Lifelong Learning

Thinking About Retirement (or just another fine Saturday Morning)

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Andel’s suggestion to anyone contemplating retirement: “Find a new routine that’s meaningful.” He points to people living in the Blue Zones, regions of the world that have been identified to be home to a greater number of residents who’ve reached the age of 100 and beyond. One of the common characteristics among Blue Zone inhabitants is, says Andel, “these people all have purpose.”

Think Retirement Is Smooth Sailing? A Look at Its Potential Effects on the Brain — https://getpocket.com/read/2840794990

The funny thing about life at “retirement age” and still working is you think about retirement a lot.

Since I still work a full time job I have a lot of trouble envisioning what my retirement will look like.

After reading this article and listening to Andel’s short talk I am now scared of retirement.

I need to figure out how to avoid brain rot. But my journal tells me I already have.

My Purpose is to educate others on diet and disease, weight loss and weight management by sharing my personal journey through writing and other teaching activities.

The Covert Life of Hospital Architecture — spaceandorganisation — FREE BOOK

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In this post, Julie Zook and I sit down to discuss some key headlines of our recent co-edited book, The Covert Life of Hospital Architecture, which was published open access with UCL Press on 22 March 22. Health as social, hospitals as social We conceived The Covert Life of Hospital Architecture in late 2019, just […]

The Covert Life of Hospital Architecture — spaceandorganisation

The original post has a link to download the full book free of charge.

Before you think this is an odd post from an old underwriter I’ll give a brief explanation. My major in college was Sociology, one of my kids is an Architect, and the other is in medicine.

But the original post had me at FREE BOOK.

Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA) – a Primer

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The incidence of TIA in the United States is estimated to be 200,000-500,000 per year, with a prevalence of 5 million individuals, but is likely underreported.2 Stroke is preceded by TIA in 12-30% of patients and is the 5th leading cause of death in the US, contributing significantly to long term disability.2,3 Strokes occur more commonly in men than women, but women experience more severe morbidity.2,3 Stroke prevalence increases with age and occurs more frequently in black and Hispanic populations.3 It should also be noted that 90% of strokes worldwide occur in the setting of potentially modifiable risk factors which presents an incredible opportunity for early intervention, especially following TIA.2

TIA: Emergency Department Evaluation and Disposition — http://www.emdocs.net/tia-emergency-department-evaluation-and-disposition/?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=tia-emergency-department-evaluation-and-disposition

A Moral Cesspool

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From zero in 1993 to $1.728 trillion in 2021: this is the predatory financialization of higher education which has enriched lenders, Wall Street and the Higher Education Cartel

America Is a Moral Cesspool, and Student Loans Prove It — https://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2021/07/america-is-moral-cesspool-and-student.html

Way back in the Dark Ages I borrowed a total of $8000.00 and worked summers and during the school years to pay for my college education. It took me ten years of payments at $69.72 a month to pay the loan off. I promised myself no matter the hardship my own children would not borrow money for their undergraduate degrees (medical school different story). There were reasons why I drove a 2006 Ford Taurus for 15 effing years.

One of the joys of aging is you get to a point where you say what you want to say and the hell with everyone else. Charles Hugh Smith is one of us who possess critical thinking skills and will always tell it like it is. Check out his blog.

And this is a perfect time to remind all of my readers that the opinions expressed in this and my other blog are mine alone and do not represent the views of any corporate entity that I may or may not be involved with either in the present or past.

I should play more and work less. https://garyskitchen.net/2021/07/24/stress-reduction/ I’m starting to become more cynical than usual.

Ten Commandments of Emergency Medicine Revisited

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#2 Remember naloxone, glucose, and thiamine (NGT)
Original: Consider or give naloxone, glucose and thiamine
The number of patients presenting with opioid intoxication is growing, and the gentle reversal of patients without severe respiratory depression with naloxone is in the art of medicine – consider starting with 0.4mg and titrate to effect.

In contrast to empiric administration of glucose in the altered or ill patient, rapid assessment of glucose level with point-of-care testing is recommended.

Thiamine deficiency may be less prevalent than previously thought in intoxicated patients, but we now know that giving 100mg of IV thiamine can benefit other malnourished patients, including those with calorie-malnourishment from cancer, gastric bypass, hyperemesis gravidarum, and eating disorders. Personally, I use the ‘T’ of ‘NGT’ to remind myself not to miss alcohol withdrawal.

Ten Commandments of Emergency Medicine Revisited — https://journalfeed.org/article-a-day/2021/ten-commandments-of-em-revisited

Why does this matter? I hear you thinking we underwrite life insurance, we’re not doctors. So true. But if we think like doctors we will get better at what we do by recognizing the subtleties buried within the medical charts we read. Here’s what my eyes/brain picked up.

The bold in the excerpt above are mine to illustrate how the mind of a mortality risk expert works. In Emergency Department records pay attention to the initial treatments provided which in some cases hints to a serious condition impacting mortality. Naloxone and opioids are obvious. But would you have associated the administration of IV thiamine to malnutrition or alcohol withdrawal? I thought so.

So read and research widely. You’ll always find little jewels to improve your skills and to impress your friends with. Or in my case to make Dr. Lee think his old man knows more than he actually does.

Midlife Crisis? Just Another U Shaped Curve

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Subsequent research discovered that this age-related U-shape in job satisfaction is part of a much broader phenomenon. A similar midlife nadir is detectable in measures of people’s overall life satisfaction and has been found in more than 50 countries. On average, life satisfaction is high when people are young, then starts to decline in the early 30s, bottoming out between the mid-40s and mid-50s before increasing again to levels as high as during young adulthood. And this U-curve occurs across the entire socio-economic spectrum, hitting senior-level executives as well as blue-collar workers and stay-at-home parents. It affects childless couples as well as single people or parents of four. In short, a mid-career crisis does not discriminate.

Why So Many of Us Experience a Midlife Crisis Harvard Business Review Hannes Schwandt — https://getpocket.com/explore/item/why-so-many-of-us-experience-a-midlife-crisis?utm_source=pocket-newtab

This post originally appeared on Harvard Business Review and was published April 20, 2015. A link popped up on my browser webpage.

U shaped curves are everywhere.

Eat More Pasta – Lose Weight!

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In some cases, food companies can obscure their involvement through the use of what are known as “front groups,” third-party organizations disguised by innocuous-seeming names. (Until recently, for example, Coca-Cola funded a front group called the “Global Energy Balance Network” that conducted research on obesity.) Sacks and his team included front groups in their definition of industry involvement.

“It’s sometimes quite difficult to see when you’re looking at who’s funding a study, if [they] are related to the food industry,” he said. “So when we would see a paper funded by some random-sounding group, the challenge was actually digging in, going on their website and seeing who’s funding them. Because the food industry often tries to hide that.”

In the most popular nutrition journals, 1 in 7 articles have food industry involvement — https://thecounter.org/food-industry-involvement-nutrition-journals-studies/

At least 10 peer-reviewed studies about pasta published since 2008 were either funded directly by Barilla or, like the one published this month, were carried out by scientists who have had financial ties to the company, which reported sales of 3.4 billion euros ($4.2 billion) in 2016. For two years, Barilla has publicized some of these studies, plus others favorable to its product, on its website with taglines like “Eat Smart Be Smart…With Pasta” and “More Evidence Pasta Is Good For You.” And the company hired the large public relations firm Edelman to push the latest study’s findings to journalists.

Those Studies About Pasta Being Good For You? Some Are Paid For By Barilla. — https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/pasta-barilla-science-funding#.dmmzapNdG

I just love writing obvious click bait headlines.