An article about arteries. And runners. And tribes.
No young person thinks about their arteries, nor should they. But arterial health looms large as one ages and larger with each year. That’s why Gretchen Reynold’s piece in the New York Times might be of interest. The details are fairly straightforward: Researchers tracked the arteries of sedentary people who, God knows why, decided to...
Skiing is good for the soul. And brain.
There are a great many reasons to stop skiing. The cost of a lift ticket. The risk to life and limb. Your lack of updated skiwear and your refusal to spend $949 on a jacket. But there are other, better reasons to stay on your sticks. Fresh air. Adrenaline. The satisfaction of slaying the...
Here’s to unlimited new years
The time between the holidays is odd. You wake up the day after Christmas and it’s all over except the returns. There’s a morning-after sadness, the hangover that follows a binge on sentimentality and anxiety and, yes, genuine good cheer toward men. You’ve kissed all the cheeks and patted the backs and now we all...
Go fight cancer tomorrow night
The past year has brought hope that the thing that kills you won’t be cancer. Your demise might come from something even more hideous and protracted, but there’s a better chance that it won’t be cancer. More important to everyone but you, kids are getting more cancer-fighting tools. As the New York Times reported earlier...
Nature shower with a friend in 2013
Here’s a New Year’s resolution you’ll want to follow through on: take more nature showers, ideally with a friend. Or friends. As is usually the case with good ideas, there’s nothing new about this except the way we talk about it. “Taking a nature shower” is just another way of saying you should walk in...
Merry Christmas: Four more years, half of them pretty good
The Lancet just published a report—actually, a series of seven papers—known as the Global Burden of Disease. It’s a kraken, a beast, a megillah of data, with contributions from experts in more than 300 institutions in 50 countries. The good news: you’re living longer. The bad news: only about half of those new years will...
What does “Age Against the Machine” mean?
CNN is running a collection of articles about Baby Boomers. They are calling it “Boomers: Age Against the Machine.” We assume it’s a play on the name of the rap metal band Rage Against the Machine, a group that formed in the early 1990s, which is long after most Boomers stopped paying attention to new...
Olds and altitude sickness. And Viagra.
Ski season is here and with it the risk of altitude sickness. You know the drill: you start in Chicago (elevation 579 feet) or New York (which averages around 30 feet of elevation when it isn’t swamped by a hurricane). You fly a few hours west, rent a car, drive to Summit County and a...
No one knows why you can’t stay up to watch the news
As people age, their sleep patterns change. This is not a revelation for you. Once, you could stay up till 2 a.m., sleep 12 hours, then do it over again. And feel great doing it. Now you go to bed at 10 p.m., turn turn turn, knuckle the pillow, wonder if the iPad will wake...
How much T is enough?
This is a story about sex, drugs and sports—things we love to talk about. And, for extra spice, porn and cancer. Pharmaceutical companies are aggressively marketing drugs to combat low testosterone—“low T’ in the ads—in older men, and they are doing it with the same enthusiasm (and big budgets) that they market rejuvenating creams and...
Obesity studies are the empty calories of public debate
There was yet another conference last week where experts confirmed what we all already know. The United States is fat and getting fatter. The conference issued a companion report. There was also a new study out last week. There’s a four-part HBO series, The Weight of the Nation, that premieres tonight. The HBO series has...
Fun run from the walking dead
Look at the face of a person skiing. OK, that sounds dangerous. Instead, look at the face of a person who has just made that final steep run and slid into the back of the lift line. Smiles. Maybe a look of steely self-satisfaction. Ruddy exhilaration. Actual human emotion. Now go to the gym...
