Cleanup In Aisle 3

A big fear

The good — a novel and natural treatment for Alzheimer’s and beyond

The not so good — when the majority delegitimizes the minority because they can

Carl Sagan introduced me to the idea that I am made from stardust. Whether that is exactly true, I do not know. What I do know is how fundamental the understanding of light has been as a way to interpret the world.

The Good & the Not So Good

The constant of life is change. With today’s post, I am going to adjust my approach a bit. Instead of longish focus on a single topic (probably too long), I am shifting to shorter, standalone takes on all sorts of things. To make this more accessible and hopefully enjoyable, there will be a common theme to all of this. I hope you all like it! If, as I believe, living today rocks, I will write with the classification of very good things, good things, and not-so-good things. These snippets with be ~3 minutes each so most posts will be either 6 or 9 minutes in length. Today I am taking a couple of minutes to explain myself and then on to our three-minute features. Three minutes or so of each to make this easier to digest. If people want a conversation, the comments can be a place to start one. Today, in the inaugural, we will proceed with the good and the not-so-good.

The Good — Shining Light on a Problem

When illness arrives at our door (or our neighborhood) it is natural to dig in and learn more. The “good” thing today is regarding an amazing treatment advancing for diseases like dementia, and Alzheimer’s. I admit to a fear of the unknown a degenerative brain disease might bring be they sudden or slow developing. Alzheimer’s disease and dementia are rising causes of death. Part of this is undoubtedly due to increasing life expectancy, at least for some demographics. For men, we come to understand that if you retain your health via a mix of good genetics, diet, exercise, and engagement with others, you can avoid many of the common afflictions. Prostate cancer seems to be what might arise for us. At some level, it is the reward for avoiding the rest of our chronic ailments.

A long time ago in my early writing, I shared the details of the book “How Not To Die”. If ever a book was written with an exaggerated title, this was it! The book has become a bit of a guide for me in the pursuit of better health. That of course is another story! If you are interested, here is a link to an oldie.

How Not To Die

So what the heck do an old post and a catchy book title have to do with today’s entry? For me, it happens to be about fear and hope. As an optimist, we are going to concentrate on hope. One of the features of the book I mentioned was prior to discussing what we take into our bodies, the Doctor (and author) covered the likely cause of death most of us will face in our lives. I think the lesson he aimed for was to concentrate on the basic things you can do to avoid the top fifteen causes of death in America and you might go a long way toward a more enjoyable and active life. The part of the top 15 that gave me a laugh was a big and unfamiliar word, iatrogenic.

While it wasn’t the TOP cause of death, it was a bit unnerving to realize that death caused by medical examination was a MAJOR CAUSE OF DEATH!!!

The lesson of iatrogenic for me is to try to be well-informed and do what I can to minimize the medications I am taking if that is possible via healthy habits like diet and exercise. That doesn’t sound so hard…

One of the other of the top fifteen is not so easy to shrug my shoulders about. Degenerative brain diseases like Alzheimer’s, generalized dementia, and even some forms of cancer all exhibit a slow accumulation of plaque in our brains. Plaque is a class of chemicals we call amyloids. They are also the culprits in arthritis and all sorts of degeneration in our bodies. These clumps of junk in our heads and elsewhere clutter our thinking and eventually block memories and access to them. As recently as ten years ago, only an autopsy was considered as the way to validate Alzheimer’s. The characteristic plaque is the tell-tale sign. In some ways, this is not different than former athletes donating their brains for the study of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in head collision sports like hockey, football, and soccer. Only in advanced cases does CTE begin to exhibit the buildup of amyloids in our heads.

Well after that paragraph, this post doesn’t seem as optimistic as I often claim! It turns out amyloids are stable chemicals!!! Whenever modern medicine faces a disease, it reverts to radical surgery (brain surgery is hard) or the development of pharmaceuticals. That approach is expensive and time-consuming. In a cost-based system, remedies of other sorts are more challenging to institutionalize because they ARE HARD TO MONETIZE. This is probably why it has taken nearly a century of avoidance to begin to study the use CBD for pain conditions. It is hard to patent a natural plant. Today our GREAT and HOPEFUL story is about continuing research to attack amyloids in a novel way.

There are lots of mechanisms that control chemical reactions in our world. Furthermore, reactions can be reversed, it is a matter of the right conditions, components, and energy. That is how the world works! Some reactions are “spontaneous”. The ones that are spontaneous are often exothermic which means they give off heat.

Some chemical reactions are catalyzed by light. These sorts of chemical reactions have fascinated chemists for centuries, think photosynthesis for example. On Saturdays, in my days as a homeowner, I often had the radio as my partner in what I was doing. The shows I listened to on Saturdays in the background have now become part of my regular Podcast enjoyment. One of these is a show originating from WNYC in New York titled RadioLab.

There is positive and continuing research that light therapy can break down the amyloid that builds up in the brains of Alzheimer-like conditions. While far from settled, the research has been repeated and validated. Furthermore, even sound of a specific sort seems to STIMULATE our brain into action and drive the breakdown of amyloid in our brain. Subsequent research points to a similar effect with sound. It seems this amazing pattern recognition engine in our heads with enormous sensory hardwiring for sight, sound, taste, and smell can be activated to “send out the cleaning crew”. The latest research likens to what happens when we sleep to awakening a side of us that cleans up the mess our thoughts made that day. This is perhaps one of the reasons why sleep is so important. I recall hearing the original a number of years ago and the progress was wonderful to hear. The best part of this “teaser” 2016 story was the amazing progress subsequently revealed in 2020. This is EXCITING!!!

This is the best story I have heard in a long time. If its findings become a therapeutic method, this story will become an example of VERY GOOD. Take the time and enjoy “Bringing Back Gamma”. It is simply amazing that flickering light might be the input our brains need to do a cleanup on aisle three! Here are some links for those of you who are interested. Link #1¹, and Link #2² are worth a peek. Activating cleanup in our bodies is how we heal cuts, fight infection, clear our minds during sleep, etcetera. The generic term is phagocytosis for those of an inquiring mind.

The Not So Good — Why must we impose our views on others thereby stealing their freedom?

Since the end of the Civil War, some of us have never been satisfied with enjoying our freedom. Some primitive anger and righteousness accompany many minds that it can never be enough to be free for ourselves. Instead, when a majority can, it imposes its view of how things MUST BE DONE by everyone else. I consider this among the darkest of all human characteristics. It brings pain and misery and is propped up by righteousness. I wish we could excise this from our hearts.

Today’s not-so-good take comes to us from Mississippi. Mississippi has followed the path of many states and balkanized its minorities into a single place. Mississippi is about 36% African-American. It is apportioned four Congressional seats. Congressional District #2, drawn in an imaginative way with lots of crags manages to place 65% of all the African-Americans in the state into one district in and around the capital of Jackson. This has predictably led to three Republican and 1 Democratic outcomes in most elections.

So what you might say. The magic of data analysis has done this sort of thing on a grand scale around the country. This is not isolated to one region of the country, it seems to an obscene philosophy. Ohio has fifteen districts. Ohio votes approximately 53% to 45% or thereabouts. While not evenly split, it remains a place where many millions of people seek representation. In recent elections, it breaks down akin to 12 Republican and 4 Democratic districts (80%/20%). The 2020 Census reduced Ohio from 16 to 15 seats. This was originally accomplished in 2010 redistricting which larded “likely” Democratic voters into oddly shaped districts that are so misshapen and look more like tumors. Does this reflect the will of the people? You be the judge. Their congressional districts break down with their distorted shapes as 10-5 (67%) and their State Senate is 24-9 (73%) and their State House is 62-38. In a representative democracy, this is not healthy when our legislators no longer reflect us and ACTIVELY undermine any semblance of fairness or proportionality. Gerrymandering has become an insidious force.

So what’s up with Mississippi? What happens when the drive to disenfranchise even the vote results? The setting aside of portions of the Voting Rights Act has led to bolder actions by State Legislators. Our highest Court seems willing to allow this sort of thing. Mississippi, with durable Republican majorities has moved to impose the legislature deciding the structure of courts that administer law in Jackson. They only do this in Jackson. “Father knows best?” We’ve moved to a stage where we grudgingly provide the minimum voice to the minority. Now we will add a veto over how they choose to administer their lives. It is inconceivable to me that today’s Supreme Court would protect minority rights in such a case. Time will tell. For me, this is the proverbial definition of turning back the clock.

The Poll & Music

Despite a new delivery format, I hope my tone and outlook don’t change. I am an optimist. I believe all will be well if we stop worrying about what others are doing and ride the wave and focus on how we can better manage our own lives. The song remains the same.

What’s Next

Since the format of these posts is now transparent, no need to tell you what’s next anymore!

1. https://alzres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13195-022-01022-7

2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34569637/