In the jeans and In the genes

In the jeans...

Yippee... The scale is finally moving downward again and not stuck at that same number. I was kind of at a plateau for a few weeks, but now, the scale has gone down!

Last night, in my aerobics class, I wore a tank top and I saw some bones sticking out of my clavicle area. I haven't seen those particular bones for a LONG time. You have no idea how excited I was.

This morning, I tried on another smaller pair of jeans, and they FIT. Plus they are a darker blue than the other ones I've been wearing... Dark tends to make people look skinnier, so I'm very happy. (In case you're keeping track, 10-ish pounds to go.)

And now for "In the genes..."

I just read a piece in the March 20th, 2006 issue of U.S. News and World Report (the On Health piece by Bernadine Healy, M.D.). Since it was about coffee, it caught my eye. I love the stuff.

The article discusses the myriad of studies around the effects of caffeine and the contradictory results that have been found. For example, some studies have found that coffee decreases the risk of heart attacks, while others have found that coffee increases the risk.

Confused as to whether you should imbibe?

Dr. Healy explains that there is a gene that produces a protein that makes some people experience slow caffeine metabolism. People who are slow metabolizers are at increased risk for heart attacks if they consume a certain amount of caffeine. However if the gene makes you a fast metabolizer, then there may be a protective effect of coffee, as the faster metabolizers of caffeine experienced fewer heart attacks when they drank coffee than non-coffee drinkers.

Wow. It's all about metabolism, and it's your genes that determine what type of metabolizer you are. Therefore, your genes decide whether coffee is potentially good or bad for you.

I am so excited by this piece for so many reasons. I'm excited because the knowledge we're gaining about genes and how they interact with medical treatments and even food will really be able to help people (doctors and regular people) make better decisions about their diet and medical treatment. I'm excited because I feel like medicine is on it's way to becoming more of a science and less of an art (though it still has a formidable journey). I'm excited because I see the potential to apply what we understand about genes to other "soft sciences" such as psychology and education. When we start understanding some of the contradictory or unexplainable results found in those fields, we’ll eventually be able to make interventions that work better and make a larger difference. Genes play a role in determining everything about a person. If we don’t understand (or especially if we aren’t aware) of all the factors that exert an influence, we can’t have real science. (I could talk about Dubya’s need for controlled experiments in the soft sciences and how silly this is at this juncture, (especially when he doesn't even understand the issues), but I’ll save that for another day.)

(Also, I really hope that I'm a fast metabolizer because I love coffee/caffeine. I so need it!)



... And now back to our regularly scheduled Mommy-blog.