Vegan and Carnivore

Vegans follow a philosophy of eating only vegetable products, whereas vegetarians allow themselves to eat some animal products such as eggs and milk. Vegans usually avoid animal products for ethical, health or environmental reasons, whereas vegetarians who consume eggs and milk point out that their dietary choices do not harm other living beings. Omnivores will eat both vegetable and meat products, and carnivores eat only other animals.

Humans have evolved eating a varied diet and this has resulted in evolutionary adaptations that set certain limitations on what we should eat to be healthy. Unlike other mammals, humans do not have the capacity for making Vitamin C and this requires regular consumption of fruits and vegetables to avoid scurvy. Similarly, the human body needs to have Vitamin B12 and essential omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids that can be satisfied by eating fish. People who are strictly vegan usually develop Vitamin B12 deficiencies unless they consume fortified products. Vitamin B12 deficiency can result in anemia and nervous system damage. Low levels of Vitamin B12 increase the risk of heart disease or pregnancy complications.

Cats are strict carnivores whose nutritional needs must be the met by eating meat or animal-based protein. Insufficient dietary protein results in the loss of skeletal muscle tissue. Like humans, cats convert carbohydrates that are not used for energy into body fat. A diet should have the right proportion of macronutrients to supply all the essential nutrients with a low enough level of calories to avoid obesity.

I was recently interviewed by the Baltimore Sun for an article about calorie restriction and its life-extension effects.

Recent research by David Sinclair, a Harvard University molecular geneticist, has found a link between aging and two human genes that seem to play a role in the longevity of the cells that compose our bodies. In 2003, Sinclair made headlines when he found that resveratrol, a compound in red wine, can lengthen the life span of yeast cells by up to 80 percent. The compound has also been shown to extend the lives of worms and flies. Resveratrol activates SIRT1, a gene that produces enzymes known as sirtuins. It turns out that cells which are starved by giving them fewer nutrients try to protect themselves from dying by activating two more of the seven sirtuin genes humans carry, SIRT3 and SIRT4. This knowledge may help to shed some light on the molecular mechanisms of life extension.

While the search for a longevity elixir continues, we have to rely on calorie restriction, which has been known to extend the life span of many species. Although calorie restriction has not been shown to extend human life span (yet), it can prevent many of the diseases associated with aging and obesity such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and hypertension.

An Indian Sitar

The great human need for music can be judged from the success of the Sony Walkman recording cassette and today’s Apple iPod. Music has ancient traditions that can be documented to the time of the Neanderthals. In 1995, a 43,000-year-old flute fragment made from a bear femur was found in cave in northern Yugoslavia[1]. Music existed in the form of chants, whistles, and rhythmic beats for thousands of years before that.

Music is the most universal and ancient form of human communication, and the human voice is the most ancestral instrument. A lullaby will soothe a crying baby and the lyrics of a song will be remembered with little effort after many years. Music and rhyme provide a regular structure that helps us to organize our thoughts.

Listen to the sitar

[1] Early Music. Editorial sidebar in Science, Vol. 276, 11 April, 1997, pg. 205.

Sales of bottled water have grown to record levels as people have become more affluent and more conscious about their health. Advertisements for bottled water help to boost sales by emphasizing the purity and the taste of the product.

In reality, bottled water is seldom better than the city water that comes out of a faucet. Last July, news channels reported that Pepsi’s Aquafina and Coca-Cola’s Dasani are both made from public water sources. Unless the labels of the bottles say that the source of the water is a spring, bottled water usually comes from municipal water supplies, and it can be 10,000 times more expensive than tap water due to transportation and packaging costs.

Dentists have noticed a rise in the number of tooth cavities in children due to drinking bottled water. Bottled water usually does not have the fluoride that is normally added to municipal water, and fluoride has been shown to strengthen teeth and reduce cavities. Bottled water is basically a luxury item that does not have any benefits over most municipal public water sources, but there are exceptions, such as in some neighborhoods of Washington, D.C. where the water is distributed through old lead pipes.

The D.C. Water and Sewer Authority officials announced a program that will replace all the city’s estimated 23,000 lead pipes by 2010 at a cost of $300 million. The agency’s Board of Directors mandated the plan after tests showed that thousands of District homes had water with lead levels above the federal safety limit.

Bottled water is a good option for places with unsafe municipal or underground water sources. As an alternative, purifying filters, such as Brita filters that contain activated charcoal and ion-exchange resins, can be used to remove chlorine and heavy metals like lead and mercury, but these filters are not effective against bacterial contamination.

An ice-free Arctic Ocean

Earlier this month, the European Space Agency released satellite photos showing an ice-free passage in the Arctic Ocean along northern Canada, Alaska and Greenland. The amount of ice in the polar region is at its lowest level since 1978, when NASA first started getting images of the Arctic. The melting of the polar ice has been attributed to climate changes caused by an increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by our industrialized society. Most of our energy is derived from fossil fuels such as coal and petroleum which generate carbon dioxide when they burn.

There are still many people who do not believe that global warming is a cause for concern, but researchers predict that the climate change by 2050 will place a large number of species at risk of extinction. The organisms affected will include corals, seals, and polar bears. Humans are so widely distributed that they will not face extinction, but many people will lose their homes.

If all the ice in Greenland melts, the sea level will rise by 7 meters (23 feet), and low-lying islands, such as the Maldives, will be swallowed by the sea. Parts of Bangladesh will become uninhabitable and create a humanitarian catastrophe as millions of people lose their homes and the fields on which they grow their food. New Orleans and the southern half of Florida will be underwater. Miami will disappear under the sea like the legendary city of Atlantis. Even a one-meter rise in sea level would be very damaging to the cities on the Gulf Coast and eastern seaboard of the United States.

Insurance companies have been paying close attention to these scientific predictions and adjusting their rates accordingly. During a trip to the North Carolina Outer Banks, I read a story in a local paper about a man who had bought a beautiful house by the shore many years ago. He had always thought of the house as a nest egg which would finance his retirement. Before he could sell, he was notified by his insurance company that the land on which the house was built had been recategorized as having a high risk of flooding and that his insurance would not be renewed. This also meant that any prospective buyers would not be able to get a mortgage to buy the house because they could not get insurance either. This is a story that is likely to be repeated many times as the sea level continues to rise.

Can we do anything about global warming? It is probably too late to do anything to prevent the Arctic from melting, but our individual actions could be significant.

• Cut down your driving
• Use less electricity
• Telecommute (work from home)
• Take public transportation
• Support solar, geothermal, and wind power
• Move away from low-lying coastal areas while you can still sell your house at a profit

See the Timeline of the Earth and flooding predictions

To be or not to be …

The verb BE is the most frequent and most misused verb in English. It is also the most irregular. BE may be used as an auxiliary verb or as a linking verb. Here is the conjugation of the verb “to be”:

Contractions of the verb “to be” are very peculiar because some forms can be confused with possessive nouns and must be disambiguated using context. Finally, there is the forbidden word “ain’t” which is used indiscriminately for “is not” and “are not” disregarding person agreement.

Learn about the usage of the verb “to BE”

The pancreas is a gland organ that produces insulin and glucagon. Insulin is a hormone that directs the body to store glucose as fat, whereas glucagon directs the body to break down fat (triglycerides) into fatty acids and ketone bodies that can be used by the body for energy. These two hormones help to keep glucose at a normal level in the body.

After a meal, the pancreas reacts to an increase of glucose in the blood by secreting insulin. When the body is not active enough to burn the available glucose and it cannot produce enough insulin to convert it to fat, blood sugar increases above normal levels. Persistent, elevated blood glucose is diagnosed as diabetes.

During periods when much of the available glucose has been consumed and the blood glucose level decreases, the pancreas releases glucagon causing the liver to convert fat into fatty acids and ketone bodies that can be used by the body for energy. This metabolic process is called ketosis. Carbohydrate shortages cause the liver to increase the production of ketone bodies from fatty acid oxidation, and allow the heart and skeletal muscles to use ketone bodies for energy, thereby preserving the limited glucose for use by the brain.[1] Ketosis starts when carbohydrates are depleted and you feel hungry. At this time, your body starts to burn fat.

Diets, like the Atkins diet, work by limiting carbohydrates. This forces the body to burn fat for energy. You will lose weight when the number of calories in the diet is reduced below those needed to maintain your current weight.

[1] Medical Biochemistry Page - Fatty Acid Oxidation

I visited Atlantic City during the Labor Day holiday.  The weather was perfect and it was very pleasant to walk along the beach wading in the warm water.  However, Atlantic City is also known for its casinos.  Atlantic City is the Las Vegas of the East Coast.

The casinos are dimly lit, the atmosphere is always filled with cigarette smoke even though there are separate smoking and non-smoking areas, and there is the constant din of the slot machines 24 hours per day.  I risked $20 Dollars in a 25-cent slot machine, and cashed out when the total went up to $50 Dollars after several plays — a $30-Dollar profit.  Other people around me were not so lucky.  I saw several who started with $50 or $100 Dollars and had nothing 30 minutes later.  In the $5-Dollar machines, the money goes even faster.  One pull with a bet of 3 credits costs $15 Dollars.  You can lose $100 Dollars with seven pulls of the handle in less than one minute.  No wonder that the casinos are so rich.  New Orleans is still a disaster zone full of rubble two years after hurricane Katrina destroyed the city in 2005, but the casinos in Biloxi, Mississippi which were also wiped out, were reconstructed in record time.  There is no financial incentive for rebuilding New Orleans, but the casinos would have lost billions of Dollars if they had not been rebuilt promptly.

During my stay in Atlantic City, I paid attention to the players.  I tried to figure out why they kept putting coins in the slot machines even though they kept losing.  I risked another $20 Dollars, and this time I got nothing.  I quit while I was $10 Dollars ahead for my two-day stay. It seems that humans are no more intelligent than fish who go after a shiny lure, get hooked, and become a meal for a fisherman. Casinos have refined the art of taking our money using techniques that take advantage of our greed and our lack of discipline.

Calorie Restriction (CR) is being promoted as a way of extending human life span based on experiments that show that CR increases longevity of monkeys, dogs, mice, and even worms. Americans, who are now the world’s fattest people, are aware that being overweight leads to cardiovascular disease and diabetes, but they seldom take steps to control their weight. Instead, doctors help Americans live longer by treating the symptoms of their indulgent life style with statins like Lipitor to lower cholesterol, oral glucophage tablets to help control high blood sugar levels, and thiazide diuretics to reduce high blood pressure.

Some people hear the message that CR extends lifespan by eliminating the diseases associated with obesity, and embrace the concept with great intensity. They go on severe diets, lose weight, and feel great until one day they discover that their bone density tests show bone loss and increased risk of fractures. How could this have happened?

Many nutrients are required to maintain bone mass. Bones require more than calcium. The glue that holds the bone minerals together is collagen, a protein. In order to preserve healthy bones while losing weight, it is necessary to practice Optimum Nutrition. You cannot simply stay on the Standard American Diet while cutting calories. The Standard American Diet, which is the basis for the USDA Reference Values, consists of 15% protein, 30% fat, and 55% carbohydrates. This provides only 75 grams of protein per day for a 2000-Calorie diet. If you reduce your intake by 300 Calories to try to lose approximately 2 pounds per month, the remaining 1700 Calories of American Standard diet will only provide 63 grams of protein per day which will put your bones at risk.

Lower calorie diets require proportionally higher percentages of protein such as those of the Zone diet which has 30% protein, 30% fat, and 40% carbohydrates. A 1700-Calorie diet with this proportion of nutrients will provide 127 grams of protein which will keep muscles and bones healthy while you lose weight. Of course, make sure that you also have adequate levels of calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, Vitamin D, and trace elements that help to maintain healthy bones — and don’t forget your weight-bearing exercises.