Week's Reflections - 2/4/2012

          As I recently posted, I have been getting killed with work lately.  Hopefully that will be changing soon, and I am planning to post a couple of interesting articles in the near future.  I also have a few interviews coming up, and I'll be sure to post about them.

1.) The Grey

          I thought this was a very disappointing movie.  I saw it with my girlfriend and a friend, and halfway through the movie we were bored and joking about how bad some parts of it were.  The cruddy wolf sound effects, the BS philosophy, the way so many "situations" were obvious plot devices....  It just wasn't a good movie.  I was pretty surprised to find that the greater public seems to have received it pretty well.  Who knows?  Maybe I'm wrong on this one.  Let me know what you think?

          I will say that I liked the ending.  From what I understand, people found it to be very disappointing, but I actually thought  it fit the movie and succeeded in making partial redemption for some of the more boring parts.

Week's Reflections - 1/28/12

          Apologies for getting to this so late today!  It has been a bit of a hectic week.  As always, please let me know if you come across anything interesting you want to let me know about; I would really appreciate it.

Plus it has a nice color.

1.) Curcumin vs LDL Receptors

          This is an interesting little study that I came across recently, despite the fact that it's been sitting around for over three years.  It deals with the compound curcumin, which is found in the wonder spice, turmeric.  In case you missed the boat, turmeric takes a shotgun approach to health in the human body by somehow positively impacting virtually everything.

          This study was designed to further analyze the observed anti-atherosclerotic effects of curcumin.  They found that it increases LDL receptor expression by some molecular pathway that's a little beyond my current paygrade.  LDL receptors pick up LDL cholesterol (the "bad" kind) and help get them pulled into a cell via endocytosis.  Sounds good to me.  Besides, it's a pretty tasty spice.

Week's Reflections - 1/21/2012

          As always, please post in the comments if you have anything interesting you want to recommend for me and others to read/watch/whatever!

Your brain on Alzheimer's.

1.) Diet and Alzheimer's - When the Sugar Hits Your Brain

          This was an interesting article that talks about the effect of Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs) on our brains.  The author presents a fascinating study from Neurology that presents a very strong correlation between endogenous AGEs and a person's mental decline.  Personally I think AGEs somewhat frightening and are a really interesting topic that I am eager to start educating myself about.

          This article is well worth a read if you're at all interested in AGEs, Alzheimer's, nutrition, or mental decline.

Week's Reflections - 1/14/2012

          Sorry for the lower posting volume this week.  It's just due to the vacation.  I'll be back on form next week.  I hope you are all well, and as always, if you have any thoughts or recommendations, please let me know!


1.) Playoffs Continue

          I have officially predicted the Saints to win it all.  I think Drew Brees, besides being the coolest professional athlete, is playing at a ridiculous level right now.  Their offense is almost machine like at this point.

The Saints are playing the Niners at 4:30, so we'll see if my prediction holds up.  Anyway, I'm enjoying the playoffs, and I hope you are too.

Week's Reflections - 1/7/12

          The first week of the new year is in the books!  I am excited to celebrate by heading on vacation next week.  Don't worry, I'll still post a few updates.


1.) New Track Your Plaque Article

          I like this article, because it's a very succinct and to the point summation of the reasoning behind the Track Your Plaque low carb diet.  Dr. Davis briefly describes the phenomena he sees with a low carb vs a low fat diet, through the lens of a cardiologist mainly concerned with heart disease.  His article is backed by many years of clinical experience managing the diet and heart health of his patients.  At the end, he also suggests that avoiding wheat in particular can also cause people to benefit in several non-heart related ways.  He doesn't break any new ground here, but I appreciate it for being short and concise and easy to understand with or without medical training.

Week's Reflections - 12/31/11

          Unfortunately, this week's reflections are a little light on interesting news or articles I've read.  I've been pretty distracted with the holiday season.  I'll be back on form first thing in the New Year.

1.) HAPPY NEW YEAR!

          Happy New Year to everyone!  I hope the last year was great and the next year is better.

          The new year is always a good time to look at the big moments of the past year and your hopes for the next year.  If I had to label a most important event of the last year, it was definitely getting into medical school.  I try to avoid being too focused on academics - a trap I think too many premeds fall into - but the fact is that I worked incredibly hard for the acceptance, and if I hadn't gotten it I wouldn't be able to follow my dreams.  So I'll definitely be doing a cheers and draining a shot for that tonight.  Other big things are becoming ever closer to my girlfriend, graduating from college, and settling into a post-grad lifestyle.

          For the coming year, I suspect one of the biggest events will be moving to a new location and starting medical school.  One of the biggest events?  Yeah, that looms like Mount Everest on the horizon.  I am so excited, though.

          How about you?  What were the big events of your last year, and what does the next year have in store for you?

Week's Reflections - 12/24/11

          I feel like all of the big news I am including in here happened really early in this week.  I'm almost wondering if I should start posting these on Sundays instead.  Anyway, here goes.  As always, if you have seen or read anything interesting, post it in the comments.  Cheers.


1.) Cornell Wins Bid to Build NYC Tech Campus

          As a Cornell alum this is wildly exciting.  This campus in the city has the potential to be a game changer, and I have to admit that I am incredibly jealous of the future generations that will have an opportunity to study there.  I am also filled with intense pride that of all the schools that applied we won the competition; we beat out schools such as Stanford and Columbia to get there.  For those that don't know, this was a competition in which many universities entered proposals for a big NYC land grant and up to 100 million dollars held by Mayor Bloomberg.  It's worth reading about the buildings and plans if you're interested; it's going to be state of the art.

Week's Reflections - 12/17/11

Here are a couple things I read and watched this week that might be worth taking a look at.  Enjoy, and as always, let me know if you have any suggestions!


- I, Caveman  

           Curiosity released the two episode "I, Caveman" a while back.  These episodes have come through the paleo community with some fanfare, because one of the participants was Robb Wolf, a big paleo writer I mentioned in this post.  I just got around to watching it this week, and I thought it was pretty cool.  I have to be honest, I probably wouldn't have found it to be worth watching or too terribly interesting had it not been for Wolf's participation.