Wendy Wolfson,  June 27, 2009

Victoria Colliver of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote a useful article of what to do if your insurer denies you medical coverage. Print it and save it in a file. You never know. Speaking of never saying never, the governor of the Great State of California proposed cutting the state's Poison Control Centers to save money. Perhaps, as the expression goes, he was dropped on his head. Perhaps he just wants to make a point. Or maybe he has never experienced this: you are visiting somebody's house and your small kid goes missing. You find him in the bedroom, cheerily brandishing a vial of cardiac medication in one hand. Your heart stops. The other fist is tightly closed. You pried his fingers open to find some baby aspirin, the orange coating already melting off in his sticky palm. Did he have any in his mouth? You pry that open too. You try to keep your eyes open, you know, the ones you are supposed to have in the back of your head, but little kids are so wily and quick…

Wendy Wolfson,  June 19, 2009

I heard Dr. David Kessler, former head of the FDA, promoting his new book "The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American." Kessler's premise is that processed food companies have exquisitely calibrated the salt/sugar/fat ratios in food to appeal to our base receptors. That seems like stating the obvious. Companies developing obesity drugs have been attempting for years, with mixed success, to target certain brain receptors that controlled appetite and pleasure. Brian Wansinck, PhD, author of "Mindless Eating" did some creative experiments on portion control involving self replenishing soup bowls, to prove the adage that we eat (and drink) with our eyes. But, Kessler asserts that a regular diet of processed foods and take-out actually recalibrates one's brain receptors to crave food that is sweet, salty, and deliciously fatty. Lately my twins, Mr. Button and Marjana, have been requesting catsup for dinner. I suppose it all starts with catsup. And virtually anything can be a catsup delivery vehicle.

Wendy Wolfson,  June 13, 2009

A few years ago, I was lucky enough to attend a seminar on medical statistics at the NIH taught by Gilbert Welch, Lisa Schwartz, and Steven Woloshin, doctors who researched how to better communicate medical information to enable people to make decisions. They just published another study showing how actual data in plain language on drug ads helps consumers make better choices.  They also published a book, Know Your Chances; Understanding Health Statistics, which I am going to track down, as knowing them, it will be worth reading. For brain-sharpening purposes, I recommend Damned Lies and Statistics, and its companion volume, More Damned Lies and Statistics" by Joel Best, and of course, the classic The Cartoon Guide to Statistics by Larry Gonick. Baldly stating facts will undoubtedly put a crimp in drug marketing, which is a finely evolved art form here in the US, rivaling car marketing, and supports a goodly section of our economy. On a related note, while waiting at the doctor's with my toddlers, I found a copy of Car and Driver, replete with the latest in glossy vehicles. I didn't swipe it, but asked nicely. Mr. Button and Marjana like cars, trains, taxis, RVs, boats, buses and of course, Thomas the Train. (For those demographic outliers with a mordant sense of humor, there is a "Thriller" version of Thomas the Train on YouTube) I ripped out a few car ads to amuse my little consumers; a shiny red Lexus for Mr. Button and a white Aston-Martin convertible roadster for Marjana, as she is a jazz baby in her cheetah-print fake fur coat. Mr. Button was appreciative. Already a practiced consumer, he admired the car, then crumpled the advert into a ball and ate it.

Wendy Wolfson,  June 6, 2009

I've been trying to start a habit of exercising. One has to be robust when one has children later in life. When I try to do push ups, I see dessicated oranges and errant toys under the furniture. Sit-ups entertain my toddlers, Marjana and Mr. Button, who gleefully climb on me. I was interested by these British researchers who advocated that everybody take blood pressure drugs past a certain age, no matter what their actual blood pressure reading. Rather like your mother dosing you with cod liver oil, and making you wear your rainboots whether it might rain or not, so you won't catch cold. Of course, one can also achieve salutary results by exercising and keeping one's weight in check. You may weigh normally, exercise, and still have hypertension, known as "essential" hypertension, codenamed for "we have no idea why you have it." For those people, God and the Pharmas made beta blockers, calcium channel blockers, angiotensin receptor blockers, thiazides, and angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors. I was inspired by the push ups to clean, and when I looked in a cupboard, I found a bottle of cod liver oil. My husband said he bought it for fishing to scent his bait, but inquired solicitiously if I needed dosing.

Wendy Wolfson,  May 29, 2009

An interesting article by Carolyn Y. Johnson in the Boston Globe discussed inflated claims of new genetics based products, like face cream. She quoted some known scientists in the genetics field. And that spunky 75-year-old man she quoted who got a consumer genetics test at Canyon Ranch putting his risk for Alzheimer's disease at 15 times that of the average population did say he would be making some lifestyle changes. On the other hand, if you want to reduce your lifestyle risks for anything, 75 is kinda late to change your ways and get that much benefit. If you make it to a healthy 75, and can afford Canyon Ranch, you are doubly blessed, statistically speaking. The value of consumer genetics tests is debatable for a number of reasons. Isaac Kohane, one of the scientists quoted, said that family history is a better predictor of your genetic risks than genetic tests. But curiosity killed the cat. Satisfaction brought it back, but the revival was underwhelming. The genetic test I took mirrored what I knew already about family history, which was a reminder to lose the pregnancy weight. While I was pondering genetics vs. lifestyle, Mr. Button, one of my toddlers, climbed on the table and pilfered a sugar cube.

Wendy Wolfson,  May 24, 2009

Mr. Button - my 2-year-old - picked a blueberry between his forefinger and his thumb, and popped it in his mouth. I rejoiced, because it was one more blueberry between him and scurvy. His twin sister is busily ladling them into her mouth with a spoon. Unlike him, she is a good eater. Blueberries are supposed to be good for one's cognitive function, memory, and motor skills. No kidding. There was a USDA study in rats back in 1999 and two human trials in 2000 and 2002. Fifty people between 50 and 84 ate about a cup a day of blueberries in a two-year study. The rats were already smart, but seemed to get smarter still by ingesting blueberry extract, but the memory improvements in people were mild and difficult to detect. Absent a randomized controlled trial to rule out other causes, and taking in account that 50 people is a small number for a study, one has just got to take blueberries on faith and like them for themselves, or perhaps, just because they are blue. Don't get me started on antioxidants. And some are now finding links between memory and Vitamin D. I don't think anybody has ever done a head-to-head comparison study of diet coke and organic juices to see which actually helps people live longer. Those organic juices are fashionable but a bottle of vitamin-fortified Diet Coke is cheap, and probably maintains one's electrolyte balance better - or at least is as effective as formaldehyde in preserving one's figure.

Wendy Wolfson,  May 15, 2009

Thank God the Food and Drug Administration finally targeted the most dire health threat of our time: Cheerios. The FDA sent a warning letter to General Mills, busting its claim that Cheerios Toasted Whole Grain Oat Cereal lowers your cholesterol. According to the FDA, Cheerios "seriously and multiply violates" the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act. As a mother of twin toddlers, I have spent hours vacuuming up Cheerios from the floor and have extensively researched their composition and proliferation patterns. Cheerios should get a "black box" warning for side effects, as they also raise blood pressure and cause irritability. But Cheerio projectiles, General Mills no doubt would say, is a off label, unintended use. Cheerios are meant to be eaten in a bowl with milk, not to be crunched underfoot. While General Mills did appear to shamelessly exploit a couple of cholesterol studies, are Cheerios truly a scam? The only way to know is to analyze the evidence. If you eat Cheerios, send in your food diary and cholesterol numbers to Mr. W. Charles Becoat, Director of the FDA's Minneapolis District. Include your HDL and LDL readings, and your body mass index, as well as any information that might skew the data, for example, if you eat bacon with your Cheerios. It's good to know the FDA now has its priorities in order. Now, I wonder, does my face cream really prevent me from aging?

Wendy Wolfson,  May 14, 2009

Recently, I heard Maria Shriver advocate for further Alzheimer's disease research in connection to a new documentary, and felt she could have put it differently. Ms. Shriver cited polls that more people are afraid of Alzheimer's disease than heart disease, calling Alzheimer's disease "a baby boomer epidemic." Certainly it is a horrible disease and currently there is no cure, but it is not a neglected condition, just a hard one to crack. While I agree with Ms. Shriver that people should worry about old age, given the unsteady state of Social Security, Medicare, and the lack of pension support in this country, the rate of Alzheimer's disease remains constant—it is the aging population that has ballooned. People are now living longer, and statistically beyond a certain point, the chance that one develops dementia increases with each passing decade. Some people with a family history of Alzheimer's or other dementias are indeed at higher risk. But if you care about keeping your wits about you, be concerned about heart disease and type II diabetes, because you can actually do something to prevent them and because they trigger a cascade of other problems, including mental deterioration. And even if you have a higher genetic risk for late onset Alzheimer's (early onset is relatively rare) if you can stave off these conditions, you may delay the development of dementias as well. Certain scientists believe that staying intellectually active helps too, just by giving you greater cognitive reserve.

Wendy Wolfson,  May 12, 2009

I returned from travel only to be waylaid by one of those virulent day care bugs. I spent a wretched weekend, Kleenex box on hand, watching "Underworld," a trashy flick about vampires and werewolves, viruses and exchange of bodily fluids. My excuse; I wasn't up to the intellectual challenge of "28 Days Later", an intelligent movie about virus-induced zombies, whose writer, Alex Garland, was descended from a noted biomedical researcher. Aside from a black sense of humor, I still have my virus playing card deck from a stint at the CDC. The CDC was right to be aggressive in communicating to people about the swine flu outbreak, as nobody knew at that time if it would have the virulence to develop into a pandemic. And nobody yet knew why people in Mexico were dying of it. It looks like one answer is that many people didn't or couldn't afford to see a doctor until they were very sick, which bludgeons the point that an essential measure of national security is a health care system that deals with ordinary aches before they develop into something more serious. For perspective, in a CDC teleconference, the doc reminded everyone that on average, 36,000 adults and 100 children die every year in the U.S. from seasonal flu. I was pleased with our president for telling everybody to wash their hands. Marjana and Mr. Button now hold their hands up before dinner and instruct; "Wash!"

Wendy Wolfson,  May 10, 2009

There are advantages to being an older mother, some say. They say your patience is better, and the lens of experience helps you focus on what is important. There is much to be said about that, and I'm glad to pontificate, however, I would be probably piously fibbing. I'm not sure that being a demographic outlier is all that it is cracked up to be. On the other hand, I couldn't have done it differently, and still consider myself lucky to have gotten away with it at all. I got married and had twins in my mid-forties. Marjana and Mr. Button are now two. Marjana would look quite a lot like Carole Lombard if she didn't wear pink bodysuits with bug-eyed sheep on them. (Carole Lombard favored bias-cut satin dresses, totally unsuitable for the action-packed life of the modern toddler.)

Mr. Button earned his name shortly after he became mobile, as he has never seen a button on a DVD player that he didn't attempt to immediately push. We are relieved, at this juncture, that some other fellow is president of the U.S. and in charge of the Major Buttons of the free world. Because we know this: toddlers are unreliable. They are vectors of chaos. Beware the plastic dump truck left in your path. Scientists, meteorologists, mathematicians and stock market gurus devote their careers trying to determine a pattern to chaos. Marjana and Mr. Button are figuring things out for themselves. In the back yard is a conical seashell, Mr. Button's favorite. He picks it up, puts it on his head, and says "hat!" Reference: The Curves Of Life, Profusely Illustrated, An Account of Spiral Formations And Their Application To Growth In Nature, To Science And To Art; with special reference to The Manuscripts of Leonardo Da Vinci, Cook, Theodore Andrea, Dover Press, 1914.