Forget Anarchy in the UK, its Bedtime For Democracy

I live in Spain, my wife is Spanish and if and when we decide to have kids they will probably learn in school how their country was controlled by a fascist dictatorship. It now appears that I will have to explain to our children that in 2016 my country, the UK, took it's first steps towards becoming one of these dictatorships.
Sounds ridiculous doesn't it? But before you leave and just dismiss me as another paranoid idiot who is being overly dramatic, take an objective view at was has happened in the UK over the last 12 months.

• We held a referendum to break away from the European Union and even though it is written in our most sacred of laws that this cannot happen without a vote in Parliament, our un-elected Prime Minister has said she will do it anyway!
• The government have made no secret of their desire to do away with the European charter of human rights that have protected us since the end of World War II and to replace it with their own version! 
• The government has finally passed it's Snoopers Charter which will force internet companies to keep ALL YOUR browsing history for 12 months. 
• Finally they have begun to censor what you can see on the internet, banning what they deem "non-conventional".

This is not some Illuminati conspiracy, this is actually happening! Do these sound like the actions of a European democratic society? 

We would expect this in countries such as China or North Korea but in Britain?? Really? 

Regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum this should be extremely alarming, the people of the UK are going to be monitored in a way not seen since before the Berlin wall came down. However, what I find most distressing is the sheer apathy that this has been met with in the UK. People simply don't care! They are more outraged that Ed Balls remained on a televised dancing competition for too long than they are that the government is now spying on everything they do online. 

"I'm not doing anything wrong so I have nothing to hide" is the standard response I have heard, but THAT IS NOT THE POINT!!!  The answer should be "I am doing nothing wrong so why the hell are you spying on me?" The UK is supposed to be a free society where people have a right to privacy and are not constantly monitored on the off chance they break the law! 

 "It's for your own good" they tell us, in order to protect us from terrorism. Now this is complete nonsense on several levels.

Firstly when you take into account the actual death toll from terrorist attacks in the UK since the turn of the millennium  it is 52 people from the July 7th bombings, Lee Rigby and Jo Cox, although the media are hesitating to call the killing of Jo Cox a terrorist act because the killer was not a Muslim but that is another story. So I make that 54 people killed by terrorism in 16 years, lets compare that to deaths of women at the hands of their partners. The average is said to be 2 deaths each week so that makes a total of 1664 women killed in their own home since 2000. What has the government done to protect women from the very real terror of domestic violence? Or let's compare terrorism to road traffic fatalities, 1713 people in 2013 alone, has the government forced car manufacturers to limit the speed of vehicles? The recent proposed sugar tax that aimed at forcing food and drinks manufacturers to reduce the sugar content of their products was booted out because it was deemed too interfering or "nanny state". In other words the government doesn't think it's their place to tell companies what to put in their products even though nearly half the population is overweight! However, they deem it absolutely necessary to monitor every website you visit, every WhatsApp and tweet you send and every Facebook group you join, all in the name of protecting us from something that has killed 54 people in nearly quarter of a century in a country of over 60 million!  

What would the reaction have been if in the 70s and 80s the government had said they were bugging everyone's phone or intercepting people's mail in order to protect us from the IRA? I'd imagine there would have been hell up and rightly so, but we have become so politically disengaged that the news was met with a collective shrug of the shoulders. 

Secondly, will monitoring everyone's internet really make us safer from terrorism? Who is most likely to plaster their love for the jihad and their plans to cause mayhem all over their Facebook page? The boss of Islamic State or just some idiot looking for attention? The real terrorists will be deep down in the dark net using encrypted messages that this snooper's charter will do nothing to stop. It will be the equivalent of going to a club in Miami during the 80s, arresting the small time coke dealer in there and expecting Pablo Escobar to suddenly fall in your lap! Any arrest made is unlikely to be anyone who is high up in the terrorist networks and personally I feel the loss of my privacy is far too high a price to pay. 

The bottom line is that terrorism is not the threat that we are continually told it is and even if it was, this law will do nothing to stop it. 

Another alarming fact is the timing of when the government pushed this law through parliament. Whilst the world's media was frothing at the mouth at the news Donald Trump won the election and everybody was competing on Facebook to show who was the most outraged at this news before returning to selfies and cat videos, our wonderful government passed the law that allowed them to look at all your internet history. If this government really had our best interests at heart it was rather a strange moment to push a law through parliament, one might think that they wanted to make sure it would receive as little media attention as possible! 

And lastly, who exactly is on the other end of this snooper's charter? Who will be looking at our data? We have to trust that they will be competent and or trustworthy which if you look at the history of totalitarian governments they are usually neither! And make no mistake this law is the action of a totalitarian state, the last European country to have their citizens under this level of surveillance was the DDR (East Germany), who were not exactly known for their love of democracy and free speech!
Who should we really fear? The terrorists? Even though deaths from terrorism are dramatically lower than they were 30 years ago (1) ? Or a government with an un-elected leader who has just passed a law that now turns the UK into a truly Orwellian society?

Now if monitoring your internet traffic wasn't bad enough the UK government are going to decide what you can and can't look at on the internet and their first target is pornography. They are going to ban any website that shows "unconventional sex", now what exactly is deemed conventional or otherwise is anyone's guess. The completely natural female ejaculation is almost certainly gone as it was recently banned from porn movies filmed in the UK, so I wouldn't be surprised if anything other than a married couple (man and woman obviously) in missionary with the lights off is banned!
Now put aside your opinion on pornography for one second, this is not drug trafficking or arms dealing, the porn business is a totally legal and regulated industry that involves consenting adults, we are not talking about banning the truly awful stuff that is out there, that is already banned by the way, we are talking about censorship and you not being able to look at anything that the government deems "not normal". And where will they stop? Will any movie/song/videogame be banned because the government doesn't like it and they think you are incapable of being able to separate real life from fantasy? Female ejaculation is banned from films and websites, will it be banned from your home too? Spanking is another past time deemed "unconventional", if somebody enjoys spanking or being spanked with other consenting adults who are the government to tell you its wrong and what does this spell for shops such as Anne Summers who sell whips and bondage devices?

Instead of educating our youngsters about safe sex, respect and consent we are simply going to censor things, and when young people want to watch the censored porn, which they will because banning something always has the effect of making it more desirable, they will simply go onto the dark net and what will be waiting for them there? All the illegal stuff that is not on legitimate porn sites, so the actual violent stuff, child porn, as well as drug dealers, arms dealers and terrorist recruiters.
So aside from being the first step into a North Korean style internet it will have the exact opposite effect as to what the government are telling us will happen. 

As I said before this is not some conspiracy theory, I am not talking about secret reptiles that control the world, I am talking about one of the major European democracies ignoring their own laws, censoring the internet, removing the charter for human rights and recording everything you look at on the internet via your phone, tablet or computer. If only people cared as much about their own privacy and freedom as they did about fabric closing, maybe then we would see some real opposition to this government.

Maybe its because we have never had a Franco or a Stalin in charge of us? Maybe we have taken our freedom for granted so we don't recognise when something alarming has happened because it has never happened to us before. We have always been taught in school that we have fought for freedom in the face of tyranny. So we go on assuming that we live in a free society.
Every year remembrance Sunday moves away from a sombre day of quiet reflection of the horrors of war and towards a day of nationalist hysteria, but do we ever really stop to think about what those people who fought and died were fighting against?

For the Second World War at least, those people died fighting against a regime who controlled every aspect of their citizen's lives and now we are letting our own government take that freedom away from us.
Let's wake up and do something before it's too late and the next knock at the door you hear is the police coming to take you away because you are "non-conventional".

Reference 
1. https://www.statista.com/chart/4093/people-killed-by-terrorist-attacks-in-western-europe-since-1970/

TUEs

With the news of several athletes having their medical records hacked into and then in turn leaked to the press, the debate around theraputic use exemptions (TUEs) has exploded over the usual battle grounds of twitter and Facebook. Depending on what side of the fence you're on, TUEs are either a completely legitimate process that allows athletes who are ill or have chronic conditions to compete at their normal level OR they are a shady loophole in the antidoping structure that allows access to otherwise banned substances.

Although I'm not particularly interested in talking about the individual athletes that have been "exposed", I do want to put my views across about TUEs in general as I disagree that this has been a nothing story as many people have said over the last few days and really think it needs to be looked into further.

My main problem with TUEs is that it blurs what should be a clear line on what is and what is not allowed to be taken during competition. The list of banned substances is there for a reason, they either enhance performance or are hazardous to health, sometimes both. It doesn't take a great stretch of the imagination to picture an athlete or team seeking an unscrupulous doctor willing to write a prescription for non-existent  allergies or any other condition that would require corticosteroids.
We've seen that athletes, doctors and even governing bodies don't have a great track record when it comes to being open and honest around doping.
Of course I have no doubt that some athletes genuinely have allergies, asthma etc. But is it fair that they get access to products that are banned for others?
And allowing athletes access to these drugs if they get ill during an event is just grossly unfair in my opinion! Using the tour de France as an example, staying healthy is part of the challenge and if you get ill that's bad luck I'm afraid, the same way getting a puncture or shipping your chain is! If I was challenging for the victory and I found out that my chief rival got sick and was given a TUE I'd be furious and would have to ride on knowing my main rival is getting access to an otherwise banned drug! 

Whilst scrolling through twitter I came across a quote that I think sums up TUEs perfectly. "if you need to take drugs to perform at an elite level maybe you should not be performing at that level." 

It may sound harsh but elite sport is just that, elite, the best of the best. If we are serious about clean sport then in my opinion we must remove the TUE system, it just leaves the door open for opportunities to dope. This will of course make lives difficult for athletes with genuine problems that require these drugs but I would rather that than have a system that allows access to banned drugs for anyone with a sick note.

Brexit through the eyes of an emigrant (if anyone gives a toss)

Last Friday whilst it was slowly sinking in that we had actually voted to leave and it wasn't a bad dream, I decided that I would write down my thoughts and feelings on the event. This was for 2 reasons really, one was that I had so many thoughts and emotions running through my head that I felt it would help to make them slightly more coherent if I wrote them down. The second was to keep a record from my own personal view to look back on over the years. I wanted to wait a few days so that this wouldn't end up as some bitter rant and also to try and get an idea of what I think is going (or not) to happen. I’ll explain why I voted to remain, why I think Leave won and also what I think the future will hold. I think enough has been said about the disgusting xenophobic incidents we are currently seeing throughout the UK so I’m going to steer clear of that as much as possible.

Why I voted Remain

I have always considered myself to be on the left, I would even dare to say a socialist, although that appears to be a very dirty word in today's world. I believe that in a truly civilised society everyone should have access to free education, free health care and should be free to live their life regardless of race, sexuality and religion.  The EU had always been a bit of a conundrum for me, during the lead up to the referendum I was constantly being told that as a “lefty” I should be instinctively opposed to an organization such as the EU. However, although I can understand that point of view I never really felt that way. I have always thought that becoming more integrated with the rest of Europe was the way forward and I have always had very little time for the “little islander” attitude that has always been prevalent in the UK. True, the EU is a bureaucratic monster that clearly puts commercial interests ahead of social ones, but is that any different from any country in the world?

How would my life have turned out if I had never been a citizen of the EU? This is the question I used to decide my vote.

Bit of background, I am from a small town in the English peak district, a beautiful town but deathly boring and not many job opportunities so eventually I found myself in London. Whilst in London 2 events occurred that would never have happened if it wasn’t for the freedoms we have from being part of the EU. The first involved my brother who also made the treacherous journey down south to London. He was working as a hair dresser and like most young people was getting increasingly fed up with most of his wage packet going on rent for some damp infested shit hole. So one day he decided that he’d had enough, he packed his bag bought a plane ticket to Berlin (no he’s not an aspiring techno DJ) and he left. He's now fluent in German and is loving living in a city that can be enjoyed even if you aren’t a millionaire. The second event was that whilst I was working in a south London hospital I met a girl who I am now engaged to, she is from Madrid and like many Spaniards her age found herself having to move to find work. Fast forward 3 years and we are now living in Spain preparing for our wedding next month. Had it not been for the freedom of movement that having an EU passport grants you, it is highly unlikely that I would be sat here in Spain typing this. Freedom of movement is one of the core principles of the EU and it is something that we should be thankful for. I was recently chatting to a friend who is from Latin America and lives in London, she was saying how we are in for a shock when we realise how difficult, time consuming and expensive applying for Visas can be. I’ll explain later why I don’t think this will happen but just the very thought of it was enough for me to be a strong “remainer”.

Other reasons for my Remain vote were my refusal to believe the lies that all the problems of the UK were the fault of immigrants, and even with my limited economic knowledge I could see that as the world is teetering on another recession, placing our own economy into a period of chaos however short it may be, wasn’t wise.  I am currently several thousand euros poorer thanks to the value of my savings in sterling falling off a cliff! And I am sure many fellow Brits who live within the EU are in the same boat.

I’ll get the sovereignty issue later on, but the idea of an “ever increasing” political union didn’t really worry me, in fact I always thought that the more politically integrated we became the larger the say we would have in who is in the European parliament. Instead of voting for a national parliament we could have voted for a European one. Sadly, I think as a race we are still too preoccupied with the issue of nationality and we still think that the patch of earth we were born on somehow makes us different from other people.

Why I think “Leave” won

The simplest answer for this is that they campaigned better. As much as I loathe people like Farage and Boris (and I really really do hate them), I have to grudgingly respect how they positioned their campaign and completely out manoeuvred the Remain crew. I do talk about immigration but you can skip to the next paragraph if you’re sick of hearing about it.

Regardless of what the victorious leave voters say now about immigration not being the issue for them in an attempt to distance themselves from the predictable xenophobic events we now see on our streets in 2016 (although you could easily be mistaken and think you were in the 30’s), immigration was a huge factor in the decision. There are a sizeable number of people in the UK (as with any country) who simply don’t like foreigners. The problem is when the global economy isn’t doing well the ruling elite impose austerity on us and then through the media tell us it’s our own fault. The next obvious target to blame is “foreigners”, we have seen this throughout history and we are currently seeing it in Europe now. Austria nearly elected a fascist as president, the National Front are gaining ground in France and we have UKIP. All of these parties were nowhere to be seen at the turn of the century when the good times were rolling. Farage himself hit the nail on the head the other day with “when I first came here, stated my intention to lead a campaign to take Britain out of the EU you all laughed at me”. He was right, we did, because at the time it seemed like a joke, the problem is people continued to laugh at him until last Friday morning when they suddenly realised how dangerous he was.  Take a browse through the right wing media (which is pretty much all media) of Britain over the years and you will see headline after headline of anti-immigrant sentiment. But, that said, to brand every Leave voter as a racist is both lazy and untrue. Yes, there was an element of that in the Remain vote, that is undeniable, however, many Leave voters did not vote to go because of immigration and this is where Remain really fucked it up.

The Leave mob played the absolute master stroke of turning the campaign into “the Establishment” versus “the People”. This really was genius and is why they won. By continuing to refer to the EU as either “the establishment” or “the elite” and constantly pointing out how they put commercial interests before those of the people “just look at what they did to Greece”, the Leave campaign created the illusion that they were fighting for the rights of the forgotten working class. What made matters worse is that leading the Remain campaign was the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, how much more “establishment” can you get? And then heading up Leave you had Nigel “he calls a spade a spade” Farage and everyone’s favourite buffoon Boris Johnson. By regularly trotting out pearls such as “let’s spend that cash we send to Brussels on the NHS” and “our grandparents fought for our right to decide our own laws” they spoke right to the heart of the nation! Christ, if their claim about pumping an extra 350m into the NHS a week was legally binding even I would have voted Leave.

Where the Remain campaign dropped the ball is that they failed to point out (or at least they didn’t do it well enough) that our Boris and Nigel are also part of that elite that they are slagging off. As much they portray themselves as the “blokes down the pub” they are both public school boys who are stinking rich and have both previously expressed the view that the NHS needs to be privatised. The Remain campaign should have been screaming this from the rooftops but instead they focused on how most Leave voters were poorly educated and from the north of England. By calling somebody a thick northern racist you aren’t suddenly going to persuade them to change their mind! Another idiotic move by the Remain campaign was the constant doom saying about how we would lose access to the common market if we left the EU. Most people neither know or give a shit what the common market is, they want a school place for their kid or a Drs appointment when they need one. To your average “thick northern racist” this sounded like “we bankers in the city of London want to carry on making shit loads of cash so we need you peasants to pipe down and vote Remain”. The Leave was retort was perfect, “don’t worry, the Germans will still want to sell us cars”. Apart from being probably true it spoke to people in a language they understood. While the Remain campaign was continuing to focus on immigration and how everyone in Leave was a horrid racist, the Leave team were slowly building the support of a disgruntled and unrepresented working class.

What I think will now happen

When the result came in I had a moment of panic and had visions of the Guardia Civil kicking my door in, wearing those weird plastic hats and dragging me to the nearest airport. The day of the result we had a meeting with the judge regarding our wedding, would that be all out of the window because we voted to leave the EU? Although I am an “extranjero” in Spain, being an EU citizen is essentially the same as being Spanish in terms of civil rights, if I was say American, the marriage process would be even more complicated than it was. Once my initial panic had settled down and I was assured that I would still be considered an EU citizen for the next 2 years, my panic turned to fury. Don’t worry I’m not going to go through the 5 stages of grief but my current mood is deep sadness. Sadness at how my country is being perceived by my Spanish friends and family (and my brother’s German friends), sadness at how being openly racist appears to be socially acceptable on the streets of the UK and also I feel really sad for the people who voted to leave because they genuinely believed it would improve their lives.

A friend of mine who voted to leave told me his reason was “sick of those rich bankers in Brussels telling me what to do” or something along those lines. Basically he fell hook line and sinker for the “the people vs the elite” argument. When I asked him if a Tory led government that had just broken away from the shackles of the EU would make his life any better, he couldn’t really answer me. The argument that a vote for leave was a vote to break away from an undemocratic institution that is making our lives so difficult was an inviting one. The reality is that as workers we have done very well from the EU, putting the opportunity to live and work in several countries aside, working hours, holiday entitlement, maternity (and paternity) leave have all come from being part of the EU. Our American cousins would give their right arm and probably even their automatic assault rifles to have the working rights we have. Although it may or may not happen, the fact is that now the Tories could vote to remove or reduce any of those rights and we have lost the protection that being part of the EU would have given us. The bottom line is, as brilliantly put in an article in the FT is that we have simply replaced one set of distant elite for another. Bankers will still make millions and we will still be paying to drag our country out of the recession they put us in whilst we are told it was our fault for daring to ask the bank for a mortgage.

To not like being told what to do is human nature but unfortunately unless you are one of those mythical elite, I’m afraid it’s tough shit, you will still be told what to do by a government that doesn’t want to spend money on the public services they told you would improve if we left the EU. You will still have to enter a lottery to get your kid a place in the local school, you’ll still have to wait for a GP appointment, your train to work will still be delayed or if you drive/cycle to work you will still have to travel on roads that look like Islamic State has paid us a visit. This is because successive governments have failed to spend on infrastructure or have sold it off to private businesses who only care about that little number on the top right of the ticket for the train you are waiting in pissing rain for. Whether any of these issues would have changed if we remained in the EU is debatable but in my opinion they are far less likely to now we have left.

Some of the more worrying aspects of leaving the EU are what it may mean for the environment and also human rights. The EU has an emissions target which although could have been a lot stricter than it is, it is better than nothing at all. I know the environment isn’t a particularly sexy topic and few things cause more eye rolling but I still live in hope that we will do something before we have to start paying for breathable air. Climate change aside the air quality in our largest cities, especially London, is deteriorating fairly rapidly. What worries me is that on the list of priorities of a post-EU British government, the environment is going to be way down if it’s on there at all. The Tories have been dying to rid themselves of the European charter of human rights for ages and although they give the reason that they would be able to boot that Chowdry idiot out of the country, personally I would rather have him in the UK than give up the protection that the charter offers me. Maybe I’m being paranoid but it makes me very uneasy when I hear my government talking about replacing a charter of human rights with one of their own, it all sounds a little bit too totalitarian for my liking.

adding to that PM hopeful Theresa May desperate trying to get the snoopers charter through parliament. Frightening!! 

   

Where I don’t think there will be much change is with the freedom of movement, which was one of the main issues for me.

 Although I may have got this completely wrong my understanding is as follows:

• ·         The core principles of the EU free market are the freedom of movement of, people, goods, services and capital
• ·         There is also the European Economic Area that consists of the EU plus non-EU countries, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein
• ·         Switzerland has not joined either EU or EEA but has trade agreements with both to allow access to the free market
• ·         The EEA and Switzerland have to adhere to the 4 core principles in order to be part of the free market
• ·         Therefore, ALL countries have to allow the freedom of movement of people.
• ·         They still have to contribute financially to the EU but not as much and they receive no funding in return

So once we formally leave the EU we will have several options. 

The first being the most unlikely is that we completely remove ourselves from the EU and the EEA. We would have complete control over our borders and so on but it would put our status as being the global financial centre at jeopardy. The reason London is currently the number one is because we have access to the common market, if that were to change there is the very real risk that banks, especially non-European ones, would simply move their offices to an EU country which would mean job losses on top of the negative economic effects. My friend who works for an American trust company told me that the bosses have already made it very clear that if this happens then it’s off to Ireland. Many people may be thinking who cares? But as much we hate the financial industry, the fact remains that without it we wouldn’t be one of the richest nations. This would be like the Germans suddenly getting rid of BMW and then saying they were still the big boys when it came to car manufacturing. Also you could add in to the mix that if option one were to take effect then it would almost certainly mean the end of the UK as Scotland have made it very clear that they intend to remain in the EU. So all in all option one would be pretty unappealing for Boris.

The second option which is almost as unlikely is that the UK manages to negotiate the freedom of goods etc. but not people. Whilst this is not impossible it would require agreement from all EU nations and I can’t imagine Italy and Spain etc. signing up to let the UK into the free market whilst also denying their citizens the opportunity to go and work there. Not to mention that Norway et al would be soon knocking on Brussels’s door demanding the same deal. The knock on effect of that would basically render the EU useless as it would prove you could pick and choose which bits of the treaty you wanted, so I would be staggered if the UK could swing that one no matter how many BMWs they promise to buy.

The third option which I think is most likely is that very little changes, the UK wants to be in EEA and the EU wants the UK in the EEA. The UK will have to accept the terms of entering into the EEA and therefore the freedom of movement of people will remain. I personally cannot wait to see buffoon Boris bumbling his way through that speech when he has to explain that no we aren’t “sending the buggers back” and although we have left the club we still want our nose in the EU trough but now we have even less say about what rules apply in order to get it in there. The UK may be able to restrict access to benefits for migrants but it won’t be able to stop them coming. Which, if you are like me and believe every human should have the opportunity to move to a more prosperous area to improve their lives (as I did when I moved to London) will make you very happy. Whereas if you are like the utter dregs of society that we are currently seeing on the news then you won’t be too chuffed, but tough shit I’m afraid!!

So to cap it all off, once the dust has settled people will realise that although a “foreigner” isn’t telling them what to do, they are still being told what to do. The daily express will still go through its headline cycle of “we’re all going to freeze to death in winter – immigrants are stealing our jobs – princess Diana – immigrants again – we’re all going to burn to death in summer”. And unfortunately the working classes will once again realise that the government doesn’t have their best interests at heart. Maybe one day they’ll stop voting for right wing governments!

The only thing that will have changed is that finally Boris will have managed to outmanoeuvre his old Eaton chum and will become leader of the Tories which if anything shows the lengths that the man will go to for power.

What a colossal waste of time!!!

At the point of finishing this I noticed that that weasel Gove has stabbed his Brexit chum in the back and tossed his hat into the ring for Tory leadership. So now you have the choice of him, buffoon Boris or Theresa May who has been trying to pass a bill that would allow the government to snoop through your phone and email data. What a terrifying thought, thank ‘effing Christ I decided to leave!

The IgG antibody test: Vital for optimising nutrition? Part 2

Hello there, sorry I've taken a bit of time between posts but part 2 is finally here.

In part 1 of this post about IgG antibodies I aimed to separate the terms allergy and intolerance. I'm sorry if I laboured the point slightly but it is important to be certain of which is which.

If you do suspect you may have a food allergy then you MUST MUST MUST see a doctor! Get a proper diagnosis and then see a dietitian. Don't get all the info from some crackpot on the internet and spend your life unnecessarily avoiding certain foods. 

Here in part 2 I want to give you the information regarding IgG tests and let you decide if it is something that you think will optimise your diet or if it would be of no use at all. 

The post will consist of what we know about the IgG antibody, what the literature is saying on testing for food specific IgG antibodies and then finally I'll offer my thoughts on the topic.

Like I said in the previous post this will be as concise as possible, if you do want to delve deeper or discuss further please feel free to comment.
I didn't do an extensive literature review as I didn't want this post to be too long but I think I collected a good amount of evidence.

The IgG Antibody 

Antibodies are one of several ways that our immune system protects us. Antibodies are made by the B-cells and depending on the environment that this takes place in depends on the class of antibody. IgG is one class of antibody, it is actually the most abundant in humans and has several subtypes (numbered 1-4). Each class of antibody protects us in different ways. All the IgG subtypes are very good at a process called opsonisation, where the antibodies "tag" a pathogen and make it easier for other immune cells to kill it. IgG1 and IgG3 are both good at activating the complement system (a series of proteins that rid the body of pathogens).
Of course things don't always work as they should, remember the IgE antibody? Well that antibody is supposed to help us fight parasitic infection but as we know it also causes allergies. When things go wrong with the IgG antibody they can be involved in a condition called autoimmunity. When the immune system is functioning properly it is excellent as recognising self from non-self. In other words it can tell what cells are part of your body and what cells are foreign. This is why after a transplant the patient must take medication otherwise their immune system will attack the transplanted organ. With autoimmunity the immune system cannot tell the difference and starts to attack self! (1)
Coming back to the topic, the questions is can some reactions to food be mediated by the IgG antibody?

The Evidence 

I think one of the most frustrating things when reading about a topic on the internet is when the author writes "studies show" but then doesn't tell you which study so you can't go away and read it yourself and you just have to take the author at their word. I find this happens quite frequently in the health and fitness world. I even heard on one podcast that you should take written evidence "with a pinch of salt" and rely more on personal experience. Being diplomatic I'd say I strongly disagree with that statement so when writing this piece I wanted to make sure I provided references to studies that you could go and read and then form your own opinions. Although I do offer my opinion later I didn't want it to be just that alone.

Today a lot of health problems are attributed to the food we eat. We are becoming a lot more aware of the power of food, both good and bad. Some food related diseases are pretty clear cut, for example IgE mediated allergy, where as others are less so. When one study showed that the IgG4 antibody might induce histamine release (2) people began to question whether some food related symptoms that were not allergy could be mediated by this subtype of antibody. This idea began to look more credible when several studies demonstrated that removing foods that had high IgG levels improved symptoms in IBS patients (3-5). At the first glance this seems a strong argument for the need of the IgG test, however, we must be careful to not fall into the trap of confusing association with cause. Getting association mixed up with cause is a common problem when the headlines of a study are reported but not the actual details. Do we all remember the TV and Type II diabetes story that ran in the papers a few years back? Well it went like this, research found that the more time people sat in front of the TV the higher the prevalence of Type II diabetes. So our tabloid press announced that watching TV increased your risk of Type II diabetes. Of course people who thought about it for a second would realise that the TV doesn't increase the risk but because you are sat on your bum for many hours of the day does, the TV watching was just an association. If you spent the same amount of time staring at a wall your diabetes risk would probably be the same.
So back on topic, did the fact these IBS patients found that their symptoms improved after removing foods with high IgG levels show a causal relationship between high IgG and IBS symptoms or was it just an association? .
A study conducted in Norway wanted to look at whether the levels of IgG in the general (symptom free) population were different from those with IBS (6). There were 269 IBS subjects and 277 control subjects, diet was recorded through food frequency questionnaire and blood samples were collected and measured for specific IgG and IgG4. The results showed that there were no differences in levels of IgG/IgG4 between the populations and interestingly they found that lower levels of IgG specific to egg and beef were actually associated with an increased severity of symptoms. They also found that higher levels of IgG specific to chicken were associated with more severe symptoms. What you would expect to find is that the higher levels of IgG would be associated with the more severe symptoms regardless of food, obviously you would also expect to find higher IgG in the IBS population in general wouldn't you???
What the authors did discover was that the IBS group tended to view egg and beef as "problem" foods and avoided them, whereas they saw chicken as a "safe" food and ate it often.
This led the authors to conclude that IBS symptoms are unlikely to be mediated by the IgG antibody and that the presence of this antibody may merely reflect one's diet. In other words the more you eat something the higher the presence of IgG specific to that food. This is a point I will be returning to later.
An article in the journal of gastroenterology and hepatology which looked at alternative investigations for IBS concluded that they could not recommend exclusion diets based on high levels of IgG due to a lack of sufficient evidence and limited efficacy of such diets(7).
Wheat is often reported as a culprit for food related problems. Even without Coeliac disease or wheat allergy (not the same thing) people still report problems when consuming foods containing wheat proteins. A condition with the catchy name, Non-Coeliac Gluten Sensitivity (NCGS) has been gaining more attention over the last few years. Patients with NCGS will not be picked up with standard wheat allergy or Coeliac diagnostic testing but they still react when given food that contains wheat proteins.
A study in Italy wanted to look at the profile of a group of children with NCGS and compare them to a group of Coeliacs and a control group that had no problems with wheat/gluten (8). They found that 66% of the NCGS group had IgG antibodies specific to gliadin (part of gluten) compared to 86% in the coeliac group. However there was also 13% of the control who were found to have gliadin IgG. The authors concluded that as they suspected the only way to diagnose NCGS is with a food challenge and that any blood testing would not provide conclusive results.
Although it must be noted that this was only a small study (only 15 in each group) it does raise some interesting points. Firstly, most of the coeliac group showed IgG to gliadin, but if you cast your mind back to my first post I said that Coeliac is not a food intolerance/sensitivity. As the name suggests Coeliac is a disease and a complex one at that, it does involve antibodies against gluten and also some autoantibodies (antibodies against "self"). So it is important to remember that IgG in Coeliac disease does not prove the efficacy of IgG testing for all food intolerances. In fact, even when diagnosing Coeliac they tend to ignore the anti-gliadin antibodies (IgG) and look for the autoantibodies.
So what about the NCGS group? 66% of them had gliadin specific IgG. Now this makes me wonder if the IgG antibody was mediating their symptoms what was behind the other 44% of the group's symptoms? Remember this group were all confirmed to have reactions to gluten/wheat. The authors suggested that the innate immune system may play a part in NCGS. The innate immune system is a part of our immunity that is not involved in making antibodies. It was also suggested by the authors (and others) that NCGS may actually sit somewhere on the spectrum of Coeliac disease or may be a precursor to full on Coeliac. That could certainly explain the presence of gliadin IgG in just over half of the NCGS group.
So in summary I had found a few studies that reported positive results from avoiding high IgG foods but I hadn't found anything that demonstrates actual mediation of symptoms by this antibody.
In 2008 the European academy of allergy (EAACI) released a position paper on the use of testing for IgG4 against foods (9). A position paper is basically a "This is what we think" report and EAACI are one of the top associations when it comes to allergy (and intolerances).
Their conclusion was "Testing of IgG4 to foods is considered as irrelevant for the laboratory work-up of food allergy or intolerance and should not be performed in case of food-related complaints".
Within the article they state that there is a lack of evidence that IgG4 causes any symptoms within humans. They state the one study that found IgG4 causing histamine release (2) was under very specific lab conditions that would be very unlikely within a human. They state that the procedure of testing is against a large spread of foods that often shows positive results without any corresponding symptoms. This is a point I will pick up in the next section. They also state that the presence of IgG4 indicates that the person has been repeatedly exposed to that food and that their immune system has recognised it as foreign but has also recognised that it is harmless. This statement mirrors what the authors of the Norwegian study concluded. They go on to state that the presence of IgG4 should not be thought of as a marker for hypersensitivity but as a marker of immunological tolerance.

So that is a brief look at what the literature is saying about IgG testing. In the following section I am going to add my opinions based on what I knew and what I have learned through my studies and reading the evidence.

My Thoughts 

Now even though I have spent most of this post trying to differentiate food allergy from food intolerance, for the next few paragraphs I will be comparing the testing protocols of each. It is important to rememebr that although allergy and intolerance are different, the blood testing part is essentially same. A sample of your blood is sent to a lab and the only difference is with allergy they look for IgE antibodies whereas with the other they look for IgG. I am not going to talk about the lab part of the test as it isn't the focus of this post and to be honest it isn't the issue. They say they detect the presence of specific IgG and that's exactly what the blood test does (although they don't say which particular sub-type of IgG they are looking at). It is the interpretation of those results and what comes before (or doesn't come before to be exact) that I have an issue with.
If we put the evidence to one side for a second and focus on the process as a whole. Even if IgG mediated food hypersensitivity was an established condition, the current method of diagnosis would be deeply flawed.
If you ask any professional who works in the field of food allergy what is the most important part of allergy diagnostic procedure they will almost certainly say "the patient history". This is an in-depth discussion with the patient, almost like an interview, where they discuss everything from their medical history, their work and social life, timing and type of symptoms. There are a few reasons for doing this, one is you can usually tell what is likely to be an allergy or not through a comprehensive history taking without having to resort to expensive and potentially dangerous testing. One allergist told me he often diagnoses from the history alone! Another reason is to avoid ambiguous blood test results and/or presence of IgE in an unexpected food. Lets say for example that you suspect you may have a peanut allergy. You ate a Snickers and then around half an hour later you noticed a rash appear and some swelling around the mouth. You go to the doctor and they take some blood and test you for every known allergen under the sun. When you get your results you find that yes you do have a very high IgE specific to peanut, at this point the doctor could be confident that symptoms + high IgE = peanut allergy. However, the doctor also notices that you have IgE to cow's milk. It's not as high as the peanut but its there. Does that mean you are also allergic to milk??? You tell the doctor that you have milk in tea and coffee and on your cereal but have never had any symptoms. But now you're not sure what to do, you're worried you may have a milk allergy too!!!
Now had the doctor taken a comprehensive history before the testing they would have known that you drank milk regularly and had no symptoms and therefore would not have even bothered asking the lab to test for milk IgE.
Before you think, "hang on a minute! The guy still had IgE to milk", it is important to remember that the presence of IgE alone is not diagnostic of clinical allergy. You must have a history of symptoms when consuming that particular food to be given the diagnosis of a food allergy. The presence of IgE alone is known as sensitisation. Basically your immune system has seen it and decided to make an IgE antibody specific to it. So would you recommend that the patient now avoids milk? The short answer is NO! IgE sensitisation without allergic symptoms indicates that you have become tolerant to that food and if you were to cease having it you may actually become allergic and may have a reaction when encountering that food in the future.This is why when people have immunotherapy they must continue eating the food regularly otherwise they may slip back into being allergic.
So coming back to the topic, a blood test without a patient history is at best unhelpful. Using my friend's client as an example, he was not asked to fill any kind of patient history, just a drop of blood was taken and he was tested against 200 (yes 200!!) foods. One of the many foods that came back as red, meaning high IgG, was egg (surprise surprise for a professional rugby player). I asked him if he had any problems eating egg, he told me not only does he eat loads of eggs without any problems he even owns his own chickens! This is a perfect example of how a blood test without a history can be unhelpful and potentially counter-productive. Had this guy then followed the advice that is given he would have avoided eggs (along with the other "red" foods) and would be without what was once a vital source of protein. The fact that he showed a high presence of IgG backs up what I found in the previous section where high IgG is more likely to be reflective of diet as opposed to food intolerance.
It must be noted that although none of the companies I looked at offered a pre test history some companies may offer it.
You could of course do your own patient history. A good method is to keep a food and symptom diary. Basically write down everything you eat and drink and record any symptoms you have and at what time they occurred. Then if you still want, you take the IgG test and match the foods with the symptoms to the test results. Or take this diary to a dietitian and they should be able to pick out the likely culprits and modify your diet accordingly.

So to conclude would I recommend the IgG antibody test? As things stand now with the lack of evidence and the problems with the diagnostic procedure I would have to say no. These tests are not cheap either and I would want to see some improvements in both the protocol and evidence before I'd consider parting with my cash. Of course there are many many people who have found that they have benefited greatly from avoiding their high IgG foods. But that brings me back to the question of association vs cause.
However that is just my opinion and I suggest you go and read the evidence and make your own mind up. I did consider doing an IgG test for this blog but due to price I decided not to, maybe if one of the companies comes across this post they'd offer me one?

I hope you found this post useful and if you want to discuss further please either comment below or tweet me at  @conditionforthe

References

1. Owen J, Punt J, Stranford S, Jones P. Kuby Immunology. Seventh ed: MacMillan Higher Education; 2013.
2. Parish WE. Short-Term anaphylactic IgG antibodies in human sera. Lancet 1970; 2: 591-592  
3. Atkinson W et al. Food elimination based on IgG antibodies in irritable bowel syndrome: a randomised control trial. Gut 2004; 53:1459-1464 
4. Zar S et al. Food specific serum IgG4 and IgE titers to common food antigens in irritable bowel syndrome. Am J Gastro 2005; 100: 1550-1557
5. Zar S et al. Food specific IgG4 antibody-guided exclusion diets improve symptoms and rectal compliance in irritable bowel syndrome. Scan J Gastro 2005; 40 :800-807
6. Ligaarden et al. IgG and IgG4 antibodies in subjects with irritable bowel syndrome: a case control study in the general population. BMC Gastro 2012; 12:166-174
7. Philpott H et al. Alternative investigations for irritable bowel syndrome. JGHF 2012; 28; 73-77
8. Francavilla R et al. Clinical, Serologic, and Histologic Features of Gluten Sensitivity
in Children. Journal of paediatrics 2014; 164: 463-467 
9. Stapel S et al. Testing for IgG4 against foods is not recommended as a diagnostic
tool: EAACI Task Force Report*. Allergy 2008; 63: 793-796  

The IgG antibody test: Vital for optimising nutrition? Part 1

 I wanted to write about something that was brought to my attention recently by a friend.
She was approached by a client of hers (a professional rugby player), who had been told by the team's nutritionist that he should have an IgG test. This test involves taking a small blood sample and then testing the blood to see if there are any IgG antibodies specific to certain foods. The theory is that IgG antibodies while not being involved in allergy (more on that in a second), can lead to "food sensitivities", abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhoea etc.

We all know that optimising diet is essential if we want to get the most out of our training. "You can't out-train a bad diet", whilst being one the most overused catchphrases in the health and fitness industry,  is essentially correct. You certainly won't be performing at your best if your diet is awful.
So, is the IgG test an essential tool to get the most out of your diet or a waste of time and money?

Unfortunately in the world of nutrition there is a lot of, shall we say, nonsense that lacks any backing by scientific literature.Even more annoying is that usually this brand of pseudo-science gets the most attention. So I wanted to check if this was one of those situations or it actually had some merit to it.
I thought it would be best to split this post into 2 parts to prevent it from being too long.
The first part is going to be a bit of background on what allergy is (and isn't). This is important so you don't get caught up in the grey areas that exist in this topic. I'm not going to go into too much depth with the immunology just a quick overview.
The second part will be a review of the literature on IgG antibodies and their role in food intolerances.
With this being a blog and not a theses I'll keep it as concise as possible, hopefully you find it useful and if you like you can delve further into the topic.

So what is a food allergy? 

Good question.
I think there is a general misunderstanding and confusion between a true allergy, an intolerance or even a person just not liking a food. It's these grey areas that can often lead to someone thinking they have an allergy, self diagnosing and then consuming a sub-standard diet.

When defining allergy it is first useful to familiarise yourself with the term Hypersensitivity. 
Simply put, a hypersensitivity causes objective, reproducible symptoms to something that the "normal" population would be fine with.
An allergy is a hypersensitivity that is driven by "immunological mechanisms".
Clear as mud? Well, the most important thing to remember is that allergy must involve the immune system. If the immune system isn't involved then it's not an allergy.
Another important thing to remember is that you cannot be allergic to something if you have never been in contact with it before. So people who say they had an allergic reaction the very first time they ate a certain food, are either mistaken and the reaction wasn't allergic, or they have been in contact with that food and just can't remember or didn't realise.
In the simplest of terms our immune system is our body's protection against harmful foreign invaders (bacteria, viruses etc). Using peanut as an example. The "normal" immune system when it comes into contact with the peanut (which if you think about it is a foreign invader) realises that it is not harmful and does not mount a response. With an allergy however, the immune system mistakenly thinks this peanut is harmful and responds.
The first response isn't an allergic reaction (remember you can't have an allergic reaction first time round) but is to create antibodies specific to peanut. The next time this person comes into contact with a peanut they will have a reaction.
There are several classes/types of antibody and the antibody responsible for allergy is the IgE (Immunoglobulin E) antibody, they sit on top of the Mast cells and Basophils (cells from our immune system) and cause them to release various chemical nasties, one of which is histamine. It's these chemicals that cause your typical allergy symptoms, runny nose and eyes, urticaria, breathing difficulties and in severe cases anaphylaxis. Just to confuse matters you can have an allergy that does not involve the IgE antibody but the symptoms are different and I will touch on that in part 2 of the post.

What are food intolerances and sensitivities?

These can be thought of as "non-allergic hypersensitivities".
Food intolerances do not involve the immune system. Probably the most well-known of these is lactose intolerance. Here the individual is lacking the necessary enzyme (lactase) to digest lactose and so when ingested it causes them problems.
The term "food sensitivity" appears to be interchangeable with intolerance so essentially it is 2 different names for the same thing.
Hopefully you are starting to get the picture. But it all comes crashing down when looking at the website of one of the companies that offers IgG testing.

On the website they list everything under the umbrella of food sensitivity/intolerance

• Enzyme deficiencies (like above),
• Chemical sensitivities  
• Reactions to histamines in foods

So far so good and that is what I would class as intolerance/sensitivity

But then they also include in their list

• Allergy
• Coeliac disease  
• IgG mediated reactions  

I disagree here and it is this lumping everything together under the title of "intolerance" that is unhelpful and leads to the confusion I mentioned at the start of this post. The fact food is involved is pretty much where the similarities start and end.
Both allergy and Coeliac involve the immune system so need to be separated from conditions such as lactose intolerance. IgG is a grey area within a grey area and after part 2 I will tell you where I would categorise it.

So that's it for the first part. Hopefully I have gone some of the way to clearing up the confusion around definitions and you now have a clearer picture of what is meant by food intolerance or sensitivity. And that we are clear that we are not talking about allergy (or Coeliac disease). But if you want to delve a little further the website below is what I used for the definitions. It's a bit wordy and medical but I would recommend that you take a look, especially if nutrition and immunology is an area of interest for you.

 http://www.worldallergy.org/professional/allergic_diseases_center/nomenclature/english.php


Coming up in part 2 I will discuss the evidence for IgG tests and food related symptoms. So hopefully by the end you will be able to decide if an IgG test is something worthwhile or not.

If you have any questions/comments please stick them below.

Thanks

Go Go Power Rangers!!

So the Tour enters the mountains and twitter shifts from talk about camper vans and cobbles to VAMs and W/kg. As I'm not in France this year I thought I'd stick my beak into the argument. First off this is not a rant from a Sky zealot who's cross because people are being nasty about his Froomey Woomey but there are three things that have really annoyed me over the last couple of days.
They are:

1. Using power data and/or performance to suggest doping
2. Using Lance and US Postal as a frame of reference
3. Targeting Froome & Sky

We all heard that Froome had his data nicked and saw the shared video of his Ventoux climb from 2013. To tell you truth I didn't watch the video as I didn't need to, the numbers were blurted all over twitter on Sunday night.
My first gripe with this video is, can we be absolutely certain that this is his power data? Sky seem to think someone has hacked into their files and got hold of it, but is this video the file they're talking about? Who knows??
The second gripe is to suggest that these numbers are out of this world and improbable without "help". His supposed w/kg of around 6.1 certainly doesn't set any alarm bells ringing for me. If you read Allen & Coggan's "training & racing with a power meter" then an FTP of 6.1 w/kg is right in range for a world class athlete. Froome is saying that he's on 67kg mark so that's an effort of around 408w. We all saw the picture of Contador's warm up bike for the TTT, there his FTP was listed 450w, so 408w for a rider of that standard shouldn't be too much of a stretch. Yes I am aware of using Contador as a point of reference certainly isn't proof of "cleanliness" but it does show that 408w is not the mind bending huge number it was suggested to be on Sunday evening.
Sticking with "el pistolero", some people were aghast that Froome dropped him like a bad habit yesterday. Let's not forget this guy just won the Giro! I'd have been a lot more worried had he managed to stick with a fresher Froome & Quintana.
"Look at who he beat" were the cries yesterday, that's like saying Djokovic is doping because he beat Federer.
If Froome keeps that intensity up for the remainder of this tour then yes that will look suspicious but one power file from 2013 and yesterday's stage certainly doesn't prove doping or otherwise.
And no I haven't mentioned HR because so many things have an effect on it that just looking at the numbers without knowing the full picture is guessing, and would still lead me to the same conclusion that it doesn't prove or disprove anything.
I thought Lionel Birnie on the cycling podcast summed it up perfectly, until someone can show that a certain power output is impossible without pharmacological help then we are just making guesses.

My second point is this constant use of Lance as the point of reference for the line between clean and dirty. "Lance did x mountain in x time and now What's his Face has done it in nearly the same time or faster they have to be doping". Again that's just a wild assumption! Was a doped up Lance the absolute pinnacle of human endurance? Even Dr Ferrari himself laughed when asked the question "are we at the edge of what's humanly possible?" I'll agree that once the times of the wild west days of cycling are regularly beaten it won't look good but it doesn't prove anything. We don't know for a fact that those times are beyond reach.
You can't even get good data anyway, I googled "fastest time up Ventoux" and got 2 totally different times and references for our Lance. 48:33 (15km) on cycling news & 57:49 (21km) on Wiki. So what does that tell us? It tells me not to believe all the numbers you get bombarded with on the internet! Maybe they are 2 different accents of the mountain but they don't say that
And I can't help but think these same people that use him as the bench mark were the same people that were trumpeting about him 10 years ago and now feel a little silly. They lay into any team or rider that is dominant in the tour whilst their Livestrong bracelet gathers dust in the corner of their room!

My final point isn't because I'm British and I see this is as an attack on British cycling. It's because I don't see consistency here!
I got into a discussion with a chap called Ross Tucker, he's in charge of a page called "The Science of Sport" He appears to be at the forefront of trying to expose doping in sport which I have to commend him for.  When I argued against the use of power data he accused me of being "selective with data". Looking through his website I could say the same thing.
In the section "doping in cycling" there's lots of stuff on power and VAM but its all about the tour! Nothing on the Giro or the Vuelta or the Classics!
When I asked him what the w/kg of Contador & Aru were this year he gave me the numbers but then said he didn't even watch the Giro!!!
Now call me mad but if my aim was to lift the lid on doping in cycling I think a grand tour where the two protagonists were Contador and Aru deserved some attention.
Contador, a convicted doper who was supported by Basso, also a convicted doper, and Kreuziger who lets face it has got away with murder. And the Tinkoff back room staff has it's fair share of shady characters too.
Then there is Aru who rides for a team that is run by a convicted (and unrepentant) doper, has had doping bans handed out and is even suspected by fellow riders as being a doper!
He talks about "pixels in the tapestry" and I think he's missed a pretty large pixel there!
Also during the Giro I didn't see half the guff on twitter that I have seen with this Tour. Same can be said for last year when Sky were nowhere.
What I am saying here and this isn't aimed particularly at Ross but everyone who appears to have a bee in their bonnet this Tour is, if you want to expose doping in cycling you have to be doing this at every race with every team otherwise it just looks like you have an issue with Froome and/or Sky.

To finish off do I think Froome is clean? I  honestly don't know but I have to assume he is until it is proven otherwise.
Do I think there is doping in cycling? Yes I do and there is doping in all sport but we can't prove it by looking at power files and/or comparing that to Lance Armstrong's performances.
Like I said above, the questions have to be asked and the pressure put on, but on everybody!
Personally I think ridding the sport of people like Vinokurov and using your scientific knowledge to improve the bio-passport would be more worthwhile than stealing power files.

Maybe I am just a naive cycling fan with my head in the sand?

Old habits die hard!

There are certain aspects of cycling tradition that I love. But when it comes to training and/or nutrition I am all for modern methods and think some people need to be dragged into the 21st century. I experienced this first hand a few weeks ago.
I was down at Herne Hill velodrome waiting to borrow a bike for my track session. A friend and I were discussing training and the gym. We were talking about squats when a guy overheard us and yelled "no no no lads! stay away from the weights! if you want to get strong find a steep hill and cycle up it 10+ times!!"
I laughed and nodded, it was Saturday morning and I didn't feel like getting on my high horse just yet. However I came very close when as we were leaving the same guy yelled across the car park "AND STAY AWAY FROM THOSE WEIGHTS!" 
This got me thinking, do many cyclists still think this?
I don't confess to know everything, far from it in fact, but one thing I do know is that no matter how many times you cycle up a hill it won't make you stronger! It will improve your muscular endurance but not your strength.
I recently picked up on a post on Facebook where a guy wrote that cyclists seem to neglect the importance of all the different muscle fibre types. I think this kind of ties in with the old school idea of hills make you strong. Or is it just a misunderstanding of what strength actually is.

Strength is the maximum force you exert against a given resistance.

Strength is at the basis of all sports to a greater or lesser extent. Obviously for someone competing in World's Strongest Man, strength is of more importance than say a tennis player.
To be cycling specific, strength will be of more importance to a sprint track cyclist than to a GC road cyclist. However that doesn't mean that a portion of the GC guy's winter training won't be strength training because it will.
A muscle is made up of 3 fibre types, the fast twitch which as the name suggests contract quickly and powerfully but tire quickly. The slow twitch which are the opposite, and ones in between that can become more fast or slow depending on our training regime.
Cycling is a sport that uses all 3 fibre types and therefore all types should be trained.
So why won't cycling up a hill make you stronger? because it's the wrong training stimulus. Strength is the maximum force you exert, it requires the firing of fast twitch fibres and therefore can only be performed a few times. Endurance is an action repeated over a long period of time therefore a large force cannot be exerted and requires the firing of the slow twitch fibres.

Muscular endurance is a combination of strength AND endurance.

So thinking of a hill, lets say Yorks hill in Kent which is short and bloody steep, it will take you around 5 minutes to ride up it. A repeated effort of 5 minutes will not stimulate the central nervous system to increase motor unit  recruitment. What it will do is improve those middle fibre's ability to fire and eventually the hill will become easier or more accurately you will be able to go up it faster. That is put very very simply but I didn't want to delve into biochemistry I wanted to point out that hill training is not strength training.

Just to be perfectly clear I'm not slagging off repeated climbs, its a great way to get some interval training in and to increase your muscular endurance which IS more important than maximum strength. But strength training must come first otherwise you're missing a piece of the Strength + Endurance puzzle.