Politics and science are usually separate fields. Certainly, politicians control the money that scientists get, and within the scientific communities you get political squabbles. But mostly, science is a meritocracy and politics is a popularity contest. In politics it doesn't matter if you're as dumb as a rock as long as people like you. You don't have to know what you're talking about as long as you can "connect; as long as people like the way you say it, you could suggest eating babies. After all, if Hitler could get elected...
But every now and then they come together, namely in the election years, when we decide who gets to make the policies for the next two, four, or six years (depending on who's running). Most of the time science gets pushed aside as people discuss the issues more relevant, so they think, to the most people: taxes, health care, and that mythical thing called Reform, during which they swear to end corruption and limit the influence of the very cronies who are paying them to say that.
But I, and most scientists, probably, would argue that the state of scientific research in the United States is critical to the welfare of the country. Not just because Big Pharma makes all manners of lifesaving drugs (well...okay, maybe not), but because supporting the infrastructures that do the scientific research, be it particle physics or grizzly bear DNA, generate their own economies. To say nothing of the knowledge that gets put out there--knowledge that transforms industrial practices, knowledge that increases our understanding of the world we live in. Sarah Palin may mock the grizzly bear study, but won't she be sorry if hunters shoot the last bear?
Several factors contribute to the robust health of the intellectual sphere: The budget of the NIH to fund studies is still, despite cuts, larger than the GNP of many countries. The flexibility of the English language ensures that ideas can be communicated. The diversity of those involved in research guarantees that many ideas will be generated, and the system of peer review helps ensure that only the best succeed.
The problem is that politicans often have no idea what constitutes science. Scientists are already prone to interpreting data along the lines of their own personal beliefs, but politicians will flat-out deny the existence of data.
Basing public policies on what you want to think is the truth is very different from basing public policies on what is actually the truth. The truth is: evolution happens, stem cell research is no more or less evil than abortion, mercury in our water systems is bad, and climate change is a fact. Simply because these are inconvenient to us does not change that tey are, and we need politicians with the balls to acknowledge that we do not dictate how the world runs, the world runs and we deal with it.
Whenever and wehere ideology takes the place of knowledge--be it in tribal Pakistan or the halls of the Senate, in the Supreme Court or sub-Saharan Africa, in money or in medicine--shit happens. Ideology has its place; it gives us a platform from which we can jump off as we learn new things, but it should never replace knowledge. Let's pick a prez who knows the difference.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Feeling Good
Ups and downs are a normal part of life. In my day job, I'm a scientist/lab tech, and I'd recently mastered the art of a cAMP assay. This is a long, complicated assay involving live cells, lots of clear liquids in lots of clear plates, and calculations and back-calculations. It is, in many ways, the worst kind of assay one can run: expensive, easy to screw up, and completely dependent on how you grow your cells.
Recently my cells have been giving me a lot of flak, and after two weeks of piddling about and hoping that they'd come around, we've finally decided to just use new cells. What a bummer--I've lost two weeks' worth of work.
But oddly, despite the troubles these past two weeks, and the shortening days (anybody who says seasonal depression isn't real has never met me), I'm actually feeling quite good. Probably from a combination of chocolate, love, biking to and from the train stations, and the giddiness from not having eaten enough all week.
Feeling good, according to neuroscientists, is about brain biochemistry: having the right amounts of all the neurotransmitters in all their correct balances. Some people have a harder time of attaining this balance, others are magically "normal".
How do we go about assigning hedonistic values to the aspects of our lives that warrant it?
Recently my cells have been giving me a lot of flak, and after two weeks of piddling about and hoping that they'd come around, we've finally decided to just use new cells. What a bummer--I've lost two weeks' worth of work.
But oddly, despite the troubles these past two weeks, and the shortening days (anybody who says seasonal depression isn't real has never met me), I'm actually feeling quite good. Probably from a combination of chocolate, love, biking to and from the train stations, and the giddiness from not having eaten enough all week.
Feeling good, according to neuroscientists, is about brain biochemistry: having the right amounts of all the neurotransmitters in all their correct balances. Some people have a harder time of attaining this balance, others are magically "normal".
How do we go about assigning hedonistic values to the aspects of our lives that warrant it?
Friday, October 10, 2008
Science is not scientific: how to tell cells from cells
I go birdwatching on a regular basis--my favorite birds are waterfowl, and at this time of year there are a lot of migratory species coming through Holland (it's a very good time to have a pair of 8 x 56's). As with any region, you have your native common fauna, which consists of the same old 15-20 species you see EVERY time you go out, your native less-common fauna (the 10-15 species you don't see every time and are excited when you do), the non-native fauna (10-15 species that are SOO COOL! when you see them), and the rare birds.
When you pick up a birdwatching guide, it will contain a long list of field markers, habitats, songs, behaviors, notes about plumage changes, differences between age groups--there is no way to memorize all of the information. Yet I can tell you, sitting in a train whizzing by at 60 mph, that that white-ish goose is a domestic goose and that other white-ish goose is a dark variation of the snow goose.
OK, so compulsively reading my bird guide probably has something to do with this. But more than that is practice. It's how you learn to tell black-headed gulls apart from common gulls (red feet, red bill) during the winter, when they don't have their black heads. I don't check plumage points, behaviors, habitats, unless I'm really uncertain about a new strange bird--and the only reason it's new and strange is because I haven't seen it in the wild before, as most of the time I know where it is in my book and I can turn right to it.
But if you were to ask me how I go about quickly spotting birds and making my identificataions--what thoughts go through my head--I couldn't tell you. Just as I couldn't tell you exactly what makes my cells healthy and what makes them not--why I say they're "not behaving" even though they look plump and otherwise healthy. I don't think anybody who does cell culture can accurately describe what "healthy" cells look like, but they know "unhealthy" cells when they see them.
You might wonder why there's any fuss over the health of cells at all. Turns out that many of the assays run depend on the cells being "healthy"--i.e., not contaminated, in the log phase of their growth, not newly-split, not "hungry" (believe it or not, you can tell when they are), with a slightly-acidic-but-not-too-much media, evenly dispersed--the criteria go on and on, but the gestalt picture is that the cells just look "healthy".
When you work in science, you eventually acquire a feeling as to what should work and what doesn't. The minutiae of your system become intuitive--you know that's not a pigeon, even if all you can see is a black blob against a blue sky. You know your cat isn't feeling well, even if it's not doing anything other than what it normally does. You know that even if the protocol says nothing about gently stirring your reaction mixture, you'd better do it gently if you want results. You know that some equations are better than others.
This is the daily in-and-out of experimental science, ladies and gentlemen. It is predicated on a long list of assumptions, some of which only may be true. It is not very scientific at all.
When you pick up a birdwatching guide, it will contain a long list of field markers, habitats, songs, behaviors, notes about plumage changes, differences between age groups--there is no way to memorize all of the information. Yet I can tell you, sitting in a train whizzing by at 60 mph, that that white-ish goose is a domestic goose and that other white-ish goose is a dark variation of the snow goose.
OK, so compulsively reading my bird guide probably has something to do with this. But more than that is practice. It's how you learn to tell black-headed gulls apart from common gulls (red feet, red bill) during the winter, when they don't have their black heads. I don't check plumage points, behaviors, habitats, unless I'm really uncertain about a new strange bird--and the only reason it's new and strange is because I haven't seen it in the wild before, as most of the time I know where it is in my book and I can turn right to it.
But if you were to ask me how I go about quickly spotting birds and making my identificataions--what thoughts go through my head--I couldn't tell you. Just as I couldn't tell you exactly what makes my cells healthy and what makes them not--why I say they're "not behaving" even though they look plump and otherwise healthy. I don't think anybody who does cell culture can accurately describe what "healthy" cells look like, but they know "unhealthy" cells when they see them.
You might wonder why there's any fuss over the health of cells at all. Turns out that many of the assays run depend on the cells being "healthy"--i.e., not contaminated, in the log phase of their growth, not newly-split, not "hungry" (believe it or not, you can tell when they are), with a slightly-acidic-but-not-too-much media, evenly dispersed--the criteria go on and on, but the gestalt picture is that the cells just look "healthy".
When you work in science, you eventually acquire a feeling as to what should work and what doesn't. The minutiae of your system become intuitive--you know that's not a pigeon, even if all you can see is a black blob against a blue sky. You know your cat isn't feeling well, even if it's not doing anything other than what it normally does. You know that even if the protocol says nothing about gently stirring your reaction mixture, you'd better do it gently if you want results. You know that some equations are better than others.
This is the daily in-and-out of experimental science, ladies and gentlemen. It is predicated on a long list of assumptions, some of which only may be true. It is not very scientific at all.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Weight loss secrets, revealed!
One of the "hot research" areas I've been following for the past few months concerns the melanocortin receptor (I'm a pharmacology geek, what can I say?) and the regulation of appetite, the cooperation with dopamine receptors for pleasure, and the nebulous (so far) link with the hormones that are thought to regulate appetite: ghrelin, leptin, CCK (cholecystekinin), NPY (neuropeptide Y), and so on. Briefly, researchers are finding that melanocortin receptors cooperate with dopamine receptors to produce the hedonistic pleasure brought on by food. Exactly how the cooperation occurs and the effects of it are more technical matter that I will not get into here.
The article in question is, unfortunately, a closed one, meaning that you either have to be at a university library or pony up $32 to view it, unless Google has archived it somewhere.
But the main point is that this essentially debunks the "genetic set point" that irritates the hell out of me. The set point refers to a range of weights in which your body will fall, given an endless amount of food and constant metabolism. For most people, alas, this set point is not at the waif-like weight of what is being sold as beauty, but substantially above it.
There is no question that one's weight is naturally predisposed to falling at/around a certain point, and that for everybody, this point is different. For a society trained to find pixie sticks beautiful, this point is much heavier than what they would like it to be.
Allow me to digress a moment to point out that the pervasiveness of the diet industry is unique to the United States, and I would venture to guess that its success is largely unique to the US. Undoubtedly there are diet companies in Europe, but aside from an occasional flyer advertising a gym, there are few ads for apple cider vinegar pills, dietic green tea drinks, or body wraps. There is no media pressure to conform to a slender physique, though there is plenty of social pressure--for starters, cars are expensive, fuel even more so, and the stores catering to expansive waistlines are few and far between.
Anyway: it should come as no surprise, then, that one's weight tends to be a function of one's daily habits. Eating, drinking, sleeping, and all that good stuff. The operative words are "daily habits"--patterns of learned behaviors and thought that circumscribe everyday operation.
Behavioral experts say that it takes 2-3 weeks of sustained effort to create a new habit, and if my nail-biting is an accurate indicator, and old habits can never be fully destroyed--they can be overridden, but never vanquished.
What does this have to do with the set point?
My problem with the idea of a genetic set point is that it assumes that your body is entirely independent of your brain. If you've got a lifetime of, say, comfort eating (guilty) behind you, it is going to take much more than six weeks of bikini-body-dieting to break you of the habit of responding to emotional triggers with food. And, most likely, you'll find that no matter how long it's been, you'll probably relapse occasionally (guilty, too). When you go about "remaking yourself", not only do you have to learn a new habit to override the old one, you have to learn a new way to activate the pleasure centers to get that sense of achievement. This is hard. Very hard.
That young children have remarkably plastic brains is no surprise. Kids can learn to speak perfect French or Chinese if they start early enough, while adults might be able to if they persist at it for a decade or two. But what we have yet to appreciate is the full spectrum of plasticity of the adult brain. We, too, can train ourselves to like broccoli and delight in string beans. We, too, can teach ourselves new habits. It is hard. It takes a damn long time, and not only does it take a long time, it often involves pushing ourselves out of our comfort limits.
But it's not like we don't have that choice.
The article in question is, unfortunately, a closed one, meaning that you either have to be at a university library or pony up $32 to view it, unless Google has archived it somewhere.
But the main point is that this essentially debunks the "genetic set point" that irritates the hell out of me. The set point refers to a range of weights in which your body will fall, given an endless amount of food and constant metabolism. For most people, alas, this set point is not at the waif-like weight of what is being sold as beauty, but substantially above it.
There is no question that one's weight is naturally predisposed to falling at/around a certain point, and that for everybody, this point is different. For a society trained to find pixie sticks beautiful, this point is much heavier than what they would like it to be.
Allow me to digress a moment to point out that the pervasiveness of the diet industry is unique to the United States, and I would venture to guess that its success is largely unique to the US. Undoubtedly there are diet companies in Europe, but aside from an occasional flyer advertising a gym, there are few ads for apple cider vinegar pills, dietic green tea drinks, or body wraps. There is no media pressure to conform to a slender physique, though there is plenty of social pressure--for starters, cars are expensive, fuel even more so, and the stores catering to expansive waistlines are few and far between.
Anyway: it should come as no surprise, then, that one's weight tends to be a function of one's daily habits. Eating, drinking, sleeping, and all that good stuff. The operative words are "daily habits"--patterns of learned behaviors and thought that circumscribe everyday operation.
Behavioral experts say that it takes 2-3 weeks of sustained effort to create a new habit, and if my nail-biting is an accurate indicator, and old habits can never be fully destroyed--they can be overridden, but never vanquished.
What does this have to do with the set point?
My problem with the idea of a genetic set point is that it assumes that your body is entirely independent of your brain. If you've got a lifetime of, say, comfort eating (guilty) behind you, it is going to take much more than six weeks of bikini-body-dieting to break you of the habit of responding to emotional triggers with food. And, most likely, you'll find that no matter how long it's been, you'll probably relapse occasionally (guilty, too). When you go about "remaking yourself", not only do you have to learn a new habit to override the old one, you have to learn a new way to activate the pleasure centers to get that sense of achievement. This is hard. Very hard.
That young children have remarkably plastic brains is no surprise. Kids can learn to speak perfect French or Chinese if they start early enough, while adults might be able to if they persist at it for a decade or two. But what we have yet to appreciate is the full spectrum of plasticity of the adult brain. We, too, can train ourselves to like broccoli and delight in string beans. We, too, can teach ourselves new habits. It is hard. It takes a damn long time, and not only does it take a long time, it often involves pushing ourselves out of our comfort limits.
But it's not like we don't have that choice.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Science is not scientific
My background is scientific: I've got a BS in biology and biochemistry, and I've worked in pharmacology and/or molecular biology ever since I started working. Even my hobbies outside of work are more or less scientific; readers of my personal blog will probably wince in recollection of my birdwatching lists, and I prefer reading nonfiction (Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos is one of my favorites, while The Elegant Universe is on my reading list) to fiction.
So it always astounds me when people believe that science is scientific--that is, precise, exact, where the proof is irrefutable and the data conform to nice and pretty graphs. It's not. Science does allow you to answer the most mundane questions ("How do we taste?") in the most amazing ways, and if it's done properly you'll even be correct. But it's not math--that is, there is always uncertainty, there is always room for error, and different interpretations, and you may find that a solid, well-thought-through hypothesis is shot to hell when you do one more test as an afterthought.
Good science is not about doing good experiments as it is about asking the right questions. That is, the clinical trials that the people at Science-Based Medicine love to espouse are really just demonstrations of safety and/or efficacy, rather than actually uncovering anything new. One could argue that the science that led up to the development of drugs ready for clinical trials is good science, and I would have to concede that point--but few studies actually purport to change the way we think about the human body, or anything else, for that matter; the studies that actually add to our body of knowledge are usually not of social interest. I.e., you don't see membrane-protein crystal structures making the front page of anything except Science (which is a very remarkable feat and one that rightfully deserves all of the attention and praise that it gets, but I don't think mobs of girls are going to be swarming over to the Scripps Institute begging for autographs). If you don't know why crystal structures of membrane proteins are so important, that sort of proves the point--that the good science simply doesn't engender social interest.
Allow me a moment to rant about the science that does interest people: dieting and weight loss, drugs against obesity, and drugs against drug addictions (funny how the phrasing works out). For the most part, these studies are flawed, some more than others--the ones that are less-flawed tend to be the basic-science ones, where they find that Molecule Zed makes a mouse skinny or fat and then elucidate the pathway by which Molecule Zed works. They tend to rely on statistics and epidemiology, which in turn make the assumption that the people answering the questions are honest, or that there's no other compounding factor. I always read these studies with a skeptic's eye (though I don't always disagree with the findings), but it's ironic, in my book, that the studies that interest people are the ones that are the most lax in how they are controlled.
What I call "good science" is less a question of method and more a question of...well, questions. Methods can be improved--someone who wants to study the effects of acupuncture could do worse than stick random needles into random people--but you can't get more basic than asking whether acupuncture works, and how (answer is probably not, in case you're wondering). Asking the right questions makes good science far more than running the most rigorously-controlled experiments; asking the right questions usually requires a divergence from the state of reality as we know it today.
Aside: I am afraid my posts will continue to be sporadic. Suffice it to say that life is crazy.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Urgh, Firefox
I must apologize for the delay: not only is my job keeping me busy as hell, but the days are getting shorter here fast. Night now falls at 8:30 pm, which means that I tend to get sleepy at around 9 pm. The upside to being solar-powered is that during the summer I quite literally do not have to sleep more than 5 hours a day. The downside is that during the winters I practically hibernate. Furthermore Firefox 3.0 is having some issues loading the "Edit blog" part of this site. Safari doesn't work quite as well, and I hate firing up my boyfriend's desktop and generally avoid doing so because it sucks power like a Hoover, amongst other things.
Anyways, with all that out of the way...well, it's not really out of the way, is it? Because all the stressful things in my life haven't been fixed: my job is keeping me busy as hell, the days will continue to get shorter until the winter solstice, I still have no idea what's up with Firefox, and there are two cats and one boyfriend that demand their fair share of my time and attention.
That's the thing with stress--it's always there. If you're not under some kind of stress, then you're dead.
How you deal with it, on the other hand, is another matter entirely.
Anyways, with all that out of the way...well, it's not really out of the way, is it? Because all the stressful things in my life haven't been fixed: my job is keeping me busy as hell, the days will continue to get shorter until the winter solstice, I still have no idea what's up with Firefox, and there are two cats and one boyfriend that demand their fair share of my time and attention.
That's the thing with stress--it's always there. If you're not under some kind of stress, then you're dead.
How you deal with it, on the other hand, is another matter entirely.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Ah, stress! Part 1 of 3
I'm going through a rather strenuous time right now--one consequence of doing your job a bit too well is that you suddenly get heaped with tons of work. Added to this is a four-hour commute and my usual life and it's no wonder I've given up on trying to get the recommended 8 hours of sleep (I might almost get there on the weekends).
Stress, strictly speaking, is anything from the outside world that affects you. It is not, by definition, a bad thing: if tomorrow you won the lottery, that too is stress.
In the days of yore, when we hadn't yet earned the genus Homo, stress was running from a jaguar--and fighting like hell when it caught you. The release of epinephrine and norepinephrine enables the muscles to work much harder. Pain responses get blunted. Blood is shunted from organs that don't need it (your gut) to those that do at this moment, as your entire body is devoted to one thing--getting the hell out of there, or beating the crap out of whatever's trying to beat the crap out of you.
Nowadays, we have a more evolved brain, and far more involved lives. Social interactions are no longer limited to who gets pickings at the termite mound. Being able to think means that what we make of a scenario can greatly affect our body's response to it. Someone who has a breakdown on I-95 can panic, get angry, rant at an angry God, or call AAA. These days, very few of us will ever encounter stress of the sort our ancestors did, unless you're unfortunate enough to fall into a den of lions. But the evolutionary mechanisms by which we deal with stress--open the floodgates for epinephrine--have remained the same.
Is this a good thing, or not? Stay tuned.
Stress, strictly speaking, is anything from the outside world that affects you. It is not, by definition, a bad thing: if tomorrow you won the lottery, that too is stress.
In the days of yore, when we hadn't yet earned the genus Homo, stress was running from a jaguar--and fighting like hell when it caught you. The release of epinephrine and norepinephrine enables the muscles to work much harder. Pain responses get blunted. Blood is shunted from organs that don't need it (your gut) to those that do at this moment, as your entire body is devoted to one thing--getting the hell out of there, or beating the crap out of whatever's trying to beat the crap out of you.
Nowadays, we have a more evolved brain, and far more involved lives. Social interactions are no longer limited to who gets pickings at the termite mound. Being able to think means that what we make of a scenario can greatly affect our body's response to it. Someone who has a breakdown on I-95 can panic, get angry, rant at an angry God, or call AAA. These days, very few of us will ever encounter stress of the sort our ancestors did, unless you're unfortunate enough to fall into a den of lions. But the evolutionary mechanisms by which we deal with stress--open the floodgates for epinephrine--have remained the same.
Is this a good thing, or not? Stay tuned.
Friday, September 5, 2008
The Skinny: Part 3 of 3
Women are supposedly neurotically insecure about their bodies. I'll admit that I am, though I conceal it better than most (I think--does this confession count?). We think our boobs are too big/small and our asses are too this or that and the glossies have a ball every summer before bikini season when we're supposedly at our wits' end about looking like a walrus. But you know what? It really doesn't matter--if you have boobs and an ass, you'll get hit on--only not by that cute artsy guy in the cafe (who is, of course, taken), alas. Men, it seems, really don't see much else--at least, not if my observations of ogling behavior along Kelly Drive is correct.
At this point I'd also put in a statement about what physical features about men attract women, but in this respect there's perilously little consistency. Women are far more slick about how they ogle men, and their tastes are far more divergent: the Chippendales would have you believe that the ideal man is 200 pounds of pure muscle, but the variety of body types available amongst the Hollywood elite would suggest otherwise (personally, I go for the more slightly-built, like Eric McCormack, but I have to admit, seeing Daniel Craig in Casino Royale took my breath away).
All of which suggests that there is no one true body type that's universally beautiful. Some characteristics are appreciated, undoubtedly--ten fingers, ten toes, two eyes, one nose--but if you're reading this odds are you meet someone's expectations of beauty.
So why all the pressure to be thin? Or rather, why, in spite of Marilyn Monroe and the zaftig figures of previous generations, and a resurgence of more normal figures, are women still airbrushed to "perfection" and the figure of a prepubescent boy still considered desirable?
Actually, the real question isn't even why we're still told that we need to look a certain way to be "beautiful". It's why we fall for the line that our bodies, as they are, are not enough--that they must somehow be modified to be beautiful. If you think about it, this is a puzzle: female apes don't feel the need to don high heels and strut their stuff in couture--but I betcha they would if another did it and won the ultimate Darwinian prize: a male.
Which gender self-modifies is irrelevant from this point on. In most species where sexual dimorphism occurs, it's usually the male that gets decked out like a drag queen. Sexual selection is certainly a powerful force when it comes to designing traits that the other gender "likes". But it's not the end of the story. I would suggest that a somewhat more subtle psychological need to be assimilated, especially in social animals (like humans) also plays a key role in why we get gussied up.
That is: women dress up because it makes them more attractive to men. But it also unifies them with other women. Assimilation is not just for the Borg. It makes civilized life possible. And leads to an interesting array of neuroses, like that involving bikinis.
At this point I'd also put in a statement about what physical features about men attract women, but in this respect there's perilously little consistency. Women are far more slick about how they ogle men, and their tastes are far more divergent: the Chippendales would have you believe that the ideal man is 200 pounds of pure muscle, but the variety of body types available amongst the Hollywood elite would suggest otherwise (personally, I go for the more slightly-built, like Eric McCormack, but I have to admit, seeing Daniel Craig in Casino Royale took my breath away).
All of which suggests that there is no one true body type that's universally beautiful. Some characteristics are appreciated, undoubtedly--ten fingers, ten toes, two eyes, one nose--but if you're reading this odds are you meet someone's expectations of beauty.
So why all the pressure to be thin? Or rather, why, in spite of Marilyn Monroe and the zaftig figures of previous generations, and a resurgence of more normal figures, are women still airbrushed to "perfection" and the figure of a prepubescent boy still considered desirable?
Actually, the real question isn't even why we're still told that we need to look a certain way to be "beautiful". It's why we fall for the line that our bodies, as they are, are not enough--that they must somehow be modified to be beautiful. If you think about it, this is a puzzle: female apes don't feel the need to don high heels and strut their stuff in couture--but I betcha they would if another did it and won the ultimate Darwinian prize: a male.
Which gender self-modifies is irrelevant from this point on. In most species where sexual dimorphism occurs, it's usually the male that gets decked out like a drag queen. Sexual selection is certainly a powerful force when it comes to designing traits that the other gender "likes". But it's not the end of the story. I would suggest that a somewhat more subtle psychological need to be assimilated, especially in social animals (like humans) also plays a key role in why we get gussied up.
That is: women dress up because it makes them more attractive to men. But it also unifies them with other women. Assimilation is not just for the Borg. It makes civilized life possible. And leads to an interesting array of neuroses, like that involving bikinis.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Beast: part 2 of 3
Collagen. Copper. Alpha-hydroxy acids. Petrolatum. Retinoic acid.
You can be forgiven if you thought I was talking about a chemistry course. Beauty is as much about looking young as it is about looking, well, beautiful, and today's beauty products promise to reduce wrinkles and cover up age spots and protect from UV rays and do all but wash out the kitchen sink.
There is, alas, no real way to stop looking older. Collagen creams are a hot item, but if you stop and think about it, it's highly improbable that they work the way the ads say they do. It is true that, as you get older, the collagen levels in your skin decrease. It is not true, however, that collagen creams work by "replenishing" collagen levels in your skin. Perhaps they will temporarily, thanks to the addition of retinoic acid. Even more depressing is that simple, inexpensive moisturizers are just as effective at temporarily reducing the appearance of wrinkles than the $30/jar stuff sold at cosmetics counters.
There is sad news for anti-aging diets, too: they don't work. That's not to say that eating tons of fruits and veggies are bad for you--au contraire--but rather, that the aging process is more genetic than anything that you can control.
But what about the magic of calorie-restriction diets? I would posit that, if you're eating tons of fruits, vegetables, and nuts, you're probably not eating as many calories as the person who dines regularly at Big 'n Fatty. I would also posit that, because most healthy foods--such as those found in Japanese and Mediterranean cuisines--tend to be high in fiber, you'll probably get full eating less of it. But neither of these truly illustrate a calorie-restricted diet, which is cutting your caloric intake to 1000-1200 cal/day.
What happens to your body--and, perhaps more importantly, to your mind--when you drop 25-50% of your regular caloric intake (I tend towards the low end, at around 1600/day--it's usually recommended that a man take in 2000 cal/day)? Epigentic changes are almost inevitable when the body takes punishment long enough; there is nearly indisputable evidence that most, if not all, psychiatric illnesses are due to how the genes are changed in response to environmental stressors. It only follows that the body's responses to constant near-starvation would be to go through some changes, too. The science is still terribly convoluted as to exactly which genes get turned on and off and to what extent, but epigentic changes in response to calorie restriction happens, in yeast and mice, and, presumably, humans.
It is unlikely that calorie restriction will ever enter a clinical trial on the scale that would be required to produce meaningful results. Not only do humans tend to live an inconveniently long time, the genetic backgrounds of the participants would need to be far better understood than they are today if we are to avoid the devestating effects of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment. While most of the men came though the experience intact, it's a gateway to anorexia in those who are prone to it. Anorexia, with it's 20% mortality rate, is by far the more deadly, whereas even if you're doing everything right with a calorie-restriction diet, you could get hit by a bus tomorrow.
How long you live matters far less than what you do with your life, and how you look while doing it matters far less than whether you enjoy doing it. If you're paying for your wisdom with age, you may as well get the most for your time.
You can be forgiven if you thought I was talking about a chemistry course. Beauty is as much about looking young as it is about looking, well, beautiful, and today's beauty products promise to reduce wrinkles and cover up age spots and protect from UV rays and do all but wash out the kitchen sink.
There is, alas, no real way to stop looking older. Collagen creams are a hot item, but if you stop and think about it, it's highly improbable that they work the way the ads say they do. It is true that, as you get older, the collagen levels in your skin decrease. It is not true, however, that collagen creams work by "replenishing" collagen levels in your skin. Perhaps they will temporarily, thanks to the addition of retinoic acid. Even more depressing is that simple, inexpensive moisturizers are just as effective at temporarily reducing the appearance of wrinkles than the $30/jar stuff sold at cosmetics counters.
There is sad news for anti-aging diets, too: they don't work. That's not to say that eating tons of fruits and veggies are bad for you--au contraire--but rather, that the aging process is more genetic than anything that you can control.
But what about the magic of calorie-restriction diets? I would posit that, if you're eating tons of fruits, vegetables, and nuts, you're probably not eating as many calories as the person who dines regularly at Big 'n Fatty. I would also posit that, because most healthy foods--such as those found in Japanese and Mediterranean cuisines--tend to be high in fiber, you'll probably get full eating less of it. But neither of these truly illustrate a calorie-restricted diet, which is cutting your caloric intake to 1000-1200 cal/day.
What happens to your body--and, perhaps more importantly, to your mind--when you drop 25-50% of your regular caloric intake (I tend towards the low end, at around 1600/day--it's usually recommended that a man take in 2000 cal/day)? Epigentic changes are almost inevitable when the body takes punishment long enough; there is nearly indisputable evidence that most, if not all, psychiatric illnesses are due to how the genes are changed in response to environmental stressors. It only follows that the body's responses to constant near-starvation would be to go through some changes, too. The science is still terribly convoluted as to exactly which genes get turned on and off and to what extent, but epigentic changes in response to calorie restriction happens, in yeast and mice, and, presumably, humans.
It is unlikely that calorie restriction will ever enter a clinical trial on the scale that would be required to produce meaningful results. Not only do humans tend to live an inconveniently long time, the genetic backgrounds of the participants would need to be far better understood than they are today if we are to avoid the devestating effects of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment. While most of the men came though the experience intact, it's a gateway to anorexia in those who are prone to it. Anorexia, with it's 20% mortality rate, is by far the more deadly, whereas even if you're doing everything right with a calorie-restriction diet, you could get hit by a bus tomorrow.
How long you live matters far less than what you do with your life, and how you look while doing it matters far less than whether you enjoy doing it. If you're paying for your wisdom with age, you may as well get the most for your time.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Beauty: part 1 of 3
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It is only skin deep. It is also a multi-billion dollar industry that thrives on never delivering what it promises and telling beautiful lies.
Is there any truth to claims of antioxidant prowess against aging? Any truth at all to the 8-glasses-of-water myth? Do collagen creams really work?
And that's not even touching on the "new and improved" versions of makeup. I'll grant you that today's powders and mousses and mattes are probably substantially safer than white lead paint in in the Roman days. But I don't think most women would care if tomorrow their makeup were named as the Cause of Cancer--my sex was willing to put poison in their eyes; I wouldn't put it beyond us to suffer cancer as the price we must pay to look good.
The cultural aspects of beauty make for interesting divergences as to what constitutes beauty, but less so, in my opinion, than what constitutes universal features of beauty. There is some speculation that there is a "perfect ratio" of features that beautiful people--or rather, women--possess: large eyes, small chin, clear skin, and so on--pick your favorite supermodel/actress.
However, it is interesting to note that there is no such universal standard for men--there is no psychological equivalent of the "perfect man", the way that there is for women. If you read books from the nineteenth century, authors tend to drivel endlessly about the set of the lips or the shape of the eye. It is especially interesting to note that although heroines are all depicted in more or less the same fashion (clear porcelain skin, liquid eyes of a light hue, gently arched lips), the heroes have a far greater variety in their appearance. Rather, it is their manners and their high "moral code" that makes them desirable.
Which sex has it more difficult? Women, because they must torture themselves to appeal to the fancies of men? Or men, because they must possess the right behaviors to attract the attentions of women?
Is there any truth to claims of antioxidant prowess against aging? Any truth at all to the 8-glasses-of-water myth? Do collagen creams really work?
And that's not even touching on the "new and improved" versions of makeup. I'll grant you that today's powders and mousses and mattes are probably substantially safer than white lead paint in in the Roman days. But I don't think most women would care if tomorrow their makeup were named as the Cause of Cancer--my sex was willing to put poison in their eyes; I wouldn't put it beyond us to suffer cancer as the price we must pay to look good.
The cultural aspects of beauty make for interesting divergences as to what constitutes beauty, but less so, in my opinion, than what constitutes universal features of beauty. There is some speculation that there is a "perfect ratio" of features that beautiful people--or rather, women--possess: large eyes, small chin, clear skin, and so on--pick your favorite supermodel/actress.
However, it is interesting to note that there is no such universal standard for men--there is no psychological equivalent of the "perfect man", the way that there is for women. If you read books from the nineteenth century, authors tend to drivel endlessly about the set of the lips or the shape of the eye. It is especially interesting to note that although heroines are all depicted in more or less the same fashion (clear porcelain skin, liquid eyes of a light hue, gently arched lips), the heroes have a far greater variety in their appearance. Rather, it is their manners and their high "moral code" that makes them desirable.
Which sex has it more difficult? Women, because they must torture themselves to appeal to the fancies of men? Or men, because they must possess the right behaviors to attract the attentions of women?
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