Archived News of the Week

Gene Expressions of the Aged: Part II

(Plus Red Meat and Cholesterol)

The "Luddite and Proud of It" Gene: This is the anti-technology gene and appears as early as age 55, but mostly in the late sixties, in both sexes. It is easy to diagnose because the symptoms are a snap to recognize. You will know these sufferers instantly because they don't own an I-Phone, an I-Pad or even an I-Pod nor do they insouciantly drop proud references to their tiny electronic things. However, as an homage to the 21st Century, they may have the cheapest Dell computer which they will use for word processing and receiving emails and looking up various stuff on Google. They have no idea what those keys at the top of their keyboard starting with the letter "F" are for and this worries them.

It is rare that this person would own a Mac, because they have heard that it's "quite complicated." They claim, querulously perhaps, to be "perfectly happy" with their old electric Smith Corona typewriter from college, their hi-fi on which they play their 45 singles from the 70's and their SONY Walkman on which they listen to old Paul Simon tapes. They will eventually purchase a Virgin Mobile cell phone because it's simple and inexpensive ("Just like the old Beetle VW Bug!") from which they won't know how to pick up messages when people call them and leave a message. Usually the ringer has been turned off accidentally - or maybe it was never turned on, they have no idea - so said Luddite doesn't know when someone is calling. Or this could happen, too: When said Luddite answers the cell phone, they push "send" by accident - or maybe not by accident - thereby cutting the caller off.

Don't be fooled by their sweet bravado. These poor souls are stuck in the 70's because they are desperately afraid that they won't be able to handle the new technology. For example, the thought of making an appointment with the Genius Bar at Apple will cause instant hyperventilation and scary heart attack symptoms. They are totally out of their element there and they wouldn't dream of asking about the "thing" on the "thing" that doesn't seem to work anymore. However, they would rather kill themselves before admitting that they can't handle the new technology and instead will defensively adopt the "Luddite and Proud of It" pose. I have a theory about all of this: By the late 60's, the oldster's brain is so filled up with years and years of information and skill sets and what not that there is no room left for the new technology.

Red Meat was vilified in a report in Archives of Internal Medicine (March 7, 2012). Reporting on a long-term cohort study from Harvard, following 38,000 men and 83,000 women for 28 years and profiling their reactions (via questionnaires) to the consumption of red meat, the results showed this: Briefly, red meat isn't so good for you. In the 28 year study they correlated an increased risk of death by 13%. Deaths from CVD (cardiovascular disease) increased (over norm) by 18% and cancer by 10%. If the participants ate processed meats like hot dogs, nitrate-laden lunch meats etc, the risk of death increased by 20% overall. They also found that if you replace the red meat with low fat dairy, nuts, fish and poultry, all cause mortality actually decreased. Those marbled steaks? Out, I say. Leave those big steaks back in the Mad Men 60's along with Empire waistlines, skinny ties for men and bouffant hairdos. Leave the "pink slime" hamburger in the slaughter houses, too. Speaking of which, my personal opinion is that we also tend to "eat" the abject terror of the cows being slaughtered, which is not good for anything on this planet, especially humans.

Regarding Cholesterol: I think most of you know my position on "high" cholesterol and statin drugs by now. If you don't, then, in a nutshell, I don't buy into the "high cholesterol is bad" myth. I feel, like a lot of others, that cholesterol is actually a benevolent bystander in the process of ASVD (arteriosclerotic vascular disease) and is not directly involved in the ASVD process. The toxic debris from stress, bad fats, sugar, the environment, chemicals etc, actually cause the arterial plaque, not cholesterol.

A few years ago, I have to admit that I caved to the insane pressure from the medical community and decided to try a statin drug for the inherited high cholesterol from my mother (300+). I said, what the hey, I'll just try it. Can't hurt, right? Oh, so wrong. Within 3 days I had lost my short term memory. It was awful and scary. I stopped the Zocor immediately and thankfully got all my marbles back. I haven't checked my cholesterol levels in about 6 years now and it's just fine by me, whatever the number is.

A patient on statins was having what's called Transient Global Amnesia attacks, or TGA's. She would act like she was having a stroke or TIA's but with no weakness or paralysis, only extreme memory loss. While in the "attack", she couldn't remember anything including who was the current president. This attack would last maybe 45 minutes then she would come back to normal. She was thoroughly checked out via the medical community with an MRI, blood tests, etc. and all came out within normal limits. She had 2 of these frightening attacks and then stopped her statins (I had just read an obscure article about TGA's and statins) because we thought that they might be causing these brain attacks. Turns out the statins were the culprit because so far, so good, after a few years without the statins.

Cholesterol is protective and essential to cell walls and, as you can see, to brain composition and health. In fact, cholesterol's job is to run around and fix all the injuries to the inside of the artery wall. So, lowering cholesterol to 150 and under doesn't make sense to me - you have a fire inside the artery wall and you are disabling the fire trucks?

There is no proof or correlation with high cholesterol and ASVD or protection against heart attacks: Cholesterol doesn't kill anymore than a bad paint job on a car can cause a fatal accident. I have no idea why cardiologists and internists are so set on everyone being on a statin, even children which is horrific. Maybe statin's efficacy, rather than lowering cholesterol levels, is that it has something to do with reducing the inflammation in the arterial wall; we know that an elevated hs-CRP, a measure of inflammation, is a risk factor for CHD and statins do reduce an elevated hs-CRP, but why not take good fish oil instead? It will reduce the bad oxidized cholesterol which causes inflammation and has virtually no side-effects, except fish burps in the sensitive few.

More on hs-CRP and Gene Expressions of the Aged in the next newsletter.

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