Making Memories

A study published in the March 7 issue of the Journal of
Alzheimer's Disease found that people with Alzheimer's
showed more signs of cleavage of a molecule called amyloid
precursor protein (APP) than people without the disease.

But the researchers also found that the brains of younger
people without Alzheimer's had about 10 times as much
APP cleavage as Alzheimer's patients.The conclusion was
that younger brains make memories faster than they lose them.

"Young brains operate like Ferraris -- shifting between for-
ward and reverse, making and breaking memories with a
facility that surpasses that of older brains, which are less
plastic," research group leader Dr. Dale Bredesen said in a
prepared statement.

"We believe that in aging brains, AD occurs when the
'molecular shifting switch' gets stuck in the reverse position,
throwing the balance of making and breaking memories
seriously off kilter," Bredesen said.

My conclusion is that, as usual, the medical community,
including doctors and researchers, simply do not know.
Next year they will have a different theory.

I could carry the automobile analogy to the logical
conclusion that our old rusted-out bodies are ready for
the place where cars are crushed into neat little blocks
and sold for scrap, which could be a neat alternative to
so-called "funeral homes". And I could say some take
better care of their automobiles than their own bodies:
they get the oil changed, put in the proper fuel, then
drive through a MacDonald's for their own
fuel, or order a pizza while sitting in front of the TV.

I prefer just now to dwell upon the glaring contradiction
in this study. The brains of people with Alzheimer's showed
more cleavage...than the brains of people without Alzheimer's,
but the brains of younger people without Alzheimer's had
about 10 times as much APP cleavage as did the brains of
Alzheimer's patients.

Oh wait, these were young Ferraris speeding along life's
highway making memories and breaking them. They must
have wrecked on that highway, however, in order to have
their brains dissected by the researchers.

I'm remembering the researchers and doctors who decided
that people with heart disease shouldn't eat egg yolks, just
the whites. Now yolks seem to be back in fashion: so long
to those overpriced artificial substitutes. And most of all I'm
remembering all those women who dutifully kept filling their
prescriptions for hormone replacement therapy until they
were told stop! Those artificial hormones can cause you to
have cancer!

And I think about the diabetics who are given diets that can
be poor in nutrition- the very quality the diabetic needs most-
so long as it includes the prescribed number of "choices" from
the various food groups.

Doctors have told me I do not need to take vitamins, and this
without having any knowledge whatsoever what I eat. At the
other extreme, a worker at the clinic where I went two years
ago for a dexa scan asked if I ate Tums, and, because I
answered "No", wrote that I was taking no calcium
supplements.

I think one way to stay healthy and preserve one's memory
longer is to stay away from doctors as much as possible.
Doctors whip out a prescription pad. They prescribe drugs.
That is how they have been taught to respond to all illness.
Drugs are dangerous. Just say "No".

More Peeping

I thought the spring peepers had done their thing and gone
back to wherever it is they stay the rest of the year.

After a balmy Super Tuesday, it rained and turned cold again.
For a few days it was very cold for these parts, snow on the
mountain top, up to 4 inches in places. Only light flurries here
in the valley, but there was a lacy edging to my book building
when I went there to pick up books ordered.

Then the weekend before the big March 4th primaries, they
were at it again, both in the spring water deep in the woods
across the road and at the pond in my neighbor's pasture,
Their voices too loud and shrill to call the sound peeping.
It was 70 degrees and sunny as I worked in the yard that
Sunday, listening to the frog choruses to the north and to
the south of me. I won't indulge in anthropomorphism and
say they're timing their concerts as a prelude to the
primaries, but the jubilant abandon with which they sing
out makes an appropriate background to the voting
excitement.

Now I know why I had been under the impression that they
are calling for rain: it is simply because of our normal
weather cycle at this time of year. It will be cold, sometimes
with frozen ground, then gradually warm up and then there
will be one or two shirtsleeve days, and the frogs will come
out and sing. It always rains and turns cold again, and
always then the frogs are silent.

This time their appearance is a prelude to spring, just as the
writers say about the peepers in the northern states. There
are jonquils, and there are a few white blossoms on my
pearl bush, scotch broom has been blooming for about a
month now, And there are both upright and umbrella-type
flowering quince near the library, the branches covered
with red flowers, so bright and pretty I wish I had planted
some here last fall.

But my priority is to get one of my small garden beds sowed
with greens. I've hauled in buckets and cans of cow manure
and got the soil loose and mixed, but it isn't raked and ready
yet. Too wet now from Tuesday's downpour.

Freezing rain washed down on the intrepid Ohio voters.
That would be a state where it would be another week
or so before the peepers appear, according to those
northern writers who state they appear in mid-march.
That is, if Ohio has spring peepers.