Bayesian Models

So enrolment sessions start soon for our incoming Master of Data Science students.  I know its a stressful time for some students in terms of “life”.  I usually talk briefly about staying healthy, and Monash offers various services to support this.  But for PhD students I think its important to take this on as a lifestyle objective.  They are undertaking a knowledge intensive career path and brain health will be critical for their future career.

Disclaimer:  Now, this page is full of opinions and pointers to, in some case, controversial material.  I’m just a little old computer science professor, so my opinions have no real backing, and I have no recognised expertise. All care but no responsibility for what I say! 

Just to put things into perspective, here’s me after shopping one Saturday.  What is missing?  Packaged food!  Rarely buy it except for pasta, spices, etc.  If you can whip up a good salad, home made vege soup, a great pasta dish, or breakfast eggs in 5 minutes, its the best.  Read more to find out.

Taken in Canberra, about 2013 I think. Canberra had a great farmer’s market just one suburb away from me.

The fact is, keeping healthy and understanding how to keep healthy in the modern world is a subject fraught with challenges.  To understand this, consider the following:

1. The official Australian government position on colds and flu prevention, and the official USA government position:  hygiene and vaccines.  What’s missing:  discussion of healthy diet, exercise and other lifestyle factors to strengthen and repair the immune system.
2. The Time magazine reports extensive research shows vitamin D helps prevent colds and flu, so some sunshine is also important.  No mention of this in the official government positions above!
3. Believe it or not, in the USA prescription drugs are the third leading cause of death!  There is a larger issue here in that most published medical research findings are false.  Note, I see this is a systemic thing not limited to medical research.  However, the medical research community has extensive, concerted efforts like systematic reviews to address the issue.
4. Tobacco science is a term used to describe fake science protecting an industry.  Read about the Tobacco Institute and see the movie The Insider.  How much of this goes on in the food and drugs industry?  Lots according to Nina Teicholz, see point 8 below.
5. Sugar is now known to be very damaging to the health.  Here is a hard hitting discussion about it, though note quite a few of these claims are considered controversial.  But it is known that sugar suppresses the immune system.  Figuring out your sugar consumption is challenging.   There are rumors (in movie form) of tobacco science going on here too.
6. Energy drinks rot the teeth, like soft drinks.  Its due to the high acid content.  Its certainly not clear they give any energy.
7. Artificial sweeteners are not a substitute, in fact evidence suggests they have poor health impacts, and they mess up the brains analysis of your food intake.
8. Fats are the subject of a massive onslaught from advertisers.  For years we were told to avoid butter and use margarine instead, but now it seems butter is good, or at least no worse than a good margarine.  The rather hilarious and utterly confusing history of health advice about butter is in this Butter Studies Roundup. Current conflicting advice is now being broadcast about the humble coconut.
9. See Nina Teicholz’s talk about the complex history of our understanding of fats in her TEDx seminar, based on her best selling book, “The Big Fat Surprise”.  She is now on a crusade to get scientific results into government dietary guidelines.  Is she right?  Well, its all too detailed for us mere observers to really know, so we have to suffer being jossled around by deceptive techniques of propaganda (“appeal to authority”, etc.) used in heavy doses by many concerned.
10. The health of organic produce is currently a propaganda battleground.   None other than former tobacco scientist Henry I Miller (he was a founder of TASSC) has claimed its an expensive scam.  Hint:  organics are also lower in toxic pesticide residue, which is why I would get them.
11. The commercial world has taken on healthy eating big time, and it is the fastest growing segment of the food industry.  Monash University has done a wonderful job of getting really good fast food vendors at the Caulfield campus food court.  If you’re an old time traveller, you should also be aware of the huge changes in international airport food courts and tourist spots like London when it comes to healthy eating options.

Summary:  There is lots of conflicting and bad advice out there!  Heck, even the government websites seem to have errors of omission.

Now, if we consider the specific position of someone who wants their brain to function well, then consider the following:

1. Exercise is known to boost mental performance, and boost a whole lot of other things including mood.
2. Meditation and mindfulness is also known to boost performance in exams.
3. Long term sitting is considered to be as bad for health as smoking!  Here is a poster of the dangers.
4. There are also lifestyle recommendations about studying from scientists:  don’t cram for subjects, learn slowly over the semester.
5. Recent studies show the brain can be encouraged to grow new cells, with advocates claiming fasting and different kinds of exercise can help.
6. The brain is mostly fat, so we need healthy fats to work well.  Don’t believe a lot of what you read about fats!  Cholesterol, for instance, is important for maintaining the brain.
7. Sugar consumption (e.g., soft drinks, commercial juices, commercial cereals, flavoured yogurts, etc. etc. etc.) is bad for the brain, as well as the immune system.
8. Canola oil is bad for the brain.  This one is important because most cheap salad oils, margarines and many food products are loaded with it.
9. All sorts of chemicals and medicines can be bad for the brain.  Here’s a TEDx talk on details.  Note TEDx means not official (is this a reliable information source?).
10. Deep sleep is the basis for memory, learning and health.   In particular, without deep sleep, your brain will not be functioning properly and your memory will be impaired.  Here is a disquieting Google talk on health and sleep (along the lines of the hideous anti-smoking adverts some countries have), but there are many more on this.
11. Adult neurogenesis is the process by which we adults gain new brain cells.  Not surprisingly, this is very popular amongst the Silicon Valley crowd, and I suspect is also a domain where snake-oil salesman like to peddle.  Nonetheless, here is a video on it:  a TED talk.

Note, for each of these, there are 10’s-100’s of good articles and scientific literature to back it up, though oftentimes conflicting scientific literature as well.  I’m just giving generally readable and somewhat respectable accounts.  A lot of these issues remain controversial, and possibly there is some tobacco science going on, but its hard for us non-experts to really know.

Anyway, I hope from this you understand the complexity of trying to stay health, and trying to keep your brain functioning well in the modern world.

Thoughts on eating and food:

• Benjamin Franklin said “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” and my Dad lived by it.  I agree heartily.   So eating well and living a healthy lifestyle is better than loading yourself up with drugs to maintain performance.

• Try and cook your own meals from real ingredients.  After a while, it becomes easy and its a great way to wind down with friends.
  • See Sir Jamie Oliver’s video on making salads.
• If someone’s great grandmother (anyone’s, Fiji, Vietnam, Sweden, …) didn’t make the food 100 years ago, its probably not good for you.
• Don’t take dietary or health advice from Big Food.  In fact, looking at the government advice (listed above) on the flu, I’d say their’s is missing some major points too for some issues.
• Try and avoid packaged meals, fast food, and canned and bottle drinks.  Likewise, avoid most commercial fruit juices which have way too much sugar and have lost too much of the fabulous nutrients in the original fruit due to being pasteurised or reconstituted.
• Go low sugar, low refined carbohydrates and healthy fats.  Its a lifestyle thing, not a diet.  Once you do, you’ll discover all the amazing subtle flavours you’ve missed from traditional foods and realise how horrible standard breads, sweet deserts, snack bars and cakes really are:  the sugar masks the real flavour, and it gives you a longer term bad after taste.  Refined carbohydrates have removed a lot of the flavours and its replaced it with a few bland substitutes.
  • Healthy fats is challenging to maintain because Big Food likes to put unhealthy canola oil in everything:  most salad oils, hummus and deli mixes are mostly canola oil, as is margarine.
  • Well made healthy bread is truly remarkable in flavour, but it costs more and you cannot find it at the big chains.  Have it with a thick spread of (grass-fed) Tasmanian or New Zealand butter.  Nothing better!
• Just avoid artificial sweeteners.  Once you’ve gone cold turkey and got off the sugar addiction you wont be craving sugar and you’ll feel better for it.
• Health slogans on food products, “low fat”, “low cholesterol” often mean its bad for you!   Low fat usually means high sugar, for instance.

About other aspects of health:

• Get exercise, and make it a lifestyle thing.  When you’re older, you’ll discover you cannot function well as a knowledge worker without it.
• Don’t sit at your desk for long hours.  You need to get up and move around every hour!  Also, become aware of your posture.   Don’t become a hunchback!  Some 2nd year masters students are already heading that way.  When I go to conferences and chat with the other grey-haired wrinkly folk of my era, its scary to see how many have really bad backs.
• When you’re mentally worn out, a quick nap or a brisk walk does wonders, and both have scientific backing.
• Make sure you are getting proper sleep.  That can mean organising your assignments and study properly so you don’t need a to do a bunch of all-nighters to get through.  But it also means setting up the right environment at home for sleep.
• I know of few cases where drugs or alcohol support good health or brain functioning, including many so-called smart drugs.  Most are dangerous to the liver, as are many medicines.  Headache and pain medicine is far more dangerous and damaging than many other things!  Good food, exercise and sleep is how you increase performance.
• Note there is a whole field of nootropics which is emerging as an alternative therapy (not condoned by medical science).  Human biology is extremely complex, and the scientific method is fairly crude as a developmental model of knowledge, especially when its constantly interfered with by commercial interests.  I expect some good natural supplements to eventually emerge here where they naturally enhance human biology.
• Routine … that’s what the body needs.  For sleep, for eating, for study, for exercise, routine is critical part of making it function well.

Anyway, I have said too much already.  In case you’re wondering, I wrote this initially while on holidays, and update it sometimes.  No time for a Data Science professor to talk about this stuff during semester!   But I’ve been updating it ever since.  Students badly need some good advice in this area.  The modern world is a minefield for those wanting to stay healthy.

But bear in mind, I have no official qualifications or expertise when it comes to health.   But I have applied my cynical, technical mind to the subject because I found that simple “appeal to authority” was leaving too many obvious conflicts.