Tom Faranda's Folly

"Learning From Our Parents’ Heart Health Mistakes"

An article by the fine NY Times health writer Jane Brody, first published this past April.

Narrowed, aging blood vessels, which put most older American adults at risk for heart disease and strokes, are not inevitable. This fact was underscored by a newly published study of a population in the Bolivian Amazon. Among these indigenous South Americans, known as the Tsimane (pronounced chee-MAH-nay), coronary atherosclerosis was found to be one-fifth as common than in the United States. CT scans of the hearts of 705 Tsimane adults aged 40 to 94 revealed that nearly nine in 10 had clean coronary arteries and faced no risk of heart disease. The research team estimated that an 80-year-old in the Tsimane group has the same vascular age as an American in his mid-50s.

There's plenty of good stuff in this article, so hit the link. I am excerpting the section about the Bolivian Tsimane lifestyle.

So what can we learn from the Tsimane? Are medications, treatment with stents and other costly procedures our only hope for cutting coronary mortality further? Yes, if millions of Americans continue to spurn changes in their living habits that have been shown over and over again to be protective.

The Tsimane have a forager-horticulturist lifestyle. Tsimane men are physically active for an average of six to seven hours a day — accumulating about 17,000 steps a day — and Tsimane women are active for four to six hours a day, walking about 15,000 steps a day. Smoking is rare in this population.

The Tsimane diet derives 72 percent of its calories from carbohydrates, though not the overly refined starches and sugars consumed by most Americans. The Tsimane eat unprocessed complex carbs high in fiber, like brown rice, plantain, manioc, corn, nuts and fruits.

But the Tsimane are not vegetarians. Protein accounts for 14 percent of their calories and comes primarily from animal meats that, unlike American meats, are very low in artery-clogging saturated fat.

This does not mean we must return to hunting and gathering or subsistence farming to protect our hearts. But we’d do well to adapt the Tsimane example and modify our modern high-fat, highly processed, low-fiber and high-sugar diet and our extremely sedentary lifestyle.

Alcohol and health: cancer docs cite risks

From the NY Times health section - not good news

The American Society of Clinical Oncology, which represents many of the nation’s top cancer doctors, is calling attention to the ties between alcohol and cancer. In a statement ... the group cites evidence that even light drinking can slightly raise a woman’s risk of breast cancer and increase a common type of esophageal cancer. Heavy drinkers face much higher risks of mouth and throat cancer, cancer of the voice box, liver cancer and, to a lesser extent, colorectal cancers, the group cautions. “The message is not, ‘Don’t drink.’ It’s, ‘If you want to reduce your cancer risk, drink less. And if you don’t drink, don’t start,’”

For women, just one alcoholic drink a day can increase breast cancer risk, according to a report released in May from the American Institute for Cancer Research and the World Cancer Research Fund that was cited by ASCO. That report analyzed 119 studies, including data on 12 million women and over a quarter of a million breast cancer cases, and concluded there was strong evidence that alcohol consumption increases the risk of both pre- and postmenopausal cancer, and that drinking a small glass of wine or beer every day — about 10 grams of alcohol — increases premenopausal breast cancer risk by 5 percent and postmenopausal risk by 9 percent.

“The more you drink, the higher the risk,” said Dr. Clifford A. Hudis, the chief executive of ASCO. “It’s a pretty linear dose-response.”

Even those who drink moderately, defined by the Centers for Disease Control as one daily drink for women and two for men, face nearly a doubling of the risk for mouth and throat cancer and more than double the risk of squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus, compared to nondrinkers. Moderate drinkers also face elevated risks for cancers of the voice box, female breast cancer and colorectal cancers.

The risk for heavy drinkers — defined as eight or more drinks a week for women and 15 or more a week for men, including binge drinkers — are multiples higher. Heavy drinkers face roughly five times the risk of mouth and throat cancers and squamous cell esophageal cancers than nondrinkers, nearly three times the risk of cancers of the voice box or larynx, double the risk of liver cancer, as well as increased risks for female breast cancer and colorectal cancer.

 

Timely - NY Times: "How to Stop Bleeding and Save a life"

A very good first aid piece. The life you save could be a family member. logo above from Homeland Security website.

Just as bystander CPR has become standard, public health agencies are working to increase awareness of bystander first aid. Because trauma victims often die of blood loss, rather than the injury itself, stopping the bleeding is the top priority.

“If you imagine what half a can of soda spilled on the floor looks like, that’s six to eight ounces of blood. If that’s the amount of blood that’s lost, that’s life-threatening bleeding,” said Jonathan L. Epstein, senior director of science and content development for the American Red Cross.

******

“The name of the game is applying pressure to the bleeding site and keeping the blood inside the body,” Dr. Jacobs said. For victims with wounds on the arms and legs, “If you do that and can get the victim to a trauma center, they have a high likelihood of living.”

There are several techniques for stopping bleeding. The first step is to expose the skin so you can see where the bleeding is coming from.

Use one or both hands to maintain firm, steady pressure directly on the bleeding site. You can also use your knee, if necessary, to maintain the pressure.

A second option is to use a bandage or commercial dressing designed to stop bleeding, called a hemostatic dressing, if available, or clothing, to apply firm, steady pressure to the site.

If the bleeding persists, place a tourniquet on a limb two to three inches closer to the torso from the bleeding and tighten until the bleeding stops (a tourniquet can be applied over clothing). If the bleeding still does not stop, a second tourniquet can be placed closer to the torso. ...

*******

Be aware that applying pressure on a wound can be very painful to the injured person, and it is important to talk the victim through the procedure and explain that the pain is necessary, and that help is on the way.

“You need to speak to them with kindness and explain it to them and say, ‘Hold on, we’re going to stop the bleeding; we’re going to get you to care.’ That makes a huge difference,” Dr. Jacobs said.

******

Resources include the Department of Homeland Security’s Stop the Bleed website and the American College of Surgeons site, where you can search for a Bleeding Control Basics class in your geographic region. The classes are an hour long and most are offered at no cost.

Educational programs recommended by the Department of Homeland Security include the First Care Provider Program and Until Help Arrives.

The American Red Cross also addresses ways to stop bleeding in its first aid and CPR classes, and has a first aid app that includes information about controlling bleeding.

Senator Schumer and Jimmy Kimmel are tight buddies

So Kimmel was relying on Schumer talking points as he attacked the new Graham-Cassidy Health Bill initiative. "Medicare for all" which will become Medicaid for almost all, and private insurance for the rich - and politicians.

Behind the scenes, the late night host and minority leader have been in touch for months on health care policy.

And meanwhile - Health Insurers in New Mexico To Implement Record-High Premium Increases

NYT Health Q: "Do I Carry a Dangerous Amount of Belly Fat?"

A nasty question to face up to - this is a column from the Time's always useful Health and Wellness section. The simple test is included in the excerpt below the link.

Q. How can I tell if I have a dangerous amount of visceral fat? Do we understand why the body decides to store some fat as visceral fat and other as subcutaneous?

A. Visceral fat is fat that collects around the abdomen — giving a “beach ball” look in some cases — and is associated with a host of medical problems, including heart disease, diabetes, heartburn and sleep difficulties.

No one knows precisely when fat becomes dangerous, said Dr. Noyan Gokce, a staff cardiologist at the Boston University School of Medicine, who has a federal grant to investigate the differences between “healthy” and “unhealthy” fat. But fat seems to behave differently when pushed close to organs such as the kidney, liver and pancreas, he said.

Most of the health problems we associate with fat are strongly linked with visceral fat, which in many people seems to accumulate with age, said Dr. Michael Jensen, a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and a past president of the Obesity Society, a professional group.

******

Although the definitive test for visceral fat is a CT or other specialized scan, a waist circumference of more than 35 inches in women and more than 40 in men indicates an unhealthy amount of visceral fat, said Dr. Apovian, an obesity medicine specialist at the Boston University School of Medicine.

Interestingly, in one 2010 study in which researchers removed visceral fat with surgery, there was no improvement in the test subject’s health, Dr. Apovian said. The findings suggest that the only useful way of losing visceral fat is through diet and exercise. “I can’t explain that fully,” she said.’’

NY Times: Walking as aid for those with early Alzheimer's

Here's yesterday's posting I did on exercise and the brain. NY Times: 1st of a few I'll post on exercise & your brain

And here's another - some benefits for people with early Alzheimer's -

Frequent, Brisk Walks May Aid Those With Early Alzheimer’s

For some people with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease, frequent, brisk walks may help to bolster physical abilities and slow memory loss, according to one of the first studies of physical activity as an experimental treatment for dementia.

But the study’s results, while encouraging, showed that improvements were modest and not universal, raising questions about just how and why exercise helps some people with dementia and not others.

******

...for the new study, published in February in PLoS One, researchers at the University of Kansas decided to work directly with people who had previously been given a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. Because the disease can affect coordination as it progresses, the researchers focused on men and women in its early stages, who were still living at home and could safely walk by themselves or perform other types of light exercise.

******

One (group) began a supervised walking program that was supposed to raise their physical fitness. They walked progressively longer and faster over the course of several weeks, until they were briskly walking for at least 150 minutes each week. In earlier experiments, the Kansas scientists had found that this routine significantly improved aerobic endurance and memory performance among older people without Alzheimer’s.

The second group, serving as a control, began stretching and toning classes. These sessions were designed to be light exercise that would not increase aerobic endurance but would mimic the time commitment and social interactions of the walkers.

Both groups continued their regimens for six months and then returned to the lab for repeat testing. ... most had tolerated the exercise well.

Encouragingly, many also now showed gains in physical functioning, particularly among the walkers. Almost all of them had significantly improved their scores on the tests of everyday physical skills.

But the effects of the experiment on thinking and memory were more mixed.

Most of those in the control group were now slightly less able to think clearly and remember than they had been six months before, new tests showed. The toning had not slowed the progression of their disease much, if at all.

Similarly, many of the walkers performed no better and some scored worse on the cognitive tests than at the start.

But some of the walkers were thinking and remembering much better now, according to their cognitive tests. These volunteers also generally showed slight increases in the size of their brain’s hippocampus, an area of the brain affected early in the course of Alzheimer’s disease, whereas the other participants did not.

Trying to determine why some of the walkers showed benefits and others did not, the researchers delved more deeply into their data and found that the walkers who had increased their aerobic fitness had also improved their ability to remember and think and bulked up the volume of their brains.

What surprised the scientists was how few of the walkers with Alzheimer’s had actually gained endurance. The same exercise program that previously had increased the aerobic capacity of almost every healthy, older participant now had benefits for the bodies of only a few of the walkers with Alzheimer’s.

This finding suggests that “there may be physiological differences between people with and without Alzheimer’s that reach to the cellular level,” says Jill Morris, a senior scientist at the University of Kansas Alzheimer’s Disease Center, who led the study.

In effect, the bodies as well as the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease may be unusual compared to those of healthy older people and may respond differently, if at all, to exercise, she says.

The study concludes - more study is needed.

NY Times: 1st of a few I'll post on exercise & your brain

Far and away the best part of the NY Times is their health and fitness section.

The Right Dose of Exercise for the Aging Brain

A small amount of exercise may improve our ability to think as we age, but more may not be better, according to a new study of exercise and cognition.

******

They chose these volunteers, said Dr. Jeffrey Burns, the co-director of the University of Kansas Alzheimer’s Disease Center and the study’s senior author, because the men and women had reached the age at which many of us begin to develop the first worrisome declines in our memory and thinking skills.

********

... the volunteers were randomly assigned to one of four groups. People in the control group continued their normal lives.

People in the other three groups were assigned to walk briskly. One group began exercising for 75 minutes per week, which is half of the current recommendation of 150 minutes per week of moderate exercise. Another group was assigned to exercise for the recommended 150 minutes per week. And the third group was directed to exercise for 225 minutes per week, or 150 percent of the recommended amount.

The exercising volunteers reported to a local YMCA for their workouts, which consisted of supervised brisk walks on a treadmill for anywhere from 25 minutes to an hour. (Some volunteers used an elliptical machine for some of their workouts.)

After 26 weeks, all of the participants returned to the lab to repeat the original tests.

At this point, the groups displayed notable differences, especially in the physical realm. The more someone had exercised, the more his or her endurance capacity had increased, which was hardly a surprise. The volunteers in the control group were no more fit than they had been; those in the group exercising for 75 minutes per week were somewhat more fit; those exercising for 150 minutes per week were fitter still; and those walking for 225 minutes per week were the most fit of all.

“There was a very clear dose-response relationship” between walking and fitness, Dr. Burns said.

That relationship was murkier when the scientists looked at thinking, however.

In general, the researchers found, most of the exercisers showed improvements in their thinking skills, especially in their ability to control their attention and to create visual maps of spaces in their heads, two aspects of cognition that are known to decline with age.

But these gains were about the same whether people had exercised for 75 minutes a week or 225 minutes. Those volunteers who had exercised the most scored slightly better on some cognitive tests at the end of the study period than those exercising less, but the difference was barely significant.

Over all, “a small dose of exercise” may be sufficient to improve many aspects of thinking and more sweat may not provide noticeably more cognitive benefit, Dr. Burns said..

******

... he and his colleagues are working on an ambitious study to determine just how much and what types of exercise might help to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia, though it is unclear whether exercise can actually help prevent the disease. The results won’t be available for some time. 

Moral of the story: Just about anyone can walk for 25 minutes three days a week.

Long term care and medicaid - article worth looking at

As in assisted living, nursing home, dementia, etc, etc. All those wonderful things to reflect on...

Here is a decent article from the NY Times and with links to other articles.

In my first Medicaid column on June 30, I asked for your questions about the program, aging and long-term care, and you sent me more notes about the ethics of Medicaid planning than on nearly any other topic. About half of you were outraged by the ethical implications, and the rest wanted to know where you could sign up for it.

 

T-cell immunotherapy - here's a young girl's leukemia cure

This is a very big deal. The theory - cancer cells have figured out how to hide or turn off the immune system. So - reprogram the immune system - turn it back on - to attack the cancer.

A sad case of a cancer medical mess

The death of Dr. Amy Reed, a physician.

Amy Reed, Doctor Who Fought a Risky Medical Procedure, Dies at 44

Dr. Reed and her husband fought for years to ban the use of a surgical tool called a power morcellator, which has a spinning blade that slices up tissue so it can be extracted through small incisions. Though the device is regarded as a great boon to minimally invasive surgery, if a patient has cancer, as Dr. Reed did, morcellation can spread the disease.

Dr. Reed and Dr. Noorchashm (pronounced NOOR-chash) won some notable victories. Because of their efforts, the Food and Drug Administration studied morcellation and in 2014 recommended that it not be used in the “the vast majority” of women having surgery for uterine fibroids, a common tumor that is usually benign but that can hide a dangerous type of cancer.

The couple has six children. Terribly sad. And their efforts led to a certain level of rejection from many in the medical field.

Age adjusted checklist for fitness

From the UK Telegraph. A little soft really. According to this I'm in my 30's - maybe 20's although that run would kill my knee.

Are you as fit as you should be for your age? This checklist might surprise you

In your 20s you should be able to...

• Run 5km in 30 minutes
• Do 20 burpees in a row
• Hold a full plank for one minute

In your 30s you should be able to...

• Run a mile in less than 9 minutes
• Hold a plank for 45 seconds
• Deadlift more than 50 percent of your bodyweight

In your 40s you should be able to...

• Sprint for 60 seconds without stopping
• Do 10 press-ups without stopping
• Touch your toes comfortably with straight legs

In your 50s you should be able to...

• Run at a moderate pace for 60 seconds without stopping
• Do five burpees without stopping
• Lower yourself into a cross-legged position on the floor without using your hands, and then return to standing

In your 60s you should be able to...

• Regularly take more than 10,000 steps in a day
• Do 12 bodyweight squats without stopping
• Touch your fingertips with one hand over your shoulder and the other behind your back

In your 70s you should be able to...

• Walk a mile in less than 16 minutes
• Climb a flight of stairs with 10 steps in under 30 seconds comfortably
• Rise to stand from a chair without using your hands or arms, and repeat at least 12 times in 30 seconds

Nothing for your 80's?

SciAm: "Most Cancer Cases Arise from "Bad Luck" Environment and heredity are smaller players than researchers previously believed"

From Friday's daily email which Scientific American sends to anyone interested. Science marches on as underlying beliefs get overthrown.

It was the study that launched hundreds of scientific rebuttals, insinuations that the authors had been paid off by the chemical industry, and charges that it was a “massive” stunt “hidden behind fancy numbers of doubtful quality.” The claim that sparked this controversy? That “bad luck,” more than environmental factors or inherited genes, affects whether someone develops cancer, implying that preventive efforts from smoking cessation to environmental cleanups were largely pointless.

Now the authors of that 2015 paper are back. In a study published on Thursday in Science, they double down on their original finding but also labor mightily to correct widespread misinterpretations of it. This time, using health records from 69 countries, they conclude that 66 percent of cancer-causing genetic mutations arise from the “bad luck” of a healthy, dividing cell making a random mistake when it copies its DNA.

The scientists go to great pains to explain that this doesn’t mean that two-thirds of cancers are beyond the reach of prevention. But understanding the role of these unforced errors “could provide comfort to the millions of patients who developed cancer but led near-perfect [healthy] lifestyles,” said cancer biologist Dr. Bert Vogelstein of Johns Hopkins University, senior author of both the original study and the new one. “This is particularly true for parents of children who have cancer” and might blame the tragedy on the genes they passed on to their child or the environment they provided, he said.

However they acknowledge that there is more to it than that. The article is an additional 11 paragraphs (hit the link above to read it!), two of which I excerpt below.

...There is a difference between how cancer-causing mutations come about and whether that cancer is preventable, they acknowledge. For instance, 65 percent of mutations in lung cancers arose randomly but 89 percent of those cancers are preventable by avoiding smoking, Tomasetti said.

Their critics argue that the environment’s effect on cancer goes beyond mutations, in which case prevention might have an even bigger role to play. Whether a few malignant cells form a dangerous tumor depends on, among other things, levels of inflammation, insulin, and obesity. Those influences don’t show up in genomic analyses like those the Hopkins researchers did but are affected by lifestyle and environmental factors, said Ross Prentice, a renowned cancer biostatistician at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle.

 

Fatima children to be canonized

Second miracle approved.

Good nominee to head the FDA

Scott Gottlieb, a physician and cancer survivor himself to head the Food and Drug Administration.  He's written a number of op ed pieces in the Wall Street Journal critiquing the FDA's policies on approving drugs and treatments.

Whereas many consumer advocates contend that the agency has too often loosened standards for the approval of drugs and medical devices, Dr. Gottlieb contends the opposite: The FDA’s requirements for studies are often too demanding and too costly to industry, he has said. Citing a 2006 study about a drug for a rare children’s disease called Hunter syndrome, he said the agency wrongly insisted on too large a study, with children assigned to a placebo group. The agency’s stance, he wrote, epitomizes “a harmful culture [that] can be readily improved.”

He recounted the famous story of how a lone reviewer within the FDA, Frances O. Kelsey, stood in the way of possible approval of the morning-sickness drug thalidomide in 1960. The drug, approved in Europe, caused horrible deformities in the limbs of children born to mothers who took it. Because of Dr. Kelsey, though, the FDA prevented that calamity from being visited on parents and children in the U.S.

Dr. Gottlieb has lauded her work but written that it also triggered an unhealthy attitude at the nation’s drug-reviewing agency: “In so heavily prioritizing one of its obligations—the protection of consumers—the FDA has sometimes subordinated and neglected its other key obligation, which is to guide new medical innovations to market.”

Dr. Michael Carome, director of the consumer-oriented Public Citizen Health Research Group, disagrees with Dr. Gottlieb’s views, saying they “reflect a dangerous deregulatory approach.”

In Dr. Carome’s eyes, the FDA’s drug-approval process “already allows for some degree of uncertainty regarding whether drugs are safe and effective at the time of approval. Gottlieb wants the agency to tolerate even greater degrees of uncertainty about drug safety and effectiveness.”

NY Post, great feature: "These people are over 100 and kicking ass"

Well worth the five minutes it takes to read.

In his new photography book, “Aging Gracefully” (Chronicle Books, out now), Karsten Thormaehlen shares portraits of more than 52 centenarians from around the world. Though their backgrounds couldn’t be more different, all have one thing in common: They’ve lived 100 years or more and are proud of it. “For almost every centenarian,” Thormaehlen says, “long life is a precious gift and not a burden.” Here, three New Yorkers featured in the book tell us how they aged gracefully.

Being pessimistic is bad for your heart - but being optimistic doesn't help

So - avoid pessimism and say your prayers.

Here's a study from Finland -

During 11 years of follow-up, 122 people died from coronary heart disease. After controlling for smoking, diabetes and other factors, the scientists found that those in the highest one-quarter of scores on pessimism were more than twice as likely to die of heart disease as those in the lowest one-quarter. But being optimistic had no effect on death rates one way or the other. “Your personality traits can make physical health worse,” said the lead author, Dr. Mikko Pankalainen, a psychiatrist at the Paijat-Hame Central Hospital in Lahti, Finland. “If you’re pessimistic and have some health issues, then it’s even more important to take care of your physical health.”

Alan Colmes cause of death at 66 strikes close to home

Lymphoma. Two months after diagnosis - must have been a terribly rampant variety. Another reminder that I dodged a bullet.

Liberal commentator Alan Colmes died on February 23 after a “brief illness” at the age of 66. What was his cause of death? According to The Washington Post, Colmes died in a Manhattan hospital of lymphoma. From accounts of friends and even Colmes himself before he died, it does not appear that he was struggling with the illness for long. In January, Colmes had announced he was taking some time off from his Fox News radio show for a medical reason, but he did not say what he was suffering from at that time.

Colmes was remembered by news colleagues – including those who didn’t agree with him politically – as a rare beacon of civility in a political climate that’s grown increasingly ugly. Colmes retained long friendships with colleagues he often strongly debated on television. For example, he had developed a close bond with conservative Sean Hannity, his fellow Fox News pundit and the man with whom he formed the warring debaters, Hannity & Colmes.

Hannity said in a statement:

The Fox family, Dr. Jocelyn Colmes, Monica Crowley and me personally have lost one of life’s most decent, kind and wonderful people you’d ever want to meet. When Alan and I started Hannity and Colmes, there wasn’t a day that went by where we didn’t’ say we were two most fortunate men in all television. Despite major political differences, we forged a deep friendship. Alan, in the midst of great sickness and illness, showed the single greatest amount of courage I’ve ever seen. And through it all, he showed his incredible wit and humor that was Alan’s signature throughout his entire life. I’m truly heartbroken at the loss of a dear friend. Our thoughts and prayers are with Jocelyn, Monica and his entire family. He will be dearly missed.

Hannity told People Magazine that Colmes tried to shield his wife from his illness. “[When] we first talked about it, you know, typical Alan style, his first statement to me was, ‘I don’t want my wife to worry or be upset,’ ” Hannity said to People. “He was thinking about her. He loved his wife, he adored her.”

Depression, anxiety, and cancer

From the NY Times health section; more evidence of the tie-in.

After controlling for age, smoking, physical activity and other factors, they found that compared with those with the lowest scores on depression and anxiety, those with the highest had higher rates of cancer death. The associations were particularly strong for colon and rectal, prostate, pancreatic and esophageal cancers, and for leukemia. In instances of colorectal and prostate cancer, they found a “dose-response” effect: the greater the distress, the greater the likelihood of death from those cancers.

Getting my second "gel shot" for my knee today

The second of four - one a week. I had this regimen back in April and May - go here -  Sore knee update and it really helped my left knee, where I have bone on bone due to my meniscus surgery 12 years ago and just general arthritic joint deterioration.

Here's some information about this therapy - the gel is made from chicken combs(!) with the active agent Hyaluronic acid which is also used in certain cosmetics.

What Are Hyaluronic Acid Joint Injections?

NY Times: "Running as the Thinking Person's Sport"

Pretty interesting article on our brains and exercise - specifically running. It takes under ten minutes to read the whole article.

In particular, the scientists noted more connectivity in the runners than in the inactive men between parts of the brain that aid in working memory, multitasking, attention, decision-making, and the processing of visual and other sensory information. There also, interestingly, was less activity among the runners in a part of the brain that tends to indicate lack of focus and mind wandering.

The best time to exercise to lose weight is ...

From the NY Times health and fitness section - best part of the newspaper.

There is some evidence that working out on a completely empty stomach — or, as scientists call this woozy, wee-hours condition, "in a fasted state” — prompts the body to burn more fat and potentially stave off weight gain, compared to exercising at other times.

In a groundbreaking 2010 study, researchers in Belgium persuaded young, healthy men to stuff themselves for six weeks with a diet consisting of 30 percent more calories and 50 percent more fat than the men had been eating. Some of the volunteers remained sedentary while gorging. Others began a strenuous, midmorning exercise routine after they had had breakfast. The third group followed the same workout regimen, but before they had eaten anything.

At the end of the six weeks, the sedentary group predictably was supersized and unhealthy, having gained about six pounds each. They had also developed insulin resistance and larded their muscles with new fat cells. The men who exercised after breakfast had also packed on pounds, about three pounds each, and developed insulin problems. But the men who had exercised first thing in the morning, before eating anything, had gained almost no weight and retained healthy insulin levels. Their bodies were also burning more fat throughout the day than were the other men.

SciAm: "Dementia Rates Falling Among U.S. Seniors"

Good news from Scientific America. And only 11 paragraphs long with some hypotheses on why this is happening. Short and sweet.

The percent of older US adults with dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, declined from 11.6 percent in 2000 to 8.8 percent in 2012, a decrease of nearly a quarter, scientists reported on Monday.

The percent of seniors with dementia fell to 8.8 percent in 2012; accounting for the greater proportion of those who were 85 years or older, the decline was even greater: to 8.6 percent, the team reported in JAMA Internal Medicine.

One possible factor is education. The older adults in the 2012 group in the new study had, on average, about one year more education than the 2000 group. More education can produce greater cognitive reserve, in which people have enough backup synapses and neurons that losing some to Alzheimer’s still leaves them short of dementia. But the researchers found this didn’t explain the entire decline.

Curiously, being overweight or obese was associated with a decreased risk of dementia. Carrying excess pounds generally raises the risk of diabetes and heart disease, which are thought to increase the risk of dementia, but “late-life obesity may be protective,” wrote commentary authors Ozioma C. Okonkwo and Dr. Sanjay Asthana of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. That may be especially true when people receive effective treatments for diabetes and heart disease, which also became more common with later generations.

 

 

NYT: Studies show little benefit to taking nutritional supplements

Nevertheless, the well-respected NY Times article author Jane Brody continues taking them - and so do I.

There is certainly some documentation that some supplements - like Turmeric Curcumin, which I take - have some value.

Here's the NYT article -

In an editorial entitled “The Supplement Paradox: Negligible Benefits, Robust Consumption” accompanying the new report, Dr. Pieter A. Cohen, of Cambridge Health Alliance and Somerville Hospital Primary Care in Massachusetts, pointed out that “supplements are essential to treat vitamin and mineral deficiencies” and that certain combinations of nutrients can help some medical conditions, like age-related macular degeneration. He added, however, “for the majority of adults, supplements likely provide little, if any, benefit.”

Perhaps most enlightening were the data on the characteristics of supplement users. In all probability, they were among the healthiest members of the population. They were more likely than nonusers to report being in very good or excellent health, to use alcohol moderately, to refrain from cigarette smoking, to exercise frequently and to have health insurance. Other studies have shown that supplement use is also more frequent among those who are older, who weigh less and have higher levels of education and socioeconomic status.

This means that in trying to determine possible health benefits of a supplement, researchers must control for all such characteristics in order to isolate the contribution of the supplement. Just looking at a large group of people, even following them for decades and finding that supplement users were healthier or lived longer, proves nothing if other influences on health and longevity are not taken into account.

Faced with equivocal or negative findings of health benefits from supplements, in 2013 the United States Preventive Services Task Force, an independent group of physicians who base their advice on solid evidence, opted not to recommend the regular use of any multivitamins to prevent cardiovascular disease or cancer in people who were not nutrient deficient.

All of which makes one wonder why people, myself included, opt to take one or more dietary supplements. Those who take a daily multivitamin/mineral supplement typically cite “nutritional insurance” as their rationale. Knowing that they often eat erratically or fail to consume recommended amounts of nutrient-rich vegetables and fruits, a supplement containing a broad range of vitamins and minerals seems the easiest and cheapest way to fill in any gaps.

"Cancer deaths among women to rise 60% by 2030, new reports warn"

An article from the Guardian (UK).

American Cancer Society and Lancet studies point to devastating increases, mostly in poorer countries, with breast cancer diagnoses set to almost double

“Most of the deaths occur in young and middle-aged adults”, placing a heavy burden on families and national economies, said Sally Cowal, senior vice-president of global health at the ACS, which compiled the report with pharmaceutical company Merck.

A second report, published in the Lancet medical journal on Wednesday, said the number of women diagnosed with breast cancer alone could almost double to 3.2 million a year by 2030 from 1.7 million in 2015.

For cervical cancer, the number of diagnoses could “rise by at least 25% to over 700,000 by 2030”, mainly in low- and middle-income countries, said a statement from the Lancet.

 

CNN: Nice gesture as HS football players surprise cheerleader battling leukemia

Very thoughtful. Happily her type of leukemia is very treatable with chemotherapy developed in the last 15 years.

 

Crossfit damage the immune system?

According to a study out of Brazil, yes. (I have my doubts - see the end of this posting.)

Here's a slightly sensational article in the Daily Mail (UK)

CrossFit health warning: Experts say workouts two days in a row could 'suppress immune system'

The researchers assessed muscle power, levels of inflammatory cytokines and levels of metabolic markers, before, during and after the workouts.

They found that the workouts provoked a strong metabolic response and reduced the levels of anti-inflammatory cytokines, which are proteins produced by white blood cells that act to dampen inflammation. 

This means that the consecutive workouts were actually suppressing normal immune function.

and here's a little better review of the study -

Why Is This Important? Because this challenges how pretty much everyone practices CrossFit.

The new study published in Frontiers in Physiology monitored night Crossfitters through two workouts 24 hours apart, as reported by Men's Fitness. All of the athletes were CrossFit veterans and averaged 28 years old and 173 pounds with a 13.5% body fat percentage. The WODs weren't out of the ordinary if you've done CrossFit. They involved a bit of strength training,  gymnastics, metabolic conditioning and a shitload of reps.

After the two workouts, the Brazilian researchers observed that even though the Crossfitters didn't see a drop off in muscle power, their immune system dropped. If you want to get technical, two WODs on consecutive days impacted pro and anti-inflammatory cytokines and osteoprotegerin.

“While we observed no negative effect on muscular power, it is still recommended that caution be exercised due to the suppressive effect two consecutive days of [CrossFit-based training] had on the immune system,” the researchers wrote in a statement. 

******

“For non-athlete subjects who want to improve their health and quality of life through CrossFit training, we recommend that they decrease their training volume after two consecutive days of high intensity training to prevent possible immunosuppression,” wrote study author Ramires Tibana. “A rest day is important for recovery for subsequent training sessions.”

Well I am skeptical. There were only nine subjects in the study for one thing. And other studies on this subject are very mixed. For example if you google weight lifting and immune system you get other data. So I think the jury is still out - EXCEPT that moderate exercise - however you define that and the definition changes for each person - would indicate that your immune system can be strengthened.

Cardiologist (controversial!) on benefits of high fat diet

In the NY Times health and fitness section, so it must be true. Fat is OK, sugar very bad ... Worth hitting the link for the whole article.

LONDON — Every morning, British cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra stirs one tablespoon of butter and one tablespoon of coconut oil into his coffee. While it may not sound appetizing, the concoction — also known as “bulletproof coffee” — is popular among people who follow high-fat diets and modeled after yak-butter drinks consumed in Tibet for centuries. The combination, says Dr. Malhotra, gives him energy and “keeps me pretty full.”

“As part of a heart-healthy diet, I advise my cardiac patients to enjoy full-fat cheese, along with olive oil and vegetables,” says Dr. Malhotra, who regularly indulges in grass-fed meat and three-egg omelets, yolks included. “You should see the look on their faces when I tell them.”

Dr. Malhotra, who works with Britain’s National Health Service, is among a small but increasingly vocal group of doctors in the United States and Britain who are challenging the medical and nutritional orthodoxy around fat, carbohydrates and calories. He has been a fixture on social media and on television programs in Britain, thanks in part to a series of controversial papers he published in medical journals arguing that saturated fat, especially from dairy, can be protective against heart disease, that sugar is “public health enemy No. 1” in the Western diet, and that the dangers of high cholesterol are overstated.

In May, as a member of the National Obesity Forum, a nonprofit group, he helped write a widely publicized report that criticized the British government’s dietary advice to avoid saturated fat and eat low-fat foods. And in a country known for its sweet tooth, Dr. Malhotra is outspoken about the harms of excess sugar.

His critics – of which there are many – have pushed back. Public Health England, the agency that issues the country’s dietary guidelines, said the obesity forum report that Dr. Malhotra helped author was “irresponsible and misleads the public.”

Prostate cancer - detection and treatment overview

Off the two MD's on the weekend FOX news show. from a few months ago. I overlooked posting it.  Almost nine minutes long, but worth watching if you have a prostate or know someone who does.

 

WSJ: "Making chemo more tolerable"

Of interest to, well anyone who may get cancer. I can say I was very lucky with my chemo; very little negative consequences (leaving out hair falling out). I felt a little tired at times and I think I was nauseous and threw up once while in Sloan getting the high dose stuff. Not a big event.

SciAM and WSJ - cell phones and cancer, the debate back on ...

Here's a link to a fairly long Scientific American article, and below it a four minute video that is quite informative from the Wall Street Journal.

Federal scientists released partial findings Friday from a $25-million animal study that tested the possibility of links between cancer and chronic exposure to the type of radiation emitted from cell phones and wireless devices. The findings, which chronicle an unprecedented number of rodents subjected to a lifetime of electromagnetic radiation starting in utero, present some of the strongest evidence to date that such exposure is associated with the formation of rare cancers in at least two cell types in the brains and hearts of rats.

And here's the WSJ video -

Health Update

I hardly ever do these anymore - thank God!

Saw lymphoma guru Dr. Zelenetz last Friday, along with bloodwork and a CAT scan. Everything done in East Harrison, at the very large satellite offices of Memorial Sloan Kettering - a quite nice space.

Everything looks fine. Will only be having a CAT scan every other year from now on. Ten years, four months since my chemotherapy ended - time for a party!

How dirty is your gym's equipment?

Really, really dirty. Free weights 362 times more bacteria than a toilet seat!?

Um, this gym staple has more bacteria than your toilet seat

"Every time you pick up a weight or grab an exercise bike handle, you could be putting yourself at risk for an illness or infection," states the report. More than 70% of bacteria swabbed in the study is potentially harmful to humans, including gram-positive cocci, which can lead to skin infections, septicemia, and pneumonia.

Ready to really cringe? Free weights are covered in 362 times more bacteria than a toilet seat. Exercise bikes and treadmills are not as bad, but they're not far behind. Testing revealed that bikes carry 39 times more bacteria than a reusable cafeteria tray, including bacillus, which can lead to ear, eye, and respiratory infections.

Here is the study, Fit Rated recruited a lab to test the amount of bacteria on fitness equipment  complete with graphics - sample below - with the data.

More on exercise and reducing cancer

Here's an article from the NY Times health section, as well as a pretty informative video from the FOX news health show. If you type in exercise and cancer in the search box in the upper right corner, I have other postings on this subject.

Anyone who still needs motivation to move more may find it in a new study showing that, in addition to its other health benefits, exercise appears to substantially reduce the risk of developing 13 different varieties of cancer. That is far more types than scientists previously thought might be impacted by exercise. The comprehensive study also suggests that the potential cancer-fighting benefits of exercise seem to hold true even if someone is overweight.

and the vid -

 

"Stem cell therapy halves deaths from heart failure"

From the Telegraph (UK). A study in the USA. These are autologous transplants (like I had for my lymphoma) using the patient's own stem cells.

Now, in the largest trial ever conducted, doctors in the US have proven that even the most serious cases of heart failure can be repaired using stem cells harvested from a patient’s own bone marrow.

End-stage patients, whose only hope was a heart transplant, were treated with stem cells in a single operation.  Doctors found the group were 37 per cent less likely to have been admitted to hospital in the 12 months following the operation and half as likely to have died than those on placebo. 

The procedure takes just two hours and most patients were discharged a day after surgery.

"For the last 15 years everyone has been talking about cell therapy and what it can do. These results suggest that it really works," says lead author and cardiac surgeon Dr Amit Pate, director of Cardiovascular Regenerative Medicine at the University of Utah.

"This is the first trial of cell therapy showing that it can have a meaningful impact on the lives of patients with heart failure.”

*****

A small amount of bone marrow was drawn from each patients from which two types of stem cell were extracted, and their number increased in the lab.

After scanning the patient’s heart to see where the damage was greatest, the stem cells were then delivered to those areas using a catheter.

The group were then followed for 12 months with doctors monitoring deaths, hospitilsations and unplanned clinic visits. During that period eight patients died who had been given a placebo, compared with four who were on the stem cell treatment.

82 per cent of patients who did not have the therapy needed hospital treatment during that time, compared with 51 per cent of the stem cell patients.

Obviously more to do, but pretty promising start.

 

Aging and thinning skin - who knew?

good to know about. Not a problem for me - yet.

Is it OK to skip breakfast?

Yes. There's no evidence that skipping will produce weight gain. From the NYT Health section.

Does Skipping Breakfast Cause Weight Gain?

The food industry has promoted this claim for decades to sell breakfast cereal. But rigorous scientific studies have found no evidence that it’s true.

****

In the decades that followed, dozens of observational studies reported that breakfast eaters tended to be leaner. Though these studies could not show cause and effect, many health authorities and food companies asserted that they proved that eating breakfast protects against weight gain.

But experimental studies that randomly assigned people to eat or skip breakfast have found no such thing. One of the most recent, published in February, found no difference “in weight change and most health outcomes” between people assigned to eat breakfast for six weeks and those assigned to skip it.

****

Dr. Betts said that unlike randomized trials, observational studies of breakfast consumption could be misleading. They show, for example, that people who eat breakfast also follow other behaviors associated with good health. They tend to drink and smoke less, consume less sugar, eat more fiber and exercise more than those who skip a morning meal.

“All we know from observational studies is that people who have breakfast are leaner,” he said. “But it may be other factors that are the reason.”

 

 

Another immunotherapy cancer breakthrough

The ability to turn a person's immune system back on to fight cancer cells is the Holy Grail of cancer research. And here is another step ...

 

Cataract surgery yesterday

So, seems to have gone well. Done at Hudson Valley Hospital, which is also where I had my knee surgery 11 years ago. Have to put in a variety of drops in my right eye for the next several weeks, including one that goes for six weeks. and right now my pupil is still dilated.

The actual surgery takes about half an hour.

Brigid took this after getting back to the room, still looking cute in my bonnet -

You can also just about see how dilated my right pupil is - just about completely open (yeah - no one should be subjected to this kind of close up of me!) with hardly any iris visible. There's also the remnants of an ink mark above my right eyebrow - as in "this is the eye..."

WSJ: "Millions Eligible for Medicaid Go Without It"

The fact is, the 13 million new enrollees include almost all the newly covered people under Obamacare. The horrors of Obamacare could have been avoided if medicaid had simply been extended to more people and an effort made to emroll them. 

Not mentioned here - the current medicaid reimbursements to healthcare providers are so low that if everyone was covered by medicaid, providers and hospitals would all be bankrupt.

Autologous stem cell transplants - part of therapy being used more and more for other diseases

January 16th was the tenth anniversary of my autologous (given my own previously harvested stem cells back) transplant. (If you hit that link you'll see what is probably not the greatest picture of me.) The stem cells then rebuilt my immune system which was compromised by my prior six days of high dose chemotherapy. That was the culmination of five months of chemotherapy for my mantle cell lymphoma - seems to have worked, I'm still here...

Anyway, my friend Laurie posted a story on her facebook page where a similar protocol is showing dramatic results for people with MS (multiple sclerosis).

Here is the article, from the Telegraph (UK).

"Miraculous" results from new MS Treatment

The treatment is being carried out at Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield and Kings College Hospital, London and involves use a high dose of chemotherapy to knock out the immune system before rebuilding it with stem cells taken from the patient’s own blood.

Miss Drewry had the treatment in Sheffield. She said: “I started seeing changes within days of the stem cells being put in.

“I walked out of the hospital. I walked into my house and hugged Isla. I cried and cried. It was a bit overwhelming. It was a miracle.”

Her treatment has now been reviewed and her condition found to have been dramatically halted. She will need to be monitored for years but the hope is that her transplant will be a permanent fix.

Yes, let's hope so. Medicine and science march on!

SciAm: "Can We Truly 'Cure' Cancer?"

It was such a relief when I, a cancer suvivor (for the moment anyway), heard that the President had put VP Biden in charge of curing cancer. Didn't Nixon declare a "War on Cancer".? Parenthetically, I have about the same opinion of our current President as I have of Nixon ...

Anyway here's a Scientific American web article from yesterday on the issue of "curing" cancer. Excerpts below. It's a very good article - hit the link for all ten paragraphs.

Pres. Obama laid out a moon-shot target of knocking out cancer, but cancer is not one disease—it’s many

On January 12 Pres. Barack Obama laid out an aspirational plan in his final State of the Union to “cure cancer.” He did not put forth a specific time line for this effort or the metrics that would measure success but did say that he was putting Vice Pres. Joe Biden in charge of “mission control.” And already, the White House released information about several meetings in the coming month that Biden will hold to get the ball rolling on the initiative.

Yet is such a goal truly achievable in the near future? Patients and doctors know all too well that cancer is not one disease and there is no singular cure for the complex group of disorders. Biden did help secure a $264-million cash infusion in the most recent government spending bill that will support cancer work at the National Cancer Institute, but the obstacles to attacking cancer effectively are more than just financial. “A cure is a long way off,” but the prospect for some specific cancers does look bright, says James Allison, chair of the Department of Immunology at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. For his part, at least Allison was not surprised about the announcement last night, he says, because the vice president himself called him and other researchers within the past two months to talk about cancer research. And now, unlike even five years ago, a 10-year remission is realistic for cancers like melanoma, which seemingly were unbeatable.

These gains are largely thanks to historic breakthroughs in the past few years with a bevvy of methods to employ patients’ own immune systems, collectively known as immunotherapy. But still large obstacles remain when it comes to getting immunotherapy to work for many different types of tumors. Although some cancers—particularly those that are rife with mutations like lung cancer or melanoma—create more tangible targets on the surface of cells for the immune system to recognize and attack, other malignancies such as prostate and pancreatic cancers have proved more intransigent. As Scientific American reported earlier this year, more than half of the current cancer clinical trials do incorporate some form of immunotherapy but still oncologists are often only in the early stages of understanding how to use such treatment on a larger scale. Even with the cancers that are further along in their immunotherapy responses, a “certain fraction of those kinds of tumors, I don’t know we’ll ever cure,” Allison says.

It's a very good article - hit the link

Moderate alcohol and health

Additional studies. An interesting 2 minute discussion.

How President Carter's cancer has been stopped

 

Pretty good - he's 91 years old. No guarantee or course that the cancer won't be back. Immunotherapy - an excellent short explanation of his treatment.

 

Yuck! (SciAm): "Tapeworm spreads cancer to human"

Not cool. The whole idea ...

A parasite with cancer infected a man, and the tumor cells jumped across the species line

A Colombian man's lung tumors turned out to have an extremely unusual cause: The rapidly growing masses weren't actually made of human cells, but were from a tapeworm living inside him, according to a report of the case.

This is the first known report of a person becoming sick from cancer cells that developed in a parasite, the researchers said.

"We were amazed when we found this new type of disease—tapeworms growing inside a person, essentially getting cancer, that spreads to the person, causing tumors," said study researcher Dr. Atis Muehlenbachs, a staff pathologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Infectious Diseases Pathology Branch (IDPB).

The man had HIV, which weakens the immune system and likely played a role in allowing the development of the parasite cancer, the researchers said. Although the man's case is probably a rare one, the researchers noted that both tapeworms and HIV affect millions of people worldwide, "so there may be more cases that are unrecognized," Muehlenbachs said.

More if you hit the link.

NY Times: A Dad v. Sloan Kettering cancer hospital

A very difficult situation and also tough to get to the truth of the matter.

Sloan Kettering of course, my hospital. Oh, and it's in the business section of the NYT, which I suppose says something.

Streetwise Father Takes On Sloan Kettering to Save His Son

Mr. Girondi accuses the cancer center of dawdling on developing a gene therapy that could potentially cure his son of an inherited blood disease called beta thalassemia, or Cooley’s anemia. The disease often kills people by their late 20s — an age his son will reach in a few years.

Ten years ago, when few companies were interested in gene therapy, Sloan Kettering licensed the rights to an experimental treatment to Errant Gene Therapeutics, a tiny firm started by Mr. Girondi. But after being accused by the cancer center of not fulfilling its obligations to move the therapy toward the market, Errant Gene ceded its rights in 2011.

Now, because of technological progress, gene therapy is considered highly promising. A company called Bluebird Bio has a market valuation exceeding $3 billion, largely on the basis of a very similar gene therapy for beta thalassemia and sickle cell anemia, which has had strong results in early clinical trials.

But while the well-financed Bluebird races ahead, the project at Sloan Kettering appears to have languished.

California says yes to assisted suicide/euthanasia

Bill is signed by the Catholic (he says) Gov. Jerry Brown. Of course this will put pressure on other states - like NY - to get on the bandwagon.

Gotta love this:

Ironically, the bill was passed during a special session of the California State Legislature, which was originally called to address cost savings for the state’s MediCal program. Indeed, there are many who would see doctor-prescribed suicide as a “cost-savings” measure.

And there's this in the last paragraph (not excerpted below)

In this case, Governor Brown’s proclamation expressly states that the purpose of the extraordinary session on Medi-Cal is to “stabilize the General Fund’s costs for Medi-Cal”...

Excerpts below - hit the link for the whole sad story.

In his signing message, Brown said he signed the bill because he wouldn’t want to be in pain in his final days — regardless of the fact that pain relief is readily available without killing patients.

The so-called ‘right-to-die’ movement promotes these laws as simply ‘another medical option’ at the end of life, but their real goal is euthanasia on demand for any reason.”

“There are no real safeguards. It is a well-established fact that nearly every terminally ill patient who desires death is suffering from treatable depression. In Oregon, fewer than 6% of patients have been referred for psychiatric evaluation before obtaining life-ending drugs. Rather than treat clinically depressed patients, the Oregon system, and the system that would be established by the California bill, indicates that you instead help the patients kill themselves,” Tobias noted.

Tim Rosales of Californians Against Assisted Suicide  also responded to the bill signing. He told LifeNews:

This is a dark day for California and for the Brown legacy. Governor Brown was clear in his statement that this was based on his personal background. As someone of wealth and access to the world’s best medical care and doctors the Governor’s background is very different than that of millions of Californians living in healthcare poverty without that same access – these are the people and families potentially hurt by giving doctors the power to prescribe lethal overdoses to patients. At this time the coalition of organizations opposing assisted suicide is reviewing at all of its options moving forward.

Ironically, the bill was passed during a special session of the California State Legislature, which was originally called to address cost savings for the state’s MediCal program. Indeed, there are many who would see doctor-prescribed suicide as a “cost-savings” measure. Writing about the bill’s passage in The New York Times, Ian Lovett included an observation by Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, director of the medical ethics program at the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine:

…[Kheriaty] said that low-income and underinsured patients would inevitably feel pressure to end their own lives in some cases, when the cost of continued treatment would be astronomical compared with the cost of a few lethal pills.

 

Excellent critique of Government exercise recommendations - & the right alternative

Mark Rippetoe is a training maven; I am using his superb book Practical Programming for my own exercising/training and it's terrific.

And here's a column he wrote a week ago, that was picked up by pjmedia.com, with some excerpts below the link. It's very applicable to people over 50 (or 60, or 70, or 80...) The pictures on the link really tell the story.

Great article. Hit the link - you'll just have to tolerate the ads, and be sure you spot the "Continued on next page" box near the bottom of the first page.

Government Exercise: See the NIH’s Embarrassing Fitness Recommendations. If "exercises" less strenuous than your daily activity actually worked, you'd already be fit.

My recent piece on my own website, “Exercise, Government-Style,” deals with the exercise recommendations of the National Institute on Aging (NIA), a subsidiary of the National Institutes of Health. Their website is an embarrassing mess of silly movements that cannot be categorized as exercises.

“Physical activity,” perhaps — like you would perform while driving to the store, going in to buy groceries, putting them in the car, going home, unloading them, and sitting back down. But they are no more strenuous than these typical daily activities — the ones you’re already doing, the ones that haven’t made you strong enough so far, and the same reason why daily activities are not sufficient for the maintenance of physical ability as we age.

******

The basic formula for effective exercise of any type is: stress + recovery from the stress = adaptation to the stress. If you want to get stronger, you have to give your body a reason to need to be stronger, so you have to lift a weight that is heavier than you lifted previously. When you recover from that, you’ll be stronger. Just like anything else you’ve ever accomplished, you do the work first, and then you get the results.

The exercises in your strength program must be capable of 1.) using enough muscle mass 2.) through a long range of joint motion, 3.) enabling you to lift increasingly heavy weights so that you 4.) get stronger.

******

The Starting Strength exercises are better because they are capable of being loaded with incrementally increasing weight — even if the increment must be half a pound — so you can get stronger. They operate over a long range of motion, so you get more flexible. As you do them with increasingly heavy weight, you continue to not fall down, so they improve your balance. And since you can do more work over a longer period of time as you get stronger, they improve your endurance, too.

If you can’t do the barbell exercises pictured above, there are other ways the problem can be solved using the same approach. The keys are lots of muscles working at the same time and continually increasing loads being lifted. The Starting Strength Method is thus, in a nutshell, full range of motion exercise matched to the current ability of the trainee that continually increases in intensity. This approach makes your whole body get stronger. The NIA approach merely asks your body if it wants to, someday, and then fails to provide the mechanism.

His approach has really helped me. His book manages to cover a whole gamut, from very advanced powerlifters, olympic lifters, and sports training, to starting a program if you're 85 years old. Here's his website Starting Strength.

I'm glad Prez. Carter talking about his cancer

UPDATE: Good interview with American Cancer Society medical officer.

A vastly better ex-President than he was as President.

"I'm perfectly at ease with whatever comes," Carter said at a news conference.

 

"Spirituality may be tied to easier cancer course"

Not that this is a surprise - it's been shown in other studies.

The new analyses reviewed previous studies of spirituality involving more than 44,000 cancer patients altogether. The studies varied in many ways, but religion and spirituality were associated with better health regardless of specific religion or set of spiritual beliefs.

A sense of connection to a being larger than oneself was associated with better physical function and fewer, or less severe, symptoms of cancer or treatment, according to patient reports.

Intrinsic religious belief was also tied to better physical function.

Actual practice of religion, like church attendance, prayer, or meditation, was not related to physical health.

“Cancer patients who reported higher meaning, purpose, and spiritual connection in life also reported better physical health, as did patients who reported more positive religious or spiritual explanations for the cancer (versus a sense of fatalism or anger towards God),” Jim said.

CNN: Doctor gives chemo treatments to healthy patients

Incredible and horrifying. He did it for the $$$.