Tag Archives: mental-health

More of Same on Longevity.

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            “Old age is a ship-wreck.”—Charles de Gaulle.  It sure is for a large percentage of Americans.  As adults, better than half have some chronic illness (cancer, heart disease, diabetes).  By the time they hit the traditional retirement age (65), four-fifths of them have at least two chronic conditions.  Only a handful reach age 80 without some sort of health problem. 

            How does this handful dodge so many of the bullets that hit the vast majority of people?  Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist interested in aging and longevity sought answers.  He hypothesized a genetic explanation.  That didn’t pan out, so he turned his attention to common features of what he calls “Super Agers.”[1]  He and his team of researchers found the “super agers” to be “thinner, exercised more frequently and seemed “remarkably upbeat,” often with rich social lives.”[2] 

            In Topol’s view, “nothing surpasses regular exercise for promotion of healthy aging.”  Then, “healthy eating and a good night’s sleep are also crucial.”  He’s less prescriptive about what to eat than are some, but he’s hard and fast on what not to eat: highly processed junk.  These “foods” promote inflammation, which can contribute to all sorts of other maladies. 

Then there’s loneliness (“social isolation” in academese).  No one to talk to about your triumphs or disasters.  No one to share your enthusiasms.  There’s probably an up-side here to sports fans.  (Bound to be one.  Well, that’s a snotty thing to say.)  It’s been a problem for a long time.  Popular culture commonly associated lonely with individual experience, rather than as a social problem.[3]  Back in 2018, British Prime Minister Theresa May appointed a “Minister for Loneliness.”  I don’t know what became of that initiative, but at least people recognized the seriousness of the problem.  Similarly, Vivek Murthy, the Surgeon General of the United States, warned of loneliness as a health issue.[4]    

            Topol is pretty much dismissive of many pseudo-scientific approaches to extending lifespan and health span, or improving cognitive function.[5]  OTOH, he sees drugs like Ozempic as having an “extraordinary potential to promote health span.”  The drugs both promote weight loss and reduced inflammation. 

            Many authors are now touting the opportunities for longer life and better health available to individuals making the right choices.  That would seem to imply that shorter life and ill-health are the product of individuals making bad choices.  Why does such a large share of Americans make such poor choices and then stick to them?  The machinations of “Big Food”?  A cultural shift from personal responsibility and self-reliance to feelings of impotence and dependence in “mass society”?  Or, conversely, a shift from a coercive, normative society to a laissez-faire and diversity-celebrating society?  The internet may not be the cause of loneliness, but it seems to be an accelerant.

            Be that as it may, there’s a cardinal sitting on the planter in my yard.  Dark red head, then a dustier sort of red below it.  Beautiful. 

[1] Eric Topol, Super Agers: An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity (2025). 

[2] David Shaywitz, review of Topol, Super Agers, WSJ, 7 May 2025. 

[3] Couple of my favorites: Sea of Heartbreak and I Still Miss Someone 

[4] U.K. Appoints a Minister for Loneliness – The New York Times; and A Rao, “US surgeon general warns of next public health priority: loneliness”, The Guardian, 2 May 2023. 

[5] Still, they’re all over the commercials during the network news at dinner time.  As best I recall. 

Just Asking.

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            Was Joe Biden being treated for cancer during his term in office?  One possible effect of chemotherapy for cancer is commonly called “chemo brain.”  The Mayo Clinic lists cognitive effects, physical complications, and risk factures for “chemo brain.” [1] 

“Symptoms of chemo brain linked to memory may include:

  • Trouble recalling what you’ve said to others.
  • Trouble recalling what you’ve seen, such as images or lists of words.
  • Trouble recalling what’s happened recently, called short-term memory issues.

Symptoms of chemo brain linked to thinking may include:

  • Trouble finding the right words.
  • Trouble learning new skills.
  • Trouble doing more than one thing at a time.
  • Mental fog.
  • Short attention span.
  • Taking longer than usual to do routine tasks.

“Physical complications of chemotherapy include: 

  • Low levels of healthy red blood cells or hemoglobin needed to carry oxygen to the body’s tissues, called anemia.
  • Weakness and tiredness.”

“Factors that may increase the risk of chemo brain and memory changes in people with cancer include:

  • Older age.”

There appears to be a degree of overlap in the symptoms of “chemo brain” and the “cognitive decline” attributed to President Biden from early in his term.[2]  It has been remarked that Joe Biden had not received the PSA test since 2014.  This struck some observers as odd.  On the one hand, doctors don’t recommend the PSA for men over 70.  On the other hand, Biden was a candidate for the presidency and then the President of the United States.[3]  Spokesmen for Biden have denied that he had been diagnosed with cancer before May 2025.[4]  That would be powerfully persuasive had not other spokespeople previously declared that Biden was mentally and physically fit to be President when he obviously was not.[5] 

Whatever the cause of Joe Biden’s cognitive problems, Americans are entitled to ask: who was running the show, and for how long, and in which areas of government?    

[1] Chemo brain – Symptoms and causes – Mayo Clinic 

[2] For a catalogue of Biden’s public mis-steps, see: Age and health concerns about Joe Biden – Wikipedia For a recording of the full interview of Biden by Special Counsel Robert Hur, see: Marc Caputo, “Exclusive: Listen to the full Biden-Hur special counsel interview” Axios (May 17, 2025).  For a bunch of “now it can be told” stuff, see: Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again (2025). 

[3] “C’mon man.”    

[4] See the very helpful article by Tyler Pager “Biden Did Not Get Prostate Diagnosis Before Last Week,” NYT, 20 May 2025. 

[5] Andrew Restuccia, Annie Linskey, Emily Glazer, Rebecca Ballhaus, Erich Schwartzel, “How Biden’s Inner Circle Worked to Keep Signs of Aging Under Wraps”, WSJ, 8 July 2024, elicited a lot of push-back from Democrats high and low.    

“I hate rude behavior in a man.”–Woodrow F. Call, “Lonesome Dove.”

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What is a “manly man”?  My grandfather pretty much abandoned his wife and two sons during the Twenties.  My Dad grew up in the Depression.  He picked fruit in California; logged in Montana; worked on a government survey ship in the Gulf of Alaska; was the assistant manager of a movie theater in Portland, Oregon; soldiered on Guadalcanal and Bougainville; was a ski-bum in Sun Valley and a cab driver in Seattle and Anchorage; and—eventually—owned a small business that put a roof over our heads and food in our bellies, along with many other things.  He smoked two packs of Camels a day.  He read a lot of high-end trash.[1]  He knew many “colorful” expressions, but he did not use them indoors or in front of women and children.  He never raised his voice to–let alone hit–my Mom or me and my siblings.  (He did punch out a tug-boat captain who disrespected my Mom.)  He taught me to sail, to ski, to drive a car (with a manual gear-shift), and to shoot both long guns and pistols (which we had around the house in an unlocked rack) and gun safety (“always check in the breech”).  He believed in individual achievement and personal responsibility.  He always voted straight-ticket Republican, except for the time he voted for McGovern because he was so angry about the waste and lies of the Vietnam War.  He intensely disliked rich swells, especially rich swells who went into politics and took up the cause of the “common man.”  (This meant FDR and all the Kennedys.)  He and my Mom believed that “a woman’s place was in the home” and that “a man had to provide for his family.”  He and my Mom were casual racists, just like most other White people of the time outside the South.  He was the finest man I’ve ever known. 

He offered an example of “traditional masculinity,” rather than “toxic masculinity.”  That distinction began when the term “toxic masculinity” was taken up by men’s movements in the 1980s and 1990s.  Gender differences are essentially hard-wired, rather than socially constructed.[2]  “Toxic” masculinity could appear where men had lost contact with real or “deep” masculinity.  Masculinity became “toxic” when men lost comradery with other men and when they repressed emotions.  From there, the term crept into academic studies and, from there, into the media in the 2010s.  Along the way, however, it became generalized to describe ALL masculinity.  In part, this seems to have occurred among people—feminists, gay-rights activists–struggling courageously for their own liberation.  In part, this sprang from “gray wolf” behavior among academics.[3]  In part, this seems to have resulted from the intellectual laziness of people in the media.[4]  There followed a moral panic over behavior attributed to many men.[5] 

Social movements swing like a pendulum, taking ever more extreme positions.  So it was with “toxic masculinity.”  Recent studies find that many male Trump voters support abortion rights, gender equality, and openness about emotions, but don’t believe that women’s progress has come at the expense of men.  They’re just sick of being stigmatized.[6]   

Believing a man should provide for his family is preferable to abandoning that family. 

[1] Kenneth Roberts, C.S. Forester, and John D. MacDonald. 

[2] On “Social Construction” see Social construction of gender – Wikipedia  Lots of jargon. 

[3] Pack hunter – Wikipedia 

[4] See: Toxic masculinity – Wikipedia, “Terminology.” 

[5] Moral panic – Wikipedia 

[6] Claire Cain Miller, “Many Trump-Voting Men Feel Under Fire, Yet Defy Stereotypes,” NYT, 5 March 2025.