CryoNet #32333 - #32334

CryoNet - Wed 27 Jan 2010

    #32333: Re: CryoNet #32321 - #32323 [Michael Smith]
    #32334: Blueberry Supplementation Improves Memory in Older Adults [oberon]

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Message #32333
References: <[email protected]>
From: Michael Smith <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 08:52:19 -0800
Subject: Re: CryoNet #32321 - #32323

My apologies for my delayed response here.

On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 2:00 AM, CryoNet <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Message #32321
> From: David Stodolsky <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: Stressing rejuvenation to promote cryonics
> Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:23:23 +0100
> References: <[email protected]>
>
> On 18 Jan 2010, at 11:00 AM, Michael Smith wrote:
>
> >> Given that cryonics idea has circulated in the culture for almost
> >> 50 years, and that people can now easily read about it online, I'd
> >> like to know why such misunderstandings about it persist.
> >>
> >> Mark Plus
> >
> >
> > At a guess, I would suggest that it's because people are scared of
> > looking socially deviant.  I think we're all familiar with the
> > standard litany of illogical arguments against both cryonics and the
> > whole idea of immortality.  The fact that the same arguments appear in
> > people who don't collaborate and often clearly haven't put much
> > thought into the issue suggests that the primary resistance to
> > cryonics is cultural.  The arguments, I would wager, are completely
> > secondary to the primary drive to belong to and be accepted by a
> > community.
>
> Right. This is why I have argued that recruitment of large groups of
> people simultaneously is the way to increase growth. They can form
> their own subculture and thereby resist pressures to conform from the
> mainstream culture.
>
>
> > There are a few memes in particular that I think compound the problem.
> > The two that I think are the most difficult to overcome are (1) the
> > idea that aging is an integral and therefore inevitable part of life
> > and (2) the idea that everyone has a proper time to die.  Since being
> > part of a culture is to a large extent a matter of adopting the memes
> > of that culture, we immortalists can often appear as though we're not
> > part of the same "tribe," so to speak, as those whom we would like to
> > persuade.  I suspect it has absolutely nothing to do with the logic of
> > life and death and has everything to do with the sense of belonging.
>
> This view is supported by my reanalysis of the Badger data.
>

Badger data?  I've never heard of this before.  A quick Google search
brings up this:

http://www.jetpress.org/volume3/badger.htm

If you're referring to something more, I'd much appreciate being
pointed toward it.  Thanks!

> >
> >  I and a few others who attended the Teens &
> > Twenties conference in Florida this last weekend are planning on
> > performing a study to explore this and other hypotheses (e.g. that
> > people with an inclination towards cryonics have a fundamentally
> > different psychological constitution than the general populous).
>
> I don't see how this follows from the argument that the cultural
> framework is the primary determinant of acceptance of cryonics.

It doesn't, and I didn't mean to make it sound like it did.  Sorry if
my statement was misleading.  I meant to offer just one other example
of a hypothesis often used to explain the tendency for most people to
reject cryonics.  The two distinct (though not mutually exclusive)
hypotheses as the driving explanations are:

(1) Most people are more driven by a basic desire to be accepted than
by a logical examination of what is needed for long-term survival.  In
short, people are afraid of looking too weird as a result of signing
up for cryonics.

(2) There's something different about cryonics-inclined people that
starts very early in life, perhaps from birth as the result of some
critical difference in their genome that's relatively rare.  (We
certainly couldn't test the genotype, but a reasonably well-done study
could detail the phenotype quite well if it exists.)

I'm sure there are other reasonable hypotheses as well.  These are
just the two big ones that come to mind off the top of my head.  They
certainly don't follow from each other, I agree.

> > What this would tell us is WHY people appear unreasonable by pointing
> > us to their actual motivations for rejecting cryonics and other
> > immortalist endeavors.  Once we know that, we can change our tactics
> > in presenting cryonics so that our presentations come across as more
> > compelling, meaning that we can really make progress in saving lives.
>
> Unfortunately, this is unlikely to work, since it has already been
> concluded that it isn't the logic that is crucial for making these
> types of choices.

Again, I agree with your perspective.  I think I've somehow erred in
how I conveyed what I intended.  If we know something about how people
are actually motivated with respect to cryonics, we can present
cryonics in a way that's compelling to that means of motivation.  That
method of talking compellingly about cryonics probably isn't any
version of a logical argument; I quite agree with you about that.
Something else is needed.  We just don't really know what that is just
yet.  We as a community certainly have some very good guesses, but as
far as I know they remain educated guesses rather than something that
has been checked via cultural or psychological studies.

A quick example that comes to mind is smoking.  Most people know the
logical arguments that smoking is horrid for their health and the
health of their loved ones, and most smokers assumedly get reprimanded
to some greater or lesser extent by their doctors for smoking.  Yet
this does very little to convince them to quit, and in fact there are
new smokers every generation.  Suppose it turns out that the primary
motivation for choosing to smoke and continuing to smoke is social in
nature: they believe that their friends will accept them and look up
to them more if they smoke.  Then emphasizing the social
unacceptability of smoking would be a more compelling argument to quit
than any amount of logical discussion.  If we were an institution
dedicated to saving lives by eliminating the practice of smoking, this
would be precious information to validate.  Thus some study
investigating this matter would be helpful since it could reveal this
(or possibly some other) core motivation in smokers' behavior.

Just to be clear, I don't think this is really the right picture to
take with smoking per se.  The physically addictive nature of nicotine
complicates things.  I just mean this as an analogous argument.  The
analogy shouldn't carry over the addiction because, as far as I know,
there's no physical addiction to the idea of cremation or burial.

Does that make more sense to you?

Again, sorry for not being clear the first time.

 ~Michael Smith

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Message #32334
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:25:36 -0800 (PST)
From: [email protected]
Subject: Blueberry Supplementation Improves Memory in Older Adults

[Consuming blueberrys would probably increase human lifespan, and may even reverse some signs of aging. It will be interesting to see the results when blueberrys are finally tested on patients with Alzeimer's disease, or dilated cardiomyopathy . Positive results are expected.]

J Agric Food Chem. 2010 Jan 4. [Epub ahead of print]
Blueberry Supplementation Improves Memory in Older Adults (dagger).
Krikorian R, Shidler MD, Nash TA, Kalt W, Vinqvist-Tymchuk MR, Shukitt-Hale B, Joseph JA. Department of Psychiatry, University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center, P.O. Box 670559, Cincinnati, Ohio 45267-0559.
    The prevalence of dementia is increasing with expansion of the older adult population. In the absence of effective therapy, preventive approaches are essential to address this public health problem. Blueberries contain polyphenolic compounds, most prominently anthocyanins, which have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. In addition, anthocyanins have been associated with increased neuronal signaling in brain centers, mediating memory function as well as improved glucose disposal, benefits that would be expected to mitigate neurodegeneration. This study investigated the effects of daily consumption of wild blueberry juice in a sample of nine older adults with early memory changes. At 12 weeks, improved paired associate learning (p = 0.009) and word list recall (p = 0.04) were obse
 rved. In addition, there were trends suggesting reduced depressive symptoms (p = 0.08) and lower glucose levels (p = 0.10). We also compared the memory performances of the blueberry subjects with a demographically matched sample who consumed a berry placebo beverage in a companion trial of identical design and observed comparable results for paired associate learning. The findings of this preliminary study suggest that moderate-term blueberry supplementation can confer neurocognitive benefit and establish a basis for more comprehensive human trials to study preventive potential and neuronal mechanisms.
PMID: 20047325

PLoS One. 2009 Nov 19;4(11):e7975.
Survival and cardioprotective benefits of long-term blueberry enriched diet in dilated cardiomyopathy following myocardial infarction in rats.
Ahmet I, Spangler E, Shukitt-Hale B, Joseph JA, Ingram DK, Talan M. Laboratory of Cardiovascular Science and Intramural Research Program, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America.
    BACKGROUND: Despite remarkable progress in treatment of chronic heart failure (CHF) over the last two decades, mortality, personal suffering and cost remain staggering, and effective interventions are still a challenge. Previously we reported that a blueberry-enriched diet (BD) attenuated necroapoptosis and inflammation in periinfarct area in a rat model of myocardial infarction (MI). OBJECTIVES: To test the hypothesis that BD will attenuate the course of CHF, including mortality and cardiac remodeling during the first year after induction of MI in rats. METHOD AND RESULTS: Two weeks after coronary artery ligation, rats were divided into two groups of similar average MI size, measured by echocardiography, and then 12-mo dietary regimens were initiated as follows: ad libitum regular die
 t (control, CD, n = 27) and isocaloric food with 2% blueberry supplement (BD, n = 27) also available ad libitum. These dietary groups were compared to each other and to sham group (SH). Mortality over the 12 mo was reduced by 22% in BD compared with CD (p<0.01). In the course of developing CHF, BD had no effect on the body weight, heart rate or blood pressure. Bi-monthly Echo revealed significant attenuation of the LV chamber remodeling, LV posterior wall thinning, and MI expansion in BD compared with CD. In fact, BD arrested the MI expansion. CONCLUSION: This is the first experimental evidence that a blueberry-enriched diet has positive effects on the course of CHF and thus warrants consideration for clinical evaluation.
PMID: 19936253

[In an in-vitro experiment, blueberrys (and other berrys as well) protected against amyloid toxicity.]

Nutr Neurosci. 2003 Jun;6(3):153-62.
Blueberry supplementation enhances signaling and prevents behavioral deficits in an Alzheimer disease model.
Joseph JA, Denisova NA, Arendash G, Gordon M, Diamond D, Shukitt-Hale B, Morgan D. USDA-HNRCA at Tufts University, 711 Washington Street, Boston, MA 02111, USA.
    Previously, we showed that blueberry (BB) supplementation reversed the deleterious effects of aging on motor behavior and neuronal signaling in senescent rodents. We now report that BB-fed (from 4 months of age) APP + PS1 transgenic mice showed no deficits in Y-maze performance (at 12 months of age) with no alterations in amyloid beta burden. It appeared that the protective mechanisms are derived from BB-induced enhancement of memory-associated neuronal signaling (e.g. extracellular signal-regulated kinase) and alterations in neutral sphingomyelin-specific phospholipase C activity. Thus, our data indicate for the first time that it may be possible to overcome genetic predispositions to Alzheimer disease through diet.
PMID: 12793519

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