The Differences Between Food and Medicine Can foods be drugs and drugs foods? A popular definition of food might include these elements: Nourishment Taste Fuel Energy Materials Appetite Similarly, a popular definition of drug might include issues of: Medical Treatment Decreasing Symptoms Changing Risk Factors of Illness These different arenas sound pretty separable – yet […]
Does sleep loss give me the munchies, or do I just get high? (4/1/11)
How to Gain Weight Without Even Trying Sleep less, weigh more. Even if might feel temporarily high from staying up all night, keep staying up and you’re going to put on weight. Quickly. Columbia University researchers rigidly controlled the life of 13 men and 13 women for six days. One group slept 8 hours, the […]
Does sleep loss make you take bad risks? (3/21/11)
Gambling With Time Las Vegas at night cools outside, but not inside. The desiccated desert air does not affect environments designed and run as separate worlds where the temperature, the atmosphere and the staff’s friendly glare never change. There are no clocks. Some years ago I returned to Las Vegas after decades to see what […]
Dying to win – Internet gaming and sleeplessness (3/1/11)
An Unnecessary Death In 1967, Tom Simpson died on the 13th stage of the Tour de France. The superb British cyclist had won considerable fame in his short life, and was expected to join the greats of the sport. The autopsy showed small amounts of amphetamine and metamphetamine, a combination that killed him climbing stony […]
Lazy Cakes – waiting for a new non-prescription drug disaster (2/18/11)
Relaxation Brownies? Lazy Cakes is two ounces of sleeping medication masquerading as a chocolate brownie – an attempt at a “natural pot” brownie, as it’s advertising implies. It contains a warning on the back, four separate lines within a bracket of one quarter of an inch, lines small enough that children will not see them […]