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Posts Tagged ‘health’

Rx: Find a Friend

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 29, 2023| 6 Comments »

Photo: Caroline Hernandez/Unsplash.
Few things matter as much as a good friend.

I’m thinking a lot about friends today because one of my friends has been in the hospital more than a week, having had a serious fall. She lives alone and has health issues that cause her to fall. Her only family, a nephew, lives far away. So her health proxy (and good friend) designated four of us as her family. The ICU admits only family.

My friend has come out of her coma and ditched the ventilator, and we have been rejoicing over the smallest things: eyes opening, head nodding for answers to questions, the lifting of a hand.

Friends have always meant a lot to me (see post “Time with Friends Boosts Health“), and today’s article suggests one of the reasons why: they are good for my health. They certainly have been good for my friend’s health.

Sharon Barbour (@SharonBarbour on Twitter) reports at the BBC, “A new approach to helping people with depression is becoming more and more popular. ‘Social Prescribing’ sees GPs sending patients on trips to places like allotments (community gardens) rather than pharmacies. Healthcare professionals say it works, and reduces pressure on GPs and A&E [emergency rooms] too.

“Craig Denton, from Gateshead, has struggled with depression and loneliness for years. … He is one of more than eight million adults in England now taking antidepressants. But, in the North East, a new approach to helping people with depression is growing.

” ‘Social prescribing’ is part of a plan by health and council bosses to tackle what Gateshead’s director of public health described as ‘really shocking’ health outcomes in the region.

“It has seen Craig enjoy a day out at an allotment run by his GP’s surgery where he has dug and cleared, but also chatted with other people, and not been alone.

” ‘Instead of just sitting down in your house, where you can just dwell on things, you can use this as a distraction, meet new people,’ he said.

“Julie Bray, from Oxford Terrace and Rawling Road Medical Group in Gateshead, was one of the first NHS social prescribers in the country and said she was ‘really passionate’ about it. … ‘They build their confidence up, it reduces GP appointments, it reduces A&E appointments, and it just makes them connect with the community and be resilient.’

“The North East has among the highest rates of drug-related deaths, heart disease, liver disease and suicide in England.

“Rates of child poverty are double the England average in some areas with poverty underpinning much of the ill health. Social prescribing is only one part of a plan by the NHS, local councils, and community groups to make improvements by 2030.

“Alice Wiseman, Gateshead director of public health, said a report in 2020 showed that, while life expectancy across the UK had stalled, it had started getting shorter for those in the bottom 10% income bracket in the North East.

” ‘Nine of all 13 areas within this plan have a healthy life expectancy of less than 60 years,’ she said. ‘People aren’t even reaching retirement age without having a life-limiting illness. It is really shocking.’ …

“What is needed is ‘forming friendships and feeling as if they’ve valued, as if they’re worth something,’ she said.”

Tell me about the importance of your own friends. It may not be enough for serious depression, but as the saying goes about chicken soup, “It wouldn’t hurt.”

More at the BBC, here. No firewall.

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Rx: Laughter

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 15, 2023| 8 Comments »

Photo: Dan Cook/Unsplash.
Ha ha ha ha ha.

Back in the 1990s, I had a stint as the editor of a publication called Minnesota Physician, where I interviewed a local physician who referred to himself as “the laugh doctor.” He convinced me that even forcing yourself to laugh can create endorphins in your body that are good for your health.

More recently, I saw research about this at the Washington Post. Daryl Austin has the story.

“My three young daughters like to watch pets doing silly things. Almost daily, they ask to see animal video clips on my phone and are quickly entertained. But once my 7-year-old lets out a belly laugh, the laughter floodgates are opened and her two sisters double over as well.

“This is just what science would predict.

“ ‘Laughter is a social phenomenon,’ says Sophie Scott, a neuroscientist at University College London who has studied laughter and other human reactions for more than two decades. Scott co-wrote a study showing how the brain responds to the sound of laughter by preparing one’s facial muscles to join in, laying the foundation for laughs to spread from person to person.

‘Contagious laughter demonstrates affection and affiliation,’ Scott says. ‘Even being in the presence of people you expect to be funny will prime laughter within you.’

“Scientists have yet to definitively find a funny bone, but they are revealing nuances about the laugh impulse. Laughter’s positive psychological and physiological responses include lessening depression and anxiety symptoms, increasing feelings of relaxation, improving cardiovascular health, releasing endorphins that boost mood and even increasing tolerance for pain.

“Laughing has also been shown to lower stress levels. ‘Cortisol is a stress hormone that laughter lowers,’ says Scott, adding that anticipation of laughter also ‘drops your adrenaline’ and the body’s heightened fight-or-flight response. ‘All of these things contribute to you feeling better when you’ve been laughing,’ she says.

“Because humans are wired to mirror one another, laughs spread around a room just like yawns, says Lauri Nummenmaa, a brain researcher and professor at Aalto University School of Science in Finland whose work appears in a recent special issue on laughter in the journal Royal Society.

“ ‘We simply copy the behavior and laughter of others,’ Nummenmaa says. ‘Someone else’s act of laughing is first perceived when seen or heard, and this sensory information is then converted into the same area of the observers’ brain.’

“Studies also indicate that laughter can strengthen relationship connections. This happens, in part, because people naturally want to be around those who make them feel good the way laughing does. ‘We crave the company of the individuals who can give us such feelings,’ Nummenmaa says. …

“Contagious laughter isn’t necessarily a phenomenon unique to humans. Great apes, for instance, have been documented behaving similarly.

“ ‘Laughter is a play signal in humans and many other animals,’ says Disa Sauter, a social behavior professor at the University of Amsterdam. ‘It is used in rough-and-tumble play across species.’ …

“ ‘Vocal play signals frequently accompany other nonvocal behaviors, such as the play face in primates … or the play bow in dogs,’ according to a 2021 study in the journal Bioacoustics. The cues help differentiate threatening actions from play fighting and wrestling. …

“You can, of course, laugh alone, but the contagious nature of laughter means we’re more likely to laugh harder and longer in groups, as at a comedy club or in a movie theater.

“Psychologist Robert Provine showed that ‘you’re 30 times more likely to laugh with other people than you are on your own,’ Scott says. In his seminal book, Laughter: A Scientific Investigation, Provine wrote that the ‘contagious laugh response is immediate and involuntary, involving the most direct communication possible between people: brain to brain.’ …

“ ‘Laughter has many subtle rules that make adults highly attuned to when it’s socially appropriate,’ says Harry Witchel, a physiologist and neuroscientist at Brighton and Sussex Medical School in Brighton, England.

“There are circumstances, he notes, when people laugh at something that is not humorous: ‘Laughter is regularly linked to joy, relief, tickling, sudden incongruity, social discomfort, dominance, humiliating another and many other causes.’ …

“In Laughter, Provine described ‘laugh epidemics’ [like] the plague of laughter’ that befell numerous Central African schools starting in 1962: Contagious ‘laugh attacks’ among several groups of students lasted several hours to many days and continued until two schools had to close for extended periods of time. …

“Although scientists have uncovered much about laughter’s health benefits and its contagious element, there remain many unknowns, including how contagious laughter is learned in the first place.” More at the Post, here.

I wonder how blogger Laurie Graves — whose fictional characters can communicate through thoughts — reacts to the idea that “contagious laugh response [is] the most direct communication possible between people: brain to brain.” Might be something to use.

Contagious laugh response in Mongolia.

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Time with Friends Boosts Health

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 10, 2023| 6 Comments »

Photo: Suzanne and John’s Mom.
Suzanne and Kate on Cape Cod. They laugh a lot.

When I saw today’s article by Teddy Amenabar at the Washington Post, I knew it would be blog material. That’s not just because friends have been important to me since childhood (Hello, Hannah!), but because I’ve been learning about the particular virtues that conversation with friends has for older people. There’s the value of relaxing, having fun. But there are also cognitive benefits from focusing on what friends are saying and responding thoughtfully.

Amenabar writes, “One of the more surprising findings in the science of relationships is that both romance and friendship often start the same way — with a spark. … A growing body of research shows friends are essential to a healthy life — and they are just as important for our well-being as healthy eating habits or a good night’s sleep.

“ ‘We’ve always had this hierarchy of love with romantic love at the top and friendship seen as second class,’ said Marisa G. Franco, a professor at the University of Maryland and author of Platonic: How The Science of Attachment Can Help You Make — and Keep — Friends. …

“Platonic love trumps romantic love in a number of ways. People with strong friendships tend to have better mental health and studies suggest they’re in better physical health, as well. Researchers have found large social networks lower our risk of premature death more than exercise or dieting alone.

A six-year study of 736 middle-aged Swedish men found having a life partner didn’t affect the risk of heart attack or fatal coronary heart disease — but having friends did.

“A 10-year Australian study found that older people with a lot of friends were 22 percent less likely to die during the study period than those with few friends. Notably, having a social network of children and relatives did not affect survival rates. …

“There are multiple theories about the association between friendship and better health. Part of the effect may be due to the fact that it’s easier for healthy people to make friends. A strong social network could be an indicator that someone has more access to medical care. And, someone with more friends may just have a better support system to get a ride to the doctor’s office.

“But there is also a psychological effect of friendship that likely plays a role. Friends help us cope with stress. In one study at the University of Virginia, many people were intimidated at the prospect of climbing a steep hill. But researchers found that when people were standing next to a friend, they rated the hill less challenging than those who were alone.

“Brain imaging studies suggest that friendship affects brain systems associated with reward, stress and negative emotions, offering an explanation for why social connection benefits mental health and well-being. Friendship even seems to affect our immune response. In one remarkable study, 276 healthy volunteers were given nose drops containing a cold virus. Those with diverse social ties were less likely to develop cold symptoms. …

“Friends don’t just appear out of thin air, Franco said. Here’s her advice for making new connections and maintaining the old ones.

“Take the initiative. Trust your gut when you’re meeting new people. We’re particularly good at knowing when someone is a potential new friend (remember that spark). And, you should assume people like you. We often underestimate how positively others think of us, Franco said. …

“Start with a text. Start small by scrolling through your phone and shooting a text message to an old friend you’ve been meaning to reconnect with.

“Show your gratitude. If a potential friend reaches out to you to grab coffee or pizza, tell them how happy you are they reached out, and that you appreciate the effort, Franco said. In a University of Utah study, researchers asked 70 college freshman to keep a check list of certain interactions — like going to see a movie together or calling just to say hello — they did with new friends. After three months, the researchers found that close friendships were more likely to form when the pairs expressed affection to each other. …

“Invite friends to things you’ve already planned. If it’s hard to find time for friends, think of the tasks you already have to accomplish and tag on a friend, Franco said. The next time you workout at the gym, for example, you could invite someone to join. ‘Ask yourself: Are there parts of your day right now that you’re doing anyway that you can just do in community with other people?’ Franco said.

“Join a book club, take a class or play a sport. Regular interaction with people who share the same interests as you could lead to friendship. Another University of Maryland study that found cadets who sat next to each other in police academy were more likely to become close friends. …

“While having friends is good for your health, not having them can be detrimental.According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, loneliness has been associated with higher rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide. For older women, loneliness and social isolation can increase the risk of heart disease by as much as 27 percent.

“Loneliness is essentially the perceived gap between the relationships you have and the relationships you want in your life, said Adam Smiley Poswolsky, the author of Friendship in the Age of Loneliness.

“A 2018 study found that loneliness is common across age groups. … Social media can exacerbate our perception of loneliness by bombarding us with photos and videos of friends and acquaintances seemingly spending their time without us, said Poswolsky.

“[Said] Poswolsky, ‘No one feels like they can talk about it because there’s a lot of shame associated with loneliness.’

“Billy Baker, the author of We Need to Hang Out, a memoir of his personal journey to find new friends as a middle-aged man, said he realized he needed to build beyond the lifelong friendships he made in high school or college.

“Baker said he didn’t have very many people he could call in the middle of the night if there was an emergency. To remedy this, he started a fraternity for neighborhood dads to meet every Wednesday night, and the group now gets together on other days and on the weekends.

“Baker said he’s spent years ‘checking off so many other boxes,’ to be a good father and husband, but he’s never had ‘hanging out with my buddies’ on the list.

“ ‘We all know how to do this,’ he said. ‘What very often happens in those moments is you feel that spark with someone and you say: “Hey, we should grab a beer some time!” But, how often do you go grab that beer?’ ”

As Suzanne and her fellow Girl Scouts used to sing,

“Make new friends
“But keep the old.
“One is silver
“And the other gold.”

More at the Post, here.

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Study: Dancing Improves Memory

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on June 13, 2022| 6 Comments »

Photo: NeuroscienceNews.
Latinos aged 55 and older who participated in Latin dance classes for eight months showed significant improvement in working memory over their peers who did not partake in Latin dance.

When I expressed worry about signs of aging, my scientist brother chided me for not being more upbeat, saying, “The brain can look like Swiss cheese and one can still have a happy hour, or more maybe, left.”

He was right. Today’s article on the virtues of dance for older people underscores that point and suggests that for some, dance can even reverse decline.

NeuroscienceNews describes a recent study from the University of Illinois.

“Latinos age 55 and over who participated in a culturally relevant Latin dance program for eight months significantly improved their working memory compared with peers in the control group who attended health education workshops, according to the study’s lead author, Susan Aguiñaga, a professor of kinesiology and community health at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Working memory – the ability to temporarily keep a small amount of information in mind while performing other cognitive tasks – is integral to planning, organizing and decision-making in everyday life.

“The dance program used in the study, Balance and Activity in Latinos, Addressing Mobility in Older Adults – or BAILAMOS – showed promise at enticing older Latinos to become more physically active and help stave off age-related cognitive decline, Aguiñaga said.

“ ‘Dance can be cognitively challenging,’ Aguiñaga said. ‘When you’re learning new steps, you have to learn how to combine them into sequences. And as the lessons progress over time, you must recall the steps you learned in a previous class to add on additional movements.’

“BAILAMOS was co-created by study co-author David X. Marquez, a professor of kinesiology and nutrition, and the director of the Exercise and Psychology Lab at the University of Illinois Chicago; and Miguel Mendez, the creator and owner of the Dance Academy for Salsa.

“BAILAMOS incorporates four types of Latin dance styles: merengue, salsa, bachata and cha cha cha, said Aguiñaga, who has worked with the program since its inception when she was a graduate student at the U. of I. Chicago.

“ ‘It’s an appealing type of physical modality,’ she said. ‘Older Latinos are drawn to Latin dance because most of them grew up with it in some way.’

“Latin dance can evoke positive emotions that prompt listeners to participate, increasing levels of physical activity in a population that tends to be sedentary, according to the study, published in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.

“More than 330 Spanish-speaking Latino adults who were middle-aged or older were recruited for the study, primarily through community outreach in local churches. Participants were randomly assigned to either the dance group or the control group, which met once a week for two-hour health education classes that covered topics such as nutrition, diabetes and stress reduction.

“Participants in the BAILAMOS groups met twice weekly for the dance sessions, taught by a professional instructor for the first four months and later by a ‘program champion’ – an outstanding participant in each group who displayed enthusiasm and leadership qualities.

“The program’s champions were selected and trained by the instructor to lead the sessions during the four-month maintenance phase.

“Over the different waves of the four-year study, the dance lessons were held at 12 different locations across Chicago, such as neighborhood senior centers and churches that were familiar and easily accessible to participants, Aguiñaga said.

“Participants’ working memory – along with their episodic memory and executive function – was assessed with a set of seven neuropsychological tests before the intervention began, when it concluded after four months and again at the end of the maintenance phase.

“Participants also completed questionnaires that assessed the number of minutes per week they engaged in light, moderate and vigorous physical activity through tasks associated with their employment, leisure activities, household maintenance and other activities. …

“As with a small pilot study of BAILAMOS conducted previously, the current study found no differences in any of the cognitive measures between the dance participants and their counterparts in the health education group at four months. However, after eight months, people in the dance group performed significantly better on tests that assessed their working memory.

“ ‘That’s probably one of the most important findings – we saw cognitive changes after eight months, where participants themselves had been leading the dance classes during the maintenance phase,’ Aguiñaga said. ‘All of our previous studies were three or four months long. The take-home message here is we need longer programs to show effects.

“ ‘But to make these programs sustainable and create a culture of health, we also need to empower participants to conduct these activities themselves and make them their own.’ “

The open-access study, “Latin Dance and Working Memory: The Mediating Effects of Physical Activity Among Middle-Aged and Older Latinos,” by Susan Aguiñaga et al appears in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.

This really intrigues me. Even though I have no Latin background, music like salsa makes me want to dance, too. I suppose if I were in a research study, though, I’d probably need doo-wop to trigger a primordial urge to leap out of my chair.

More at NeuroscienceNews, here.

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Alabama Transforms Waste

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 13, 2021| 1 Comment »

Photo: Wikimedia Commons
MacArthur Fellow and environmental health advocate Catherine Coleman Flowers of Alabama.

Today’s article is about an environmental health advocate from rural Alabama who was honored recently by the MacArthur Foundation. One thing her story suggests to me is that when parents demonstrate concern for the world around them, later generations can work miracles. The parents of Catherine Coleman Flowers were civil rights activists in the 1960s.

Sarah Kaplan writes at the Washington Post, “To Catherine Coleman Flowers, this is ‘holy ground’: the place where her ancestors were enslaved and her parents fought for civil rights and she came of age. …

“Yet this ground also harbors a threat, one made worse by climate change. Untreated sewage is coursing through this rural community, a consequence of historic government disinvestment, basic geology and recent changes in the soil. On rainy days, foul effluent burbles up into bathtubs and sinks, and pools in yards. Some residents have hookworm, an illness rarely seen in developed nations.

“It’s America’s ‘dirty secret,’ Flowers said. … Heavier rainfall caused by climate change is saturating soil and raising water tables — confounding septic systems. From the flooded coasts of Florida to thawing Alaska towns, an estimated half-million U.S. households lack adequate sanitation.

“Now Flowers, a MacArthur Foundation ‘genius,’ is partnering with environmental engineers at Columbia University on a solution. They are working on a new kind of toilet that will act as a mini sewage treatment facility.

Instead of flushing waste, the system they’re working to build will filter, clean and recycle waste on site. Instead of sending raw sewage into the soil, it will turn it into water for use in washing machines, and into nutrients for fertilizer, and perhaps even energy for homes. …

“What was once a problem can become a solution, Flowers said. And the change will start in Lowndes County, as it has before.

“To Flowers, 62, the Lowndes County of her childhood was part rural idyll, part activism hotbed. … In 1965, about 80 percent of the county’s population was Black, but not a single Black person was registered to vote. …

“But then protesters from Selma marched down Lowndes’s dirt roads on their way to Montgomery, and a wave of activism erupted. … Flowers’s father, a military veteran and salesman, and her mother, a teacher’s aide, were heavily involved. Civil rights leaders streamed to their cinder-block home. …

“Her parents’ activism connected Flowers to the world beyond Lowndes County. As a teenager, she joined the Alabama Students for Civil Rights and spent a summer in D.C. as a youth fellow at the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Foundation. She read ‘The Autobiography of Malcolm X,’ wrote politics-infused poetry and dreamed of becoming the first Black woman on the U.S. Supreme Court.

“In 11th grade, frustrated with subpar conditions at her high school, Flowers wrote an exposé for a local newsletter. That led to the formation of a community group, then a lawsuit and, ultimately, to the resignation of the principal and school board superintendent.

“ ‘My father’s famous thing he would always say was, “Catherine, if you take one step, God will take two,” ‘ Flowers said. It meant that change was possible, but you had to do the work.”

The article goes on to say that after Flowers had moved away, she learned her home county was suffering and that part of the problem was that the soil had changed and no longer worked for septic systems, which “require permeable soil. … All over the county, septic systems were breaking down. Heavy rainfall would seal up the soil until effluent had nowhere to go but up onto lawns or back into homes. …

“Flowers — then director of the nonprofit Alabama Center for Rural Enterprise (ACRE) — set out to determine the scale of the problem. …

“ ‘This is America,’ Flowers said. ‘We’re not supposed to have these kinds of problems — at least, that’s what we tell ourselves. But we do.’ …

“Climate change is making existing deficiencies worse. Rising sea levels have elevated the water table in coastal areas, shrinking the depth of leach fields and increasing contamination. Days of extreme rainfall — which have doubled in the Southeast as a consequence of warming — stymie septic systems. …

“ ‘Climate change is like a magnifying glass for everything,’ Flowers said. It exacerbates neglect, widens inequality and exposes problems once hidden. …

“Flowers has a vision for a better septic system. It’s cheap to buy and easy to run. It’s equipped with sensors that can monitor for signs of pathogens, including the coronavirus. Instead of allowing sewage to seep into the ground, the system separates waste into its component parts, which can then be recycled. …

“In Kartik Chandran, she found a partner who shares that vision. They met five years ago at a conference on wastewater issues. Chandran, an environmental engineer at Columbia University, was struck by how similar Lowndes County’s waste problems were to those in his native India. Flowers remembered hearing about Chandran’s research and thinking, ‘This is the technological solution we need.’ ” Read how it would work here.

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Refugees Making Face Masks

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 14, 2020| 3 Comments »

Photo: Refugee Company
The goal of the Mondmaskerfabriek, an initiative of the Refugee Company in the Netherlands, is to produce 100,000 face masks every day.

As a volunteer in English classes (all online these days), I am aware that most immigrants are determined to contribute to the countries they arrive in. Consider, for example, the Muslim husband and wife in Germany who were largely responsible for the miracle vaccine developed in one year against the odds.

In the Netherlands, the Refugee Company has immigrants employed in making face masks to protect the Dutch against Covid-19.

Michal van der Toorn at the Local Europe has the story.

“Why be dependent on factories on the other side of the world if you can produce face masks locally? That’s exactly what Dutch entrepreneurs Jaap Stelwagen, Fleur Bakker, Johan Blom and Naz Kawan thought in March. The Netherlands, like many other countries at the time, was dealing with a big deficit of surgical face masks.

“Stelwagen, who lived in China, together with his wife who is originally from China, called several people there to ask whether it would be possible to get material. Bakker’s sister, a KLM pilot, managed to get hold of a roll of [fabric] that you need to make face masks, and brought it to the Netherlands on a plane full of other health equipment. Later that month, on one of the few flights that were running at the time, two face mask machines flew 7,000 kilometres to Amsterdam.

“But who would operate them? [One] Company already had a sewing workshop and restaurants in place where people with a refugee background were able to acquire work experience. [The company writes its name Refugee Company to focus on the work, not immigration status.]

“ ‘As a response to the pandemic,’ project spokesperson Peter-Paul de Jong explains, ‘we decided to set up a face mask factory: the Mondmaskerfabriek. … The project not only responded to the deficit of masks in Dutch healthcare,’ de Jong explains, “but also provides people with a refugee background with work experience and knowledge about the labour market in the Netherlands.’

“Firas al Naif, 33, is one of the employees in the factory. ‘I’m doing different tasks,’ he says. ‘I for example have to make sure the masks are properly wrapped and check if the machines work.’ It is all new for Al Naif, as in Syria, he worked as a biology teacher. ‘I wasn’t used to doing technical tasks. The first month was pretty hard, but now it’s going really well. …

” ‘We have a paid four-hour programme next to work, in which we can improve our language and become more familiar with the labour market, and we make for example a CV, application letters, we see how you can find work. …

“ ‘The one thing I like most about this work is solving problems,’ says Al Naif. ‘If there is a problem with the machine from China, I like to look for ways to get it working again.’

“And there were other problems, de Jong explains. After the challenges of getting the right machines and material, the next problem arose: getting certification to create surgical face masks for healthcare professionals. In order to be used in the healthcare sector, the face masks have to be certified by a laboratory to say they meet strict standards. And that took some time. …

“As the building is old, ventilation is a problem and it’s hard to get it up to the antibacterial standards, Bakker writes on the website. The location caused occasional deviations that stood in the way of the factory’s certification.

“The project tried different ways to ensure the masks were up to medical standards, including sterilizing them with gamma radiation and setting up a special sterile production room within the factory with purified air and an antibacterial floor.

“In mid October the certification was acquired and the factory started supplying the Dutch centralized point for healthcare products. …

“ ‘That distinguishes the Mondmaskerfabriek from other projects from the Refugee Company,’ de Jong explains, ‘as we can use the profits to pay employees, instead of only relying on funds and donations.’ …

“ ‘I love how much I learned about technology,’ [al Naif] says. But he would rather be a biology teacher again. ‘When my Dutch is good enough, I want to go back to the classroom.’ ”

More at the Local Europe, here.

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Artists Paid to Promote Health

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 12, 2020| 6 Comments »

Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, Chronicle
Michael Houston brightens San Franciscans’ day as part of the San Francisco Creative Corps, a program that pays performing artists to be community health ambassadors.

One of my brothers, the science professor, used to perform regularly as a clown, particularly at church and Sunday School. Clowns-in-ministry is actually a thing, a way to engage parishioners and provide a different perspective on teachings.

In San Francisco during the pandemic, clowns and performers of all kinds have heard the call to keep people healthy using laughter, entertainment, and public-service messaging.

Lily Janiak has the story at the San Francisco Chronicle.

“Robin Lara and Stella Adelman of Dance Mission Theater were strapping on stilts. Michael Houston of San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company was affixing a red clown nose on top of his face mask. Marcelo Javier, also of SFBATCO, was trying out a jury-rigged pandemic-era clown prop — two extendable massage rollers tied together, allowing him to interact with passersby from a safer distance.

“If these artists were backstage — at a side room in the Mission District restaurant West of Pecos — their theater was Valencia Street on a recent sunny afternoon. And if they were about to open a show, their message was public health.

“These four, along with Rodney E. Jackson Jr. of SFBATCO and Aura Barba of SF Carnaval, were just one shift of artists in San Francisco Creative Corps, a pilot program that recruits underemployed local artists as community health ambassadors to promote healthy behavior during the pandemic.

“A partnership between the San Francisco mayor’s office, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, and the San Francisco Parks Alliance, the program launched last month. It employs 30 performing artists to encourage mask wearing and other best practices and 30 visual artists to paint murals about public health on boarded-up storefronts.

“The city chose Valencia Street and Washington Square in North Beach as pilot sites because of their high pedestrian traffic, significant amounts of outdoor eating and drinking, low mask compliance and high or increasing case rates, according to Jeff Cretan, director of communications at the mayor’s office. …

“Deborah Cullinan, YBCA’s chief executive officer, approached the city with the idea after being part of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Task Force on Business and Jobs Recovery.

‘What’s the WPA program for today?’ she recalls thinking, referring to Depression-era initiatives such as the Federal Theatre Project and the Federal Art Project that employed artists not just as work relief but as a broad public investment in art. …

” ‘Artists are very effective in driving health outcomes in communities,’ she said, citing projects ranging from a radio drama combating the spread of Ebola in Sierra Leone to National Endowment for the Arts-backed therapy helping veterans with PTSD and traumatic brain injury at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. …

“On Nov. 29, Lara and Adelman — decked in feathers, bustiers and leg flares in addition to their stilts — paraded down Valencia Street. … Houston, with blazer, tie, rainbow wig and microphone, in addition to the red nose and mask, approached passersby for man-on-the-street interviews, asking — in a news announcer baritone — what they were doing to keep themselves safe from COVID-19. …

“The artists never scolded those without masks — emphatically not the point of the program — and pedestrians who were offered masks usually weren’t hostile. Only once in the first two hours did someone yell in response. Most either kept going or accepted, smiling sheepishly as if to say, ‘Yeah, you’re right. I knew I should have been wearing one.’ …

“ ‘If we need people to take care of one another, they have to feel taken care of first,’ said Cullinan. ‘Messages that make us feel bad aren’t going to work. Messages that make us feel good and want to be a part of something. … That’s what theater makers do.’ ”

More at the San Francisco Chronicle, here.

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The Doctor Prescribes Cycling

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 29, 2020| 12 Comments »

merlin_99210046_e422bfb4-003b-41b1-9127-bf8dc2edb60e-jumbo

Photo: Tom Jamieson for the New York Times
“London’s bike-rental program has proved popular. Now, patients at two medical centers in Cardiff, Wales, will be offered six-month subscriptions to a bike-rental service, with free rides of up to 30 minutes,” reported the New York Times last year.

Last week, as I watched two grandchildren painstakingly donning piles of bulky ice hockey gear, I remarked that for me, walking is the best exercise because you don’t have to do any prep. You just open the door and go out. My granddaughter, age 7, opined that walking is boring, and I have to admit that ice hockey may be more heart-pumping.

But I am not bored. And after walking every day for many years, I no longer feel surprised that I like to exercise. At first, I was resistant to doing anything. But a friend who was an internist leaned on me about exercising. And I knew if I were going to do anything regularly over a long period of time, it would have to be something I liked. So, walking was it.

Given that I go quite slow, I was surprised that when I told various doctors I just ambled, they didn’t seem bothered. Then I heard one refer to walking as a “weight-bearing activity,” and the penny dropped!

In the United Kingdom, doctors are making it easy for patients to exercise by means of bicycles. And like me, many former non-exercisers are surprised to find that they like it.

The BBC reports, “A cycling-on-prescription scheme trialled in Yorkshire has been so successful it could be rolled out across the UK, the organisers said. The scheme allows health professionals to offer those with long-term conditions 12 weeks of cycle training.

“More than 1,000 people have been referred to the scheme since it launched four years ago, according to the West Yorkshire Combined Authority. Cycle UK said the scheme showed cycling was good for overall wellbeing. …

“The initiative is funded by West Yorkshire Combined Authority, which covers Barnsley, Bradford, Calderdale, Craven, Harrogate, Kirklees, Leeds, Selby, Wakefield and York.

“Figures from 2018/2019 showed people using the scheme reporting a marked increase in feeling more confident and relaxed. …

“At the start of the programme, only 18% of participants were meeting the NHS [National Health Service] activity guidelines of 150 minutes per week — a figure that rose to 73% afterwards.

“Andrea, 47, from Wakefield, was referred as she has suffered from anxiety. ‘I’m more confident. I’m able to be out with other people more than I would normally,’ she said. ‘My fitness has improved, my lung function is a lot better than it has been and now I actually want to go out and do other things, and keep cycling, keep active and really start living my life.’ …

“Cycling UK said the scheme started in Yorkshire, and has since been trialled in areas including Wales, Manchester and London, but is not yet available nationwide.”  More at the BBC, here.

The New York Times, here, talks about the biking-rx trial in Wales, noting, “Nextbike, the company that offers the bicycle service for patients in Cardiff, provides rentals in many other European cities. Mareike Rauchhaus, a spokeswoman for the company, said that it participated in a program called By Bike to Work, which allowed people to claim prizes from their health insurance providers if they cycled to work. …

“Dr. Karen Pardy, a family doctor who is participating in the program in Cardiff, said in the statement [that] she hoped prescriptions would encourage people to ‘have a go at cycling around Cardiff’ and realize how the activity can support their well-being.”

P.S. If you search Suzanne’s Mom’s Blog for the word “prescription,” you’ll find a lot of posts on doctors’ unusual prescriptions to encourage more healthful living, including  biking in Boston, woodland walks, gardening, museum visits, poetry, music, dance, art …

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More Doctors Prescribe Woodland Walks

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 30, 2019| Leave a Comment »

You have undoubtedly discovered on your own the healing qualities of a walk in the woods, but it seems that increasing numbers of doctors are actually prescribing it.

Sarah Barker writes for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, “Your blood pressure is a little high. You could stand to lose some weight, and, yeah, you’re stressed. You leave the doctor’s office with directions to a park near your house and a prescription for 30 minutes a day out there breathing fresh air among the trees and the birds.

“Until recently, doctors encouraged patients to get more outdoor exercise but stopped short of writing a prescription. Soon, in collaboration with parks and trails organizations, community and athletic associations, some Minnesota doctors will be handing patients prescriptions for that dose of nature.

“ ‘The data is there. We’re wired to be connected to nature,’ said Dr. Brent Bauer of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. ‘Cool things happen when you’re exposed to nature for two hours a week — inflammation is reduced, stress, anxiety, heart rate.’ …

“Bauer founded Mayo’s complementary and integrative medicine program 20 years ago grounded in the theory of biophilia — that humans have an innate need to connect with nature. That people spend 90% of their time indoors, most of it sitting, has resulted in negative consequences: obesity, diabetes, anxiety, depression, to name a few. The last 10 years have seen a ‘scientification,’ as Bauer called it, of our need for nature. It’s been studied, measured.

“At the same time, there’s been a shift toward preventive medicine — lifestyle choices like food, exercise, spirituality — and efforts to make health care more efficient. There has been collaboration between communities that haven’t overlapped — parks and the Department of Natural Resources with public health; health insurance with health clubs; sports events with hospitals. Since 2010, doctors have worked with a nonprofit called Wholesome Wave to prescribe patients fruits and vegetables.

“Bauer signed on with one of those collaborations, Park Rx America, a national nonprofit established by Washington, D.C., pediatrician Dr. Robert Zarr in 2017. … According to Zarr, there are 22 registered Park Rx health care providers in Minnesota and 96 parks listed. …

“Receiving a nature prescription from your doctor here in Minnesota is still maybe a year away. Unless you’re a child. In which case, this is old news.

“Some Twin Cities children have been leaving the pediatrician’s office with a Sweat Rx since 2014. Sweat Rx was the first formal outdoor prescription program in the country, its creators say. … Betsy Grams and Tony Schiller co-founded CycleHealth as a way to improve kids’ health through training programs, activity challenges and fun adventure races. The events were outdoors, a little bit nontraditional (the triathlon is swim-bike-run with obstacles thrown in), and noncompetitive. …

“Focusing on health rather than competition was a natural tie-in to the medical community. Through a connection with one of the doctors, Grams and Schiller met with at Central + Priority Pediatrics in Woodbury in 2014 to talk about their upcoming kids’ triathlon. …

“ ‘We were really surprised when they said they would actually prescribe the triathlon to their patients that summer. We didn’t know how hungry doctors were for a concrete tool for encouraging kids to get outdoors, to live the lifestyle they’d been talking about,’ Grams said.

“The two quickly printed a prescription-ish pad of paper with a space for the patient’s name and a link to training materials and race registration. That was the start of Sweat Rx. CycleHealth now works with 52 pediatric clinics in the Twin Cities area. …

“Cheap, readily accessible, and side-effect free, Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes and vaunted parks and trails are shaping up to be, quite literally, what the doctor ordered.”

More here.

My husband and I are lucky with where we live because if you go in one direction out of the house, you come quickly to a busy village with a library and attractive shops. If you go the other way, you are in conservation land in no time. Best of both worlds.

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The Unexpectedness of Life

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 11, 2018| 14 Comments »

Today is July 11th. A week ago, my sister was feeling fine. Today she is having brain surgery. I arrived in New York yesterday to be with her and her husband.

It may be that I don’t post for a while. I’m feeling a little discombobulated. But I do like posting, so you could at least get pictures of New York City over the next couple days.

My sister is a lot younger than me. This feels all wrong. But life is strange that way.

If you are into sending people healing thoughts, please think of us at 2 p.m.

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Why Some Hospitals Provide Housing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 25, 2017| 2 Comments »


Photo: Andrew Nixon / Capital Public Radio
Tony Price, formerly homeless, grows tomatoes in his small patio garden and shares the produce with friends and neighbors. Now that he has permanent housing, he’s able to take better care of his health.

In the last decade, there’s been a lot written about how a small percentage of people use hospital emergency rooms on a regular basis and what could be done to stabilize them and save money. In today’s story, we find that providing housing for homeless patients can yield positive, long-term results.

From Pauline Bartolone and Kaiser Health News at Capital Public Radio: “Hospitals in Sacramento and around the country want to get [homeless patients] off the streets, to improve their health and minimize unnecessary visits to the ER. … That’s why many hospitals are stepping outside their role as medical providers to invest heavily in housing for homeless people.

“Dignity Health’s ‘Housing With Dignity’ initiative got Tony Price into an apartment, paid his rent for four months and set him up with a social worker who helped him become eligible for permanent housing. …

“A 2002 study showed that providing housing and supportive services, to more than 4,600 mentally ill homeless people in New York City dramatically reduced their presence in hospitals, shelters and correctional facilities. …

“Health insurers are starting to invest in housing, too. Dignity and other Sacramento hospitals have long funded ‘respite’ programs that shelter homeless people for a few weeks after their hospital stays, but the goal of ‘Housing With Dignity’ is to keep them from being homeless again. …

“Ashley Brand, Dignity’s director of community health and outreach, said the program is helping address the hospital chain’s longstanding challenge of ensuring that homeless patients get follow-up care after they’re discharged. …

“No matter how many times Tony Price visited Sacramento hospitals while he was living on the streets, he never got well. His diabetes was uncontrolled, he repeatedly lost the drugs he was taking for anxiety and depression and, he says, he regularly drank himself into ‘oblivion,’ sometimes consuming as much as half a gallon of vodka a day. …

“Price qualified for the services offered by ‘Housing with Dignity,’ which put him into a one-bedroom apartment in Sacramento’s sprawling North Highlands neighborhood in May 2015 and assigned him a social worker, Chris Grabe, who drove him to medical appointments. …

“He has been off the streets for nearly two and a half years, and he’s been to the hospital only once since January. … He now gardens, and he recently volunteered at a church and as a leader of an Alcoholics Anonymous group.”

At Capital Public Radio, here, you can read how Grabe stuck with Price through early relapses and what is needed to expand this effort to more people.

Hat tip: House of Hope CDC on twitter.

12/8/17 Update: Meanwhile in Boston, where one in four Boston Medical Center patients is homeless or in dangerous housing, BMC is partnering with local housing organizations and spending $6.5 million to help patients. This is the latest manifestation on BMC’s whole-patient approach to healing. Read about it here.

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Goal to Reduce Dementia by 30 Percent

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 5, 2017| 4 Comments »


Photo: Alamy
Exercise and social activities could help to reduce the risk of developing dementia in later life, according to a new report.

Although there is no cure yet for dementia, lifestyle changes have the potential to reduce new cases by as much as one-third.

Nicola Davis writes at the Guardian about a recent report from the Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, intervention and care. The study suggests that many “dementia cases might be avoided by tackling aspects of lifestyle including education, exercise, blood pressure and hearing. …

“ ‘There are a lot of things that individuals can do, and there are a lot of things that public health and policy can do, to reduce the numbers of people developing dementia,’ said Gill Livingston, professor of psychiatry of older people at University College London and a co-author of the report. …

“ ‘We expect it to be a long-term change that will be needed for exercise; joining a gym for two weeks is probably not going to do it,’ she said.

“Clive Ballard, professor of age-related diseases at the University of Exeter medical school and also a co-author of the report, added that the evidence suggests individuals should also try to follow a Mediterranean diet, maintain a healthy weight and keep an eye on their blood pressure. …

“The results reveal that as many as 35% of dementia cases could, at least in theory, be prevented, with 9% linked to midlife hearing loss, 8% to leaving education before secondary school, 5% to smoking in later life and 4% to later life depression. Social isolation, later life diabetes, midlife high blood pressure, midlife obesity and lack of exercise in later life also contributed to potentially avoidable cases of dementia, the report notes. …

“They admit that the estimate that more than a third of dementia cases could be prevented is a best case scenario, with the figures based on a number of assumptions, including that each factor could be completely tackled. …

“Fiona Matthews, professor of epidemiology at Newcastle University who was not involved in the report, said that interventions for depression and social isolation could still prove valuable. ‘If we could actually resolve some of that issue, even if it is not 100% causal, it is likely we might be able to slow [dementia] progression – even if [an individual] is on a pathway to developing dementia already,’ she said.

“She added that the proposed areas for action could offer myriad health benefits beyond lowering dementia risk. …

“The authors pointed out that an intervention that delayed dementia onset and progression by even a year could decrease the number of people with dementia worldwide in 2050 by nine million.”

More at the Guardian, here.

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How Lemonade Thwarted the 1668 Plague

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 15, 2017| 8 Comments »

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Both my kids are entrepreneurs. They got their start in business with a lemonade stand, as my grandson is doing in the photo.

His customers don’t know how lucky they are. Lemon peels in the trash may be protecting them from bubonic plague. Doubt me? Well, have you heard of anyone getting plague in an area of New England where lemonade is sold?

Well, there you go.

Consider a recent article by Tom Nealon in the Boston Globe.

He writes, “I’d like to tell a story of what lemonade was doing in Paris 349 summers ago. Lemons have been used for making drinks since before the Ancient Egyptians, are often used to detoxify, and to soothe a sore throat, but that year, the fate of Paris may have hinged on one of its lesser known properties.

“In 1668, the bubonic plague, dormant for a decade, returned to France and was threatening Paris. It had been reported in Normandy and Picardy, in Soissons, Amiens, and then, terrifyingly, just downstream of the capital along the Seine, in Rouen. … Panic-stricken Parisian public health officials imposed quarantines and embargoes in the hope of mitigating inevitable disaster — but the dreaded pestilence never struck.

“The plague that loomed over Paris was the midpoint of a 17th-century European epidemic that would go on to decimate Vienna (80,000 dead in 1679), Prague (80,000 dead in 1681) and Malta (11,000 dead in 1675). The body count in Amiens would end up topping 30,000, and almost no city in France was spared – except for Paris, which, miraculously, survived almost completely unscathed.”

By chance, lemonade was extremely popular that year.

“The limonene contained in lemons (and other citrus fruits) is a natural insecticide and insect repellent. The most effective part of the lemon is the limonene-rich peel. Indeed, after centuries of discovery of chemical insect repellents, the US Environmental Protection Agency still lists 15 insecticides in which limonene is the chief active ingredient, including both general bug sprays and products for pet flea and tick control. The French were piling lemon peels in the best possible place to disrupt the flea-rat-human-rat chain [that caused the spread of plague]: the trash. …

“Paris emerged alive — and refreshed.” More here.

I don’t really think we should count on lemonade to protect us from plague. But lemonade in a backpack isn’t a bad idea for a lemonade-stand spinoff. Time tested. You could take it to the beach.

Image: Staeske Rebers
Limonadiers were French vendors who sold lemonade from tanks on their backs.

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Forest Bathing for Your Health

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on June 15, 2017| 11 Comments »

Image: Reuters/Denis Balibouse
The World Economic Forum touts research suggesting that “forest bathing,” the act of being among the trees, has health benefits.

We love trees. John, for example, serves on the Arlington tree committee and helps with the town’s efforts to inventory its trees, acquire more sidewalk plantings, and assist researchers studying the role of urban trees in carbon reduction.

A master landscaper I know is also into trees. He shared this story about the health benefits of something the Japanese call “forest bathing.”

Ephrat Livini wrote at the World Economic Forum, “Now there’s scientific evidence supporting eco-therapy. The Japanese practice of forest bathing is proven to lower heart rate and blood pressure, reduce stress hormone production, boost the immune system, and improve overall feelings of well-being.

“Forest bathing — basically just being in the presence of trees—became part of a national public health program in Japan in 1982 when the forestry ministry coined the phrase shinrin-yoku and promoted topiary as therapy. …

“Forest air doesn’t just feel fresher and better — inhaling phytoncide seems to actually improve immune system function. …

“From 2004 to 2012, Japanese officials spent about $4 million dollars studying the physiological and psychological effects of forest bathing, designating 48 therapy trails based on the results. Qing Li, a professor at Nippon Medical School in Tokyo, measured the activity of human natural killer (NK) cells in the immune system before and after exposure to the woods. These cells provide rapid responses to viral-infected cells and respond to tumor formation, and are associated with immune system health and cancer prevention. In a 2009 study Li’s subjects showed significant increases in NK cell activity in the week after a forest visit, and positive effects lasted a month following each weekend in the woods. …

“Experiments on forest bathing conducted by the Center for Environment, Health and Field Sciences in Japan’s Chiba University measured its physiological effects on 280 subjects in their early 20s. The team measured the subjects’ salivary cortisol (which increases with stress), blood pressure, pulse rate, and heart rate variability during a day in the city and compared those to the same biometrics taken during a day with a 30-minute forest visit. …

“Trees soothe the spirit too. A study on forest bathing’s psychological effects surveyed 498 healthy volunteers, twice in a forest and twice in control environments. The subjects showed significantly reduced hostility and depression scores, coupled with increased liveliness, after exposure to trees. …

“City dwellers can benefit from the effects of trees with just a visit to the park. Brief exposure to greenery in urban environments can relieve stress levels.”

More here. Be sure to watch the video.

Hat tip: Paul Kelly on Facebook.

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How the Arts Promote Well-being

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 13, 2017| 2 Comments »

Photo: @elliott.jerome, via Instagram
Installation view of Theresa Chromati’s Tea Time, with audio accompaniment by Pangelica, at Museum of Contemporary African Diaspora Arts in Brooklyn.

For ten years, I was the editor of a magazine focused lower-income communities, and like this blog, it reflected a lot of my interests. One of the topics I was always on the hunt for was the role of the arts in community development. This study would have fit perfectly.

Isaac Kaplan writes at Artsy, “Arts advocates have long extolled the benefits of culture to personal and neighborhood welfare. While the contention is broadly accepted within the field, the existence of the link has largely been argued without an abundance of data and taken a backseat to economic justifications for arts funding.

“But a two-year study released this month by researchers from the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania has revealed a quantitative relationship between the presence of cultural resources in a neighborhood and key aspects of social well-being, particularly in less advantaged neighborhoods. The research was part of the school’s ongoing Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP).

“Professor Mark J. Stern and SIAP director Susan C. Seifert found that low- and middle-income residents across New York City with more access to cultural resources experience better education, security, and health outcomes compared to residents of neighborhoods with similar economic profiles but with fewer cultural resources. …

“The relative higher presence of cultural resources in lower-income neighborhoods is linked with several health, safety, and education benefits. These include a 14% decrease in indicted investigations of child abuse and neglect, an 18% decrease in felony crime rate and also a 17–18% increase in the number of students scoring at the highest level on standardized Math and English tests. …

“While the report is careful to note that such findings do not mean the arts are causing these outcomes, the link is nonetheless significant within a broader picture. …

“To reach their conclusions, the researchers compiled a ‘cultural asset index’ — an accounting of thousands of nonprofits, for-profits, employed artists, and cultural participants across New York City, drawing on numerous sources, including tax, grant, and administrative data.

“The study complements this data with interviews and discussions with individuals engaged with cultural enterprises across the entire city. …

“The study says that economically disadvantaged areas generally have fewer cultural resources than wealthier parts of the city. But less advantaged communities also had a stronger correlation between the prevalence of cultural resources and social well-being.”

Read more at Artsy, here.

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