Lifelong Learning

Some Cognitive Skills Improve as We Get Older

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When a psychology professor in Michigan looked through his data on interpersonal conflict a decade ago, he discovered something unexpected. The study, which examined differences across cultures and age groups, seemed to show Americans got wiser as they got older. Richard Nisbett was used to research showing poorer mental skills among elderly adults, but his work found they were better at recognizing multiple perspectives, encouraging compromise, and acknowledging the limits of their own knowledge.

Perhaps, he reasoned, navigating conflict got better with age because it was such a specific, experience-based skill. Working memory, which stores short-term facts like newly learned names, may decline but, as people get older, they inevitably accrue more knowledge from having navigated similar situations throughout their lives. Now 82 years old, Nisbett recognizes the improvement in himself. “I’ve noticed situations to avoid, comments not to make, and the importance of apology,” he said.

Presidential age debate obscures a simple fact: Some cognitive skills improve as we get older — https://www.statnews.com/2024/02/22/presidential-election-age-debate-some-cognitive-skills-improve-with-age/

I was going to post this yesterday but I forgot.

Cannabis and Arrhythmia Risk, Stroke and Race, Why Weight Loss Drugs Stop Working

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Within 180 days, 42 medical cannabis users and 107 control participants developed arrhythmia, most commonly atrial fibrillation/flutter. Medical cannabis users had a slightly elevated risk for new-onset arrhythmia compared with nonusers (180-day absolute risk, 0.8% vs 0.4%). The 180-day risk ratio with cannabis use was 2.07 (95% CI, 1.34-2.80), and the 1-year risk ratio was 1.36 (95% CI, 1.00-1.73). Adults with cancer or cardiometabolic disease had the highest risk for arrhythmia with cannabis use (180-day absolute risk difference, 1.1% and 0.8%).

Medical Cannabis for Chronic Pain Tied to Arrhythmia Risk – Medscape – January 12, 2024 — https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/medical-cannabis-chronic-pain-tied-arrhythmia-risk

The overall incidence of stroke and ischemic stroke (IS) decreased among both White and Black people over the past two decades, results of an updated analysis of stroke trends in a representative US population showed.

However, the study showed persistent racial disparities, with incident stroke rates 50%-80% higher in Black people than in their White counterparts. Incident stroke also occurred at an earlier age in Black patients than in White patients (mean age, 62 years vs 71 years, respectively).

The findings were published online on January 10, 2024, in Neurology.

New Data on Stroke Incidence Rates by Race – Medscape – January 12, 2024 — https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/new-data-stroke-incidence-rates-race

And my favorite Saturday morning medical update…

But studies also have shown that once people stop taking these drugs — either by choice, because of shortage, or lack of access — they regain most, if not all, the weight they lost. Arguably more frustrating is the fact that those who continue on the drug eventually reach a plateau, at which point, the body seemingly stubbornly refuses to lose more weight. Essentially, it stabilizes at its set point, said Fatima Cody Stanford, MD, MPH, MPA, MBA, an obesity medicine physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and associate professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Every study of weight loss drugs done over the past 40 years or so shows a plateau, Stanford told Medscape Medical News. “If you look at the phentermine/topiramate studies, there’s a plateau. If you look at the bupropion/naltrexone studies, there’s a plateau. Or if we look at bariatric surgery, there’s a plateau. And it’s the same for the newer GLP-1 drugs.”

The reason? “It really depends on where the body gets to,” Stanford said. “The body knows what it needs to do to maintain itself, and the brain knows where it’s supposed to be. And when you lose weight and reach what you feel is a lower set point, the body resists.”When the body goes below its set point, the hunger hormone ghrelin, which is housed in the brain, gets reactivated and gradually starts to reemerge, she explained. GLP-1, which is housed in the distal portion of the small intestine and in the colon, also starts to reemerge over time.

Why Do GLP-1 Drugs Stop Working, and What to Do About It? – Medscape – January 12, 2024 — https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/why-do-glp-1-drugs-stop-working-and-what-do-about-it

That’s it for this Saturday. Time to go to the Y and read a book later.

What’s Your Vitamin D Status?

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How is Your Vitamin D Status?

The precursors for vitamin D are reduced as we age. By age 70, our ability to produce vitamin D is about half of what it was at age 20. D is in scarce supply in our regular diets. Most milk and some juices, milk alternatives and cereals are fortified with D, but other dietary sources — fatty fish like mackerel and sardines, and some mushrooms — aren’t exactly a staple in most American diets. As a result, nearly 1 in 4 people in the U.S. have inadequate blood levels of vitamin D3, the most active form.

How Is Your Vitamin D Status – link above

Yikes.

The Best Retirement Letter Ever

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That’s it!

My favorite excerpt from the letter:

Let’s be honest, some people in academia are horrible, arrogant, selfish and narcissistic. And no matter how much the people at the top say they deal with bad behaviour, the nasty folk do have an annoying habit of getting promoted. The way in which academia selects and rewards particular skill sets produces an over-concentration of people who are low on empathy. I’ve met a lot of those ‘special’ colleagues over the years (no names mentioned obviously). I will not miss them one jot. They create a toxic working environment , dominate the discourse, ride roughshod over the rules, and cause a great deal of harm to others and get away scot-free. They’ve done me significant mental damage, but I can now happily forget them and move on with life.

My recommendation to anyone starting out in academia is stand your ground, challenge these energy vampires and politely make it clear that you don’t want to play their stupid toxic games. They really don’t have the power that they want you to believe they have, even though the system tends to promote them to roles that are beyond their emotional competence to fulfill. Pity them for the lack of other things to do with their lives. And, remember that 98% of what we do as academics is of no importance at all out there in the real world, so when a self-entitled colleague insists that their work on their favourite gene is earth-shattering; more important than anything you could ever do; and a good reason for their career to be advanced faster than yours; just smile and ignore them. Do your own thing, at your own pace. Have a life outside the university and remember that it’s just a job.

https://journalofhumannutritionanddieteticseditor.wordpress.com/2023/11/27/thats-it/

Even More Random Thoughts on Retirement – November 2023

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Retirement blues are “a dirty secret,” says Robert Delamontagne, PhD, author of The Retiring Mind. He had to go through his own adjustment when he retired in 2007. He says people are reluctant to talk openly about those struggles because it’s embarrassing. “People would ask me, ‘How’s retirement?’ I used to say, ‘It’s great! I’m having a great time!’ What was I supposed to say?” Once the newness wears off, you may start to question your new situation. “Will my money last?” “Will my health hold up?” “Am I being useful, or am I going to just play bridge and golf for the rest of my life?”

The Emotional Shock of Retirement — https://www.webmd.com/healthy-aging/features/emotional-shock-retirement?src=RSS_PUBLIC

Saturday 11/4

The strategy has achieved clarity. The Plan is a 3-5 year time-frame. The objective is to continue full time paid work then pursue part time paid work til death do us part. As a younger man I never envisioned this to be my desired life in retirement. But here we are.

Time is the most valuable asset I’m sacrificing for this strategy. Time to do whatever I please, whenever I like. Personal projects like my future best seller The Man Who Had No Hobbies will have a completion date further into the future. But the tradeoffs for me are worth it. Many times I’ve asked retired people how’s retirement? Too many times the answer is “I’m bored”. When you are younger, working your ass off, building a career, raising a family, the thought of retirement is seductive. The reality of retirement is different and nothing you could have imagined in your younger life.

No one talks about what we lose when we retire. Well, no one except Jonathan Clements the founder and editor of https://humbledollar.com/ Here’s his list:

  • Income
  • Identity
  • Purpose
  • Structure
  • Community
  • Relevance
  • Power

Income. This is the most obvious loss, we all know it’s coming—and yet many folks are left anxious by the disappearance of their paycheck, even if they have ample savings. Moreover, with that paycheck gone, not only do we lose the ability to save, but also our financial life goes into reverse, with savings coming out of our nest egg instead of going in.

Given that, it’s hardly surprising that studies suggest retirees tend to be happier when they have ample predictable income, such as from a pension. Don’t have a pension? To ease the anxiety of retirement, consider delaying Social Security to get a larger monthly check and perhaps also purchasing immediate fixed annuities. I plan to do both.

What We Lose — https://humbledollar.com/2023/08/what-we-lose/

Read the full article at the link above. Especially if you are nearing retirement.

Well, that’s enough thinking about retirement for a Saturday morning. I have to mow the shade grass The Boss over seeded in the backyard. There’s college football today. I also need to get ready for dinner company tonight.

The Dark Side of TikTok – Financial Advice?

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The TikToker touting “generational wealth” isn’t alone in promoting the benefits of slapping a child’s name onto credit card debts. TikTok is flooded with influencers who insist that authorizing minors to use their parents or older relatives’ credit cards will set them up for a bright future.

Many of the videos uploaded to the platform are captioned with the hashtag #generationalwealth and suggest that the authorized credit card user trick is a secret hack used by the wealthy.

‘Generational wealth’ influencers are touting the benefits of parents adding their kids to credit card debt—but experts warn it could go badly wrong — https://fortune.com/2023/10/21/building-generational-wealth-parents-children-credit-card-debt/

Parents, don’t do this. TikTok should not be your source for financial advice.

Instead teach your children to save and invest, to live within their means, to understand the difference between needs and wants, to not become an indentured servant to the banking industry.

Brugada Syndrome

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A 36-year-old female presents to the ED after experiencing an episode of sudden syncope. The patient has no significant past medical history, and reports that she was walking to the end of her driveway to retrieve her mail when she suddenly collapsed to the ground. She recalls waking up on her driveway with concerned neighbors gathered around her…

http://www.emdocs.net/em3am-brugada-syndrome/

Dear Readers – another Saturday morning and this Grandpa Underwriter is back to his old tricks of reading about things that are WAY ABOVE his pay grade. There are two clinical scenarios in the article. Enjoy!

Nature Wants Us to be Fat

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Evidence that Obesity and Diabetes are Driven by a Diet-Induced Biological Switch: How it Works and How it Might be Prevented — https://www.vumedi.com/video/evidence-that-obesity-and-diabetes-are-driven-by-a-diet-induced-biological-switch-how-it-works-and-h/

Blog post title is the same as the title of Dr. Richard J. Johnson’s book. The link takes you to a video that is approximately 37 minutes long. Enjoy!

New Wonder Drug! Treat Diabetes, Obesity AND Addiction – (yup another GLP-1 receptor agonist post)

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Previous research has found that activating GLP-1 receptors in rats’ brain causes the animals to eat less of a high-sugar chow, which they would normally prefer over a less delicious but healthier bland meal when given the option. This suggests that GLP-1 makes unhealthy food less rewarding. Schmidt’s team found the same to be true with cocaine: rats that received a GLP-1 agonist took less cocaine when it was offered. The researchers are now repeating the experiments in rats addicted to opioids or fentanyl. Several other studies have shown that GLP-1 agonists cause rats to drink less alcohol and produce less dopamine when they do drink, suggesting that the activity is no longer as pleasurable.

…it’s too early to say whether people recovering from addiction would need to take an GLP-1 agonist for the rest of their lives, like people with diabetes do, or whether these drugs could be short-term treatments that curb cravings long enough for people to make lifestyle changes to stay sober. People who stop taking semaglutide for weight loss quickly gain the weight back, and study animals that stop taking it return to alcohol and drug use, but “I don’t think we know enough yet” in humans, Simmons says.

Could New Weight-Loss Drugs like Ozempic Treat Addiction? — https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/could-new-weight-loss-drugs-like-ozempic-treat-addiction1/

The rest of this post is a repost of April Fools 2023 (this is a GLP-1 receptor agonist post). Enjoy!

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.

As an FYI this drug class is being investigated by the EU for a small number of cases reporting suicidal ideation https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-07-10/ozempic-weight-loss-drugs-probed-over-reports-of-suicidal-thoughts.

But we already knew this.