Writing Is Easy

SYNOPSIS:  “ Worth All the Sweat ”  (Economist, Jan. 2012); “ Exercise as Housecleaning for the Body ” (NYT);  "Exercise as Housecleaning for the Body,"  Gretchen Reynolds, NYT, Feb. 2, 2012) We’ve all heard about the many downsides of being under pressure, but did you know that when it comes to the health of your cells, stress can be a good thing? Autophagy is the process by which cells clean out the “garbage” that accumulates in them. Cells constantly recycle old proteins and internal dead parts to use for energy. When the body undergoes stress—food deprivation or physical exertion—autophagy kicks in. This mechanism could help animals and humans survive through leaner times when sustenance is not readily available. Researchers have known for a while about the anti-aging effects of cell recycling. When animals are fed a near-starvation diet, they live longer. Some intrepid humans have adopted this practice with the hope of prolonging their lives. Recent...

Based on:  “Personal Health: Too Much Medicine, and Too Few Checks,”  (Jane Brody, NYT, Well Blog, April 17 2012)             Over the last 100 years, life expectancy in the U.S. has increased dramatically. In 1910, for example, the average for men was 48 years. At 51 years, women didn’t fare much better. Today individuals can live well into their 80s. Longevity is both a blessing and a curse. As we age, maintaining good health becomes more complicated. Thanks to pharmaceutical advances, drug therapies have become highly targeted to treat specific conditions and illnesses; the longer we live, the more medications we need to take. The phenomenon known as overmedication of the elderly is a growing problem that costs the American healthcare system millions. Over 40% of people 65 and over take five or more medications. Often this is necessary to treat a variety of ailments, but when multiple doctors prescribe differ...

SYNOPSIS of: "Tick-borne Diseases" by Sanson et al. and "Tick Removal," by Sloan et al., on  Medscape              What has eight legs, a  capitulum , and drinks from a  hypostome ? If you guessed the tick, you’re right! In the U.S., tick season spans from April through September. The further one ventures out of the city and into the suburbs, an encounter with this eight-legged bloodsucker becomes more likely. In our neck of the woods, tick-infested areas include Gladwyne, the Wissahickon, and Valley Forge Park. Ticks are vectors of disease, which is a fancy way of saying that they carry and transmit pathogens (disease-causing substances) to their hosts. In order to move on to the next developmental stage, these tiny vampires need to feed on blood. The bad news is that ticks can transmit illnesses like Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and tularemia (a serious infectious disease). The good news is that you are highly unlik...

“Moderate Exercise, Quicker Conception Linked,”  Lindsey Konkel, Reuters Health (April 5 2012) Is it possible to summarize all scientific findings with the following statement: “Everything in moderation, nothing to extremes”? A U.S.-Danish study following 3500 Danish women aged 18-40 trying to get pregnant over 1 year demonstrates that moderate exercise performed more than 5 hours per week (walking, cycling) improves your chances of getting pregnant. Women who exercised moderately were 18% more likely to conceive than those who exercised for less than 1 hour a week. On the other hand, women who exercised vigorously for more than 5 hours per week (running or aerobics) were 32% less likely to get pregnant than those women who did not exercise strenuously at all. Overweight and obese women experience difficulty conceiving because higher levels of estrogen can adversely affect other hormones that facilitate ovulation. It is less clear why very lean women and the vigorous exe...

SYNTHESIS of: Press Release, Penn Medicine News.  “NSAIDs and Cardiovascular Risk Explained, According to Studies from the Perelman School of Medicine,”  May 2, 2012; and  “FDA Must Be Proactive About Postapproval Drug Safety: IOM,”  May 3, 2012, Medscape Nearly 10 years after Merck withdrew the COX-2 inhibitor Vioxx® (rofecoxib) from the market in 2004 because it increased the risk of heart problems when used for over one year, eight randomized trials conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine confirmed the possible adverse side effects of COX-2 inhibitors like Vioxx®. Initially, COX-2 inhibitors were viewed as a better alternative to traditional non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like Advil because they are less likely to cause gastrointestinal bleeding. Vioxx® selectively blocks COX-2, which produces prostaglandins (specifically prostocyclin) that cause pain and inflammation. However, prostocyclin ...

“Rapid Increase of Diabetes Strains Middle East’s Health Agencies,”  Sara Hamdan, January 12, 2011, The New York Times;  “Sun, Shopping and Surgery: Can the Gulf Attract Medical Tourists?”  December 10, 2010, The Economist The Middle East is currently experiencing a major health crisis in tandem with the United States: type 2 diabetes. Both countries are struggling to keep up with the costs and impact of the disease. In the U.S., type 2 diabetes afflicts both rich and poor, but  a stronger correlation between lower socioeconomic status and this chronic condition has been established.   Less affluent Americans tend to eat more fast food and may not, in general, have access to good preventative care. In oil-wealthy Middle Eastern countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Saudi Arabia, type 2 diabetes affects primarily the most privileged. The International Diabetes Foundation estimates that 26.6 million adults in the Middle East...

Paul Dano redeems himself after his monochromatic performance in  Little Miss Sunshine  (2006) in this comedic gem based on author-raconteur Jonathan Ames’ novel of the same name. Ames continues to indulge his penchant for perversion as he recounts the lives of men who cannot control their sexual impulses. In all of his personal and fictional works, highly depraved individuals are surprisingly the most capable of expressing humanity and tenderness towards the most vulnerable members of society. Considering that most of his stories are set in New York City, a locale that tends to attract the self-obsessed, this is no mean feat. After a “crippling brassiere incident,” Louis Ives (Dano) is fired from his job teaching English at a fancy Princeton prep school. He decides it’s the perfect time to move to Manhattan, where he can pursue his dream of becoming a writer. He rents a small room from one Henry H. Harrison (Kevin Kline), a flamboyant man who wages a daily war against mode...

What’s better than a zombie movie? A zombie movie with  Nazis!  Nazi zombies, that is. Picture it: Seven Norwegian medical students retreat to the mountains in the dead of winter (When is it  not  winter in Norway, anyway?), set against a Scandinavian pop and punk soundtrack. All except one, who went ahead of the rest but is mysteriously missing. An old timer advises them to “tread gently” because of the “evil presence” left by the occupying Nazis during World War II. Apparently these particular Nazis were more evil than their ordinary counterparts; they cruelly mistreated the Norwegian villagers and then stole all of their valuables. At some point the townspeople had had enough, rising up to kill as many of their tormentors as they could. The Nazi commander Colonel Herzog plus several of his men fled for the hills with gold and silver in tow. Instead of succumbing to the cold, they became zombies. The gang finds a wooden box filled with gold coins from the 1940s ...

Watching  Blackfish  reminded me of the scene in the first season of  The Walking Dead  in which Rick rides a beautiful chestnut horse into Atlanta. He has no idea that he is entering a dead zone of utter destruction and chaos. The viewer soon recognizes that he has placed a beautiful, noble animal—and himself—in peril. The horse is visibly terrified by the smell of death. Zombies attack almost immediately. They tear apart its flesh, devouring it while Rick beats a hasty retreat into a nearby tank. This is the one scene in all four seasons of the series that I dread. Of course, there are countless human victims in the show, but there’s something special about animals that touches our souls. Killer whales have a rich, inner emotional life that neuroscientists and animal behaviorists have observed. They communicate through a complex series of sounds that together form a type of language. In the wild, they travel in families, or pods. The children of a female killer ...

When Naval Square resident Sabina Borza noticed a lump above her collarbone in October 2013, she was 37 weeks pregnant with her daughter Anaïs. Worried about what it could mean, she phoned her husband David, an anesthesia and critical care resident at Penn. He advised her to contact her doctor immediately. They soon both realized that the situation called for more than a general practitioner; one week later, Borza found herself in the office of Penn’s Dr. John Glick, a leading expert in breast cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Based on his experience with the disease, Dr. Glick presumed that Borza might have lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system. It is most frequently diagnosed among young people aged 20 to 34 (Borza is in her early 30s). Only surgical biopsy of the affected lymph node, however, would be confirmatory. In Borza’s opinion, being diagnosed late in her pregnancy was actually a blessing, as now she and David would not have to worry about ...

On a clear, sunny day in April 1991, a small plane carrying Republican Senator Henry John Heinz III and a helicopter dispatched to inspect the landing gear of the plane collided in mid-air over Lower Merion Elementary School, near Narberth, PA. Tragically, everyone aboard both aircraft, as well as two children on the ground, was killed. Following the respected senator’s death, Heinz’s 20 years of public service was recognized by the naming of a college at Carnegie Mellon University after him and the founding of a history center that bears his name. Perhaps one of the highest honors bestowed upon the late senator was the re-naming of the Tinicum National Environmental Center, located a short, 15-minute drive from Naval Square. Heinz was a key player in the initial founding of the refuge in 1972. The John Heinz Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum is the perfect place to visit with family and friends. You can even take your dog along for the trip! Although the refuge is situated next to t...

“If Frank does your bust, you’re toast.” (John Walsh, former host of the long-running television show  America’s Most Wanted ) Although the mustard-yellow building located at 2215 South Street next to Bicycle Therapy now houses an art gallery, from 1986 until his death in 2011, Francis (Frank) Augustus Bender, Jr. lived and worked in this small space. He was first known as a talented painter and sculptor, but in the late 1970s, he embarked on a second career in which he helped local and national law enforcement officials to identify victims of violent crime and to track down individuals who had managed to elude justice for years and even decades. Fascinated with human anatomy, Bender regularly visited Philadelphia’s morgue to learn more about this topic by viewing corpses. After examining a woman whose features had been obliterated by multiple gunshot wounds, Bender boldly declared that he knew what the victim’s face looked like before her injuries. Although he helped ...

As I am shuffled through a dark, narrow tunnel by faceless attendants, my claustrophobia escalates from a minor issue to a big problem.    My two children, unnaturally calm husband, and myself are then gently transported in oversized seashells through yet another curving, dark tunnel featuring dancing images of Nemo and Dory. I manage to quell my rising panic attack. Welcome to “The Happiest Place on Earth”! If you are considering a family trip to the Walt Disney World (WDW) theme parks located in and around Orlando, Florida, read on. If, however, you expect a cheerful litany of helpful hints, think again. My impressions of the parks and the quality of Disney’s cuisine, lodging, and service are rendered with a gimlet eye: No detail escapes my hyper-vigilant worldview. I do admire Disney’s vision, and the organization is engaged in wonderful endeavors. But I would be remiss if I did not also point out the less sunny side of WDW. It IS a “small world,” after all, until ...