enormous iNCoNgrUiTieS|A Beacon of Intermittence

If these guys are so smart, how can they be so wrong? A leading psychiatrist, Dr Jerald Block on Internet addiction:

“The relationship is with the computer. It becomes a significant other to them. They exhaust emotions that they could experience in the real world on the computer through any number of mechanisms: emailing, gaming, porn.”

I can hear in my mind the German psychiatrist played by Michael Caine in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels explaining this phenomena.

But with all due respect, no one is having a relationship with a computer. A lot of smart people still dont “get” the Internet. The Internet is not abstract; it’s real. All these sufferers of “Internet addiction” are not suffering alone with their computer, as it might appear to the outside, untrained eye. People who are spending their lives on the Net are spending it with other people; other people playing games; other people emailing; other people looking at porn. There is a whole other world through the portal of the computer, a world not restricted by physical limitations. A psychiatrist of all people should understand this.

“But there’s not any dancing, is there?” asks the Church Lady.

Oh yeah, there is lots of dancing.

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Dr De Cock, an epidemiologist who has spent much of his eponymous career studying AIDS and HIV, says the threat of a wide-spread epidemic amongst non-homosexuals is unlikely.

“It is very unlikely there will be a heterosexual epidemic in other countries. Ten years ago a lot of people were saying there would be a generalised epidemic in Asia – China was the big worry with its huge population. That doesn’t look likely. But we have to be careful. As an epidemiologist it is better to describe what we can measure. There could be small outbreaks in some areas.”

I am sure De Cock <snicker> has known this for a decade or more. Here is an example of how disingenuous, or stupid, this guy De Cock is:

“The impact of HIV is so heterogeneous. In the US , the rate of infection among men in Washington DC is well over 100 times higher than in North Dakota, the region with the lowest rate. That is in one country. How do you explain such differences?”

Barney Frank alone could account for that disparity. But seriously, there are 100 times more gay people and drug addicts in DC than there are in North Dakota, dumbass.

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No one withdrew from the study due to “tolerability issues”.

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From Slashdot:

“The editorial section of the American Journal of Psychiatry for March offers the opinion that Internet addiction is a ‘compulsive-impulsive’ disorder, and should be added to the official guidebook of disorders. The editorial characterizes net addiction as including ‘excessive gaming, [online] sexual pre-occupations and e-mail/text messaging’. From the article: ‘Like other addicts, users experience cravings, urges, withdrawal and tolerance, requiring more and better equipment and software, or more and more hours online, according to Dr. Jerald Block, a psychiatrist at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. Dr. Block says people can lose all track of time or neglect “basic drives,” like eating or sleeping. Relapse rates are high, he writes, and some people may need psychoactive medications or hospitalization.”

If you really want to know what is addictive I’ll tell you: The psychoactive medications prescribed by psychiatrists for anti-depression and OCD are very addictive. And what’s more, these are all relatively new medications and the doctors a) don’t really know how they work and, b) don’t know what the long-term effects of the drugs will be.

Seeing a psychiatrist for treatment of a made up disorder like “Internet Addiction” will likely cause more harm than good if there is not something else already the matter with you. I recommend to anyone considering a shrink for compulsive Internet habits to first try simply cutting off Internet service and see if the problem doesn’t clear up. If there is still a problem, turning off the Internet wont help and the problem will manifest in some other harmful behaviors.

I mean, certainly sex can be an obsession/compulsion/addiction but getting sex from the Internet seems to be just a means to an end and sex is still the root addiction. How can Internet sex addiction be a different addiction that just plain ol’ sex addiction? How can an obsession/compulsion for pornography be different from an obsession/compulsion for Internet pornography?

I’ve been there and done that and the Internet is nothing at all like an addiction to Cocaine, or Effexor for that matter. My online experiences predate the WWW going back to the early eighties with bulletin board systems (a la CompuServe) accessed over 300 baud dial up modems. The only times I’ve hunkered down over the Internet for unhealthy victim-like periods was with the advent of high-speed Internet at home. Ooooh all that free porn. If anything, the Internet cured me as if with aversion therapy since after only a short while I didn’t care for watching non-stop porn from any and every walk of life. On the other hand Cocaine addiction never wears off.

Today I spend almost all my time on the Internet either for work, research, or entertainment and I hardly ever look at porn. Knowing that it’s always there for immediate consumption is a turn-off I guess, yet the Internet is always there for consumption and is only sometimes a tun-off. Therefor I conclude that the Internet is not addictive, it’s the stuff that people do that is addictive.

Take driving for example. Looking at the highways and byways one might conclude that driving is addictive when in reality we are addicted to going where we want when we want. With respect to Occam, many times the obvious is not the case.

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Sounds like they are actually putting some of the real stuff in the fake stuff to make the fake stuff work. How clever is that?

Several unscrupulous drugmakers have given their herbal erection pills a pinch of special ingredients — chemicals that are terrifyingly similar to real Viagra and Levitra. Dutch public health scientists caught them while analyzing a batch of seized pharmaceuticals.

WTF is with the “terrifyingly similar” comparative? If Viagra and Levitra is so terrifying why are so many people taking it? Is it just terrifying to the drug makers? Or is it actually dangerous? Given the amount of money at stake in the limp penis market how can one ever believe what anybody says? One thing is for certain though, whatever the truth of the matter is, there are some very concerned people looking into it to it. For safety reasons, or course.

When several unusual molecules showed up in their initial screen, the scientists did some further analysis with a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectrometer. It can give detailed information about the shape and composition of a chemical. Using that instrument, de Kaste and his colleagues verified that they had indeed found molecules which are very similar to prescription erectile dysfunction drugs, but not quite the same. When the researchers purified and tested the synthetic additives on a phosphodiesterase enzyme, the protein which erection pills affect, they learned that each of the phony medications was nearly as strong as the approved ones.

(Link)

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STUDY QUESTIONS EFFECTIVENESS OF ANTI-DEPRESSANTS: I have no doubt that anti-depressants are way over-prescribed. I have also several times in the past stated that the dope given to kids for treating severe kidness is way, way over prescribed.

Related:

• Stop Ritalin Abuse
• Riatalin Kids: A sign of the times
• Moreon the Ritalin Kids
• Congressional Steroid Investigation

UPDATE:

DON’T STOP TAKING YOUR MEDS!!! If you are thinking maybe your anti-depressant medications are snake oil, for gawd’s sake don’t suddenly stop taking them. See your doctor about slowly tapering off the drug or you could could wind up on a shooting rampage or something.

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The motorcycle helmet with PC fans glued on it what’s supposed to cure Alzheimer’s is all over the dang television news the last couple of days. I don’t see how they can keep a straight face showing the ridiculous-looking thing.

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This is great:

“Its creators believe it could reverse the symptoms of dementia - such as memory loss and anxiety - after only four weeks.

But, of course it’s not available yet

Alzheimer’s disease charities last night described the treatment as “potentially life- changing” - but stressed that the research was still at the very early stages.

I hate it. Every medical breakthrough story is always with the “Oh it will still be years and years and years until [insert miracle cure] becomes available. More studies and FDA approval are needed…”

Fine, then don’t tell us about it yet.

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Tim Blair gives a wake up call to all us kid raising, house buying, bread winning, middle aging, stressed out, no doctor going guys out there — Sometimes when you feel like crap you might actually be sick.

If you’ve not been feeling well and have been wondering if you are sick or something, conventional wisdom says it is better to know if something bad is wrong so proper medical care can be obtained as early as possible and I tend to agree with that position quite a bit. It is the exact advice I would give to someone yet I am reluctant to go to the doctor myself unless under duress. I went a couple of weeks ago for an ear infection that I can’t seem to ditch so while I was there I told Doc that I was tired all the time and have gained a bunch a weight. I wanted a pill but he suggested I have a sleep study done to check for sleep apnea, “a possible life threatening condition,” as the doctor styled the disorder on the referral.

So I know a guy who sleeps with an apap machine and he claims it saved his life. Looking at the graphs of his sleep study he probably hadn’t slept in several years. He said that the very next morning after just four hours of REM sleep (they graph the first few hours without the mask and then the next with the mask) he was like a new man.

Well I’m thinking that would be something worth trying for a night. I should know right off if my lethargy is due to a combination of sleep deprivation and periodic brain killing deficits of oxygen. But that’s not how it works. First I have to go to a doctor who sends me for the test, which I’ve already done (at least I got that knocked out with the ear infection visit.) Then I have to do an overnight sleep test at a sleep test clinic. Then I have to take the test back to my doctor who will look at the test and prescribe an apap machine if needed (maybe I don’t have to do this.) Then I can go acquire the machine.

Now, tell me this: Why can’t I just go to one of the thousands of home medical supply shops and rent one of these machines, try it overnight, and then buy one if it helps? Heck, even though it was 10:00 AM I am fairly certain that had the doctor had a machine handy and a dark office I could have sufficiently tested the equipment on the spot.

The medical practice is a proof that time is money. My way would save me a lot of time and hassle but it would cost a lot of money for the doctors and the sleep clinics. But the doctors control the medicine so we do it their way.

This all brings me back to the quandry Tim pondered in his article linked above:

It’s possible I was in denial - and perhaps still am about that period - but the change from reasonably fit middle-aged guy to pain-wracked, bath-addicted basketcase had been undetectably subtle.

Similar cases might explain why many men shun doctors; not out of fear or shame, but because they simply adapt to worsened circumstances without realising it - it’s just a theory.

But I think there is a lot of fear behind our willingness to adapt to deteriorating health circumstances. There are few worthy endeavors that men undertake where it is beneficial to show signs of weakness. Despite society’s attempts to feminize all aspects of civil discourse, if you are a middle-aged male with the above enumerated responsibilities certain realities begin to set in and Natural instinct plays it’s vital role.

On the other hand, the biggest reason why men defer their health care is because it is damn inconvenient to obtain. Maybe if some of the time wasting scam was taken out of the business of getting medical attention guys would be more likely to get a regular checkup. So what if we take shortcuts that don’t follow exact medical procedures outlined by those who would control medicine — any information about what is going on with your body is better than none.

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Does this mean that we don’t have to quit smoking?

SCIENTISTS have created a beating heart in the laboratory in a breakthrough that could allow doctors one day to make a range of organs for transplant almost from scratch.

When you can build a beating pig and mouse heart from scratch it’s just a matter of time folks and this kind of stuff will be common place.

Related: Researchers create new rat heart in lab (much longer story)

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(This article has been Updated and Edited to make it a better article. Ed.)

* * * *

A cool discovery for all you sleepy heads out there: Orexin A

A nasal spray containing a naturally occurring brain hormone called orexin A reversed the effects of sleep deprivation in monkeys, allowing them to perform like well-rested monkeys on cognitive tests. The discovery’s first application will probably be in treatment of the severe sleep disorder narcolepsy.

The treatment is “a totally new route for increasing arousal, and the new study shows it to be relatively benign,” said Jerome Siegel, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA and a co-author of the paper. “It reduces sleepiness without causing edginess.”

I find a spray that will allow me to perform like a well-rested monkey to be very appealing. So I wonder where someone might find some orexin A because if someone wants to try orexin A, too bad.

Sleep advocates probably won’t have to worry about orexin A reaching drugstore shelves for many years. Any commercial treatment using the substance would need approval from the Food and Drug Administration, which can take more than a decade.

Personally, I am a sleep advocate. After hours of hard work tiring the mind and body almost nothing in the world feels better than to sink into a comfortable bed to sleep. But that is not how I’ve been operating for the past many months. Of late, I go to bed on a schedule that gives me enough sleep to get up at 5:30 AM, plod through a fairly tightly scheduled day and then back to bed at the scheduled hour. Repeat five times. For whatever reason I am tired all the time and in that tiny little bit of time I have to myself before bedtime I don’t feel like doing anything.

I think my preferred survival pattern is to work till I fall then get up and work till I fall and repeat until I have enough money to go somewhere and play till I fall, get up and play till I fall, until I have to go back to work. Repeat.

Either way, when I am not sleeping I need to be wide-awake and energized. Know what I mean? I remember back when I was just a young ‘un Doctors would give amphetamines to Gramma, who was a temperate woman by any other measure. She called the prescribed pills her go-fast pills. We were just kids and thought that was some funny stuff… until we were a little bit older. Gramma was a housekeeper second to none in those years, let me tell you.

Anyone remember in the seventies those little chocolate candies that were sold as diet aids? I disremember if it was my grandmother or mother who took those, but I believe the diet aide’s unfortunate name was actually Aids and they came packaged in a deep red velvet colored box fashioned like a regular Russel Stover’s box. Brilliant marketing , no? Except for the unfortunate name. I don’t know if there was any good drugs in those little candies or if they were just laced with caffeine but we would sneak them just because they were chocolate/caramel-like. We’d sneak em from the top of the closet, up there next to the mountains of redeemable grocery store stamps, wigs, and rifle ammo.

Anyway, the point being, my grandma lived to be eighty-six years old. Until the last year of her life she gallivanted around the country like a Grand Duchess. The way I feel right now I don’t know if I want to make it to sixty. It is time to get rid of the war on drugs. It is time to get rid of strict government control of every single substance that may be taken into the body. I say break out the orexin A. Break out the Modafinil. Break out the amphetamines. Break out the miracle creams that propel people to athletic super stardom. End the criminalization of vast portions of our society so that these beneficial drugs can be administered and monitored by qualified physicians for which we already pay an arm and a leg.

I’d rather be healthy and active till I’m sixty-five than live to be 80 in this old crumpled down body. I’m sure my outlook would be different if I were already 60 but ideally I would like to live a healthy and active 80 years, maybe more as long as I don’t have to see my legacy perish. I can live with a little edginess.

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Men are not meant to be work-a-day automatons being milled down to a dull state of surrender by the daily grind of life. Or maybe we were meant for just that purpose and we just don’t like our lot in life.

Quite a while ago (in Internt time anyway) Dr Helen posted a link to a Watercooler Diaries production reporting on an interview with Psychologist Stephen Ilardi and I think Ilardi’s Stone Age theory in regards to the prevalence of depression and suicide among older males has relevance but would dispute that the stone age men were immune to depression because of their lifestyle. Stone age men didn’t have depression because short life spans and constant danger is a 99.9% effective antidote to depression.

CAVEMAN 1: Dude, look out! SaberTooth Tiger fixin to get your ass!

CAVEMAN 2: Aw, who cares?

CAVEMAN 1: RUN!

CAVEMAN 2: Why, it doesn’t matter anyway. Whats it gonna matter if the tiget gets me?

(Caveman 1 then runs away.)

Since it would make some of you tender hearts sob like children I am not going to go through my credentials qualifying me to talk about depression; I’ll stipulate and you can believe or not: I know a little bit about trying to live a normal life with at least one foot — and at times up to my neck — mired in the quicksand of Hell, wondering if or when I will ever succumb completely to the all encompassing, seemingly inescapable, giant sucking black muck.

I have spent a lot of time doing some of the things described by Ilardi, much of which is just common sense borrowed from popular and proven self-help techniques. To simulate outdoor activity I passed on the aerobics class and swing dancing (I’m already an excellent barroom dancer) choosing to actually partake in an outdoor activity: I love to hike in the wilderness. Not nature trails like at the city park (well, those too, but you know what I mean) but <pirate accent>primitive trails where dangerous creatures be.</pirate accent> It is not very productive but it sure helps put things into perspective.

A mere hundred years ago life for anyone near where I now sit in fine conditioned air was primarily about survival from the elements, then people who would kill you for your boots. Two hundred years ago this area was hardly habitable except by natives and the most hardy of survivalists. Today, we have all the comforts of life but it is a constant struggle to survive the daily grind of the people at work and the people at the government. If you are not struggling to survive those two things you are either very rich, very poor or in jail.

If you get to the end and reach some kind of retirement age, the government might even let you work off you tax bill.

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Like I said, the proof is in the pudding:

Seven MVPs and 31 All-Stars — one for every position — and that still wasn’t the worst of it for the long-awaited Mitchell report.

That infamy belonged to Roger Clemens, the greatest pitcher of his era.

The steroids era.

Seven-time Cy Young Award winner, eighth on the all-time list with 354 victories, an MVP and All-Star himself long considered a lock for the Hall of Fame, Clemens now has another distinction: the biggest name linked by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell to illegal use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.

Mitchel is an idiot. How long has he been working on “the steroid case?”

Let’s see, I wonder what I would do if faced with the decision to retire from a lucrative career, or rub some miracle cream on my shoulder. Hmmm. I’m thinking. I may have to get back to you on this. Yeah, right.

I’m not a professional athlete but my neck and shoulders sure do hurt a lot — to the point that I think I need to look into some of these horrible creams I keep hearing about.

more…

Man, if I can just get a good supplier of the miracle cream, maybe I could roll with these guys.

and one more…

Your Philosophy Sucks: Uninformed, yet accurate!

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I am beginning to think that the government is holding back on some kind of performance enhancing super drugs. Of course everyone thinks these drugs are the devil thanks to all the never-ending negative press, but I am thinking maybe the proof is in the pudding. Barry Bonds, the forty-something Roger The Rocket Clemens, Schwarzenegger… the list of evil doers does seem to be star studded. I’m thinking maybe my nuts are big enough that they could shrink up a bit and still be pretty big. Maybe I might look into getting some dianabol or something. It would sure be nice to play like a twenty year old again.

Speaking of playing like a twenty year old: John Lynch, Senior Seau, Teddy Bruschi , Michael Strahan… another long list of folk pushing forty and still performing at stratospheric levels that sure makes one wonder.

MORE (via Instapundit)…

Radley Balko at The Agitator on THE OTHER STEROIDS PROBLEM:

[The Daily News story] is by no means the first such report. ABC News did its own cops-and-steroids expose a couple of months ago. The AP ran a similar story in 2005, and Men’s Health ran a feature in 2004. In fact, you can go all the way back to 1989, when 60 Minutes aired a package on several cops who blamed their own steroid use for a series of police brutality incidents. William Grigg notes that the FBI warned of pervasive steroid use in local police departments in 1991. In 1999, there were reports that Officer Justin Volpe’s use of the drug may have contributed to the police station beating and sodomizing of Abner Louima.

So it’s not just athletes benefiting from the super performance eenhancing drugs that the government wants to keep from everyone. Kinda makes one wonder if Congress is just doing a little grandstanding of it’s own when there seems to be a real problem with steriods at the police station. As Balko notes:

Given that police officers carry guns, night sticks, and tasers, and that they have the power to use lethal force when necessary, one would think our politicians would be more concerned about illegal use of a drug known to contribute to fits of rage and violence among law enforcement than use by a bunch of baseball players.

I am thinking maybe steroids should be legalized so that people who make the private decision to use life enhancing medicines are not forced underground and to back alleys to obtain the substance from shady characters. If women used steroids to cause an abortion I wonder if there would be such a stink?

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Wow, I did not know they did this anywhere in the world, much less New Zealand:

Mr Trezise, who moved to Auckland in September after shedding two inches from his waist on a crash diet, said that if his wife was not allowed to come out by Christmas they would abandon the idea of emigrating.

His employer-backed skills visa was initially rejected by immigration officials when they discovered that his body mass index, or BMI, was 42, making him morbidly obese under New Zealand regulations.

His wife it too fat to get in to New Zealand. Like I’m sure Mr. Twosizes is going to head right back to the UK if his wife doesn’t lose weight. Right.

They sure know how to party over in New Zealand. I need to tweak my Monster profile.

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The New York Times book reviews are about as retarded as the rest of the much maligned daily rag’s editorial content, which includes the whole rest of the paper. Here is the first half of what is ostensibly a review of Dr. Devra Davis’ book entitled The Secret History of the War on Cancer, which isn’t even mentioned in the entire text of the review.

Whoever designed the cover of Devra Davis’s critique of the “war” on cancer should have looked around for a picture of the Kent cigarette she describes hitting the market in 1952, the one whose unusually effective filter was made from pure asbestos. That not-so-short-lived product — it was sold until 1956 — summarizes her thesis nicely: cancer prevention has been a dance of small steps forward and long slides backward, a giant construct of chutes and ladders positioned specifically to avoid disturbing anyone’s bottom line.

Tobacco and asbestos, of course, are just two of many cancer-associated substances implicated by centuries’ worth of data. The list includes useful solvents like benzene, useful hormones like estrogen and useful tools like radiation, a triple-edge weapon that can diagnose tumors, treat them and cause them.

Overlays of complicated science abound here. Some people may be immune to carcinogens that kill others; animal studies may or may not be relevant to human disease; statistics may or may not reflect cause and effect. Vested interests may purposely muddy the science still further.

It’s not clear whether the NYT reviewer is critiquing the book or waxing philosophical at this point. However, a qucik check reveals:

• Cancer Death Rate Decline Doubling
• Progress is being made against cancer’s onslaught
• Annual Report Shows Overall Decline in U.S. Cancer Incidence and Death Rates

So, It’s further not clear what either the author or the reviewer is getting all worked up over.

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I just watched a news report about the following things which some studies show can be good for you:

• Wine (2 glasses a day) - I don’t do wine, but I’ve heard in other studies that the alcohol provides benefit no matter the source. So a beer or two every evening is in line I think.
• Chocolate - 1/3 bar a day. Save up about four or five days and enjoy.
• Coffee - 3 to 6 cups s day. That’s about right for me. 1/2 a pot a day. Sometimes more, but nor usually. I switch to cold beverages during the day and adult beverages in evening.
• Green tea - who cares?

Flavinalls and anti-oxidants are given the lions share of credit for providing the health benefits. Note that there are limits to consumption for each substance. Therein of course lies the problem. Setting limits on things people really like is an exercise in futility. Heck, even cocaine is harmless if you only do a little bit at a time.

The study of which substances are good for us and which ones are bad for us is a big agenda-driven farce. Someday we may be smart enough to understand the full complexity of the human physiology but for now it is just folly. The infinite interactions between chemicals in our biological systems is too much for our current technology to understand. Scientists think that 98% of our DNA is “junk DNA” simply because they have no idea what it does.

Evolution has been relatively slow because the ever advanced biologic functions, functions that could have been pre-defined in the DNA code, have relied on naturally occurring triggers to turn them on. The systems turn on only as required for survival. All that junk DNA might be thousands and thousands of separate little biological “programs” that we will someday figure out the trigger to turn them on, or off.

For all we know junk DNA may be dormant programs for advanced mathematical computations (Rain Man) or precognition. Maybe there is a program for extremely low voltage wireless communications (telepathy) or musical ability (Bach, Beethoven). One way to look at it is that only 2% of available DNA has been utilized and there is and 98% reserved for future use.

But for now, with our rudimentary understanding of science, we rely on limited studies to figure out what we should and should not put in our bodies. Some studies say coffee is bad then another study says coffee is good. Other than cutting down on fat, I have never followed these periodic hype fests that this food (movie popcorn) or that product (cigarettes) is bad for us and should be banned. I just pretty much ignore them and go about my normal lifestyle. If my body says to make an adjustment, I make an adjustment.

My motto is “everything in moderation” and so far so good. You follow my motto and you will do well too.

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