Quiting drinking

It's been several days since I quit the habit of drinking beer early in the evening everyday. It has been a refreshment for me after having worked hard in the garden/farm. I could not help recalling chatting cheerfully with Ellen W1YL around our sunset. I was always with a glass of beer then. I have never been a heavy drinker. Only 350ml can a day. 

But ALDH2 subtype might be heterozygote of ALDH2*2 in my case, that is, the alcohol metabolism is slowed with ALDH2*2 allele. This variant, quite popular among mongoloid, could be inducted by alcohol intake but still slows the metabolism of alcohol resulting in aldehyde accumulation which could damage arterial endothelium and/or neuronal tissue etc. It is known to be a carcinogen as well. Since I have drunk alcohol often since young days, I am getting less intolerable to alcohol than before, except for recent years in elderly. 

There are a couple of reasons why I decided quitting drinking. Getting older, I am not feeling as high with drinking as before. I thought I was getting worse with alcohol metabolism. Usual a can of 350ml is often felt too much for me recently. That was one reason why I decided quitting drinking. Secondly, I had sleep disturbance at least partially related with alcohol intake. Shallow sleep and frequent awaking at night. It is well known that insomnia is a risk factor for dementia. I have become more conscious of that problem since I have a family history of senile dementia, that is, my mother's case. 

It is only "a several days long trial" but I am feeling better as for sleep. No change as for early rising. Maybe, the biological clock within me has deteriorated as a consequence of aging. However, sleeping much deeper without drinking is quite helpful to me. So far, no rebound nor withdrawal symtoms yet. 

A few years ago, it has elucidated alcohol is carcinogenic without threshold. If any cancer related with alcohol develops with me, it should be already occured. But for younger people, it should be a problem in some time interval. No threshold is a important factor esxpecially for young people.  

  

Recently, a couple of articles have revealed the relationship between alcohol intake and  arteriolar sclerosis.  

This study shows in cross sectional autopsy cases, alcohol intake is associated with arteriolar sclerosis due to hyaline degeneration in dose dependent manner. It should be noted even moderate intake is associated with it. This arteroloscrerosis should be related with the neuropathology of dementia. The cross sectionality is a limit factor of this study.

https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000213555

More recently, another study regarding the same subject has published. They observed 1600 cases for 16 years. It has revealed the alcohol intakers are susceptible to intracranial bleeding due to arteriolar degeneration. It is not a cohort study of longitudinal observation

but is still warning alcohol intake for intracerebral bleeding due to arteriolar hyaline degeneration.

https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000214348

These studies are enough to carry on my decision to quit drinking. I fully understand drinking would free us from variety of stresses. To quit drinking or not depends on how we would live our lives. In my case, it seemed a right timing to do so. 

47th anniversary

 It will be our 47th anniversary of wedding tomorrow. As written before, we have played "Apres Un Reve"  of Faure, Chiaki at piano and me with cello, at the wedding party. It is really like a dream that we have spent this 47 years together. Being around or over the healthy life exectancy, both of us are apt to have ache or other aging signs/symptoms at various parts of body now. It reminds us of our parents at our age. We will learn and live after them. And may we grow old together until we leave the earth.

At the campus of medical school hospital we started serving residency. She was expecting a baby.

We celebrate the day with humble sushi for the dinner tomorrow.

  

As for use of the artificial sweetners

Artificial sweetners are widely used in various foods or beverages. The manufacturers insist that the sweetners are of help to reduce the caloric intake. They are actually very powerful to flavor foods and beneficial for the manufacturers. 

However, there have been a variety of questions regarding use of this kind of ingredients. Artificial sweetners won't give sufficient feeling of fullness, so that it won't be of much use for dieting. 

There have been debates on its carcinogenicity for years. WHO used to appeal against its use due to probable carcinogenicity, even if it is not concluded yet. 

The following article says it has adverse effect on developing dementia based on a large scale and long duration epidemiological study. It is only an observatory one not controlled. There could be confounding factors influencing the result between high and low intake groups. It still seems highly likely that the artificial sweetners are related with development o dementia. 

Last year, our administration office determined a guideline on the description on food items as for the artificial sweetners use. It has not forbidden to use the artificial sweetners but forbade describing that "the item contains no artificial sweetners". The reason is that such items with the description shown above could look of high quality. What a non sense!

The administration is inclined to behave in capitalistic logic, that is, to priotize people's health over the benefit of the artificial sweetner manufacturing industries. We should be rational and intelligent by ourselves as for such as this artificial sweetner issue. 

Development of dementia is a long lasting and multiactorial process. We should avoid any factors responsible for that in daily life. At least, I have been careful not taking any foods containing artificial sweetners.

Gonçalves NG, et al. Association Between Consumption of Low- and No-Calorie Artificial Sweeteners and Cognitive Decline: An 8-Year Prospective Study．Neurology. 2025;105:e214023．doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000214023

Peacefulness in the farm

Again too far apart from the last renewal of this blog. Getting cooler or even more chilly day by day, it has been the best season for me to seed or plant vegetables for the coming winter. It has kept me busy in addition to pulling the weeds in the lawn etc. 

This is another spontaneously grown white radish. There have been several radishes grown to bear seeds, which were spontaneously seedled this spring , I guess. I was surprised to see this one grown so big without any care. It will be a material for Oden later.

This splendid growth of this radish made me convinced that seeds from certain kind of vegetable grown at a place would do so well at the very same place as I wrote in a previous post. No sign of disturbed repetition of cultivation.  

Onion seedles planted in grass mulch. Onion seeded by myself are not growing well enough to seedle yet. These seedles were purchased at a shop last month and temporarily planted at another place. More than 100 seedles were planted. Even though this kind would last long possibly until the winter in 2026, who would consume them?

Tiny young pea plants are budding from the seeds harvested this spring.

Spinach is also budding successfully. This lot has been seeded a week ago when it was pretty cool. Covered with non woven fabric and watered enough, these tiny buds came out. I was suspicious that they might not come out in this prewinter weather. But they sure did. You may laugh at me being moved at these tiny plants coming on the soil in the farm.

Marie gold is fully blooming. It has not bloomed in the hottest season but has come out when it got this cool. Lovely flowers. It has been planted to prevent a kind of nematode which disturbes growth of tomatoes. This year, unfortunately, tomatoes were not successful due to a kind of bug aspirating the fruits and leading to decay. It is another question how to avoid it without using insectcides. 

 

When I sit on the soil of the farm, a kind of peacefulness difficult to express by words sometimes overwhelms my mind. A famous farmer of natural farming told we could sense ourselves as a part of the flow of lives when working in the farm. That peacefulness might be related with such an internal perception even if we feel it as it is or not. In that sense, we could be totally free from any attributes given by the others or even our wish or demand for any thing in the world. When convinced with this peacefulness or relief, we might overcome the problem of our death. We just live in the flow of lives and would return to the other phase of life in nature when dying.   

Being a psychiatrist

Recently, I have been corresponding with my brother quite often. We share the same memories in our young days. A lot of things to talk about. Such as on our parents, the training days as doctor, present socioeconomical issues, the prospect on the coming elderly days and so on.

He is now 72 years old and is working at a prefectural hospital  as a psychiatrist in Iwate Prefecture a few hundred km north of here. He has been the only brother whom I have been proud of since his young days. Intellectual, affectionate to family members, others and possibly to his patients as well.

He repeatedly complained that he had felt deeply tired while working at the hospital of late. At first, I thought he had been stressed at his plan of retirement in next September. Yes, he has finally decided to retire. I asked him if I guessed it right. He answered no. He has been burdened with the patients' worries and anxieties. Psychiatric patients are often in hardship in life and poverty in the community in addition to the problems pertinent to their illnesses like delusions and/or illusions etc. Psychiatrists try to understand what they think of and to keep distance from it as well at the same time. 

In my brother's case, since he has been too compassionate others including his patients, he could not stop being devoted to them wholeheartedly. It is a kind of drawback as a psychiatrist. He should do with it, a natural character for him. Even an ordinary person may experience to the same kind of being burdened by those psychiatric patients.  

      

I would have majored in psychiatry when I decided to become a doctor. One reason was that I was influenced by works of V.E. Frankle, Karl Jaspers and so forth those days. I have acquainted with a family with several psychiatric patients as well and innocence of youth has made me feel I would be of help to those people. But in the faculty, the bed side training in pediatrics has lured me to working as a pediatrician as the patients were so lovely and a lot of them could recover quickly when given proper treatments. 

I don't really know what has lead my brother to his profession. Since he has not changed his speciality and is going to end his career as a psychiatrist, he might have felt it was worth working for those patients. If I am allowed to say, he has been crucified with his profession while he felt that worthiness. 

It won't last forever but will end in next September. I hope he will get it through by any means. I thought I could have been in his position if I chose psychiatry. Hearty gratitude and cheers to psychiatrists struggling in their profession indispensible in the society! 

Renovation of my room

It has been a project, candidly a reluctant one, for me to renovate my radio shack into a den. The big study table which I used at the former office and was left unused for sometime. Bringing it to my room here was the main thing of this project.

It has been done yesterday. Exactly speaking, the move of the table was successfully done.

The table used since 2011, a humble dinning table, used to replace the older one  which had been destroyed by the big earthquake in 2011. The broken table has let the radio gears slipped down on the floor. I became apathic and it took a week or so to things recovered again. 

Having been attached to that old dining table, I still wanted to remodel the room with the radio gears taken away. I still would like to come back on the radio with smaller set up. But it might take me a bit more time. I wanted to get the table tidy without a lot of radio apparatus and cable wires on it.

First, I packed my lovely keys into a box. A vibroplex bug made in 1949. a gift from Don WB6BBC, another Vibroplex purchased recently, a Begali paddle, a gift from Bill W6QR, a straight key named HK3 by Hi-mound, the only radio item I still keep since my teen age days. Other than these, there are Schurr paddle, a gift from Joe DL4CF and a Mercury paddle. The keyer is MM3 by AEA I got in '80s, which I loved its shape of Morse codes so much I have never used the other keyers, internal or external. My lovely companion in ham radio life. Hopefully, I would reopen it and place everything at right place soon. Of course, I have put cushioning material between the items in the box.

 

Even if I renew the station license, it would be quite difficult for me to satisfy the requirement. I have lost any will to do with the bureaucratic system. The amplifier should be given to someone who could utilize it. In case of coming back, I would keep FT2000, at first, a book end.

And my study table looks like this. You may laugh at the cables coming in the room. I would get them disposed of very soon. A few plaques of the JIDXC I got decades ago and a plaque of FOC may be saved from being trashed so far. At first when I saw this table set here after a long time, I felt impressed a bit. But in a few hours, everything looks same as before. 

 It was a kind of end of life planning for me. There are a lot more to do for that. One of them is whom my cello is taken over to. It was a most important thing for me in my forties through sixties. I should look for someone who would play it as a life companion. 

One of the unexpected result from this renovation is that I could reach the audio system much easier. I may listen to a lot of music from now on. I have found several QSL card requests from overseas at shaded area. I should reply to them as well. Wondering if those senders are still enjoying radio.

So one of the projects is almost completed. 

Spontaneously growing carrots

At a corner of my small farm, there are a number of carrots growing completely spontaneously. There were carrots grown there last year, which flowered this spring, have shed seeds and have sowed them around themselves. These carrots are from those seeds.

Those spontaneously grown plants are told to grow well at the place. I don't know how it occurs. It is still well known "mycorrhizial fungi" around the plants are working together with the plants, transferring nutrients from the plants to the fungi while the former accepting such as phosphorus from the latter. That synbiosis is essential for the plants. 

The fungi invades the plants in a way and its genetic information is let in tha latter. They say the genome could be contained in the seeds. That may be why the newly grown plants from those seeds are adapted well to the soil. I was excited to read about this mechanism. Mother nature has provided such a deliberate system.

Hopefully, they will grow and would become materials for dishes this winter. 

If the real world is provided with the same synbiosis for human beings, I wonder if we are living on it or ostracizing, killing each other.