Up and Down

DOWN DOWN

Tim Hammers: ‘After gaining 100% on my DCTH investment, I sold half and am letting the rest ride. Do you or your guru have a target in mind? Also, DNDN puts keep going down (DowN DowN!!!). When does your guru expect the announcement from the FDA?’

☞ Guru hopes DCTH might be $30-$50 in a couple of years. DNDN news may come from the FDA as early as May 1 – and even no news would be news of a sort. Here is how he laid it out. Remember: it’s possible to take a very good bet – 5 to 1 odds on the flip of a coin, say – and still lose everything if the coin comes up wrong.

UP! UP!

Thanks to Tom Anthony for this recent article in USA Today:

For decades, scientists have studied exercise. But until recently, they paid little attention to the opposite end of the activity spectrum: the many hours modern humans spend sitting, barely moving at all.

But now the early results are in, and the science of sitting is producing sobering headlines. The bottom line, if you will: Sitting kills.

. . .

Every hour spent watching TV (an activity that usually involves sitting) was associated with an 18% increase in heart disease deaths and an 11% increase in deaths overall among 8,800 Australians who were followed for six years, according to a recent report published online in Circulation. People who watched TV at least four hours a day were 80% more likely to die of heart disease than those who watched less than two hours a day. (Americans watch an average of five hours of TV a day.)

A Canadian study of 17,000 adults also found a consistent link between chair time and deaths from heart disease: The more people sat, for any reason, the more likely they were to die of heart disease within 12 years – even if they were slim and exercised regularly.

☞ So one way to spin this: ‘Watching Fox News will kill you.’ But of course it’s not about Fox News or even about TV – watch it on the treadmill and even Glen Beck won’t kill you – it’s about sitting.

Tom Anthony: ‘I converted to a standing desk for my computer sometime ago, after my daughter started using a standing desk at her job. It took me about two weeks to get used to standing all day long (at age 69 at least). I do some Yoga exercises – e.g. Tree Pose – while reading documents on the computer whenever my legs feel like they need it.’

☞ Tom further points to this recent piece in the New York Times:

. . . In a completed but unpublished study conducted in his energy-metabolism lab, Braun and his colleagues had a group of volunteers spend an entire day sitting. If they needed to visit the bathroom or any other location, they spun over in a wheelchair. Meanwhile, in a second session, the same volunteers stood all day, ‘not doing anything in particular,’ Braun says, ‘just standing.’ The difference in energy expenditure was remarkable, representing ‘hundreds of calories,’ Braun says, but with no increase among the upright in their blood levels of ghrelin or other appetite hormones. Standing, for both men and women, burned multiple calories but did not ignite hunger. One thing is going to become clear in the coming years, Braun says: if you want to lose weight, you don’t necessarily have to go for a long run. ‘Just get rid of your chair.’ . . .

☞ It should be noted that Hemingway wrote standing up and died at 62. Gogol wrote standing up and died at 42. Both died of depression, it’s true; not heart failure. (Well heart failure, too.) But I’m not taking any chances.