Mind Your Brain

"So now we know that pleasure is also encoded by opioids."
"The next time you're hungry and you see the McDonald's arches, that's leading to dopamine release. So it's predicting you're going to get reinforced or rewarded. But dopamine can also predict negative things."
"So if we're eating broccoli it's 10 units of dopamine. But when we're smoking crack cocaine, it's like 10,000. That's why for the average human seeking pleasure how can broccoli, or even brownies, compete with crack cocaine?"
"When you're activating this reward circuit, you're kind of tipping the balance up, and your brain is going to try to bring it down. It engages these compensatory responses."
"What you're feeling the next morning is the exact opposite of how you felt when you were on the stimulus. This would happen with any one of us if we were recreationally using."
"When you're using, you're activating all the circuits. And the next day, or the next week if you have a binge weekend, the circuits are kind of resetting the balance."
Dr. Kim Hellemans, chair, Department of Neuroscience, Carleton University

MedicineNet.com

When humans come abreast of things required for survival, the brain releases a "reward circuit", as part of our evolutionary preparedness for the future of humankind. In primordial times when a successful hunt concluded that would ensure survival in the short term, brain circuits released a cascade of signals encoding pleasure, informing the memory to pay attention to where the successful event took place, so at a later time hunters could return with the expectation of another successful hunt.

The hippocampus was engaged to inform the hunters where they were located, the nucleus accumbens lectured the mind how pleasurable the event had been with its expectations of a good tasting meal that would assure the dawning of another day, while the prefrontal cortex produced a mental note to return to the scene of success and pleasure. The brain is adept through long practise in its evolutionary trajectory in producing dopamine and releasing it to those brain areas alerting humans to survival techniques ensuring longevity.

Researchers have also discovered that the human brain released endorphins: opiates. The ingrained rewards system becomes engaged when we consume a substance such as cocaine, alcohol, nicotine, cannabis or opioids. That reward system becomes engaged in a superphysiological state, enhancing the experience of pleasure directly related to those substances. The complication is that the brain also is geared toward the maintenance of a steady balance (homeostatsis), and so engages in compensatory responses.

1130 opioids brain  Getty image brain scan Getty Images

Responses such as making it impossible for the dopamine to reach its reward potential by pulling the dopamine receptors from their location in the membrane even while  hormones that trigger stress are released, comprising the anti-reward circuits. Once the drug is metabolized and excreted, the high worn away, the compensatory responses are left; in the form of a 'hangover'. But in people gripped with a substance addiction where studies suggest early childhood trauma, the brain's circuits are rewired to blunt the reward baseline.

"That might have to do with depression or mental health, but they have this decreased reward baseline, and in some people, because of their history of trauma, they've got an overactive fear pathway." The stimuli that produce that good feeling in recreational users, makes traumatized people with addiction merely feel normal. Repeated use overrides the brain's stabilization efforts, setting a new, lower baseline to produce tolerance which people attempt to overwhelm through higher doses.

"Their baseline shifts, and people start feeling worse, even when they're not using. And they're trying to get to that level they did the first time they used, and they're never going to get there. This is 'chasing the dragon'."

"They'll say that they start using to feel good, and then they use just to feel normal, and then they're using to stay alive. Because what's happening is that when they're not using, the brain is saying 'Danger! Danger!". These fear pathways are skyrocketing, so you feel horrible and you feel scared. So when long-time users who are in withdrawal say they feel like they're dying, they actually feel like they're dying. Because all these fear pathways are going through the roof."

"All the decision-making in your prefrontal cortex is hijacked by addiction. When we're anxious, stressed, sad, a coping strategy can be alcohol, it can be opioids. And when you have an at-risk population -- people who may have experienced poverty, neglect, childhood trauma, systematic oppression due to the colour of their skin, their sexuality, their ethnic group -- this can certainly be the trigger that sets into motion a series of changes in the brain that may lead to addiction."

Neanderthal Extinction

"Our results support the hypothesis that the disappearance of Neanderthals might have been the result of demographic factors alone, that is, the result merely of the internal dynamics that operate in small populations."
"Our results are consistent with a scenario in which a small population of Neanderthals persists for several thousands of years, and then, due to a stroke of bad luck, disappears."
"The mere fact that the Neanderthals were living in such a small population might have been enough to [make them] go extinct."
"It's not unusual they were living in small populations, either. It's known that they did."
"The arrival of [humans] would have been a contributory factor rather than the cause of the extinction."
"The species' demise might have been due merely to a stroke of bad demographic luck."
"The mere interspersal of AMH sub-populations between Neanderthal sub-populations reduced the opportunities for intrabreeding and migratory activity among the latter."
"As such, the presence of modern humans in Eurasia would have accelerated a process that, at some point, was likely to have occurred anyway."
Research study, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands

A moulding of Neanderthal man.  Photo: Stephane D. Sakutin, AP/Getty

"We want us to play a role in their extinction, because it helps us to answer the question as to what makes us unique or human."
"So the standard story, according to which modern humans outsmarted Neanderthals, is attractive to us because it implies that our species can be distinguished from our sister species by reference to our superior intelligence."
Krist Vaesen, Associate Professor, Philosophy of Innovation, Eindhoven University of Technology 

 Published in PLOS One, new research out of the Netherlands has brought out a new theory on the possible cause of Neanderthal extinction. Possibly, the researchers posit from the results of their study, inbreeding was partially responsible. The researchers themselves were somewhat taken aback by the conclusions their research led them to. They ran simulation models that they based on existing hunter-gatherer societies with a view to discovering whether factors aside from human competition might have wiped out Neanderthals some 40,000 years ago.

Obviously, modern humans fell into the category of nature's creatures that managed to adapt and evolve as a species more successfully than did Neanderthals. Earlier research has pointed out that humans and proto-humans lived in fairly close proximity to one another, and in all probability, given that modern science has found Neanderthal DNA in a huge segment of the current population, must also have interbred. Given the larger skull dimensions of Neanderthals it has also been suggested that human females were not that likely to give birth to babies with Neanderthal characteristics; more likely that Neanderthal females more readily gave birth to babies with human features.

The new exhibition at the Canadian Museum of Nature 'deconstructs' stereotypes around Neanderthals. (Nikola Solic/Reuters)

There is agreement among Paleoanthropologists of the disappearance of Neanderthals roughly 40,000 years ago, at a time when anatomically modern humans were expanding their presence into Eurasia, steadily migrating out of Africa. Neanderthal populationss, on the other hand, arose in Eurasia. There has never been full agreement, however on whether and when and how early modern humans may have been responsible in part for the demise of Neanderthals.

The researchers simulated model groups of 50, 100, 500, 1,000 and 5,000 individual populations studying the effects within each group, of inbreeding. They included Allee effects whereby the smaller a population the lower its reproduction rate, and vice versa, along with random fluctuations of a population taking into account factors such as births, deaths and sex ratios, the aim being to determine whether factors such as these could conceivably lead to extinction over a 10,000-year period.

A picture taken on March 26, 2018 shows a thermoforming of a Flores woman displayed for the Neanderthal exhibition at the Musee de l'Homme in Paris. STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AFP via Getty Images

The study concluded that interbreeding, in and of itself  was not likely to  have led to extinction; the smallest studied group of 50 was found to have gone extinct in this manner, but of groups with 1,000 individuals or fewer, should only a quarter or less of females give birth in any single year, extinction could also occur. When all factors were accounted for (inbreeding Allee effects and demographic fluctuations) over the ten-thousand-year simulation period, extinction was almost certain to result for all group sizes.

The study authors suggest the presence of human ancestors might conceivably have made the presence of Neanderthals more vulnerable to the factors involved in the study, before extinction. But they are also convinced that the human presence was simply coincidental to the final extinction. Which caused the researchers themselves to entirely revise their own former belief, common among paleoanthropologists that homo sapiens contributed hugely to the obliteration of the Neanderthals.

What caused the extinction of Neanderthals after 350,000 years on the planet remains a point of debate for experts ( PA )

Neanderthals have contributed approximately 1-4% of the genomes of non-African modern humans, although a modern human who lived about 40,000 years ago has been found to have between 6-9% Neanderthal DNA (Fu et al 2015). The evidence we have of Neanderthal-modern human interbreeding sheds light on the expansion of modern humans out of Africa. These new discoveries refute many previous hypotheses in which anatomically modern humans replaced archaic hominins, like Neanderthals, without any interbreeding. However, even with some interbreeding between modern humans and now-extinct hominins, most of our genome still derives from Africa. Neanderthals could not have contributed to modern African peoples’ genomes because Neanderthals evolved and lived exclusively in Eurasia and therefore could not have bred with the humans living in Africa at that time.
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

Inaccessible Peace and Serenity

"[Noise is the] new second-hand smoke."
"We're in a noisier and noisier world. 'Finding ways to change that is] urgent."
Quiet Coalition, non-profit Massachusetts

"Efficiency is always linked with speed, which doesn't need to be the case."
"Slow and smart are not opposites -- they can work very well together."
"[Art projections or augmented reality in public spaces to connect people to the past and make them] pause a bit and contemplate [would represent a good project]."
"As everyone becomes glued to their mobiles and online communities, physical contact is being lost.
Slowness could help bring that back."
Lakshmi Rajendran, researcher, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge

The Great Daibutsu, Kamakura, Japan

"Quiet spaces allow you to change gear."
"[They] really help us get a distance from our day-to-day lives and being caught up in the various demands on our time and attention."
"Historically, noise has had to be endured by those on lower incomes and [of] lower status. Those with generally more means can move away."
"It's incredibly important to keep these quiet spaces, and to be aware of their possible disappearance."
Richard Bentley, sound artist, Reading, Britain

Public spaces are increasingly being geared toward quiet, aiding contemplation, as a recognition of their importance in people's lives, as opposed to noisy technology that is efficiency-linked. Health risks of living in noisy cities can include hearing loss, cardiovascular disease and sleep disorders, according to the World Health Organization.

High Park, Toronto

Europe, particularly proactive, adopted a 2002 direction aiming to reduce environmental noise pollution. European Union members have been put on notice that prolonged exposure could lead to "harmful effects" on health outcomes. No federal regulation on noise since the late 1970s has been contemplated in the United States, leaving local jurisdictions to consider action to respond to growing public demand for quiet.

On the other hand, in a community near Houston, Texas, residents voted down a measure recently to limit landscaping noise. Some residents were concerned such a law would increase service prices, ultimately making it more difficult for landscapers to pursue their vocations. Britain, on the other hand created a ministerial position to counteract loneliness. It was discovered through a public campaign that close to half of British adults report no time available out of their busy lives to connect with others.

Lakshmi Rajendran and colleagues study avenues available to slow busy city centres, focusing on Cambridge and Istanbul; the idea being to explore how architecture, culture and a sense of community identity are able to provide unique "localized" experiences. A group of residents in the town of Reading used apps and online communities in the search for silence, huddling with their phones in parks, graveyards and bookstores
.

White Mountain National Forest, New Hampshire

Richard Bentley associated himself with a global citizen-led initiative to map out quiet public places in Reading. Public sound walks are regularly engaged in cities from Berlin to Chicago; may of the walkers use the Hush City phone app, allowing them to record audio, take photographs and rate quiet spots for others to discover.

The United Nations estimates more than two-thirds of humanity will eventually live in urban areas by 2050 and Mr. Bentley foresees noise from traffic, construction and mobile phones are set to increase, leaving peace and quiet an unimaginable and unreachable luxury in time. An expectation that stimulates him and others who think as he does to use their spare time to discover and log free-to-access pockets of peace in the cities where they live.

"I couldn't find a place to get some fresh air without noise.""I accept that living in a city will have more noise, but this particular type of noise is piercing and very loud [gas-powered leaf blower] -- aarg!"
Haskell Small, music teacher, 71, Washington D.C.

In his neighbourhood, like any such area where people live together, there are constant distractions from clear thinking, disturbances that rent the air with the sound of sirens, lawn equipment, traffic, sounds that are imposing and impossible to blot out. They are the sounds of a city; construction, people travelling, trucking warehoused supplies, tradespeople, reflecting the functionality of a busy agglomeration of people.

Mr. Small's neighbours, however, thought they could do something collectively to bring attention to the onslaught of sound disrupting the peace and quiet they felt entitled to in their neighbourhood. They organized themselves with the intention of speaking with one voice to convince the city it would be advantageous to residents if the municipality joined over one hundred other U.S. jurisdictions to ban leaf blowers to favour quieter, battery-operated machines; a simple enough expedient to combat the most obvious sound-breaker.

The city did just that, representing a determination to restore a level of quiet sanity against raucous auditory disruptions to people's sanity, as an example of people purposefully attempting to slow and silence urban life as a growing trend toward quality of life to improve overall health and well-being around the world. Slowing the pace of city life can be as simple as enacting lower speed limits on roads.

Unusually Rare, and Unfortunate

"He had been touched and licked, but not bitten or injured, by his dog, his only pet, in previous weeks."
"Pet owners with banal, for instance flu-like, symptoms should urgently seek medical advice when symptoms are unusual."
Paper produced by doctors from the Red Cross Hospital, Bremen, Germany

"[The type of bacterium, capnocytophaga canimorsus, is] completely normal flora of a dog's mouth and usually doesn't cause any sort of significant disease."
"However, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, in the wrong patient ... it can lead to severe infections -- but very, very rarely."
Dr. Stephen Cole, lecturer, veterinary microbiology, University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine

Many studies show the health benefits of dog ownership. Dogs not only provide comfort and companionship, but several studies have found that dogs decrease stress and promote relaxation. Dogs have positive impacts on nearly all life stages. They influence social, emotional, and cognitive development in children, promote an active lifestyle, and have even been able to detect oncoming epileptic seizures or the presence of certain cancers. But for all the positive benefits of keeping dogs, pet owners should be aware that dogs can carry germs that make people sick.
Although germs from dogs rarely spread to people, they might cause a variety of illnesses, ranging from minor skin infections to serious disease. To protect yourself and your family from getting sick:

• Seek routine veterinary care for your pet and
• Always wash your hands and the hands of children with running water and soap after contact with dogs, their stool, and their food.

By providing your pet with routine veterinary care and some simple health tips, you are less likely to get sick from touching, petting, or owning dogs.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

He was 63 years old, a German dog owner living in Bremen, and circumstances conspired to rob him of future years, a hugely unusual occurrence, when the man's dog transferred to him through a simple 'lick' that most dog owners interpret as a 'kiss', a common bacterium that most dogs carry. The bacterium transfer rarely results in an infection, but this time it did, on steroids. The man had severe symptoms usually associated with flu, along with laboured breathing, round skin spots like rashes from bleeding capillaries.

When he was admitted to hospital doctors found a stable heartbeat, but an internal temperature of 39C. Because of his laboured breathing an inadequate supply of oxygen reached his tissues, and his kidneys failed to produce urine. Everything about the man's presentation puzzled the doctors who suspected bacteria, but the puzzle continued with a lack of open wounds and no sign of meningitis. By his fourth  hospital day a blood test revealed the presence of bacteria commonly found in healthy dogs' saliva, transmitted most commonly through bites.

Details of the man's experience, and his rapid deterioration despite all that medical science could offer in a modern, well-equipped and highly professionally-staffed hospital were published in the European Journal of Case Reports in Internal Medicine.  It became clear to doctors that the man had severe kidney injury and a deterioration of muscle tissue resulting from kidney failure, as well as a lactic acid buildup in his bloodstream.

Transferred to an intensive care unit, diagnosed with severe sepsis with skin death and blood clotting, he was treated with antibiotics but his condition continued to grow graver in the following 30 hours. By then doctors were able to diagnose brain disease, paralysis-caused intestinal blockage, blood clotting and kidney failure, all destroying his body. On entering cardiac arrest he was resuscitated, intubated, placed on a breathing machine, and treated for low blood pressure.

Doctors added another antibiotic and an anti-fungal treatment to his regimen following a test that indicated C.canimorsus infection, while some symptoms waned and others became more compromised, and in the end, no amount or type of treatment worked to save the man's life. All his extremities had gangrene; a CT scan showed severe brain swelling caused by lack of oxygen. He lived for 16 agonizing days following his hospital admission.

Researchers caution the public that C.canimorsus infections are blessedly rare, typified by a range of symptoms. And that most people who have contracted severe or fatal infections from the bacteria did so as a result of having had immune, spleen or alcohol abuse issues. Soberingly, this patient's medical history lacked any such conditions.

"The Capnocytophaga canimorsus bacteria is well known to infectious disease specialists as being part of the normal bacterial population that exists in the mouth of dogs, but not in cats or humans."

"Dogs represent a 'peculiar ecological niche for this bacterium [but it] doesn’t cause illness in dogs, and it usually doesn’t cause illnesses in anyone else, either."

"[On occasion, dog bites can be] complicated by this bacteria, but even then it’s rare. This case in unusual in the extreme. This man’s ‘best friend’ was simply being friendly, doing what thousands of other dogs do every day, slurping or licking their masters on their noses, mouths, and lips—it happens all the time."
"[There’s nothing wrong with immunodeficient people having dogs, they] just shouldn’t get that intimate with them."
William Schaffner, infectious diseases specialist, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee

Advice to the Aging on Weight Control

"It may be imperceptible year to year, but compare the amount of muscle mass with the average 80-year-old to the average 20-year-old and it becomes more apparent. The greater the amount of muscle mass we have, the greater our resting metabolic rate."
"In general, the average 80-year-old will move less in small and big ways throughout the day compared to the average 20-year-old. And exercise, separate from daily activity, probably declines, although that only affects in a large way the smaller proportion of people who exercise regularly."
"Weight gain seems to affect men and women similarly. So, after 20 or 30 years, [adding a pound or more every year] it all adds up. During menopause weight gain [both men and women] is about the same. But [in women] weight shifts more toward the abdominal region, so it appears to be greater weight gain. The same thing happens in men -- greater weight gain with age in the abdominal region -- but it occurs more gradually."
Donald D. Hensrud, associate professor, preventive medicine and nutrition, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine

"Many of my patients admit to moving less overall as they get older, and the first thing I recommend for weight loss is to add weight training -- at least two to three days per week -- to slow down sarcopenia [age-related muscle loss], along with an additional day or two of cardiovascular exercise."
"On top of this, I encourage my patients to meet the 10,000 steps per day goal, so they are taking walks throughout the day or doing house or yard work versus getting home from the gym and sitting all day. This will also impact metabolic rate."
"I encourage my patients to work on portion control and eating a higher volume of lower calorie foods, like fresh fruits and vegetables, since they will fill us up with less total calories and are important for aging, vitality and disease prevention."
Jessica Murgueytio, dietitian, Bethesda Medical Associates

As people grow older there is a gradual loss of muscle mass and that alone accounts for the fact that weight is gained by people as they age. There is a loss of one percent annually of muscle mass with aging, causing a decrease in basal metabolic rate (the process of burning calories while at rest); the lower the metabolic rate of an individual the fewer calories are burnt. Added to which there is a tendency as people age to move about less; spontaneous physical action is reduced with advancing age; scheduled exercise aside.

And then there are hormone changes, with testosterone declines in men and estrogen and progesterone in women, all of which can also have a weight effect. There is a common misconception that post-menopausal women will tend to gain more weight than do men, but the truth is that both sexes gain weight, it's just that weight redistributes more quickly in women than it does in men, ending up all too often in the abdomen.

A recent study suggests that lipid turnover in adipose tissue (where fat is stored in the body) tends to decrease during the process of aging; which is to say fat removal from fat cells slows, and this contributes as well to gaining weight. In a research project, health scientists studied fat cells in 54 men and women throughout a thirteen-year period. All the test subjects indicated lipid turnover rates in decline. Indicating processes in fat tissue "regulate changes in body weight during aging in a way that is independent of other factors", according to Peter Arner of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.


Experts in the field of medical science recommend that people continue regular exercising, that they monitor their calorie intake, lift weights and move steadily through the day and make an effort to avoid sitting as much as possible. "All types of physical activity burn calories and are important", cautioned Dr. Hensrud. "Resistance training (weightlifting) helps in the loss of abdominal fat. Exercise is the most efficient way to burn calories." In particular,  high-intensity interval training HIIT); short bursts of intense exercise interspersed with brief recovery periods.

Weight gain has been seen to stabilize after people reach their mid-60s, partly as a reflection of people choosing to eat less when they become older, according to Dr. Hensrud. Among people older than 60, obesity rates are at about 41 percent in comparison with close to 43 percent for people ages 40 to 59, and 36 percent for people aged 20 to 36, according to the Centres for Disease Control. "Although physical activity probably continues to decline throughout a life span, energy (calorie) intake also tends to decline in the elderly", he noted.

Studying Cannabis 

"We found that users [of cannabis], even those who just started, were more likely to be at a normal, healthier weight and stay at that weight."
"Only 15 percent of persistent users were considered obese compared to 20 percent of non-users." "[The difference] could be the cannabis use itself, which can modify how certain cells, or receptors, respond in the body and can ultimately affect weight gain."
"People shouldn't consider it as a way to maintain or even lose weight. There's too many health concerns around cannabis that far outweigh the potential positive, yet modest, effects it has on weight gain."
Omayma Alshaarawy, lead author, study, Michigan State University

"These factors [users more prone to alcohol consumption of sedentary habits] could aggravate pre-existing conditions such as obesity, and borderline glucose intolerance, as well as increase the risk of diabetes."
Antonio Vigano, oncologist, professor, McGill University

Oncologist Antonio Vigano is familiar with a decrease in his cancer patients' appetite. His daughter conducted a study which showed that cannabis consumption had the effect of improving patients' appetites. At the same time he warned that indirect negative consequences to marijuana consumption might make it a poor approach to slimming down should users be more prone to consuming alcohol or live a more sedentary lifestyle.

For decades, researchers  have focused on a correlation between appetite stirred by the consumption of cannabis. A 1988 study from Johns Hopkins University found subjects who smoked marijuana consumed 40 percent more calories than a control group. A survey commissioned by licensed marijuana retailer National Access Cannabis thirty years on, found 28 percent of 1,525 respondents naming eating the most pleasurable activity in the wake of ingesting marijuana.

Famously, that's a greater average than those citing the pleasures of eating, post-sex, at 17.5 percent.

THC, (tetrahydrocannabinol), the major psychoactive constituent of cannabis, acts to stimulate ghrelin release, a  hormone released normally from an empty stomach. THC may also enhance the olfactory system, another eating trigger, according to a study by a neuroscientist in Bordeaux. It is well known that using marijuana increases junk food craving. Economists discovered that monthly sales of "high-calorie food" increased by 3.1 percent for ice cream, 4.1 percent for cookies and 5.3 percent for chips, by tracking retail data in U.S. states where cannabis had been legalized.

Despite a lot of snacking going on as a result of marijuana consumption, users appear not to gain weight. Data on 33,000 subjects collected over a three-year period by the National Epidemiology Survey of Alcohol and Related conditions were studied by the researchers at Michigan State University whose findings corroborated that fact.

MariaLuisa Vigano a Michigan State University researcher, found that while an increase in appetite resulted from marijuana use, encouraging nibbling junk food, "no statistically significant increase in weight" was detected among the subjects. On the other hand, both Professor Vigano of McGill  University and Dr. Omayma Alshaarawy of Michigan State, urge a note of caution; Professor Vigano in citing additional factors, and Dr. Alshaarawy that cannabis use could modify the way cells or receptors respond in the body to affect weight gain.

And then there is the practical view that cannabis users could make themselves consciously aware that their stimulated appetite and consequent snacking required some self-discipline to kick in, to avoid gaining unwanted weight. They may indulge in those tempting munchies to a degree, yet their awareness may at the same time inject a note of caution, inspiring them to adjust their diets accordingly, swapping the junk food for healthy alternatives, or munching the junk food and consuming less at mealtimes.

"It might be a behavioral effect as cannabis users are aware of the munchies effect and might therefore restrict their caloric intake when they are not using."
"Further studies are needed", concluded Dr. Alshaarawy.

This Humanitarian Dilemma

"I do think this is, in a lot of ways, a test of who are we as a community."
"Some people who I'd put in the fed-up category, they're not bad people. They would describe themselves as left of centre, and sometimes very left of centre, but at some point they reach the breaking point."
"I think those of us in the service-provider community always knew we weren't going to solve the problem. But I think the expectation was we were going to make a significant dent."
"So on the one hand, the message is we have all these resources to quote-unquote solve this problem. And what the general public sees is, it's not getting solved, it's not getting better, it's getting worse."
John Maceri, chief executive, People Concern social services agency, Los Angeles

"I think they care more about animals than us."
"They're making parks for dogs, but they're not building housing for us."
Lucrecia Macias, nurse, cancer patient, homeless

"They'll kick you out of stores."
"They won't even let you into laundromats to wash your clothes. The bus driver won't pull over."
Lynell Cain, resident of tent encampment, Los Angeles

"Putting mentally ill people and people with drug abuse problems in residential areas is careless."
"This is definitely a more complicated definition than just homelessness. Even during the daytime, I fear walking alone."
Paneez Kosarian, technology company employee, San Francisco

California has about 140,000 homeless residents -- a quarter of the nation's homeless population.  Richard Vogel, AP

Little wonder she does. In September she was attacked by a man outside the front door to her apartment building. A homeless man who warned her the world had been taken over by robots. And then he attacked her. A closed-circuit security camera's footage showed her desperately wrestling with the man. That footage made local news coverage, linking the episode with other attacks carried out by homeless people who appeared to be on the spectrum of mental illness. Peoples' sense of security and personal safety linked to where they live is being eroded.

Lucrecia Macias, the nurse who now lives as a homeless person in Los Angeles had her own house in Palmdale. And then dark fate stepped in when she was diagnosed with cancer and she soon saw herself in deep financial straits when she lost her home. She sees sympathy being evinced for the well-being of peoples' companion pets, but none extended to those like herself living rough as a result of her middle-class life having been disrupted, effectively ruined, lost to the cost of her medical care, leaving her to wander disconsolate on the streets, feeling abandoned by society.

There was a proposed municipal plan for a homeless shelter in a waterfront district of new office buildings and condominiums. Ms.Kosarian who had that frightening encounter with a homeless man and other residents referred to city estimates reflecting half of the homeless people in San Francisco having issues with substance abuse when they opposed the plan. An issue they feel is being overlooked when the finger is pointed at a lack of housing causing homelessness. The city's mayor stated that San Francisco was prepared to enforce a state law to force mentally ill people off the streets. Where to?

Homeless encampment in Los Angeles, Sept. 23, 2019. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Open-air drug dealing in some areas of Los Angeles and San Francisco is rampant. In those same areas human feces litter the streets along with discarded needles and syringes. California cities have always had a homelessness problem, but in recent years, it has become epidemic. In Los Angeles, the city counted up to 59,000 homeless people, a huge increase over the past few years. According to a poll by the Public Policy Institute of California released a month ago, for the first time in two decades Californians cite homelessness as a major concern.

Bill Bedrossian, chief executive of Covenant House California, a shelter non-profit group with programs for homeless youth, cites frustrations evinced by the public as illustrating an "increase in the lack of empathy. People don't want homeless people near them." When Covenant House wanted to open a centre to house and offer counselling services for up to 30 young people, the community resisted. "It's the worst it's ever been, as far as the backlash", he commented.

Homeless encampment, Oakland, California. John G.Magabanglo, EPA-EFE

In San Francisco, residents installed boulders on sidewalks as deterrents to people erecting tents and sleeping there. Homeowners in Los Angeles installed prickly plants nearby sidewalks for the same purpose. There are grassy areas that have been fenced off with green plastic in hopes of restraining homeless people from putting up tents and building encampments. In San Fernando Valley, L.A., the experience of homeless people living in Chatsworth was to suffer rocks thrown from cars, insults shouted at them, and pepper-spray targeting them.

"When people think about the homeless crisis, sometimes humanity goes out the window. People say, 'I don't like what's going on. I don't want them near our school, get rid of them'."
"When people complain, they are not combining the complaint with a compassionate solution."
Candice Elder,  founder, executive director, East Oakland Collective

It is not easy, shouldering the burden of being your brother's keeper, not anywhere, not even in one of the wealthiest states in the wealthiest nation on Earth. The problem is endemic and it is everywhere, from nations struggling to join the cadre of developing nations to those countries where economic development has gone hand-in-hand with increased trade, business development and advances in technology, none of which has solved the problem of homelessness.

San Francisco police officers wait as homeless people collect their belongings. Ben Margot, AP

Parsing the Food Quagmire

"The more we learn about nutrition, the more it seems we should eat the way people did a hundred years ago. Recent research appears to be pointing us in the direction of eating mostly 'whole foods' – that is, foods that are as close to their natural form as possible."

This could mean eating:

• Whole grains instead of refined grains whenever possible.
• Fruits, vegetables, and beans instead of supplements to provide the fiber and vitamins they contain.
• A skinless chicken breast cooked with healthful ingredients instead of chicken nuggets processed with added fats, flavorings, and preservatives.
• A baked potato with chopped green onions and light sour cream instead of a bag of sour cream and onion potato chips.
• Fresh berries with breakfast instead of raspberry toaster pastries or breakfast bars.
• A blueberry smoothie made with blueberries, yogurt, and a frozen banana instead of a blue-colored slushy or ices.

Elaine Magee, MPH, RD, WebMD 

When you have a smoothie made with spinach and berries what could go wrong? Spinach and berries; super food, right? Um, except that smoothies often add sugar in extra calories from juice used as a drink base. University of Bristol behaviour scientists found in 2018 that fruit smoothies and other similar drinks happened to be less satiating than whole foods; in other words, preferably eating the fruits and vegetables whole. That drink may represent 300 to 700 calories, yet it will fail to give us that satisfying full feeling in comparison to fruit slices served with nut better, as an example.

And then there are grains, known to be in the top category of good, whole food. Other than the fact that white rice, white bread, white pasta and all-purpose flour happen to lack fibre and key nutrients, (lost through their refining process) of their counterparts known as whole grains because they've been refined. These are, in very fact, firmly in the constellation of high glycemie foods causing hunger to spike in the short term, but invariably leading to weight gain in the long term. Careful, with those choices....

Mounting evidence was demonstrated in the 2014 documentary Fed Up, that large quantities of sugar used in processed foods may just represent the root of the global obesity condition where generations of children have morphed into weightier specimens than their parents, facing what have always been viewed as traditionally adult diseases like heart disease and diabetes. Researchers from University of Tennessee discovered current obesity adult rates to be linked to the long-lasting high-sugar diet effect during childhood in the 1970s and 80s, when processed foods flooded the marketplace.

The MIND Diet encourages vegetables every  day. Rawpixel / Getty Images

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health found recently that heavily processed foods end up causing overeating and its inevitable partner, weight gain. Published in the journal Cell Metabolism in July, researchers studied 20 healthy adult volunteers at the NIH Clinical Center for a one-month period where the volunteers were given ultra-processed meals like frozen dinners or alternately, unprocessed foods like roast chicken with rice and peas for two weeks. 

Both types of meal had like calories, sugars, fibre, fat and carbohydrates, and rules were that study participants could eat freely; as much as appealed to them; less if they preferred.The conclusion was that people on the ultra-processed diet ate about 500 more calories'-worth daily; ate faster and gained weight, while those who were on the unprocessed diet, by comparison, tended to lose weight.

Harvard University scientists have declared potato chips, the most popular of snack foods, represent the mos serious culprit in a pound-a-year weight creep. Loaded with sodium and fried in oil, they appeal to peoples' taste buds. The scientists analyzed data collected over two decades taken from over 120,000 men and women in the U.S.; not obese, free of chronic diseases. The study enabled them to identify a group of specific foods linked to weight gain, and potato chips came out the number one offender. A one-ounce serving daily (about 15 chips equalling 160 calories) was responsible for a 1.69-pound increase over four years.

Eating a handful of nuts on a regular basis may help prevent excessive weight gain and lower the risk of obesity, according to a new study published in the online journal BMJ Nutrition. Most nut fat is comprised of monounsaturated fat, along with omega-6 and omega-3 polyunsaturated fat. The fat, protein and fibre in nuts, according to the researchers, keep us feeling full longer, takes longer to digest than foods with just carbohydrates and protein. A consistent half-ounce of nuts daily was found to be associated with a 23 percent lower risk of putting on ten or more pounds over a four-year period. So which is it? Potato chips, or nuts?

A balance of protein, fat and carbohydrates is ideal; consuming protein at every meal because protein keeps hunger away for a longer period. This sounds like a fine bit of advice and it comes from Alexandra Johnstone, specialist in obesity and metabolic health, Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health at the University of Aberdeen. Proteins such as beans and lentils in particular represent good choices, since they are plant-derived and the proven benefits of a plant-based diet, should be our reliable guide in choices.

And then there are foods such as kombucha, kefir, kimchee and sauerkraut, preserved with the use of a traditional process boosting food shelf life and nutritional value. Researchers have linked the loss of healthy bacteria and microorganisms to the onset of all manner of health conditions, including obesity. Naturally fermented food may help to strengthen gut microbiome. They provide a dose of healthy probiotics, the microorganisms linked to healthy digestion.
  

Countdown to Climate Change Outcomes

"Children are particularly vulnerable to the health risks of a changing climate. Their bodies and immune systems are still developing, leaving them more susceptible to disease and environmental pollutants."
"[Health damage in early childhood is] persistent and pervasive [carrying lifelong consequences]."
"Without immediate action from all countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions, gains in well-being and life expectancy will be compromised, and climate change will come to define the health of an entire generation."
Nick Watts, co-leader, The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change study

A dried creek near Yangon, Myanmar. Photograph: Khin Maung Win/AP

Yes, Earth's climate is in the throes of change where an increased number of extreme weather events are occurring all over the world, their atmospheric and climatic disruptions increasing the problem of air pollution. And children will face multiple and lifelong deleterious health impacts as a result, as they grow up in a food-riskier climate, facing infectious diseases, catastrophic floods and other manifestations of the world's changing climate, according to a major global study.

Published in The Lancet medical journal, the study lays out the anticipated impacts of a changing world, their near-inevitability, and what the future is beginning to increasingly resemble. Warning that the impact of unmitigated climate change will have a profound effect on coming generations, burdening them with disease and illness their lives through. Global and national policies limiting polluting and toxic emissions, according to the research team, could conceivably bring a vastly different outcome.

A collaboration by 120 experts from 35 institutions, along with the World Health Organization, the World Bank, University College London and Tsinghua University in China, the study relied upon the professional expertise of a wide range of scientists. Who collectively warned through the study results that a "business as usual" approach, forestalling action to remediate the situation would result in children becoming vulnerable to rising food prices and malnutrition.

Crop failure in New South Wales, Australia, this October. Photograph: David Gray/Getty

Extreme weather events, allowed to continue by the inaction of humanity on this front, would see the likeliest victims being children living where warmer waters and worsening climates are expected to accelerate the spread of dengue fever, cholera and other infectious diseases. Air pollution has been singled out as the most immediate, long-lasting of the health threats resulting from climate change.

The introduction of cleaner fuels and vehicles and government policies meant to encourage safe and active transport such as walking and cycling would, in and of itself, create a healthier, more active population. In 2015, according to the World Health Organization, seven million deaths were attributable to the effects of household and ambient air pollution, the vast majority occurring in low and middle-income countries.

"If we want to protect our children, we need to make sure the air they breathe isn't toxic", warned Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson, global health specialist at University of Sussex, Britain, who was involved in the Lancet study.

Generating Physical Action : Regenerating Health

"We [Canadians] sit too much. We need to sit less and move more."
"There are many ways to be active, not just going to the gym. If you like dancing, dance. If you like playing with kids, play with kids."
"It is never too late to change bad behaviours. If you just start moving, you will see huge benefits."
Dr.Jean-Philippe Chaput, scientist, Faculty of Medicine, pediatrics, CHEO (Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario) Research Institute, Ottawa

Canadian adults aren't getting the exercise they need, according to a new report by Participaction. Getty

"Physical activity has really been socially engineered out of our day-to-day lives, from even as simple as the majority of the work we do no longer requires physical labour."
"Can you do two 10- or 15-minute brisk walks? If you do, make sure that you have deodorant or face wipes or dry shampoo at your desk at all times so that that doesn’t become a barrier."
"We’re more sedentary than before. Getting people to move more is always a focus but now we need to also reduce sedentary and sitting behaviour which is also detrimental. [Office workers should take more frequent] standing breaks [or] walking meetings."
ParticipACTION scientist Dr. Leigh Vanderloo

Canada was given a 'D' grade for overall physical activity for people over 18 by researchers studying the activity level of the average person in the country. That average person also rated an 'F' for failing to put in enough moderate-to-vigorous physical action to maintain good health. This, out of the first 'report' on physical action undertaken on the part of the average Canadian adult, by the authors of ParticipACTION.

The non-profit organization had been launched originally as an initiative by the federal government in the 1970s to raise awareness in Canadians of the need to remain active and physically involved throughout the course of a day, every day, for maximizing health. A decade of reports on Canadian adults' activity levels, as well as those of children and youth have all reported dismal exercise habits for the vast preponderance of Canadians of all age groups.

Children and youth rated a 'D+' in 2018, in view of overall physical activity, and this was a rating superior to that of their adult counterparts. Physical fitness in the same two groups was given a miserable 'D' rating. Researchers who released the 2018 ParticipACTION report found that adults in Canada, aware of their inadequate exercise regimens fully 'intended' to reverse the situation for themselves within a six-month period.

ParticipACTION toured across Canada in 2019   Community Better Challenge.

Yet while 68 percent of adults 65 and older claimed their firm intention to become more physically active, a mere 16 percent of adults between ages 18 and 79 (of whom 75 percent claimed their definite intention to embark on a robust exercise regimen) actually carried through their intention. That 16 percent was seen to reach the level of 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity weekly, comprised of brisk walking, cycling, running and other actions that produce hard breathing and an accelerated heart rate.

The 7,500 daily steps representing the number considered a base requirment to produce a physically active lifestyle was achieve by 52 percent of that group. No guidelines are present relating to sedentary behaviour, but lack of physical action can see the risk of cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes, cancers and all causes of mortality, rise markedly. Dr. Chaput pointed out that adults require at least 150 minutes weekly of physical activity, while children need a daily 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity activity for fitness maintenance.

Dr. Mark Tremblay, director of the Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research program based at the CHEO Research Institute, pointed out his research places Canadian fitness levels as average, compared to the performance of other countries. The fact is that the aging demographics in Canada make it more urgent that physical activity be engaged in, with its positive impact on mental and physical well-being.

Among the elderly, the risks of falls, dementia and poor mobility are mitigated by regular exercise producing a more fit, alert and energetic individual. A recommendation that nursing homes, long-term care homes and extended living facilities provide and promote muscle-and-bone-strengthening activities for their residents, appeared in the report, by the report's authors.

In addition to which recommendations for workplaces to create a "culture of movement", highlighting frequent work breaks to move about, standing desks, and reduced sedentary time in the workplace be seriously considered. The bottom line is that too few Canadians meet guidelines for moderate-to-vigorous daily action. Dr. Chaput stresses there is no need for people to attend a gym daily; rather the focus should be on moving about energetically and consistently, regardless of the type of activity chosen.

Adults who put in more than 7,500 steps per day likely meet physical activity guidelines, but only 52 per cent of adults do this, according to a new report. (Shutterstock/Pavel1964)