MD and I just got back from the Nutrition & Metabolism meeting in Phoenix. I’ve been dilatory in posting and in putting up comments because the meeting and the pre- and post-meeting socializing (most of which was discussion of one another’s work and the status of the low-carb diet in academia) took up all of my non-sleeping time. And all the pre- and post-meeting socializing included both film and podcast interviews.

The Nutrition & Metabolism meeting is held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Society for Bariatric Physicians (ASBP). We skipped the ASBP meeting because we couldn’t take the time away from the book project we’re working on. As a result we missed a terrific presentation by Robert Wolfe, formerly of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, now at my alma mater, the University of Arkansas. Dr. Wolfe has done much of the work on protein metabolism and has shown in a number of papers that good things happen when protein is substituted for carbohydrate in the diet. When MD and I got there, Dr. Wolfe was in the hall trying to escape from a barrage of questioners. I listened in and learned, among other things, that his work with glucogenogenesis has shown that the newly minted glucose (made from protein) goes first into glycogen and from there into the circulation. I always thought it went directly into the blood stream from the liver, but work with carbon 13 tracing shows that it goes into glycogen first.

Before I had to get suited up for the first interview, Richard Feinman and I were able to slip off and have a cup of coffee.

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Another example of the difficulty experienced in resolving cognitive dissonance from today’s Wall Street Journal:

What, really, is Mrs. Clinton doing? She is having the worst case of cognitive dissonance in the history of modern politics. She cannot come up with a credible, realistic path to the nomination. She can’t trace the line from “this moment’s difficulties” to “my triumphant end.” But she cannot admit to herself that she can lose. Because Clintons don’t lose. She can’t figure out how to win, and she can’t accept the idea of not winning. She cannot accept that this nobody from nowhere could have beaten her, quietly and silently, every day. (She cannot accept that she still doesn’t know how he did it!)

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We’ve all experienced the sore, scratchy throat, the non-stop running nose, the malignant sneezing, the headache and general malaise brought on by the good old common cold. And we’ve all heard that it can’t be cured. But that doesn’t stop us from sucking on zinc lozenges, throwing back vitamin C tablets, chugging echinacea tea and gobbling all manner of over-the-counter medications.

Problem is that none of these things really work. There are a lot of anecdotal reports about all the above ‘treatments’ working to reduce the severity and duration of a cold, but when tested under the same stringent double-blind, placebo-controlled methods used to vet drugs, they fall short. Most don’t work any better than placebo. And, alas, a trip to your local doctor won’t help you much either because the common cold is caused by a virus, and as we all know, there aren’t really any medications including antibiotics that kill viruses. So we are left in despair to wait it out until our own immune system rallies and overcomes the evil virus causing our misery.

But there is a product on the shelves of most health food stores and natural food groceries that really does work. However, most people don’t know about it, and when they do see it mixed in with all the other cold medicines, they don’t know how different it really is.

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David Mamet

A couple of weeks ago David Mamet, prolific author, screen writer, director, and playwright, wrote an essay in The Village Voice about his conversion from a “brain-dead liberal” to a sort of conservative. After a lifetime of running with the far-left Hollywood crowd and promoting their brand of liberalism, Mamet slowly began to realize that life as he actually experienced it conflicted with his political beliefs creating major cognitive dissonance.

I took the liberal view for many decades, but I believe I have changed my mind.

As a child of the ’60s, I accepted as an article of faith that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart.

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By popular demand I’m putting up something to get rid of AC’s picture while I’m working on another post.

I ran across the video below a couple of months ago and found it to be fascinating. It’s incredible what can be done with a camera, some music and a little creativity. All of which would have gone unnoticed and undisseminated had there been no YouTube. In my opinion, the guys who came up with YouTube deserve every dollar they made on it.

This video despite its simplicity is remarkably calming and almost mesmerizing (to me at least). It’s wonderfully well done. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

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