My Unremarkable Brain

“I know ev’rybody on this island…” My niece’s sweet, high voice flows into the microphone, through the speakers, and over the room.  At nine years old, she’s fearless.  She loves singing, loves her family.  So why not perform the Moana theme song in front of a crowd of 40 relatives?  You have to admire the innocent bravery of children. It’s my second Thanksgiving in as many days.  Baltimore with Judy’s family, then Boston at mine.  In the weeks leading up to this, My thoughts were about travel, about turkey, about holiday weight gain.  But, of course, that’s not what it’s about.   The basic unit of the brain is the neuron.  An amazing little cell, the neuron moves chemicals and electricity from one place to another.  But the neuron is no good on its own.  The neuron’s power lies in its connections. Together, neurons form neural networks, and these networks create everything we call life: motion, sensation, thoughts, f...

My life has been unduly influenced by Jim Abrahams.  So I figured on this Thanksgiving week, I’d give a shout-out to the man whom I’ve never met, but who’s made my life better in the most unusual ways. In case you don’t recognize the name, Jim Abrahams is 33% of the trio Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker (or, ZAZ), the brilliant comedy team that made some of the most ridiculously hilarious movies of all time. I’d estimate that about 80% of the words that came out of my mouth between the ages of 12 and 18 were made up of quotes from the Airplane! , P olice Squad , and Naked Gun series.   For my friends and I, it was impossible to get through a week without admonishing one another, “Please don’t call me Shirley,” or asking, “Have you ever been in a Turkish prison?” Sophomoric? Yes.  But we were at that sophomore stage in our lives.  It was our shared language, our way to bond.  Teenage boys (well, let’s face it: men of all ages) don’t generally have a whole l...

“But BigDave,” I hear you say. “I just read an article that said low-carb diets will kill you (well, okay, I read the headline on my feed, but the picture was VERY convincing…).” As Nina Teicholz explains in The Big Fat Surprise , the problem with articles like this one is that they rely on observational studies to draw conclusions.  In contrast to a clinical trial (think hypothesis, experimental group, control group, all that science-y type stuff you haven’t thought about since 11 th grade), an observational study takes a peek at what’s going on with a big group of people and tries to draw connections.  Observational studies give us ideas like: polio is associated with ice cream consumption ,    drowning in a pool is related to Nicholas Cage films , and eating margarine leads to divorce (but only in Maine).     The thing is, Teicholz says, it’s impossible to draw definite conclusions from these types of studies.  They c...

I mentioned in an earlier post  that I’m participating in a year-long study of the Modified Atkins Diet (MAD) and epilepsy.  You may wonder, how did the infamous Dr. Atkins and his infamous "fad diet" get connected with epilepsy?  Excellent question, Sherman! Let’s jump in the Wayback Machine and find out. Epilepsy has been documented in Western culture since ancient times.  Folks back then had no idea what caused seizures (probably something simple like, ya know, demonic possession) but they did find that fasting seemed to prevent them.  Fasting was used widely, by such famous healers as Hipporcrates ( On the Sacred Disease ) and even Jesus (Mark 9:29).   The problem is, you can only fast for so long.  If Looney Tunes taught us anything, it’s that at some point, your best friend starts to look like a carved turkey, and then the whole relationship just goes south. A breakthrough came in the 1920s, when physicians discovered tha...