Diet Until Proven Otherwise

Plant foods, high in fiber, can reduce the contact of potential carcinogens with cells lining the digestive tract. The fiber causes food to travel faster through a person’s digestive system. This also reduces intestinal cells’ contact with bile acids, which can promote cancer growth. Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes also provide phytonutrients and antioxidants, which can help repair damaged cells and reduce cancer risk.

Why poor diets are contributing to a surge in colorectal cancer cases among young people — https://www.kevinmd.com/2023/04/why-poor-diets-are-contributing-to-a-surge-in-colorectal-cancer-cases-among-young-people.html

Life is short and science takes too long.

Change your diet. If you have any changes in your bowel habits, talk to your physician.

Take a Break – 04.19.23 (let’s do some brain remodeling)

A study led by the UNIGE, HES-SO Geneva, and EPFL revealed that music practice and active listening could prevent working memory decline. Such activities promoted brain plasticity, they were associated with grey matter volume increase. Positive impacts have also been measured on working memory. This study was conducted among 132 healthy retirees from 62 to 78 years of age. One of the conditions for participation was that they had not taken any music lessons for more than six months in their lives…The participants were randomly assigned to two groups, regardless of their motivation to play an instrument. The second group had active listening lessons, which focused on instrument recognition and analysis of musical properties in a wide range of musical styles. The classes lasted one hour. Participants in both groups were required to do homework for half an hour a day.”

After six months, we found common effects for both interventions. Neuroimaging revealed an increase in grey matter in four brain regions involved in high-level cognitive functioning in all participants, including cerebellum areas involved in working memory. Their performance increased by 6% and this result was directly correlated to the plasticity of the cerebellum,” says Clara James, last author of the study, a privat-docent at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of UNIGE, and full professor at the Geneva School of Health Sciences

Université de Genève. “How music can prevent cognitive decline.” ScienceDaily. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/04/230417142520.htm (accessed April 18, 2023).

Journal Reference – Damien Marie, Cécile A.H. Müller, Eckart Altenmüller, Dimitri Van De Ville, Kristin Jünemann, Daniel S. Scholz, Tillmann H.C. Krüger, Florian Worschech, Matthias Kliegel, Christopher Sinke, Clara E. James. Music interventions in 132 healthy older adults enhance cerebellar grey matter and auditory working memory, despite general brain atrophy. Neuroimage: Reports, 2023; 3 (2): 100166 DOI: 10.1016/j.ynirp.2023.100166

I could feel my brain grey matter volume increasing when listening to this album.

People who think positively about aging are more likely to recover memory

A new study has found that older persons with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a common type of memory loss, were 30% more likely to regain normal cognition if they had taken in positive beliefs about aging from their culture, compared to those who had taken in negative beliefs.

Yale School of Public Health. “People who think positively about aging are more likely to recover memory.” ScienceDaily. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/04/230412131116.htm (accessed April 18, 2023).

Journal Reference – Becca R. Levy, Martin D. Slade. Role of Positive Age Beliefs in Recovery From Mild Cognitive Impairment Among Older Persons. JAMA Network Open, 2023; 6 (4): e237707 DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.7707

I cannot believe how wonderful the aging process is said no one ever.

Scary Charts 04.11.23

Per the Economic Policy Institute, wages in 2021 “rose fastest for the top 1% of earners (up 9.4%) and top 0.1% (up 18.5%), while those in the bottom 90% saw their real earnings fall 0.2% between 2020 and 2021.”

I Would Love to Have Enough Time and Money to Go to an Office to Work All Day — https://slate.com/business/2023/03/steven-rattner-new-york-times-remote-work-commute-child-care.html

The source article is about WFH vs RTO (work from home vs return to office) and is worth reading.

Drive By Truckers 2.0

Total drug violations reported into the clearinghouse in 2022, including positive tests and refusals to take a drug test, increased 18% to 69,668 compared with last year’s 59,011, according to the most recent statistics released this week by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. That rate almost doubled the 9.2% annual increase in drug violations reported in 2021. Much of the increase can be attributed to violations related to marijuana, the substance identified most in positive tests. Marijuana violations increased 31.6% in 2022 compared with 2021, to 40,916. That compares to a 5.3% increase between 2020 and 2021.

Truckers’ positive drug tests up 18% in 2022 — https://www.freightwaves.com/news/truckers-positive-drug-tests-up-18-in-2022

At least binge drinking prevalence is just 19%

Truck drivers have been reported as a highly vulnerable working population due to different risk factors [16,17,18] including hypertension, fatigue [19], obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and sleep deprivation [20,21], and insufficient physical activity [22]. Other risk factors are exposure to diesel exhaust and risk of developing lung cancer [23], poor diet, obesity, dyslipidemia, and other metabolic disorders [24]. Furthermore, they are prone to risky behaviors and lifestyles such as smoking, drinking, using psychoactive substances, and having casual sexual contacts [25].

Patterns of Harmful Alcohol Consumption among Truck Drivers: Implications for Occupational Health and Work Safety from a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis — Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2018 Jun; 15(6): 1121.
Published online 2018 May 30. doi: 10.3390/ijerph15061121

I ask them why the industry has a 90 percent attrition rate within the first year. All instantly respond: “No money.” They describe a predatory apprenticeship system that conspires against new drivers seeking to enter the profession. The industry is made up of thousands of mostly small-fleet owners—95 percent of them with 20 trucks or fewer—but dominated by about two dozen giant companies that serve as its gatekeepers. These megacarriers often house schools where some 400,000 new truckers receive commercial driver’s licenses annually. The companies entice people with promises of financial plenty, even as they ensnare them in “training contracts”—binding agreements that require them to drive for the company at below-market wages for a year in exchange for training or else be hit with an exorbitant fee for that training, to be paid off at high interest. Many drivers stick around for the full year to avoid those fees, enduring what amounts to debt peonage. 

“I have panic attacks,” he says. “That’s why I drink.”


Life as a 21st-Century Trucker — https://www.wired.com/story/life-as-a-21st-century-trucker/

For the first post in this series see Drive By Truckers.

April Fools 2023 (this is a GLP-1 receptor agonist post)

Ozempic and a similar drug, Wegovy, are weekly shots you give yourself that cause the body to produce insulin. Insulin lowers blood sugar, slows digestion and makes people feel full. Carter-Williams tried it and was amazed.

“You are not hungry,” she says. “Like, I actually have to set timers to make sure that I do eat, because otherwise you actually forget to eat.”

‘You forget to eat’: How Ozempic went from diabetes medicine to blockbuster diet drug https://www.npr.org/2023/04/01/1166781510/ozempic-weight-loss-drug-big-business

Everyone wants the easy way out. I sometimes forget to eat but not because of a miracle drug. You wonder if those of us wanting to lose weight know you can’t stop taking this drug once you start it.

Patients discontinuing the use of weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy risk regaining their original body weight in about five years, a Novo Nordisk official said on Wednesday.

Novo Nordisk Says Stopping Obesity Drug May Cause Full Weight Regain in 5 Years–https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/990267?src=rss

Side effects?

Just a few https://www.wegovy.com/taking-wegovy/side-effects.html

  • Possible thyroid tumors, including cancer.
  • Inflammation of your pancreas (pancreatitis)
  • Gallbladder problems
  • Increased risk of low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) in patients with type 2 diabetes, especially those who also take medicines for type 2 diabetes such as sulfonylureas or insulin
  • Kidney problems (kidney failure)
  • Serious allergic reactions
  • Change in vision in people with type 2 diabetes.
  • Increased heart rate
  • Depression or thoughts of suicide.

So if you want to lose weight by taking a GLP-1 receptor agonist remember the risks of side effects including the real possibility of having to take a drug that costs up to $1600.00 a month for the rest of your life.

Good luck with that. This joke’s on you.

Sharp Rise in Drug Overdose Deaths in Seniors

The researchers used data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to calculate annual overdose deaths from 2002 to 2021 among people aged 65 and older.

Overall, they found that fatal overdoses quadrupled from 1060 in 2002 (three per 100,000) to 6702 (12 per 100,000) in 2021, with the highest rates in Blacks (30.9 per 100,000).

In 2021, about 13% of overdoses were intentional, 83% were unintentional, 4% were undetermined, and less than 1% were homicide. Older women accounted for 57% of intentional overdoses and 29% of accidental overdoses.

Sharp Rise in Drug Overdose Deaths in Seniors – Medscape – Mar 30, 2023 — https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/990297?src=rss