high-imagery content.  Doctrinal knowledge statements activated temporal lobe regions known involved in interpreting metaphorical meaning, abstractness and abstract linguistic content.

These studies support religious beliefs being processed in regions already known to be important in the social cognition evolution of man’s brain.  There is no specific “God Spot” in the brain.  The authors note in the discussion “This study defines a psychological and neuroanatomical framework for the (predominately explicit) processing of religious belief.

Within this framework, religious belief engages well-known brain networks performing abstract semantic processing, imagery, and intent-related and emotional ToM (Theory of Mind), processes known to occur at both implicit and explicit levels……The findings support the view that religiosity is integrated in cognitive processes and brain networks used in social cognition, rather than being sui generis.

In the final post in this three part series, the focus will be on the brain processes involved in political beliefs.

Kapogiannis, D., Barbey, A., Su, M., Zamboni, G., Krueger, F., & Grafman, J. (2009). Cognitive and neural foundations of religious belief Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106 (12), 4876-4881 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0811717106

TXNIP and Obesity Guest Post by Brock Cusick

Howdy folks, we interrupt Ray May for this highly-anticipated guest blog post by none other than Brock Cusick, frequent 180 commenter, follower since the dawn of http://www.180degreehealth.com/, and author of the blog http://cusickonnutrition.blogspot.com/.  While we can never expect any two people to have identical views, even when those two people grew up watching the movie Condorman on every single sick day, I have allowed Brock to share his views openly - discussing some new research he has come across that identifies yet another important link in the body weight regulation system of the human body.  I hope it triggers some great conversation.  I share some of the thoughts I exchanged with Brock about this in the comments section.  Anyway, thanks Brock - for the post and your inspiration.  Like the time you wrote me, "If do right, no can defense."      

The Body's Fatness Regulator Has Been Found
There are moments when a single piece of information falls into your lap and whole new vistas become clear. Many small pieces of information previously formless snap together into a working whole, and what was confusing just moments before, becomes discernible. I had one of those moments on Tuesday, the 26th of April, 2011 - and I would like to share it with you.

This post is about weight loss and diabetes, why we get fat, and how we can lose it.

Researchers at Yeshiva University’s (go Macabees!) Albert Einstein School of Medicine have identified and characterized a curious little protein (link goes to synopsis; full paper costs $30) produced in the hypothalamus (long known to be involved in body fat regulation) called thioredoxin-interacting protein (TXNIP, which I pronounce “ticks-nip”). Unsurprisingly this TXNIP has an influence on “thioredoxins”, a class of proteins found in many tissues throughout the body.

The best way to think of TXNIP is as a graduated signal - like a light on a dimmer switch going from “off” to “barely on” and all the way up to “bright as possible.” The hypothalamus senses certain things about the body’s current condition and then produces the appropriate level of TXNIP so it may instruct all of the thioredoxin-producing tissues of the body how to behave. In this way the diverse tissues of the body (which have no way of communicating directly with each other) act in unison.

Just what TXNIP signals is absolutely incredible. High TXNIP levels cause white fat cells to retain fat, brown fat cells to reduce heat production, and all of the body’s tissues to become insulin and leptin resistant, while low TXNIP levels cause white fat cells to release lipids (lipolysis), brown fat cells to produce heat (thermogenesis), and all other tissues to become insulin and leptin sensitive. In one fell swoop one protein explains obesity, Type II Diabetes and cold feet. Moreover weight gain and diabetes occurred “in the absence of any effect on feeding behavior. Oxygen consumption, respiratory quotient, physical activity, and brown fat temperature were decreased in hTXNIP-expressing mice compared with controls, suggesting that lower energy expenditure in hTXNIP-expressing mice accounted for their higher rate of body weight gain.”

To translation the geek-speak: The mice that got fat didn’t eat any more than the lean mice; their bodies just became insulin resistant, partitioning calories over to the love handles and “paying” for the calorie deficit by throttling down various metabolic activities. If that doesn’t shut up the “calories in/calories out” and “Just eat less! Have discipline!” crowd, they can no longer lay claim to being in any reality-based community.

The paper then goes on to identify the three factors that regulate TXNIP expression, and they are blood sugar, insulin and leptin. High blood sugar, low insulin and low leptin all cause TXNIP expression to increase, while low blood sugar (or, “healthy levels of blood sugar”), high insulin and high leptin all cause TXNIP to fall.

(What’s that, you say? Insulin spikes cause TXNIP to fall, inducing lipolysis? Yessir! I bet those Glycemic Index folks are feeling pretty silly now.)

Of the three signals the paper does not identify which input (sugar, insulin or leptin) has the strongest effect on TXNIP, but I suspect it is blood sugar - diabetics often have high insulin and leptin levels without any reversal in their symptoms. Or perhaps any one input being “out of desired range” is enough to send TXNIP up. At this point it’s an unanswered question.

Despite the uncertainty I just mentioned, this is still fantastic science and quickly leads us to what we have to do if weight loss and diabetes reversal are our goals. Anything we can do to get blood sugar low and keep it there, and anything we can do to get insulin and leptin up and keep them there, is going to work in our favor and possibly lead to weight loss. Below are the strategies I believe will trigger immediate and “effortless” weight loss-

Carbohydrates. Fiber-rich, fresh carbohydrates are the “triple threat” for weight loss (emphasis on the fiber). The fiber will ferment into short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) in the hindgut, turbo-boosting insulin sensitivity and thus lowering blood sugar; the glucose will spike your insulin; and the calories will spike your leptin. Between these three factors TXNIP is toast. Instant leaning out. Make these the basis of your diet - fresh whole grains (brown rice, corn, oats, wheat - whatever) and potato variants with the skins on (the skin is where the fiber is). If you have the means to make fresh flour, chapati it up.

Keep protein and fat low. There’s nothing wrong with protein and fat, but they don’t boost insulin or tame blood sugar as well as carbs. Each calorie of fat or protein you eat is going to be a calorie of carbs you don’t eat before you’re stuffed for the day.

The proteins you do eat should be a mix of “normal” meat and gelatin. Fats should definitely be saturated - especially coconut oil.

Eat the Food. Never skip meals and always eat to appetite. This is about leptin, people! Leptin, leptin, leptin! This woman lost 232 lbs. over two years after switching to a regimen that never skipped meals while making no changes to the quality of her diet whatsoever. I think we can do better.

Also, if you're really craving something that's "off diet", just go for it. The stress of thinking about while you dutifully eat your potatoes just isn't worth it, and maybe you're craving it because your body knows you need some vitamin, mineral or other quality. Trust your instincts and just get back on the horse at the next meal. It's okay, I promise; I won't come over to your house and berate you for being a bad person.

No Milk. For reasons that aren’t clear to me, but many people have reported this, it is very easy to gain build muscle and lean tissues while drinking milk but damn near impossible to lose weight. Evolutionarily this makes sense - the last thing you want a nursing infant to do is lose weight. So this means that for the duration of your weight-loss effort, keep dairy to a minimum (or none at all, if you can manage). Butter (and especially ghee) is probably alright though since it lacks the proteins and sugars of milk that seem to be so anti-weight-loss.

Frequent Feeding. The TXNIP study found that any sort of fasting caused TXNIP to inexorably rise, while meals immediately quenched TXNIP production (the insulin and leptin signal). Meanwhile other studies on both humans and horses found that frequent meals kept leptin up and blood sugar low the whole day long, while infrequent meals produced wide swings in both. Don’t listen to those leangains guys - frequent little meals (FLM) is the way to go.

Anita Mills (who I linked to above in “Eat the Food”) also ate small frequent meals. Her Doctor’s advice was spot on (if incomplete) for keeping blood sugar lower and leptin higher.

Helpful note: In the last week I have already started making FLMs, and it’s quite convenient. I just make my breakfast as usual but double the amount I make and then divide it into four portions. I then eat one immediately and the other three portions go into tupperware for work. Dinner is eaten with the family normally. No sweat.

Correct Exercise. This is just as important as any dietary change. Lift weights, do bodyweight exercises, and/or Maxercise. Read Matt’s post at the previous link and his post on the PACE system by Al Sears to understand more fully the reasons why this is important, but the short version is - because it lowers cortisol and blood sugar.

Speaking of cortisol …

Lower Cortisol. Straight from Wikipedia, cortisol’s “primary function [is] to increase blood sugar”. Cortisol is bad for weight loss, mm’kay? So meditate, go for walks, do yoga - whatever. Almost anything that reduces cortisol is probably a good thing. Foods that lower cortisol, such as orange juice and ice cream, might also be helpful in moderation.

Ice Cream?? Heh heh. That’s been quite the topic du jour around here, eh? Well actually some amounts of ice cream might be good (or at least “mostly harmless”) for weight loss if you are already very insulin sensitive. Someone who is still diabetic will have increased blood sugar for hours from a bowl of ice cream (or a plate of pasta), but someone with an excellent blood sugar control should see their blood sugars return to normal fairly quickly - while also getting an insulin and leptin boost that quenches TXNIP expression. Until I hear evidence to the contrary, I’m putting this into the “Allowed in moderation” category. The basis for your diet should still be high-fiber starches though, 4 to 5 meals of the day.

Avoid Stimulants. Anything that boosts the adrenal glands is going to boost cortisol as well as adrenaline, causing high blood sugar. Sorry Mr. French-Press, you and I will just have to take a break.

Sleep. It does a body good. Sleep is so important I can’t even summarize it in one paragraph or two. Just get a much as you can. If at all possible, unplug your alarm clock and go to bed early.

And that’s it!

One last point. Let’s call this system something. In honor of the grain-based nature of this diet, the light amounts of protein and fat, the regular exercise and strict diurnal practice of sleeping a lot, I humbly suggest The Neolithic Diet. (Strictly speaking our species has been eating a carb-based diet for 500,000 years (No one tell Art De Vany!), so this diet is actually Paleo. But let’s not confuse people.)

This Neolithic Diet isn’t just theoretical. I put it into practice on April 27, 2011 and will be “live blogging” the results as they come in at my nutrition blog Chicken Soup for the Liver. If you're interested in how it works you can follow me there. Also, if you choose to try this experimental diet with me PLEASE do two things - (1) email me to let me know, and (2) take some “before” pictures. If this regimen is as successful as I hope some “before and after” shots from people other than just myself would go a long way towards convincing even more people to put this into practice. And then we’ll have really started something.

Special thanks Mark A., a 180 reader and friend, for first alerting me to this research. Super-special thanks to Matt Stone, for letting me contribute to the discussion here.
-Brock Cusick; bmcusick@gmail.com

Neuroethics: The Brain and Moral Beliefs

Jerome Grafman, Ph.D. presented the May 2011 Warren Frontiers in Neuroscience lecture “Brain Regions Supporting the Establishment of Human Beliefs” in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  I have typically summarized these lectures in a single Brain Posts blog posting.  But given the broad character of this presentation, I will break my summary into three parts based on the sections in the presentation: moral beliefs, religious beliefs and political beliefs.  Along with the lecture highlights, I will review relevant research manuscripts by Dr. Grafman and his research team.

A first step in studying concepts as abstract as morality is to define key components or factors within moral beliefs.  This is a common approach applicable to also religious and political beliefs.  Dr. Grafman prefers a more data driven approach to this task, rather than coming from a theoretical perspective.  The Moral Sentiment Task is a 98-item interview where subjects are given a scenario and asked to pick one of four responses that describes the feeling they would experience in that situation.  Using large population survey data, responses in this interview can be assigned to one of two sentiments:

Prosocial sentiments

• embarrassment 
• pity
• guilt

Critical sentiments

• anger
• disgust

In a study with Jorge Moll and colleagues, Grafman examined a series of patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) using PET imaging and the Moral Sentiment Task.  Patients with FTD commonly exhibit impairment in social behaviors such as acting inappropriately (misjudge the social appropriateness of a behavior).  This socially inappropriate behavior commonly causes caregiver embarrassment and makes FTD often more difficult to manage than Alzheimer’s dementia.  Since the frontal lobe is felt to contribute to moral beliefs and judgment, a disease variably affecting the frontal lobe is likely to provide information about the effect of deficits in specific regions.

Patients with FTD were recruited for a study of the relationship between hypoactivation of specific brain regions with impairment in making accurate choices in the Moral Sentiment test.  As expected FTD, patients showed widespread decreased frontal lobe glucose utilization compared to controls.  In a correlational analysis, the following results were noted:

• Decreased glucose utilization in the medial frontopolar cortex correlated with reduced prosocial sentiment
• Decreased glucose utilization in the septum also correlated with impaired prosocial sentiment
• Decreased glucose utilization in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex and the amygdala correlated with reduced critical sentiment scores

In a review in the Annual Review of Neuroscience, Forbes and Grafman summarize the role of the prefrontal cortex in social cognition and moral judgment.  They note that there is significant overlap between processes involved in social cognition and moral judgment.  Social cognition has been described as the encoding, storage, retrieval and processing in the brain of information related to other members of the species. 

Elements of social cognition function can be implicit processes (occurring rapidly with little cognitive effort and outside conscious awareness) or explicit processes (deliberate, cognitively taxing and consciously accessible).  Implicit social cognition appears to have evolved earlier and is linked to the posterior cortex and subcortical regions.  Explicit social cognition evolved later and relies heavily on the prefrontal cortex (PFC). 

The prefrontal cortex appears to be a key area involved in making moral judgments.  Using fMRI brain PFC regions activate with processing a moral challenge.  Interestingly, the specific region of PFC involved in making a decision appears to be separate for making a decision on an impersonal moral dilemma (whether to flip a trolley track switch that will save five lives but lead to the death of one other person) or a personal moral dilemma (whether to smother your own crying baby if doing so would being detected by oppositional soldiers who will kill you and many other individuals).

Forbes and Grafman note in the conclusion of their review that “social interactions and judgments of humans have been based on evolutionary pressures and environmental and social contingencies”.  This evolution is continuing and they wonder if more impersonal world of advances such as Facebook and text messaging at a young age might drive the brain systems towards more “immediate results and gratification”.  Nevertheless, the emerging field of social neuroscience is likely to play a key role in better understanding neuroanatomical, genetic and environmental influences that effect our social development and the moral judgment we make.


Screen shot of prefrontal cortex from 3D Brain by Yates Photography.

In the next post, I will summarize research related to the brain and religious beliefs.  Dr. Grafman’s proposes an answer to the question “Is there a God spot in the brain?”

Moll J, Zahn R, de Oliveira-Souza R, Bramati IE, Krueger F, Tura B, Cavanagh AL, & Grafman J (2011). Impairment of prosocial sentiments is associated with frontopolar and septal damage in frontotemporal dementia. NeuroImage, 54 (2), 1735-42 PMID: 20728544


Forbes, C., & Grafman, J. (2010). The Role of the Human Prefrontal Cortex in Social Cognition and Moral Judgment Annual Review of Neuroscience, 33 (1), 299-324 DOI: 10.1146/annurev-neuro-060909-153230

Spinach-Marinara Pasta with Shitake Mushrooms

Super power-up your pasta with this delicious recipe for Spinach-Marinara Pasta with Shitake Mushrooms.  Everyone in the family loved this dish.  Packed with nutrition and flavor. Shitake mushrooms have been used medicinally for more than 6,000 years. They have healing benefits, the ability to power-up the immune system to fight infection and disease.  The lentinan in the mushrooms have the ability to fight influenza and other viruses.

Among the World's Healthiest vegetables, spinach comes out at the top of the ranking list for nutrient richness.Rich in vitamins and minerals and an excellent support for your bones with its calcium and magnesium.

In the area of food and phytonutrient research, nothing has been hotter in the last several years than studies on the lycopene in tomatoes. This carotenoid found in tomatoes (and everything made from them) has been extensively studied for its antioxidant and cancer-preventing properties.

Spinach-Marinara Pasta with Shitake Mushrooms

Printable Recipe

Serves 4

1 cup chopped shitake mushrooms (fresh or re-hydrated dried)

1/3 cup sliced yellow onion

1 Tbsp. diced jalapeno

1 tsp. olive oil

salt & pepper to taste

1 (28 oz.) can diced tomatoes with basil, garlic & oregano

1/8-1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

1 cup frozen or fresh spinach

1 tsp. agave nectar

whole grain pasta (cook according to package) I used brown rice noodles.

1).  Saute mushrooms, onions and jalapeno in olive oil.  Salt & pepper to taste. If you use dried shitake mushrooms, soak in water for 6 hours to completely rehydrate them before use. 

2.)  Add canned tomatoes, agave & cayenne pepper.

3.)  Simmer for 10 minutes.  Add spinach and heat until spinach is either unfrozen or fresh spinach is wilted.

4.)  Serve over whole-grain pasta of your choice.

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Tornado Deaths: Limits of Current Technology

An earlier draft of this article first published as Tornado Deaths and the Limits of Tornado-Related Technologies onTechnorati.

Deaths in the southeastern United States related to the April 27, 2011 tornadoes prompt an examination of tornado safety.  A key question is whether modern tornado detection and warning technology significant reduces risk of tornado-related death.

Storm and tornado tracking technology has exploded over the last 30 years.  Doppler radar technology continues to improve and national and regional news channels trumpet their own systems with names such as SkyTraK DopplerMax, First Alert Mega Doppler Radar and Doppler 9000 HD.  Local news stations in the the midwestern  and southern U.S. regions frequently break into regular programming to alert viewers to potential dangerous storms and tornado watches.

In 1982, The Weather Channel started broadcasting in the United States.  This 24 hour channel monitors severe weather across the U.S. providing access to instant weather information.

But what has been the effect of these tornado technologies in the trends for tornado-related deaths?  The trends to do not appear to support these technologies in their ability to reduce tornado-related death.  Below is a plot of the yearly number of tornado-related deaths in the U.S. between 1950 and 2011 (year-to-date) from data published by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

Tornado-related deaths have dropped dramatically in the United States but the biggest declines occurred between 1925 and 1980.  Between 1875 and 1925, the U.S. averaged nearly two deaths per million residents.  Since 1980, the U.S. death rate has averaged around .2 deaths per million people.  This is around a 90 per cent decrease and a significant advance in public health safety.

The problem for tornado technology advocates is the trend in tornado-related deaths between 1980 and 2011.  The over 300 deaths in the recent southeastern U.S. tornado make 2011 already one of the top three years for tornado deaths in the U.S. since 1950.  The number of deaths so far in 2011 is topped by only by 1953 with 519 deaths and 1974 with 366 tornado-related deaths .  Yearly death rates vary significantly and should be corrected for total population to compare trends.  Taking a look at the rates of tornado-related deaths per million population finds the following results in the last six decades:

Decade      Total Deaths           Deaths/Million

1950s        1419                                  8.6

1960s          942                                 4.9

1970s          998                                 4.7

1980s          522                                 2.2

1990s          579                                 2.2

2000s          556                                 1.9
2010s          420

The decline in the 2000s to 1.9 deaths/million/decade is not statistically different than the rate for the decade of the 1980s or the rate for the 1990s decades.  The 300 deaths in the southeastern U.S. in the recent U.S. tornado is about the number that could be expected over a six year span in the U.S.  The likelihood that the tornado deaths in the 2010s will show a statistically significant decline seem small.


There is some data supporting regional tornado death decreases in the area surrounding new radar installations  Additionally, there is some support for increased numbers of residents and mobile homes in the southeastern U.S. potentially contributing to the plateau in number of tornado deaths in the U.S. Nevertheless, it's hard to look at the raw data and feel like tornado detection technology has dramatically reduced the risk of tornado death.

Technology has contributed to improvement in many areas of life.  Tornado-related deaths in the U.S. have dropped significantly in the U.S.  The timing of this decline suggests factors such as improved building safety may have contributed to this public health improvement.

However, the data do no support modern tornado detection and warning technology as  major factors in decreasing tornado-related deaths.   Without significant new technological advances, it appears a limit has been reached in reducing tornado-related deaths in the U.S.


The figure in this post is created by the author from public domain data.

Ashley, W. (2007). Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Tornado Fatalities in the United States: 1880–2005 Weather and Forecasting, 22 (6), 1214-1228 DOI: 10.1175/2007WAF2007004.1

Simmons, K., & Sutter, D. (2005). WSR-88D Radar, Tornado Warnings, and Tornado Casualties Weather and Forecasting, 20 (3), 301-310 DOI: 10.1175/WAF857.1


Brooks, Harold E (2002). Deaths in the 3 May 1999 Oklahoma City Tornado from a Historical Perspective Weather and Forecasting


The Science of Tornadoes--3 minute video from the History Channel