This question often puzzled me. I can understand the need for a God, as an embodiment of people’s moral ideals. So the fact that our society, which views itself as based on moral principles, is fertile ground for the belief in an über-moral deity. The Brits, on the other hand, have a long history of scandalous, sometimes murderous, behaviors of their political leaders and royals. They are well-versed in their Shakespeare and, like him are cynical about assertions of moral superiority of authority figures. Is there any wonder why only a small minority of the British go to church? This could also be the reason why the most ferocious critics of religion are British. See, for instance Richard Dawkins “the God Delusion”, in which he argues that God is, well, a delusion, religion is a virus, and the U.S. has slipped back to the dark ages. If this sounds extreme, try “God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything” by Christopher Hitchens.

Why should a belief in a deity clash with acceptance of science? In fact, Dr. Francis Collins, a physician and scientist par excellence, is the director of the Human Genome Project. He is also deeply religious.

But consider this little nugget: In a 2005 Pew Trust poll, 42% of respondents said that they believed that humans and other animals have existed in their present form since the beginning of time, a view that denies the very existence of evolution. And in a 2008 Republican presidential debate, none of the five, or was it six, candidates raised their hands when asked whether they believed in evolution.

This is not the only domain where people reject science: Many believe in the efficacy of unproven medical interventions; the mystical nature of out-of-body experiences; the existence of supernatural entities such as ghosts and fairies; and the legitimacy of astrology, ESP, and divination.

It all begins in childhood.

In a review titled “Childhood Origins of Adult Resistance to Science”, two Yale professors of psychology, Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnik Weisberg, posit that the winter of our ignorance began in childhood. They review evidence from developmental psychology suggesting that some resistance to scientific ideas is a human universal. This resistance stems from two general facts about children, one having to do with what they know and the other having to do with how they learn.

READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY AT “THE DOCTOR WEIGHS IN”

People like to scoff at the idea of blending health care with shopping.  Uttering the very words “consumer driven health care” sends shivers down the spines of “purists” – your local medical specialist, whose life-saving work necessitates the confidence and ego driving the indignancy of the thought.  Does consumerism cheapen health care?  Well, yes…if you caught the double entendre.  Those of you who are too good to have your profession sullied by associating it with value probably think so as well…but not in the good way.

Check out these two posts from Brian Klepper on The Doctor Weighs In Blog.  The first, entitled “The Myth of Healthcare Consumerism” points out a recent study that shows only 19% of people would research their doctors and switch providers if they found their doctor had received a low rating.  Now, even if this number is lower than expected, I don’t think healthcare consumerism has anything to worry about.  First of all, as the post points out, 19% is 38 million adults.  Secondly, the data says nothing about using online research to find a provider in the first place.  Switching doctors is difficult and inconvenient.  Picking one in the first place isn’t…and it certainly will only get easier as more information comes available to make an informed decision.  This is sort of the point.  Surveys ask people to describe what their behavior will be in a given set of circumstances.  These circumstances have never existed…so the utility is unknown.  However, the early sites seem to be showing promise.  How many hits do you think drugs.com or wedmd.com get in a day?  My startup, doctorpricing.com gets thousands a month and it’s still a beta version.

Klepper’s second post: “Health Care and the Gathering Storms“ compromises the theme of his first.  Warren Brennan, the CEO of SMA Informatics in Richmond, provides economic data (S&P/Case Shiller Home Prices Indices, wage data) that supports what any informed American already knows – we are experiencing and economic contraction that may become, or possibly already is, a recession.  The individual consumer makes up 70%+ of our country’s economy, and health care has been riding a wave of economic prosperity that is ending.  The conclusion?  Health care businesses (doctors, hospitals, technology companies, etc.) are going to hurt just like every other industry.  What can we deduce from this?  Health care consumers are, at some level, price sensitive, just like every other type of consumer.  It is a basic tenet of economics. 

Why do Americans spend more per-capita than any other country in the world on medical care?  Because they can….  When the can’t any longer, they won’t.  Price matters.  And it’s going to matter more as health care costs continue to outpace inflation by 200-500 basis points.  Employers will no longer be able to provide standard insurance to employees…cheaper alternatives like High Deductible Health Plans will become more mainstream.  People will have to manage some of their own health care risk…one way or another.

At least I hope so…for the sake of all of us…

The Doctor Weighs In: Is There a Link Between Stress and Bad Belly Fat?, Article by Dr. Pat Sylber – January 22, 2007

We have known for a long time that the distribution of fat in the body is important in determining important health risks, such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. “Apples” (or the abdominally obese) are at much greater risk than pear-shaped people who tend to deposit their fat in the hips, thighs and butts.

More recently, researchers have determined that one type of belly fat, called visceral fat, is worse than belly fat just below skin. Visceral fat is deposited the omentum, the tissue that drapes around the intestines and other abdominal cavity organs (or viscera). You don’t have to be obese to have visceral fat. One the other hand, not all people who are obese develop significant amounts of this “bad fat.”

An article in the San Francisco Chronicle reports that recent research suggests that abdominal fat is related to the release of the stress hormone, cortisol. According to UCSF’s assistant professor of psychiatry, Elissa Epel, an expert on the physiological effects of stress, cortisol which is released when people are under stress, seems to interact with the pancreatic hormone, insulin, to create visceral fat. At the same time, cortisol stimulates a craving for “comfort foods” – the sweet stuff and the stuff high in fat. This is a double whammy – you desire and, as a result, often consume high calorie foods and you deposit those excess calories as bad fat in your belly.

To test the hypothesis that stress is related the deposition of visceral fat, researchers at the University of California San Francisco are recruiting 50 overweight women to participate in a study on the impact of stress relief techniques on body fat, particularly visceral fat. The study is not designed to help the participants lose weight per se, rather it is designed to reduce stress and stress-related eating.

The 50 women will be divided into two groups. One group will start stress reduction classes right away, the other won’t start these classes until after 6 months have passed. The classes will teach women stress reduction techniques and will also teach them how to recognize triggers that prompt stress-related eating.  They will also be taught “mindful eating.”

I described mindful eating in my recent post “Getting in touch with your feelings…about raisins.” In that post, I describe a “raisin exercise” developed by the author of Soul-Full Eating, Maureen Whitehouse. This approach to eating involves really engaging with the foods you eat. As opposed to gulping them down as many of us do in the course of our hectic lives, you are taught to visually examine the food and then explore it with your fingers and hands. When you put it in your mouth, you explore it with your tongue and chew it, ever so slowly, letting the flavors linger in your mouth and in your mind.

According to a co-researcher on the UCSF study, Jennifer Daubenmier, a postdoctoral fellow with the UCSF Center for Obesity Assessment, Study and Treatment, mindful eating helps participants to think about how and why they eat. The goal of the UCSF program is to ultimately help the participants make better, smarter food choices. Although weight loss is not the goal, it is hoped that the program will result in a reduction of bad belly fat.

To qualify for the study, women must weigh less than 300 pounds and have apple-shaped figures. They must be between 21 and 50 years old. They must not be recently pregnant, diabetic or have heart disease. If you fit these criteria and are interesting in participating in the study, send an email to ucsfcalmmstudy@yahoo.com.

Getting in Touch With Your Feelings… About Raisins

A friend put me in touch with Maureen Whitehouse, a former model and now author of a new book, Soul-Full Eating. Maureen sent me a copy of her book to review.  Now, it is a pretty book with a serenely beautiful cover photo it’s a lettuce leaf (I think) and something that looks like a animal bone stuck in something that could be some sort of fruit. It is all a little blurry and abstract. But it does remind me of the decor of some of the nicer high-end spas I have frequented.

The subtitle of the book is ” A (Delicious!) Path to Higher Conscious.” Oh, oh, I’m thinking, this may be a little too zen for me. I practice yoga because it is a great exercise and my main stretching activity. But I have never really been the meditating sort. I avoid the silent dinners at my annual visit at Rancho La Puerta, not being able to imagine how someone could pass up the chance to blab with the terrifically interesting people who attend that spa.

So, you can imagine my mind set when I started reading Soul-Full Eating. Each chapter starts with a quote. “Eat with love what’s grown with love, prepared with love, and served with love” is the basic principle of Soul-Full Eating. Hmmm.

Each chapter also has exercises to perform to help you understand the ideas presented in that chapter. The first chapter’s exercise was “Just for one day, do only what you genuinely love to do.” Yeah, right, but what about all of work I have to do. Who is going to write the post for The Doctor Weighs In?

Things aren’t going well for me and this book until I hit page 24. There, the author described a “mind-fullness” exercise that she uses in her True Beauty workshops. She describes how she walks into the workshop, and without saying a word, hands the participants three raisins.

Then she asks them to examine the raisins as though they had never seen a raisin before. They are to experience the raisin with what Zen Buddhists call ” beginner’s mind.” She tells the readers to get three raisins and do the exercise while reading this section.

So, I go to the kitchen and open the package of raisins that has been sitting, untouched, in my cupboard for several months (no, really several years, I think). I pick out three raisins and sit to read the section.

First, she tells us, examine one of the raisins carefully. Look at it closely and roll it in the palm of your hand. Lo and behold, the raisin I have picked out is actually two raisins stuck together. Had I just popped it in my mouth, I never would have known that. Next you lick the raisin. It is softer than it felt in my hand. At last, she tells you to put it in your mouth, but not chew it or swallow it, rather let your tongue explore it. Amazing, as I explore the raisin, it starts to get soft and feels like it is plumping up. It likes being in my mouth.

Now, she tells us, to slowly chew , but still not swallow. You are to chew that little raisin until it liquefies. That takes a long time. Meanwhile, you start to really taste the raisin. Ordinarily, if I eat raisins, I just pop a handful of those little sugar bombs in my mouth and swallow. I am not sure I ever really thought about the taste before.

The raisin tastes pretty darn good, earthy and sweet, but not too sweet. It is nice. I swallow the juice. It took about 3 minutes from touch to swallow, considerably longer than my usual “grab and swallow” raisin eating approach.

The author instructs us to repeat this exercise two more times. Each time consciously exploring the raisin and trying to find something new about it that you didn’t notice before. By the time I swallowed the third raisin, I realized how good it was to roll a raisin in your mouth with your tongue. And, how much flavor it has when allowed to slowly disintegrate and dissolve with during the long slow chewing process.

I must say, this exercise did get me in touch with my feelings about raisins in a way I have never experienced before. This, according to Maureen Whitehouse, is mind-full eating. I think I like it! I think I like this book. I think I’ll read the rest and will try to do what Maureen says — that is to really be there when I eat. Soul-Full Eating, a pretty good idea.

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