My Unremarkable Brain

One of my favorite books this year was Dr. Robert Lustig’s The Hacking of the American Mind .   Reading it is the nonfiction equivalent of sitting in Mister Toad’s Wild Ride: you feel yourself swerving from biochemistry, through history, culture, and law, until finally landing on a dizzying quasi-conspiracy theory that explains why Americans are so depressed ,   overweight ,  addicted , and unhappy .  It’s crackin’ good fun! In the first part, Lustig works to define happiness.  Specifically, he wants to differentiate two facets: contentment and pleasure .  Thousands of years ago, Aristotle separated  eudaimonia — long-term contentment and well-being — from hedonia — temporary pleasure.  Lustig brings these definitions into the 21 st century using the MRI scans and neurochemistry.  He explains that pleasure (a new pair of jeans, a video game, a cup of coffee, a glass of wine), is associated with the production of dopamine, th...

“I know ev’rybody on this island…” My niece’s sweet, high voice flows into the microphone, through the speakers, and over the room.  At nine years old, she’s fearless.  She loves singing, loves her family.  So why not perform the Moana theme song in front of a crowd of 40 relatives?  You have to admire the innocent bravery of children. It’s my second Thanksgiving in as many days.  Baltimore with Judy’s family, then Boston at mine.  In the weeks leading up to this, My thoughts were about travel, about turkey, about holiday weight gain.  But, of course, that’s not what it’s about.   The basic unit of the brain is the neuron.  An amazing little cell, the neuron moves chemicals and electricity from one place to another.  But the neuron is no good on its own.  The neuron’s power lies in its connections. Together, neurons form neural networks, and these networks create everything we call life: motion, sensation, thoughts, f...

My life has been unduly influenced by Jim Abrahams.  So I figured on this Thanksgiving week, I’d give a shout-out to the man whom I’ve never met, but who’s made my life better in the most unusual ways. In case you don’t recognize the name, Jim Abrahams is 33% of the trio Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker (or, ZAZ), the brilliant comedy team that made some of the most ridiculously hilarious movies of all time. I’d estimate that about 80% of the words that came out of my mouth between the ages of 12 and 18 were made up of quotes from the Airplane! , P olice Squad , and Naked Gun series.   For my friends and I, it was impossible to get through a week without admonishing one another, “Please don’t call me Shirley,” or asking, “Have you ever been in a Turkish prison?” Sophomoric? Yes.  But we were at that sophomore stage in our lives.  It was our shared language, our way to bond.  Teenage boys (well, let’s face it: men of all ages) don’t generally have a whole l...

“But BigDave,” I hear you say. “I just read an article that said low-carb diets will kill you (well, okay, I read the headline on my feed, but the picture was VERY convincing…).” As Nina Teicholz explains in The Big Fat Surprise , the problem with articles like this one is that they rely on observational studies to draw conclusions.  In contrast to a clinical trial (think hypothesis, experimental group, control group, all that science-y type stuff you haven’t thought about since 11 th grade), an observational study takes a peek at what’s going on with a big group of people and tries to draw connections.  Observational studies give us ideas like: polio is associated with ice cream consumption ,    drowning in a pool is related to Nicholas Cage films , and eating margarine leads to divorce (but only in Maine).     The thing is, Teicholz says, it’s impossible to draw definite conclusions from these types of studies.  They c...

I mentioned in an earlier post  that I’m participating in a year-long study of the Modified Atkins Diet (MAD) and epilepsy.  You may wonder, how did the infamous Dr. Atkins and his infamous "fad diet" get connected with epilepsy?  Excellent question, Sherman! Let’s jump in the Wayback Machine and find out. Epilepsy has been documented in Western culture since ancient times.  Folks back then had no idea what caused seizures (probably something simple like, ya know, demonic possession) but they did find that fasting seemed to prevent them.  Fasting was used widely, by such famous healers as Hipporcrates ( On the Sacred Disease ) and even Jesus (Mark 9:29).   The problem is, you can only fast for so long.  If Looney Tunes taught us anything, it’s that at some point, your best friend starts to look like a carved turkey, and then the whole relationship just goes south. A breakthrough came in the 1920s, when physicians discovered tha...

I’ve fallen in love with Nina Teicholz.  I’m reading her 2014 book The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat & Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet . Part scientific text, part history, part whodunit, the book asks the question: how did dietary fat get the bad rap it has today, and is it deserved? (Spoiler alert: no).   As a Big Guy of a certain age, on a ketogenic diet for epilepsy , I have certain concerns: what about cholesterol?  What about saturated fat? What about heart disease?  This is why I picked up Big Fat Surprise .  I’m only halfway through, but the book has blown my mind several times already.  The revelations of how soft money, politics, and prejudice form the basis of American dietary guidelines are pretty shocking. (For example, did you know that the famous “ Food Pyramid ” was written by a single, vegetarian-leaning congressional staffer who had no background in science, and with no consensus from the academic community?)....

Here we go again, folks.  Sunsets are getting earlier and temps are getting cooler, which can only mean one thing: sugar.   It’s well known that the holiday season is when we tend put on extra pounds ,  even though, as fitness guru Vinnie Tortorich says, “It’s not what you do between Christmas and New Year’s that matters, it’s what you do between New Year’s and Christmas.” Part of this may be the much-maligned Christmas Creep .  It’s not enough that we have a couple of cookies and milk on Christmas Eve, we tuck into the candy canes and egg nog for a full month ahead of time. But if you think about it, is it more than just Christmas that's to blame?  If we open up the definition of “holiday season” a bit, a picture starts to form.   Here’s a quick rundown of some fall and winter holidays (both religious and secular, real and made-up).  What traditional foods come to mind? September - Pumpkin Spice Everything Season begins. Oct...