Author: Ken Goetz

Does Exercise Improve Your Health? A Brief Review

Posted on by Ken Goetz

     First a personal question. Do you exercise regularly? I have a hunch some of you do, and
some of you don’t. That’s fine. All are welcome here. Does exercise improve health? Lets see.

     Over twenty five centuries ago, a well-regarded physician observed “All parts of the body,
 if used in moderation and exercised in labors to which each is accustomed, become thereby
 healthy and well developed and age slowly; but if they are unused and left idle,
 they become liable to disease, defective in growth and age quickly.” (Hippocrates,
5th century BC)

     A lot of sweat has oozed out of pores since that good physician offered his opinion. And
he was on to something! Today legions of researchers are studying bodies in motion all over the
planet. Here is one tidbit that surprised me. In a 2017 review highlighting the far-reaching health
benefits of physical activity, the authors noted that they had cited only a fraction of the
>100,000 studies showing positive associations between the terms “exercise” and “health.”
(1). Do you find more than 100,000 positives to be a convincing number? I do.

      Because this is only a glimpse into the field, we will ignore that pile of reports, the tons of studies
ranging from data collection on people going about their daily lives all the way down to
others examining the chemistry percolating within our individual cells. To give a single example,
one clever group investigated the development of coronary heart disease in bus drivers, who
naturally sat on their duffs while working, compared with their actively walking colleagues
(conductors on the same buses). Short result? The drivers developed more coronary disease than
the conductors.    

     Since that time, a flood of research has revealed that physical inactivity is associated with
the development of some 40 physical disorders, including type 2 diabetes, various cancers,
premature aging, strokes, and hypertension, to mention only a few.

     Despite all the evidence demonstrating the value of exercise, other information reveals
that most adults and many children lead relatively sedentary lifestyles (2). According to various
articles, such individuals are not active enough to achieve the health benefits of exercise, benefits
that reach essentially every organ in our bodies.

     Because I am determined to be brief, I’ll touch on just one of the benefits that sedentary
individuals miss out on, the happy effect of aerobic exercise on the brain. When I was in medical
school, back in the age of dinosaurs, we were taught that the brain’s cells and structure were
pretty much unchangeable, that once connections were made in neural tissue, they were set in
concrete, so to speak.

     Now we know better. The brain now is lauded for its neuroplasticity, its ability to adapt to
changes it perceives. Our entire nervous system alters its activity in response to what is going on in
our bodies, and around us. In response to all of these stimuli, structures are reorganized,
connections are rearranged, and our brain and nerves adapt (3).


     As you’ve probably guessed, one of the stimuli affecting the brain is exercise. This is not a science
course, so we aren’t going to worry about details, but I will quote one key sentence from a recent
scientific article, one that summarizes thousands of experiments. Here it is. “Chronic aerobic
exercise has long been shown to improve quality of life.”

     Below is a figure taken from the same publication (4), a figure that diagrams the effects of
long-term aerobic exercise on the functioning of our brains. The figure even traces the links of everything
involved, starting with molecules and ending with our resultant behaviors.

 

     There you have it, a brief review of the benefits of exercise in under 700 words. This
level of understanding is deep enough for me, but if you would like to dig further, the references
I’ve provided above should provide your shovel. And you may recall that I’ve mentioned
exercise in early posts (5,6).

      If things work out, next time I’ll take a brief look at the effects of exercise on autophagy.
Stay tuned.

What is Autophagy? Should you care?

Posted on by Ken Goetz

            In my previous post (1), I highlighted a word I recently came across, autophagy, a word with plenty of air beneath its wings, a word I predict soon will become common in languages around the world. Why? Because autophagy is a vital biological process that, when defective, underlies the development of a myriad of human diseases such as Alzheimer’s, not to mention cardiovascular and infectious diseases, and even certain cancers.

            Autophagy is one very hot scientific topic. Laboratories around the world have published thousands, make that tens of thousands, of papers on the subject. And, as in most areas of science, there are disagreements and inconsistencies.  No wonder. Autophagy is an amazingly complex system within living cells, a process that appears to be adaptable to things we can accomplish to live healthier and longer. Who isn’t interested in that?

            And what exactly is autophagy? To be candid, only those working in the field could begin to answer that. Autophagy includes a full orchestra of biochemical reactions, a system so intricate that even a comprehensive semester course in cell biology would leave questions unanswered. I’ve picked up a few basic facts, and I’m feeling foolish enough to attempt to pass some of them on to you in a few simple paragraphs.

            For those of you better informed on this subject than I, and there likely are a good number, you have two choices. You can keep on reading and snigger as I flounder, or you can abandon ship here.

THE CELL

            The cell is of course a basic unit of life. There are zillions of tiny cells living all around us, independent rascals living on their own, things such as bacteria and yeast cells. These guys get along fine because their outer covering (membrane) is permeable to oxygen and nutrients, so these essentials can enter into the cell’s stew-like interior and be metabolized to produce the energy needed for living. The membrane also allows the waste products of metabolism to pass out of the cell.

            The “stew” in each cell is a moist conglomerate, an astounding labyrinth of complicated chemicals, microscopic pieces and packages that move about in that infinitesimal space as efficiently as robots in an automobile factory. Some pieces and packages found in nearly all cells have names such as a nucleus, Golgi apparatus, lysosome, and mitochondrion, not to mention genes, enzymes, and loads of other stuff I can’t tell you anything about. (See diagram below. Taken from Biomedicines (2), an open source journal.)

            Here’s why all of this is important. Just as any busy factory does, individual cells must deal with their internal parts that become damaged as time goes on. That’s where autophagy shines. It is an intricate recycling system that repairs broken proteins and damaged mitochondria (the particles that generate energy for the cell). And during starvation autophagy digests some of the cells own proteins to survive longer. The process occurring in mitochondria has a special name. It is called mitophagy.

            Not surprisingly autophagy tends to become less efficient as one ages, but evidence suggests there are ways to improve this, exercise being near the top of the list. Please put a check by exercise. That’s an important one to remember. As I said, autophagy seems to ward off inflammation, keep the heart healthy, and reduce degeneration of the brain. More on this later.

            One final basic point here. In order for cells to work efficiently, they must be in a place where oxygen in available, a place where the trash emitted can be carried away. This works fine when a cell is located in, say a pond, but how could this possibly work when some 30 trillion cells are squeezed tightly together, as in a human body?

            I know a bit more about that process. I’ll talk about that in the next post.

Methods to Preserve Your Health, and Extend Your Life

Posted on by Ken Goetz

            As I mentioned in an earlier post (1), most of us have the power (ignoring accidents and bad luck) to help preserve our health and extend our lives. How exactly can that be accomplished? Well, I’ve done some digging. (You never know what will happen when you send a 90-year-old brain to investigate a new subject, but I found information worth reporting.)

           Admittedly, the job wasn’t a walk in the park.  I quickly learned that scientists who study aging have set off a nuclear blast of information, the volume being so great that I could no more swallow it all than I could drink Lake Superior dry. So I’m going to tiptoe into this story and offer basic facts, and some speculation.

            You already know this, but I’m going to mention it anyway. Each of us, individually, is made up of humongous clusters of different cell types: brain cells , heart cells, lung cells, kidney cells, and many others. How many cells are tucked into one human body? The total number is of course impossible to count, but an average estimate suggests you are made up of about 30 trillion individual cells.

            I have trouble comprehending the enormity of such huge numbers. Do you? Here’s a little trick that seems to help. Consider each of your cells to be equal to one second. Then realize that one million seconds cover about 11.5 days. One billion seconds come and go about 32 years. And one trillion seconds? They stretch to more than 30,000 years. And don’t forget. We’re talking about 30 trillion cells, so multiply those numbers by 30.

            Cautionary note: whatever you do, please refrain from using this method when you think of our national debt, which now just happens to be over $30 trillion dollars. Ignoring this particular number may preserve your sanity. However, if that prodigious sum wedges uncomfortably into your mind, you might consider passing it on to certain senators and representatives who spend their time fumbling through chambers of our nation’s Capitol.

            To return to your trillions of cells, and this is important, each of those cells has a remarkable life of its own. Every cell, in a manner of speaking, does its own housekeeping. It buzzes with metabolic activity and even does its own recycling. Your cells work at a furious rate. For example, Yoshinori Ohsumi, a Nobel Prize winning scientist (I’ll come back to him), estimates that the millions of specialized cells in our bone marrow produce about 3 million red blood cells per second. (Circulating red cells decompose at the same rate.) To achieve this amazing production, those busy cells must also produce hemoglobin molecules (the ones carrying oxygen inside red blood cells) at a rate of 1 quadrillion molecules (10 to the 15 th power) per second. If that doesn’t boggle your mind, you’re not boggleable.

            One word that kept coming up when I dug into aging processes was autophagy (au‑’taf a‑jee), or it’s sometimes pronounced simply as each of its two basic components, auto + pha – gy (from Greek for self-devouring). The word coinage is usually attributed to Christian de Duve, who won a Nobel Prize in 1974 for his discovery of the lysosome, an amazing cell organelle now known to have more than 60 digestive enzymes within each one. Lysosomes accomplish fabulous deeds, as we shall see.

            Interest in autophagy skyrocketed after Nobel Laureate Yoshinori Ohsumi (first photo), managed to tease out its secrets and demonstrate that lysosomes were indeed the site of the cell’s recycling and renewal program. In this process the cells chop up damaged proteins, build new structures, revive mitochondria (our cell’s energy source), ward off infections, and maintain healthy metabolism. In short, autophagy recycles and renews the contents of our cells, which would not survive without that vital revival. Nor, of course, would we.

            Ohsumi’s work was thorough. He learned how autophagy works from start to finish, how it is controlled, and he even identified the key genes and molecules involved. Guess what. His experiments were done on, of all things, Baker’s yeast. (Never doubt the value of very basic research.) Autophagy later was shown to be present in human cells. Its activity is stimulated (up-regulated in genetic terms) by a number of stresses such as fasting and exercise, along with other stresses to be mentioned in later posts.

            Let’s focus for a moment on fasting. It’s long been known that severe dietary restriction extends the lives of rodents (2), and it is believed that autophagy contributes to the extended the life spans of underfed animals.

            As I began looking into all of this, I kept running into accolades for so-called intermittent fasting as a method of promoting autophagy. As you may know, intermittent fasting, a method often used for weight loss, comes in a number of variations. For example, the so-called 16/8 routine requires you fast for 16 hours and consume all of your meals within an 8 hour window (or slightly modified to 18/6). There’s also the 5/2 regimen, in which you eat normally for five days of the week and “fast” (either completely or maybe consuming only 500 calories on those days), and there are other modifications.  I started the 16/8 routine a week ago, ending my dinner by 8 p.m. and consuming nothing but water and black coffee in the morning, finally breaking my fast at noon.

            The routine wasn’t difficult for me, maybe because years ago in my laboratory, my colleagues and I fasted at times for 24 hours (this was required while performing certain experiments on ourselves). I quickly discovered those 24-hour fasts weren’t difficult to accomplish if I just refused to consider other options. I had that same mind-set this week and did just fine.

            So did I push my autophagy button and begin stretching my earthly days? I wish I knew the answer. I started my program optimistically, but during this week as I searched for definitive information, I found no concrete data demonstrating that a 16 hour fast provides adequate time to induce autophagy. (There are plenty sources claiming it does, but I found no convincing data to document that assertion.)

            I did find one review of the scientific literature (it was published just a few months ago (3) that echoed my skepticism. Here’s part of the abstract from that extensive review.  There is significant interest in the body of literature describing longitudinal adaptations to IF (intermittent fasting). Less attention has been given to the acute physiological responses that occur during the fasting durations that are commonly employed by IF practitioners. Thus, the purpose of this review was to examine the physiological responses – including alterations in substrate metabolism, systemic hormones, and autophagy – that occur throughout an acute fast. Literature searches were performed to locate relevant research describing physiological responses to acute fasting and short‑term starvation. A single fast demonstrated the ability to alter glucose and lipid metabolism within the initial 24 hours (indicating a shift to ketosis, my words), but variations in protein metabolism appeared to be minimal within this time frame. The ability of an acute fast to elicit significant increases in autophagy is still unknown. (I increased the font size of the previous sentence for emphasis.)

            To be clear, the conclusion of the authors bothers me not at all. First of all, extended periods of fasting (longer that the “acute fast” of 24 hours mentioned above) clearly unleash autophagy, as do other stresses that I will come to in later posts.  And intermittent fasting may well be effective in weight reduction, but that’s not the focus of my search. I’m centered here on factors that extend healthy lives, and on the variety of stimuli that trigger autophagy, along with other encouraging developments that promise to preserve our health and extend our lives. I’ll noodle around this area for a while, and I intend to come up with more reports. Stay tuned.

Would you like to live for, say, 110 years?

Posted on by Ken Goetz

     Would you like to live for, say, 110 years?  Does a long life appeal to you? Is it even possible to achieve? Seemingly so. Present-day science is oozing with promises to extend our lives.  How would I answer my opening question? That depends. If I were able to survive for well over 100 years feeling as healthy and happy as I am now, I’d shout “You betcha!”

     A quick disclaimer: I have not a shred of expertise on aging (other than reaching 90, which merely triggered my curiosity), so an authority I am not. But I’ve nosed around to see what’s going on with those who are devoted to studying our aging processes. A lot is going on! Facts jumped out at me from all directions. Those dedicated scientists, bless their hearts, have learned enough to fill a good scattering of scientific journals. And what they’ve discovered is good news for practically everyone.

     For one thing, the thousands of experts who study how we age seem to come together on one important point, namely this. Aging is a decidedly plastic process. It is influenced by a myriad of factors, a good number of which we can influence.

     Here’s one collaborating statement that comes from David Sinclair (1), professor of genetics and co-director of a center for aging research at Harvard medical school. What he said shocked me. I didn’t scribble it down as I heard it, so what follows is a paraphrase, but the gist of it was this: 80% of our rate of aging and our health when older is determined by “environmental” (lifestyle?) factors; only 20% is determined by our genome. Wow! Did that snap your eyes open? The evidence backing this statement appears to be solid, and it comes from many sources. What we do through the years is more important than what our genes control. In short, we can live better, and live longer, by adjusting our daily routines.

     Controlling our destiny isn’t all new stuff, of course. We’ve known for years that certain habits are bad for us. Smoking is a prime example. The smoke messes up lungs and hearts, among other organs. An article in the New England Journal of Medicine a few years ago ticked off more than a dozen disease processes set into play or aggravated by smoking.

     But here we’re talking about good habits. The more recent information concerning our aging, exciting as it is, has been derived largely by untangling rather complex intracellular biochemical pathways, and by digging into intricate genetic mechanisms, but luckily we don’t have to understand all of the complex details to realize what it all means, and to use it to our advantage.

     The basic message could not be clearer if it were announced in huge, glowing neon letters. And it is very simple. We have the power (ignoring accidents and bad luck) to slow our “aging,” and to remain healthier longer as we move through the years. This can be accomplished by adjusting our lifestyles (such as walking more, and weight lifting), by dietary alterations (so-called intermittent fasting), by taking certain oral supplements, and even by more experimental and less-available (and less generally accepted) genetic manipulations.

     I’ll focus on this theme for a couple of posts. Next time I’ll examine the varying methods of intermittent fasting, an accepted method for prolonging life and preserving health. I’ll even touch lightly on how that approach does the trick to slow down our aging process.

IMPORTANT HOUSEKEEPING NOTE REGARDING THE COLORS OF MEDICINE.

     For those of you reading my installments of The Colors of Medicine, I have news. Starting tomorrow (February 1),  you will be able to download the complete Kindle version of my novel from Amazon.com at no cost.  I’m giving it away free for the first five days in February. I must say it has been fun for me to provide little teasers at the beginning of each installment published here (number 13 was posted yesterday) and I plan to put out one final installment here tomorrow, along with a brief teaser indicating that the story is about to make a rather abrupt transition.  I’ll provide more details when I post installment 14.

Modern Medicine and the Magic 90

Posted on by Ken Goetz

            Having flown into my tenth decade with some speed, and finding I enjoy the altitude (1), I’ve begun ruminating about getting old. Why, I’ve wondered, have I beaten the odds? Today I’m going to retrace my tracks.  Next time I’ll look at the amazing process of aging itself.

            What was it that allowed me to survive longer than the average male born in 1932? The glib answer, of course, is luck. Dame Fortune has indeed smiled on me, at least in my later years. But what was it that actually kept my blood flowing, and my lungs going, for nine decades? Genetics and lifestyle likely entered in, but so did modern medicine, a big factor as I shall describe.

            In 2001, I noticed something new, a mild sensation beneath my collar bone as I walked up my favorite long hill. It wasn’t pain, just something odd. My medical training led me to suspect it was angina pectoris. A quick visit to a well-organized cardiac catheterization laboratory confirmed my suspicion. (One of my dye-filled coronary arteries was significantly narrowed.) I returned to the same laboratory on the next day, and stents were inserted and expanded in that narrowed segment (2). Presto! Normal blood flow to my heart was restored. No more odd feelings when I tramped up hills.

            Since then, for over two decades, my cardiac pump has been a model of efficiency. It chugs merrily along without a hint of discomfort. Good timing on my part! Stents had been available for only about a decade (3) when I needed mine, those being much improved from earlier versions. Thankfully, those tiny gadgets have kept my important coronary artery nicely open. Without their silent and persistent help, I might well have suffered a heart attack years ago.

            Here’s more about my circulation. During my forties, fifties, and sixties, the electrical components of my heart were cranky. At times they fired off extra beats like a wild drummer. The wild beats by themselves weren’t especially worrisome, but occasionally the electrical noise turned completely rowdy and pitched my atria into brief bursts of fibrillation.

            You probably know this, but I’ll mention it anyway. The heart still can pump blood quite effectively when its two upper chambers are fibrillating, but with the atria just quivering during fibrillation, rather than contracting normally, blood sometimes clots in their appendages. Those clots may break loose and thumb a ride in arterial blood (as an embolus) to the brain, or other organs, thus plugging up a small artery and causing a stroke, or other damage.

            I had a couple of minor versions of a stroke, those called transient ischemic attacks, in which I lost partial sight in one eye for just a couple of minutes. Again, thanks to my earlier training, I was pretty sure what was going on, and the spots showing up in my brain in more recent CAT scans and MRI screens seem to bear that out.

            Even with my relatively small risk of going into atrial fibrillation, I now take an oral anticoagulant, a blood thinner if you prefer, to minimize clot formation should I happen to slip into fibrillation again. The drug I take is effective and has relatively few side effects. It was approved for use only a couple of years ago, another example of lucky timing on my part.

            I’ve also had a few skin cancers, basal cell types that almost never metastasize, and a squamous cell type that usually metastasize late, every one skillfully excised surgically, or frozen off, and all thus cured. I also developed a deeper cancer four years ago, a tumor treated with high-intensity radiation. From all indications that therapy, also quite new and even revolutionary, routed my cancer completely.

            Quick summary. Without the above medical care, my way to 90 would have been bumpier, or knocked entirely off track by one problem or another, reason enough for me to honor the many men and women who made those marvelous advances possible. Thanks to all of this progress, I seem to be ticking along just fine, and feeling great!

            Finally, I must give myself a bit of credit too. Keeping active surely was a plus. I’ve always enjoyed keeping my bones in motion. I played tennis until I had a knee replaced (another great intervention that has lifted my life tremendously, and one not available when I was younger). I still walk extra miles and mess with weights. It’s well established that physical exercise turns on good genes, so I’m confident my gene pool benefits from my activity.  A good reason for me to keep at it! And for you too!

            Next time I’ll nose into the science of aging. You’ll be amazed by all that’s going on.

Re-reading a Russian novel, after 65 years, Part 2

Posted on by Ken Goetz

            As I mentioned earlier (1), my first taste of The Brothers Karamazov came more than six decades ago. I swallowed that jumbo novel in big bites, dazzled by Dostoevsky’s grasp of psychology and religion, not to mention his way of dissecting the Russian soul of his time. And the multiple tendrils of his story kept me on high alert.

            It was a book that demanded to be read again. I skimmed through it a couple of years later when I was a first year medical student, but it was a cursory read, not fully satisfying. After that the years stretched out busily, keeping me otherwise engaged up to the time when I no longer received a regular pay check. As I eased into retirement, I picked up a newer translation of Dostoevsky’s finest, but that volume was outranked by other interests at the time, so it was wedged into a lower shelf where it languished for years. I discovered it a few months ago and finally promoted it to a place beside my reading chair.

            That hasn’t gone well. For some odd reason that I’m only now beginning to examine, I almost never schedule myself to read fiction during the day.  My to-do lists focus on other activities. I live alone, so much of my daily chores are routine. I prepare my meals. I keep house. I head out for errands and grocery shopping, I read newspapers, magazines. I socialize, I write, I walk, I even tussle with a weight machine at times, but with the rarest exception, I read novels only late in the evening, when the world is dark and fading, and my comprehension is short on fuel.

            You probably can see where this is going. This time I am sampling The Brothers Karamazov in microbites, dawdling along, swallowing only a few pages at a time, reading at a snail’s pace, and comprehending at a similar sluggish rate. Naturally I’ve forgotten much of that book after 65 years. The overall plot is still vaguely familiar, but it is a struggle for me to keep all members of the cast on stage, to remember each of their proper roles.

            It has taken me over 600 pages to fully realize this, but I think I have it now, and a resolution is finally forming. Before this month is out, I have decided, I shall sit down in full sun light and finish the final 150 pages of this fabulous book on that one day.

            Now, having exposed the futility of my reading thus far, I must add that it was not all bleak. This time I spotted passages in the book that surely flew high over my head on my first reading. To give a single example, below is Dmitri, the oldest Karamazov brother, talking to the youngest, Alexei (this translation by Pevear and Valokhonsky [2]).

            “Alexei, I’m lost, you man of God! I love you more than anything. My heart trembles at you, that’s what. Who is this Carl Bernard?”

            “Carl Bernard?” Again Alyosha was surprised.

            “No, not Carl, wait, I’ve got it wrong: Claude Bernard. What is it? Chemistry or something?”

            “He must be a scientist,” Alyosha replied, “only I confess I’m not able to say much about him either. I’ve just heard he’s a scientist, but what kind I don’t know.”

            “Well, devil take him, I don’t know him either,” Mitya swore. “Some scoundrel, most likely. They’re all scoundrels.”

            That made me chuckle. Claude Bernard was a groundbreaking French physiologist with extraordinary skills. The likelihood that I knew of him on my first reading is exactly zero, but now, after having in times past actually referred to myself as a physiologist, I ‘m quite familiar with that famed man. In fact, I have on one of my bookshelves a rare translated copy of his Cahier Rouge, the red laboratory notebook in which Bernard wrote his innovative ideas from about 1850 to 1860. Was Bernard a scoundrel? Hardly. But in this brief segment, Dostoevsky tells us a bit more about Dmitri’s mind and the manner in which it functions, simple evidence of a remarkable novelist at work.

 

Re-reading a Russian novel, after 65 years

Posted on by Ken Goetz

I read The Brothers Karamazov (here) a long time ago, when I was an undergraduate. By that time I had learned (finally!) that rounding up a cluster of neurons and throwing them into action (with purpose) could be exhilarating.

I plowed through that prodigious novel over a three-day weekend. A marathon event! One so dramatic that to this day I can conjure up the chair in which I sat enthralled for most of those hours. Occasionally, to ease creeping stiffness, I read with the book between elbows on my desk, or while stretched prone on my bed, a pillow under my middle, all of this in my small upstairs room on North Brook Street in Madison, Wisconsin.

Like many English speakers immersed in Russian literature, I initially had trouble sorting out the huge cast of characters. Their multiple names also confused me, but my brain was fresh enough to see that the youngest brother, Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov, (for example) might be referred to as Alyosha, Alyoshka, Alyoshenka, or Alyoshechka, or even Lyosha or Lyoshenka.

Never had I read such a book! Dostoevsky’s insight awed me. I remember thinking his psychological acumen had anticipated Sigmund Freud, and probably even inspired him. Two years later, during my rebellious first year of medical school, I stupidly shunned textbooks and immersed myself in fiction, diving deep and making my way through a good number of Russian classics. I even skimmed through The Brothers again that year.

As I’ve said elsewhere, that bone-headed year of medical school produced oodles of painful regret (here). Finally, to exorcise all remaining demons, I wrote The Colors of Medicine and forced my protagonist to repeat much of my intractable behavior from that year. Relief at last!

I’ll talk more thoughts about my favorite Dostoevsky novel next time, describing my turtle’s pace of lumbering through it this time (not three days but three months!) along with other musings about the book. I won’t put that up for a few days. I’ve averaged about a post per week on this blog, and I think that’s a good pace for me. (An old guy, like an old forest, surely is more susceptible to burnout.)

Post Birthday Bliss

Posted on by Ken Goetz

My 90th was like no other. Thanks to clever innovations by younger members of my family, readership exploded here yesterday. The blast unleashed a flood of good wishes and made my sweet day even sweeter.

As most newcomers may have discovered, this blog is unfocused and hard to classify. I don’t stick to classic medical experiments, or travel, or world affairs, or politics, or literature, but I’ve toyed with all of these topics here, and I plan to follow that undisciplined path as we move forward. My rationale? If it interests me, it may interest you. One extraordinary essayist expressed this notion with exquisite clarity.

The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest. He is a fellow who thoroughly enjoys his work, just as people who take bird walks enjoy theirs. Each new excursion of the essayist, each new “attempt,” differs from the last one and takes him into new country. This delights him. Only a person who is congenitally self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays. E. B. White (see here)

Perhaps I’ve exposed myself here most openly in my two-part series titled, My First Year of Blogging, and My Books (see those here, and here). Those reveal a bit of my background, not always exemplary, and also explain why I’ve chosen to post installments of my novel, The Colors of Medicine, on this site.  (Hmmm, is it really partly autobiographical?)  Overall, more than 50 essays have been posted here. Feel free to browse.

To come back to my 90th birthday, last night’s celebration was highlighted by the astonishing appearance at dinner, just before we ordered, of my daughter, Anne, who had secretly flown down from Chicago to surprise me. Another great moment brought about merely by sliding safely into the Big Nine-O. I recommend the process to all. A photo was of course taken.  In order to gather all, the celebration with my son, Greg, and his family was delayed until tonight, so more frolicking is on tap for me. How lucky is that?

 

90 Years Old!!!

Posted on by Ken Goetz

Today, I proudly announce, I’ve landed upon an elevated plateau, the one labeled Age 90, the Big NINE O. I saw it coming, of course, but even that advanced warning didn’t diminish the grin-producing pleasure streaking through me as I awakened this morning. I’ve actually arrived! I know of no prizes given to those who hang around this planet for nine decades. Nevertheless, I consider it to be a minor accomplishment (not to mention a lucky one), something like back-flipping into a pool without a splash. I’m aging happily!

In the accompanying photo (taken in this morning’s sunshine), I’m seated in front of my version of one of Frank Stella’s works, one I painted some 30 years ago.

Aging, by its very nature, demands changes, and the latter half of life is lived on a downward slope. I’m okay with that. In fact, I’m still sliding downward with glee. To report that I’ve lost a lot during my advancing years is like reporting that leaves drop from trees as the days shorten. Nevertheless, I remain reasonably mobile. Nearly every day I set off for walks ranging from 30 to 60 minutes, The longer jaunts, over mildly uneven terrain, cover more than three miles, all this with minimal increases in my heart rate and little puffing.

I own no hearing aids and peer into most of each day with eyes uncovered by lenses. I do, however, don glasses at times while driving, or watching a movie, or when settling down with book or newspaper.

My good balance continues to keep me from stumbling, a fact that reminds me of my favorite contemporary essayist, Joseph Epstein (1). He, upon reaching 70, reported that he had begun to use the handrail when descending stairs. I’m a second-floor guy, and I usually head downward straight in the middle of the stairway, arms swinging. Admittedly, caution creeps in when I step down a staircase while packed together with others, say in a crowd surging out from a symphony concert. At those times, I skim a hand along a rail, just in case.

I haven’t, of course, escaped the inevitable decay. Examples are abundant and obvious. My joints show signs of rust. My memory has more holes than all the golf courses in Phoenix (even simple facts often refuse to come out of hiding when summoned), and my analytic skills, such as they once were, now lurk behind impenetrable barriers. All of this I’ve accepted with what I believe is the proper spirit.

In short, I’m extremely grateful for all that remains in working order, and most days I’m pleased as punch to be alive. Reasons abound. I’m fortunate to have a son and a daughter, both with families I love and admire. I have a small nucleus of friends, fewer than I would prefer, but nevertheless they too add color to my life. Existence continues to amaze me.

Even puttering with this blog gives me a sense of  – I search for a word – fulfillment!  Admittedly it takes more effort than my antiquated brain had imagined, but I find satisfaction while writing the little essays I serve up here. Writing actually does seem to stimulate my diminishing population of neurons, to keep them from dozing when I’m so engaged. For that reason, I shall continue essaying, and opining. I’ve revealed a selection of my adventures, along with some misadventures, (see one here). More are on the way. Stay tuned!

 

This photo was taken last summer. On the wall beyond the Stella painting is my version of one of Edvard Munch’s works.

I don’t intend to make this a photo gallery, but I just received the shot below. It was taken yesterday by my granddaughter, Megan, as we had breakfast together.

 

Happy New Year, 2022 Version

Posted on by Ken Goetz

May this year fill you with cheer and gratitude. May you have fewer Covid worries and more mask-free days. May you enjoy warm, gratifying moments with friends and relatives. May you endure fewer chilling travel restrictions. May you soak up 365 days of simple pleasures. Happy New Year, 2022!

I’ve now steadied my blogging legs with more than a full year of experience.  Last year I posted a new essay about once a week. I plan to increase my output this year, as I’ll mention below. This site has gradually added more readers and subscribers, so I’m optimistic about the year ahead.

Most of my posts focus on travel, medical experimentation, literature, or politics. All earlier posts are still available on this site, so if you missed reading about the first human heart catheterization, this accomplished in 1929 by a young German doctor (the heart he catheterized was his own), you can find that story by clicking (here). I’ve also described my personal experience with cardiac catheterization (here).

I’ve traveled through much of Europe by train, plane, bus, and automobile. Many of these trips are described in my Travel category. Luckily, in all my wanderings I’ve only been tossed into the clink once, that being in Madrid, as I describe in the fourth installment of my account of traveling through the Iberian Peninsula (here). Please feel free to browse through my earlier postings. And please tell me which ones piqued your interest.

This year I’ll begin posting serial installments of my novel, The Colors of Medicine (here), this beginning on January 3rd and continuing daily unless I’m diverted by other obligations. I would love to hear your comments as the story develops. Every opinion, critical or otherwise, will be appreciated.

See you soon!