Science may just be starting to make some sense of this cruelest of diseases.
It used be to the dreaded ‘C’ word; cancer. But now that ‘C’ word has a companion, the dreaded ‘A’ word. The incidence of Alzheimer’s disease seems to be on a terrible rise. Indeed, my wife, Jean, lost her late husband to Alzheimer’s disease. My half-sister back in England is now very ill with the disease. Just chatting to some people here in Payson a few days ago revealed many who had friends or relations suffering.
So a recent item first seen on the website of The Permaculture Research Institute of Australia really jumped off the ‘page’! It was an article by George Monbiot entitled The Mind Thieves. I dropped Mr. Monbiot a quick email requesting permission to republish the article and very promptly received a positive answer. Thank you, Sir.
So before moving to the article, first a little background on George M. From his website, one quickly reads,
George Monbiot
I had an unhappy time at university, and I now regret having gone to Oxford, even though the zoology course I took – taught, among others, by Richard Dawkins, Bill Hamilton and John Krebs – was excellent. The culture did not suit me, and when I tried to join in I fell flat on my face, sometimes in a drunken stupor. I enjoyed the holidays more: I worked on farms and as a waterkeeper on the River Kennet. I spent much of the last two years planning my escape. There was only one job I wanted, and it did not yet exist: to make investigative environmental programmes for the BBC.
I’m not going to copy the full ‘About George‘ description but do urge you to pop across to here and read it yourself; George has had, trust me, a fascinating life journey that I suspect is far from over. This is how that About description closes,
Here are some of the things I love: my family and friends, salt marshes, arguments, chalk streams, Russian literature, kayaking among dolphins, diversity of all kinds, rockpools, heritage apples, woods, fishing, swimming in the sea, gazpacho, sprinting up the pitch in ultimate frisbee, ponds and ditches, growing vegetables, insects, pruning, forgotten corners, fossils, goldfinches, etymology, Bill Hicks, ruins, Shakespeare, landscape history, palaeoecology and Father Ted.
Here are some of the things I try to fight: undemocratic power, corruption, deception of the public, environmental destruction, injustice, inequality and the misallocation of resources, waste, denial, the libertarianism which grants freedom to the powerful at the expense of the powerless, undisclosed interests, complacency.
Here is what I fear: other people’s cowardice.
I still see my life as a slightly unhinged adventure whose perpetuation is something of a mystery. I have no idea where it will take me, and no ambitions other than to keep doing what I do. So far it’s been gripping.
The article was first published in the British Guardian newspaper (there’s an online link to it here) as the article mentions below. But I am republishing, in full thanks to George, the copy that appeared on George’s website on the 10th September last, including the references.
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The Mind Thieves
September 10th, 2012
The evidence linking Alzheimer’s disease to the food industry is strong and growing.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian, 11th September 2012
When you raise the subject of over-eating and obesity, you often see people at their worst. The comment threads discussing these issues reveal a legion of bullies, who appear to delight in other people’s problems.
When alcoholism and drug addiction are discussed, the tone tends to be sympathetic. When obesity is discussed, the conversation is dominated by mockery and blame, though the evidence suggests that it can be driven by similar forms of addiction(1,2,3,4). I suspect that much of this mockery is a coded form of snobbery: the strong association between poor diets and poverty allows people to use this issue as a cipher for something else they want to say, which is less socially acceptable.
But this problem belongs to all of us. Even if you can detach yourself from the suffering caused by diseases arising from bad diets, you will carry the cost, as a growing proportion of the health budget will be used to address them. The cost – measured in both human suffering and money – could be far greater than we imagined. A large body of evidence now suggests that Alzheimer’s is primarily a metabolic disease. Some scientists have gone so far as to rename it. They call it diabetes type 3.
New Scientist carried this story on its cover last week(5): since then I’ve been sitting in the library trying to discover whether it stands up. I’ve now read dozens of papers on the subject, testing my cognitive powers to the limit as I’ve tried to get to grips with brain chemistry. While the story is by no means complete, the evidence so far is compelling.
Around 35 million people suffer from Alzheimer’s disease worldwide(6); current projections, based on the rate at which the population ages, suggest that this will rise to 100 million by 2050(7). But if, as many scientists now believe, it is caused largely by the brain’s impaired response to insulin, the numbers could rise much further. In the US, the percentage of the population with diabetes type 2, which is strongly linked to obesity, has almost trebled in 30 years(8). If Alzheimer’s, or “diabetes type 3”, goes the same way, the potential for human suffering is incalculable.
Insulin is the hormone which prompts the liver, muscles and fat to absorb sugar from the blood. Diabetes 2 is caused by excessive blood glucose, resulting either from a deficiency of insulin produced by the pancreas, or resistance to its signals by the organs which would usually take up the glucose.
The association between Alzheimer’s and diabetes 2 is long-established: type 2 sufferers are two to three times more likely to be struck by this dementia than the general population(9). There are also associations between Alzheimer’s and obesity(10) and Alzheimer’s and metabolic syndrome (a complex of diet-related pathologies)(11).
Researchers first proposed that Alzheimer’s was another form of diabetes in 2005. The authors of the original paper investigated the brains of 54 corpses, 28 of which belonged to people who had died of the disease(12). They found that the levels of both insulin and insulin-like growth factors in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients were sharply reduced by comparison to those in the brains of people who had died of other causes. Levels were lowest in the parts of the brain most affected by the disease.
Their work led them to conclude that insulin and insulin-like growth factor are produced not only in the pancreas but also in the brain. Insulin in the brain has a host of functions: as well as glucose metabolism, it helps to regulate the transmission of signals from one nerve cell to another, and affects their growth, plasticity and survival(13,14).
Experiments conducted since then appear to support the link between diet and dementia(15,16,17,18), and researchers have begun to propose potential mechanisms. In common with all brain chemistry, these tend to be fantastically complex, involving, among other impacts, inflammation, stress caused by oxidation, the accumulation of one kind of brain protein and the transformation of another(19,20,21,22). I would need the next six pages of this paper even to begin to explain them, and would doubtless get it wrong (if you’re interested, please follow the links on my website).
Plenty of research still needs to be done. But if the current indications are correct, Alzheimer’s disease could be another catastrophic impact of the junk food industry, and the worst discovered so far. Our governments, as they are in the face of all our major crises, appear to be incapable of responding.
In this country as in many others, the government’s answer to the multiple disasters caused by the consumption of too much sugar and fat is to call on both companies and consumers to regulate themselves. Before he was replaced by someone even worse, the former health secretary, Andrew Lansley, handed much of the responsibility for improving the nation’s diet to food and drinks companies: a strategy that would work only if they volunteered to abandon much of their business(23,24).
A scarcely-regulated food industry can engineer its products – loading them with fat, salt, sugar and high fructose corn syrup – to bypass the neurological signals which would otherwise prompt people to stop eating(25). It can bombard both adults and children with advertising. It can (as we discovered yesterday) use the freedoms granted to academy schools to sell the chocolate, sweets and fizzy drinks now banned from sale in maintained schools(26). It can kill the only effective system (the traffic light label) for informing people how much fat, sugar and salt their food contains. Then it can turn to the government and blame consumers for eating the products it sells. This is class war: a war against the poor fought by the executive class in government and industry.
We cannot yet state unequivocally that poor diet is a leading cause of Alzheimer’s disease, though we can say that the evidence is strong and growing. But if ever there was a case for the precautionary principle, here it is. It’s not as if we lose anything by eating less rubbish. Averting a possible epidemic of this devastating disease means taking on the bullies: those who mock people for their pathologies and those who spread the pathologies by peddling a lethal diet.
References:
1. Caroline Davis et al, 2011. Evidence that ‘food addiction’ is a valid phenotype of obesity. Appetite Vol. 57, pp711–717. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2011.08.017
2. Paul J. Kenny, November 2011. Common cellular and molecular mechanisms in obesity and drug addiction. Nature Neuroscience, Vol. 12, pp 638-651. doi:10.1038/nrn3105
3. Joseph Frascella et al, 2010. Shared brain vulnerabilities open the way for nonsubstance addictions: Carving addiction
at a new joint? Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 1187, pp294–315. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.05420.x
4. Ashley N. Gearhardt et al, 2010. Can food be addictive? Public health and policy implications. Addiction, 106, 1208–1212. ad. d_3301 1208..1212 doi:10.1111/j.1360-0443.2010.03301.x
5. Bijal Trivedi, 1st September 2012. Eat Your Way to Dementia. New Scientist.
6. Sónia C. Correia et al, 2011. Insulin-resistant brain state: The culprit in sporadic Alzheimer’s disease? Ageing Research Reviews Vol. 10, 264–273. doi:10.1016/j.arr.2011.01.001
7. Fabio Copped`e et al, 2012. Nutrition and Dementia. Current Gerontology and Geriatrics Research, Vol. 2012, pp1-3. doi:10.1155/2012/926082
8. See the graph in Bijal Trivedi, 1st September 2012. Eat Your Way to Dementia. New Scientist.
9. Johanna Zemva and Markus Schubert, September 2011. Central Insulin and Insulin-Like Growth Factor-1 Signaling – Implications for Diabetes Associated Dementia. Current Diabetes Reviews, Vol.7, No.5, pp356-366. doi.org/10.2174/157339911797415594
10. Eg Weili Xu et al, 2011. Midlife overweight and obesity increase late life dementia risk: a population-based twin study. Neurology, Vol. 76, no. 18, pp.1568–1574.
11. M. Vanhanen et al, 2006. Association of metabolic syndrome with Alzheimer disease: A population-based study. Neurology, vol. 67, pp.843–847.
12. Eric Steen et al, 2005. Impaired insulin and insulin-like growth factor expression and signaling mechanisms in Alzheimer’s disease – is this type 3 diabetes?. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, Vol. 7, pp.63–80.
13. Konrad Talbot et al, 2012. Demonstrated brain insulin resistance in Alzheimer’s disease patients is associated with IGF-1 resistance, IRS-1 dysregulation, and cognitive decline. The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Vol.122, No.4, pp.1316–1338. doi:10.1172/JCI59903.
14. Naoki Yamamoto et al, 2012. Brain insulin resistance accelerates Aβ fibrillogenesis by inducing GM1 ganglioside clustering in the presynaptic membranes. Journal of Neurochemistry, Vol. 121, 619–628. doi: 10.1111/j.1471-4159.2012.07668.x
15. Eg:
Wei-Qin Zhao and Matthew Townsend, 2009. Insulin resistance and amyloidogenesis as common molecular foundation for type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.
Biochimica et Biophysica Acta, Vol.1792, pp.482–496. doi.org/10.1016/j.bbadis.2008.10.014,
16. Sónia C. Correia et al, 2011. Insulin-resistant brain state: The culprit in sporadic Alzheimer’s disease? Ageing Research Reviews Vol. 10, 264–273. doi:10.1016/j.arr.2011.01.001
17. T. Ohara et al, 2011. Glucose tolerance status and risk of dementia in the community, the Hisayama study. Neurology, Vol. 77, pp.1126–1134.
18. Karen Neumann et al, 2008. Insulin resistance and Alzheimer’s disease: molecular links & clinical implications. Current Alzheimer Research, Vol.5, no.5, pp438–447.
19. Eg: Lap Ho et al, 2012. Insulin Receptor Expression and Activity in the Brains of Nondiabetic Sporadic Alzheimer’s Disease Cases. International Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, Volume 2012. doi:10.1155/2012/321280
20. Suzanne M. de la Monte, 2012. Contributions of Brain Insulin Resistance and Deficiency in Amyloid-Related Neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s Disease. Drugs, Vol. 72, no.1, pp. 49-66. doi: 10.2165/11597760
21. Ying Liu et al, 2011. Deficient brain insulin signalling pathway in Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes. Journal of Pathology, Vol. 225, pp.54–62. doi: 0.1002/path.2912
22. Konrad Talbot et al, 2012. Demonstrated brain insulin resistance in Alzheimer’s disease patients is associated with IGF-1 resistance, IRS-1 dysregulation, and cognitive decline. The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Vol.122, No.4, pp.1316–1338. doi:10.1172/JCI59903.
Don’t know about you but the above is a fine example of investigative reporting. It deserves the widest circulation because if it is proved that there is a link between diet and Alzheimer’s disease then, once again, it shows how taking personal responsibility for our health has huge implications for us, our families and for society at large.
There have been a couple of hard-hitting posts this week, first about the implications of climate, with respect to the massive drought across the USA this year, and the efforts of Polly Higgins of the Eradicating Ecocide movement to make ecocide a crime against humanity.
This short but very compelling video shows why the planet is so worth protecting. Enjoy!
This was sent to me recently. It has been doing the rounds big time, and rightly so!
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Before going on to today’s post, I feel the need to explain something. That is that over the last week or so I have been republishing many more items rather than writing my own creative stuff. This is an unfortunate consequence of us having our house here in Payson up for sale, which is generating more work than usual. Plus we are packing. All this to do with us moving from Arizona to Oregon in the first week of November.
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Charles Schulz
The following is the philosophy of Charles Schulz, the creator of the ‘Peanuts’ comic strip.
You don’t have to actually answer the questions. Just ponder on them. It will make very good sense!
Here’s A Little Quiz
You don’t have to actually answer the questions. Just read them straight through, ponder a tad, and you’ll get the point.
Name the five wealthiest people in the world.
Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.
Name the last five winners of the Miss America pageant.
Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.
Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.
Name the last decade’s worth of World Series Winners.
How did you do?
The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday. These are no second-rate achievers. They were the best in their fields.
But the applause dies. Awards tarnish over time. Achievements are forgotten and accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.
Here’s another quiz. See how you do on this one:
List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.
Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.
Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.
Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special!
Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.
Did you find that Easier? Of course you did!
So here’s the lesson!
The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, or the most money…or the most awards…they simply are the ones who care the most.
“You don’t stop laughing when you grow old, you grow old when you stop laughing.” George Bernard Shaw.
Recently sent to me by Lindy C. from Devon, England.
This is dedicated to all of us who are seniors, to all of you who know seniors, and to all of you who will become seniors.
“WHERE is my SUNDAY paper?” The irate customer calling the newspaper office, loudly demanded to know where her Sunday edition was.
“Madam“, said the newspaper employee, “today is Saturday. The Sunday paper is not delivered until tomorrow, on SUNDAY.”
There was quite a long pause on the other end of the phone, followed by a ray of recognition as Madam was heard to mutter under her breath, “Well, shit, that explains why there was no one at church either!”
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As British comedian Bob Monkhouse is reputed to have said, “Growing old is compulsory; growing up is optional.” (NB. More fabulous quotations from this naturally very funny man may be found here.)
On the subject of Bob Monkhouse, let me close with this video of Norman Wisdom appearing on the Bob Monkhouse Show back in 1983. As one of the YouTube commentators put it, “Two of Britains funniest men; we will never seek their likes again.“
I admit to being too free with my silly clichés including, “I can predict anything unless it involves the future!” So now that millions of informed people have the benefit of “20:20 hindsight“, why is it years since the banking crisis first erupted and we are still without a root and branch overhaul of the governance of the industry?
Did you see Per Kurowski’s interview with a leading regulator on Learning from Dogs yesterday? Aren’t we so slow to learn!
Anyway, I waffle on! Let me get to the point of today’s post.
Back on the 1st September, there was a post called Understanding Europe. One of the resulting commentators was Pendantry who is author of a blog called Wibble. He included a link to a poem that he wrote on the 28th February, 2009! The fact that the poem is still so relevant (and when we see what’s happening in Europe perhaps even more relevant now!) is truly shocking. I wanted to republish it which I do with the kind permission of Pendantry. Here it is.
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House of cards
When the inevitable strikes,
when the house falls down,
do you patch up the walls,
fix the holes in the roof,
shore it all up,
splash it with paint?
No.
You learn from the mistakes.
You start from scratch.
You call in the architects.
You rebuild the foundations.
You use new materials;
replace wattle and daub
with a sounder design.
Unless:
Because you’re lost outside the box,
and your mates demand
to regain their riches (and, now!):
You set up the same as before,
perhaps with a few bells and whistles
(spun to persuade that they’ll work).
And… in the end, we’ll believe
that your clothing is not invisible.
“Who is more foolish?
The fool, or the fool who follows him?”
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Written over three years and five months ago. Shame on us all!
Like millions of others on this planet, I was held spellbound by the historic and epic moment of man placing his mark on another heavenly body, the Moon. I had been so wrapped up in NASA’s space missions that I took a holiday from work (I was working at the time for ICIANZ in Sydney, Australia) for the week of July 16th, 1969.
It was, of course, July 16th when the Apollo 11 Mission launched from the Kennedy Space Center culminating at precisely 20:17:39 UTC on July 20, 1969, the moment when the Lunar Module made lunar contact.
But in terms of me writing my own obituary for Neil, what could I offer?
Then a couple of items changed my mind.
Neil Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012)
The first was reading the obituary printed in The Economist. I have long admired the many, many beautiful obituaries that have been published by this newspaper and this one was no exception. Take this extract from the Neil Armstrong obituary,
He had an engineer’s reserve, mixed with a natural shyness. Even among the other astronauts, not renowned for their excitability, he was known as the “Ice Commander”. Mike Collins, one of his crew-mates on the moon mission, mused that “Neil never transmits anything but the surface layer, and that only sparingly.” He once lost control of an unwieldy contraption nicknamed the Flying Bedstead that was designed to help astronauts train for the lunar landing. Ejecting only seconds before his craft hit the ground and exploded, he dusted himself off and coolly went back to his office for the rest of the day. There was work to be done.
Then the beautiful words that bring the obituary to a close,
Earth’s beauty
Over half a century, the man who never admitted surprise was surprised to observe the fading of America’s space programme. The Apollo project was one of the mightiest achievements of the potent combination of big government and big science, but such enterprises came to seem alien as well as unaffordable. Mr Armstrong, who after his flight imagined bases all over the moon, sadly supposed that the public had lost interest when there was no more cold-war competition.
Yet the flights had one huge unintended consequence: they transformed attitudes towards Earth itself. He too had been astonished to see his own planet, “quite beautiful”, remote and very blue, covered with a white lace of clouds. His reserve, after all, was not limitless. One photograph showed him in the module after he and Buzz Aldrin had completed their moon-walk, kicking and jumping their way across the vast, sandy, silver surface towards the strangely close horizon. He is dressed in his spacesuit, sports a three-day beard, and is clearly exhausted. On his face is a grin of purest exhilaration.
” … they transformed attitudes towards Earth itself. He too had been astonished to see his own planet, “quite beautiful”, remote and very blue, covered with a white lace of clouds.” For that reason alone, we need to celebrate the achievement of the Apollo 11 mission for putting our own planet into perspective within the enormity of the universe.
The second item that persuaded me to write this was a wonderful historic insight into how a potential catastrophy on the surface of the Moon would have been handled by President Nixon. This historic item was published on Carl Milner’s blog the other day, the specific item being What if the Moon Landing Failed? Republished with the very kind permission of Carl.
When Richard Nixon was the President of the United States, they had a speech ready for him to deliver to the world just in case the 1969 moon landing had ended in disaster. In fact many experts believed there was a big chance that Neil Armstrong and Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin could have really gotten stuck on the moon. It’s something we don’t really think about now because we all know it was such a success. American Archives have unearthed the speech that would have been delivered if the late great Armstrong and Aldrin had never made it back to earth. This is such a great piece of history that I thought I might never see.
Give it a read, It’s such a moving and well prepared speech, and such a good thing that President Nixon never had to delivered it.
So, as with millions of others, I am delighted that this speech remained unspoken and instead we experienced: “At 5:35 p.m. (US EDT), Armstrong and Aldrin successfully docked and rejoined Collins, and at 12:56 a.m. on July 22 Apollo 11 began its journey home, safely splashing down in the Pacific Ocean at 12:50 p.m. on July 24.”
Neil Armstrong’s legacy is not only being part of the wonderful team that allowed man to make the first footprint on the Moon but also bringing into our human consciousness that this blue, wonderful planet we all live on is the only home we have.
First Full-View Photo of Earth Photograph courtesy NASA Johnson Space Center This famous “Blue Marble” shot represents the first photograph in which Earth is in full view. The picture was taken on December 7, 1972, as the Apollo 17 crew left Earth’s orbit for the moon. With the sun at their backs, the crew had a perfectly lit view of the blue planet.
Strikes me that celebrating July 20th each year as Blue Planet Day might not be a bad idea! Any takers? Now that would be a legacy for Neil!
Looking at the human-animal relationship, from the perspective of the animal.
This is a guest post from Virginia Ingram. Virginia is becoming more involved in the animal rescue movement. As such, she knows only too well how vital it is to give so many precious animals a second chance.
In a very real sense we, as in mankind, owe our humanity to dogs and other animals. As I wrote here in the essay What is love?
“But understanding animals and empathizing with them also triggered other changes in humanity’s evolution, Shipman said.
All those things allow people to live with people. Once people have domesticated animals, they start to live in stable groups. They have fields, crops and more permanent dwellings.”
We owe so much!
So with that in mind, here is Virginia’s guest post.
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WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Recently I started to question the time I spend on the internet reading articles, essays and recommendations of books about all things concerned with animals. I receive animal stories from friends, acquaintances and business associates from all corners of the globe. I love to get them because, well….. hey, I really enjoy them!
After I read them I forward them to others who I think will also enjoy them. They make me feel warm and fuzzy. They are enlightening, poignant, humorous, inspiring and sometimes heart-rending. I find I cannot ignore any cute email containing animal pictures even though I may have already seen it a dozen times before. Give me a story about a dog who ate a popsicle and to me ‘that’s entertainment’ as they say. We human beings love to feel moved by great stories and these communications are full of it. I am such a sap when it comes to animal stories; so many of us are.
But here is the rub. What do the animals get out of it?
We chuckle and get our jollies from these incredible beings from a distance on the World Wide Web but the fact of the matter is that so many of these wonderful creatures end up unwanted, uncared for or even starved and beaten in shelters across the world.
Unknown and uncared for!
What gives? Why is there such a disconnect? How can we love animals from a distance and not be concerned with the abuses that go on in our own environment?
We know that there are those who don’t understand that animals have feelings and emotions, that they experience deep loss and sadness as well as happiness and joy. What can we do raise to the consciousness of human beings who don’t get it?
I think it involves sticking our collective necks out. I think that we need to be ready to risk some things. It might involve changing or damaging a relationship with someone who is acting in irresponsible ways towards animals. We need to be ready to risk it.
Do you see it on your own street? Maybe it’s a neighbor who leaves their dog on a chain in the yard on weekends regardless of weather or exposure to other animals. Maybe it’s the guy next door who ‘forgets’ to feed his animal.
Let’s stand up for these animals who have no voice. Let’s be advocates for these amazing creatures who cannot be their own advocate. Let’s hold humans accountable. Let’s risk a friendship and say something, make that difficult phone call on behalf of a animal. Let’s talk to people about animal issues and problems. Let’s try to change the weak laws that do not properly address animal cruelty. Let’s summon our courage and do the unpopular things which will enhance the quality of life for these precious beings.
Can you imagine how animals feel when they have been turned over to an animal shelter by the person whom they loved more than themselves? Trust me, the sense of abandonment and fear, the bewilderment in their eye is excruciating to observe. I have seen it not from the distance of my computer but in person. Let’s DO something to change all this. It’s time to get involved.
By all means keep the cute emails going but for every minute we spend on the internet, reading the books and enjoying the emails let’s put the same amount of time into getting something done to improve the lives of animals. Stand up, walk out the door, volunteer or donate money. We can help the suffering. We can make a difference.
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Powerful words indeed. Don’t know about you but I read a strength of feeling that was very moving. A clear message that we must never turn the head, never just ‘tut tut’ but do something. Even if only befriending a stray animal. Because one might argue that even that feral dog without a home is demonstrating something all of us on this green planet need to understand; living a sustainable life!
Finally, living proof of what we can give an animal when we care and love it. The dog in the picture below is Loopy, a dog that Jean rescued in Mexico many years ago. She was so badly hurt by humans that it took Jean six months before Loopy would let Jean touch and hug her.
When I came on the scene, my gender was against me. It took me twelve months before Loopy trusted me. Now she will come to me and let me place my face against hers in the most loving, caring embrace that one can imagine.
So why the fearful look on Loopy’s face as she turns away from the camera? Somehow the camera is reminding Loopy of some sort of weapon that was used to beat her!
Loopy
As Virginia so lovingly wrote, “We can help the suffering. We can make a difference.“
A closer look at the excellent work undertaken by Dr. Krista Varady.
Back on the 16th I wrote a post that was a follow-up to the previous day’s post about living a long life. My follow-up was called, hardly surprisingly, Postscript to Long Life post.
In that follow-up post, I wrote this,
Over on the Healthy Fellow blogsite, there’s an interview with Dr. Varady. The web link of that interview is here and crossing over and reading the full interview is much recommended. Here’s a taste, pardon the pun, of that interview:
JP: Can you help explain the distinctions between alternate day fasting and caloric restriction?
Dr. Varady: Caloric restriction is basically daily calorie restriction where an individual would restrict themselves by about 15% to 40% of their energy needs daily. So basically every single day you’re undergoing the same amount of restriction, whereas alternate day fasting involves a fast day wherein the individual would only eat 25% of their energy needs. So about 500 calories or so and that’s alternated with something called a “feed day” where the individual would eat ad libitum – so as much as they want. However in our studies we show that people end up losing weight because they can’t fully make up for the lack of food on the fast day on the feed day.
I’ve been in touch with JP wondering if I might have permission to republish the full interview. Unfortunately that wasn’t possible. However JP did say that republishing a couple of paragraphs would be fine and I’m going to be cheeky in adding a couple to the one I already published above!
Anyway, before inserting those paragraphs, let me set the scene. A very quick web search comes across the fact that Dr. Varady is an Assistant Professor at the UIC College of Applied Health Sciences. Her research work is described thus,
Research Interests
Dr. Varady, PhD
My research investigates the ability of novel dietary restriction strategies to facilitate weight loss and decrease cardiovascular risk in obese subjects. The most common dietary restriction protocol implemented is daily calorie restriction (CR), which involves reducing energy intake by 15 to 40% of needs daily. Another dietary restriction regimen employed, although far less commonly, is alternate day fasting (ADF). ADF regimens include a “feed day” where food is consumed ad-libitum over 24-h, alternated with a “fast day”, where food intake is partially or completely reduced for 24-h. ADF regimens were created to increase adherence to dietary restriction protocols since these regimens only require energy restriction every other day, rather than every day, as with CR. Recent findings from our lab demonstrate that ADF is an effective means of facilitating weight loss and improving several indicators of cardiovascular disease risk in overweight and obese subjects. Our findings also show that changes in adipose tissue physiology during weight loss may mediate these improvements in vascular health.
Current research activities
Developing novel diet and exercise regimens to facilitate weight loss and decrease cardiovascular disease risk in humans; Examining the intermediate role of adipose tissue in mediating the cardio-protective effects of diet and exercise; Investigating the behavioral factors that influence adherence to dietary restriction strategies.
So this is one lady that ought to understand the effects of what we shovel down our mouths. OK, on to that interview. From Part One, I selected this exchange,
JP: How long does it generally take for people to adapt to this new way of eating?
Dr. Varady: A lot of the subjects were saying that for the first two weeks it was pretty tough to basically change from a 3 meal a day eating pattern to just eating 1 meal a day and then 3 slightly bigger meals the next day. But they said that about after two weeks they totally got used to it and weren’t that hungry on the fast day anymore. They could undergo these really long periods of fasting without really feeling deprived. The other interesting thing that they were telling us was with regard to the feed day. The people didn’t binge. They only ate about 100% to 110% of their calorie needs.
Then from the second part of the interview, JP underlines an important point, “The truth of the matter is that research into ADF is still in its infancy and Dr. Varady is the first person to admit it. ” I then went on to select this exchange between JP and Dr. Varady,
JP: It seems as though ADF provides a very broad array of health benefits. Do you have a theory about why this is possible?
Dr. Varady: In the human data the main thing you see is weight loss. Even if it’s done in normal weight people. The minute you start losing weight you all of a sudden see an improvement in the majority of these factors. A lot of the effects of alternate day fasting are mediated through weight loss. Losing weight is so tightly correlated with your blood pressure, your cholesterol levels and heart rate, etc.
Fasting May Reduce Age-Related Disease Risk Factors
So this is not something of trivial interest, it’s serious research that could have a remarkable effect on the huge problems of obesity and poor diet that affect millions. Do yourself a favour and read the interview now. Part One and Part Two.
Finally, in that post on the 16th, I owned up to having got my weight down to 161.6 lbs (73.30 kgs). Now here we are having completed my third week of 5:2 fasting and last Saturday morning my weight was 159.0 lbs (72.12 kgs). The routine is very comfortable and as Dr. Varady mentioned, there is no sense of wanting to binge after the two days of fasting.
Remaining with the theme of love, love lost and new love.
John Hurlburt sent me the following last week and it is so perfect as a sequel to the writings of the last two days. That was John’s poetry last Saturday on Learning from Dogs, by the way.
oooOOOooo
Two lost souls
After losing his parents, this three year old orangutan was so depressed he wouldn’t eat and didn’t respond to any medical treatments. The veterinarians thought he would surely die from sadness.
The zoo keepers found an old sick dog on the grounds in the park at the zoo where the orangutan lived and took the dog to the animal treatment center. The dog arrived at the same time the orangutan was there being treated.
The two lost souls met and have been inseparable ever since. The orangutan found a new reason to live and each always tries his best to be a good companion to his new found friend. They are together 24 hours a day in all their activities.
They live in Northern California where swimming is their favorite past-time, although Roscoe (the orangutan) is a little afraid of the water and needs his friend’s help to swim.
Together they have discovered the joy and laughter in life and the value of friendship.
They have found more than a friendly shoulder to lean on.
Long Live Friendship!
I don’t know, but some say life is too short, others say it is too long, but I know that nothing that we do makes sense if we don’t touch the hearts of others. While it lasts!
May you always have love to share, health to spare, and friends who care…..even if they are a little hairy at times.
oooOOOooo
I must say that the generosity of so many of my readers in sending me these beautiful examples of what is really important in this world of ours touches me deeply. Thank you, John. Thank you, one and all.
A most beautiful conclusion to this reflection on animals and love.
Yesterday, I took a personal journey through the subject of love. I closed that post by saying, “So let me close this essay by asking you to come back here and read the guest post tomorrow from author Eleanore MacDonald, where Eleanore writes of the loss of their dog Djuna. You will read the most precious and heart-rending words about love.”
So an enormous thank-you for being granted permission to republish the tribute Eleanore MacDonald wrote upon the loss of their dear dog Djuna. I guarantee you will need a handkerchief or tissue close to hand!
oooOOOooo
one of the seven great dogs
“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” Anatole France
Djuna Cupcake, my heart of hearts, photo by Breelyn MacDonald
A great squall came upon us here on our farmlet a week ago. I saw it first from a distance, in that dawning of the morning when Djuna usually announced the coming day with his gentle, breathy ‘woooof’, his polite plea to join us on the bed. Mysteriously disturbing, it surely was a sign of things to come, but we didn’t know how dangerous it really was until it was upon us.
And when it was suddenly there, a Great Joy was sucked from our world and an overwhelming sadness took its place … a raging stillness, hot and stifling, no breath, no heartbeat.
My springs of Joy are dry … (a sentiment stolen in part from that great old song, Long Time Traveler)
Djuna Cupcake was one of the Seven Great Dogs. If you’ve seen the film ‘Dean Spanley’, you will know what I mean. If you have loved and been loved by a dog of pure heart … one who was a great teacher of presence, of patience, one who was the dispenser of unconditional love and the blessings of an incomparable joy … one who was a great listener, guardian, and the embodiment of Buddha, Coyote, the Goddesses Eleos and Kuan Yin all in one soft coated body … one who was your loving shadow because he or she felt that it was their job to see you safe at all times … you will know what I mean.
He died quite suddenly. Like that squall, his death came with no warning and for days after Paul and I were sucked deep into that great black hole of grief. The dread attacked us at every turn, where we would always see him but now only a glaring emptiness stood. I felt as though my heart and soul had a raw, oozing, gaping, searingly painful wound where he had been torn away from me. Stolen. We cried a lot.
Some people will never understand. I try to feel compassion for them, rather than issuing the big ‘EFF YOU”, but I am only human. What is this BS about a ‘three day’ rule? What? Because he was ‘just a dog’ we should be over it all in 3 days? Djuna was surely a better person than most Humans and I will never stop missing him. I feel so deeply sorry for those people who have overlooked having such grace and beauty bless their lives –– the companionship of a great dog (or cat or horse, or human person) –– so that, when the monumental end comes and they’ve come through the great fires of sorrow, and have been washed by the flush of a million tears, they come through to the other side where they are able to see the remarkable love, joys and lessons they’d been gifted by that companionship. I can only hope now to ‘be’ the person Djuna thought me to be.
3 days and 3 more and 3 million more and even then more just won’t do it.
Paul and I were with Djuna on our bedroom floor when he died. I lay with him next to my heart, whispering love, my arm draped over his neck … and as he was leaving us, I saw him standing just beyond Paul. Alert, ears akimbo, head cocked, eyes bright, a wad of socks in mouth, standing in his particularly great exuberance, as he did each morning when the time for chores presented itself – “Come on! It’s time to go! Get with it you silly humans! There’s work to be done, there’s a barn to clean and a day to sniff, there’s delight to be found!” And then he left.
My ‘joyometer’, my daily dispenser of mirth, and my constant reminder of the importance of presence, has gone missing – his lessons of ‘Be Here Now’ measured in doses of ’Oh, sense the beauty in the music of the wind!’, ‘Let’s just run in circles and laugh’, ‘I love, love, love you!’ … gone. It is wholly up to me now to remember to stay in each moment, to just be a nice person, cry whenever I must, to laugh as much as possible and dance for the sheer joy of it. And when the cacophony of the deafening silence has quieted and the colors of sorrow have muted and gone transparent and I’ve had some time to let the Aegean clean up those bloodied wounds in my heart and soul, there will be room again here for another one of the Seven Great Dogs. And the cycles will continue on.
Almost every evening Djuna and I took an evening stroll down our quiet lane. I loved watching him dance his great joy, nose to the ground scenting all of the news of the day or nose to the sky, sensing what was coming on the breeze. On our walks I watched the seasons change, the rising of the full moon, the greening of the new spring and the evening skies, like snowflakes, no one ever alike … I watched the Canadian geese come and go, the Red Tail hawks courting in the air above me, and let the build up of my day fall away as I tread softly with my gentle friend. It took me several days after Djuna’s death for me to realize that here was yet again another gift he had left for me in his wake, and one I should continue to enjoy. The sky was black to the West, we’d had heavy winds and rain all day, but when there was a break I set off on ‘our’ walk. Wrapped tightly in sadness and hardly breathing with the missing of him, I shuffled along about a 1/2 mile and turned for home before the rains started up and the chill wind began to blow, fierce again, from the south. That wind battered and bashed me until it freed the tears from my eyes, and the freezing rain lashed my face until I grew numb. As though suddenly realizing I was about to drown, I surfaced, taking in great gulps of air as though I’d not been breathing for several days, and began to climb free of the suffocating bonds of my sadness.
Part of our family
My Djuna, my Cupcake … My Heart of Hearts who knew my soul, my every thought; great lover of Paul and I, and of Breelyn; great lover of his mare and his pony, of socks and his furry toys and his GWBush chew doll; great lover of his evening walkies and of riding in the car, and feeding the birds; great lover of sofa naps and sleeping in late with us on the bed and chasing BALL and rolling on the grass and of eating horse poop; bountiful bestower of stealthy kisses; joyful jokester, Greek scholar (he knew about 15 words and understood several phrases spoken to him in Greek; something we did only after he’d begun to understand words and phrases *spelled out* in English! ‘Car’, ‘dinner?’, ‘play with the ball?’, ‘feed the birds’, water, pony, get the goat, etc!); Djuna, beloved Honorary Cat, our timekeeper, our guardian angel, our boss, our playfully dignified friend (thanks for that Marija) and family member, and one of the Seven Great Dogs – we will love and miss you forever.
But now – there’s work to be done, there’s a barn to clean and a new day to sniff, there’s delight to be found!
love – photo by Breelyn MacDonald
Copyright (c) 2012 Eleanore MacDonald
oooOOOooo
When I originally read this, I left a comment, “Achingly beautiful words. One of the most precious pieces of prose about a dog that I can ever remember reading.” Few will disagree!
As I replied in a recent email to Pat Shipman in response to Eleanore’s words above, “That really does endorse the proposition that, in a very real sense, our humanity is the product of our ancient relationship with animals.“
Dear Eleanore, thank you so much for allowing me to republish your beautiful thoughts.
