Cartoon for the holidays

 

 "Something's just not right--our air is clean, our water is pure, we all get plenty of exercise, everything we eat is organic and free-range, 

and yet nobody lives past thirty."

Strength training

 I used to go to Jazzercise once a week, a fitness program that included both aerobics and strength training. The program shut down during Covid. To compensate, I signed up for Jazzercise on Demand, an online program. It’s $25.00 a month, but worth it for me because I use it consistently twice a week (although my sessions are only ten minutes long). The photo below is an accurate depiction of what I do, using five-pound weights and my iPad (not a TV). It’s strength training.

Silver Sneakers is also an option. It’s an exercise program for seniors, offered as both in-person classes and online. It’s free (mostly) for Medicare Advantage subscribers (but not through Original Medicare). A friend of mine uses this and likes it a lot. The image below is from the Silver Sneakers website.

According to experts, just 20 minutes of strength training twice a week, or 10 to 15 minutes three times a week brings significant long-term rewards, including a 10 to 20 percent reduction in your risk of mortality, cardiovascular disease and cancer. (I don’t see how you can reduce your risk of mortality, but that’s what my source, the British Journal of Sports Medicine, said.) At any rate, I do it to maintain strength. 

Strength training is particularly valuable for people with diabetes, as one journal reports: “Our findings showed that muscle-strengthening activities were associated with a 17% lower incidence of diabetes. Because muscle-strengthening activities increase or preserve skeletal muscle mass, which has been identified as the major tissue in glucose metabolism, a clear dose–response association can be established.” 

What's not to like?

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Government Dietary Guidelines and diabetes

 The Government Dietary Guidelines are skewed toward carbohydrates, a position that exacerbates the rise in Type 2 diabetes in this country. I’d guess that most of us don’t pay much attention to these guidelines (I never have), but the guidelines directly influence food policy across federal agencies, state and local government, food manufacture, labelling, food programs within schools and hospitals, and recommendations by doctors and dieticians. The current guidelines include 10 percent of calories as sugar and three servings of refined grains daily.

A third of Americans 65 and over have diabetes. The number of diabetic people under the age of 20 grew by 95 percent from 2001 to 2017.  Diabetes means having excess glucose (sugar) in your blood. Carbs raise blood sugar levels. As blood sugar levels increase, the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas release more insulin. Eventually these cells become impaired and can't make enough insulin to meet the body's demands. The result: diabetes.

A double-blind clinical trial compared the government’s diet against a typical American diet. For the experiment, the typical diet had lots of refined grains, saturated fat, and sugar, while the government diet contained more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Half the trial participants followed the government diet for eight weeks and half followed a traditional diet, which included 3-1/2 additional servings of refined grains per day, including cake and candy. At the end of the trial, markers for diabetes and heart disease showed no difference in both groups. (A seven-year trial came to the same conclusion.)

Here's the thing: 95 percent of the U.S. Dietary Guidelines Committee have conflicts or interest with the food or pharmaceutical industries. A total of more than 700 conflicts of interest were found on the 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee and more than 50 percent of the committee members were connected to 30 industry actors or more. Kellogg, Abbot, Kraft, Mead Johnson, General Mills, and Dannon had the most frequent connections. While you can ignore the guidelines, federal programs are required by law to follow them.

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.

Antidepressants

 I was surprised to learn that, before Covid, 1 in 8 Americans was taking an antidepressant drug. That number rose by 18.6 percent in 2020. Zoloft, an antidepressant drug, is now the 12^th most commonly-prescribed drug in the U.S.

Most psychiatrists believe that the drugs do help most people who take them. But there’s some controversy about why and how they work. The most commonly prescribed antidepressants are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (S.S.R.I.s), such as Zoloft, Prozac, and Celexa. These drugs prevent neurons from sucking up the neurotransmitter serotonin, allowing more of the chemical to float around in the brain. Other antidepressants cause an increase in other brain chemicals, such as norepinephrine and dopamine. This is the “chemical imbalance” theory of treatment.

Studies show that depressed people don’t have less serotonin than people who are not depressed. Researchers are now looking at other causes. For example, studies have shown that depressed people have less volume in their brains’ hippocampus, an area that’s important for regulating mood. Studies have also shown that chronic stress can cause the loss of connections (synapses) between cells in the hippocampus and other parts of the brain. This type of research indicates that antidepressants work in part by helping the brain form new connections between cells

For people with treatment-resistant depression, ketamine and psychedelic therapy has shown promise in helping the brain create new connections more efficiently. Ketamine, like psychedelics, induces a “dissociative experience” (a trip). Studies have shown that within 24 hours of the first dose, the lost connections start to regrow.   Apparently these interventions improve depression scores in roughly 60 percent of the people who try them. However, they’re seen as riskier and more invasive than antidepressants.

I've never suffered from depression, a situation I attribute to dumb luck.

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.