Yet another reason to make the decision and commitment to exercise in the new year!

Exercise Your Brain

Does Anybody Care When There Isn't A Shooting?

Yet another article documenting our failed mental healthcare system! It's interesting that the only time this seems to come up is after some horrible act perpetrated by someone who is or is presumed to be mentally ill. Will we ever care at any other time? Probably not.

Why? Lots of reasons.

Mental health doesn't have the cachet or constituency of other causes, e.g., breast cancer. The mentally ill don't vote. Prisons are seen as popular job creators in the public sector and increasingly as profit creators in the private sector. Mental health facilities and services are seen as drains on the taxpayer and are often first to be cut. The people who provide the bulk of mental health care at all levels - psychologists, social workers, and counselors  - and the services they provide - psychotherapy - are devalued in the mental health system. Name another profession that is paid less in real (not inflation adjusted) dollars than it was in the 1980's for the same or more work. The mental health system - like the rest of health care - is fully controlled by insurance and pharmaceutical industries totally uninterested in prevention or in any treatment - no matter how effective - other than proprietary drugs.

Combine all this with the failure of deinstitutionalization, primarily because it was not properly implemented or  funded, and you get what we have now - a system that simply does not work. Not for the severely mentally ill or their families. Not for those whose problems cause them great suffering even when not considered severe (most depression and anxiety, addiction.) Not for those who develop or experience worsened physical illnesses as a result of psychological stressors (chronic pain and physical disability, obesity, exacerbated morbidity inphysical illnesses.) Not for the citizen/taxpayer who ultimately pays for everything anyway. Not for society as a whole.

Failing Mental Health

Kale, Kielbasa, and Potato Soup

This recipe is modified from a traditional Portuguese Green Soup called Caldo Verde. I use kale, reduced sodium gluten free organic chicken broth, and more kielbasa than in the traditional recipe. I also do not add any salt and frankly think extra salt would be too much. This soup is a meal in itself, especially when served with a hearty bread. For those of you who are gluten free, brown rice bread works well with this.

Ingredients

1 lb. or a little more kielbasa

1/4 lb. or more kale

1/4 cup olive oil

 2 large yellow onions, chopped

4 potatoes, 1 - 1 1/2 lb. total weight, peeled and thinly sliced

4 cloves garlic, finely minced

56 oz chicken broth

ground pepper to taste

Preparation

1. Bring a saucepan three fourths full of water to a boil. Prick the kielbasa 3 or 4 times with a fork and add boil for about 5 minutes. Use tongs to transfer kielbasa to a cutting board and let cool for 10 minutes or so. Then slice thinly. Discard the water.
2. Rinse and drain the kale. Remove the stems. Working in batches, stack and roll the leaves like a cigar and cut crosswise into very thin strips. Set aside. 
3. Warm the olive oil in a large saucepan (I use a dutch oven) over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté about 10 minutes until tender and translucent. Raise the heat to medium high, add the potatoes and garlic, and sauté, stirring often, until slightly softened. This should take about 5 minutes.
4. Add the broth, cover, and simmer over low heat for about 20 minutes until the potatoes are very soft. Scoop out 2 cups of potatoes and mash well. Return the potatoes to the pan, add the kielbasa, and simmer  about 5 minutes until the kielbasa is thoroughly cooked.
5. Stir in the greens and simmer uncovered for 3 - 5 minutes at most, stirring occasionally. Don’t overcook the greens; they should be bright green and slightly crunchy. Season with pepper to taste. 

Enjoy!

Nutrition Per Serving (Bowl):

Calories - 422

Total Fat - 31 g

Saturated Fat - 8 g

Cholesterol - 33 g

Sodium - 1275 mg

Fiber - 6 g

Protein - 13g

Misdiagnose and Overmedicate: The Drugging of America

The triumph of BigPharma is nearly complete. The American Psychiatric Association just approved the latest edition of its bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 5 (DSM 5.) Why should you care? Because it will result in misdiagnosis, over-diagnosis, and mistreatment of millions of Americans, including American children. And, by the way, cost you lots of money if you pay taxes or insurance premiums.

DSM 5 broadens diagnostic criteria to the point where it is very difficult not to qualify for some diagnoses, for example, my personal candidate for most overdiagnosed condition of the 21st century, Bipolar Disorder. It removes diagnoses that will result in the unavailability of non-phamaceutical services to children, e.g., Asperger's Disorder. It also adds diagnostic criteria or categories that will result in skyrocketing drug sales, an ever expanding black market, and increased rates of addiction.

Are you still grieving two weeks after the death of a loved one. Congratulations! You now qualify for Major Depressive Disorder and do we have the brain numbing and/or lifting meds for you, along with other meds to control the side effects! Do you or your kids have temper tantrums? No, no, no, you actually have Disruptive Mood Disregulation Disorder and we have just the right atypical antipsychotics and mood stabilizers for you! Do you have trouble paying attention to your boring boss at interminable meetings? Must be Adult Attention Deficit disorder and here's your script for stimulants! Worry about stuff a lot? you may be eligible for Generalized Anxiety Disorder and the very addicting benzodiazepines that go along with it!

I kid you not. Why is this happening? Money, status, and power. I'll write more about the causes in my next post. Check out this prominent psychiatrist's take on DSM 5:

DSM 5 Not A Bible

Ravioli with Spinach, Watercress, Bacon, and Pancetta

This is an easy and delicious recipe from a great magazine, Real Simple. It takes about 20-30 minutes, start to finish. I'm now at the point in my cooking adventure where I'm not afraid to be adventurous. So, I used pancetta as well as bacon, watercress as well as spinach, and a little more lemon juice and garlic. I had the pancetta and watercress left over from a previous meal that didn't turn out so well (advice to novice cooks: don't always trust the recipe!)  This turned out great. Here's my modified recipe and the link to the original recipe in Real Simple.

Ingredients

1 pound ravioli, fresh or frozen. I used Cora’s frozen. I like their pasta a lot.

6 slices total of bacon and pancetta)

2 tbs olive oil

3 cloves garlic, to taste, sliced

2 bunches fresh spinach (stems removed,) baby spinach, watercress, or some 

   combination totaling about 8 cups

    Kosher salt and black pepper

2 tbs fresh lemon juice

Directions

1. Cook the ravioli according to the package directions.
2. Meanwhile, cook the bacon and pancetta in a skillet over medium-high heat until crisp, 6 to 8 minutes; transfer to a paper towel–lined plate. Crumble.
3. Wipe out the skillet and heat the oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the spinach and watercress 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Cook, tossing, until just wilted, 1 to 2 minutes.
4. Stir the bacon, pancetta, and lemon juice into the spinach. Spoon the mixture over the ravioli. Serve immediately.

Enjoy!

Real Simple: Ravioli with Spinach and Bacon

Nutritional Information

• Per Serving
• Calories 479Calories From Fat 40%

• Protein 20g
• Carbohydrate 51g
• Sugar 4g
• Fiber 4g
• Fat 22g
• Sat Fat 9g
• Calcium 202mg
• Iron 3mg
• Sodium 1082mg
• Cholesterol 75mg

Never Give Up!

I'm not a big fan of inspirational/emotional videos but this one got to me. It's about a Gulf War vet who was injured, gained a huge amount of weight, and essentially was disabled. More importantly, it's about his journey to health and the importance of never giving up. If you need a lift, check it out.

Who Ya' Gonna Believe, Me or Your Lying Science?

I've written before about routine screenings and the harm they sometimes cause. (See Routine Screenings: Blessing or Curse?) Though they are always costly, often unnecessary, and frequently lead to medical harm, these screenings are defended to the death (pardon the pun) by all concerned. Why? Three reasons, I suspect: emotion, misunderstanding science, and money. All three are inextricably bound.

Causes are understandably very personal and very emotional for those involved. Support for what is purported to be life saving early detection becomes a litmus test and worthy cause. Think breast cancer and all those pink ribbons. Suggesting that what has been portrayed as vital early detection may, in fact, be a waste of time and money and perhaps quite dangerous pushes all those emotional buttons.

The scientific method - how science is done - should be emotionally and personally neutral, based on fact rather than belief. However, science is often routinely ignored, even by people who are scientifically trained. Why? Personal experience and attribution bias. We tend to be selectively biased by our own experiences, i.e., we believe our own eyes much more than a set of data or experiments. Personal experience counts more and is generalized much further than valid and reliable scientific testing. (By the way, eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable.) 

So, if you know someone who had a routine mammogram or PSA test and subsequently cancer as detected, treated, and the person lived, you are likely to attribute their survival to the routine screening. This is true for physicians as well as patients. That their survival may have been the result of something else entirely or that they may have recovered equally well without early detection is never even considered. It is counterintuitive and entirely true. 

Money is the third and probably the main reason why little will change. An entire medical industrial complex and series of related causes and foundations has built up around the issue of early detection of various cancers - some being more popular than others. If scientific research demonstrates, as the studies reported in the following link clearly do, that early detection efforts do not save lives, the research will be dismissed, denigrated, or ignored. It's human nature in part. Ignoring the inconvenient truth is easier the coming up with a different way of doing things.

Ignoring The Science on Mammograms