Health for life

There may be a way for older people to prevent natural aging of their minds, and it could be as simple as playing a video game.

Thats according to a study from the University of Iowa, which found that elderly people who played just ten hours of a game priming their mental processing speed and skills delayed declines by as many as seven years in a range of cognitive skills.

"We know that we can stop this decline and actually restore cognitive processing speed to people," says Fredric Wolinsky, professor in the UI College of Public Health and lead author on the paper published May 1 in the journal PLOS One. "So, if we know that, shouldnt we be helping people? Its fairly easy, and older folks can go get the training game and play it."

The study comes amidst a burst of research examining why, as we age, our minds gradually lose "executive function," generally considered mission control for critical mental activities, such as memory, attention, perception and problem solving. Studies show loss of executive function occurs as people reach middle age; other studies say our cognitive decline begins as soon as 28 years of age. Either way, our mental capacities do diminish, and medical and public health experts are keen to understand why in an effort to stem the inexorable tide as much as possible.

Wolinsky and colleagues separated 681 generally healthy medical patients in Iowa into four groups—each further separated into those 50 to 64 years of age and those over age 65. One group was given computerized crossword puzzles, while three other groups were exposed to a video game called "Road Tour." Briefly, the game revolves around identifying a type of vehicle (displayed fleetingly on a license plate) and then reidentifying the vehicle type and matching it with a road sign displayed from a circular array of possibilities, all but one of them false icons. The player must succeed at least three out of every four tries to advance to the next level, which speeds up the vehicle identification and adds more distractions, up to 47 in all.

The goal, naturally, is to increase the users mental speed and agility at identifying the vehicle symbol and picking out the road sign from the constellation of distractors (which are rabbits, by the way).

"The game starts off with an assessment to determine your current speed of processing. Whatever it is, the training can help you get about 70 percent faster," says Wolinsky, who has no financial stake in the game.

The groups that played the game at least 10 hours, either at home or in a lab at the university, gained at least three years of cognitive improvement when tested after one year, according to a formula developed by the researchers. A group that got four additional hours of training with the game did even better, improving their cognitive abilities by four years, according to the study.

"We not only prevented the decline; we actually sped them up," Wolinsky says.

Improving peoples processing speed is considered important for a host of reasons. One widely accepted benefit is widening a persons field of view. "As we get older, our visual field collapses on us," Wolinsky explains. "We get tunnel vision. Its a normal functioning of aging. This helps to explain why most accidents happen at intersections because older folks are looking straight ahead and are less aware of peripherals."

Recognizing this, the National Institutes of Health in the late 1990s commissioned the largest cognitive training study of its kind, called ACTIVE. The national, multi-site trial, in which Wolinsky was involved, showed the elderlys memory, reasoning and visual processing speed could be improved with interventions, thus slowing the aging of their minds. But the ACTIVE study had its limitations: Among them, the control group didnt get any training and the primary goal was to assess the effects on seniors field-of-view vision.

Wolinskys team added an active control group—those doing the crossword puzzles. The researchers found those who played the "Road Tour" game also scored far better than the crossword puzzle group on tests involving executive function beyond field-of-view vision, such as concentration, nimbleness with shifting from one mental task to another and the speed at which new information is processed. The improvement ranged from 1.5 years to nearly seven years in cognitive improvement, the study found.

"Its the use it or lose it phenomenon," Wolinsky says. "Age-related cognitive decline is real, its happening, and it starts earlier and then continues steadily. The good news is we can do something about it. The question is will we?"

Whats up yall??  Just a quick announcement for my 3 readers (Mom, Mom, and Mom)... Ive been busy the past few weeks preparing a video presentation entitled "How the Governments Nutrition Advice is Making Us Fat and Sick", which will be presented in Bellingham, Washington on Wednesday, January 30th for the Western Libertarians club at Western Washington University.  Thats a lot of proper nouns.  Be sure to read that sentence again to make sure you got it all.  Anyway, my video will be presented at the club meeting on the 30th and there will be a live Q & A session with me via Skype.  The meeting starts at 4:00 pm pacific time, so 7:00 pm eastern time.  So if anyone out there lives in the Bellingham area, I encourage you to go and check it out.  Youll learn all about the Paleo diet, the history of food and nutrition, and how we got to where we are today... and of course, whats wrong with this...


...and what you should be eating instead!

Heres a link to the Facebook event if anybody needs any more details!  http://www.facebook.com/events/192811674197425/ 

And I hope to see you there!  I mean not literally there, because I wont physically be there, but I hope to see you through my computer screen from 3000 miles away.  Be there!

The American Diabetes Association and Liberty Medical teamed up to produce this short 2-minute video that explains the symptoms and risk factors for type 2 diabetes:



See the American Diabetes Associations 21st Annual Alert Day for more.
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As I was browsing Facebook the other night, just about to go to bed, I came across an interesting link that fired me up and kept my up far past my bedtime... an article called "Vegetarianism Demystified by a Toddler". It links to a YouTube video, which Ill just embed here for your convenience... voila!



The video has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from YouTube users. Nearly every comment praises this child for being an irresistible, sweet little boy with a big heart...  See?? Hes only 3, even a TODDLER knows its wrong to eat animals!! What an inspiration!!!

Okay. Fine. Thats your opinion. I, on the other hand, saw it differently. Here is how I interpreted his message...

Little Luiz Antonio is just sitting down to eat his octopus gnocchi, when he begins to question the ethics of eating an animal. After a little back and forth with his mother, Luiz decides we shouldnt be eating animals because theyre cute, and because every living thing deserves to be a winner in life... all of them all at the same time. If theres one thing Luiz is sure of, this is it. It would just be so great if we could all live forever and ever, and we could all live with the animals and pet each other and cuddle. Everyone could be friends. Everyone in the entire world. Well be pen pals and Skype friends and tweet each other and eat grass and well never have any reason to fight. For ever and ever.

Realistically, this is whats going through this little tykes head. Does he sound like an inspiration now? Does he make you want to throw out all your meat and slide headfirst into veganism!? I hope not. Hes a 3-year-old... He has a 3-year-old brain. Is it adorable? Yes. Very. But is it groundbreaking? Inspiring? Life-changing?? No. Get your head out of your ass.

The crux of this argument, what it really comes down to, is whether its human nature to want to be a vegetarian. Thats one of the main points of contention the article brings up. Is it really possible that were naturally vegetarians? Are we herbivorous animals? Is meat-eating just a social construct?

The answer is really very simple. No. No to all three. Big no to all three.

Ive explained my position on vegetarianism before...

1. Humans are not herbivores.
2. Avoiding animal products will not save the environment.
3. Avoiding animal foods doesnt save animal lives.
4. The people most likely to adopt a vegan diet are the people who need animal products the most.
5. Veganism is a very recent phenomenon.

You should probably read the linked article yourself for a little more explanation. Going vegetarian isnt the answer to your problems, and it wont save the world. If youre really honest with yourself, I think thats pretty clear.


I applaud your intent, vegetarians, but I think you need a reality check.
Dont get me wrong, I do understand the rationale behind vegetarianism. Many vegetarians view cessation from animal foods as a sort of "next step in the evolution of humans". In other words, we no longer have to hunt and gather and rely on animal foods to get by, so we can choose to sustain ourselves on plant foods that are less damaging to the environment. We have plenty of plant food for everyone. And of course theres the compassion factor... we no longer need to carry out the "barbaric", "uncivilized" act of eating something that once had a cute face.

Where the vegetarians go wrong here, in my opinion, is in their assumption that an animal-food-free diet is a healthy diet. If we as a species were ever to decide to spontaneously switch to veganism, we would likely kill off a HUGE chunk of our population over the first few generations. What survives long-term would be, in my estimation, a very small fraction of humans, if any.

Dont believe me? Look what happened to this poor infant, who died at just 11 months... born of vegan parents, this little girl died of vitamin deficiencies from her mothers nutrient-depleted, vegan-borne breast milk.
Are you prepared to kill off most of the human race as some sadistic form of forced "evolution" in the name of veganism? Okay that statement was a little dramatic. But seriously, shit just wouldnt work out. Itd be traumatic. We have physiological, biological needs as humans, and some of those needs are only fulfilled through animal foods. Its not morally wrong to eat animals... its just how life works. There is no life without death and vise versa. Its the circle of life. Like the Lion King.


Okay back to Little Luizs video.
Back to reality land, and that cute little cherub. To set the record straight, I do not have kids. Although I do want to have kids some day, I dont want kids at this particular moment, and I dont claim to be any sort of child-rearing expert. I do adore the innocent, naivety of Luizs mind, though. At the age of 3, Im sure a lot of kids have this same peachy outlook on life, and if I were a parent, Id probably like to preserve this blissful ignorant phase for a long as I could. I also dont ever want to force my child to eat anything he uses to eat. Good nutrition is of the utmost importance to me, but so is letting my child have some autonomy. I want to support his/her in life, not get in the way of it.

But thats neither here nor there. Im all about the tangents today.

To sum this all up, theres just no reason for Luizs thoughts on meat-eating to be taken as an affirmation for vegetarianism. For crying out loud, hes a 3-year-old child.

Its a cute video. Lets just leave it at that.

A quick little video by the FDA on the devices used to check blood glucose and inject insulin:


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Thanks to Managed Care Magazine, the Disease Management Care Blog can post this interesting 25 minute interview with Princeton healthcare economist Uwe Reindardt.  Suitable for desk-bound meal-break viewing by overachieving DMCB readers, the modest and insightful Dr. Reindardt gets it mostly right:

No, the slowdown in the U.S. rate of health care costs cannot be ascribed to passage of the Affordable Care Act.  It started wayyyy before Obamacare was passed and is more likely due to the economic slowdown and increased consumer cost-sharing.

Accountable Care Organizations remain an "iffy" experimental proposition because they "dont go all the way like Kaiser."

Republican proposals to let health insurers sell their products across state lines are hardly a health orm panacea, because prices (and theore premiums) are not a function of where the insurer is domiciled, but where the care is rendered.  Texas insurers would still have to pay New York prices.

Americans use fewer pills, occupy less bed-days and see fewer doctors, but we pay more because providers can charge more.  Despite being relatively small vs. the behemoths like Aetna and Cigna, regional hospitals have considerable market power that translates into take-it-or-leave it local single seller monopsonies.   Europeans, in contrast, have lower prices because their system is dominated by single purchaser monopolies.

Were headed toward a three-tier system comprised of 1) the indigent safety-net public programs, 2) the middle class "erence pricing" "networks" where consumers pay the difference if they want to buy up and 3) "boutique" health care for the 5%.

Theres reason to be optimistic about the next five years thanks to a sluggish labor market (making it easier to impose networks and even more cost sharing) and innovation (computational capacity is putting meaningful quality measurement within reach, while techy gizmos are making self-care simultaneously cheap and fun). 

Plus, theres reason to be of good cheer.  Compared to the U.S. education and the legal systems, health care is far more efficient and consumer-friendly.  Stop beating up on yourselves.

(The DMCB didnt quite agree with Dr. Reinhardts views on worksite wellness.  He finds the notion counterintuitive and intrusive, perring that insurers own wellness.  He neglects to mention that the employers who invest heavily in wellness are typically self-insured and that employers have an arguable stake in improving the quality of their human capital.)