Sunday, March 31, 2013

The Boundaries of Healthicine - of Body, Mind and Motorcyles

I have a friend who 'grew up' on dirt bikes.  His entire family has been riding dirt bikes for years, participating in many events and competitions.

I decided to learn to ride a motorbike, and enrolled in a 'motorcycle safety course' provided, in part, by the local police force.

We were taught the technique of 'counter-steering'.  You can click the link if you want to learn more about how it works.

However, when I enthusiastically tried to discuss counter-steering with my friend, he denied ever using it.  "I don't counter-steer", he said, "I don't need to, I just lean.  I learned to ride the bike when I was very young and I know how it works."

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Why Measure Healthiness? What can we learn?

Is your health half full? or half empty?  Is your health three quarters full? or one quarter empty?

No one is perfectly healthy. Healthiness is about balance - thousands of balances, constantly changing, shifting, adjusting, re-balancing.

Healthiness is a measure of your health. When individual measurements of healthiness are mapped to a percentage scale - the inverse is the level of unhealthiness. If your heart is 80 percent healthy, it follows that it is 20 percent unhealthy.

Monday, March 4, 2013

Sheldon Cooperite Researchers Study Coffee but fail in Theory, Practice, and Communications

In June 2010, in true Sheldon Cooper form, a group of scientific researchers studied coffee and wrote a paper with this cryptic title:

Association of the Anxiogenic and Alerting Effects of Caffeine with ADORA2A and ADORA1 Polymorphisms and Habitual Level of Caffeine Consumption

Which, in the language of mere mortals who speak English, I think translates something close to:

Does caffeine make you more nervous and alert?

Their conclusions can be seen by clicking the link above - as long as you are prepared to read a Sheldon Cooperesque version.  A quick summary, in English, in the sequence reported (note: those in bold are simply WRONG):