Category Archives: Health

Health, Science

Sarcopenia, Weight loss, and Protein

Of interest to me, and anyone on chemo, because the meds tend to cause weight loss, and muscle loss.

Source: The Arrow #112 – by Michael Eades – The Arrow

A roasted chicken thigh will give you about 30 gm of protein, of which close to 3 gm will be leucine. That’s enough to kick off mTOR and keep it working for 4-6 hours. Don’t think you can cheat the system by taking in smaller amounts of protein all day long or even larger amounts. You want mTOR to be pulsatile, not continuous. So, big doses. If you don’t feel like a chicken thigh for breakfast — and you may not — you can add whey in a shake. It’s a good source of leucine.
Health, research, Science

Corsi–Rosenthal Box

Source: Corsi–Rosenthal Box – Wikipedia

Leaving this here in case I need it someday.

The Corsi–Rosenthal Box, also called Corsi–Rosenthal Cube and Comparetto Cube, is a design for a do-it-yourself air purifier that can be built comparatively inexpensively. It was designed during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the goal of reducing the levels of airborne viral particles in indoor settings

Also known as a Corsi-Rosenthal box, this DIY method of building your own air filter with MERV13 furnace filters and a box fan are an easy and cost-effective way to help clear indoor air from airborne virus particles, wildfire smoke, pollen, dust, and more!

If you can seal a box, you can build one (or 100!) of these!

Art, Health

Remission You Say

That piece of art right there is how I’ve felt for over 9 months now, but my Oncologist says I’m in remission. Which with Multiple Myeloma means I get to go on maintenance for, probably, the rest of my life. Maintenance means I get to keep taking the Revlimid on the schedule and dose I am on now, I only have to go to the hospital every 2 weeks for my Velcade shot, instead of every week. My Zometa is on the same 4 week schedule til the end of the year, and then I’ll be getting it every 3 months (this is the med that strengthens my bones which the Myeloma has eaten away. Big news is no more Dexamethasone, which means I might be able to sleep weekends, and not be up at 2:30 AM. 🙂
That’s my really big news for the week.

Health

Is Sugar Toxic? – NYTimes.com

If Lustig is right, then our excessive consumption of sugar is the primary reason that the numbers of obese and diabetic Americans have skyrocketed in the past 30 years. But his argument implies more than that. If Lustig is right, it would mean that sugar is also the likely dietary cause of several other chronic ailments widely considered to be diseases of Western lifestyles — heart disease, hypertension and many common cancers among them.

via Is Sugar Toxic? – NYTimes.com.

Health, Politics

The Government Doesn’t Really Want to Help You with Your Medical Care

STATE SLAPS DR. DO-GOOD

The state is trying to shut down a New York City doctor’s ambitious plan to treat uninsured patients for around $1,000 a year.

Dr. John Muney offers his patients everything from mammograms to mole removal at his AMG Medical Group clinics, which operate in all five boroughs.

“I’m trying to help uninsured people here,” he said.

His patients agree to pay $79 a month for a year in return for unlimited office visits with a $10 co-pay.

But his plan landed him in the crosshairs of the state Insurance Department, which ordered him to drop his fixed-rate plan – which it claims is equivalent to an insurance policy.

Muney insists it is not insurance because it doesn’t cover anything that he can’t do in his offices, like complicated surgery. He points out his offices do not operate 24/7 so they can’t function like emergency rooms.

“I’m not doing an insurance business,” he said. “I’m just providing my services at my place during certain hours.”

He says he can afford to charge such a small amount because he doesn’t have to process mountains of paperwork and spend hours on billing….

Health, real food

How our meat is grown, and why it’s killing us.

Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food – TIME
Read this and be scared.

The U.S. agricultural industry can now produce unlimited quantities of meat and grains at remarkably cheap prices. But it does so at a high cost to the environment, animals and humans. Those hidden prices are the creeping erosion of our fertile farmland, cages for egg-laying chickens so packed that the birds can’t even raise their wings and the scary rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria among farm animals. Add to the price tag the acceleration of global warming — our energy-intensive food system uses 19% of U.S. fossil fuels, more than any other sector of the economy.

And perhaps worst of all, our food is increasingly bad for us, even dangerous. A series of recalls involving contaminated foods this year — including an outbreak of salmonella from tainted peanuts that killed at least eight people and sickened 600 — has consumers rightly worried about the safety of their meals. A food system — from seed to 7?Eleven — that generates cheap, filling food at the literal expense of healthier produce is also a principal cause of America’s obesity epidemic. At a time when the nation is close to a civil war over health-care reform, obesity adds $147 billion a year to our doctor bills. “The way we farm now is destructive of the soil, the environment and us,” says Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist with the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

Then check out Food, Inc

and King Corn (if you have Netflix you can get it there)

Health

Ranting about “Health” Care

Start Rant
Here’s a burning question for you–at least one that’s burning another hole in my head.
Why does (almost) everyone want the people who brought you the DMV, public schools, potholes, and, now, the farce that is C.A.R.S. (car allowance rebate system)–which ran out of money in 4 (that’s right F-O-U-R) days (although they have more funding for now), to run your medical care system for you?
I’m trying to wrap my head around this, since I’ve never really been able to understand people who think the government has the answer to all their problems, when most of the time it’s the cause.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’ll be the first to admit that the medical care (I refuse to call it health care because it has nothing to do with keeping you healthy) system is a total fucked up mess, and that insurance companies, which have a lot of influence in government, are a big part of the problem, but, I don’t think that making the government your insurance company is the answer. Just look at the medicare/medicaid systems and how screwed up, and abused, they are.
I don’t have a solution, but, I while don’t think that government medicine is the answer, neither do I think that continuing with the status quo is either. It’s time to ‘think outside the box’, and to ‘change the paradigm’, to quote a couple of cliche terms. Medical professionals, and patients need to figure a different way–a health centric way to fix the system.
End Rant.