Footnote

How do you dramatize the life of a professor? And why would you want to? Don’t they just write, teach, and grade papers? How do you make that interesting? Most films that deal with academic life focus primarily on students, and with good reason: they tend to lead more interesting lives. They party, they do sports, they get in trouble, they have crazy relationships and friendships. Animal House is perhaps the most famous embodiment of the college movie.

But professors? What could be interesting about their lives? Wonder Boys is a wonderful exception to the expectation that a movie about professors would be boring (and it lives up to the great book it is based on). Certain scenes in other movies pop out, one of my favorites being Dustin Hoffman’s role as a coffee-obsessed professor in Stranger Than Fiction. The Coen Brothers produced an odd, but beautiful, film about a Jewish professor in their retelling of the story of Job in A Serious Man. The Visitor is an equally sedate, but moving, story of a professor finding his way in the world. There are other examples, but you get the idea.

With a title like “Footnote” it might sound like an academic treatise, not a film rife with conflict and dramatic tension. The film takes place at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. There are two protagonists, both professors, both by the name Shkolnik. A mistake is made by the Ministry of Education when they notify the wrong Professor Shkolnik about winning the Israel Prize for Talmudic Studies. This mistakes reveals a host of problems and family dynamics. 

The film causes you to consider one set of ethical questions after another. What is the right decision when faced with a true dilemma (where there is no perfect solution)? Given its setting--not just that it is about Biblical scholars, but is set in Israel--one can see the biblical overtones. Is this movie about the fifth commandment, that one should honor his mother and father? Is a twist on the story of Jacob and Esau? 

There are lots of other themes to consider. What are the duties of a father to his son and a son to his father? What are our ethical duties to our rivals? Are any secrets worth keeping? The movie is about the very language we use day in and day out. What does this language mean? How do we use it? What is the role of memory? And how does language--and the way we archive our stories--affect our memories?

There are subtle critiques of academic life. Why do we do research? Teach? What value do these activities add to society? To the lives of the academics? In some of the films more humorous moments, it pokes fun at academics (and we certainly know that academics are highly pokeable). 


You may have noticed that I haven’t revealed much of the plot. True. That’s because I want you to come see it with me and then discuss it at a coffee shop afterwards. One of my favorite things to do is to watch a film like this and then debate everything about it--meanings, techniques, characters. How often is a movie like this--about professors that takes place in an international setting and is replete with ethical quandaries to chew on--playing across the street from your office, especially for a guy like me who loves this kind of film?

Antioxidants and Intermittent Fasting – Good For Longevity?

Are blueberry antioxidants beneficial for intermittent fasting? (Photo by Simply Bike)

Is it possible to live longer by combining the benefits of intermittent fasting (IF) and plant polyphenols? A new paper claims that taking polyphenol antioxidants during dietary restriction increases the lifespan of mice more than dietary restriction alone. The antioxidants used in the study were blueberry, pomegranate and green tea extracts.

The subject of the paper – "Potentiation of dietary restriction-induced lifespan extension by polyphenols" – is certainly enough grab the attention of anyone interested in life extension. The abstract seems promising too (link). Here's a quote:

Dietary restriction (DR) extends lifespan across multiple species including mouse. Antioxidant plant extracts rich in polyphenols have also been shown to increase lifespan. We hypothesized that polyphenols might potentiate DR-induced lifespan extension. [––] Polyphenol compounds may potentiate IF-induced longevity by minimizing specific components of IF-induced cell stress.

Let's look at these claims in more detail. First off, it's not clear from the abstract what exactly the authors mean by "dietary restriction". The full paper, however, reveals that they use the term to describe pretty much any kind of diet where access to food is limited, including traditional calorie restriction and intermittent fasting.

The longevity confusion

The problem with that opening sentence is that dietary restriction extends lifespan across multiple species only when it equals calorie restriction. That is, you can make a mouse live longer by only feeding every other day, as long as it results in less calories consumed. This is an important distinction, because many people – including longevity scientists – keep propagating the myth that intermittent fasting has the same benefits as calorie restriction. It doesn't. The reason that IF prolongs lifespan in some species is because the animals fail to compensate for the missed calories on their feeding days.

The next sentence is just as problematic. Yes, plant antioxidants have been shown to increase lifespan, but the question is, compared to what? So far, no one has succeeded in exceeding the known maximum lifespan of mice by feeding them antioxidants. Instead, what we see in many studies is that the antioxidant group lives longer than the control group.

The problem is that almost always, neither group lives very long. Poor diets, poor animal husbandry, poor environment – all play a role in how long the animals live. So, in essence, the antioxidants merely make the unhealthy mice a bit healthier. But this is like making a human live 70 years instead of 60 years by giving them some veggies with his daily bread and then claiming that "vegetables extend human lifespan".

Comparing lifespans

That said, there are some interesting figures in the full paper. The graph below shows the survival rates of the three groups; one fed the control diet, the second fed the same diet but only every other day, and the third fed a diet supplemented with polyphenols every other day:

There's a big drop in the survival rate of the control group around 22 months. For the IF groups, the survival curves look a lot better. So how does this compare to the average lifespan of similar mice kept in good laboratory conditions? Here's a graph of age ranges and survivorship of C57BL7/6J mice (the same strain used in this study):

This survival curve is based on a cohort of 150 male and 150 female mice. As you can see, at 28 months half of the mice are still alive. That's about 850 days, which is a pretty normal figure for mean lifespan of this strain of mice in the literature.

Once again, in the antioxidant study the control group dies earlier than is normal. For some reason, half of the mice are dead at 22 months instead of 28 months. One possible reason is the use of a high-fat diet to "mimic the effects of a Western diet", as the authors put it. This seems like a strange idea to me, because a typical Western diet is no more a high-fat diet than it is a high-carbohydrate diet. Furthermore, plenty of humans (myself included) seem to do quite well on a high-fat diet, whereas with mice it's somewhat different.

The survival curve of the IF mice in the first graph is slightly better than that of the normal-fed mice in the second graph. But that is hardly a surprise, given that both the IF group and the IF + antioxidant group had lower body weights than the control group. In other words, the intermittent fasting once again made the mice eat less than the control group, which in turn resulted in a slightly longer lifespan. It's good to keep in mind, however, that with just 10% calorie restriction longer lifespans have been reported in other studies, so the result is not too impressive.

Conclusion

Perhaps the most interesting result is that the IF + antioxidant group lived slightly longer than the IF group. There's no concensus as to whether it's a good idea to combine CR or IF with antioxidants. It may be that plant polyphenols are essential for optimal nutrition and good for activating sirtuins (which play at least some role in longevity), but there is also some evidence suggests that taking antioxidants may interfere with hormesis and thus diminish the effects of CR.

In this study, the antioxidants had a beneficial effect. While the IF diet by itself activated pro-inflammatory pathways, adding plant polyphenols to the diet blocked this effect. The authors identified 20 gene sets that were down-regulated by the addition of polyphenols, most of them related to immune response, inflammation, cell differentation and tumorigenesis. 

This suggests that if you're doing intermittent fasting, adding some blueberries, pomegranates and green tea to your diet may not be such a bad idea. Note, however, than the mice did not have access to polyphenols during their fasting days, so this study tells us nothing about taking antioxidants during fasting. It also doesn't say much about how polyphenols affect regular calorie restriction without IF in humans.

For more information on intermittent fasting and longevity, see these posts:

Lithium in Drinking Water May Lead to Longer Life
Does Intermittent Fasting Increase Lifespan?
Alternate-Day Feeding and Weight Loss: Is It the Calories Or the Fasting?
Slowing Down Aging with Intermittent Protein Restriction

Dreaming of Cuba

I'm headed to Cuba tomorrow. Cuba. The country that has been under a U.S. embargo since the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower. It sits 90 miles from the United States and yet is a world away.

I'm taking a group of students to see just how different it really is. The main focus will be to learn about higher education in Cuba, but we'll naturally learn about its history, culture, politics, music, art, food, and whatever else we can. We've been reading Julia Sweig's book on Cuba as a primer. I also have a stack of other books that I've collected and tried to read as much as possible.

Here Sweig talks about her book with South Carolina's favorite son, Stephen Colbert, and explains the importance of U.S.-Cuban relations and what the future between these two nations should look like.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Cuba/US Trade Relations - Julia Sweig
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

Reading and learning as much as possible about Cuba is good and all, of course.

But, there's really no substitute for being there.

I've learned this truism in my other travels. My first trip out of the country was to another communist country, the U.S.S.R. in 1988 as a high school student from Utah. I've pulled out my journal from that trip and I'll be curious to see what comparisons there might be between the two experiences.

This is a unique time to go to Cuba. Who knows what's around the corner for this country. The Obama loosened regulations for academic travel last year, which is what made this trip possible. However, this could change back. The Castro regime can't last forever, right? What happens after Fidel and Raúl are gone? More of the same? Or will it open up?

So, we are taking advantage of this window of opportunity. If the restrictions are put back in place, we wouldn't be able to return. And if Cuba opens up and a McDonald's pops up on every corner, then we couldn't return to this Cuba either. I can go back to Russia, but I could never go back to the Soviet Union. 

Like my Soviet trip I plan to keep a journal and I had hoped to blog it here so others could follow along. However, I've learned that Internet access is expensive and slow so I won't be in touch for about 10 days, but I'll certainly upload some thoughts (and lots of pictures) when I get back.

Hasta pronto...

Filling Your Life with New Tunes...

I get stuck in ruts. Musical ruts. I listen to same stuff over and over. It's comfortable. I know what's coming, what's next.

Sometimes this serves a purpose. For example, when I was writing my dissertation I had certain playlists on my iPod that I would use as background inspiration. My favorite was the complete Led Zeppelin collection. What better way to pump yourself up than with "Black Dog," "The Ocean," and the "D'yer Mak'er"? Around the time "Kashmir" came on (my favorite Zeppelin song ever) I knew I had been cranking for a while.

Other favorite playlists included Talking Heads, Dave Matthews Band, and U2, and of course the Beatles. Perhaps I hoped listening to all these great lyricists would rub off on me.

So, treading the trodden trails of your old favorites is wonderful and all, but sometimes you need to break out and try some new music. A couple weeks ago I attended the UU Coffeehouse concert, not out of interest in the band (which I had never heard of), but as something to do on a Saturday night with the kids. Much to our delight, Storyhill, was, well, a delight. (My kids especially loved noting that one of the singers looks just like the dad of one of their friends.)

Then on another weekend I made another wonderful new discovery thanks to the UU Coffeehouse series, this one held at the Columbia Museum of Art: Andy Friedman. He's been on a continuous loop in my car for the past week. Oops, there's that rut again, but I can't get enough of his song, "Roll On, John Herald":

Same with "Idaho" and "Going Home." And the lyrics of "Down by the Willow" are pure poetry.

Then this morning a friend posted on Facebook a song I'd never heard of by an artist I'd never heard of accompanied by another (apparently famous) artist I'd also never heard of, commenting that she could listen to the song on repeat for hours. I have to admit, I agree.

It's always good to discover new music. It's always good to get out of those ruts.

Reboot

Life needs a Control+Z option. But it doesn't exist. So I'll just apologize instead.

Sorry.

Life has been complicated lately. Very.

I can't hit Control+Z so I'll just hit reboot instead.

Onward.