Breast Cancer Awareness for You and Me!

October 25th, 2018

This past month I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Kristi Funk, founder of the Pink Lotus Foundation, breast surgeon, and author of the book, “Breasts: An Owner’s Manual”.

It was inspiring to hear her personal story of how she came to be a breast surgeon, and how she wants to help women maintain their best breast health.

I was fascinated to hear how the majority of breast cancer is NOT the result of genetics (at least, not specific mutations, that we know of), and that lifestyle choices play a major role in this disease. Isn’t it true for so much illness these days? It seems the “Mad Men” lifestyle is not sustainable or even suggested. Too bad, although I don’t really feel so great after a three martini lunch anyway…

Dr. Funk recommends the usual suspects to stay healthy and avoid breast cancer: exercise, sleep, reduce stress, and diet. All of these are great ideas generally. And, from all that I have read, making these adjustments reduces inflammation in the body, which has been implicated in the development of many health disorders.

Now, while taking steps to lifestyle change can reduce inflammation and improve health, it is not a silver bullet. Some people have propensity to cancers, and that’s just the way it is. We still don’t know enough to say who will get it and who won’t. It’s a game of risk reduction and probabilities.

So, even though I appreciate the advice from Dr. Funk that the best way to reduce breast cancer risk is to become vegan, that is not a dietary choice that works for me, personally. I don’t eat a lot of meat (only chicken and fish, and not regularly), and because of lactose intolerance don’t eat much cheese. I love grains and fruits and vegetables… meals made from foods that people call “whole”. But, I’m going to continue to eat eggs, and the occasional slice of pizza (who am I kidding? The occasional half a pizza) because that works for me.

I want to be healthy, but I’m not going to make myself crazy trying to manage every aspect of my and my family’s diets. Life, for me, is a balance. And, I don’t think the stress of vegan meal-planning is worth the slim percentage of cancer risk reduction that diet might provide.

My favorite advice from Dr. Funk, that I will definitely make a concerted effort to follow, is to spend time with people you love. And even though they may be a source of stress for some, friends and family are a support network. They are a release valve for built-up tensions. They are people who love you in return. And, that in itself, is something to invest in.

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Sex, Science, and Politics

October 23rd, 2018

Thanks to a conversation with an individual on Twitter, I now understand that there is a segment of the US population that is in denial about the reality of developmental biology, specifically that people can be born as something other than strictly male or female. I doubt that those in denial about gender identity in the modern age will come to read this post. But, for others who might not understand what the hubbub is about, please, read on.

Gender is not sexual preference. Gender is not the same thing as sex.

Gender is usually something personal. You put on your make-up, or shave your face in the privacy of your home without anyone else’s input. Sex is also personal. It’s not often that the clitoris and penis are discussed openly.

Yet, sex and gender are also a huge aspect of social life, and thus politics. Once upon a time in America, the owning of land was allowed (or dis-allowed) on the basis of one’s sex. If you were born with genitalia that looked male, lucky you. You could be a landowner. This, too, led to determinations of who was allowed to vote. Men could. Women could not. Nevermind that sex and gender don’t always align perfectly.

Our Western society has operated in this sort of binary gender construct for much of its history. But, thanks to science and social media, the last several decades have been filled with voices asking us all to consider the reality that gender is not just binary.

On the basis of chromosomes (XX for women and XY for men), it seems cut and dried. But, sometimes there are chromosomal duplications or abnormalities leading to XXY, X, or mosaic karyotypes. Additionally, hormones play a huge role in development of the genitalia, and excess androgen or estrogen can lead to changes in the appearance of the genitals compared to what is considered normal. Sometimes genetic or epigenetic factors can lead to hormone insensitivity, which means that even though the karyotype and hormone levels are normal, the body doesn’t develop in parallel. It’s even been suggested that environmental toxins are having an increased effect on the abnormal development of sexual characteristics in some parts of the world.

Taken together, this means that the genitals that a doctor looks at to determine a baby’s gender at birth aren’t always representative of the individual’s internal state. And, sometimes because of hormonal factors that difference doesn’t really appear until puberty. For the majority of people, it is fairly straightforward. But, for the millions of people born transgender or intersex, growing up can be extremely confusing and difficult.

Recently, and probably in a bid to drum up their conservative-base, the Trump administration reported that it is considering a change to Title IX that would legally pin-down the definition of sex. According to the NY Times:

“Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth,” the department proposed in the memo, which was drafted and has been circulating since last spring. “The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.”

Clearly, considering hormonal influences on gender identity that go beyond what can be determined based on genetic screening, this definition is inadequate to say the least.

My conversation on Twitter let me know that there are many people who don’t care to understand that gender is more than what many of us learned about in sixth-grade sex education classes; who don’t care to understand what it feels like to be a minority; who don’t care to understand how our social policies leave some people out; who live in a state of denial.

And, I do hope that this media play does get people off their butts to vote. Let’s get our Democracy back.

 

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Oh, The Humanity – Our Urge To Escape

October 16th, 2018

I understand the need to escape from reality. There come moments when the pressures of the real world just get to be too much. Flight can be easier than fight. It can help to escape into a book, movie, or “mindless” television watching. But, problems arise when this escapism becomes something practiced by society writ-large rather than being momentary acts of individuals. There are two very different places this society-level escapist attitude is openly playing out: willful ignorance within certain demographics and virtual-reality technologists.

People who refuse to look cultural or environmental change in the face in favor of sticking their fingers in their ears and repeating misinformation and disproven ideas are escaping into the comfort of their own identities. When online conversations turn into shouting matches where no one is listening to each other, it is likely because at least one side has escaped from the present reality. When someone refuses to listen to empirical, rational ideas in favor of what they heard on Fox News or read on Breitbart, being willfully ignorant of advances in understanding, it is because what they know is more comfortable than this new information.

When willful ignorance plays out on the wider political stage it begins to have real consequences. It becomes more than a spat between individuals. It holds back progress on large issues like climate change. For, if a large proportion of the public has run away from the scary idea of dangerous impending environmental change, refusing to see the reality, that reality does not exist for them. And, if it doesn’t exist, why does anything need to be done?

The second group, one you would think totally unrelated to the willfully ignorant, are the very well-educated and informed technologists working on developing virtual reality. At first glance, virtual reality with its goggles and gloves seems like it should be categorized along with the personal escapist entertainments like books, games, and movies. But, I see it in a different light when I consider the eventual goal of a virtual reality; that many look forward to the day that we create a construct into which humans will upload their consciousness.

The people working to create the technology that will allow humanity to shed its flesh, are looking forward to escape. They aren’t trying to fix any problems in this reality. Rather, they are building a new reality. One in which they envision no hunger, no poverty, and eternal life. It sounds like Heaven.

But, who needs Heaven if you have a computer generated existence? Or, well, who needs to fix anything here and now, if we have an escape hatch?

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