I have four cases of soda in the trunk of my car. It’s all diet, and except
for one case, it’s all caffeinated. Each case has 12 cans. So I am driving
around with about 600 ounces of carbonation in my trunk. I’m taking the
curves slowly today.
About this soda: I’m not having a big party or buying in obscene bulk to
split with friends. Nor am I sustaining a family of four or a troop of
thirsty boy scouts.
No, it’s all for me. These four cases are my stash for the next two or
three weeks. After about 10 years of guzzling about four or five cans a day, I am
a confirmed, unabashed diet cola addict.
And this is my story — of how I got here, what I’ve learned about soda,
and how I tried, for one measly week, to kick the habit.
But first, can a person truly be addicted to soda, in the same way a person
is addicted to cigarettes or painkillers? “Well, it depends on how you
define addiction,” says Sharron Dalton, Ph.D., associate professor at New
York University’s department of Nutrition and Food Studies. “A physical
addiction means that there will be withdrawal symptoms when the substance is
taken away.” Critics of the caffeine in most carbonated beverages claim that
these symptoms can hit hard. And after going a week without my fix, the word “hard” doesn’t even come close to describing my soda woes.
However, my habit goes back to my teens, when I first discovered my taste for the bubbly and my need for the bubbly — cruising through the rest of adolescence on a carbonated wave. Whenever my mother started buying it, I started drinking it. I
littered the house with cans of Diet Rite, Diet Pepsi, Diet Coke. Like my
mother, I too, am somewhat of a soda slut — meaning I have little brand
loyalty. Given a choice, however, I’ll usually take Diet Coke.
Other than a few summers in Maine — when I was forced to go to a camp that
banned junk food — I’d estimate that the longest I’ve gone without a
soda is about three days. Sure, I’ve been temporarily stymied, but I’ve
always gotten my fix. And oh, the things I’ve done for a soda!
When I lived in Paris, I’m ashamed to say how much money I spent on Diet
Coke (or Coca-light, as its called there). At some cafes, I’d forgo the
fois gras and I’d plunk down 25 francs (roughly $5 at the time) for a
measly glass bottle you rarely find in this country.
And at work, I am known as a soda fiend. On a particularly “bad” day –
when it’s 10 a.m., for example, and I am already reaching for my third one
– I am forced to get sneaky, to save face with colleagues, family and
friends. When no one is looking, I replace an empty with a fresh can and
quietly relegate the empty to the recycling bin. (A brief coughing fit
disguises the distinctive pffftt of a can being opened.)
But even my own fanaticism has its limits and one night I started thinking.
Can this virtual cola I.V. drip be doing serious harm? A knee-jerk
reaction condemns soda as an unequivocal dietary evil. It’s very easy to
call soda names. Simply take a look at the ingredient list, says the Center for Science in the Public
Interest — a Washington organization that has famously bashed
Americans’ love affair with junk food — in a 1998 report that derides soda
pop as “Liquid Candy.”
But should we?
Because I had to find out if some fanatical group was unnecessarily
disparaging my best friend, I abstained from diet soda for one whole week.
I thought it would be a good exercise in self-control and a chance to do
some digging. Maybe a full week of caramel-colored cleansing would leave me
feeling renewed and healthier. I’d spend that week researching soda, trying
to find out exactly what is bubbling in the great American beverage.
Now, I must admit that I went on a bit of a binge in the days immediately
preceding the appointed day. And although there were plenty of times when I
almost fell off the wagon, I made it.
But it was hard. There were many stumbling blocks. Consider the plight of a
diet soda addict: Soda is just about everywhere. It seems like every street
corner has a mini-market or vending machine. And to make things worse, at
my office, the fridge is perpetually stocked with soda. It’s free to all
employees. Needless to say, a workplace perk to others was my
personal hell this week. I felt like an alcoholic assigned to work in a
bar. The cooler mocked me wickedly.
Part of the reason the week was so hard is that I don’t really like other
beverages. For starters, I hate milk, and as for juice, tea and coffee –
none of them do it for me on an everyday basis. In my experience, they all
deposit a bitter, almost rancid aftertaste on my palate. Others, however,
contend that diet sodas actually have a bad aftertaste, due to the
aspartame used to sweeten them. And is this artificial sweetener really
going to give me cancer, or worse, as the fanatics at www.aspartamekills.com argue?
No. Aspartame, found in both NutraSweet and Equal brands, is made of two
amino acids: aspartic acid and phenylalanine. We consume these same amino
acids in foods every day — from milk and fruits to vegetables. Regardless
of the source and of the amount consumed, the body simply digests them.
(Although there are some people who lack the necessary enzyme to do so.
For the one in 16,000 people born with this serious condition –
phenylketonuria, or PKU — foods with phenylalanine can cause mental
retardation and seizures. All foods or beverages containing aspartame bear
labels warning about this ingredient.)
But since 1967, more than 200 studies have been conducted on aspartame.
While there have been false alarms along the way, all of these studies have
boiled down to one thing, say the folks at NutraSweet: The sweetener is safe –
even for pregnant and breast-feeding women.
And many reputable organizations agree. While they are hardly handing out
diet colas, the American Medical Association, American Cancer Society,
National Cancer Institute, the American Diabetes Association and the Food and Drug Administration all consider aspartame a safe sugar substitute.
So NutraSweet is not going to kill me. But what about dehydration? I drink
so much soda and so little water that I worry my blood may be more brown
than red. But with all due respect to Mother Nature, water bores me.
Anyway, there’s plenty of water in soda, right? (It’s the first
ingredient, after all.) That rationalization was quickly shot down. It’s
both carbonated and caffeinated. While there is nothing inherently bad
about carbonated water, said Edith Howard Hogan, a nutritionist and
spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, it does have a
propensity to cause bloating and gas.
Suffice it to say, I know a bit about bloating. I spent my week anxiously
awaiting the appearance of my simply stifled washboard abs. Not only did I
cut out carbonation, but by virtue of doing so, I actually ate less salt.
To me, the two are inseparable. So without a diet coke, I had little
appetite for pretzels or chips, to say nothing of the ultimate combination:
popcorn and soda. You don’t see them selling guava juice at the movies, do
you?
But at the end of the week I still had that paunch. And I still felt a tad
bloated. Perhaps my stomach just looks like that. Maybe I should just do
some sit-ups. What’s more, said Hogan, the caffeine in most sodas has a
diuretic effect that pretty much negates all that water. (She also told me
that if I really want a flat stomach I would not only stretch daily, but
I’d start wearing better “foundations.” A girdle, I thought, does not
constitute an organically flat stomach, but Hogan was insistent that a
simple panty with support paneling would do me a world of good.)
I expected a terrible caffeine-withdrawal headache, but it was only on the
third day that I felt a slight one. But the whole caffeine issue doesn’t
end with headaches. Over the years, caffeine has been linked to myriad
health problems, from cancer and cardiovascular disease, miscarriages and
other fertility problems to aggravated PMS symptoms and migraine headaches.
While the stuff about PMS and migraines seems to be true, many of the more
dire reports have been discounted, or have unreplicated findings at best.
In fact, even experts at the prestigious Mayo clinic admit that “if you are
going to a have a vice, [it] is probably one of the least harmful. As long
as you drink it in moderation.”
But we don’t. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, teenage boys drink an average of three
sodas a day, and girls don’t trail far behind. As a whole, Americans drink
about two times as much soda as milk, and six times a much as fruit juice.
And who can blame them? But still, I was curious: How much caffeine are we
really getting every time we crack open a can? Turns out that just one cup
of drip coffee can have about 140 milligrams of caffeine, whereas a diet
soda usually has about 45. So even if I drink five caffeinated cans, I’ll
still be getting less caffeine than if I had two eight-ounce cups of coffee.
And these are not the overflowing grandes most people knock back these
days.
But having too much caffeine — even if it is less than the amount in
coffee — is not the only drawback to soda. The phosphoric acid used in
most dark colas, added for taste and acidity, can double-cross you.
Here’s how, explained NYU’s Sharron Dalton: “Phosphorus and
calcium are both critical minerals for bone growth and maintenance. In
healthy bones, there’s an equilibrium of the two. Get too much phosphoric
acid in the body, and calcium reserves are called in to neutralize the acid and
restore the balance.”
But the nefariousness of phosphoric acid doesn’t stop there. The kidneys
(in my case, probably already craving water) must bear the brunt of all
this work. What’s more, some studies have linked soda drinking, and the
surfeit of minerals tumbling through the kidneys, with the formation of
kidney stones.
More than “brittle bones” or “hip fractures,” “kidney stones” are two words
that terrify me. Having kidney stones is one of the most painful experiences
possible, I hear. They’ll bring you to your knees, victims warn. While
there’s been sparse research on the precise relationship between kidney
stones and soda, it seems significant to me that the National Institute of
Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases has
relegated sodas to its “to be avoided” pantry.
So Hogan tried to strike another deal with me: “Why don’t you, every time
you drink a soda, also have a glass of water.” If I follow Hogan’s advice
I’ll spend my weekend in the bathroom. Trying to wrestle with a girdle, no
doubt.
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -
-
I wish I could say that when I woke up on the first day after my diet soda
detox, I didn’t think about soda, but the truth is, I did. And around 11
a.m., I opened my first can of soda in one week. The sound was a decidedly
melodious hiss, followed by a joyful, crisp POP. And the taste was equally splendid.
But then something funny happened. I guess I got distracted, because the
next thing I knew, it was hours later and I hadn’t touched it. Now that is
surely progress, right? Perhaps the week had chipped away, if only just a
little bit, at the force of my habit.
But come Monday, I noticed myself easing right back into my old
chain-drinking ways. So I sent a quick e-mail to the person in charge of the
bulk junk-food supply at our office.
“I have a special request,” I began. “Could we get some diet Sprite or diet
7-Up in our next shipment?” (Neither of those contain phosphoric acid or
caffeine.) “No problem,” she said. “Expect delivery by next week.”
And, at Edith Howard Hogan’s suggestion, I’ve started to sneak more water
and milk into my day. I now mix hot chocolate packets with water, and if
there is any milk around, I dump some of that in, too.
It may be my only vice, but I am trying to rein it in.
But, at the risk of being an overzealous spokeswoman for either Coke or
Pepsi, I will always, always appreciate the tremendous Joy of Cola, and the
unparalleled taste of the Real Thing.
America’s latest cultural export to the United Kingdom isn’t some hot new software or a hip-hop single, it’s a controversial medical theory that seeks to explain why so many people die in police custody. The concept, called “excited delirium” (ED) or “in-custody death syndrome,” is being put forward by a small but vocal clique of big-city coroners. Proponents of excited delirium argue that most people who die in police custody are not the victims of police brutality, but rather victims of their own cocaine or amphetamine abuse, which can trigger this fatal condition.
Since the mid 1990s excited delirium has been floated as an explanation in several high-profile police custody deaths in the United States. But so far, the “excited delirium” debate has yet to begin in the U.K. Last week, the Royal Society of Medicine in London held a conference on “The Medical Aspects of Death in Custody” due to the record number of people (65) who died in custody last year in England and Wales.
While excited delirium was not proved as the cause of many of these deaths, in other countries, such as Canada, most of the people who died from excited delirium between 1988 and 1995 were in police custody at the time, according to one study. Medical examiners say this may just be the tip of the iceberg, but it’s hard to say for sure since nobody tracks the number of ED-related
deaths that occur each year.
“You can’t prevent most of these deaths,” says Dr. Boyd Stephens, chief medical examiner for the City and County of San Francisco. This view is shared by his colleague, assistant medical examiner Dr. Steve Karch, who has just returned from addressing the conference on drugs, restraint and postural asphyxia.
“Whether or not these people [who die in custody] see the police is irrelevant. They could be seeing a seven-headed monster. They’re delirious, they get a surge of adrenaline and they die,” Karch says. He and others contend that the real cause of death is long-term amphetamine abuse, which causes heart disease and increases neurotransmitters, called Kappa 2 receptors, in the part of the brain — the lymbic amygdala — that is responsible for fear. Translation: Speed and crack make you paranoid and prone to heart attacks.
Karch says that being high and paranoid leads to erratic behavior, delirium and a heightened heart rate, often accompanied by a rise in body temperature. All of this, plus a weakened heart, can kill a person, and the police have nothing to do with it, he says.
But not everyone is so impressed by the new theory. A bevy of critics, ranging from police accountability activists, to former cops, to toxicologists and coroners, think Karch and other proponents of excited delirium have turned the causal sequence upside down.
“Most of the people who die in police custody die not from drugs or some mysterious syndrome but from police abuse,” says Van Jones, executive director of the Ella Baker Human Rights Center in San Francisco. “Officers choose to escalate confrontations and use force when dealing with disturbed and excited people.” Jones points out that many of the cases cited as prime examples of excited delirium or sudden in-custody death syndrome involve gross police misconduct and extreme violence.
The in-custody death of Aaron Williams in San Francisco, which was later attributed to excited delirium, is one such example. In 1995, Williams was chased and beaten by 12 police officers. According to press reports, he was high on drugs and “acting crazy” at the time. Once he was captured, the police twice sprayed him with pepper spray — a chemical agent that causes gagging and massive mucus production. The police then covered Williams’ face with a surgical mask and hogtied him, which consists of manacling hands and feet together behind the back. They then repeatedly kicked him in the head, according to eyewitnesses quoted in press reports. (Although the San Francisco Police Department denies this part of the account.) He was then left untended in the back of a paddy wagon with his face down. Less than an hour later, the prisoner arrived dead at the local cop shop.
“Williams was a classic case of excited delirium. The police had nothing to do with his death,” says Karch, who reviewed the autopsy report. The San Francisco medical examiner found evidence of numerous “blunt trauma” wounds to the head and abdomen, but came to the same conclusion as Karch. The city of San Francisco settled the case out of court for $98,000.
But Van Jones sees the Aaron Williams case as clear-cut police homicide. “The cops violated almost every one of their own rules — from spraying him twice to beating him and leaving him unattended,” says Jones.
Instead of excited delirium, Jones, the ACLU and other human rights activists say that pepper spray is the real killer. They argue that it was never proven to be safe. In fact, the one test that determined the weapon to be “less than lethal” was conducted by FBI agent Thomas Ward who later pled guilty to taking a $57,000 kickback from a pepper spray manufacturer. According to the ACLU, more than 100 people in the U.S. have died as a result of pepper spray since the early 1990s.
“These sorts of deaths are multi-factoral: obesity, heart trouble and amphetamine use are part of the problem. But excited delirium is not the cause of death,” says D.J. Van Blaricom, an expert witness on in-custody death who was a police officer for 30 years, 11 of them as police chief of Bellevue, Wash.
Blaricom says that more than anything it is the combination of pepper-spraying and hogtying that is leading to in- custody deaths. “Many of these cases involve exhausted, overweight or injured prisoners who are left hogtied and face down. They simply suffocate, and die from “positional asphyxia,” Blaricom says. “So it’s really a combination of bad police practices that is causing in-custody death syndrome.”
Karch disagrees. He maintains that hogtying is perfectly safe and dismisses positional asphyxia as a myth, pointing to a study in the Annals of Emergency Medicine. But that study used fit young men who exhausted themselves on exercise bikes before being hogtied. The International Association of Police Chiefs, a police professional organization, immediately dismissed the study as irrelevant because it failed to reproduce “field conditions.”
The death of Mark Garcia, also from San Francisco, is another case that is contentious. Proponents of ED say his death was a classic case of the condition. Garcia, 41, was arrested wearing only a shirt as he was running and rolling in the street shouting for help; his family speculates that Garcia, who had a history of cocaine abuse, was high and had just been robbed and partially stripped by his assailants.
Police pepper-sprayed him four times, a violation of department policy, and failed to wash his face with water, which is also required by department procedure. Police then hogtied the 331-pound Garcia, according to press reports, and placed him face down in a paddy wagon. Garcia died of suffocation and positional asphyxia soon thereafter.
A 1995 study by the ACLU examined 26 known deaths of people who had been pepper-sprayed and found several common denominators: alcohol and drugs were involved in 24 of the 26 cases; two suffered from acute psychiatric disorders; and in 14 of the 26 cases, the victims had been hogtied by police. While acknowledging the contributing role of heart disease and drug abuse, the ACLU rejects the notion of ED as being separate from police brutality.
“If we want to avoid death in custody, police must not only declare a moratorium on life-threatening practices such as using pepper spray, [but] they have to [also] follow established rules,” Jones says. And when the police violate their own rules willfully, Jones says they should be held accountable. “Police have to learn to de-escalate confrontations with agitated people; they have to practice verbal judo,” she says. “If 5-foot-2 female social workers and nurses can do it, then I am sure the cops can too.”
Whether these people are dying from police brutality or medical conditions such as excited delirium is still up in the air. But medical examiners like Karch are championing a new neurochemical test which, they say, will accurately determine if the person has died from excited delirium or another cause. “I’m not here to defend police brutality, but you’ll never know if police
brutality occurred unless you gather all the facts,” he says. He believes the test should be standard procedure in all suspected ED deaths. The test relies on taking fresh samples of brain tissue, and detecting changes in the brain chemistry. But the samples have to be taken within 12 hours of death — and many autopsies aren’t done until well after that time.
The truth about Waco
BY DAVID THIBODEAU
(09/09/99)
I grieve for the dead of Waco, and especially the children. But no matter
how the fire started, the fact cannot be ignored that David Koresh chose to
stay inside Mount Carmel for 51 days while the forces aligned against him
rested and plotted. If he cared a whit for the lives of his followers and
their babies, he should have led them to surrender — and finished writing
his interpretation of scripture from jail. Those people depended on him, and
he failed them as much as the government.
– Joe Hart
Lansdowne, Penn.
The survivor’s account of the government siege and resultant attack was
harrowing in its clarity. Thibodeau really made the terror, confusion and
sense of impending disaster palpable. He also did a good job of
differentiating Koresh’s community from those of the far right.
I marvel at the FBI’s belief that these facts would never come out, in this day an age of inevitable exposure. Still, there’s just one thing that puzzles me: Why is it that Thibodeau apparently never considered leaving the compound after the initial ATF assault? It’s understandable that he fervently disagrees with the government’s drastic actions. However, after the ATF agents were killed in the initial assault, he must have known that this type of response was almost certain to happen.
– Andrew Ricks
Houston
David Thibodeau tells a nice story about how his fellow
Branch Davidians were simply selling guns and not
breaking the law. The one thing he leaves out is the fact that people
inside the Waco compound shot ATF agents.
No matter what the charges, no matter whether they
were true or false, you can’t shoot cops. If David Koresh
wanted to fight the charges, he could have simply surrendered
and fought the charges in court.
Anyone else shoots cops in this country, the cops’ families
are accorded sympathy and the shooters reviled.
But Thibodeau and the former residents of the
compound have somehow escaped this ignominy.
Instead, congressmen use them to pander to
the hard right.
American history proves we need to be vigilant
of government power. But to act as if the tragedy
at Waco was a government conspiracy and not
something that Koresh and the adults
in the compound could have ended at any time
by surrendering to legal authority is obscene
and an insult to the dead and injured ATF agents, who were
acting under the concert of law.
– Stephen Gilliard
It has been an absolutely nauseating experience listening to the
press spin alibis (for the past six years!) for the conduct of the FBI
and the ATF at Waco in 1993. One of these agencies, the FBI, had a role
in the MOVE firebombing in Philadelphia and during the siege at Wounded
Knee; in both cases, the press was actively prevented from covering the
story — and corporate media sources twisted that story as soon as they
were allowed to tell it. There are even indications that the FBI may
have abetted the person(s) responsible for bombing Earth First-er Judi
Bari’s car.
In the past three decades, we have learned that the FBI lab is actually
very poorly run and unreliable; that COINTELPRO-type operations not only did exist, but are in all likelihood ongoing; that the FBI both actively
and passively assisted organized crime, going so far as to interfere in
the operations of local and state police forces; and that the power and
authority of the FBI were largely established by J. Edgar Hoover’s
blackmailing of congressmembers and others.
It is long past time that the FBI be dissolved, and their investigative
function devolved to state and local authorities. The United States does not need a national police force; no KGB or Gestapo is required to coordinate the efforts of smaller-scale law enforcement agencies. A national databank
of fingerprints, criminal records, etc. already exists; most states have
agencies capable of rigorous investigation, and those that don’t can
borrow personnel under existing laws. The mystique of the Feds was
largely created by Walter Winchell and by Hoover’s manipulated
statistics; today, knowing all that we do, we need not delude ourselves
further. The FBI must go.
(Name withheld at writer’s request)
Great balls of fire
BY SEAN ELDER
(09/09/99)
Sean Elder downplays some of the
strong points of “Rules of Engagement” and does not focus
on whether the main claims of “Rules” are correct. The only
discussion of the truthfulness of the claims in the film
is of the alleged infrared evidence of gunfire during
the last day of the seige, which is the most easily disputable
part of the film. This sort of photographic evidence is notoriously weak.
The general narrative of the film is that ATF agents had chosen
to stage a raid on the residence of an admitedly strange
religious group. Like a lot of people in Texas, they owned
guns and liked to make some money by selling them. The ATF
had called local reporters in order to get some free publicity (the staff at the ATF is shown preparing press releases before the raid). A reporter
tipped off the Davidians and the Davidians made a bad situation
worse by shooting at law enforcement agents. One bad decision
compounded by an even worse decision lead to the deaths
of four men and the maiming of many others. As is often the case,
instead of admitting an error and trying to resolve the
stand-off through some sort negotiation, the ATF and later the FBI
decided to get revenge rather than save the lives of the children
and the Davidians who had no part in gun dealing or in the shootings
of the four ATF agents. “Take no prisoners” resulted in
more bloodshed.
Instead of assessing all the evidence that points to this story and
seeing if it is true, Elder focuses on how bad we all feel
because the Davidians were not proper victims.
– Fabio Rojas
Gilded ink
BY DAVID CARR
(09/10/99)
I enjoyed David Carr’s screed against yuppie consumerism, but couldn’t help noticing that on the same page there was an ad for a leather bag intended as
“an elegant way to carry wine.” Who is this aimed at if not those same
yuppies Carr was railing against right alongside? Not to mention
the Salon shop offers gourmet coffee and sacks suitable for carrying both
Proust and your workout clothes — presumably aimed at yuppies with intellectual pretentions.
– Cara McAteer
New York
Carr sounds like the kind of virtuous pecksniff that has always given
moderation a bad name. I find the Weekend section of the Journal
consistently interesting and amusing, even though I don’t come close to the
august income levels the editors are hoping to reach. Do I need a $15,000
BBQ? No. Do I want one? No. Am I envious of those who have them? No.
But I look forward to reading about more of the same each week.
– Burt Kuhlman
Carr makes many worthwhile points in his dissection of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, but his vituperative tone and vulgar diction undercut his message. By the end of his screed, I was more irritated by his whining than I was by the faults of the newspapers he was criticizing.
– Thomas Matthews
A magical, movable feast
BY MICHAEL SRAGOW
(09/02/99)
I enjoyed Michael Sragow’s “Yellow Submarine” review, but I’m frustrated that with such lavish praise for the film, it’s still going to be difficult to see it in the theaters. I live just north of Atlanta, and I don’t see the film
anywhere on the horizon. I’ll have to rely on the DVD, although I don’t
have a player yet.
– Randall Gray
Iron daddy
BY KEVIN TROTTER
(09/08/99)
As a proud member of the “Sensitive New Age Guys Club,” I want to thank you for validating our feelings and raising the public awareness by publishing “Iron Daddy.” Kevin Trotter’s observations and attitudes are refreshing. Parenting is a job that doesn’t get the kind of press or priorities it deserves. If our society could become willing to enable parents to be with
their children, we would all benefit from it.
– Mike DeVries
Laugh track
BY SUSAN McCARTHY
(09/08/99)
Susan McCarthy’s excellent article highlights the
danger of treating any form of therapy as a
panacea. Humor therapy may be useful for some
patients in some situations, but, as with any
other approach that focuses on a patient’s
emotional needs, these techniques ought to be
applied with tact and sensitivity. At its
worst, humor therapy epitomizes the American
insistence that people experiencing pain and
grief deny their darker feelings and put on a
“happy face” so as not to make those around
them uncomfortable.
– Janet Lafler
A true fish story
BY MICHAEL ALVEAR
(09/09/99)
I was delighted and interested to read of the potential benefits of fish oil for alleviating depression. I kept wondering, however, if it would make sense to extrapolate further: Couldn’t some of the mental benefits from fish oil be associated with physical health benefits? Physical fitness is usually cited as an activity that keeps the mind sharp and sound as well as the body. The article cited the Japanese low incidence of heart disease and low rates of depression. It doesn’t take too
much imagination to see that if physical activity easily strains your
cardiovascular resources, the world might seem considerably more oppressive psychologically as well.
I was also struck by the anecdote about recovering tuberculosis patients;
who wouldn’t feel happier and more functional when recovering from a
life-threatening disease characterized by a painful, wrenching cough? I
certainly don’t want to dismiss what seems to be compelling initial evidence
for a more purely chemical benefit of fish oil in treating depression, but
we should also remember that seafood has been known to be a very healthy
source of nutrition and its oil a very healthy oil for a while now. And
when we feel better, well, we feel better, if you know what I mean.
– Brian C. Kenney
Somerville, Mass.
Linux laptop lust
BY ANDREW LEONARD
(09/07/99)
The “Linmodem,” like its sister, is a
waste of money to users. Such a modem soaks up to 40 percent of your CPU — which is fine only if you use your PC or laptop for very little else while you are browsing the Net or sending e-mail.
The whole design philosophy says the user has a machine
with excess power, so let that excess be soaked up by the winmodem or
winprinter. You can see that if you are a power user, the obvious next
move would be to go out and buy more memory and a faster CPU — which is effectively the purchase of a modem at great expense. The manufacturers
of these animals assume users would take this course of action, thinking
they have a great modem at a good price and that the rest of the machine
is lacking in performance.
Both Linmodems and winmodems equal dumbmodems.
– Sid Boyce
An embryo during the first trimester, when its fingers are separating and taste buds forming, is solely dependent on its mother for a lot of things — among them, the production of thyroid hormones. But when the mother has a problem making enough of them, not only can the mother’s health be affected, but the baby’s intelligence as well, according to a new study.
In this week’s New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. James Haddow claims that pregnant women who go untreated for hypothyroidism have children with lower IQs. “I don’t know anything else where you can find something, treat it and expect that the development of the child’s brain would benefit,” says Haddow, the director of the Foundation for Blood Research in Scarborough, Maine.
Antibodies that compromise the mother’s thyroid function can cross the placenta and affect the baby’s own ability to produce thyroid hormones, which only starts in the second trimester. A malfunctioning thyroid can, in severe cases, lead to mental retardation. The importance of this gland’s working properly should signal to the medical community, he says, the need to screen for hypothyroidism as early as possible during pregnancy. The study also notes another benefit:
increased chances for the mother to be healthy throughout and after the pregnancy.
Located in the front of the neck, the thyroid gland creates hormones that are responsible for energy production. When the body isn’t making enough of these hormones, hypothyroidism occurs; conversely, when it’s producing too much, hyperthyroidism results.
Haddow and his team of researchers found that women with hypothyroidism
had children who scored four points lower in IQ tests than the children of women who didn’t have the disease. In addition, they found that treatment can make a difference.
Those born to women who were not treated — by taking supplemental thyroid hormones — scored seven points lower than kids of healthy mothers. The kids were between the ages of 7
and 9 when tested.
While it’s standard practice to test for anemia, rubella immunity, Hepatitis B and blood type during the first trimester, doctors do not routinely screen for hypothyroidism; mostly, obstetricians test when there’s family history or if a woman is showing symptoms.
Although hypothyroidism occurs in about 3 percent of women of childbearing age, it often goes undiagnosed because it’s difficult to detect. Hypothyroidism easily masks itself because its symptoms — including fatigue, constipation and weight gain — can be attributed to so many other conditions. Since a woman’s body is changing so much during pregnancy, it’s even harder to pinpoint the cause of symptoms. Haddow suggests that women be given a blood test that measures the levels of thyroid stimulating hormones (TSH), which he says is more accurate than the physical examinations.
The connection between hypothyroidism and IQ is not new. It was made 30 years ago. But Haddow thinks there haven’t been mandatory screenings because, until now, no study as significant as this one had documented the need. (Although he believes, as with most scientific studies, that there should be follow-up research to confirm his findings.)
“The message is that we are not detecting thyroid disease and it is costing patients and their offspring delay in diagnosis and treatment,” says Dr. Richard Dickey, president of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists. “This is pretty frightening because we should not be depriving children of intellectual capacity.”
Dickey takes it another step and believes that testing should be done before a woman even gets pregnant, so she can have her hypothyroidism under control before the baby even starts to develop. While Haddow agrees that the earliest detection possible is the optimal, he says it would be difficult to execute: How do you find all these women right before they get pregnant, when many of them don’t show up until they miss their period? (Easy, Dickey says: Test all women of childbearing years.)
But not everybody believes that this study will have wide-scale impact. And not all obstetricians are convinced of its importance — at least when it comes to a few IQ points.
“Frankly, I don’t think that four points of an IQ [score] is that significant and they think that’s the important thing,” says Dr. Carol Archie, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UCLA School of Medicine. “What could be important is the health of women and the prevalence of thyroid disease. My inclination would be to say, not based on the outcome for the babies, but based on the outcome for the mothers, this might be something we should screen for.”
My theory that a well-made gin gimlet, a snort of coke, one screaming orgasm and handful of Prozac can cure any emotional or physical ailment is not too popular these days. Instead, seekers of healthier bodies, longer lives and socially acceptable dispositions are turning to echinacea, St. John’s Wort, chiropractors, fasting, biofeedback, reusable maxipads, acupuncture, yoga, green tea, Shiatsu, Feng Shui, melatonin, aroma therapy, meditation, veganism, the Zone, blue-green algae, Tai Chi, visualization, accupressure, Reflexology, Rolfing, magnet therapy, gemstone therapy and that greatest of salves, colonic irrigation. It’s an unfortunate trend that will hopefully peak soon.
In the oppressive meanwhile, there’s no question that unconventional therapies have hit the big time. My own dear mother — whom I use as a barometer for judging the consumer climate-shifts of aging, suburban boomers (thanks, Mom!) — swears by green tea and a long list of vitamins I’ve never heard of. But this doesn’t explain why three weeklies decided to publish packages on alternative treatments this week. Is it National Homeopathy Appreciation Week and somebody forgot to tell me? Did the makers of St. John’s Wort suddenly announce a large-budget advertising campaign aimed at alternative-newspaper readers?
Of course, “alternative” medicine is an obvious beat for “alternative” media outlets to cover. While the dailies and newsweeklies regurgitate press releases sent by drug companies, tout the latest study — broccoli causes cancer; cures heart disease! Viagra makes you horny, baby, but it’ll kill you! — and write the occasional gee-whiz, Fluffernutter piece on the herbalist next door, weeklies could be producing some groundbreaking reporting on a growing industry that is both helping and exploiting people without much accountability. Unfortunately, “could be” is the operative phrase in that last sentence. Most of the articles I read this week reveal a galling lack of insight, critical thought or journalistic skill.
Long Island Voice, July 1-7
“A few berries short of a smoothie” by Beth Greenfield
This article is the star of an otherwise worse-than-weak package on health-care alternatives. Supersleuth Beth Greenfield talks to employees of health food stores about their customers. “They recite tales of customers who shop with gloves on to protect them from germs, spend hours upon hours in the store as if at a lengthy cocktail party or obsessively rearrange items on the shelves like they are at home. Then there are the seekers who give gruesome accounts of their dietary afflictions to anyone who’ll listen or who wear nose-and-mouth masks to protect them from scented products.” Greenfield fails to mention that the prices as some of these health food stores are high enough to give anyone a breakdown.
Tanya Indiana’s contribution to this package, “Old soldiers of the New Age,” sadly seems to be lacking a point. It’s purportedly about elderly people who use non-mainstream remedies, but the result is a few sloppy profiles, sprinkled with some unexplored skepticism and no unifying thesis.
—————–
Detroit Metro Times [articles and issue not dated]
Special Issue: Alternative Health
The Detroit Metro Times takes the cheerleading approach to journalism with this package that’s “meant to start you on your own journey to healing.” Alternative treatments are simply assumed to be the way to go, and no effort is made to bring a balanced perspective to the table (unless you count self-declared skeptic Audrey Becker’s recommendation that if you just try a few unproven therapies, you’ll find one that works for you). Gretchen Van-Monette’s article on “Hemp for health” quotes someone who sells hemp seed oil, the president of Hempola (another producer of hemp oil), a naturopathic doctor and one academic from Detroit’s Wayne State University. This isn’t journalism, it’s boosterism. If I need to find the nearest algae enema provider, I’ll check the Yellow Pages, thank you much.
—————–
Village Voice, June 30-July 6
“Mind Body Spirit Summer 1999″
The Village Voice promises the “essentials for a healthy summer,” but the online version of its package is as skimpy as a g-string. (My sources in New York apparently don’t read the Voice, so I couldn’t confirm this theory.) That said, the two and a half articles posted on the Voice’s Web site did leave me wanting more. Debra Desalvo’s “Is yoga therapy an oxymoron?” deftly reports on the complicated and fascinating problem of yoga instructors using stretches and poses to access student’s encoded memories of trauma, which the teachers are then not equipped to deal with. “Growth spurt” by Christopher Reardon about a gym for tots was less interesting — more about how yuppies spend money than health — but well-written none-the-less.
—————–
Minneapolis/St. Paul City Pages, June 30-July 6
“Of Bugs and Men” by Katy Reckdahl
Sitting on my desk at this very moment is my new favorite torture instrument, the “Magic Racket” or “Dengue Fever Bat.” This brilliant invention, smuggled in from Taiwan by an acquaintance, is shaped like a tennis racket and has one purpose in life: electrocute bugs. Depress a small button on the handle, and the waffle grid heats up. Swat a fly with it, and the fly bursts into flames; sometimes it explodes. I can’t tell you how much joy this electric swatter from bug hell has brought me thus far. Doubtless, mosquito season will provide many future hours of fiery bliss to yours truly. And thanks to reporter Katy Rechdahl, I have a little more information about those evil, blood-sucking, monsters who are going to meet their god this summer.
Rechdahl’s descriptive and densely reported piece looks at mosquitoes, the people who kill them, the entomologists who study them, the epidemiologists who study the diseases they carry, the environmentalists who fight to protect them (more specifically, fight the pesticides used to eradicate their numbers). Minnesota has one of the largest mosquito populations in the world, so there’s plenty of material to dissect here. Indeed, the most interesting characters in this piece are the mosquitoes themselves. These bugs use “six moving mouth parts that scissor and saw their way into the skin. One blood meal is about a drop, and, contrary to conventional wisdom, the mosquitoes don’t eat it,” explains Rechdahl. “That infernal buzzing? It’s a mating song.” Mosquito sex tends to occur on or near poo. “Their saliva — which is what makes you itch — deadens your skin, making it less likely that they’ll be slapped.” Bastards! They will die!
“Minnesota’s most wanted” by CP Staff
The capture of Twin Cities soccer mom Sara Jane Olson (aka Kathleen Ann Soliah) following a segment on “America’s Most Wanted” has inspired a record number of Minnesotans to report other fugitives. The City Pages provides readers with an amusing, annotated list of some the suspected residents, which includes Osama bin Laden. What I’m wondering is what percentage of them voted for Jesse Ventura.
—————–
San Francisco Bay Guardian, June 30-July 6
“Damage control.com” by Po Bronson
Even though I am vaguely annoyed every time Po Bronson is featured on the cover of a magazine, and even though I’m far more interested in reading everything written by F. Scott Fitzgerald than anything written by Bronson, I have enjoyed the articles by him that I’ve read. This little number is no exception. Bronson counters the rags-to-riches mythology of Internet IPO success stories with some basic principles based on his years of reporting on and writing about the area. I myself just witnessed the process firsthand, though I’m not allowed to talk about it. I can vouch for the accuracy of many of Bronson’s observations and recommend them to those of you who are interested in following this sort of thing seriously. The Guardian’s typically clueless presentation of his article — Po Bronson airs dirty laundry! — however, inadvertently helps prove one of his points: that most people don’t really understand what’s going on there.
—————–
Willamette Week, June 30-July 6
“Dwarf vs. Dwarf” by Chris Lydgate
Portland is going to be a surreal place next week. One thousand dwarfs will be descending on the city for the annual national Little People of America conference. Chris Lydgate reports on the ongoing controversy within the dwarf community over whether dwarfs who use their small stature to entertain — for example, Verne Troyer, who played Mini-Me in “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” — are harming the efforts of dwarfs seeking to be taken seriously on the job and in life. Particularly impressive is that Lydgate makes it through his piece without cracking one short joke. Trust me. I’m refraining from spewing a rancid heap of puns right now and it’s torture.
—————–
S.F. Weekly, June 30-July 6
“Science of the Lambs” by Lisa Davis
Scientists at Geron Corp., a biotechnology company in Menlo Park, Calif., recently purchased the technology used to clone Dolly the sheep. They’ve also “produced body cells that don’t age. They’ve refined the ability to transplant DNA. They’re working on cloning embryos. They’re learning how to grow custom tissue and organs for transplants,” reports Lisa Davis in the fascinating article that not only looks at what this company has accomplished but the controversy surrounding it and the current social and political climate for such endeavors. Davis, who admits to not having much background in this stuff, lays it all out nicely in understandable terms and, thankfully, doesn’t try to theorize too much about facts she’s barely processed herself. Journalists writing about alternative treatments could learn a thing or two here.
—————–
Seattle Weekly, July 1-7
“Internet Appleiance” by Frank Catalano
Last December, I kissed my piece-of-crap Powerbook goodbye and bought a PC. It’s the first non-Apple I’ve owned. Although I couldn’t be happier with my choice, I sympathize greatly with Frank Catalano, who writes somewhat painfully about his recent switch from Mac to PC. It’s tough to abandon a struggling cause after so many years of loyalty, but Catalano makes a good point: Even with the success of the iMac, Apple still doesn’t have much in the way of software, gadgets and so on to offer customers.
—————–
New Times Los Angeles, July 1-7
“Return of the Swami” by Ron Russell
This fun piece deals with the ugly, civic battle taking place over the Self-Realization Fellowship’s efforts to reentomb its rotting leader, Paramahansa Yogananda, in a shrine atop Mount Washington, a stone’s throw from downtown Los Angeles. Religious wackos vs. city lawyers? This is the stuff of good, long-weekend reading.
—————–
And now, a few supplements to your healthy diet of reading on alternative medicine and treatments:
Vicious Vegan The brilliant jokesters at Brunching Shuttlecocks bring us a list of entrees for people who refuse animal products, but crave the taste of murdered critter.
Pills-a-go-go A whole zine devoted to pills and pill culture.
“Ruptured Warriors” A first person account of a torn achilles tendon. Ow.
Christian Sex Nerve’s special section on copulation and being born again.
Fat? So! A celebration of the big, the round and the Botticelli beautiful among us.
You can take a couple of aspirin for a headache, swallow some ibuprofen for a sore back or knock back a double dose for a nagging hangover. You don’t have to worry about popping so many of those little pills — after all, they’re harmless, right?
Wrong. New research shows that what you don’t know about your everyday painkillers may hurt you. It might even kill you.
In an article published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers discussed the adverse effects of using these anti-inflammatory drugs — effects that can include stomach bleeding and ulcers and, in some cases, death. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, known as NSAIDs (pronounced en-SAYDS), include old medicine cabinet standards such as aspirin, ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin), naproxen sodium (Aleve, Naprosyn, Naprox), diclofenac (Voltaren), indomethacin (Indocin) and others. Stronger NSAIDs require a prescription; the milder ones, like aspirin and ibuprofen, are available over the counter.
The author of the study, Dr. M. Michael Wolfe, Chief of Gastroenterology at Boston University School of Medicine, sort of stumbled on the possible dangers of using these drugs. While reviewing mortality reports from a number of sources, including arthritis sufferers on long-term NSAID therapy, he and his colleagues noticed a pattern among the NSAID users and concluded that in a small but substantial number of cases the use of these drugs triggers serious — even fatal — gastrointestinal complications.
But even with these potential side effects, Wolfe believes that the quick and effective pain relief produced by these drugs outweigh the risks. “These are wonderful drugs, and we don’t want to create a panic,” he says.
However, because a minority of patients do develop serious gastric complications, the professor and his colleagues are preaching the dangers of this drug group. If your next headache is a little one, they’re saying, you might want to ride it out. “If you don’t need to take a drug,” Wolfe says, “don’t take it.”
NSAIDs can cause stomach ulcers because, in addition to suppressing the prostaglandins associated with inflammation and pain, they limit production of a prostaglandin that protects your stomach lining. This loss allows gastric acids to erode the lining and cause bleeding and ulcers.
“There’s a linear increase in risk with age,” Wolfe says. “People at age 60 and over are at very high risk, as well as people with a history of sytemic illness,” like heart disease or ulcers. Also, people taking higher doses of NSAIDs are at a proportionately higher risk. “There’s a dose relationship,” Wolfe says. “Thirty milligrams is sufficient [to trigger erosion of the stomach lining]. Even a baby aspirin can cause problems.”
Although the individual risk is low, the overall risk is significant because so many people are taking these drugs. In the United States alone, approximately 26 billion NSAID tablets are consumed annually without prescription and more than 100 million NSAID prescriptions are filled, according to Wolfe’s report. And it is estimated that about 16,500 deaths occur annually from ulcer-related complications associated with NSAID use.
But Wolfe isn’t the first member of the medical community to raise a red flag over NSAIDs. A December 1997 article in the Mayo Clinic Health Letter cautioned: “When used occasionally and as directed, NSAIDs are generally safe. But if you take them frequently or take more than the recommended dose, NSAIDs can cause nausea, stomach pain, stomach bleeding or ulcers … About 20 percent of people who regularly take NSAIDs develop ulcers.”
Last year, the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) commissioned a Roper Starch survey to study NSAID use. The survey revealed that nearly 75 percent of the 33 million Americans who regularly use NSAIDs were unaware or unconcerned that the pills may cause serious stomach problems.
AGA president Dr. Phillip P. Toskes believes that doctors have a responsibility to alert their patients to the dangers of NSAIDs. “As physicians, we need to underscore that medical care doesn’t stop once drug therapy begins,” he said in a press release announcing the Roper survey results. “Anyone taking NSAIDs needs to have their personal risk monitored on an ongoing basis.”
One alternative to taking NSAIDs is acetaminophen. Found in Tylenol and some other drugs, acetaminophen works like an NSAID to reduce pain and fever, the Mayo Clinic article says, but typically doesn’t affect prostaglandins and trigger GI problems. But there are risks associated with using acetaminophen, too. According to Wolfe, the drug has a low therapeutic index — meaning that the margin between benefit and toxicity is narrow.
The Boston University professor and his colleagues stress the importance of identifying individuals at highest risk and taking measures to decrease the possibility of an ulcer complication. If you’re worried about the danger of consuming NSAIDs, he says, discuss it with your doctor.
